Canto XIV. In a dream Godfrey is now admonished to proceed, and told, if he can only persuade Rinaldo to return, Jerusalem will soon fall into the hands of the Christians.  Because no one knows where Rinaldo has gone, Godfrey despatches two knights in quest of him.  After some difficulty they interview a wizard, who, after exhibiting to them his magic palace, tells them Armida, to punish Rinaldo for rescuing his companions from her clutches, has captured him by magic means and borne him off to her wonderful garden in the Fortunate Isles.  The hermit then bestows upon them a golden wand which will defeat all enchantments, and bids them hasten to the Fortunate Isles.

Canto XV. Hastening off to the sea-shore armed with this golden wand, these two knights find a magic vessel, wherein they sail with fabulous speed over the sea, and through the Strait of Gibraltar, out into the western ocean, the nymph at the helm meanwhile informing them that this is the road Columbus is destined to travel.  Sailing thus they reach the Fortunate Isles, where, notwithstanding many enchantments and temptations brought to bear to check their advance, they, thanks to the golden wand, force their way into Armida’s wonderful garden.

Canto XVI.

    These windings pass’d, the garden-gates unfold,
    And the fair Eden meets their glad survey,—­
    Still waters, moving crystals, sands of gold,
    Herbs, thousand flowers, rare shrubs, and mosses gray;
    Sunshiny hillocks, shady vales; woods gay,
    And grottoes gloomy, in one view combined,
    Presented were; and what increased their play
    Of pleasure at the prospect, was, to find
  Nowhere the happy Art that had the whole design’d.

    So natural seem’d each ornament and site,
    So well was neatness mingled with neglect,
    As though boon Nature for her own delight
    Her mocker mock’d, till fancy’s self was check’d;
    The air, if nothing else there, is th’ effect
    Of magic, to the sound of whose soft flute
    The blooms are born with which the trees are deck’d;
    By flowers eternal lives th’ eternal fruit,
  This running richly ripe, while those but greenly shoot.

Then, peeping cautiously through the trees, they behold Rinaldo reclining amid the flowers, his head resting in the enchantress’ lap.  Biding their time they watch Armida leave the enamoured knight, then step forward and bid him gaze into the magic mirror they have brought.  On beholding in its surface a reflection of himself as he really is, Rinaldo, horrified, is brought to such a sense of his depraved idleness, that he springs to his feet and proposes to leave immediately with his companions.  They are about to depart without bidding farewell to the fair enchantress, when she pursues them, and, after vainly pleading with Rinaldo to stay with her, proposes to join him in any quality.  When he abruptly rejects her advances and sails away, Armida, disappointed and infuriated because she has been scorned, hastens off to the Egyptian camp.