Still seeking Angelica, Orlando in due time discovers these names, and on learning Angelica is married becomes violently insane.  Discarding his armor,—­which another knight piously collects and hangs on a tree with an inscription warning no one to venture to touch it,—­Orlando roams hither and thither, performing countless feats of valor, and even swimming across the Strait of Gibraltar to seek adventures in Africa since he cannot get enough in Europe.  In the course of his wanderings, Orlando (as well as sundry other characters in the poem) is favored by an apparition of Fata Morgana, the water-fairy, who vainly tries to lure him away from his allegiance to his lady-love by offering him untold treasures.

Every once in a while the poem harks back to Rogero, who, having again fallen into a magician’s hands, prowls through the labyrinthine rooms of his castle, seeking Bradamant, whom he imagines calling to him for help.  Meantime the lady whom he is thus seeking is safe at Marseilles, but, hearing at last of her lover’s plight, she too visits the magic castle, and would have been decoyed into its dungeons had not Astolfo appeared with a magic horn, whose first blast makes the castle vanish into thin air!  Thus freed, the magician’s prisoners gaze around them in wonder, and Rogero and Bradamant embrace with rapture, planning to marry as soon as Rogero has been baptized.

But, on their way to Vallombroso where this sacrament is to take place, the lovers meet with other adventures and are again separated.  Under escort of Astolfo, Bradamant sadly returns home, where her mother decrees she shall remain until Rogero can come and get her.  Meantime Rogero has again joined the Saracens, just as Discord has succeeded in kindling a quarrel between Rodomont and Mandricar, who both admire the same lady.  They are about to fight for her favor, when the umpire of the lists pertinently suggests the lady be allowed to express her preference!  She frankly does so, and Rodomont, rejected, departs in high dudgeon.  In this unhappy frame of mind he attacks everybody he meets, and after many victories is defeated in a battle with the Christians.  During this last encounter Rogero is too grievously wounded to be able to join Bradamant, who, hearing a fair lady is nursing her lover, is consumed by jealousy.  She therefore—­notwithstanding her mother’s decree—­sets out in the garb of a knight to challenge her recreant lover and defeat him by means of her magic lance.

After unhorsing on the way all those who venture to tilt with her, Bradamant meets Rogero, who, recognizing her in the midst of their duel, flatly refuses to continue the fight, and implores her to accompany him into a neighboring forest, where he promises to explain all to her satisfaction.  They are, however, followed thither by the maiden who has nursed Rogero, who, jealous in her turn, now attacks Bradamant.  Rogero, infuriated by Bradamant’s imminent peril, is about to slay his nurse remorselessly, when an enchanter’s voice proclaims she is his sister, stolen in infancy!  All excuse for mutual jealousy being thus removed, the two women agree to join forces and fight in behalf of Charlemagne until Rogero can discharge his obligations to the Saracens, receive baptism, and join the Christian ranks.