The Book: Orlando Furioso
The Author: Lodovico Ariosto (1532-ish)
This text: An etext of a set of poetry translations from 1823 to 1831 by William Stewart Rose.
Price: Nothin'.
Orlando Furioso picks up where Orlando Innamorato left off: the Christian knights have returned to Europe to fight off an African invasion - but they lost the first battle. Charlemagne's forces are scattered and confused. Though, to some extent so are Agramant's Saracen forces. It was that kind of battle.
The Continuing Aftermath of the Battle for France
Various heroes and villains are wandering in the forest of Arden in the aftermath of the battle. Angelica comes across Rinaldo (who, thanks to various magic fountains, she hates) and Ferrau (who she hates because he's ugly). Rinaldo (in love with Angelica thanks to various magic fountains) and Ferrau (in love with Angelica because she's pretty) draw swords and fight, and Angelica ducks back into the forest.
"Rinaldo! I hate you and I love Angelica! We fight!"Rinaldo and Ferrau join forces to pursue Angelica, and run off in different directions. Ferrau drinks at a stream but accidentally drops his helmet. Last time Ferrau was here he killed Argalia, Angelica's brother. Argalia had asked for his body to be disposed of in full armour, but Ferrau nicked his helmet. Now, the ghost of Argalia rises up from the riverbed, and says, "Hah, mine now!" and sends him off to nick someone else's helmet: Orlando's, maybe, or Rinaldo's.
"Ferrau! I love Angelica and I hate you, but she's getting away!"
"Gulp! A ghostly curse!"Meanwhile, Angelica meets Sacripant, King of Circassia, who declares his eternal love. Figuring that of all the knights in this forest that are in love with her, Sacripant is the least worst, she declares her own temporary and conditional love.
"Sure, why not?"
"One last thing, Angelica: because we are ye olde knights written by ye olde Italians, I urgently require knowledge about the state of your...being."Sacripant can't quite believe his luck, but it doesn't last: he is promptly pasted by a knight in white. Angelica offers him some consolation: she says that Sacripant technically won that bout because the stranger knight didn't actually stop, riding off into the forest. A passing herald identifies the knight in white as Bradamante, who is looking for her love, Rogero the Saracen.
"Sure, absolutely, of course, and you would prefer me to be..."
"A virgin, chaste and pure!"
"No problem, absolutely, why not, of course."
Sacripant's horse was killed in the extremely short joust, but Angelica finds Bayardo, Rinaldo's horse. No sooner is Sacripant mounted when Rinaldo himself comes crashing through the woods. Angelica tells Sacripant to flee, but Sacripant feels there's no point being someone's guardian and protector if you don't get to beat up your enemies. Besides, he's mounted and Rinaldo's not. Angelica flees and Sacripant charges. However, Bayardo recognises Rinaldo, and refuses to fight, and instead runs around the clearing. With some difficulty, Sacripant dismounts. He and Rinaldo fight.
The first person Angelica meets is a hermit, who she takes for a priest. She begs him to get her out of this damn forest. The hermit, actually an evil sorcerer, summons a spirit to break up the fight between Rinaldo and Sacripant. The spirit tells the two knights that he just now saw Orlando riding with Angelica into Paris. The two break off the fight. Rinaldo rides into to town, to find Charlemagne desperately trying to regroup his forces. Pleased to have at least one of his irresponsible knights back, the king immediately orders Rinaldo to stop messing around with shifty princesses and to go to England to get reinforcements.
The Iron Tower and Melissa's Cave of Mystery
Bradamante, meanwhile, comes across a moping knight. The knight, it seems, has lost his lady: she has been kidnapped by someone on a winged horse. The knight - Pinabel - tracked her down as best he could, but it seems that she is imprisoned in an impregnable tower of iron. Pinabel tells of meeting two knights - Gradasso, king of Sericane, and young Rogero, who he asked to rescue his lady. The two knights fought with the man on the hippogriff for an hour or so. The battle ended when the man on the hippogriff - another sorcerer, apparently - removed the cover from a magic shield, which struck everyone senseless with beams of magic light. Pinabel assumes that the two knights were captured and are held in the iron tower; Bradamante volunteers to rescue everyone.
