The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

spot or falsehood, then let their most horrible plagues fall upon me, let mine eyes be deprived of the light, which did abase the heavenly beams that struck them, let my falsified tongue serve to no use but to bemoan mine own wretchedness, let my heart impoisoned with detestable treason, be the seat of infernal sorrow, let my soul with the endless anguish of his conscience become his own tormentor.” “O false mankind!” cried out the sweet Philoclea. “How can an imposthumed heart but yield forth evil matter by his mouth? are oaths there to be believed, where vows are broken? No, no, who doth wound the eternal justice of the gods, cares little for abusing their names, and who in doing wickedly doth not fear due recompensing plagues, doth little fear that invoking of plagues will make them come {501} ever a whit the sooner. But alas! what aileth this new conversation, have you yet another sleight to pay, or do you think to deceive me in Pyrocles’s form, as you have done in Zelmane’s: or rather, now you have betrayed me in both, is some third sex left you, to transform yourself into, to inveigle my simplicity? enjoy, enjoy the conquest you have already won: and assure yourself you are to come to the farthest point of your cunning. For my part, unkind Pyrocles, my only defence shall be belief of nothing, my comfort my faithful innocency, and the punishment I desire of you, shall be your own conscience.” Philoclea’s hard persevering in this unjust condemnation of him, did so overthrow all the might of Pyrocles’s mind, who saw that time would not serve to prove by deeds, and that the better words he used, the more they were suspected of deceitful cunning. That void of all counsel, and deprived of all comfort, finding best deserts punished, and nearest hopes prevented, he did abandon the succour of himself, and suffered grief so to close his heart, that his breath failing him with a dreadful shutting of his eyes, he fell down at her bedside. Having had time to say no more but, “oh! whom dost thou kill Philoclea?” she that little looked for such an extreme event of her doings, started out of her bed, like Venus rising from her mother the sea, not so much stricken down with amazement and grief of her fault, as lifted up with the force of love, and desire to help, she laid her fair body over his breast, and throwing no other water in his face, but the stream of her tears, not giving him other blows, but the kissing of her well-formed mouth, her only cries were these lamentations: “O unfortunate suspicion,” said she, “the very mean to lose what we most suspect to lose. O unkind kindness of mine, which returns an imagined wrong with an effectual injury. O fool to make quarrel my supplication, or to use hate as the mediator of love: childish Philoclea, hast thou thrown away the jewel wherein all thy pride consisted? Hast thou with too much haste over-run thyself?” Then would she renew her kisses, and yet not finding the life return, redouble her plaints in this manner. “O divine soul,” said she, “whose virtue can possess no less than the highest place in heaven, if for mine eternal plague thou hast utterly left this most sweet mansion, before I follow thee with Thisbe’s punishment for my rash unweariness, hear this protestation of mine: that as the wrong I have done thee proceeded of a most sincere, but unresistable affection, so led with this pitiful example, it shall end in the mortal hate of myself, and, if it may be, I will make my soul a tomb of thy memory.” At that word with anguish of mind and weakness of body increased one by the other, and both augmented by this fearful accident, she had fallen down in a swoon, but that Pyrocles, {502} then first severing his eyelids and quickly apprehending her danger, to him more than death, beyond all powers striving to recover the commandment of all his powers, stayed her from falling, and then lifting the sweet burden of her body in his arms, laid her again in her bed. So that she, but then the physician, was now become the patient, and he to whom her weakness had been serviceable, was now enforced to do service to her weakness, which performed by him with that hearty care which the most careful love on the best loved subject in greatest extremity could employ, prevailed so far, that ere long she was able, though in strength exceedingly dejected, to call home her wandering senses, to yield attention to that her beloved Pyrocles had to deliver. But he lying down on the bed by her, holding her hand in his, with so kind an accusing her of unkindness, as in accusing her he condemned himself, began from point to point to discover unto her all that had passed between his loathed lovers and him. How he had entertained, and by entertaining deceived, both Basilius and Gynecia; and that with such a kind of deceit, as either might see the cause in the other, but neither espy the effect in themselves. That all his favours to them had tended only to make them strangers to this his action; and all his strangeness to her, to the final obtaining of her long promised, and now to be performed favour. Which device seeing it had so well succeeded to the removing all other hindrances, that only her resolution remained for the taking their happy journey, he conjured her by all the love she had ever borne him, she would make no longer delay to partake with him whatsoever honours the noble king of Macedon, and all other Euarchus’s dominions might yield him, especially since in this enterprise he had now waded so far, as he could not possibly retire himself back, without being overwhelmed with danger and dishonour: he needed not have used further persuasion: for that only conjuration had so forcibly bound all her spirits that could her body have seconded her mind, or her mind have strengthened her body, without respect of any worldly