III

If Bradamante's laments for Ruggiero create a personal context for her stay at the Tower of Tristan, an intervening event in the canto suggests a wider arena that embraces the relation of the individual to society. As Bradamante travels toward the Tower of Tristan, she encounters Ullania, who bears a gold shield and is accompanied by three kings. Ullania has been sent by the queen of Iceland to search for a knight worthy to marry the distant queen. Bradamante is not slow to see that discord is sure to seize the Christian camp if Charlemagne allows a contest to determine which knight is best:

She felt that this shield was bound to breed dissensions, quarrels, and immense antagonisms in France among the paladins and others, if Charles made to establish who was supreme champion.

. . . in somma pensa
che questo scudo in Francia sia per porre
discordia e rissa e nimicizia immensa
fra paladini et altri, se vuol Carlo
Chiarir chi sia il miglior.
        (OF  32.60)

Spenser registered this theme when he put a version of the Tower of Tristan at the beginning of the legend of friendship. The principal theme of Book IV is concord, and it marks a transition in The Faerie Queene from private to social virtues.^[24] Ullania, however, never accomplishes her disruptive mission.^[25]

Another indication of the larger scope within which Ariosto's episode should be seen is that canto 32 begins with perhaps the most powerful image in the poem of the fate of the unprotected when King Agramante

hangs Brunello, the diminutive king of Tingitana. He does so because he seeks a way to please the poem's other great female warrior, Marfisa, who has offered the beleaguered king her services. The war in France is going badly for Agramante at this point in the poem. He has retreated with his army to Arles, not least because his great warrior Rodomonte, driven by guilt over the suicide of Isabella, has retired to his own private castle and, like Achilles, refuses to fight. An outsider even in the Saracen camp, Brunello is helpless because his champion Ruggiero is not present to save him from the gallows. (Brunello's taunting of Marfisa ever since he stole her sword in Boiardo's poem made him a fit offering when Agramante sought her favor.) Bradamante is similarly marked by Ruggiero's absence when she sets out to find him. But she has rhetorical powers that Ariosto denies to the swift thief who stole Sacripante's horse and who, in Boiardo, was a persuasive speaker.^[26]

Brooding, then, over Ruggiero's supposed disloyalty as she leaves home, but also concerned about possible discord in the Christian camp, Bradamante lets her reins loose and rides where her horse Rabicano desires after she parts from Ullania (OF 32.62). The weather turns as foul as her thoughts, and she asks a shepherd where she can lodge for the night. Uncommonly precise (Rajna queried, could a shepherd have told her all this?),^[27] the shepherd relates a set of rules that, adding to the usual contests of strength and beauty, make the order of arrival of passersby a matter of great importance in determining whether the keepers of the castle will permit lodging or not:

If a knight finds room at the castle on his arrival, the lord of the castle will receive him, but on condition that the guest promises, if others arrive, to go out and joust with them. Should no one else turn up, there is no need for the guest to move; but if someone does arrive, he needs must rearm himself and joust with him, and the one who comes off worse must give up his lodging and go out into the open air.

If two, three, four, or more warriors arrive there first all together, they can lodge there in peace, while whoever arrives alone after

them is faced with a worse proposition: he has to joust with all of them together. Similarly, if a single traveler has arrived first, he will have to joust with the two, three, four, or more who arrive later. So if he has valor, he shall need every bit of it.

Similarly, if a woman or maid, whether accompanied or alone, arrives at this castle, and if, after her, another arrives, the more beautiful is accommodated while the lesser beauty has to stay outside.

Se quando arriva un cavallier, si trova
vòta la stanza, il castellan l'accetta;
ma vuol, se sopravien poi gente nuova,
ch'uscir fuori alla giostra gli prometta.
Se non vien, non accade che si mova:
se vien, forza è che l'arme si rimetta
e con lui giostri, e chi di lor val meno,
ceda l'albergo, et esca al ciel sereno.

Se duo, tre, quattro o più guerrieri a un tratto
vi giungon prima, in pace albergo v'hanno;
e chi di poi vien solo, ha peggior patto,
perché seco giostrar quei più lo fanno.
Così, se prima un sol si sarà fatto
quivi alloggiar, con lui giostrar vorranno
i duo, tre, quattro o più che verran dopo;
sì che s'avrà valor, gli fia a grande uopo.

