The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
that we may think they were born to show that nature is no stepmother
to that sex, how much soever some men (sharp-witted only in evil
speaking) have sought to disgrace them. The elder is named Pamela; by
many men not deemed inferior to her sister: for my part, when I marked
them both, methought there was (if at least such perfections may
receive the word of more) more sweetness in Philoclea but more majesty
in Pamela: methought love played in Philoclea’s eyes, and threatened
in Pamela’s; methought Philoclea’s beauty only persuaded, but so
persuaded as all hearts must yield; Pamela’s beauty used violence, and
such violence as no heart could resist. And it seems that such
proportion is between their minds: Philoclea so bashful, as though her
excellencies had stolen into her before she was aware; so humble, that
she will put all pride out of countenance; in sum, such proceeding as
will stir hope but teach hope good manners. Pamela of high thoughts
who avoids not pride with not knowing her excellencies, but by making
that one of her excellencies to be void of pride; her mother’s wisdom,
greatness, nobility, but (if I can guess aright) knit with a more
constant temper. Now then, our Basilius being so publicly happy as to
be a prince, and so happy in that happiness as to be a beloved prince;
and so in his private estate blessed as to have so excellent a wife
and so over-excellent children, hath of late taken a course which yet
makes him more spoken of than all these blessings. For having made a
journey to Delphos, and safely returned, within short space, he brake
up his court, and retired himself, his wife and children, into a
certain forest hereby which he called his desert; wherein (besides an
house appointed for stables and lodgings for certain {14} persons of
mean calling who do all household services) he hath builded two fine
lodges: in the one of them himself remains with his younger daughter
Philoclea (which was the cause they three were matched together in
this picture) without having any other creature living in that lodge
with him.
“Which though it be strange, yet not strange as the course he hath
taken with the princess Pamela whom he hath placed in the other lodge:
but how think you accompanied? Truly with none other but one Dametas,
the most arrant doltish clown that I think ever was without the
privilege of a bauble, with his wife Miso and daughter Mopsa, in whom
no wit can devise anything wherein they may pleasure her but to
exercise her patience and to serve for a foil of her perfections. This
loutish clown is such that you never saw so ill-favoured a vizor; his
behaviour such that he is beyond the degree of ridiculous; and for his
apparel, even as I would with him: Miso his wife so handsome a beldam,
that only her face and her splay-foot have made her accused for a
witch; only one good point she hath, that she observes decorum, having
a forward mind in a wretched body. Between these two personages (who
never agreed in any humour, but in disagreeing) is issued forth
mistress Mopsa, a fit woman to participate of both their perfections:
but because a pleasant fellow of my acquaintance set forth her praises
in verse, I will only repeat them, and spare mine own tongue, since
she goes for a woman. The verses are these, which I have so often
caused to be sung, that I have them without book.
What length of verse can serve, brave Mopsa’s good to show?
When virtues strange, and beauties such, as no man them may know:
Thus shrewdly burden’d then, how can my Muse escape?
The Gods must help, and precious things must serve, to shew her shape,
Like great God Saturn fair, and like fair Venus chaste:
As smooth as Pan, as Juno mild, like Goddess Iris fac’t,
With Cupid she forsees, and goes God Vulcan’s pace:
And for a taste of all these gifts, she steals God Momus’ grace.
Her forehead Jacinth-like, her cheeks of Opal hue,
Her twinkling eyes bedeck’d with Pearl, her lips a Sapphire blue:
Her hair like Crapal stone; her mouth O heav’nly wide!
Her skin like burnished gold, her hands like silver ore untry’d.
As for her parts unknown, which hidden sure are best:
Happy be they which will believe, and never seek the rest.
“Now truly having made these descriptions unto you, methinks you
should imagine that I rather feign some pleasant device than recount a
truth that a prince (not banished from his own wits) could possibly
make so unworthy a choice. But truly (dear guest) {15} so it is that
princes (whose doings have been often smoothed with good success)
think nothing so absurd, which they cannot make honourable. The
beginning of his credit was by the prince’s straying out of the way,
one time he hunted, where meeting this fellow, and asking him the way;
and so falling into other questions, he found some of his answers (as
a dog sure, if he could speak, had wit enough to describe his kennel)
not unsensible, and all uttered with such rudeness, which he
interpreted plainness (though there be great difference between them)
that Basilius, conceiving a sudden delight, took him to his court,
with apparent show of his good opinion: where the flattering courtier
had no sooner taken the prince’s mind, but that there were straight
reasons to confirm the prince’s doing, and shadows of virtues found
for Dametas. His silence grew wit, his bluntness integrity, his
beastly ignorance virtuous simplicity, and the prince (according to
the nature of great persons, in love with what he had done himself)
fancied that his weakness with his presence would much be mended. And
so like a creature of his own making, he liked him more and more; and
thus having first given him the office of principal herdsman; lastly,
since he took this strange determination, he hath in a manner put the
life of himself and his children into his hands. Which authority (like
too great a sail for so small a boat) doth so oversway poor Dametas,
that, if before he was a good fool in a chamber, he might be allowed
it now in a comedy, so as I doubt me (I fear me indeed) my master will
in the end (with his cost) find that his office is not to make men,
but to use men as men are, no more than a horse will be taught to
hunt, or an ass to manage. But in sooth I am afraid I have given your
ears too great a surfeit with gross discourses of that heavy piece of
flesh. But the zealous grief I conceive to see so great an error in my
lord hath made me bestow more words than I confess so base a subject
deserveth.
