Whilst Orlando is thus engaged, he sees a damsel issue from a wood upon a palfrey, who bears a book and horn. Addressing herself to the count, she tells him, that, if he is what his countenance bespeaks him, the fairest adventure awaits him, which ever was achieved by knight; and which, indeed, had hitherto foiled the prowess of all who had attempted it, who remained prisoners in the enchanted garden, which she invites him (if he has the courage sufficient for such an adventure) to attack. Orlando accepts the proposal with rapture; the damsel presents him with the book and horn; both necessary for the achievement of the enterprize; and, having instructed him in the use of them, retires to a distance.
Orlando accordingly, having first disposed of the other damsel whom he carried behind him, sounds the bugle, and a rock opens, from which issue two ferocious bulls, with horns of iron, and strangely coloured hair turned contrary to the natural grain:
And sometimes green; now black, now white it seemed, Now yellow, and now red; and ever gleamed.
Orlando learned from the book, by whose rules he was to proceed, that he was to bind these beasts; and this done, was to enter the opening, from which they sallied, and plow with them the space within. Such was to be his first labour.
The bulls long maintained a severe fight with the champion, and often tossed, though they could not gore him: at length he so fatigued them by repeated blows from Durindana, (for their skin was as impenetrable as his own,) that he was enabled to master them, seized them by their horns, and bound them separately, with Bayardo's bridle, to an adjoining column, which was the monument of the king Bavardo. He then made a plow of Durindana, the point of which served as a share and the hilt as a handle, yoked the bulls to the instrument, and having torn off the limb of a tree for a whip, ploughed, the field as he was directed. The work accomplished, he loosed his beasts, who ran roaring through the wood, and disappeared behind a mountain.
Orlando now devoutly thanks God for his first success, and the damsel of the book and horn, having dismounted from the palfrey in the meadow, wreaths her brows with the flowers which it produced. Orlando, however, does not allow himself a longer truce, but sounds a second challenge on his enchanted bugle.