The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
into, and especially those saucy pages of love, doubts, griefs,
languishing hopes, and threatening despairs, came all now to his mind,
in one rank to beautify his expected blissfulness, and to serve for a
most fit sauce, whose sourness might give a kind of life to the
delightful cheer his imagination fed upon. All the great estate of his
father, all his own glory, seemed unto him but a trifling pomp, whose
good stands in other men’s conceit, in comparison of the true comfort
he found in the depth of his mind, and the knowledge of any misery
that might ensue his joyous adventure, was recked of but as a slight
purchase of possessing the top of happiness; for so far were his
thoughts passed through all perils, that already he conceived himself
safely arrived with his lady at the stately palace of Pella, among the
exceeding joys of his father, and infinite congratulations of his
friends, giving order for the royal entertaining of Philoclea, and for
sumptuous shows and triumphs, against their marriage. In the thought
whereof as he found extremity of joy, so well found he that the
extremity is not without a certain joyful pain, by extending the heart
beyond his wonted limits, and by so forcible a holding all the senses
to one object, that it confounds their mutual working, not without a
charming kind of ravishing them from the free use of their own
function. Thus grieved only with too much gladness, being come to the
door which should be the entry to his happiness, he was met with the
latter end of a song, which Philoclea like a solitary nightingale,
bewailing her guiltless punishment, and helpless misfortune, had newly
delivered over, meaning none should be judge of her passion, but her
own conscience. The song having been accorded to a sweetly played on
lute, contained these verses, which she had lately with some art
curiously written, to enwrap her secret and resolute woes.
{497}
Virtue(1), beauty(2), and speech(3), did strike(1), wound(2),
charm(3),[b3-10]
My heart(1), eyes(2), ears(3), with wonder(1), love(2), delight(3):
First(1), second(2), last(3), did bind(1), enforce(2) and arm(3),
His works(1), shows(2), suits(3), with wit(1), grace(2) and vows’(3)
might,
Thus honour(1), liking(2), trust(3), much(1), far(2), and deep(3),
Held(1), pierc’d(2), possess’d(3), my judgment(1), sense(2) and
will(3).
Till wrong(1), contempt(2), deceit(3) did grow(1), steal(2), creep(3),
Bands(1), favour(2), faith(3), to break(1), defile(2) and kill(3),
Then grief(1), unkindness(2), proof(3), took(1), kindled(2),
taught(3),
Well(1)-grounded, noble(2), due(3), spite(1), rage(2), disdain(3)
But(1) ah(2), alas(3)! (in vain) my mind(1), sight(2), thought(3),
Doth him(1), his face(2), his words(3), leave(1), shun(2), refrain(3),
For no thing(1), time(2), nor place(3), can lose(1), quench(2),
ease(3),
Mine own(1), embraced(2), sought(3), knot(1), fire(2), disease(3).
The force of love to those poor folk that feel it is many ways very
strange, but no way stranger than that it doth so enchain the lover’s
judgment upon her that holds the reins of his mind, that whatsoever
she doth is ever in his eyes best. And that best, being the continual
motion of our changing life, turned by her to any other thing that
thing again becometh best. So that nature in each kind suffering but
one superlative, the lover only admits no positive. If she sits still,
that is best, for so is the conspiracy of her several graces, held
best together to make one perfect figure of beauty. If she walk, no
doubt that is best, for, besides, the making happy the more places by
her steps, the very stirring adds a pleasing life to her native
perfections. If she be silent, that without comparison is best, since
by that means the untroubled eye most freely may devour the sweetness
of his object. But if she speak, he will take it upon his death that
is best, the quintessence of each word being distilled down into his
affected soul: example of this was well to be seen in the given-over
Pyrocles, who with panting breath, and sometimes sighs, not such as
sorrow restraining the inward parts doth make them glad to deliver,
but such as the impatience of delay, with the unsurety of never so
sure hope, is {498} wont to breathe out. Now being at the door, of the
one side hearing her voice, which he thought if the philosopher said
true of the heavenly seven-sphered harmony, was by her not only
represented, but far surmounted, and of the other having his eyes
over-filled with her beauty, for the king at his parting had left the
chamber open, and she at that time lay, as the heat of that country
did well suffer, upon the top of her bed, having her beauties eclipsed
with nothing but with a fair smock, wrought all in flames of
ash-colour silk and gold lying so upon her right side, that the left
thigh down to the foot, yielded his delightful proportion to the full
view, which was seen by the help of a rich lamp, which through the
curtains a little drawn cast forth a light upon her, as the moon doth
when it shines into a thin wood: Pyrocles I say was stopped with the
violence of so many darts cast by Cupid altogether upon him, that
quite forgetting himself, and thinking therein already he was in the
best degree of felicity, he would have lost much of his time, and with
too much love omitted the enterprise undertaken for his love, had not
Philoclea’s pitiful accusing of him forced him to bring his spirits
again to a new bias; for she laying her hand under her fair cheek,
upon which there did privily trickle the sweet drops of her
delightful, though sorrowful tears, made these words wait upon her
moanful song. “And hath that cruel Pyrocles,” said she, “deserved thus
much of me, that I should for his sake lift up my voice in my best
tunes, and to him continually, with pouring out my plaint, make a
disdained oblation? shall my soul still do this honour to his
unmerciful tyranny, by my lamenting his loss, to show his worthiness
and my weakness? He hears thee not, simple Philoclea, he hears thee
not; and if he did, some hearts grow the harder the more they find
their advantage. Alas! what a miserable constitution of mind have I! I
disdain my fortune, and yet reverence him that disdains me. I accuse
his ungratefulness, and have his virtue in admiration. O ye deaf
heavens, I would either his injury could blot out mine affection, or
my affection could forget his injury.” With that giving a pitiful but
sweet shriek, she took again the lute, and began to sing this sonnet,
which might serve as an explaining to the other.
