nd red mantle, whose beard descended on his
bosom, and whose aspect announced him as one of the elect of Paradise.
It was St. John the Evangelist, who lived in that mansion with Enoch and
Elijah, the only three mortals who never tasted death; for the place, as
the saint informed him, was the Terrestrial Paradise; and the inhabitants
were to live there till the angelical trumpet announced the coming of
Christ "on the white cloud." The Paladin, he said, had been allowed to
visit it, by the favour of God, for the purpose of fetching away to earth
the lost wits of Orlando, which the champion of the Church had been
deprived of for loving a Pagan, and which had been attracted out of his
brains to the neighbouring sphere, the Moon.

Accordingly, after the new friends had spent two days in discourse, and
meals had been served up, consisting of fruit so exquisite that the
Paladin could not help thinking our first parents had some excuse for
eating it,[7] the Evangelist, when the Moon arose, took him into the car
which had borne Elijah to heaven; and four horses, redder than fire,
conveyed them to the lunar world.

The mortal visitant was amazed to see in the Moon a world resembling his
own, full of wood and water, and containing even cities and castles,
though of a different sort from ours. It was strange to find a sphere so
large which had seemed so petty afar off; and no less strange was it to
look down on the world he had left, and be compelled to knit his brows
and look sharply before he could well discern it, for it happened at the
time to want light.[8]

But his guide did not leave him much time to look about him. He conducted
him with due speed into a valley that contained, in one miraculous
collection, whatsoever had been lost or wasted on earth. I do not speak
only (says the poet) of riches and dominions, and such like gratuities of
Fortune, but of things also which Fortune can neither grant nor resume.
Much fame is there which Time has withdrawn--infinite prayers and vows
which are made to God Almighty by us poor sinners. There lie the tears
and the sighs of lovers, the hours lost in pastimes, the leisures of the
dull, and the intentions of the lazy. As to desires, they are so numerous
that they shadow the whole place. Astolfo went round among the different
heaps, asking what they were. His eyes were first struck with a huge
one of bladders which seemed to contain mighty sounds and the voices of
multitudes. These he