Meeting her in battle, he stood her blows defenseless; for Clorinda was an Amazon, reduced by Tasso's gentle genius to womanhood from the proportions of Marfisa.
Finally, with heart surcharged with love for her, he has to cross his sword in deadly duel with this lady.

Malign stars rule the hour: he knows not who she is: misadventure makes her, instead of him, the victim of their encounter.

With her last breath she demands baptism--the good Tasso, so it seems, could not send so fair a creature of his fancy as Clorinda to the shades without viaticum; and his poetry rises to the sublime of pathos in this stanza: Amico, hai vinto: io ti perdon: perdona Tu ancora: al corpo no, che nulla pave; All'alma si: deh! per lei prega; e dona Battesmo a me ch'ogni mia colpa lave.
In queste voci languide risuona Un non so che di flebile e soave Ch'al cor gli serpe, ed ogni sdegno ammorza, E gli occhi a lagrimar gl'invoglia e sforza (xii.

66).
Here the vague emotion, the _non so che_, distils itself through Clorinda's voice into Tancredi's being.

Afterwards it thrills there like moaning winds in an Aeolian lyre, reducing him to despair upon his bed of sickness, and reasserting its lyrical charm in the vision which he has of Clorinda among the trees of the enchanted forest.