Orlando stopped in the middle of the road with the book in his hand and stood still, pensive. He looked at the red cliff in the distance, and the wish to ascend it and meet the strange monster crossed his mind. Remembering the giant's claim that the beast gave a response to any question, Orlando wanted to know where he could find the beautiful Angelica in the borderless continent that stretched out before him. So he reached the cliff, went up to the top, found the passage in the rock, and descended into the gloomy tomb.
A strange and loathsome monster appeared before him, the poem says. This great beast was standing erect before Orlando in the shadows of its lair, extending its wings and grinding into dust the rocky ground beneath its tail.
Strangely, the beast had the head of a golden-haired, laughing young woman. But then it also had the chest of a lion and the mouth and teeth of a wolf, arms like a bear and the powerful claws of a vulture, painted wings like a peacock and the body and tail of a serpent.
And so the strange beast was like the famous Sphinx of Thebes, in its appearance and also because it posed riddles to passersby. And it was cruel like the one from Thebes too, because it killed the travelers who did not know the answer.
The paladin confronted the monster, fearless, asking it his question:
"From the cold to the heat, from evening 'til dawn,
Tell me where now Angelica is found."
The beast in the shadow responded with a human voice:
"She for whom you despair has flown
to Albracca of Catai whence she had come."
There was the information that Orlando had come for. Now however the monster with a woman's head asked him its own riddle, speaking sweetly: "What animal finds itself walking first on four, then on two, and finally on three legs?"
The brave Orlando, who didn't know the answer, unsheathed his sword Durindana, ready to battle the sphinx. The horrible beast tried to grab him with its claws, but he jumped this way and that in the cave; if he hadn't been invincible, however, he would not have survived, says the poem.
Orlando's skin was tough as bone, and a hundred times the beast clawed at him and grabbed him. When finally the knight got tired of tumbling in those claws, a spiteful anger grew in him, the poem says.
