who having surprised several of them, compelled his prisoners to take an oath, to defend him against his enemies whomsoever, all of whom he had provoked by his manifold treasons. The occurrences during this famous siege (it has been already observed) are the most striking passage in the Orlando Innamorato, and present the most singular pictures of passion, picturesque description, and wild buffoonery, which are to be found in Italian romance.
Doing by them what wolf on woolly herd
Does where Galesus’ limpid waters well,
Or lion by the bearded goat and rank,
That feeds on Cinyphus’s barbarous bank.
Stanza lviii. lines 5, 6, 7, 8.
Galesus a river of Puglia not far from Tarentum, and Cinyphus a river of Africa.
that wore
A richly ornamented vest, whose ground
With trunks of cypresses was broidered round.
Stanza lxxviii. lines 6, 7, 8.
Cypresses seem to furnish an odd ornament for embroidery; but they still form a favourite border for towels at Constantinople. A future mention of them in this work shows them to have been emblematic.
But all was marred by Malagigi’s lore, &c.
Stanza xcii. line 3.
The Innamorato opens with the invasion of France by Gradasso, at the head of a hundred thousand men, for the purpose
