LXIII.
Angelica thus, viewless and alone,
Speeds on her journey, but with troubled front;
Grieved for the helmet, in her haste foregone
On her departure from the grassy fount.
“Choosing to do what I should least have done,”
(She said) “I took his helmet from the count.
“This for his first desert I well bestow;
“A worthy recompense for all I owe!
LXIV.
“With good intentions, as God knows, I wrought;
“Though these an ill and different end produce;
“I took the helmet only with the thought
“To bring that deadly battle to a truce;
“And not that this foul Spaniard what he sought
“Should gain, or I to his intent conduce.”
So she, lamenting, took herself to task
For having robbed Orlando of his casque.
LXV.
By what appeared to her the meetest way,
Moody and ill-content she eastward pressed;
Ofttimes concealed, sometimes in face of day,
As seemed most opportune and pleased her best.
After much country seen, a forest gray
She reached, where, sorely wounded in mid breast,
Between two dead companions on the ground,
The royal maid a bleeding stripling found.