Pinabel at this point has worked out who Bradamante actually is, and it turns out that there's a long-standing feud between his people in Maganza and Bradamante's family. So instead of leading her to the iron tower as promised, he finds a crevice and pushes her in.
Bradamante finds herself stuck in an extensive cave system, which opens up into a cathedral-like space with a central altar. Here she meets a somewhat dishevelled woman by the name of Melissa, who declares that this is the tomb of Merlin and that Merlin's ghost has predicted her coming. Melissa then starts telling Bradamante about the line of heroes that will emanate from her womb.
"My womb?"Melissa orders Bradamante to lie down in a magic circle, and proceeds to show her extensive visions of her descendants, complete with prophetic commentary.
"Your womb. Your union with Rogero will be fruitful, and your womb will spring forth abundant issue."
"Rogero, right. Look, I really only just met the guy, and more importantly, I really only just met you..."
"Shut up and lie down in this magic circle."
"If I do, will you stop talking about my womb?"
"That's...a lot of offspring."At the end of the parade of heroic descendants, Melissa starts providing practical advice. In order to fight a sorcerer on a flying horse who has a shield that can knock people out with its magic beams of light, she'll need some sort of protection from magic, like a ring or something. Fortunately, there's one nearby. Angelica's ring of magic protection and also invisibility was stolen by the dwarf Brunello on orders from Agramant of Africa. As luck would have it, Brunello is passing by right now on his way to deliver it to his king.
"This is the short version. Otherwise you'd be here all week."
"My womb hurts."
Melissa leads Bradamante out through the cave system and, guided by prophecy, to exactly where Brunello is. Bradamante introduces herself as a passing anonymous knight, and convinces Brunello to lead her to the iron tower so that she might prove herself against its master. When they get close, she knocks out Brunello, nicks his ring and ties him to a tree.
At the tower, Bradamante calls out a challenge to the master of the tower. During the ensuing fight, she comes to realise the difficulty of jousting against someone who can fly. Nevertheless, she puts up a good enough show that the sorcerer resorts to his magic shield of dazzling. When it is uncovered, Bradamante feigns unconsciousness, so that she can get the jump on the sorcerer when he lands.
Up close, the sorcerer turns out to be this old dude, and the knight can't quite bring herself to kill him. She demands to know why he built an iron tower in the middle of nowhere. The sorcerer - Atlantes - says it was all for the love of his stepson, Rogero, who is prophesied to die a Christian, and by treason. The old man's plan, therefore, is to keep Rogero safely and luxuriously imprisoned, where he can't be seduced by some hussy knight and dragged off to Christendom.
The other prisoners are to keep him company.
Bradamante forces Atlantes to break the enchantments holding the tower together, and the prisoners are freed - but the sorcerer escapes using magic.
Bradamante's rescue count: 5 knights (+5)
Bradamante and Rogero's reunion is shortlived, however. Rogero sees the hippogriff, and decides to mount it.
"Hey, thanks for the rescue, Bradamante. You sure are a swell knight. Hey, look, an enchanted hippogriff!"The hippogriff flies off into the distance. Bradamante takes Rogero's horse, and tries to follow.
"That's your step-dad's enchanted hippogriff, Rogero - you remember, the guy that kidnapped you and imprisoned you in an enchanted impregnable iron tower beyond (almost) all hope of human rescue?"
"Hey, look, it wants me to get on it!"
"Don't get on the enchanted hi- ah, fuck."
"Aaaah! Does anyone know how to fly an enchanted hippogriff?"
Rinaldo and the Frisky Princess
Rinaldo's boat is caught in a storm, and he finds himself in Scotland. This being the land of Arthur and all his lot, Rinaldo figures this is prime adventuring territory: he sends the ship to Berwick and takes his horse ashore. The local monks tell him that there's a lot of weird shit that goes on in the forest, but it's not a very glamorous adventuring destination and if he wants fame and glory he's best off heading straight to the king's castle to save the princess. The princess needs a champion, as she's been unfairly sentenced to death by fire for the crime of adultery. This bothers Rinaldo a great deal.
