He wandered through the forest all that night.
At length his cruel destiny decreed,
At the first glimmerings of morning light,
He should return to where Medoro's screed
Was sculpted on the rock; and at the sight
Of his great wrongs, blazoned for all to read,
No dram of all his blood was not on fire
With hatred, fury, rage and wrath and ire.

Drawing his sword, he slashed the offending rock,
And heavenwards the splintered fragments flew.
The cave, the trees, each bole or stem or stock
He hacked, whereon those names still met his view.
From that day forth no shepherd with his flock
Their grateful shade or pleasant coolness knew.
The very spring, so crystalline and pure,
From onslaught such as this was scarce secure.

With tree-trunks, branches, stones, and clods of earth
He sullies the fair waters of the stream,
Choking and clouding them for all he's worth.
From top to bottom, murky now and dim,
For ever fouled the fount which gave them birth,
Their purity has vanished, thanks to him.
Wearied at length, upon the ground he lies,
His force, but not his fury, spent, and sighs.

Soaked with his sweat, he falls upon the grass
And gazes at the sky without a word.
He neither sleeps nor eats; though three days pass,
Three times the dark descends, he has not stirred.
His grief so swells, his sorrows so amass
That madness clouds him, in which long he erred.
On the fourth day, by fury roused once more,
The mail and armour from his back he tore.

His shield and helmet lie, one here, one there,
His hauberk somewhere else; all through the wood
His scattered arms mute testimony bear
To his unhinged and catastrophic mood.
Then next his clothing he begins to tear,
Laying his matted paunch and torso nude,
And that horrendous madness then began,
Not fully to be grasped by any man.

His rage and fury mount to such a pitch
They obfuscate and darken all his senses.
Even his sword he leaves behind, from which
It may be judged the mist of madness dense is.
But neither sword nor scramasaxe so rich
A crop could scythe; unarmed his strength immense is.
Barehanded, he uproots at the first blow
A tall and noble pine and lays it low.

And other pines, after the first, he pulls,
As if so many fennel-stalks they were.
Tall oak and seasoned elm likewise he culls,
And beech and mountain ash and larch and fir.
As a bird-catcher who, before he gulls
His prey with cunning nets, the ground will clear
Of stubble, nettles, reeds, so now the Count
Rips forests up as if of no account.

The shepherds, who have heard the fearful sound,
Anticipating some calamity,
Their sheep abandon, scattered all around,
And at top speed come running out to see.
But if this point today I go beyond,
Too tedious perhaps my tale will be,
And I would rather now cut short my song
Than weary you by making it too long.