The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
It title had, “Unto my only love”:
Subscription was, “Yours most, if you will prove.”
Th’ epistle self such kind of words it had;
“My sweetest joy, the comfort of my sprite,
So may thy flocks increase thy dear heart glad,
So may each thing e’en as thou wishest light,
As thou wilt deign to read, and gently read
This mourning ink in which my heart doth bleed.
“Long have I lov’d, alas thou worthy art,
Long have I lov’d, alas love craveth love,
Long have I lov’d thyself, alas my heart
Doth break, now tongue unto thy name doth move;
And think not that thy answer answer is,
But that it is my doom of bale or bliss.
“The jealous wretch must now to court be gone;
Ne can he fail, for prince hath for him sent:
Now is the time we may be here alone,
And give a long desire a sweet content.
Thus shall you both reward a lover true,
And eke revenge his wrong suspecting you.”
{511}
And this was all, and this the husband read
With chafe enough, till she him pacified:
Desiring that no grief in him be bred,
Now that he had her words so truly tried:
But that he would to him the letter show,
That with his fault be might her goodness know.
That straight was done with many a boist’rous threat,
That to the king he would his sin declare;
But now the courtier gan to smell the feat,
And with some words which showed little care:
He stayed until the good man was departed,
Then gave he him the blow which never smarted.
Thus may you see the jealous wretch was made
The pander of the thing he most did fear.
Take heed therefore, how you ensue that trade,
Lest the same marks of jealousy you bear.
For sure, no jealousy can that prevent,
Whereto two parties once be full content.
“Behold,” said Pas, “a whole dicker of wit: he had picked out such a
tale with intention to keep a husband from jealousy, which was enough
to make a sanctified husband jealous, to see subtilities so much in
the feminine gender. But,” said he, “I will strike Nico dead, with the
wise words that shall flow out of my gorge.” And without further
entreaty thus sang:
Who doth desire that chaste his wife should be,
First be he true, for truth doth truth deserve:
Then such be he, as she his worth may see,
And one man still credit with her preserve.
Not toying kind, nor causelessly unkind,
Not stirring thoughts, nor yet denying right,
Not spying faults, nor in plain errors blind,
Never hard hand, nor ever reins too light.
As far from want, as far from vain expense
(The one doth force, the latter doth entice)
Allow good company, but keep from thence
All filthy mouths that glory in their vice.
This done, thou hast no more, but leave the rest,
To virtue, fortune, time and woman’s breast.
“Well concluded,” said Nico, “when he hath done all, he leaves the
matter to his wife’s discretion. Now whensoever thou marriest, let her
discretion deck thy head with Actaeon’s ornament.” Pas {512} was so
angry with his wish, being indeed towards marriage, that they might
perchance have fallen to buffets, but that Dicus desired Philisides,
who as a stranger sat among them, revolving in his mind all the
tempests of evil fortune he had passed, that he would do so much grace
to the company, as to sing one of his country songs. Philisides,
knowing it no good manners to be squeamish of his coming, having put
himself into their company, without further study began to utter that,
wherewith his thoughts were then, as always, most busied: and to show
what a stranger he was to himself, spoke of himself, as of a third
person in this sort:
The lad Philisides
Lay by a river’s side.
In flow’ry field a gladder eye to please;
His pipe was at his foot,
His lambs were him beside,
A widow turtle near on bared root
Sat wailing without boot.
Each thing both sweet and sad
Did draw his boiling brain
To think, and think with pain
Of Mira’s beams, eclips’d by absence bad,
And thus, with eyes made dim
With tears, he said, or sorrow said for him:
“O earth, once answer give,
So may thy stately grace
By north, or south still rich adorned live,
So Mira long may be
On thy then blessed face
Whose foot doth set a heav’n on cursed thee,
I ask, now answer me:
If th’ author of thy bliss,
Phoebus, that shepherd high,
Do turn from thee his eye,
Doth not thyself, when he long absent is,
Like rogue, all ragged go,
And pine away with daily wasting woe?
Tell me you wanton brook,
So may your sliding race
Shun loathed loving banks with cunning crook:
So in you ever new
Mira may look her face,
And make you fair with shadow of her hue:
So when to pay your due
To mother sea you come,
She chid you not for stay,
Nor beat you for your play,
Tell me if your diverted springs become
{513}
Absented quite from you,
Are you not dried? can you yourselves renew?
Tell me you flowers fair,
Cowslip and columbine,
So may you make this wholesome spring-time air
With you embraced lie,
And lately thence untwine:
But with dewdrops engender children high:
So may you never die,
But pull’d by Mira’s hand,
Dress bosom hers, or head.
Or scatter on her bed,
Tell me, if husband spring-time leave your land,
When he from you is sent,
Whither not you, languish’d with discontent?
Tell me, my silly pipe,
So may thee still betide,
A cleanly cloth thy moistness for to wipe:
So may the cherries red
Of Mira’s lips divide
Their sugared selves to kiss thy happy head:
So may her ears be led
Her ears where music lives,
To hear and not despise
Thy lyric-liring cries;
Tell, if that breath, which thee thy sounding gives.
Be absent far from thee,
Absent alone canst thou then piping be?