Non men se donna capita o donzella,
accompagnata o sola a questa ròcca,
e poi v'arrivi un'altra, alla più bella
l'albergo, et alla men star di fuor tocca.
        (OF  32.66-68)

Potential discord characterizes the shepherd's complex set of rules for precedence. In theory, any individual who arrives at the Tower of Tristan faces the possibility that a group will already be there or will later arrive, and in either case the single knight must joust with every member of the group. An individual already part of a group, however,

may chance never to have to joust (or line up in a beauty contest), since someone preceding him in the order of combat may succeed in preserving the group's right to lodging. As Ariosto tells the story, such an advantage for the group is more thematic than practical. Bradamante easily defeats the kings of Norway, Sweden, and Gothland. But the potential remains. Like Spenser's Castle of Couples (FQ 4.1), the castle's custom is designed to punish the single traveler.

So warned, Bradamante arrives at the castle fully informed of the custom and ready to participate, despite the potential hazards—"I know the rules, and mean to observe them" ("che so l'usanza, e di servarla intendo," OF 32.70). She has been preceded by Ullania and her companion knights, who spur faster than the meditative maiden. Seeking shelter, she issues a challenge to the castle's guests. In response, the knights who had hoped to win the queen of Iceland's shield of gold reluctantly leave their hot supper and arm to joust in the cold rain. Bradamante must defeat not just one, but all three of them. Even had she arrived first, the custom would have dictated that she joust each member of a late-arriving group.

Social grouping takes precedence over the order of arrival, and the nature of the group is also significant. Only the knights must fight. Everyone else—the lower classes, the entourage—remain within. Outside, where the moon shines despite the falling rain, on the margins but still part of the game, Bradamante feels like a lover who furtively turns a door key (OF 32.74). She must win three contests, whereas the knights may individually lose and yet, because they are part of a group, still sleep indoors if one of their company defeats her. Bradamante wins in the event, and enters the castle.

The lance of gold that assures her victory serves a double purpose here. Its mere existence undermines the premise of Ullania's mission to use male aggression to create social disorder. Even a weak knight, even a woman, could win the golden shield and gain the hand of the queen of Iceland—or gain entrance to what Ariosto calls a fortresslike castle, the Tower of Tristan—if that person had the golden spear. Moreover, the

spear is a talisman of power, which symbolizes but does not completely explain Bradamante's prowess. Significantly, in the first two editions of Ariosto's poem, Bradamante knows the lance's charm; in the third Ariosto keeps her ignorant of it, increasing the rigor of her struggle against the local custom.

Once Bradamante enters Tristan's Tower, several things happen that comment in subtle ways on what would otherwise be a strange oration on social groupings by the shepherd Bradamante chanced to meet. First, Bradamante takes an oath to defend the custom of the castle. Then, over dinner, she asks about its origin. After dinner, her host suddenly remembers that the custom of the castle requires that Bradamante, as a woman, face Ullania in a beauty contest, since they did not arrive together ("Perchè non vi son giunte amendue a un'ora," OF 32.97). Judgment is quickly passed, but when Ullania is told she must depart, Bradamante finds a way to appeal the verdict. Finally, after the story of origins and after Bradamante wins her right to stay and to retain Ullania, she views a series of panels that illustrate Italy's susceptibility to foreign invasion. Although the interwoven complexity of the poetic context argues against any fixed hermeneutic, any stable interpretation of the Tower of Tristan, these three divisions—the tale of origins, the contest, and the painted panels of the castle—create a protocol of opposition and acquiescence consonant with an aulic, social interpretation.

The center of the episode is Bradamante's reaction to the beauty contest. The castellan calls two old servitors and some women to judge as he holds a quick competition, which Bradamante wins, even though she is disheveled (inculta, OF 32.99) after unhelmeting. The result is that Ullania must leave the castle. Bradamante does not object to the custom or the decision until punishment is pronounced, when Ariosto compares her changed mood to the sudden darkening of the sun by a cloud rising from a valley (OF 32.100). Then, rather than attack the custom, Bradamante objects to the castellan's strict application of it. Her language turns the beauty contest into a contest of law, the castle into a court:

'It does not seem to me that any judgment can be regarded as mature and just unless an audience has first been given to the interested party , her denials and observations taken into account.'

