The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
perfecting of her desires; and to come to any public place she did
deadly fear, lest her mask by many eyes might the sooner be
discovered, and so her hopes stopped, and the state of her joys
endangered. Therefore a while she rested, musing at the daily changing
labyrinth of her own fortune, but in herself determined it was her
only best to keep him there, and with favours to make him love the
place where the favours were received, as disgraces had made him apt
to change the soil.
Therefore, casting a kind of corner-look upon him, “It is truly said,”
said she, “that age cooleth the blood. How soon, good man, you are
terrified before you receive any hurt? Do you not know that daintiness
is kindly unto us? And that hard obtaining, is the excuse of woman’s
granting? Yet speak I not as though you were like to obtain, or I to
grant. But because I would not have you imagine I am to be won by
courtly vanities, or esteem a man the more because he hath handsome
men to wait on him, when he is afraid to live without them.” You might
have seen Basilius humbly swell, and, with a lowly look, stand upon
his tiptoes; such diversity her words delivered unto him. “O
Hercules,” answered he, “Basilius afraid? Or his blood cold that boils
in such a furnace? Care I who is with me while I enjoy your presence?
Or is any place good or bad to me, but as it pleaseth you to bless or
curse it? O let me be but armed in your good grace, and I defy
whatsoever there is or can be against me. No, no, your love is
forcible, and my age is not without vigour.”
{457}
Zelmane thought it not good for his stomach to receive a surfeit of
too much favour, and therefore thinking he had enough for the time to
keep him from any sudden removing, with a certain gracious bowing down
of her head towards him, she turned away, saying she would leave him
at this time to see how temperately he could use so bountiful a
measure of her kindness. Basilius, that thought every drop a flood
that bred any refreshment, durst not further press her, but with
ancient modesty left her to the sweet repast of her own fancies.
Zelmane, as soon as he was departed, went toward Pamela’s lodge in
hope to have seen her friend Dorus, to have pleased herself with
another painful farewell, and further to have taken some advice with
him touching her own estate, whereof before sorrow had not suffered
her to think. But being come even near the lodge, she saw the mouth of
a cave, made as it should seem by nature in despite of art, so fitly
did the rich growing marble serve to beautify the vault of the first
entry. Under foot the ground seemed mineral, yielding such a
glistering show of gold in it as they say the river Tagus carries in
his sandy bed. The cave framed out into many goodly spacious rooms,
such as self-liking men have with long and learned delicacy found out
the most easeful: there ran through it a little sweet river, which had
left the face of the earth to drown herself for a small way in this
dark but pleasant mansion. The very first show of the place enticed
the melancholy mind of Zelmane, to yield herself over there to the
flood of her own thoughts. And therefore, sitting down in the first
entry of the cave’s mouth, with a song she had lately made, she gave a
doleful way to her bitter affects, and sung to this effect:
Since that the stormy rage of passions dark
(Of passions dark, made dark by beauty’s light)
With rebel force, hath clos’d in dungeon dark
My mind, ere now led forth by reason’s light.
Since all the things which give mine eyes their light.
Do foster still the fruits of fancies dark:
So that the windows of my inward light
Do serve to make my inward powers dark.
Since, as I say, both mind and senses dark
Are hurt, not help’d, with piercing of the light:
While that the light may show the horrors dark,
But cannot make resolved darkness light:
I like this place, where at the least the dark
May keep my thoughts from thought of wonted light.
{458}
Instead of an instrument, her song was accompanied with the wringing
of her hands, the closing of her weary eyes, and even sometimes cut
off with the swelling of her sighs, which did not suffer the voice to
have his free and native passage. But, as she was a while musing upon
her song, raising up her spirits, which were something fallen into the
weakness of lamentation, considering solitary complaints do no good to
him whose help stands without himself, she might afar off first hear a
whispering sound, which seemed to come from the inmost part of the
cave, and being kept together with the close hollowness of the place,
had, as in a trunk, the more liberal access to her ears, and by and by
she might perceive the same voice deliver itself into musical tunes,
and with a base Lyra give forth this song:
Hark, plaintful ghosts, infernal furies, hark
Unto my woes the hateful heavens do send,
The heavens conspir’d to make my vital spark
A wretched wreck, a glass of ruin’s end.
Seeing, alas, so mighty powers bend
Their ireful shot against so weak a mark,
Come cave, become my grave, come death, and lend
Receipt to me, within thy bosom dark.
For what is life to daily dying mind,
Where, drawing breath, I suck the air of woe:
Where too-much sight makes all the body blind,
And highest thoughts downward most headlong throw?
Thus then my form, and thus my state I find,
Death wrapp’d in flesh, to living grave assign’d.
And pausing but a little, with mournful melody it continued this
octave:
Like those sick folks in whom strange humours flow,
Can taste no sweets, the sower only please,
So to my mind, while passions daily grow,
Whose fiery chains, upon his freedom seize;
Joys strangers seem, I cannot bide their show,
Nor brook aught else but well-acquainted woe.
Bitter griefs taste best, pain is my ease,
Sick to the death, still loving my disease.
