Angelica, when she had
won again
The ring
Brunello had from her conveyed,
So waxed in stubborn
pride and haught disdain,
She seemed
to scorn this ample world, and strayed
Alone, and held as cheap
each living swain,
Although
amid the best by fame arrayed;
Nor brooked she to remember
a gallant
In Count Orlando or
King Sacripant:
And above every other
deed repented,
That good
Rinaldo she had loved of yore;
And that to look so
low she had consented,
(As by such
choice dishonored) grieved her sore.
Love, hearing this,
such arrogance resented,
And would
the damsel’s pride endure no more.
Where young Medoro lay
he took his stand,
And waited her, with
bow and shaft in hand.
When fair Angelica the
stripling spies,
Nigh hurt
to death in that disastrous fray,
Who for his king, that
there unsheltered lies,
More sad
than for his own misfortune lay,
She feels new pity in
her bosom rise,
Which makes
its entry in unwonted way.
Touched was her naughty
heart, once hard and curst,
And more when he his
piteous tale rehearsed.
And calling back to
memory her art,
For she
in Ind had learned chirurgery,
(Since it appears such
studies in that part
Worthy of
praise and fame are held to be,
And, as an heirloom,
sires to sons impart,
With little
aid of books, the mystery,)
Disposed herself to
work with simples’ juice,
Till she in him should
healthier life produce.
And recollects an herb
had caught her sight
In passing
thither, on a pleasant plain:
What (whether dittany
or pancy hight)
I know not;
fraught with virtue to restrain
The crimson blood forth-welling,
and of might
To sheathe
each perilous and piercing pain.
She found it near, and
having pulled the weed,
Returned to seek Medoro
on the mead.
Returning, she upon
a swain did light,
Who was
on horseback passing through the wood.
Strayed from the lowing
herd, the rustic wight
A heifer
missing for two days pursued.
Him she with her conducted,
where the might
Of the faint
youth was ebbing with his blood:
Which had the ground
about so deeply dyed
Life was nigh wasted
with the gushing tide.
Angelica alights upon
the ground,
And he,
her rustic comrade, at her best.
She hastened ’twixt
two stones the herb to pound,
Then took
it, and the healing juice exprest:
With this did she foment
the stripling’s wound,
And even
to the hips, his waist and breast;
And (with such virtue
was the salve endued)
It stanched his life-blood,
and his strength renewed.