"What? You don't burn people to death for adultery! Are you people barbarians?"On the way to the castle Rinaldo rescues a woman from two thugs. Luckily, the woman, Dalinda, is a friend - sort of - of the doomed princess, Geneura, and her tale of woe is extremely relevant to Rinaldo's current quest. The tale of woe begins with her being seduced by a Scottish lord, Polinesso.
"She was unjustly accused!"
"I mean, if two young people with hot blood and natural urges want to..."
"It is a grave injustice!"
"Yes, but it shouldn't even be on the table. I mean, this is perfectly understandable behaviour under the circumstances..."
"We're talking vile calumny here, Sir!"
"I mean treason, sure, you might burn people, but for just doing what comes naturally..."
"She didn't do...!"
"Alright. I'll do it. I'll save your frisky princess."
"She isn't... Thank you, Sir Rinaldo. The castle is that way."
"Allons-y!"
"Bloody French knights!"
Rinaldo's rescue count: +1 damsel
Polinesso (relates Dalinda) took advantage of Dalinda's access to the princess to further a nefarious plot. He would insist on coming to see her in Geneura's chambers, to the point of having her dress up as the princess and dropping a rope ladder from the princess's balcony. It turns out he wasn't in love with Dalinda, but with Geneura. Geneura, however, was in love with the brave young knight Ariodantes. Polinesso, then, used Dalinda shamelessly to create the illusion that he was having an affair with the princess.
Amid rumours and hearsay of the goings on at the palace, Ariodantes slowly became convinced that his lady was unfaithful. Finally, Polinesso convinced the young knight to take up a station opposite the balcony. Ariodantes saw Polinesso climbing the ladder into the princess's chambers, and immediately resolved to kill himself. Luckily he'd brought his little brother, Lurcanio, who knocked away his dagger and convinced him to seek revenge instead. The two denounced Geneura to the king, and she was sentenced to death by fire. This distressed Ariodantes and he fled the kingdom intending to kill himself. It also rather worried Dalinda, and she fled to Polinesso's castle. Polinesso, in a spirit of tying up loose ends, set two thugs on her, and that was where Rinaldo came in.
There remains hope for the princess: there is a loophole in the death sentence. By Scottish law, Geneura's innocence can be proved by trial by combat against a champion. Lurcanio, maddened by the loss of his brother, has been appointed said champion. Normally, the king's son Zerbino would slice to ribbons anyone who spoke against his sister, but he's off adventuring somewhere. Polinesso may have been expected to move a hand, but Lurcanio's actually a pretty fierce warrior, especially when he's really pissed off.
Right, says Rinaldo. Let's get this sorted.
They rush of to Saint Andrews - but are a little surprised to find Lurcanio already in combat with a stranger knight.
Yeah, nah, says Rinaldo. He rides up to the king and tells him to stop the fight. When the king asks why, Rinaldo recounts Dalinda's story and says that Lurcanio is fighting under false pretences.
Can you prove it? says the king.
My lance can prove it, says Rinaldo, and he spears Polinesso through the chest.
The stranger knight immediately throws himself at the feet of the princess. He removes his helmet - it's Ariodantes! He tried to kill himself by throwing himself into the sea, but it turned out that drowning was really horrible so he swam back to shore. He discussed his problems with a cliff-dwelling hermit, and in the end decided that Geneura was too pretty to die and, even if she really did love that other guy she'd be really, really impressed if he rode to her rescue and Polinesso didn't.
He hadn't quite realised that he'd have to kill his brother to save his girlfriend, but in the end he made his choice.
Everyone is fairly content with the outcome. The king, who'd been a little worried that Ariodantes was a stranger from a distant land with not a lot of wealth, awards him Polinesso's duchy as a dowry. And Dalinda swears off men and goes to Denmark to become a nun.
Rinaldo's rescue count: +1 princess
Rogero and the Island of Fairies
We find Rogero where we left him: high above Europe on a hippogriff. Soon, he's high above Africa, then Asia. Eventually, however, the beast sets him down on a distant island. Not wanting to lose it, he ties it to a tree.
