Formidable Armida (Part One)

Armida petitions Godfrey to redress the injustice done to her – but in fact she plots the destruction of his army. Illustration of Gierusalemme Liberata (Venice 1745) by Giambatista Piazzetta. Sp Coll Hunterian Cd.2.1., Special Collections, University of Glasgow Library.

Do not be fooled by the meek expression and the posture of submission. This is a very dangerous woman!

Each darkest trick, each subtlest blandishment

a woman or a witch can ply she knows. (4.23)

Armida is powerful, combining beauty (the greatest in ‘all the Orient’), intelligence, and the art of witchcraft. Her uncle, Hydraoth, a sorcerer himself and lord of Damascus, recognizes her extraordinary talents when he says:

My darling girl, who know the art / to make blond hair and sweet looks hide a wit / sharp as a greybeard’s and a mannish heart. / In sorcery you’re my better. (4.24)

But the crusading soldiers cannot see the hidden intelligence. They only have eyes for her beauty and are struck by her sexual allure, which is expressed in no uncertain terms, verging on soft pornography (for the sixteenth century, at least):

Her beauteous breast displays its naked snows

that feed love’s flame that they themselves have brought.

Partly her budding unsucked bosom shows,

partly lies hid, in envious garments caught –

envious, yes, – but though all paths they close

to sight, they cannot quite bar amorous thought,

that, not content with outward beauties, traces

an inward path to hidden, secret places. (4.31)

The ‘lustful’ crowd surrounds Armida as she visits Godfrey to play the damsel in distress. She spins a woeful tale of hardship and injustice done to her by her ‘guardian,’ who supposedly stole her fortune and tried to force her to marry his son. But it is all part of an evil plan hatched between Armida and her uncle, Hydraoth, aiming to destroy the Christian army. And she, ultimate actress, ‘gives no sign how her heart laughs to abide / her certain triumph and its spoils’ (4.33), but plays her game to the end, and partly succeeds in her aim. Eustace, Godfrey’s younger brother, falls madly in love with her, and so do dozens of other Christians, who are ready to abandon the camp and go to her aid.

But Godfrey is suspicious and cannot wholly believe her story. He promises to help her get her fortune and throne back after the crusaders have taken Jerusalem. Armida bursts into tears and threatens to kill herself. The gallant Eustace and other men are angry with Godfrey and promise to help her.

Beauty in tears – when will it not succeed?

Or speech on an amorous tongue, meltingly sweet? (4.83)

The seeds of discord are sown in the Christian camp. So far, Armida’s plan is going well.

And now, since she sees smiling Fortune greet

this great commencement of her wiles, she starts,

before her plot can weaken, to complete

her criminal design upon their hearts,

to gain by her fair looks and gestures sweet

more than Medea or Circe by their arts. (4.86)

Like her powerful predecessors of Classical mythology, Medea and Circe, Armida has criminal designs, and in spite of Godfrey’s resistance, she means to carry out her plan to the end. But the names of those two witches also ring a bell of warning: both Medea and Circe fell in love with men they initially wanted to destroy, and both payed for it, more or less…

What will be Armida’s next move?

(to be continued)

 

The Adventures of Rinaldo, Part One.

One thing we must bear in mind when we talk about heroes of epic romance is that they are usually very young, by today’s standards. This applies mostly to women, as well as some men, particularly those who find themselves embroiled in love situations. In Gerusalemme Liberata, the greatest hero of them all is such a young man. He was not invented by Torquato Tasso; he first seems to appear in The Song of Roland, another ‘ancestor’ of Gerusalemme along with classical epic. But it was Tasso’s  Rinaldo and his adventures that was destined to capture the imagination of audiences and inspire artists, most of all composers of opera, in the centuries to follow.

The arms of Rinaldo, torn and bloodied, are brought to Godfrey of Bouillon. Illustration by Giambatista Piazzetta. (Venice 1745). Sp Coll Hunterian Cd.2.1., Special Collections, University of Glasgow Library.

Rinaldo was only fifteen years old when he left his home in Italy to join the Frankish camp in the First Crusade. I’ve already mentioned the genealogy attached to Rinaldo, and what were Tasso’s reasons for it.  Now, three years into the war, Rinaldo is only eighteen, an age in which most people today are considered little more than children. But he is already an accomplished warrior, and ready for love: his face is that of Cupid (Roman version of Eros, son of Venus, goddess of love). It’s easy to guess where Tasso will be going with this!

Rinaldo’s youth and pride in his martial prowess (Tasso likens him to Mars, the god of war, too) makes him too touchy and a tad too volatile. Basically he is the immature adolescent to be measured against Godfrey, the fully mature man. Incensed by a fellow soldier who doubts his honour, Rinaldo kills him, and when he is informed that Godfrey means to bring him to justice for this, he is outraged:

‘Let slaves defend their motives in a base

prison,’ he said, ‘or slavish creatures; I’ll

die – free-born, living freely – ere I’ll place

my hand or foot in gyves or shackles vile.

This hand well knows the sword’s use, and the use

of the victor’s palm. Fetters it shall refuse.

But if for my deserving Godfrey sends

such thanks, and wishes to imprison me

like a common criminal, if he intends

to drag me chained to a vulgar gaol, then see:

here stand I. Let him come or send his friends.

Our justicer the chance of war shall be.

A bloody tragedy he’ll thus ordain

the armies of the foe to entertain. (5.43-44)

Rinaldo’s aristocratic scorn for justice makes him less appealing to a modern audience; but he actually expresses the values of an older world order, in which war and combat were thought to be the only true means to judge highly-born men. Like Achilles in The Iliad, his anger has got the better of him, and his injured pride is more important than civil war and the slaughter of his comrades, which will make the Christian army the laughing stock of the foes. Like an extremely fractious teenager, Rinaldo doesn’t care.

Tancred, his champion and advisor, being older and wiser, advises Rinaldo to leave the camp, in order to avoid the bloody consequences of a refusal to obey Godfrey and to keep his honour intact at the same time. They’ll soon realise how important you are in this enterprise, he says, and will come begging. Rinaldo ‘consents at once to leave the camp behind,’ and refusing anybody’s company or assistance, he dons his beautiful armour, described in loving detail by Tasso, and he sets out on his own.

He leaves, and a great mind’s whip and spur, desire

for deathless, blessed fame within him grew.

His soul for generous enterprise on fire,

he is resolved unheard-of deeds to do. (5.52)

But will he succeed? Soon the Prince of Denmark will appear at the Christian camp, coming from afar, and bringing catastrophic news: he shows Godfrey a torn and bloodied armour, found at the site of a terrible battle, which everyone recognises with dismay: this is Rinaldo’s armour, and they last saw it on him when he left the camp …

(to be continued)