The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
besides the obligation he stood bound to them in for preserving the
lives of his son and nephew, their noble behaviour had bred such love
in his heart towards them that both with tears he parted from them
when they left him, under promise to return, and did keep their jewels
and apparel as the relics of two demi-gods. Among others he had
entered the prison and seen them, which forthwith so invested his
soul, both with sorrow and desire to help them, whom he tendered as
his children, that calling his neighbours the Mantineans unto {569}
him, he told them all the praises of these two young men, swearing he
thought the gods had provided for them better than they themselves
could have imagined. He willed them to consider that when all was done
Basilius’s children must enjoy the state, who since they had chosen,
and chosen so that all the world could not mend their choice, why
should they resist God’s doing, and their princess’s pleasure? this
was the only way to purchase quietness without blood, where otherwise
they should at one instant crown Pamela with a crown of gold, and a
dishonoured title? which whether ever she would forget, he thought it
fit for them to weigh: “Such,” said he, “heroical greatness shines in
their eyes, such an extraordinary majesty in all their actions, as
surely either fortune by parentage, or nature in creation, hath made
them princes. And yet a state already we have, we need but a man, who
since he is presented unto you by the heavenly providence, embraced by
our undoubted princess, worthy for their youth of compassion, for
their beauty of admiration, for their excellent virtue to be monarchs
of the world; shall we not be content with our own bliss? shall we put
out our eyes because another man cannot see? or rather like some men,
when too much good happens unto them, they think themselves in a dream
and have not spirits to taste their own goods? No, no, my friends,
believe me, I am so impartial, that I know not their names, but so
overcome with their virtue that I shall then think the destinies have
ordained a perpetual flourishing to Arcadia, when they shall allot
such a governor unto it.”
This spoken by a grave man in years, great in authority, near allied
to the prince, and known honest, prevailed so with all the Mantineans,
that with one voice they ran to deliver the two princes. But Philanax
came in time to withstand them, both sides standing in arms, and
rather wanting a beginning than minds to enter into a bloody conflict.
Which Philanax foreseeing, thought best to remove the prisoners
secretly, and if need were, rather without form of justice to kill
them, than against justice, as he thought, to have them usurp the
state. But there again arose a new trouble. For Sympathus, the
nobleman that kept them, was so stricken in compassion with their
excellent presence, that as he would not falsify his promise to
Philanax to give them liberty so yet would he not yield them to
himself, fearing he would do them violence. Thus tumult upon tumult
arising, the sun, I think, weary to see their discords had already
gone down to his western lodging. But yet to know what the poor
shepherds did, who were the first discriers of these matters, will not
to some ears perchance be a tedious digression.
THE FOURTH ECLOGUES
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The shepherds finding no place for them in these garboils, to which
their quiet hearts, whose highest ambition was in keeping themselves
up in goodness, had at all no aptness, retired themselves from among
the clamorous multitude: and as sorrow desires company, went up
together to the western side of an hill, whose prospect extended it so
far that they might well discern many of Arcadia’s beauties. And there
looking upon the sun’s as then declining race, the poor men sat
pensive of their present miseries, as if they found a weariness of
their woeful words: till at last good old Geron, who as he had longest
tasted the benefits of Basilius’s government, so seemed to have a
special feeling of the present loss, wiping his eyes and long white
beard, bedewed with great drops of tears, began in this sort to
complain: “Alas! poor sheep,” said he, “which hitherto have enjoyed
your fruitful pasture in such quietness, as your wool among other
things hath made this country famous, your best days are now past: now
you must become the victual of an army, and perchance an army of
foreign enemies, you are now not only to fear home-wolves, but alien
lions: now, I say, now that our right Basilius is deceased. Alas!
sweet pastures, shall soldiers that know not how to use you, possess
you? shall they that cannot speak the Arcadian language be lords over
your shepherds? for alas with good cause may we look for any evil,
since Basilius our only strength is taken from us.”
To that all the other shepherds present uttered pitiful voices,
especially the very born Arcadians. For as for the other, though
humanity moved them to pity human cases, especially in a prince under
whom they had found a refuge of their miseries, and justice equally
administered, yet could they not so naturally feel the lively touch of
sorrow. Nevertheless, of that number one Agelastus notably noted among
them as well for his skill in poetry as for an austerely maintained
sorrowfulness, wherewith he seemed to despise the works of nature,
framing an universal complaint in that universal mischief, uttered it
in this Sestine.
Since wailing is a bud of causeful sorrow,
Since sorrow is the follower of evil fortune,
Since no evil fortune equals public damage;
Now prince’s loss hath made our damage public,
Sorrow pay we to thee the rights of nature,
And inward grief seal up with outward wailing.
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Why should we spare our voice from endless wailing,
Who justly make our hearts the seat of sorrow?
In such a case where it appears that nature
Doth add her force unto the sting of fortune:
Choosing alas, this our theatre public,
Where they would leave trophies of cruel damage.
Then, since such powers conspired unto our damage
(Which may be known, but never help with wailing)
Yet let us leave a monument in public
Of willing tears, torn hairs, and cries of sorrow,
For lost, lost is by blow of cruel fortune
Arcadia’s gem, the noblest child of nature.