Which introduces itself.
The tree is Astolpho, Bradamante's terribly pretty British cousin. Also technically Orlando's and Rinaldo's cousin.
Astolpho the tree explains that, way back in the previous book, he was seduced onto a whale by the fairy Alcina, who'd fallen in love with him. She brought him home to her magic island, introduced him to its politics, and entertained him as only a fairy dedicated to vice and evil can.
It was pretty great for a while, he says.
Eventually, however, she tired of him, and turned him into a tree. Indeed, most of the landscape is made up of people Alcina seduced then turned into things. Astolpho then explains that the best thing that Rogero could do is to make for the kingdom of Logistilla, the good fairy and technically the true ruler of the island until the biggest chunk was usurped by Alcina and the other evil sister, Morgana.
Rogero does what he can to follow the tree's instructions, but the hippogriff won't let him ride it anywhere and there's an army of monsters, beasts, giants and weirdos between himself and the gates to Logistilla's kingdom. He does have is stepfather's magic shield, which can dazzle and stupefy everyone who sees it, but considers this an unworthy path to victory. He is contemplating a suicidal frontal assault when he is approached by two beautiful women and he considers that being seduced is probably his best option right now.
The two women take him to Alcina's castle, which is full of lush gardens, jewelled portals and cavorting nymphs. Here he meets Alcina herself, who is entirely beautiful. And, also, a sorceress. Overcome by her beauty and her magic, Rogero falls hopelessly in love with her.
Meanwhile, Bradamante repairs to the Tomb of Merlin, where she hopes to get some sort of prophetic hint as to where her boyfriend is. Melissa fills her in.
"Bit of a good news, bad news situation here, Brads. Good news: I know where he is and he's not dead."Melissa summons a demon to take her to the fairy island, and then magically disguises herself as Atlantes. She finds Rogero bedecked with jewels and unguents, lethargically resting in a bower. Melissa tells him off and tells him to get off his arse and go questing. Rogero is a little confused because sitting on his arse in a fairy castle being seduced by sorceresses is exactly the sort of thing his stepfather likes him doing. Melissa's reminds him that there's a good Christian woman waiting for him in Europe - again, not Atlantes typical dialogue - and hands over her magic ring as a gift from Bradamante.
"Bad news?"
"He's been seduced by a fairy."
"Ah."
"But good news! You now have a ring of magic resistance and also invisibility thanks to expert prophetic guidance."
"Yay!"
"Bad news! You don't have the magic to get you to Alcina's island."
"But you do?"
"You're ruining my bit here. Good news! I do!"
Rogero is again surprised, this time because Alcina's palace looks a lot different without all the illusions sprucing it up. This is true of Alcina herself, who turns out to be more than a little old and withered. Rogero finds his sword and Astolpho's horse Rabican, takes Melissa, and flees the castle.
"Dad - have you always been a lady?"Rogero immediately finds himself harried by the monstrous rabble. He starts off kicking at them, then draws his sword, and finally resorts to Atlantes' shield, which stuns the army long enough for him to escape. Alcina raises her personal guard, and sets out in pursuit. Melissa starts going around the landscape turning all the rocks and trees and such back into knights. This time, Rogero is able to make it safely to Logistilla's kingdom. Most of the newly awakened knights head for their various homes, but Rogero stays to make the acquaintance of the fairy queen.
"Uh. I'm not actually your father. That was a magical ruse."
"Only I put the ring on and you turned into a lady."
"Just ride, kid."
"Ok, dad."
Melissa, in the meantime, sneaks back into Alcina's castle to recover Astolpho's armour and, more importantly, his magic undefeatable lance. Then she takes the British knight on the hippogriff - which she knows how to fly - to rendezvous with Rogero in Logistilla's realm.
Melissa's rescue count: we'll say a dozen, including Rogero and Astolpho (+12)
Rogero's rescue count: 0 (+0)
Rescue tally:
Melissa: 12
Bradamante: 5
Rinaldo: 2
Rogero: 0
Astolpho: 0
Next: Adventure by sea!
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