Classic Poem

Soon after, he a crystal stream espying,
From foot to head he washed himself therein.
Then up he gets him on his courser flying
And of the air he more and more doth win,
Affecting heaven, all earthly thoughts defying.
As fishes cut the liquid stream with fin,
So cutteth he the air, and doth not stop
Till he was come unto that mountain's top.

This hill nigh touched the circle of the moon.
The top was all a fruitful pleasant field
And light at night as ours is here at noon;
The sweetest place that ever man beheld
(There would I dwell if God gave me my boon);
The soil there of most fragrant flowers did yield,
Like rubies, gold, pearls, sapphires, topaz stones,
Chrysolites, diamonds, jacinths for the nonce.

The trees that there did grow were ever green;
The fruits that thereon grew were never fading;
The sundry coloured birds did sit between
And sing most sweet, the fruitful boughs them shading;
The rivers clear as crystal to be seen;
The fragrant smell the sense and soul invading
With air so temperate and so delightsome
As all the place beside was clear and lightsome.

Amid the plain a palace passing fair
There stood above conceit of mortal men,
Built of great height into the clearest air,
And was in circuit twenty mile and ten.
To this fair palace the Duke did straight repair,
And viewing all that goodly country then
He thought this world, compared with that palace,
A dunghill vile or prison void of solace.

But when as nearer to the place he came,
He was amazed at the wondrous sight.
The wall was all one precious stone, the same,
And than the carbuncle more sanguine bright.
O workman rare, O most stupendious frame,
What Daedalus of this had oversight!
Peace, ye that wont to praise the wonders seven:
Those earthly kings made, this the King of Heaven.

Now while the Duke his eyes with wonder fed,
Behold a fair old man in th'entry stood,
Whose gown was white but yet his jacket red,
The tone was snow, the tother looked as blood.
His beard was long and white, so was his head;
His count'nance was so grave, his grace so good,
A man thereby might at first sight suspect
He was a saint and one of God's elect.

He coming to the Duke with cheerful face,
Who now alighted was for rev'rence sake:
‘Bold Baron’, said the saint, ‘by special grace
That suffered wast this voyage strange to make
And to arrive at this most blessed place
Not knowing why thou didst this journey take,
Yet know that not without the will celestial
Thou comest here to paradise terrestrial.

‘The cause you come a journey of such length
Is here of me to learn what must be done
That Charles and Holy Church may now at length
Be freed that erst were well nigh overrun.
Wherefore impute it not to thine own strength
Nor to thy courage, nor thy wit, my son,
For neither could thy horn nor winged steed
Without God's help stand thee in any stead.

But at more leisure hereof we will reason
And more at large I mind with you to speak.
Now with some meat refresh you, as is reason,
Lest fasting long may make your stomach weak.
Our fruits’, said he, ‘be never out of season.’
The Duke rejoiced much and marvelled eke,
Then chief when by his speeches and his coat
He knew 'twas he that the fourth Gospel wrote,

That holy John whom Christ did hold so dear
That others thought he death should never see,
Though in the Gospel it appears not clear,
But thus he said: ‘What if it pleased me,
O Peter, that thy fellow tarry here
Until my coming, what is that to thee?’
So though our Saviour not directly spake it,
Yet sure it was so every one did take it.

He here assumed was in happy hour
Whereas before Enoch the Patriarch was
And where the Prophet bides of mighty power
That in the fiery coach did thither pass.
These three in that so happy sacred bower
In high felicity their days did pass
Where in such sort to stand they are allowed
Till Christ return upon the burning cloud.

These saints him welcome to that sacred seat
And to a stately lodging him they brought,
And for his horse likewise ordained meat;
And then the Duke himself by them was taught
The dainty fruits of Paradise to eat,
So delicate in taste as sure he thought
Our first two parents were to be excused
That for such fruit obedience they refused.