thing, but only fear to be again unkind to Pyrocles, she had condescended to go with him. But raising herself a little in her bed, and finding her own inability in any sort to endure the air: “My Pyrocles,” said she, with tearful eyes and a pitiful countenance, such as well witnessed she had no will to deny anything, she had power to perform, “if you can convey me hence in such plight as you see me, I am most willing to make my extremest danger a testimony, that I esteem no danger in regard of your virtuous satisfaction.” But she fainted so fast that she was not able to utter the rest of her conceived speech; which also turned Pyrocles’s thoughts from expecting further answer, to the necessary care of reviving her, in {503} whose fainting, himself was more than overthrown. And that having affected with all the sweet means his wits could devise, though his highest hopes were by this unexpected downfall sunk deeper than any degree of despair: yet lest the appearance of his inward grief might occasion her further discomfort, having wracked his face to a more comfortable semblance, he sought some show of reason, to show she had no reason, either for him, or for herself to be afflicted. Which in the sweet-minded Philoclea, whose consideration was limited by his words, and whose conceit pierced no deeper than his outward countenance, wrought within a while such quietness of mind, and that quietness again such repose of body, that sleep by his harbinger’s weakness, weariness, and watchfulness, had quickly taken up his lodging in all her senses. Then indeed had Pyrocles leisure to sit in judgment on himself, and to hear his reason accuse his rashness, who, without forecast of doubt, without knowledge of his friend, without acquainting Philoclea with his purpose, or being made acquainted with her present estate, had fallen headlong into that attempt, the success whereof he had long since set down to himself as the measure of all his other fortunes. But calling to mind how weakly they do, that rather find fault with what cannot be mended than seek to amend wherein they have been faulty: he soon turned him from remembering what might have been done, to considering what was now to be done, and when that consideration failed, what was now to be expected. Wherein having run over all the thoughts, his reason, called to the strictest accounts, could bring before him, at length he lighted on this. That as long as Gynecia betrayed not the matter, which he thought she would not do, as well for her own honour and safety, as for the hope she might still have of him, which is loth to die in a lover’s heart, all the rest might turn to a pretty merriment, and inflame his lover Basilius, again to cast about for the missed favour. And as naturally the heart stuffed up with woefulness, is glad greedily to suck the thinnest air of comfort, so did he at first embrace this conceit, as offering great hope, if not assurance of well-doing, till looking more nearly into it, and not able to answer the doubts and difficulties he saw therein more and more arising, the night being also far spent, his thoughts even weary of his own burdens, fell to a straying kind of uncertainty; and his mind standing only upon the nature of inward intelligences, left his body to give a sleeping respite to his vital spirits, which he according to the quality of sorrow received with greater greediness than ever in his life before: according to the nature of sorrow, I say, which is past care’s remedy; for care stirring the brains, and making thin the spirits, breaketh rest: but those griefs wherein one is determined there is no preventing, {504} do breed a dull heaviness which easily clothes itself in sleep, so as laid down so near, the beauty of the word, Philoclea, that their necks were subjects each to other’s chaste embracements, it seemed love had come thither to lay a plot in that picture of death, how gladly, if death came, their souls would go together. THE THIRD ECLOGUES Thyrsis not with many painted words nor falsified promises had won the consent of his beloved Kala, but with a true and simple making her know he loved her, not forcing himself beyond his reach to buy her affection, but giving her such pretty presents, as neither could weary him with the giving, nor shame her for the taking. Thus, the first strawberries he could find, were ever in a clean washed dish, sent to Kala; thus posies of the spring flowers were wrapped up in a little green silk, and dedicated to Kala’s breasts; thus sometimes his sweetest cream, sometimes the best cakebread his mother made, were reserved for Kala’s taste. Neither would he stick to kill a lamb when she would be content to come over the way unto him. But then lo, how the house was swept, and rather no fire than any smoke left to trouble her. Then love songs were not dainty, when she would hear them, and as much mannerly silence, when she would not: in going to church great worship to Kala. So that all the parish said, never a maid they knew so well waited on: and when dancing was about the may-pole, nobody taken out but she, and he after a leap or two to show her his own activity, would frame all the rest of his dancing only to grace her. As for her father’s sheep, he had no less care of them than his own: so that she might play her as she would, warranted with Thyrsis’s carefulness. But if he spied Kala favoured any one of the flock more than his fellows, then that was cherished: shearing him so (when shorn he must be) as might most become him: but while the wood was on, wrapped within it some verses, wherein Thyrsis had a special gift, and making the innocent beast his unweeting messenger. Thus constantly continuing, though he were none of the fairest, at length he won Kala’s heart, the honestest wench in all those quarters. And so with consent of both parents, without which neither Thyrsis would ask, nor