“O Venus,” said Zelmane, “who is this so well acquainted with me, that
can make so lively a portraiture of my miseries? It is surely the
spirit appointed to have care of me, which doth now, in this dark
place, bear part with the complaint of his unhappy charge. For if it
be so, that the heavens have at all times a measure of their wrathful
harms, surely so many have come to my {459} blissless lot that the
rest of the world hath too small a portion to make with cause so
wailful a lamentation. But,” said she, “whatsoever thou be, I will
seek thee out, for thy music well assures me we are at least-hand
fellow-prentices to one ungracious master.” So rose she and went,
guiding herself by the still plaining voice, till she saw upon a stone
a little wax-light set, and under it a piece of paper, with these
verses very lately, as it should seem, written in it:
How is my sun, whose beams are shining bright,
Become the cause of my dark ugly night?
Or how do I, captiv’d in this dark plight,
Bewail the case, and in the cause delight?
My mangled mind huge horrors still do fright,
With sense possessed, and claim’d by reason’s right:
Betwixt which two in me I have this fight:
Where who so wins, I put myself to flight.
Come cloudy fears, close up my dazzled sight,
Sorrows suck up the marrow of my might,
Due sighs blow out all sparks of joyful light,
Tire on despair upon my tired spright.
An end, an end, my dull’d pen cannot write,
Nor maz’d head think, nor falt’ring tongue recite.
And hard underneath the sonnet were these words written:
This cave is dark, but it had never light.
This wax doth waste itself, yet painless dies.
These words are full of woes, yet feel they none.
I darkened am, who once had clearest sight.
I waste my heart, which still new torments tries.
I plain with cause, my woes are all mine own.
No Cave, no wasting wax, no words of grief,
Can hold, show, tell my pains without relief.
She did not long stay to read the words, for not far off from the
stone she might discern in a dark corner, a lady lying with her face
so prostrate upon the ground that she could neither know nor be known.
But, as the general nature of man is desirous of knowledge, and sorrow
especially glad to find fellows, she went, as softly as she could
convey her feet, near unto her, where she heard these words come with
vehement sobbings from her. “O darkness,” said she, “which dost
lightsomely, methinks, make me see the picture of my inward darkness:
since I have chosen thee to be {460} the secret witness of my sorrows,
let me receive a false receipt in thee; and esteem them not tedious,
but, if it be possible, let the uttering them be some discharge to my
over-laden breast. Alas! sorrow, now thou hast the full sack of my
conquered spirits, rest thyself awhile, and set not still new fire to
thy own spoils: O accursed reason, how many eyes thou hast to see thy
evils, and how dim, nay blind thou art in perceiving them? Forlorn
creature that I am! I would I might be freely wicked, since wickedness
doth prevail: but the footsteps of my overtrodden virtue lie still as
bitter accusations against me. I am divided in myself, how can I
stand? I am overthrown in myself, who shall raise me? Vice is but a
nurse of new agonies, and the virtue I am divorced from, makes the
hateful comparison the more manifest. No, no, virtue, either I never
had but a shadow of thee, or thou thyself are but a shadow. For how is
my soul abandoned? How are all my powers laid waste? My desire is
pained because it cannot hope, and if hope came, his best should be
but mischief. O strange mixture of human minds; only so much good
left, as to make us languish in our own evils. Ye infernal furies, for
it is too late for me to awake my dead virtue, or to place my comfort
in the angry gods, ye infernal furies, I say, aid one that dedicates
herself unto you; let my rage be satisfied, since the effect of it is
fit for your service. Neither be afraid to make me too happy, since
nothing can come to appease the smart of my guilty conscience, I
desire but to assuage the sweltering of my hellish longing dejected
Gynecia.”
Zelmane no sooner heard the name of Gynecia, but that, with a cold
sweat all over her, as if she had been ready to tread upon a deadly
stinging adder, she would have withdrawn herself, but her own passion
made her yield more unquiet motions than she had done in coming. So
that she was perceived, and Gynecia suddenly risen up, for indeed it
was Gynecia, gotten into the cave, the same cave wherein Dametas had
safely kept Pamela in the late uproar, to pass her pangs, with change
of places. And as her mind ran still upon Zelmane, her piercing
lover’s eye had soon found it was she. And seeing in her countenance
to fly away, she fell down at her feet, and catching fast hold of her:
“Alas!” said she, “whither, or from whom dost thou fly away? The
savagest beasts are won with service, and there is no flint but may be
mollified: how is Gynecia so unworthy in thine eyes? or whom cannot
abundance of love make worthy? O think not that cruelty, or
ungratefulness can flow from a good mind! O weigh, alas! weigh with
thyself the new effects of this mighty passion, that I, unfit for my
estate, uncomely for my sex, must become a suppliant at thy feet! By
the happy woman that bare thee, by all the joys of thy {461} heart,
and success of thy desire, I beseech thee turn thyself to some
consideration of me, and rather show pity in now helping me, than in
too late repenting my death, which hourly threatens me.” Zelmane
imputing it to one of her continual mishaps, thus to have met with
this lady, with a full weary countenance; “Without doubt, Madam,” said
she, “where the desire is such as may be obtained, and the party well
deserving as yourself, it must be a great excuse that may well colour