The Book: Orlando Innamorato
The Author: Matteo Maria Boiardo (1494).
This text: An etext of an 1823 prose translation by William Stewart Rose. This edition is from the University of Adelaide - Project Gutenberg has the same text, but the formatting is better here. It's worth noting that much the same material is covered in Thomas Bulfinch's Age of Chivalry.
Price: Nothin'.
(Previously...)
III. The Needlessly Complicated Siege of Albracca
When last we left our heroine Angelica, her city was under siege by her ex-suitor Agrican, and things looked bleak indeed. With the loss of the English knight Astolpho, Albracca's morale is severely shaken.
But lo! On the horizon: a friendly army! It's Sacripant!
Sacripant finds Agrican's army a bit of challenge, not least since Agrican is now mounted on Rinaldo's magic horse Bayardo. The two leaders end up in single combat. Sacripant is wounded, but the combat breaks up and he flees into Albracca. His army breaks - Angelica orders the drawbridge lowered to recieve them. Agrican charges through the gates, and wreaks havoc in the town. Sacripant drags himself back into battle, and the portcullis is lowered. Agrican is eventually forced back to the gates.
Meanwhile, Rinaldo has left the ruins of the doom-castle Altaripa, and is wandering errantly. He meets a miserable damsel, who tells him that she's looking for a someone brave enough to take on nine knights, including Orlando. This is Flordelis, Brandimart's lady. Rinaldo says he's up for it.
They ride off, with Flordelis telling a long and intricate tale of chivalry set in Babylon, about a knight named Prasildo who is in love with the queen Tisbina who is married to Iroldo, which involves Prasildo going on a quest for Tisbina and being unexpectedly successful meaning that Tisbina has to marry Prasildo except that Prasildo respects Iroldo too much and everybody ends up poisoned and Prasildo rescues everybody and Iroldo says that maybe he should marry Tisbina and Tisbina says that maybe that's not actually a bad idea and...
And then Rinaldo tells her to shut up because there's cave filled with griffons, a giant, and a particularly awesome horse. This is the magic steed Rabican, once the horse of Argalia, which has come home to its native cavern. Rinaldo fights with the giant and nearly kills him. The giant releases the griffons, and one of them grabs him by the leg to hit Rinaldo with. It's a close fight, but eventually Rinaldo triumphs. He finds a treasure chamber with a dead damsel in it; written in gold is a promise that the horse Rabican will go to whoever can avenge her death. There's also a book, which Rinaldo reads, that tells the whole terribly sordid story, and names his target as Truffaldino, a villain and a traitor.
Rinaldo and Flordelis are attacked by a centaur and separated; after the monster is killed, Rinaldo decides to keep going in the direction of the quest, with the vague aim of rescuing his cousin Orlando.
Back in Albracca, Agrican is fighting like a cornered rat. However, since he's fighting the defenders of Albracca - who aren't actually on the walls while doing so - his army is able to force the gates and enter the city. The city falls, but Angelica, Sacripant and the remaining kings - which, it turns out, include Truffaldino - are able to barricade themselves in the citadel. The citadel is impregnable, but poorly supplied, so Angelica proposes to seek relief. Nobody seems to object to the shifty princess deserting her city in its hour of need, possibly because she's the one with the magic ring that turns her invisible.
Away from the city Angelica meets an old man who spins her a sob story about having a sick son. Angelica, skilled in medicine as well as magic, offers her aid, and is a little surprised when the old man turns out to be lying, and is in fact on a mission to acquire damsels for the kingdom of Orgagna. Angelica is imprisoned in a tower full of said damsels. By coincidence, she meets Flordelis, who the centaur had thrown into a river and had been captured. Flordelis tells her story: how she was travelling with Rinaldo to rescue Orlando, Brandimart, and a bunch of other knights from their imprisonment in the magic garden of Dragontina.
This is the best thing Angelica has heard all day, so she turns herself invisible and heads for Dragontina's garden. She uses her ring to dispel all the magic, restores all the knights to sanity, and takes them all off to Albracca.
She does not mention Flordelis and the tower full of captive maidens to anyone, knowing that the last thing she needs is all her brand new set of knights to be all distracted and chivalrous.
It turns out that leaving Truffaldino in the citadel was a mistake, because he's thrown Sacripant and all the other kings into the dungeon with the plan of selling out to Agrican. He has misjudged, however, because Agrican really actually detests cowards and traitors, and reckons the citadel will run out of provisions pretty soon anyway. He is just gloating about how he's going to take the city, woo Angelica, and string Truffaldino up by the heels, when the lady herself turns up with a party of knights and crashes through his camp. Truffaldino refuses to open the gates unless everyone swears to save him from reprisals, especially from Agrican, and also to not kill him. Orlando initially refuses, but Angelica points out that they really are on the wrong side of the gates at the moment and maybe they should just agree to get back into the citadel.
