The Power of Evil sat looking down upon them, huger than a rock in the sea, or an alp with forked summits.  A certain horrible majesty augmented the terrors of his aspect.  His eyes reddened; his poisonous look hung in the air like a comet; the mouth, as it opened in the midst of clouds of beard, seemed an abyss of darkness and blood; and out of it, as from a volcano, issued fires, and vapours, and disgust.

Satan laid forth to his dreadful hearers his old quarrel with Heaven, and its new threats of an extension of its empire.  Christendom was to be brought into Asia; their worshippers were to perish; souls were to be rescued from their devices, and Satan’s kingdom on earth put an end to.  He exhorted them therefore to issue forth once for all and prevent this fatal consummation by the destruction of the Christian forces.  Some of the leaders he bade them do their best to disperse, others to slay, others to draw into effeminate pleasures, into rebellion, into the ruin of the whole camp, so that not a vestige might remain of its existence.

The assembly broke up with the noise of hurricanes.  They issued forth to look once more upon the stars, and to sow seeds every where of destruction to the Christians.  Satan himself followed them, and entered the heart of Hydraotes, king of Damascus.

Hydraotes was a wizard as well as a king, and held the Christians in abhorrence.  But he was wise enough to respect their valour; and with Satan’s help he discerned the likeliest way to counteract it.  He had a niece, who was the greatest beauty of the age.  He had taught her his art:  and he concluded, that the enchantments of beauty and magic united would prove irresistible.  He therefore disclosed to her his object.  He told her that every artifice was lawful, when the intention was to serve one’s country and one’s faith; and he conjured her to do her utmost to separate Godfrey himself from his army, or in the event of that not being possible, to bring away as many as she could of his noblest captains.

Armida (for that was her name), proud of her beauty, and of the unusual arts that she had acquired, took her way the same evening, alone, and by the most sequestered paths,—­a female in gown and tresses issuing forth to conquer an army.[2]

She had not travelled many days ere she came in sight of the Christian camp, the outskirts of which she entered immediately.  The Frenchmen all flocked to see her, wondering who she was, and who could have sent them so lovely a messenger.  Armida passed onwards, not with a misgiving air, not with an unalluring, and yet not with an immodest one.  Her golden tresses she suffered at one moment to escape from under her veil, and at another she gathered them again within it.  Her rosy mouth breathed simplicity as well as voluptuousness.  Her bosom was so artfully draped, as to let itself be discerned without seeming to intend it.  And thus she passed along, surprising and transporting every body.  Coming at length among the tents of the officers, she requested to be shewn that of the leader; and Eustace eagerly stepped forward to conduct her.