O nature doting old, O blind dead nature,
How hast thou torn thyself, sought thine own damage
In granting such a scope to filthy fortune,
By thy imp’s loss to fill the world with wailing.
Cast thy step-mother eyes, upon our sorrow,
Public our loss: so, see, thy shame is public.
O that we had, to make our woes more public,
Seas in our eyes, and brazen tongues by nature,
A yelling voice, and hearts compos’d of sorrow,
Breath made of flames, wits knowing naught but damage,
Our sports murd’ring ourselves, our musics wailing,
Our studies fixed upon the falls of fortune.
No, no, our mischief grows in this vile fortune,
That private pains cannot breathe out in public
The furious inward griefs with hellish wailing:
But forced are to burden feeble nature
With secret sense of our eternal damage,
And sorrow feed, feeding our souls with sorrow.
Since sorrow then concluded all our fortune,
With all our deaths show we this damage public:
His nature fears to die who lives still wailing.
It seemed that this complaint of Agelastus had awaked the spirits of
the Arcadians, astonished before with the exceedingness of sorrow. For
he had scarcely ended when divers of them offered to follow his
example in bewailing the general loss of that country which had been
as well a nurse to strangers as a mother to Arcadians. Among the rest
one accounted good in that kind, and made the better by the true
feeling of sorrow, roared out a song of lamentation, which, as well as
might be, was gathered up in this form:
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Since that to death is gone the shepherd high,
Who most the silly shepherd’s pipe did prize,
Your doleful tunes sweet Muses now apply.
And you O trees, if any life there lies
In trees, now through your porous barks receive
The strange resound of these my causeful cries:
And let my breath upon your branches cleave,
My breath distinguished into words of woe,
That so I may signs of my sorrow leave.
But if among yourselves some one tree grow,
That aptest is to figure misery,
Let it embassage bear your griefs to show,
The weeping myrrh I think will not deny
Her help to this, this justest cause of plaint.
Your doleful tunes sweet Muses now apply.
And thou, poor earth, whom fortune doth attaint,
In nature’s name to suffer such a harm,
As for to lose thy gem, and such a saint,
Upon thy face let coaly ravens swarm:
Let all the sea thy tears accounted be;
Thy bowels will all killing metals arm.
Let gold now rust, let diamonds waste in thee:
Let pearls be wan with woe their dam doth bear!
Thyself henceforth the light do never see,
And you, O flowers, which sometimes princes wear,
Tell these strange alt’rings you did hap to try,
Of princes’ loss yourselves for tokens rear.
Lily in mourning black thy whiteness die:
O Hyacinth let “Ai” be on thee still,
Your doleful tunes sweet Muses now apply.
O Echo, all these woods with roaring fill,
And do not only mark the accents last,
But all, for all reach out my wailful will:
One Echo to another Echo cast
Sound of my griefs, and let it never end,
Till that it hath all words and waters passed,
Nay to the heav’ns your just complaining send,
And stay the stars’ inconstant constant race,
Till that they do unto our dolours bend:
And ask the reason of that special grace,
That they which have no lives should live so long,
And virtuous souls so soon should lose their place?
Ask, if in great men good men do so throng,
That he for want of elbow-room must die?
Or if that they be scant, if this be wrong?
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Did Wisdom this our wretched time espy
In one true chest to rob all virtue’s treasure?
Your doleful tunes sweet Muses now apply.
And if that any counsel you to measure
Your doleful tunes, to them still plaining say,
“To well felt grief plaint is the only pleasure.”
O light of sun, which is entitled day:
O well thou dost that thou no longer bidest;
For mourning night her black weeds may display,
O Phoebus with good cause thy face thou hidest,
Rather than have thy all-beholding eye
Fouled with this sight, while thou thy chariot guidest,
And well methinks becomes this vaulty sky
A stately tomb to cover him deceased.
Your doleful tunes sweet Muses now apply.
O Philomela with thy breast oppressed
By shame and grief, help, help me to lament
Such cursed harms as cannot be redressed.
Or if thy mourning notes be fully spent,
Then give a quiet ear unto my plaining:
For I to teach the world complaint am bent.
You dimmy clouds, which well employ your staining.
This cheerful air with your obscured cheer,
Witness your woeful tears with daily raining.
And if, O sun, thou ever didst appear,
In shape, which by man’s eye might be perceived:
Virtue is dead, now set thy triumph here.
Now set thy triumph in this world, bereaved
Of what was good, where now no good doth lie:
And by the pomp our loss will be conceived,
O notes of mine yourselves together tie:
With too much grief methinks you are dissolved.
Your doleful tunes sweet Muses now apply.
Time ever old, and young is still revolved
Within itself, and never tasteth end:
But mankind is for aye to nought resolved,
The filthy snake her aged coat can mend,
And getting youth again, in youth doth flourish:
But unto man age ever death doth send,
The very trees with grafting we can cherish,
So that we can long time produce their time:
But man which helpeth them, helpless must perish.