Now when the Duke had nature satisfied
With meat and drink and with his due repose
(For there were lodgings fair and all beside
That needful for man's use man can suppose),
He gets up early in the morning tide
What time with us alow the sun arose,
But ere that he from out his lodging moved
Came that disciple whom our Saviour loved,

And by the hand the Duke abroad he led
And said some things to him I may not name;
But in the end, I think, ‘My son’, he said,
‘Although that you from France so lately came,
You little know how those in France have sped.
There your Orlando quite is out of frame,
For God his sin most sharply now rewardeth,
Who most doth punish whom he most regardeth.

‘Know that the champion, your Orlando, whom
God so great strength and so great courage gave
And so rare grace that from his mother's womb
By force of steel his skin no hurt might have
To th'end that he might fight for his own home
And those that hold the Christian faith to save,
As Samson erst enabled was to stand
Against Philistines for the Hebrew land;

‘This your Orlando hath been so ungrate,
For so great grace received, unto his maker,
That when his country was in weakest state
And needed succour most, he did forsake her
For love (O woeful love that breeds God's hate!),
To woo a pagan wench with mind to take her,
And to such sin this love did him entice
He would have killed his kinsman once or twice.

‘For this same cause doth mighty God permit
Him mad to run with belly bare and breast,
And so to daze his reason and his wit
He knows not others and himself knows least.
So in times past Our Lord did deem it fit
To turn the King of Babel to a beast,
In which estate he seven whole years did pass
And like an ox did feed on hay and grass.

‘But, for the paladin's offence is not
So great as was the King of Babel's crime,
The mighty Lord of mercy doth allot
Unto his punishment a shorter time.
Twelve weeks in all he must remain a sot;
And for this cause you suffered were to climb
To this high place that here you may be taught
How to his wits Orlando may be brought.

‘Here you shall learn to work the feat, I warrant;
But yet, before you can be fully sped
Of this your great but not forethought-on arrant,
You must with me a more strange way be led
Up to the planet that of all stars errant
Is nearest us; when she comes overhead,
Then will I bring you where the medicine lies
That you must have to make Orlando wise.’

Thus all that day they spent in divers talk,
With solace great as never wanteth there.
But when the sun began this earth to baulk
And pass into the tother hemisphere,
Then they prepared to fetch a further walk,
And straight the fiery charret that did bear
Elias when he up to heaven was carried
Was ready in a trice and for them tarried.

Four horses fierce, as red as flaming fire,
Th'Apostle doth into the charret set,
Which when he framed had to his desire,
Astolfo in the car by him he set.
Then up they went, and still ascending higher
Above the fiery region they did get
Whose nature so th'Apostle then did turn
That though they went through fire they did not burn.

I say although the fire were wondrous hot,
Yet in their passage they no heat did feel,
So that it burned them nor offends them not.
Thence to the moon he guides the running wheel.
The moon was like a glass all void of spot,
Or like a piece of purely burnished steel,
And looked, although to us it seemed so small,
Well nigh as big as earth and sea and all.

Here had Astolfo cause of double wonder:
One, that that region seemeth there so wide
That unto us that are so far asunder
Seems but a little circle, and beside,
That to behold the ground that lay him under
A man had need to have been sharply eyed
And bend his brows and mark ev'n all they might,
It seemed so small, now chiefly wanting light.

'Twere infinite to tell what wondrous things
He saw that passed ours not few degrees.
What towns, what hills, what rivers, and what springs,
What dales, what palaces, what goodly trees—
But to be short, at last his guide him brings
Unto a goodly valley where he sees
A mighty mass of things strangely confused:
Things that on earth were lost or were abused.

A storehouse strange, that what on earth is lost
By fault, by time, by fortune, there is found,
And like a merchandise is there engrossed
In stranger sort than I can well expound.
Nor speak I sole of wealth or things of cost
In which blind fortune's power doth most abound,
But ev'n of things quite out of fortune's power,
Which wilfully we waste each day and hour.

