The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

that he should say. And then with a formal countenance, as if the conscience of the case had touched himself. “Mistress,” said he, “I am much perplexed in mine own determination, for my thoughts do ever will me to do honestly, but my judgment fails me what is honest, betwixt the general rule, that entrusted secrecies are holily to be deserved, and the particular exception, that the dishonest secrecies are to be revealed; especially there, where by revealing they may either be prevented, or at least amended. Yet in this balance your judgment weighs me down, because I have confidence in it, that you will use what you know moderately, and rather take such faults as advantage to your own good desert, than by your bitter using it be contented to be revenged on others with your own harms. So it is, mistress,” said he, “that yesterday driving my sheep up to the stately hill which lifts his head over the fair city of Mantinea, I happened upon the side of it, in a little falling of the ground, which was a rampier against the sun’s rage, to perceive a young maid, truly of the finest stamp of beauty; and that which made her beauty the more admirable, there was at all no art added to the helping of it: for her apparel was but such as shepherds’ daughters are wont to wear; and as for her hair, it hung down at free liberty of his goodly length, but that sometimes falling before the clear stars of her sight, she was forced to put it behind her ears, and so open again the treasures of her perfection, which that for a while had in part hidden. In her lap there lay a shepherd so wrapped up in that well-liked place, that I could discern no piece of his face, but as mine eyes were intent in that, her angel-like voice struck mine ears with this song. {466} My true love hath my heart, and I have his, By just exchange, one for the other giv’n: I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss; There never was a bargain better driv’n. His heart in me, keeps me and him in one, My heart in him, his thoughts and senses guide: He loves my heart, for once it was his own, I cherish his, because in me it bides. His heart his wound received from my sight: My heart was wounded with his wounded heart, For as from me, on him his hurt did light; So still me thought in me his heart did smart: Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss, My true love hath my heart, and I have his. “But as if the shepherd that lay before her had been organs, which were only to be blown by her breath, she had no sooner ended with the joining her sweet lips together, but that he recorded to her music this rural poesy. O words which fall like summer dew on me, O breath more sweet, than is the growing bean; O tongue in which all honeyed liquors be, O voice that doth the thrush in shrillness strain; Do you say still, this is her promise due, That she is mine, as I to her am true. Gay hair, more gay than straw when harvest lies, Lips red and plump, as cherry’s ruddy side, Eyes fair and great like fair great ox’s eyes; O breast in which two white sheep swell in pride: Join you with me, to seal this promise due, That she be mine, as I to her am true. But thou white skin, as white as curds well pressed, So smooth as sleek stone, like it smooths each part: And thou dear flesh, as soft as wool new dressed, And yet as hard as brawn, made hard by art: First four but say, next four their saying seal, But you must pay the gage of promis’d weal. “And with the conclusion of his song he embraced her about the knees. ‘O sweet Charita,’ said he, ‘when shall I enjoy the rest of my toiling thoughts; and when shall your blissful promise, now due, be verified with just performance?’ With that I drew nearer to them and saw, for now he had lifted up his face {467} to glass himself in her fair eyes, that it was my master Dametas”; but here Miso interrupted his tale with railing at Dametas, with all those exquisite terms, which I was never good scold enough to imagine. But Dorus, as if he had been much offended with her impatiency, would proceed no further till she had vowed more stillness: “For,” said he, “if the first drum thus chafe you, what will you be when it comes to the blows.” Then he told her, how after many familiar entertainments betwixt them, Dametas, laying before her his great credit with the king, and withal giving her very fair presents, with promise of much more, had at length concluded together to meet that night at Mantinea in the Oudemian Street, at Charita’s uncle’s house, about ten of the clock. After which bargain Dametas had spied Dorus, and, calling him to him, had with great bravery told him all his good hap, willing him in any case to return to the old witch Miso; “for so indeed, mistress of liveliness, and not of ill-will, he termed you, and to make some honest excuse of his absence. ‘For,’ said he, kissing Charita, ‘if thou didst know what a life I lead with that drivel, it would make thee even of pity receive me into thy only comfort.’ ‘Now mistress,’ said he, ‘exercise your discretion, which if I were well assured of, I would wish you to go yourself to Mantinea, and (lying secret in some one of your gossip’s houses till the time appointed come) so may you find them together, and using mercy reform my master from his evil ways.’” There had nothing more enraged Miso than the praises Dorus gave to Charita’s beauty, which made her jealousy swell the more with the poison of envy. And that being increased with the presents she heard Dametas had given her, which all seemed torn out of her bowels, her hollow eyes yielded such wretched looks, as one might well think Pluto at that time might have had her soul, very good, cheap. But when the fire of spite had fully caught hold of all her inward parts, then whosoever would have seen the picture of Alecto, or with what manner of countenance Medea killed her own children, needed but take Miso for the full satisfaction of that point of his knowledge. She that could before scarce go but supported by crutches, now flew about the house, borne up by the wings of anger; there was no one sort of mortal revenge that had ever come to her ears, but presented itself now to her gentle mind. At length with few words, for her words were choked up with the rising of her revengeful heart, she ran down, and with her own hands saddled a mare of hers; a mare that seven years before had not been acquainted with the saddle, and so to Mantinea she went, casting with herself how she might couple shame with the punishment of her accursed husband: but the person is not worthy in whose passion I should too long stand. {468} Therefore now must I tell you that mistress Mopsa, who was the last party Dorus was to practice his cunning withal, was at the parting of her parents attending upon the princess Pamela, whom, because she found to be placed in her father’s house, she knew it was for suspicion the king had of her. This made Mopsa with a right base nature, which joys to see any hard hap happen to them they deem happy, grow proud over her, and use great ostentation of her own diligence, in prying curiously into each thing that Pamela did. Neither is there anything sooner overthrows a weak heart than opinion of authority, like too strong a liquor for so feeble a glass; which joined itself to the humour of envying Pamela’s beauty, so far that oft she would say to herself, if she had been born a princess as well as Pamela, her perfections then should have been as well seen as Pamela’s. With this manner of woman, and placed in these terms, had Dorus to play his last part, which he would have quickly dispatched in tying her up in such a manner that she should little have hindered his enterprise. But that the virtuous Pamela, when she saw him so minded, by countenance absolutely forbid it, resolutely determining she would not leave behind her any token of wrong: since the wrong done to herself was the best excuse of her escape: so that Dorus was compelled to take her in the manner he first thought of, and accordingly Pamela sitting musing at the strange attempt she had condescended unto, and Mopsa hard by her (looking in a glass with very partial eyes) Dorus put himself between them, and casting up his face to the top of the house, struggling all over his body, and stamping sometimes upon the ground, gave Mopsa occasion (who was as busy as a bee to know anything) to ask her lover Dorus what ailed him, that made him use so strange a behaviour: he, as if his spirits had been ravished with some supernatural contemplation, stood still mute, sometimes rubbing his forehead, sometimes starting in himself, that he set Mopsa in such an itch of inquiry that she would have offered her maidenhead, rather than be long kept from it. Dorus not yet answering to the purpose, still keeping his amazement: “O Hercules,” said he, “resolve me in this doubt. A tree to grant one’s wishes! Is this the cause of the king’s solitary life? which part shall I take? happy in either, unhappy because I cannot know which were my best hap.” These doubtful self-speeches, made Mopsa yet in a further longing of knowing the matter: so that the pretty pig, laying her sweet burden about his neck, “My Dorus,” said she, “tell me these words, or else I know not what will befall me, honey Dorus, tell them me.” Dorus having stretched her mind upon a right last: “Extremely loved Mopsa,” said he, “the matters be so great, as my heart fails me in the telling them: but since {469} you hold the greatest seat in it, it is reason your desire should add life unto it.” Therewith he told her a far-fetched tale; how that many millions of years before, Jupiter fallen out with Apollo, had thrown him out of heaven, taking from him the privilege of a god. So that poor Apollo was fain to lead a very miserable life, unacquainted to work, and never used to beg, that in this order having in time learned to be Admetus’s herdsman, he had upon occasion of fetching a certain breed of beasts out of Arcadia, come to that very desert, where wearied with travel, and resting himself in the boughs of a pleasant ash tree, which stood a little off from the lodge, he had with pitiful complaints, gotten his father Jupiter’s pardon, and so from that tree was received again to his golden sphere. But having that right nature of a god, never to be ungrateful, to Admetus he had granted a double life: and because that tree was the chapel of his prosperous prayers, he had given it this quality, that whatsoever of such estate, and in such manner as he then was, sat down in that tree, they should obtain whatsoever they wished. This Basilius having understood by the oracle, was the only cause which had made him try, whether framing himself to the state of an herdsman, he might have the privilege of wishing only granted to that degree; but that having often in vain attempted it, because indeed he was not such, he had now opened the secret to Dametas, making him swear he should wish according to his direction. “But because,” said Dorus, “Apollo was at that time with extreme grief, muffled round about his face, with a scarlet cloak Admetus had given him, and because they that must wish, must be muffled in like sort, and with like stuff, my master Dametas is gone I know not whither, to provide him a scarlet cloak, and to-morrow doth appoint to return with it. My mistress, I cannot tell how, having gotten some inkling of it, is trudged to Mantinea, to get herself a cloak before him, because she would have the first wish. My master at his parting, of great trust told me this secret, commanding me to see nobody should climb that tree. But now Mopsa,” said he, “I have here the like cloak of mine