...The beautiful Angelica awoke to the sound of swords crashing, making sparks fly. And seeing those two warriors who were furiously fighting in the meadow, now littered with bits of their armor, she did not think twice. She mounted onto her white steed and fled into the forest at a fast gallop.

Then count Orlando said: "Knight, I pray you, hold off the battle and let me follow my lady. Because it is great madness to stay here and fight for her, while she flees and neither of us can have her."

Responded Ferraguto, that oddball: "No, no, knight, only one of us will go looking for her in this forest. If I win, I'll follow her; don't you even think of doing the same unless you kill me."

Thus, says Turpino, the two warriors went on fighting for two days and two nights, deranged and stubborn, without understanding anything anymore and without concluding anything. Because you should know that both of them were invincible: count Orlando because of a blessing he'd received from a saint, and the young Ferragú because a magic spell had been put on him in his childhood.

Those two champions had skin tough as bone or a tortoise shell, and so couldn't kill or wound one another. But you should also know that San Giacomo di Galizia had bestowed upon count Orlando another special blessing, according to which no one could resist him in battle for three days in a row. Thus two days were the maximum; and the poet says that, to his knowledge, only two warriors fought him for two days straight: the Christian Don Chiaro, who then died, and the Saracen Ferraguto, still alive.

But, as a poem about the Spanish wars tells, there will come a day when Orlando and Ferragú will meet in a mortal duel, and the Saracen will have to yield. And it is said that on the first night of the last battle the two champions will stretch out on the ground to sleep side by side without diffidence, exchanging pleasantries: that's how they were, those ancient wandering knights, who are lauded even by Ludovico Ariosto for their decency and courtesy.

Anyway, by now two days had already passed in the Ardenne forest, and Orlando and Ferragú were still smashing their swords together. Sparks were flying, the two were now without shields or breastplates and their arms were black from the blows that they had received from each other. Until at a certain point a young woman on horseback threw herself in the middle between the two combatants.

After a duel so tiring, the poem says, here is a good place to rest.