utterance
of his emotion, prepares the minds of his hearers with some sweet
prelude, exquisitely modulating in a lower tone,--so the enchantress,
whose anguish had not deprived her of all sense of her art, breathed a
few sighs to dispose the soul of her idol to listen, and then said: "I
do not beg thee to hear me as one that loves me. We both loved once; but
that is over. I beg thee to hear, even though as one that loves me not.
It will cost thy disdain nothing to grant me that. Perhaps thou hast
discovered a pleasure in hating me. Do so. I come not to deprive thee of
it. If it seem just to thee, just let it be. I too once hated. I hated
the Christians--hated even thyself. I thought it right to do so: I was
bred up to think it. I pursued thee to do thee mischief; I overtook thee;
I bore thee away; and worse than all--for now perhaps thou loathest me
for it--I loved thee. I loved thee, for the first time that I loved any
one; nay, I made thee love me in turn; and, alas, I gave myself into
thine arms. It was wrong. I was foolish; I was wicked. I grant that I
have deserved thou shouldst think ill of me, that thou shouldst punish
me, and quit me, and hate to have any remembrance of this place which I
had filled with delights. Go; pass over the seas; make war against my
friends and my country; destroy us all, and the religion we believe in.
Alas! _'we'_ do I say? The religion is mine no longer--O thou, the cruel
idol of my soul. Oh, let me go with thee, if it be but as thy servant,
thy slave. Let the conqueror take with him his captive; let her be
mocked; let her be pointed at; only let her be with thee. I will cut off
these tresses, which no longer please thee: I will clothe myself in other
attire, and go with thee into the battle. I have courage and strength
enough to bear thy lance, to lead thy spare-horse, to be, above all,
thy shield-bearer--thy shield. Nothing shall touch thee but through
me--through this bosom, Rinaldo. Perhaps mischance may spare thee for
its sake. Not a word? not a little word? Do I dare to boast of what thou
hadst once a kind word for, though now thou wilt neither look upon me nor
speak to me?"

She could say no more: her words were suffocated by a torrent of tears.
But she sought to take his hand, to arrest him by his mantle--in vain.
He could scarcely, it is true, restrain his tears: but he did. He looked
sorrowful, but composed; and at length he said: "Armida, would I could do
as thou wishest;