in joy or sorrow.  Count me, if it please thee, thy champion still, as far as my country and my faith permit; but here, in this spot, must be buried all else—­buried, not for my sake only, but for that of thy beauty, thy worthiness, thy royal blood.  Consent to disparage thyself no longer.  Peace be with thee.  I go where I have no permission to take thee with me.  Be happy; be wise.”  While Rinaldo was speaking in this manner, Armida changed colour; her bosom heaved; her eyes took a new kind of fire; scorn rose upon her lip.  When he finished, she looked at him with a bitterness that rejected every word he had said; and then she exclaimed:  “Thou hast no such blood in thine own veins as thou canst fear to degrade.  Thy boasted descent is a fiction:  base, and brutish, and insensible was thy stock.  What being of gentle blood could quit a love like mine without even a tear—­a sigh?  What but the mockery of a man could call me his, and yet leave me? vouchsafe me his pardon, as if I had offended him? excuse my guilt and my tenderness; he, the sage of virtue, and me, the wretch!  O God! and these are the men that take upon them to slaughter the innocent, and dictate faiths to the world!  Go, hard heart, with such peace as thou leavest in this bosom.  Begone; take thine injustice from my sight for ever.  My spirit will follow thee, not as a help, but as a retribution.  I shall die first, and thou wilt die speedily:  thou wilt perish in the battle.  Thou wilt lie expiring among the dead and bleeding, and wilt call on Armida in thy last moments, and I shall hear it—­yes, I shall hear it; I shall look for that.”

Down fell Armida on the ground, senseless; and Rinaldo stood over her, weeping at last.  Open thine eyes, poor wretch, and see him.  Alas, the heavens deny thee the consolation!  What will he do?  Will he leave thee lying there betwixt dead and alive?  Or will he go—­pitying thee, but still going?  He goes; he is gone; he is in the bark, and the wind is in the sail; and he looks back—­ever back; but still goes:  the shore begins to be out of sight.

Armida woke, and was alone.  She raved again, but it was for vengeance.  In a few days she was with the Egyptian army, a queen at the head of her vassals, going against the Christians at Jerusalem.

Part the Fifth.

THE DISENCHANTMENT OF THE FOREST, AND THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM, &c.

Rinaldo arrived without loss of time in the Christian camp before Jerusalem.  Every body rejoiced to see the right hand of the army.  Godfrey gladly pardoned him; the hermit Peter blessed him; he himself retired to beg the forgiveness and favour of Heaven; and then he went straight to the Enchanted Forest.