Classic Poem

Thus much he prayed, and thence away he went
To seek out Mandricard but found him not,
And (for the day now more than half was spent,
The sun and season waxing somewhat hot)
A shady grove he found, and there he meant
To take some ease but found small ease God wot:
He thinks his thirst and heat a while to swage
But found that set him in worse heat and rage,

For looking all about the grove, behold,
In sundry places fair engrav'n he sees
Her name whose love he more esteems than gold
By her own hand in barks of divers trees.
This was the place wherein before I told
Medoro used to pay his surgeon's fees,
Where she to boast of that that was her shame
Used oft to write hers and Medoro's name,

And then with true-love knots and pretty posies
(To show how she to him by love was knit)
Her inward thoughts by outward words discloses,
In her much love to show her little wit.
Orlando knew the hand and yet supposes
It was not she that had such posies writ,
And to beguile him self, ‘Tush, tush’, quoth he,
‘There may be more Angelicas than she.

‘Yea, but I know too well that pretty hand;
Oft hath she sent me letters of her writing’.
Then he bethinks how she might understand
His name and love by that same new inditing,
And how it might be done long time he scanned,
With this fond thought so fondly him delighting.
Thus with small hope, much fear, all malcontent,
In these and such conceits the time he spent,

And ay the more he seeks out of his thought
To drive this fancy still it doth increase,
Even as a bird that is with birdlime caught
Doth beat her wings and strives and doth not cease
Until she hath herself all overwrought
And quite entangled in the slimy grease.
Thus on went he till him the way did bring
Unto a shady cave and pleasant spring.

This was a place wherein above the rest
This loving pair, leaving their homely host,
Spent time in sports that may not be expressed;
Here in the parching heat they tarried most,
And here Medore (that thought himself most blest)
Wrote certain verses as in way of boast
Which in his language doubtless sounded pretty,
And thus I turn them to an English ditty:

‘Ye pleasant plants, green herbs, and waters fair,
And cave with smell and grateful shadow mixed,
Where sweet Angelica, daughter and heir
Of Galafronne, on whom in vain were fixed
Full many hearts, with me did oft repair
Alone and naked lay mine arms betwixt,
I, poor Medore, can yield but praise and thanks
For these great pleasures found amid your banks;

‘And pray each lord whom Cupid holds in prey,
Each knight, each dame, and every one beside,
Of gentle or mean sort that pass this way,
As fancy or his fortune shall him guide,
That to the plants, herbs, spring, and cave he say
“Long may the sun and moon maintain your pride
And the fair crew of nymphs make such purveyance
As hither come no herds to your annoyance”.’

It written was there in th'Arabian tongue,
Which tongue Orlando perfect understood
As having learnt it when he was but young
And oft the skill thereof had done him good,
But at this time it him so deeply stung,
It had been well that he it never could,
And yet we see to know men still are glad,
And yet we see much knowledge makes men mad.

Twice, thrice, yea five times he doth read the rime,
And though he saw and knew the meaning plain,
Yet that his love was guilty of such crime
He will not let it sink into his brain.
Oft he perused it, and every time
It doth increase his sharp tormenting pain,
And ay the more he on the matter mused
The more his wits and senses were confused.

Even then was he of wit wellnigh bestraught,
So quite he was given over unto grief,
(And sure if we believe as proof hath taught
This torture is of all the rest the chief)
His sprite was dead, his courage quailed with thought;
He doth despair and look for no relief,
And sorrow did his senses so surprise
That words his tongue and tears forsook his eyes.

The raging pang remained still within
That would have burst out all at once too fast:
Even so we see the water tarry in
A bottle little mouthed and big in waist
That though you topsy-turvy turn the brim
The liquor bides behind with too much haste
And with the striving oft is in such taking
As scant a man can get it out with shaking.

At last he comes unto himself anew
And in his mind another way doth frame
That that which there was written was not true
But writ of spite his lady to defame,
Or to that end that he the same might view
And so his heart with jealousy enflame.
‘Well, be't who list’, quoth he, ‘I see this clearly,
He hath her hand resembled passing nearly.’

With this small hope, with this poor little spark
He doth somedeal revive his troubled sprite,
And, for it was now late and waxed dark,
He seeks some place where he may lie that night.
At last he hears a noise of dogs that bark;
He smells some smoke and sees some candle-light;
He takes his inn with will to sleep not eat
As filled with grief and with none other meat;

But lo, his hap was at that house to host
Where fair Angelica had lain before
And where her name on every door and post
With true-love knots was joined to Medore.
That knot, his name, whom he detested most,
Was in his eye and thought still evermore.
He dares not ask nor once the matter touch
For knowing more of that he knows too much.

But vain it was himself so to beguile,
For why his host unasked by and by
That saw his guest sit there so sad the while
And thinks to put him from his dumps thereby
Beginneth plain without all fraud or guile,
Without concealing truth or adding lie,
To tell that tale to him without regard
Which divers had before with pleasure heard:

As thus, how at Angelica's request
He holp unto his house to bring Medore,
Who then was sorely wounded in his breast,
And she with surgery did heal his sore;
But, while with her own hands the wound she dressed,
Blind Cupid wounded her as much or more,
That when her skill and herbs and cured her patient
Her cureless wound in love made her unpatient.

So that, admit she were the greatest queen
Of fame and living in those easter parts,
Yet so with fancy she was overseen
To marry with a page of mean desarts.
‘Thus Love’, quoth he, ‘will have his godhead seen
In famous queens' and highest princes' hearts’.
This said, to end the tale, he showed the jewel
That she had given him which Orlando knew well.

This tale, and chiefly this same last conclusion,
Was even a hatchet to cut off all hope
When love had after many a vain collusion
Now for his farewell lent him such a rope
To hang himself and drown him in confusion,
Yet fain he would deny his sorrow scope;
And though a while to show it he forbears,
It breaketh out at last in sighs and tears,

And as it were enforced he gives the rein
To raging grief upon his bed alone.
His eyes do shed a very shower of rain
With many a scalding sigh and bitter groan.
He slept as much as if he had then lain
Upon a bed of thorns and stuffed with stone,
And as he lay thereon and could not rest him,
The bed it self gave matter to molest him.

‘Ah wretch I am’, thus to himself he said,
‘Shall I once hope to take repose and rest me
In that same house, yea even in that same bed
Where my ungrateful love so lewdly dressed me?
Nay, let me first an hundred times be dead,
First wolves devour and vultures shall digest me’.
Straight up he starts, and on he puts his clothes,
And leaves the house, so much the bed he loathes.

He leaves his host nor once doth take his leave;
He fared so ill he bids not them farewell.
He leaves the town, his servants he doth leave,
He rides, but where he rides he cannot tell;
And when alone himself he doth perceive,
To weep and wail, nay even to howl and yell,
He doth not cease, to give his grief a vent,
That inwardly so sore did him torment.

The day, the night, to him were both aleek;
Abroad upon the cold bare earth he lies;
No sleep, no food he takes nor none would seek;
All sustenance he to himself denies.
Thus he began and ended half the week,
And he himself doth marvel whence his eyes
Are fed so long with such a spring of water,
And to himself thus reasons on the matter:

‘No, no, these be no tears that now I shed,
These be no tears, nor can tears run so rife,
But fire of frenzy drawth up to my head
My vital humour that should keep my life.
This stream will never cease till I be dead.
Then welcome death and end my fatal strife.
No comfort in this life my woe can minish
But thou who canst both life and sorrow finish.

These are not sighs, for sighs some respite have;
My gripes, my pangs no respite do permit.
The blindfold boy made me a seeing slave
When from her eyes my heart he first did hit.
Now all enflamed I burn, I rage and rave,
And in the midst of flame consume no whit.
Love sitting in my heart, a master cruel,
Blows with his wings, feeds with his will the fuel.

I am not I the man that erst I was:
Orlando; he is buried and dead.
His most ungrateful love—ah foolish lass!—
Hath killed Orlando and cut off his head.
I am his ghost that up and down must pass,
In this tormenting hell for ever led,
To be a fearful sample and a just
To all such fools as put in love their trust’.

Thus wand'ring still in ways that have no way
He happed again to light upon the cave
Where (in remembrance of their pleasant play)
Medoro did that epigram engrave.
To see the stones again his woes display
And her ill name and his ill hap deprave
Did on the sudden all his sense enrage
With hate, with fury, with revenge and rage.

Straightways he draweth forth his fatal blade
And hews the stones: to heaven the shivers flee.
Accursed was that fountain, cave, and shade,
The arbour and the flowers and every tree.
Orlando of all places havoc made
Where he those names together joined may see;
Yea, to the spring he did perpetual hurt
By filling it with leaves, boughs, stones, and dirt.

And having done this foolish frantic feat,
He lays him downe all weary on the ground,
Distempered in his body with much heat,
In mind with pains that no tongue can expound.
Three days he doth not sleep nor drink nor eat,
But lay with open eyes as in a sound.
The fourth with rage and not with reason waked,
He rents his clothes and runs about stark naked.

His helmet here he flings, his pouldrons there,
He casts away his curats and his shield.
His sword he throws away he cares not where;
He scatters all his armour in the field.
No rag about his body he doth bear
As might from cold or might from shame him shield,
And save he left behind this fatal blade,
No doubt he had therewith great havoc made.

But his surpassing force did so exceed
All common men that neither sword nor bill
Nor any other weapon he did need:
Mere strength sufficed him to do what he will.
He roots up trees as one would root a weed,
And even as birders laying nets with skill
Pare slender thorns away with easy strokes,
So he did play with ashes, elms and oaks.

The herdman and the shepherds that did hear
The hideous noise and unacquainted sound
With fear and wonder great approached near
To see and know what was hereof the ground;
But now I must cut off this treatise here
Lest this my book do grow beyond his bound;
And if you take some pleasure in this text,
I will go forward with it in my next.