The Beginning of the Story - Page 22 of 25

337   I got there in the deep of night
And entered, unsuspecting quite...
Treason! They closed upon the site –
Forces of thirty thousands' might!

338   The chance to draw my sword denied,
I could not grapple for my side,
My body, all at once, they tied,
In frightful prison to abide.

339   O the surprise I felt, the pain!
The more to learn king had been slain
By Adolph, and that in his train,
Dear Father also had been ta'en.

340   Desire for wealth, for royal fame,
Thirst for my blood – these did inflame
His heart at treachery to aim...
O thou Albania, fen of shame!

341   Your plight worse than a state in bond
To an unlettered king's command,
Because a king with grasping hand
Is Heaven's scourge upon the land!

342   And I, love-cheated. More forlorn!
Can there be bitterer fate to mourn,
Hearing my princess now is sworn
To wed Count Adolph, wicked-born?

343   'Twas such a poison coursed among
My very veins, with sorrow wrung,
That made me wish Life swiftly flung
Back to the void whence it had sprung!

344   Eighteen days in captivity,
I yearned for death impatiently;
'Twas night at last they came for me,
To bind me fast against this tree.

345   Since I was to my bonds confined,
Two days have passed; and in my mind,
This old world I have left behind,
But I awake – your lap to find.

346   This is my life, with ills bestrown,
Its future still a thing unknown...
Here closed the story lengthy grown,
The Muslim telling then his own:

347   Since now I know your life of late,
Listen to me my own narrate,
I'm Aladdin of Persian state,
Son of Al'Adab, Sultan great.

348   These bitter tears that ceaseless flow
Suffice my whole of life to show.
O Father, why...? Flerida, O
My joy!... Fried, grant me peace to know.

349   Come, be dissolved in tears we spill,
Since we are bound by common ill,
And in those woods await the will
That snaps our sory lives to nil!

350   With this, Florante said no more,
Outweeping Aladdin. And for
Five months a forest life they bore,
But one day thought to go, explore.

351   They wandered o'er the wooded place
Though next to none the paths to trace,
And Aladdin – while on their ways –
Recalled his own sad former days.

352   Said he: In all my wars, I own
Such hardships I had never known
As when I sought here heart of stone –
Flerida's – love whom I bemoan. ^[26]