The poem talks of the love of the knight Orlando for Angelica, on the settings of an imaginary war of Charles the Great to defend Paris from the Mores. (This did not happen since Charles won the battle at Poitiers.) Angelica is promised to the bravest b etween Orlando and his cousin Rinaldo. She escapes and hides herself in the house of a shepherd. Here she falls in love with a More (Medoro) she found wounded on her way. Orlando learns of the love of Angelica and goes crazy. In his madness he wanders France, Spain and Africa terrorizing and killing innocent people. Astolfo, knight himself, goes to the moon (where you can find all things lost on earth) and founds a capsule containing Orlando's wisdom. The story goes on with the contrasted love of Br adamante (a woman) and Ruggiero.
This that follows is the a passage from the thirty-fourth book of "L'Orlando Furioso," when Astolfo goes to the moon and finds Orlando's wisdom. The passage is taken from the edition translated by Sir John Harington and published in 1607.

Thus all that day they spent in divers talk 

With solace great, as never wanteth there;
But when the sun began this earth to balk
And pass into the t'other hemisphere,
Then they prepared to fetch a further walk,
And straight the fiery chariot that did bear
Elias when he up to Heav'n was carried 
Was ready in a trice and for them tarried.

Four horses fierce, as red as flaming fire,
Th'apostle doth unto the chariot set, 
Which when he framed had to his desire,
Astolfo in the car by him he set; 
Then up they went, and still ascending higher
Above the fiery region they did get 
Whose nature so th'apostle then did turn 
That though they went through fire, they did not burn;

I say, although the fire were wondrous hot, 
Yet in their passage they no heat did feel, 
So that it burned them nor offends them not. 
Thence to the moon he guides the running wheel; 
The moon was like a glass all void of spot 
Or like a piece of purely burnished steel 
And looked, although to us it seems so small, 
Wellnigh as big as earth and sea and all.

Here had Astolfo cause of double wonder: 
One, that that region seemeth there so wide 
That unto us that are so far asunder 
Seems but a little circle, and beside, 
That to behold the ground that him lay under 
A man had need to have been sharply eyed 
And bend his brows and mark e'en all they might, 
It seemed so small, now chiefly wanting light.

'Twere infinite to tell what wondrous things
He saw that passed ours not few degrees,
What towns, what hills, what rivers, and what springs,
What dales, what palaces, what goodly trees;
But to be short, at last his guide him brings
Unto a goodly valley where he sees
A mighty mass of things strangely confused,
Things that on earth were lost or were abused

A storehouse strange that what on earth is lost 
By fault, by time, by fortune there is found 
And like a merchandise is there engrossed 
In stranger sort than I can well expound; 
Nor speak I sole of wealth or things of cost 
In which blind fortune's power doth most abound, 
But e'en of things quite out of fortune's power 
Which willfully we waste each day and hour.

The precious time that fools misspend in play, 
The vain attempts that never take effect, 
The vows that sinners make and never pay, 
The counsels wise that careless men neglect, 
The fond desires that lead us oft astray, 
The praises that with pride the heart infect, 
And all we lose with folly and misspending 
May there be found unto this place ascending.

Now as Astolfo by those regions passed, 
He asked many questions of his guide; 
And as he on t'one side his eye did cast, 
A wondrous hill of bladders he espied; 
And he was told they had been in time past 
The pompous crowns and scepters full of pride 
Of monarchs of Assyria and of Greece, 
Of which now scantly there is left a piece.
.
He saw great store of baited hooks with gold, 
And those were gifts that foolish men preferred 
To give to princes covetous and old 
With fondest hope of future vain reward; 
Then were there ropes all in sweet garlands rolled, 
And those were all false flatteries he heard; 
Then heard he crickets' songs like to the verses 
The servant in his master's praise rehearses.

There did he see fond loves that men pursue 
To look like golden gyves with stones all set; 
Then things like eagles' talons he did view, 
Those oflices that favorites do get; 
Then saw he bellows large that much wind blews 
Large promises that lords make and forget 
Unto their ganymedes in flower of youth, 
But after nought but beggary ensu'th.