Back inside the citadel, they immediately realise that things have not actually improved all that much, and Orlando takes a party of knights in quest of provisions. The nearest provisions are in Agrican's army, so he heads straight for that. Agrican orders his squadrons to stand aside so that he can duel Orlando personally. Things are just getting serious when there's an alarum: another relieving army!
This army has been raised by Angelica's dad Galaphron, and includes an unnamed giant and Marphisa, queen of India. Marphisa has vowed not to lay aside her armour until she has taken three kings prisoner: Charlemagne, Gradasso and Agrican. She is an ambitious lady.
Agrican apologises to Orlando and asks if they might take up the duel again after he has regained control of his army. Orlando agrees and chivalrously offers help if he needs it. Agrican graciously declines, and goes off to kill the giant. This messes up Galaphron's army, which would be recoverable except that Marphisa has pointedly gone off to take a nap, saying 'Wake me when Galaphron's dead and I'm in charge.'
Rinaldo is meanwhile wandering northwards, vaguely worried about what has happened to Flordelis and wondering where this magic fairy garden is. He meets a stranger weeping at a fountain, and asks him what's wrong. 'So I was married to this queen in Babylon...' says the stranger. It turns out this is Iroldo, who had been wandering aimlessly when he was captured by the enchantress Falentina, imprisoned in her magic garden, paired off with a maiden, and set up as a human sacrifice. Only it turns out that when Prasildo found out about it, he came to the rescue all noble-like, initially trying to buy Iroldo's freedom but eventually offering to take his place as the sacrifice, the show-off. Iroldo plans to interrupt the ceremony and, if at all possible, die trying to rescue Prasildo and thus proving who the most awesome knight is. Rinaldo offers a better plan: they will rescue Prasildo, and the maiden, and not die. Iroldo reluctantly agrees not to die.
Prasildo is rescued, as is the maiden - who turns out to be Flordelis. Rinaldo is keen to capitalise on this by destroying the enchanted garden, but Flordelis reminds him that he has other magic gardens to destroy. He concedes, and they all head off to the garden of Dragontina, which it turns out has already been destroyed by Angelica.
No worries: they come across a fugitive from Agrican's army who tells them that Angelica has a new champion who sounds a lot like Orlando, and then they meet a recently awoken Marphisa, who challenges them to a joust. A messenger comes up saying that Galaphron's vanguard has been pretty much demolished and they could really do with some backup about now. Piss off, says Marphisa, I'm jousting. Iroldo and Prasildo are knocked over in short order, but Marphisa and Rinaldo shatter their lances on each other and have to resort to swords and fists.
Elsewhere, Orlando has relieved Galaphron, and he and Agrican agree that the battle has evened out enough that they can continue their duel. They fight for the better part of the day, but Agrican starts to get annoyed at all the interruptions that come from dueling in the middle of a battlefield, and lures Orlando off into the forest. They continue fighting until it gets dark, and then agree that they should probably get a bit of shut-eye before continuing in the morning. Orlando asks Agrican if he's ever really thought about God, or otherwise considered converting, and Agrican says that knights should only talk about fightin' and lovin'. Talking about loving brings the conversation around to Angelica, which, given that they're both totally in love with her, brings the conversation back to to fighting, and then brings the fighting back to the conversation. They fight until dawn, and Orlando wins.
On his deathbed, Agrican agrees that there might be something in this God stuff, and asks Orlando to baptise him. Orlando does, then mounts Bayardo and heads back towards Albracca.
The tide of battle has turned, and Galaphron has penetrated Agrican's camp and released the prisoners, including Astolpho. Astolpho quickly finds his magic lance and rejoins the battle. He and Galaphron are mopping up the enemy when they come across Rinaldo and Marphisa. Rinaldo has a magic sword but has had most of his armour hacked off; Marphisa has magic armour but has had most of her sword hacked off. Galaphron does not recognise Rinaldo but recognises the horse Rabican, which used to belong to his son. He assumes - correctly, largely by coincidence - that this is Argalia's murderer, and charges.
Marphisa takes offence at the interruption to her duel and has at Galaphron. Similarly, when Brandimart tries to rescue Rinaldo from Marphisa, Rinaldo turns on him. Rinaldo and Marphisa turn back to back and take on all comers, which at this point are mostly their own allies.
Marphisa and Rinaldo eventually put their allies to flight, and pursue them to the gates of Albracca. This is a city ruled by Angelica, who Rinaldo hates, defended by Truffaldino, who he has sworn vengeance on. Marphisa is still mad at Galaphron, who is still alive and still king. The two settle down in front of the gates, shouting challenges. Truffaldino reminds the knights in Albracca that they have sworn to defend him, and leads half a dozen down to take on Rinaldo.
At this point, of course, the original siege has pretty much been defeated.
