The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
miserable, but that it must necessarily make the other miserable also.
That therefore was the first matter their sweet mouths delivered, the
declaring the passionate beginning, troublesome proceeding, and
dangerous ending, their never-ending loves had passed. And when at any
time they entered into praises of the young princes, too long it would
have exercised their tongues, but that their memory forthwith warned
them, the more praiseworthy they were, the more at that time they were
worthy of lamentation. Then again to crying and wringing of hands; and
then anew, as unquiet grief sought each corner, to new discourses,
from discourses to wishes, from wishes to prayers. Especially the
tender Philoclea, who as she was in years younger, and had never
lifted up her mind to any opinion of sovereignty, so was she the apter
to yield to her misfortune; having no stronger debates in her mind,
than a man may say a most witty childhood is wont to nourish, as to
imagine with herself, why Philanax and the other noblemen should deal
so cruelly by her that had never deserved evil of any of them. And how
they could find in their hearts, to imprison such a personage as she
did figure Pyrocles, whom she thought all the world was bound to love,
as well as she did. But Pamela, although endued with a virtuous
mildness, yet the knowledge of herself, and what was due unto her,
made her heart full of a stronger disdain against her adversity.
So that she joined the vexation of her friend with the spite to see
herself, as she thought, rebelliously detained, and mixed desirous
thoughts to help, with revengeful thoughts if she could not help. And
as in pangs of death, the stronger heart feels the greater torment,
because it doth the more resist his oppressor: so her mind, the nobler
it was set, and had already embraced the higher thoughts, so much more
it did repine; and the more it repined, the more helpless wounds it
gave unto itself. But when great part of the night was passed over the
doleful music of these sweet ladies’ complaints, and that leisure
though with some strife had brought Pamela to know that an eagle when
she is in a cage must not think to do like an eagle, remembering with
themselves that it was likely the next day the lords would proceed
against those they had imprisoned. They employed the rest of the night
in writing unto them, with such earnestness as the matter required,
but in such styles as the state of their thoughts was apt to fashion.
In the meantime, Pyrocles and Musidorus were recommended to so strong
a guard that they might well see it was meant they should pay no less
price than their lives for the getting out of that place, which they
like men indeed, fortifying courage with {593} the true rampire of
patience, did so endure that they did rather appear governors of
necessity, than servants to fortune. The whole sum of their thoughts
resting upon the safety of their ladies, and their care one for the
other: wherein, if at all, their hearts did seem to receive some
softness. For sometimes Musidorus would feel such a motion to his
friend, and his unworthy case, that he would fall into such kind of
speeches. “My Pyrocles,” would he say, “how unhappy may I think
Thessalia, that hath been as it were the middle way to this evil
estate of yours? For if you had not been there brought up, the sea
should not have had this power thus to sever you from your dear
father. I have therefore, if complaints do at any time become a man’s
heart, most cause to complain, since my country, which received the
honour of Pyrocles’s education, should be a step to his overthrow, if
human chances can be counted an overthrow to him that stands upon
virtue.” “Oh excellent Musidorus,” answered Pyrocles, “how do you
teach me rather to fall out with myself, and my fortune, since by you
I have received all good, you only by me this affliction? To you and
your virtuous mother, I in my tenderest years, and father’s greatest
troubles, was sent for succour. There did I learn the sweet mysteries
of philosophy; there had I your lively example to confirm that which I
learned; there, lastly, had I your friendship, which no unhappiness
can ever make you say, but that hath made me happy. Now see how my
destiny, the gods know, not my will, hath rewarded you: my father
sends for you out of your land, whence but for me you had not come:
what after followed, you know. It was my love, not yours, which first
stayed you here; and therefore if the heavens ever held a just
proportion, it were I, and not you, that should feel the smart.” “O
blame not the heavens, sweet Pyrocles,” said Musidorus, “as their
course never alters, so is there nothing done by the unreachable ruler
of them, but hath an everlasting reason for it. And to say the truth
of these things, we should deal ungratefully with nature, if we should
be forgetful receivers of her gift, and diligent auditors of the
chances we like not. We have lived, and have lived to be good to
ourselves and others: our souls, which are put into the stirring earth
of our bodies, have achieved the causes of their thither coming: they
have known and honoured with knowledge the cause of their creation,
and to many men, for in this time, place and fortune, it is lawful for
us to speak gloriously, it hath been behoveful that we should live.
Since then eternity is not to be had in this conjunction, what is to
be lost by the separation, but time? which since it hath his end, when
that is once come, all that is past is nothing: and by the protracting
nothing gotten, but labour and care. Do {594} not me, therefore, that
wrong, who something in years, but much in all other deserts, am
fitter to die than you, as to say you have brought me to any evil:
since the love of you doth over-balance all bodily mischiefs, and
those mischiefs be but mischiefs to the baser minds, too much
delighted with the kennel of this life. Neither will I any more yield
to my passion of lamenting you, which howsoever it might agree to my
exceeding friendship, surely it would nothing to your exceeding
virtue.” “Add this to your noble speech my dear cousin,” said
Pyrocles, “that if we complain of this our fortune, or seem to
ourselves faulty, in having one hurt the other, we show a repentance
of the love we bear to these matchless creatures, or at least a doubt,
it should be over dearly bought, which for my part, and so dear I
answer for you, I call all the gods to witness, I am so far from, that
no shame, no torment, no death, would make me forego the least part of
the inward honour, essential pleasure, and living life, I have enjoyed
in the presence of the faultless Philoclea.” “Take the pre-eminence in
all things but in true loving,” answered Musidorus, “for the
confession of that no death shall get of me.” “Of that,” answered
Pyrocles, soberly smiling, “I perceive we shall have a debate in the
other world, if at least there remain anything of remembrance in that
place.” “I do not think the contrary,” said Musidorus, “although you
know it is greatly held that with the death of body and senses, which
are not only the beginning, but dwelling and nourishing of passions,
thoughts and imaginations, they failing, memory likewise fails, which
riseth only out of them, and then is there left nothing but the
intellectual part or intelligence, which void of all moral virtues
which stand in the mean of perturbations, doth only live in the
contemplative virtue, and power of the omnipotent good, the soul of
souls, and universal life of this great work, and therefore is utterly
void from the possibility of drawing to itself these sensible
considerations.” “Certainly,” answered Pyrocles, “I easily yield that
we should not know one another, and much less these past things, with
a sensible or passionate knowledge. For the cause being taken away,
the effects follow. Neither do I think we shall have such a memory as
now we have, which is but a relic of the senses, or rather a print the
senses have left of things past in our thoughts, but it shall be a
vital power of that very intelligence: which as vile as it was here,
it held the chief seat of our life, and was as it were the last resort
to which of all our knowledges the highest appeal came, and so by that
means was never ignorant of our actions, though many times
rebelliously resisted, always with this prison darkened; so much more
being free of that prison, and returning to the life of all things,
where all infinite knowledge is, {595} it cannot but be a right
intelligence which is both his name and being, of things both present
and past, though void of imagining to itself anything; but even grown
like to his creator hath all things, with a spiritual knowledge before
it. The difference of which is as hard for us to conceive as it was
for us when we were in our mother’s wombs to comprehend, if anybody
would have told us, what kind of light we now in this life see, what
kind of knowledge we now have: yet now we do not only feel our present
being, but we conceive what we were before we were born, though
remembrance make us not do it, but knowledge, and though we are
utterly without any remorse of any misery we might then suffer. Even
such, and much more odds, shall there be at that second delivery of
ours, when void of sensible memory, or memorative passion, we shall
not see the colours, but lives of all things that have been or can be,
and shall, as I hope, know our friendship, though exempt from the
earthly cares of friendship, having both united it, and ourselves in
that high and heavenly love of the unquenchable light.” As he had
ended his speech, Musidorus looking with a heavenly joy upon him, sang
this song unto him he had made before love turned his muse to another
subject.
Since nature’s works be good, and death doth serve
As nature’s work: why should we fear to die?
Since fear is vain, but when it may preserve:
Why should we fear that which we cannot fly?
Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears,
Disarming human minds of native might:
While each conceit an ugly figure bears,
Which were not evil well view’d in reason’s light.
Our owly eyes, which dimm’d with passions be,
And scarce discern the dawn of coming day,
Let them be clear’d, and now begin to see,
Our life is but a step in dusty way.
Then let us hold the bliss of peaceful mind,
Since this we feel, great loss we cannot find.
Thus did they, like quiet swans, sing their own obsequies, and
virtuously enable their minds against all extremities which they did
think would fall upon them, especially resolving that the first care
they would have, should be by taking the fault upon themselves, to
clear the two ladies, of whose case, as of nothing else that happened,
they had not any knowledge. Although their friendly host, the honest
gentleman Kalander, seeking all means how to help them, had
endeavoured to speak with them, and to make {596} them know who should
be their judge. But the curious servant of Philanax forbade him the
entry upon pain of death. For so it was agreed upon, that no man
should have any conference with them, for fear of new tumults.
Insomuch that Kalander was constrained to retire himself, having yet
obtained thus much, that he would deliver unto the two princes their
apparel and jewels, which being left with him at Mantinea, wisely
considering that their disguised weeds, which were all as then they
had, would make them more odious in the sight of the judges, he had
that night sent for, and now brought unto them. They accepted their
own with great thankfulness, knowing from whence it came, and attired
themselves in it against the next day, which being indeed rich and
princely, they accordingly determined to maintain the names of