appears;
Astolpho quickly lifts the bugle's round;
And (for unguarded are their harassed ears)
The harpies are not proof against the sound;
In terror form the royal dome they speed,
Nor meat nor aught beside the monsters heed.

CXXVI
After them spurs in haste the valiant peer:
And on the winged courser forth is flown,
Leaving beneath him, in his swift career,
The royal castle and the crowded town;
The bugle ever pealing, far and near.
The harpies fly toward the torrid zone;
Nor light until they reach that loftiest mountain
Where springs, if anywhere, Nile's secret fountain.

CXXVII
Almost at that aerial mountain's feet,
Deep under earth, extends a gloomy cell.
The surest pass for him, as they repeat,
That would at any time descend to hell.
Hither the predatory troop retreat,
As a safe refuge from the deafening yell.
As far, and farther than Cocytus' shore
Descending, till that horn is heard no more.

CXXVIII
At that dark hellish inlet, which a way
Opens to him who would abandon light,
The terrifying bugle ceased to bray;
-- The courser furled his wings and stopt his flight.
But, ere Astolpho further I convey,
-- Not to depart from my accustomed rite --
Since on all sides the paper overflows,
I shall conclude my canto and repose.

CANTO 34

ARGUMENT
In the infernal pit Astolpho hears
Of Lydia's woe, by smoke well-nigh opprest.
He mounts anew, and him his courser bears
To the terrestrial paradise addrest.
By John advised in all, to heaven he steers;
Of some of his lost sense here repossest,
Orlando's wasted wit as well he takes,
Sees the Fates spin their threads, and earthward makes.

I
O fierce and hungry harpies, that on blind
And erring Italy so full have fed!
Whom, for the scourge of ancient sins designed,
Haply just Heaven to every board has sped.
Innocent children, pious mothers, pined
With hunger, die, and see their daily bread,
-- The orphan's and the widow's scanty food --
Feed for a single feast that filthy brood.

II
Too foul a fault was his, who did unclose
That cave long shut, and made the passage free,
From whence that greediness, that filth arose,
Our Italy's infection doomed to be.
Then was good life extinguished, and repose
So banished, that with strife and poverty,
With fear and trouble, is she still perplext,
And shall for many a future year be vext: