The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
more available than ten thousand of the multitude. So evil balanced be
the extremities of popular minds: and so much natural imperiousness
there rests in a well-formed spirit. For, as if Euarchus had been born
of the princely blood of Arcadia, or that long and well-acquainted
proof had ingrafted him in their country, so flocked {588} they about
this stranger, most of them already from dejected fears, rising to
ambitious considerations, who should catch the first hold of his
favour. And then from those crying welcomes to babbling one with the
other, some praising Philanax for his exceeding pain, others liking
Euarchus’s aspect, and as they judged his age by his face, so judging
his wisdom by his age, Euarchus passed through them like a man that
did neither disdain a people, nor yet was anything tickled with their
flatteries. But always holding his own, a man might read a constant
determination in his eyes. And in that soft dismounting among them, he
forthwith demanded the convocation to be made, which accordingly was
done, with as much order and silence, as it might appear; Neptune had
not more force to appease the rebellious wind, than the admiration of
an extraordinary virtue hath, to temper a disordered multitude; he
being raised up upon a place more high than the rest, where he might
be best understood, in this sort speak unto them.
“I understand,” said he, “faithful Arcadians, by my Lord Philanax,
that you have with one consent chosen me to be the judge of the late
evils happened; orderer of the present disorders; and finally
protector of this country till therein it be seen what the customs of
Arcadia require.” He could say no further, being stopped with a
general cry, that so it was, giving him all the honourable titles and
happy wishes they could imagine. He beckoned unto them for silence,
and then thus again proceeded, “Well,” said he, “how good choice you
have made, the attending must be in you, the proof in me. But because
it many times falls out, we are much deceived in others, we being the
first to deceive ourselves, I am to require you, not to have an
over-shooting expectation of me, the most cruel adversary of all
honourable doings. Nor promise yourselves wonders out of a sudden
liking: but remember I am a man, that is to say, a creature whose
reason is often darkened with error. Secondly, that you will lay your
hearts void of foretaken opinions: else whatsoever I do or say, will
be measured by a wrong rule, like them that have the yellow jaundice,
every thing seeming yellow unto them. Thirdly, whatsoever debates have
risen among you, may be utterly extinguished; knowing that even among
the best men are diversities of opinions, which are no more in true
reason to breed hatred, than one that loves black, should be angry
with him that is clothed in white; for thoughts and conceits are the
very apparel of the mind: lastly, that you do not easily judge of your
judge, but since you will have me to command, think it is your part to
obey. And in reward of this, I will promise and protest unto you, that
to the uttermost of my skill, both in the general laws of nature,
especially of Greece, and particularly of Arcadia, wherein I must
{589} confess I am not unacquainted, I will not only see the past
evils duly punished, and your weal hereafter established, but for your
defence in it, if need shall require, I will employ the force and
treasures of mine own country. In the meantime, this shall be the
first order I will take, that no man, under pain of grievous
punishment, name me by any other name but protector of Arcadia. For I
will not leave any possible colour, to any of my natural successors,
to make claim to this which by free election you have bestowed upon
me. And so I vow unto you, to depose myself of it as soon as the
judgment is passed, the king buried, and his lawful successor
appointed. For the first whereof, I mean the trying which be guilty of
the king’s death, and these other heinous trespasses, because your
customs require such haste, I will no longer delay it, than till
to-morrow as soon as the sun shall give us fit opportunity. You may
therefore retire yourselves to your rest, that you may be readier to
be present, at these so great important matters.”
With many allowing tokens was Euarchus’s speech heard, who now by
Philanax, that took the principal care of doing all due services unto
him, was offered a lodging made ready for him, the rest of the people
as well as a small commodity of that place would suffer, yielding
their weary heads to sleep, when lo, the night thoroughly spent in
these mixed matters, was for that time banished the face of the earth,
and Euarchus, seeing the day begin to disclose his comfortable
beauties, desiring nothing more than to join speed with justice,
willed Philanax presently to make the judgment-place be put in order:
and as soon as the people, who yet were not fully dispersed, might be
brought together, to bring forth the prisoners and the king’s body.
Which the manner was, should in such cases be held in sight, though
covered with black velvet, until they that were accused to be the
murderers were acquitted or condemned; whether the reason of the law
were to show the more grateful love to their prince, or by that
spectacle, the more to remember the judge of his duty. Philanax, who
now thought in himself, he approached to the just revenge he so much
desired, went with all care and diligence to perform his charge.