He saw great cities seated in fair places 
That overthrown quite topsy-turvy stood; 
He asked and learned the cause of their defaces 
Was treason that doth never turn to good; 
He saw foul serpents with fair women's faces, 
Of coiners and of thieves the cursed brood; 
He saw fine glasses all in pieces broken,22 
Of service lost in court a woeful token.

Of mingled broth he saw a mighty mass
That to no use all spilt on ground did lie;
He asked his teacher, and he heard it was
The fruitless alms that men give when they die.
Then by a fair green mountain he did pass
That once smelt sweet, but now it stinks perdie;
This was the gift (be't said without offence)
That Constantine gave Silvester long since.23

Of birdlime-rods he saw no little store, 
And these, O ladies fair, your beauties be. 
I do omit ten thousand things and more 
Like unto these that there the duke did see; 
For all that here is lost, there evermore 
Is kept and thither in a trice doth flee, 
Howbeit, more or less, there was no folly, 
For still that here with us remaineth wholly.

He saw some of his own lost time and deeds,
But yet he knew them not to be his own;
They seemed to him disguised in so strange weeds
Till his instructor made them better known.
But last the thing which no man thinks he needs,
Yet each man needeth most, to him was shown,
By name man's wit, which here we leese so fast
As that one substance all the other passed

It seemed to be a body moist and soft 
And apt to mount by every exhalation, 
And when it hither mounted was aloft, 
It there was kept in pots in such a fashion 
As we call jars, where oil is kept in oft; 
The duke beheld with no small admiration 
The jars of wit, amongst which one had writ 
Upon the side thereof, "Orlando's wit."

This vessel bigger was than all the rest, 
And every vessel had engrav'n with art 
His name that erst the wit therein possessed; 
There of his own the duke did find a part, 
And much he mused, and much himself he blessed 
To see some names of men of great desert 
That think they have great store of wit and boast it 
When here it plain appeared they quite had lost it.

Some lost their wit with love, some with ambition, 
Some running to the sea great wealth to get, 
Some following lords and men of high condition, 
And some in fair jewels rich and costly set; 
One hath desire to prove a rare magician, 
And some with poetry their wit forget; 
Another thinks to be an alchemist 
Till all be spent and he his number missed.

Astolfo takes his own before he goes,
For so th'evangelist doth him permit;
He set the vessel's mouth but to his nose,
And to his place he snuffed up all his wit;
Long after wise he lived, as Turpin24 shows,
Until one fault he after did commit;
By name the love of one fair Northern lass
Sent up his wit into the place it was.

The vessel where Orlando's wit was closed 
Astolfo took and thence with him did bear; 
It was far heavier than he had supposed, 
So great a quantity of wit was there; 
But yet ere back their journey they disposed, 
The holy prophet brought Astolfo where 
A palace seldom seen by mortal man 
Was placed, by which a thick dark river ran.

Each room therein was full of diverse fieeces 
Of wool, of lint, of silk, or else of cotton; 
An aged woman spun the divers pieces 
Whose look and hue did show her old and rotten; 
Not much unlike unto that labor this is 
By which in summer new-made silk is gotten, 
Where from the silkworm his fine garment taking, 
They reave him of the clothes of his own making.

For first in one large room a woman span
Threads infinite of divers stuff and hue;
Another doth with all the speed she can
With other stulS the distaves still renew;
The third, in feature like and pale and wan,
Doth sever fair from foul and old from new.
"Now who be these?" the duke demands his guide.
"These be the fatal sisters," he replied,

"The Parcaes that the thread of life do spin 
To mortal men; hence death and nature know 
When life must end and when it must begin; 
Now she that doth divide them and bestow 
The coarse from finer and the thick from thin 
To that end works that those that finest grow 
For ornaments in Paradise may dwell; 
The coarse are cursed to be consumed in Hell."

The duke did further in the place behold 
That when the threads were spent that had been spun, 
Their names in brass, in silver, or in gold 
Were wrote and so into great heaps were done, 
From which a man that seemed wondrous old26 
With whole loads of those names away did run 
And turned again as fast the way he went, 
Nor ever weary was nor ever spent.

This aged man did hold his pace so swift 
As though to run he only had been born 
Or had it giv'n him as a special gift, 
And in the lappet of his cloak were borne 
The names of men with which he made such shift.
But now a while I crave to be foreborne, 
For in the book ensuing shall be showed 
How this old sire his carriage ill bestowed.