Orlando Furioso, Canto X

Knights in this Canto: 100s (Ruggiero, Astolfo, Bireno, Rinaldo, a few 100 English knights with names like Harold, Herman, or Godfrey, but including Zirbeno and Lurcanio from Cantos 5 and 6)

Damsels in this Canto: 12? (Alcina, 3 unnamed sorceresses, Olimpia, Logistilla, four sorceresses loyal to Logistilla, Melissa, Angelica)

Monsters in this Canto: The Hippogriff that is not at all a private jet plane, the Orc that is not at all meant in the Tolkien sense, but in the Orca sense.

… and a Boat Guy!

Welcome to Canto X. The hottest nightclub this side of Dante’s Inferno. Jousting happens every hour!

Last canto Ariosto left Bireno and Olimpia ready to be wed. This canto we learn Bireno is awful and his whole plan was to seduce Olimpia and abandon her. Which he does, but not before Ariosto warns his readers (listeners?) to be on guard against such men.

“Dear ladies, be less credulous at first;

Be not so readily disposed to please,

For love less likely is to play her false

Who learns at the expense of someone else.”

Thinking they’re heading for her new home, Olimpia boards a ship with Bireno, but when the ship gets blown off course and sets down on an empty island Bireno leaves Olimpia and sneaks away with the ship in the night. Olimpia wakes alone and promptly freaks out as would be normal for anyone in her situation. Ariosto leaves her tearing her hair out on the beach, before returning to Ruggiero. By the way, I should also mention that Ariosto mentions that Olimpia is fourteen years old here. Yikes.

Last we saw Ruggiero he was fleeing the sorceress Alcina’s realm and making for her sister Logistilla’s. He was stuck in some horrid wasteland, plodding along. When we return to him that is where he still is: in the wasteland plodding along. But not all is terrible in the wastelands. Look ahead Ruggiero, there are three ladies there drinking wine. Oh no. Those ladies are in league with Alcina and mean to entrap you.

Run, Ruggiero, run! There ahead is a Boat Guy, get on his boat and he will take you to Logistilla’s realm.

But Alcina doesn’t give up so easily. Alerted to Ruggiero’s location she brings her fleet to bear upon the boat guy’s boat and a chase begins. Boat Guy reaches Logistilla’s realm and then commences a naval battle. Alcina’s fleet is defeated and she flees, wailing and lamenting the loss of Ruggiero. He is glad to meet Logistilla and her four loyal sorceresses. There’s a brief reunion with Astolfo and Melissa, some mention of the wonders in Logistilla’s realm and how sorceresses can never dies, then Logistilla starts training Ruggiero in the ways of controlling the hippogriff. Once that’s done, Ruggiero and Astolfo decide to head back home by different paths. Ariosto says he’ll come back to Astolfo’s journey in some later canto, but for now he plans to stay with Ruggiero.

Ruggiero’s got it in his head to fly back to Europe by following the sun and thereby flying around the world. We get a brief travelogue as he goes, but it’s all names of kingdoms, rivers and mountain ranges. He eventually reaches England, by way of the Baltic because he doesn’t want to return to the war too soon and wouldn’t it be nice to see Germany. He lands outside a castle where an army is forming. There he sees Rinaldo and the whole host of English guys who get names and have their livery described. I skimmed those lines. Ruggiero then takes off again, this time looping around England and Ireland. On a dismal island out at sea he espies Angelica chained naked to a cliff with the dreaded Orc on its way to devour her.

Her lily-white nudity is described.

Ruggiero decides to save her from the Orc, and there’s a battle between knight and beast with the beast being too strong. Ruggiero decides to use his magic shield and daze the orc. He does so, freeing Angelica while the beast thrashes and taking her away in his private jet hippogriff. They set down in a deserted corner of France, and Ruggiero begins pulling off his armor. Of course he now wants to do the dirty with Angelica. But Ariosto stops there.

What will happen next I can’t even guess.