Orlando that same night lies wide awake,
His thoughts, distracted, rambling here, now there.
He tries to concentrate but cannot make
His troubled conscience settle anywhere,
As on the crystal surface of a lake
The trembling shafts of sunlight mirrored are,
Leaping to roof-top, and, at random glancing,
Sparkle and gleam, in all directions dancing.

And to his anguished mind his love returns.
Though never absent, now while he's at rest
She kindles him anew and brighter burns
The flame which seemed by day to have quiesced.
Over and over in his thoughts he churns
How he had travelled with her to the West
As far as from Cathay, how at Bordeaux
He lost her and now seeks her high and low.

His conduct he repented grievously
And often he reproached himself in vain.
'My love,' he said, 'how reprehensively
I have behaved towards you! To think (what pain!)
I might have had you night and day with me
(If my devotion you did not disdain),
But into Namo's hands instead I gave you,
Not knowing from such outrage how to save you.

'Had I not reason to oppose this course?
And Charles perhaps would not have said me nay.
And who against me would have dared use force,
Or who by violence take you away?
And ought not I to arms have had recourse,
My breast presenting to the bitter fray?
In the event, not Charles with all his might
Could have despoiled me of you in fair fight.

'Would he had placed her in another's care,
In Paris, or some citadel well guarded!
To Namo he entrusted her, aware
That she'd escape and would not be awarded
To me as guerdon. No one anywhere
Deserved her more, yet I'm thus ill-rewarded.
I'd have protected her; ah, how I rue
That what I could have done I did not do!

'O my sweet life, where are you now, alone,
Far from my help, so lovely and so young,
Like a lost lamb which, when the day is flown,
Meanders in a wood, in hopes ere long
The shepherd will locate her bleating tone;
But from afar the wolf has heard among
The plains her voice uplifted in the night,
And all in vain the shepherd mourns her plight.

'My hope, where are you now, where can you be?
Alone you wander yet on ways untracked?
Or did the wolves destroy you cruelly
When your Orlando's faithful arm you lacked?
And that sweet flower, the hight of bliss, ah me!
Which scrupulously I preserved intact,
Lest I offend a maidenhood so chaste,
By force has now been taken and laid waste?

'Alas! what do I long for but to die,
If men have robbed me of that sweetest bliss?
Send down on me, I pray, O God on high,
All other sufferings, but spare me this!
If it be true, I'll end my life with my
Own hands and send my soul to the Abyss.'
Such were the words Orlando uttered, sighing
And weeping, restless on his pallet lying.