“Thus much now that I have told you is nothing more than in effect any
Arcadian knows. But what moved him to this strange solitariness hath
been imparted (as I think) but to one person living. Myself can
conjecture, and indeed more than conjecture by this accident that I
will tell you: I have an only son, by name Clitophon, who is now
absent, preparing for his own marriage, which I mean shortly shall be
here celebrated. This son of mine (while the prince kept his court)
was of his bed-chamber: now since the breaking up of thereof returned
home, and showed me (among other things he had gathered) the copy
which he had taken of a letter: which when the prince had read, he had
laid in a window, presuming nobody durst look in his writings: but my
son not only took a time to read it, but to copy it. In truth I {16}
blamed Clitophon for the curiosity which made him break his duty in
such a kind, whereby kings’ secrets are subject to be revealed, but
since it was done, I was content to take so much profit as to know it.
Now here is the letter that I ever since, for my good liking, have
carried about me: which before I read unto you, I must tell you from
whom it came. It is a nobleman of his country, named Philanax,
appointed by the prince regent, in this time of his retiring, and most
worthy so to be: for, there lives no man whose excellent wit more
simply embraceth integrity, beside his unfeigned love to his master,
wherein never yet any could make question, saving whether he loved
Basilius, or the prince better: a rare temper, while most men either
servilely yield to all appetites, or with an obstinate austerity
looking to that they fancied good, in effect neglect the prince’s
person. This then being the man, whom of all other (and most worthy)
the prince chiefly loves, it should seem (for more than the letter I
have not to guess by) that the prince upon his return from Delphos
(Philanax then lying sick) had written unto him his determination,
rising (as evidently appears) upon some oracle he had there received:
whereunto he wrote this answer:
Philanax’s letter to Basilius.
Most redoubted and beloved prince! if as well it had pleased you at
your going to Delphos, as now, to have used my humble service, both I
should in better season, and to better purpose have spoken; and you
(if my speech had prevailed) should have been at this time, as no way
more in danger, so much more in quietness? I would then have said that
wisdom and virtue be the only destinies appointed to man to follow;
whence we ought to seek all our knowledge, since they be such guides
as cannot fail; which, besides their inward comfort, do lead so direct
a way of proceeding, as either prosperity must ensue; or, if the
wickedness of the world should oppress it, it can never be said that
evil happeneth to him who falls accompanied with virtue: I would then
have said the heavenly powers ought to be reverenced and searched
into, and their mercies rather by prayers to be fought than their
hidden counsels by curiosity. These kinds of sooth-sayings (since they
have left us in ourselves sufficient guides) be nothing but fancy,
wherein there must either be vanity, or infallibleness, and so either
not to be respected, or not to be prevented. But since it is weakness
too much to remember what should have been done, and that your
commandment stretched to know what is to be done, I do (most dear
Lord!) with humble boldness say that the manner of your determination
doth in no sort better please me than the cause of your going. These
thirty years you have so governed this region, that neither your
subjects have wanted justice in you, nor you obedience in them; and
your neighbours have found you so hurtlessly strong, that they thought
it {17} better to rest in your friendship, than to make new trial of
your enmity. If this then have proceeded out of the good constitution
of your state, and out of a wise providence generally to prevent all
those things which might encumber your happiness, why should you now
seek new courses, since your own example comforts you to continue, and
that it is to me most certain (though it please you not to tell me the
very words of the oracle) that yet no destiny nor influence whatsoever
can bring man’s wit to a higher point than wisdom and goodness: why
should you deprive yourself of government for fear of losing your
government, like one that should kill himself for fear of death? Nay,
rather, if this oracle be to be accounted of, arm up your courage the
more against it: for who will stick to him that abandons himself: let
your subjects have you in their eyes, let them see the benefits of
your justice daily more and more, and so much they needs rather like
of present sureties than uncertain changes. Lastly, whether your time
call you to live or die, do both like a prince. Now for your second
resolution, which is to suffer no worthy prince to be a suitor to
either of your daughters, but while you live to keep them both
unmarried, and, as it were, to kill the joy of posterity, which in
your time you may enjoy, moved perchance by a misunderstood oracle?
what shall I say, if the affection of a father to his own children
cannot plead sufficiently against such fancies? once, certain it is,