The precious time that fools misspend in play,
The vain attempts that never take effect,
The vows that sinners make and never pay,
The counsels wise that careless men neglect,
The fond desires that lead us oft astray,
The praises that with pride the heart infect,
And all we lose with folly and misspending
May there be found unto this place ascending.

Now as Astolfo by those regions passed
He asked many questions of his guide;
And as he on tone side his eye did cast,
A wondrous hill of bladders he espied,
And he was told they had been in time past
The pompous crowns and sceptres full of pride
Of monarchs of Assyria and of Greece
Of which now scantly there is left a piece.

He saw great store of baited hooks with gold,
And those were gifts that foolish men prepared
To give to princes covetous and old
With fondest hope of future vain reward.
Then were there ropes all in sweet garlands rolled,
And those were all false flatteries he heard.
Then heard he crickets' songs like to the verses
The servant in his master's praise rehearses.

There did he see fond loves that men pursue
To look like golden gyves with stones all set;
Then things like eagles' talents he did view,
Those offices that favourites do get;
Then saw he bellows large that much wind blew,
Large promises that lords make and forget
Unto their Ganymedes in flower of youth—
But after, nought but beggary ensu'th.

He saw great cities seated in fair places
That overthrown quite topsy-turvy stood:
He asked, and learned the cause of their defaces
Was treason that doth never turn to good.
He saw foul serpents with fair women's faces,
Of coiners and of thieves the cursed brood.
He saw fine glasses all in pieces broken,
Of service lost in court a woeful token.

Of mingled broth he saw a mighty mass
That to no use all spilt on ground did lie.
He asked his teacher, and he heard it was
The fruitless alms that men give when they die.
Then by a fair green mountain he did pass
That once smelt sweet but now it stinks perdie:
This was that gift (be't said without offence)
That Constantine gave Sylvester long since.

Of bird-limed rods he saw no little store—
And these, O ladies fair, your beauties be.
I do omit ten thousand things and more
Like unto these that there the Duke did see,
For all that here is lost, there evermore
Is kept and thither in a trice doth flee.
Howbeit more or less there was no folly,
For still that here with us remaineth wholly.

He saw some of his own lost time and deeds,
But yet he knew them not to be his own,
They seemed to him disguised in so strange weeds
Till his instructor made them better known.
But last the thing which no man thinks he needs,
Yet each man needeth most, to him was shown:
By name, man's wit, which here we leese so fast
As that one substance all the other passed.

It seemed to be a body moist and soft
And apt to mount by every exhalation,
And when it hither mounted was aloft
It there was kept in pots of such a fashion
As we call jars, where oil is kept in oft.
The Duke beheld with no small admiration
The jars of wit, amongst which one had writ
Upon the side thereof, ‘Orlando's wit’.

This vessel bigger was than all the rest;
And every vessel had engraven with art
His name that erst the wit therein possessed.
There of his own the Duke did find a part,
And much he mused and much himself he blessed
To see some names of men of great desart
That think they have great store of wit and boast it,
And here it plain appeared they quite had lost it.

Some lose their wit with love, some with ambition,
Some running to the sea great wealth to get,
Some following lords and men of high condition,
And some in fair jewels rich and costly set;
One hath desire to prove a rare magician,
And some with poetry their wit forget;
Another thinks to be an alchemist
Till all be spent and he his number missed.

Astolfo takes his own before he goes,
For so th'Evangelist did him permit.
He set the vessel's mouth but to his nose,
And to his place he snuffed up all his wit.
Long after, wise he lived as Turpin shows
Until one fault he after did commit,
By name, the love of one fair northern lass,
Sent up his wit unto the place it was.

The vessel where Orlando's wit was closed
Astolfo took, and thence with him did bear.
It was far heavier than he had supposed,
So great a quantity of wit was there;
But yet ere back their journey they disposed
The holy Prophet brought Astolfo where
A palace (seldom seen by mortal man)
Was placed, by which a thick dark river ran.