lady led the knight into an apartment painted with stories, and opening to the garden through pillars of crystal with golden capitals.  Here he found a bevy of ladies, three of whom were singing in concert, while another played on some foreign instrument of exquisite accord, and the rest were dancing round about them.  When the ladies beheld him coming, they turned the dance into a circuit round about himself; and then one of them, in the sweetest manner, said, “Sir knight, the tables are set, and the hour for the banquet is come:”  and with these words they all drew him, still dancing, across the lawn in front of the apartment, to a table that was spread with cloth of gold and fine linen, under a bower of damask roses, by the side of a fountain.[9]

Four ladies were already seated there, who rose and placed Rinaldo at their head, in a chair set with pearls.  And truly indeed was he astonished.  A repast ensued, consisting of viands the most delicate, and wines as fragrant as they were fine, drunk out of jewelled cups; and when it drew towards its conclusion, harps and lutes were heard in the distance, and one of the ladies said in the knight’s ear, “This house, and all that you see in it, are yours.  For you alone was it built, and the builder is a queen; and happy indeed must you think yourself, for she loves you, and she is the greatest beauty in the world.  Her name is Angelica.”

The moment Rinaldo heard the name he so detested, disgust and wretchedness fell upon his heart, notwithstanding the joys around him.  He started up with a changed countenance, and, in spite of all that the lady could say, broke off across the garden, and never ceased hastening till he reached the place where he landed.  He would have thrown himself into the sea, rather than stay any longer in that island; but the enchanted barque was still on the shore.  He sprang into it, and attempted instantly to push off, for he still saw nobody in it but himself; but the barque for a while resisted his efforts; till, on his feeling a wish to drown himself, or to do any thing rather than return to that detested house, it suddenly loosed itself from its moorings, and dashed away with him over the sea, as if in a fury.

All night did the pilotless barque dash on, till it reached, in the morning, a distant shore covered with a gloomy forest.  Here Rinaldo, surrounded by enchantments of a very different sort from those which he had lately resisted, was entrapped into a pit.  The pit belonged to a castle which was hung with human heads, and painted red with blood; and as the Paladin was calling upon God to help him, a hideous white-headed old woman, of a spiteful countenance, made her appearance on the edge of the pit, and told him that he must fight with a monster born of Death and Desire.

“Be it so,” said the Paladin.  “Let me but remain armed as I am, and I fear nothing.”  For Rinaldo had with him his renowned sword Fusberta.[10]