A me non par che ben deciso ,
né che ben giusto alcun  giudicio cada,
ove prima non s'oda quanto  nieghi
la parte o affermi , e sue  ragioni alleghi .
        (OF  32.101; my emphasis)

Armed with a golden spear, fully confident despite her sex, and in rhetorical control, Bradamante does not challenge the custom (the law), but the procedure. Her first tactic is to establish her right to be heard. She does this by claiming to speak for Ullania. By not interrupting her, the castellan in effect lets her take the case: Bradamante calls herself one who is "embracing her cause" ("Io ch'a difender questa causa toglio," OF 32.102), and so she speaks for Ullania. The translation by Barbara Reynolds—"Now, as the counsel for defence"—captures the image of civil order here.^[28]

Next Bradamante shifts the focus of the custom, making herself the issue. As well as defense counsel, she becomes the defendant—the issue, the focus of the custom—instead of the silent Ullania. Having put herself in the position of the defendant, she further compels the castellan of the Tower of Tristan into accepting her on whichever terms she chooses, as a maiden or as a warrior. Arguing that her femininity is unverified, Bradamante challenges the castellan to prove she is a woman without stripping her, to deny that men can have long hair, to accept that warriors must not be judged on their beauty (OF 32.102-103). Her logic is flimsy, especially since the keeper of the castle knows her and her family (OF 32.81), but her words are effective because he cannot take any of these positions unequivocally. Flimsy logic is not necessarily no logic, and Bradamante operates like one today who, claiming that he has never established presence in a state that would render him liable to its jurisdiction, must be present to make the denial. Special care is required

when making such an appearance in order to deny one's presence.^[29] Bradamante's tricky purpose in raising unanswerable questions about gender identity is to deny the castellan and the custom of the castle jurisdiction over her, thereby challenging the social order.

To deny jurisdiction is not to deny the power of the law. Jurisdiction concerns, rather, the power of the law to reach an individual. Bradamante's entry into the sovereign territory of the caste suggests submission to the local law, but since jurisdiction is unclear, she may yet escape judgment by appealing to a higher, more universal, or separate authority. Such an appeal is as difficult to achieve in real courts as escaping the long arm of the law. Bradamante attempts this defense by creating a moral issue where the custom itself does not raise one. She asks if it is fair that one should lose for lack of beauty what one has gained by valor: "It does not seem to me just to lose through inadequate beauty what I have won by valor at arms" ("Perder per men beltà giusto non parmi / quel c'ho acquistato per virtù con l'armi," OF 32.104). Fairness is never an issue when the procedure of custom is concerned—as distinct from the substance of the custom. It makes no difference to the ancient custom established by Clodione that Bradamante gains entrance first as a knight. Her being inside or outside the castle will not alter the results of the beauty contest, which Clodione established in order to exploit the chivalric practice of Tristan.

Bradamante seems to recognize the irrelevance of her arguments when she caps her discourse by echoing the ancient dualism of the chansons de geste , that Christians are right and pagans wrong. Bradamante threatens to maintain her position, right or wrong, in combat against any challenger, because she believes in her own judgment: "mine is right, his is wrong!" ("che 'l mio sia vero, e falso il suo parere," OF 32.106). The voice of the Furioso readily points out that Bradamante gets her way, ultimately, because she successfully threatens the castellan: "Bradamante persuaded their host, with many arguments and well-chosen words (but especially with her concluding remark )" ("al signor de l'albergo persuade / con ragion molte e con parlare accorto, / ma molto

più con quel ch'al fin concluse ," OF 32.106; my emphasis). The amused, hectoring narrator quickly shifts attention away from what, to that moment, has been Bradamante's successful manipulation of the custom. That Ariosto's narrator jealously steals her thunder replays once again the very nature of Bradamante's exertion of counterpressure against the voice of authority. Her terms make her a winner only if she is a warrior. Her sword parodies the sword of justice. As a result, Bradamante's threat exposes the injustice of force that underlies laws binding the social order.