“Let Godfrey view once more, and smile to view
    My second exile;—­soon shall he again
    See me in arms return’d, to vex anew
    His haunted peace and never stable reign: 
    Yield I do not; eternal my disdain
    Shall be as are my wrongs; though fires consume
    My dust, immortal shall my hate remain;
    And aye my naked ghost fresh wrath assume,
  Through life a foe most fierce, but fiercer from the tomb!”

Canto X. The sultan, after journeying part way back to Egypt, pauses to rest, and is visited by a wizard, who spirits him over the battle-field and back to Jerusalem in a magic chariot.  This pauses at a hidden cave, the entrance to an underground passage, by which they secretly enter the sultan’s council chamber.

    Ismeno shot the lock; and to the right
    They climb’d a staircase, long untrod, to which
    A feeble, glimm’ring, and malignant light
    Stream’d from the ceiling through a window’d niche;
    At length by corridors of loftier pitch
    They sallied into day, and access had
    To an illumined hall, large, round, and rich;
    Where, sceptred, crown’d, and in dark purple clad,
  Sad sat the pensive king amid his nobles sad.

Solyman, overhearing as he enters some of the nobles propose a disgraceful peace and the surrender of Jerusalem, hotly opposes such a measure, and thus infuses new courage into their breasts.

Canto XI. Meantime Godfrey of Bouillon, having buried his dead, questions the knights who were lured away by Armida, and they relate that, on arriving near the Dead Sea, they were entertained at a sumptuous banquet, where they were given a magic draught, which transformed them for a time into sportive fishes.  Armida, having thus demonstrated her power over them, threatened to use it to keep them prisoners forever unless they would promise to abjure their faith.  One alone yielded, but the rest, delivered as prisoners to an emissary from Egypt, were met and freed from their bonds by the brave Rinaldo, who, instead of accompanying them back to camp, rode off toward Antioch.

The Christians now prepare for their final assault, and, advised by Peter the Hermit, walk in solemn procession to the Mount of Olives, where, after singing hymns, all devoutly receive Communion.  Thus prepared for anything that may betide, they set out on the morrow to scale the city walls, rolling ahead of them their mighty engines of war, by means of which they hope to seize the city.

Most of the Crusaders have laid aside their heavy armor and assumed the light gear of foot-soldiers the better to scale the walls, upon which Clorinda is posted, and whence she shoots arrow after arrow at the assailants.  Wounded by one of the missiles flung from the wall, Godfrey seeks his tent, where, the physician failing to extract the barb, an angel brings a remedy from heaven which instantly cures the wound.