ven that consented to such perjury,
-- And did not yet by some plain token speak --
She, in her passion, called unjust and weak.

XXVI
The sage Melissa she accused, and cursed
The oracle of the cavern, through whose lie
She in that sea of love herself immersed,
Upon whose waters she embarked to die.
She to Marphisa afterwards rehearsed
Her woes, and told her brother's perfidy;
She chides, pours forth her sorrows, and demands,
With tears and outcries, succour at her hands.

XXVII
Marphisa shrugs her shoulders; what alone
She can, she offers -- comfort to the fair;
Nor thinks Rogero her has so foregone
But what to her he shortly will repair.
And, should he not, such outrage to be done,
The damsel plights her promise not to bear;
Twixt her and him shall deadly war be waged,
Or he shall keep the word, which he engaged.

XXVIII
She makes her somewhat thus her grief restrain;
Which having vent in some sort spend its gall,
Now we have seen the damsel in her pain
Rogero impious, proud, and perjured call,
See we, if in a happier state remain
The brother of that gentle maid withal;
Whose flesh, bones, nerves, and sinews are a prey
To burning love; Rinaldo I would say.

XXIX
I say Rinaldo that (as known to you)
Angelica the beauteous loved so well:
Nor him into the amorous fillets drew
So much her beauty as the magic spell.
In peace reposed those other barons true;
For wholly broken was the infidel:
Alone amid the victors, he, of all
The paladins, remained Love's captive thrall.

XXX
To seek her he a hundred couriers sent,
And sought as well, himself, the missing maid:
He in the end to Malagigi went,
Who in his need had often given him aid:
To him he told his love, with eyelids bent
On earth, and visage crimsoned o'er; and prayed
That sage magicians to instruct him, where
He in the world might find the long-sought fair.

XXXI
A case, so strange and wondrous, marvel sore
In friendly Malagigi's bosom bred:
The wizard knew, a hundred times and more,
He might have had the damsel in his bed;
And he himself, to move the knight or yore,
In her behalf, enough had done and said:
Had him by prayer and menace sought to bend,
Yet ne'er was able to obtain his end;

XXXII
And so much more, that out of prison ward
He then would Malagigi so have brought.
Now will he seek her, of his own accord,