All creatures on the earth to rest their bones,
Or to refresh their souls, now took their ease,
Some on soft beds and others on hard stones,
Some on the grass, still others in the trees;
But you, Orlando, amid tears and groans,
Your eyelids scarce have closed to gain release.
Those irksome, goading thoughts give no respite,
Not in your sleep, so fitful and so light.

In broken slumber thus Orlando dreams:
Upon a bank where flowers his soul refresh,
He gazes upon ivory which seems
By Nature tinted to resemble flesh,
And on two radiant stars, of which the beams
Serve to revive the soul which they enmesh:
I mean her eyes and face (as you have guessed),
By which his heart is riven from his breast.

He felt the greatest happiness and joy
That ever a requited lover knew;
When there arose a tempest to destroy
The plants, the trees, the flowers and all that grew.
No winds, the globe around, such force employ
When in their jousts and tourneys they fall to.
He seemed to seek now here, now there, for shelter,
Lost in a desert, running helter-skelter.

The unhappy man meanwhile (he knows not how)
Has lost his lady in the darkling air.
He calls her name, now in the forests, now
In open country, echoes everywhere
Awakening. 'What powers', he cries, 'allow
That from a sweetness such as this, so rare,
Poison so bitter comes?' Entreating aid,
Her voice is heard in valley, hill and glade.

To left and right, up hill, down dale, in vain
Pursuing her, breathless he seemed to race
Wherever he could hear her voice. The pain
Of fearing that her lovely eyes and face
He'd never in his life behold again
Tortured his anguished heart. From a new place,
A new voice called: 'Confirmed are all your fears!'
Then he awoke, his pillow drenched with tears.

Forgetting that in dreams the things we see,
Inspired by fear or longing, are inclined
To be untrue, firmly convinced was he
His lady was in danger, or repined
In degradation and humility,
And from the restless couch where he reclined
He sprang and, taking shield and coat of mail,
He mounted Brigliadoro and made trail.

He took no squire, nor, lest dishonour might
Attach to his good name (one of the chief
Concerns of chivalry), his coat of white
And crimson quarterings, in the belief
That dubious paths would beckon (as was right);
But chose instead, in keeping with his grief,
A coat of inky black, which he put on,
A trophy he had from an emir won;

And silently, at midnight, stole away.
No courtesy to Charlemagne he showed,
Nor yet to Brandimarte did he say
Farewell, the friend to whom great love he owed;
But when, her golden locks in disarray,
The Dawn had risen from the rich abode
Of her Tithonus, darkness scattering,
His absence was then noticed by the king.

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