Tell me my lamb of gold,
So may’st thou long abide
The day well fed, the night in faithful fold:
So grow thy wool of note,
In time that richly dy’d
It may be part of Mira’s petticoat,
Tell me, if wolves the throat
Have caught of thy dear dam,
Or she from thee be stay’d,
Or thou from her be stray’d,
Canst thou poor lamb, become another’s lamb?
Or rather till you die,
Still for thy dam, with baa-waymenting cry?
Tell me, O turtle true,
So may no fortune breed
To make thee nor thy better-loved rue:
So may thy blessings swarm,
That Mira may thee feed
With hand and mouth; with laps and breaks keep warm:
Tell me of greedy arm,
{514}
Do fondly take away
With traitor lime the one
The other left alone:
Tell me poor wretch, parted from wretched prey
Disdain not you the green,
Wailing till death, shun you not to be seen?
Earth, brook, flow’rs, pipe, lamb, dove,
Say all and I with them,
‘Absence is death or worse, to them that love.’
So I unlucky lad
Whom hills from her do hem,
What fits me now but tears, and sighings sad?
O fortune too too bad,
I rather would my sheep
Th’adst killed with a stroke,
Burnt Caban, lost my cloak,
Then want one hour those eyes which my joys keep.
Oh! what doth wailing win?
Speech without end had better not begin.
My song climb thou the wind,
Which Holland sweet now gently sendeth in,
That on his wings the level thou may’st find
To hit, but kissing hit
Her ears the weights of wit.
If thou know not for whom thy master dies,
These marks shall make thee wise:
She is the herdess fair that shines in dark,
And gives her kids no food, but willow’s bark.”
This said, at length he ended.
His oft sigh-broken ditty,
Then raise, but raise no legs with faintness bended,
With skin in sorrow died,
With face the plot of pity,
With thoughts, which thoughts their own tormentors tried.
He rose, and straight espied
His ram, who to recover
The ewe another loved,
With him proud battle proved.
He envied such a death in sight of lover,
And always westward eyeing,
More envied Phoebus for his western flying.
The whole company would gladly have taken this occasion of requesting
Philisides in plainer sort to discover unto them his estate. Which he
willing to prevent, as knowing the relation thereof more fit for
funerals than the time of a marriage, began to sing this song he had
learned before he had ever subjected his thoughts to acknowledge no
master, but a mistress.
{515}
As I my little flock on Ister bank
(A little flock; but well my pipe they couth)
Did piping lead, the sun already sank
Beyond our world, and ere I got my booth,
Each thing with mantle black the night doth sooth;
Saving the glow-worm which would courteous be
Of that small light oft watching shepherds see.
The welkin had full niggardly enclosed
In coffer of dim clouds his silver groats,
Ycleped stars; each thing to rest disposed,
The caves, were full, the mountains void of goats
The bird’s eye clos’d; closed their chirping notes.
As for the nightingale, wood music’s king:
It August was, he deign’d not then to sing.
Amid my sheep, though I saw naught to fear,
Yet (for I nothing saw) I feared sore;
Then found I which thing is a charge to bear,
As for my sheep I dreaded mickle more
Than ever for myself since I was bore.
I sat me down: for see to go he could.
And sang unto my sheep lest stray they should.
The song I sang old Lanquet had me taught,
Lanquet, the shepherd best swift Ister knew,
For clerkly read, and hating what is naught,
For faithful heart, clean hands, and mouth as true:
With sweet skill my skilless youth he drew,
To have a feeling taste of him that fits
Beyond the heaven, far more beyond your wits.
He said the music best thilk power pleased
Was jump concord between our wit and will;
Where highest notes to godliness are raised,
And lowest sink not down to jot of ill:
With old true tales he wont mine ears to fill.
How shepherds did of yore, how now they thrive,
Spoiling their flock, or while ’twixt them they strive.
He liked me, but pitied lustful youth:
His good strong staff my slipp’ry years upbore:
He still hop’d well because I loved truth:
Till forc’d to part with heart and eyes e’en sore,
To worthy Corydon he gave me o’er,
But thus in oak’s true shade recounted be,
Which now in night’s deep shade sheep heard of me.
{516}
Such manner time there was (what time I not)
When all this earth, this dam or mould of ours
Was only won’d with such as beasts begot:
Unknown as then were they that builded towers:
The cattle wild, or tame, in nature’s bowers
Might freely roam, or rest, as seemed them:
Man was not man their dwellings in to hem.
The beasts had sure some beastly policy:
For nothing can endure where order n’is.
For once the lion by the lamb did lie,
The fearful hind the leopard did kiss.
Hurtless was tiger’s paw, and serpent’s hiss.
This think I well the beasts with courage clad,
Like senators a harmless empire had.
At which whether the others did repine,
For envy harb’reth most in feeblest hearts
Or that they all to changing did incline,
As e’en in beasts their dams leave changing parts
The multitude to Jove a suit imparts,
With neighing, blaying, braying, and barking,
Roaring and howling for to have a king.
A king, in language theirs they said they would:
(For then their language was a perfect speech)
The birds likewise with chirps, and puing could
Cackling, and chatt’ring that of Jove beseech.
Only the owl still warn’d them not to seech
So hastily that which they would repent;
But saw they would, and he to deserts went.
Jove wisely said (for wisdom wisely says)
O beasts, take heed what you of me desire.
Rulers will think all things made them to please,
And soon forget the swink due to their hire:
But since you will, part of my heav’nly fire,