But first it shall be well to know how the poor and princely prisoners
passed this tedious night. There was never tyrant exercised his rage
with more grievous torments upon any he most hated, than afflicted
Gynecia did crucify her own soul, after the guiltiness of her heart
was surcharged with the suddenness of her husband’s death: for
although that effect came not from her mind, yet her mind being evil,
and the effect evil, she thought the justice of God had for the
beginning of her pains coupled them together. This incessantly boiled
in her breast, but {590} most of all, when Philanax having closely
imprisoned her, she was left more freely to suffer the firebrands of
her own thoughts, especially when it grew dark, and had nothing left
her but a little lamp whose small light to a perplexed mind, might
rather yield fearful shadows than any assured sight. Then began the
heaps of her miseries, to weigh down the platform of her judgment,
then began despair to lay his ugly claws upon her, she began then to
fear the heavenly powers, she was wont to reverence, not like a child,
but like an enemy, neither kept she herself from blasphemously
repining against her creation, “O God,” would she cry out, “why did
You make me to destruction? if You love goodness, why did You not give
me a good mind? or if I cannot have it without Your gift, why do You
plague me? Is it in me to resist the mightiness of Your power?” Then
would she imagine she saw strange sights, and that she heard the cries
of hellish ghosts, then would she shriek out for succour, but no man
coming unto her, she would fain have killed herself, but knew not how.
At sometimes again, the very heaviness of her imaginations would close
up her senses to a little sleep: but then did her dreams become her
tormentors. One time it would seem unto her, Philanax was hauling her
by the hair of the head, and having put out her eyes was ready to
throw her in a burning furnace. Another time she would think she saw
her husband making the complaint of his death to Pluto, and the
magistrates of that infernal region, contending in great debate to
what eternal punishment they should allot her. But long her dreaming
would not hold, but that it would fall upon Zelmane, to whom she would
think she was crying for mercy, and that she did pass away by her in
silence, without any show of pitying her mischief. Then waking out of
a broken sleep, and yet wishing she might ever have slept; new forms,
but of the same miseries, would seize her mind: she feared death, and
yet desired death; she had passed the uttermost of shame, and yet
shame was one of her cruellest assaulters; she hated Pyrocles as the
original of her mortal overthrow; and yet the love she had conceived
to him, had still a high authority of her passions, “O Zelmane,” would
she say, not knowing how near he himself was to as great a danger,
“now shalt thou glut thy eyes, with the dishonoured death of thy
enemy. Enemy! alas! enemy, since so thou hast well showed thou wilt
have me account thee: couldst thou not as well have given me a
determinate denial, as to disguise thy first disguising, with a double
dissembling? perchance if I had been utterly hopeless, the virtue was
once in me might have called together his forces, and not have been
led captive to this monstrous thraldom of punished wickedness.” Then
would her own knowing of good inflame anew the rage of despair: which
becoming an {591} unresisted lord in her breast, she had no other
comfort but in death, which yet she had in horror, when she thought
of. But the wearisome detesting of herself made her long for the day’s
approach, at which time she determined to continue her former course,
in acknowledging anything that might hasten her end: wherein although
she did not hope for the end of her torments, feeling already the
beginning of hell-agonies; yet according to the nature of pain, the
present being most intolerable, she desired to change that, and put to
adventure the ensuing. And thus rested the restless Gynecia.
No less sorrowful, though less rageful, where the minds of the
Princess Pamela, and the Lady Philoclea, whose only advantages were
that they had not consented to so much evil, and so were at greater
peace with themselves: and that they were not left alone, but might
mutually bear part of each other’s woes. For when Philanax not
regarding Pamela’s princely protestations, had by force left her under
guard with her sister, and that the two sisters were matched, as well
in the disgraces of fortune, as they had been in the best beauties of
nature: those things that till then bashfulness and mistrust had made
them hold reserved one from the other, now fear, the underminer of all
determinations, and necessity the victorious rebel of all laws, forced
them interchangeably to lay open. Their passions then so swelling in
them as they would have made auditors of stones, rather than have
swallowed up in silence the choking adventures were fallen unto them;
truly the hardest hearts, which have at any time thought woman’s tears
to be a matter of slight compassion, imagining that fair weather will
quickly after follow, would now have been mollified; and been
compelled to confess that the fairer a diamond is, the more pity it is
it should receive a blemish. Although, no doubt, their faces did
rather beautify sorrow, than sorrow could darken that which even in
darkness did shine. But after they had so long, as their other
afflictions would suffer them, with doleful ceremonies bemoaned their
father’s death: they sat down together apparelled as their
misadventures had found them; Pamela in her journeying weeds now
converted to another use: Philoclea only in her night-gown, which she
thought should be the raiment of her funerals. But when the excellent
creatures had after much panting, with their inward travel, gotten so
much breathing power as to make a pitiful discourse one to the other,
what had befallen them, and that by the plain comparing the case they
were in, they thoroughly found that their griefs were not more like in
regard of themselves, than like in respect of the subject, the two
princes, as Pamela had learned of Musidorus, being so minded that they
would ever make both their fortunes one, it did more unite, and so
{592} strengthen their lamentation: seeing the one could not be