It was a beautiful morning, and the forest, instead of presenting its usual terrors, appeared to him singularly tranquil and pleasing.  On entering it he heard, not dreadful thunder-claps, but harmonies made up of all sorts of gentle and lovely sounds—­brooks, whispering winds, nightingales, organs, harps, human voices.  He went slowly and cautiously, and soon came to a beautiful river which encircled the heart of the wood.  A bridge of gold carried him over.  He had no sooner crossed it, than the river higher up suddenly swelled and rushed like a torrent, sweeping the bridge away.  The harmony meanwhile had become silent.  Admiring, but nothing daunted, the hero went on.

Every thing as he advanced appeared to start into fresh beauty.  His steps produced lilies and roses; here leaped up a fountain, and there came falling a cascade; the wood itself seemed to grow young as with sudden spring; and he again heard the music and the human voices, though he could see no one.

Passing through the trees, he came into a glade in the heart of the wood, in the centre of which he beheld a myrtle-tree, the largest and most beautiful ever seen:  it was taller than a cypress or palm, and seemed the queen of the forest.  Looking around him, he observed to his astonishment an oak suddenly cleave itself open, and out of it there came a nymph.  A hundred other trees did the same, giving birth to as many nymphs.  They were all habited as we see them in theatres; only, instead of bows and arrows, each held a lute or guitar.  Coming towards the hero with joyful eyes, they formed a circle about him, and danced; and in their dancing they sang, and bade him welcome to the haunt of their mistress, their loving mistress, of whom he was the only hope and joy.  Looking as they spoke towards the myrtle, Rinaldo looked also, and beheld, issuing out of it—­Armida.

Armida came sweetly towards him, with a countenance at once grieving and rejoicing, but expressing above all infinite affection.  “And do I indeed see thee again?” she said; “and wilt thou not fly me a second time? am I visited to be consoled, or to be treated again as an enemy? is poor Armida so formidable, that thou must needs close up thine helmet when thou beholdest her?  Thou mightest surely have vouchsafed her once more a sight of thine eyes.  Let us be friends, at least, if we may be nothing more.  Wilt thou not take her hand?”

Rinaldo’s answer was, to turn away as from a cheat, to look towards the myrtle-tree, to draw his sword, and proceed with manifest intentions of assailing it.  She ran before him shrieking, and hugged it round.  “Nay, thou wilt not,” she said, “thou wilt not hurt my tree—­not cut and slay what is bound up with the life of Armida?  Thy sword must pass first through her bosom.”

Armida writhed and wailed; Rinaldo nevertheless raised his sword, and it was coming against the tree, when her shape, like a thing in a dream, was metamorphosed as quick as lightning.  It became a giant, a Briareus, wielding a hundred swords, and speaking in a voice of thunder.  Every one of the nymphs at the same instant became a Cyclops; tempest and earthquake ensued, and the air was full of ghastly spectres.