A gentle breeze the noon was tempering
To summer-weary cattle, which their hinds,
Half-clad, to graze in water-meadows bring.
His armour, helm and shield Orlando finds
Less irksome as, to rest beside the spring,
Amid this rustic scene he gently winds,
Where torment lurks, more dread than I can say,
That inauspicious and ill-omened day.

As he gazed round, some letters caught his eye,
Carved on the trees which cast a grateful shade;
He stopped and stared; at once he knew that by
The hand of his belovèd they were made.
This was a place, among the many I
Described, where with Medoro oft had strayed,
Leaving the shepherd's house not far away,
The lady who was Queen of all Cathay.

A hundred times the lovers' names are seen,
'Angelica', 'Medoro', intertwined.
Each letter is a knife which, sharp and keen,
Pierces his bleeding heart; his tortured mind,
Rejecting what it knows these carvings mean,
A thousand explanations tries to find:
Some other maiden may have left her mark,
Writing 'Angelica' upon the bark.

And then he says: 'I know this writing well.
I've seen and read it many times of yore.
In fond imagination - who can tell? -
Perhaps she calls me by this name, Medore.'
By means of notions so improbable,
And from the truth departing more and more,
Although for comfort he has little scope,
The unhappy Count contrives to build false hope.

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