Performance:

Victoria Giler: While Angelica’s four giant bodyguards sleep, the Cathayan princess thwarts the wizard Malagigi’s attempt to take advantage of her (from Orlando Innamorato 1.1 51-53)

(“Acting Medieval Literature,” Prof. Evelyn Birge Vitz, New York University, spring 2015;
performed at the Italian Academy, Columbia University, October 1, 2015)

1.1.51 When she saw he was tightly tied, Angelica frisked Malagise and found his consecrated book, replete with circles, full of demons. Immediately she opened it and as she did […] its spirits filled air, sea, and land. Each clamored, “What is your command?”

1.1.52 She answered, “Take this captive to Cathay, to that great city bound by India and Tartary where Galafron, my father, rules. Present him there on my behalf— his capture is because of me — and say that now that he’s been seized, there’s no one else to bother me!”

1.1.53 The instant that her words were done away bold Malagi was flown, presented to King Galafrone, and locked inside a deep-sea stone.

Orlando in Love, trans. Charles S. Ross (West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2004).

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Audio recordings: