The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
safety, make her a short but pithy discourse, what he had heard by
Dametas’s speeches, confirming the rest with a plain demonstration of
their imprisonment. And then sought he a new means of stopping his
breath; but that by Philoclea’s labour, above her force, he was stayed
to hear her. In whom a man might perceive what a small difference in
the working there is, betwixt a simple voidness of evil and a judicial
habit of virtue. For she, not with an unshaken magnanimity, wherewith
Pyrocles weighed and despised death, but with an innocent guiltiness,
not knowing why she should fear to deliver her unstained soul to God,
helped with the true loving of Pyrocles, which made her think no life
without him, did almost bring her mind to as quiet attending all
accidents, as the unmastered virtue of Pyrocles. Yet having with a
pretty paleness, which did leave milken lines upon her rosy cheeks,
paid a little duty to human fear, taking the prince by his hand, and
kissing the wound he had given himself: “O the only life of my life,
and if it fall out so, the comfort of my death,” said she, “far, far
from you be the doing of me such wrong as to think I will receive my
life as a purchase of your death, but well may you make my death so
much more miserable, as it shall anything be delayed after my only
felicity. Do you think I can account of the moment of death, like the
unspeakable afflictions my soul should suffer, so oft as I call
Pyrocles to my mind, which should be as oft as I breathed? Should
these eyes guide my steps, that had seen your murderer? Should these
hands feed me, that had not hindered such a mischief? Should this
heart remain within me, at every pant to count the continual clock of
my miseries? O no, if die we must, let us thank death, he hath not
divided so true a union. And truly, my Pyrocles, I have heard my
father and other wise men say that the killing of one’s self is but a
false colour of true courage, proceeding rather of a fear of a further
evil, either of torment or shame. For if it were not respecting the
harm, that would likewise make him not respect what might be done unto
him: and hope, being of all other the most contrary thing to fear;
this being an utter banishment of hope, it seems to {545} receive his
ground in fear. Whatsoever, would they say, comes out of despair,
cannot bear the title of valour, which should be lifted up to such a
height, that holding all things under itself, it should be able to
maintain his greatness even in the midst of miseries. Lastly, they
would say, God had appointed us captains of these our bodily forts,
which without treason to that majesty, were never to be delivered over
till they were re-demanded.”
Pyrocles, who had that for a law unto him, not to leave Philoclea in
anything unsatisfied, although he still remained in his former
purpose, and knew that time would grow short for it, yet hearing no
noise, the shepherds being as then run to Basilius, with settled and
humble countenance, as a man that should have spoken of a thing that
did not concern himself, bearing even in his eyes sufficient shows,
that it was nothing but Philoclea’s danger which did anything burden
his heart, far stronger than fortune, having with vehement embracings
of her got yet some fruit of his delayed end, he thus answered the
wise innocency of Philoclea. “Lady, most worthy not only of life, but
to be the very life of all things; the more notable demonstrations you
make of love so far beyond my desert, with which it pleaseth you to
overcome fortune, in making me happy: the more am I, even in course of
humanity, to leave that love’s force which I neither can nor will
leave, bound to seek requital’s witness, that I am not ungrateful to
do which, the infiniteness of your goodness being such as I cannot
reach unto it, yet doing all I can, and paying my life, which is all I
have, though it be far, without measure, short of your desert, yet
shall I not die in debt to mine own duty. And truly, the more
excellent arguments you made, to keep me from this passage, imagined
far more terrible than it is, the more plainly it makes me to see what
reason I have, to prevent the loss not only of Arcadia, but all the
face of the earth should receive, if such a tree, which even in his
first spring, doth not only bear most beautiful blossoms, but most
rare fruit, should be so untimely cut off. Therefore, O most truly
beloved lady, to whom I desire for both our goods that these may be my
last words, give me your consent even out of that wisdom which must
needs see, that, besides your unmatched betterness, which perchance
you will not see, it is fitter one die than both. And since you have
sufficiently showed you love me, let me claim by that love you will be
content rather to let me die contentedly than wretchedly, rather with
a clear and joyful conscience than with desperate condemnation in
myself, that I, accursed villain, should be the means of banishing
from the sight of men the true example of virtue. And because there is
nothing left me to be imagined, which I so much desire, as that the
memory of Pyrocles may ever have an allowed place in your wise
judgment, I am {546} content to draw so much breath longer, as by
answering the sweet objections you alleged, may bequeath, as I think,
a right conceit unto you, that this my doing is out of judgment, and
not sprung of passion. Your father, you say, was wont to say, that
this like action doth more proceed of fear of further evil or shame
than of a true courage: truly first, they put a very guessing case,
speaking of them who can never after come to tell with what mind they
did it. And as for my part, I call the immortal truth to witness that
no fear of torment can appal me; who know it is but diverse manners of
apparelling death; and have long learned to set bodily pain but in the
second form of my being. And as for shame, how can I be ashamed of
that for which my well meaning conscience will answer for me to God,
and your unresistable beauty to the world? But to take that argument
in his own force, and grant it done for avoiding of further pain or
dishonour: (for as for the name of fear, it is but an odious title of
a passion, given to that which true judgment performeth) grant, I say,
it is to shun a worse case, and truly I do not see but that true
fortitude, looking into all human things with a persisting resolution,
carried away neither with wonder of pleasing things, nor astonishment
of the unpleasant, doth not yet deprive itself of the discerning the
difference of evil, but rather is the only virtue, which with an
assured tranquility shuns the greater by valiantly entering into the
less. Thus for his country’s safety he will spend his life, for the
saving of a limb he will not niggardly spare his goods; for the saving
of all his body he will not spare the cutting off a limb, where indeed
the weak-hearted man will rather die than see the face of a surgeon,
who might with as good reason say, that the constant man abides the
painful surgery for fear of a further evil: but he is content to wait
for death itself, but neither is true; for neither had the one any
fear, but a well-chosen judgment: nor the other hath any contentment,
but only fear, and not having a heart actively to perform a matter of
pain, is forced passively to abide a greater damage. For to do,
requires a whole heart; to suffer falleth easiliest in the broken
minds. And if in bodily torment thus, much more in shame, wherein
since valour is a virtue, and virtue is ever limited, we must not run
so infinitely as to think the valiant man is willingly to suffer
anything, since the very suffering of some things is a certain proof
of want of courage. And if anything unwillingly, among the chiefest
may shame go; for if honour be to be held dear, his contrary is to be
abhorred, and that not for fear, but of a true election. For which is
the less inconvenient, either the loss of some years more or less
(when once we know our lives be not immortal) or the submitting
ourselves to each unworthy misery which the foolish world may {547}
lay upon us? as for their reason, that fear is contrary to hope,
neither do I defend fear, nor much yield to the authority of hope, to
either of which great inclining shows but a feeble reason which must
be guided by his servants; and who builds not upon hope, shall fear no
earthquake of despair. Their last alleging of the heavenly powers, as
it bears the greatest name, so it is the only thing that at all breeds
any combat in my mind, and yet I do not see but that if God had made
us masters of anything, it is of our own lives out of which, without
doing wrong to anybody, we are to issue at our own pleasure. And the
same argument would as much prevail to say we should for no necessity
lay away from us any of our joints, since they being made of Him,
without His warrant we should not depart from them; or if that may be,
for a greater cause we may pass to a greater degree. And if we be
lieutenants of God in this little castle, do you not think we must
take warning of Him to give over our charge when He leaves us
unprovided of good means to tarry in it?” “No certainly do I not,”
answered the sorrowful Philoclea, “since it is not for us to appoint
that mighty majesty what time He will help us; the uttermost instant
is scope enough for Him to revoke everything to one’s own desire. And
therefore to prejudicate His determination is but a doubt of goodness
in Him Who is nothing but goodness. But when indeed He doth either by
sickness, or outward force lay death upon us, then are we to take
knowledge that such is His pleasure, and to know that all is well that
He doth. That we should be masters of ourselves, we can show at all no
title nor claim; since neither we made ourselves, nor bought
ourselves, we can stand upon no other right but His gift, which He
must limit as it pleaseth Him. Neither is there any proportion betwixt
the loss of any other limb, and that, since the one bends to the
preserving of all, the other to the destruction of all; the one takes
not away the mind from the actions for which it is placed in the
world, the other cuts off all possibility of his working. And truly my
most dear Pyrocles, I must needs protest unto you, that I cannot think
your defence even in rules of virtue sufficient. Sufficient and
excellent it were, if the question were of two outward things, wherein
a man might by nature’s freedom determine, whether he would prefer
shame to pain; present smaller torment, to greater following, or no.
But to this, besides the comparison of the matter’s valour, there is
added of the one part a direct evil doing, which maketh the balance of
that side too much unequal; since a virtuous man without any respect,
whether the grief be less or more, is never to do that which he cannot
assure himself is allowable before the everliving rightfulness; but
rather is to think honours or shames which stand in other men’s true
or false judgments, pains or not pains, which {548} yet never approach
our souls, to be nothing in regard of an unspotted conscience. And
these reasons do I remember, I have heard good men bring in, that
since it hath not his ground in an assured virtue, it proceeds rather
of some other disguised passion.”
Pyrocles was not so much persuaded as delighted, by her well-conceived
and sweetly pronounced speeches: but when she had closed her pitiful
discourse, and as it were sealed up her delightful lips, with the
moistness of her tears, which followed still one another like a
precious rope of pearl, now thinking it high time: “Be it as you say,”
said he, “most virtuous beauty, in all the rest, but never can God
himself persuade me that Pyrocles’s life is not well lost, for to