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Stories from the Italian Poets: with Lives of the Writers, Volume 2 by Leigh Hunt
page 45 of 371 (12%)
he reach anything like a due sense of the depth and divineness of the
contemplation."

"Learned or not learned," said Agrican, "you might skew yourself better
bred than by endeavouring to make me talk on a subject on which you have
me at a disadvantage. I have frankly told you what sort of person I am;
and I dare say, that you for your part are very learned and wise. You
will therefore permit me, if you say anything more of such things, to
make you no answer. If you choose to sleep, I wish you good night; but
if you prefer talking, I recommend you to talk of fighting, or of fair
ladies. And, by the way, pray tell me-are you, or are you not, may I ask,
that Orlando who makes such a noise in the world? And what is it, pray,
brings you into these parts? Were you ever in love? I suppose you must
have been; for to be a knight, and never to have been in love, would be
like being a man with no heart in his breast."

The County replied, "Orlando I am, and in love I am.[2] Love has made me
abandon every thing, and brought me into these distant regions; and to
tell you all in one word, my heart is in the hands of the daughter of
King Galafron. You have come against him with fire and sword, to get
possession of his castles and his dominions; and I have come to help
him, for no object in the world but to please his daughter, and win her
beautiful hand. I care for nothing else in existence."

Now when the Tartar king Agrican heard his antagonist speak in this
manner, and knew him to be indeed Orlando, and to be in love with
Angelica, his face changed colour for grief and jealousy, though it could
not be seen for the darkness. His heart began beating with such violence,
that he felt as if he should have died. "Well," said he to Orlando, "we
are to fight when it is daylight, and one or the other is to be left
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