The love which is imprinted in my soul
With beauty’s seal, and virtue fair disguis’d,
With inward cries puts up a bitter roll
Of huge complaints, that now it is despis’d.
Thus, thus the more I love, the wrong the more
Monstrous appears, long truth received late,
Wrong stirs remorsed Grief, grief’s deadly sore
Unkindness breeds, unkindness fostereth hate.
{499}
But ah, the more I hate, the more I think
Whom I do hate; the more I think on him,
The more his matchless gifts do deeply sink
Into my breast, and loves renewed swim.
What medicine then can such disease remove,
Where love draws hate, and hate engendereth love?
But Pyrocles, that had heard his name accused and condemned by the
mouth, which of all the world, and more than all the world, he most
loved, had then cause enough to call his mind to his home, and with
the most haste he could, for true love fears the accident of an
instant, to match the excusing of his fault, with declaration of his
errand thither. And therefore blown up and down with as many contrary
passions as Aeolus sent out winds upon the Trojan relics guided upon
the sea by the valiant Aeneas, he went into her chamber with such a
pace as reverend fear doth teach, where kneeling down, and having
prepared a long discourse for her, his eyes were so filled with her
sight, that as if they would have robbed all their fellows of their
services, both his heart fainted, and his tongue failed in such sort
that he could not bring forth one word, but referred her understanding
to his eyes’ language. But she in extremity amazed to see him there,
at so undue a season, and ashamed that her beautiful body made so
naked a prospect, drawing in her delicate limbs into the weak guard of
the bed, and presenting in her face to him such a kind of pitiful
anger, as might show this was only a fault; therefore, because she had
a former grudge unto him, turning away her face from him, she thus
said unto him:
“O Zelmane or Pyrocles, for whether name I use, it much skills not,
since by the one I was first deceived, and by the other now betrayed,
what strange motion is the guide of thy cruel mind hither? Dost thou
not think the day-torments thou hast given me sufficient, but that
thou dost envy me the night’s quiet? Wilt thou give my sorrows no
truce, but by making me see before mine eyes how much I have lost,
offer me due cause of confirming my plaint? or is thy heart so full of
rancour that thou dost desire to feed thine eyes with the wretched
spectacle of thine overthrown enemy, and so to satisfy the full
measure of thy undeserved rage with the receiving into thy sight the
unrelievable ruins of my desolate life! O Pyrocles, Pyrocles, for thy
own virtue’s sake, let miseries be no music unto thee, and be content
to take to thyself some colour of excuse, that thou didst not know to
what extremity thy inconstancy, or rather falsehood hath brought me.”
Pyrocles, to whom every syllable she pronounced was a thunderbolt to
his heart, equally distracted betwixt amazement and sorrow, abashed to
see such a stop of his desires, grieved {500} with her pain, but
tormented to find himself the author of it, with quaking lips, and
pale cheer, “Alas! divine lady,” said he, “your displeasure is so
contrary to my desert, and your words so far beyond all expectations
that I have least ability now I have most need to speak in the cause
upon which my life dependeth. For my troth is so undoubtedly constant
unto you, my heart is so assured a witness to itself, of his unspotted
faith, that having no one thing in me, whereout any such sacrilege
might arise; I have likewise nothing in so direct a thing to say for
myself, but sincere and vehement protestations; for in truth there may
most words be spent, where there is some probability to breed of both
sides conjectural allegations. But so perfect a thing as my love is of
you, as it suffers no question, so it seems to receive injury by any
addition of any words unto it. If my soul could have been polluted
with treachery it would likewise have provided for itself due
furniture of colourable answers, but as it stood upon the naked
conscience of his untouched duty, so I must confess it is altogether
unarmed against so unjust a violence as you lay upon me. Alas! let not
the pains I have taken to serve you, be now accounted injurious unto
you, let not the dangerous cunning I have used to please you, be
deemed a treason against you: since I have deceived them whom you fear
for your sake, do not you destroy me for their sake; what can I
without you further do? or to what more forwardness can any counsel
bring our desired happiness? I have provided whatsoever is needful for
our going, I have rid them both out of the lodge, so that there is
none here to be hinderers or knowers of our departure, but only the
almighty powers, whom I invoke as triers of mine innocency, and
witnesses of my well-meaning. And if ever my thoughts did receive so
much as a fainting in their affections, if they have not continually
with more and more ardour from time to time pursued the possession of
your sweetest favour, if ever in that possession they received either