given her.
This last touch was the finishing stroke to the excited paladin.
Frantic, exasperated, he exclaimed against the ungrateful and cruel
princess who had disdained him, the most renowned, the most indomitable
of all the paladins of France,--him, who had rescued her from the most
alarming perils,--him, who had fought the most terrible battles for her
sake,--she to prefer to him a young Saracen! The pride of the noble
Count was deeply wounded. Indignant, frantic, a victim to ungovernable
rage, he rushed into the forest, uttering the most frightful shrieks.
"No, no!" cried he, "I am not the man they take me for! Orlando is
dead! I am only the wandering ghost of that unhappy Count, who is now
suffering the torments of hell!"
Orlando wandered all night, as chance directed, through the wood, and
at sunrise his destiny led him to the fountain where Medoro had
engraved the fatal inscription. The frantic paladin saw it a second
time with fury, drew his sword, and hacked it from the rock.
Unlucky grotto! you shall no more attract by your shade and coolness,
you shall no more shelter with your arch either shepherd or flock. And
you, fresh and pure fountain, you may not escape the rage of the
furious Orlando! He cast into the fountain branches, trunks of trees
which he tore up, pieces of rocks which he broke off, plants uprooted,
with the earth adhering, and turf and brushes, so as to choke the
fountain, and destroy the purity of its waters. At length, exhausted by
his violent exertions, bathed in sweat, breathless, Orlando sunk
panting upon the earth, and lay there insensible three days and three
nights.
The fourth day he started up and seized his arms. His helmet, his
buckler, he cast far from him; his hauberk and his clothes he rent
asunder; the fragments were scattered through the wood. In fine, he
became a furious madman. His insanity was such that he cared not to
retain even his sword. But he had no need of Durindana, nor of other
arms, to do wonderful things. His prodigious strength sufficed. At the
first wrench of his mighty arm he tore up a pine-tree by the roots.
Oaks, beeches, maples, whatever he met in his path, yielded in like
manner. The ancient forest soon became as bare as the borders of a
morass, where the fowler has cleared away the bushes to spread his
nets. The shepherds, hearing the horrible crashing in the forest,
abandoned their flocks to run and see the cause of this unwonted
uproar. By th
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