A Saracen solution backfires badly, forcing the invading forces to sail back to North Africa. What they’re not expecting is an enemy fleet. And Orlando recovers his wits at last.
Ariosto
Marfisa, Bradamante and Ruggiero fight together until the soul of Atlante tells them the story of their birth, and how a cruel misogynist is deposed.
A ride on a hippogriff to Earthly Paradise, then on to the moon to retrieve Orlando’s wits. Meanwhile Bradamante is busy with her golden lance.
Bradamante is told that her lover is to marry another, and sets off to find him, staying at a strange castle. Astolfo flies the hippogriff to Ethiopia.
Orlando swims the Strait of Gibraltar, Ruggiero meets Mandricardo in combat, and Rinaldo leads a night attack outside Paris.
Finest stories of the infidelity of wives, four in a bed, Isabella’s ingenious if fatal means of maintaining her chastity, and the madness of Orlando.
The leading Saracen knights are at one another’s throats, over stolen swords, stolen horses, even in which order they should fight one another to settle their disputes.
Zerbino finds a perfect punishment for Odorico’s treachery, but dies of his wounds. A curious episode in which a woman falls in love with Bradamante, almost leading to the death of the latter’s brother.
Leading up to the crux of the poem, an old woman’s treachery, the reunion of two couples who thought the other was dead, and heartbreak for Orlando.
More favourite articles from 2019, from ‘Dante’s Divine Comedy’ as painted by William Blake, through Vincent van Gogh, to Renoir’s landscapes.
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