Canto II. Advised by the sorcerer Ismeno, Aladine steals the image of the Virgin from the Christian temple, and sets it up in his mosque, where he resorts to all manner of spells and incantations to destroy her power.  During the night, however, the Virgin’s image disappears from the mosque and cannot be found, although Aladine offers great rewards for its restoration.  Finally, he decrees that, unless the perpetrator of the theft denounces himself, he will slay all the Christians in the town.  He is about to execute this cruel threat when Sophronia, a Christian maid, suddenly decides to sacrifice herself to save her co-religionists.  She therefore appears before Aladine, declaring she stole the image from the temple, whereupon the sultan in anger orders her bound to the stake and burned alive.

    Doom’d in tormenting fire to die, they lay
    Hands on the maid; her arms with rough cords twining,
    Rudely her mantle chaste they tear away,
    And the white veil that o’er her droop’d declining: 
    This she endured in silence unrepining,
    Yet her firm breast some virgin tremors shook;
    And her warm cheek, Aurora’s late outshining,
    Waned into whiteness, and a color took,
  Like that of the pale rose or lily of the brook.

Scarcely has Sophronia been fastened there, and while she is praying for God’s aid to endure martyrdom without flinching, Olindo, a young Christian, deeming it impossible to allow a girl to sacrifice her life, rushes forward, declaring he alone committed the crime, but that the maiden, out of love for him, has assumed his guilt to save his life.  Only then does he discover that the maiden tied to the stake is the very one he loves, but who hitherto has received his advances coldly!  On hearing the youth accuse himself of having stolen the image, Aladine questions the maiden, who denies it, insisting she alone is to blame.  Thereupon the sultan decrees both shall perish in the flames, and orders them tied to the stake back to back.  It is in this position, and while in imminent peril of death, that the young man deplores the fact he is to die beside the one he hoped to marry and with whom he expected to spend a long and happy life.  The executioners are about to set fire to the pyre where these generous young lovers are to end their days, when a young knight steps forward loudly proclaiming none of the Christians are to blame for the disappearance of the image, since Allah himself removed it from the temple because he considered it desecration to have such an image within its walls.  This young knight turns out to be the warrior maid Clorinda, who not only convinces Aladine that the young people are guiltless, but bribes him to release them, in exchange for her services in the coming war.  Touched by each other’s devotion, the young couple marry as soon as released, and, instead of dying, live together as husband and wife.