IV. The Needlessly Complicated Aftermath of the Siege of Albracca
So Brandimart was technically fighting Rinaldo, but the moment he sees Flordelis he ducks out of the battle for some smooching. Unfortunately, Flordelis is kidnapped by a passing necromancer. Brandimart pursues, and catches up with a three giants who have a column of camels - one of which is carrying a damsel he believes is Flordelis. He assails them - the giants, not the camels - and dispatches one, but ultimately comes off second best. Happily, at this point Orlando toddles through, possibly still high on adrenaline from his single-combat all-nighter, and takes care of the other two. Brandimart is wounded, and asks Orlando if he wouldn't mind rescuing Flordelis for him.
It turns out that the damsel they have rescued is not actually Flordelis, although she is pretty good at binding wounds. Brandimart laments - in song - that life is hard for a poor orphan boy who is sold into slavery to the Lord of the Sylvan Tower who eventually warmed to him and gave him his title. He continues to lament that it sucks that his girlfriend has been kidnapped and that he wishes he was dead.
The damsel starts to tell her story - beautiful princess, Kingdom of the Distant Isles, lots of treasure, forced to marry an old man rather than her actual lover - but realises Brandimart isn't paying attention and offers to help the knights rescue Flordelis. They ride off.
(The sorcerer who kidnapped Flordelis has been eaten by a lion, but now she's been captured by a forest savage.)
On the way, Orlando asks the damsel to continue her story, which she does - imprisoned by her betrothed, escaped through a secret tunnel, married her lover, pretended to be her own twin, escaped, was recaptured, escaped again, captured by giants - until she notices that Brandimart has wandered off again. Brandimart has heard Flordelis' cries, and he rides to her rescue, killing the savage as it tries to uproot a tree to hit him with.
Orlando, looking for Brandimart, meets yet another damsel. This one tells him there's a particularly interesting quest in the offing, and gives him a book and a horn. The book tells him to blow the horn, harness the two indestructible monstrous bulls that appear, and use them and his magic sword to plough the field. This he does. Then he blows the horn again, and a dragon appears. The damsel of the Distant Isles figures she could probably bug out now and continue her own adventures away from all these monsters, but the damsel of the book tells her to hang around, since it's really only Orlando in danger. The damsel of the Distant Isles says, whatever.
Instructed by the book, Orlando chops of the dragon's head and sows its teeth in the field. He fights the myrmidons that grow out of them, as is necessary to prove his valour according to the quest in the book.
Then he blows the horn a third time, which summons...
...a puppy.
'Ah,' he says. Then, 'What?'
The damsel of the book explains: the puppy can be used to track down Morgana, the fairy with dominion over wealth, and not only can he become incredibly wealthy, but if he gives her the puppy she'll fall in love with him.
'Stuff that,' says Orlando, and rides off with the damsel of the Distant Isles. Shortly afterwards, they meet a stranger knight who turns out to be the damsel's lover. Orlando hands over the damsel, expressing relief that her incessant chattering is now someone else's problem.
Back in Albracca, Rinaldo is winning and Truffaldino has retreated to the citadel. Astolpho realises that the knight he has been fighting at the gates is in fact his cousin Rinaldo, and switches sides. And Orlando arrives, and finds Rinaldo fighting Albracca's defenders, for reasons that are not entirely clear to him.
Orlando and Rinaldo shout out bitter reproaches regarding their respective lifestyle choices, and Orlando charges. However, Orlando is mounted on Bayardo, who won't be a party to attacking Rinaldo, his actual master, and they veer off.
Rinaldo sees Truffaldino sneaking up on Astolpho, and charges him. He takes him captive and ties him by the feet to Rabican's tail, and drags him to death. With Truffaldino dead, most of the knights decide that they're no longer really honour bound to defend him. However, Orlando is pretty pissed off, and is back on his original horse, which Brandimart had been riding. He and Rinaldo fight until nightfall, at which point they agree to a truce with the intention of starting again in the morning.
Angelica is basically happy with the outcome of the battle with regards to her city, but is left with a series of problems. She is still in love with Rinaldo, who is on the wrong side of the gates, specifically the outside; Orlando is in love with her, and is also on the wrong side of the gates, specifically the inside; Orlando has basically saved her city and she owes him big time.
Angelica talks Marphisa into letting her talk to Rinaldo. Rinaldo refuses, even when she gives him Bayardo back. Angelica miserably returns to Albracca and promises to marry Orlando if he does one last little teeny tiny thing for her: destroy the magic garden of the enchantress Falerina.
'And try not to be ensorcelled, enchanted, imprisoned, exiled, or killed.'Next: Enter Rogero and Bradamante, who are awesome.
'Right-ho!'
'But not too hard.'
'What was that last bit?'
'Nothing - good luck, dear!'
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