The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
may well grant you, but that he is unfit for your daughter, I am
privileged to say.’ At this, his severe look, before he spoke, began
to lay before me my obedience: and when he had walked two or three
turns in the room, ‘Daughter, daughter,’ said he, ‘I never thought you
were so wilful! Where, I pray you, is there a match fit for your
birth, if not Fluento? Beware, beware, you do not give your posterity
just cause to curse you, that denied them so great, so good a father.’
I answered that I thought it were too tender a respect of children,
whom perhaps I might not have, or should not enjoy, to choose for
them, and not a husband for myself, and too senseless a feeling of the
honour of my house, to wrong myself to do my birth right. Then
kneeling on my knees, {657} ‘Sir,’ said I, ‘solicit me no more, I have
not power to grant.’ He hastily, when it was scarce delivered,
snatched this word: ‘And why not power to grant?’ said he. ‘Because
Persidas is the anchor-hold of my life and love.’ ‘Persidas!’ cried
out my father, ‘Now all misfortune fall thick upon me, shall my means
help to make up a bankrupt in his estate? Accursed be my fate that
gave me life to hear it. Persidas! Why, sure it cannot be.’ ‘Sir,’
said I, ‘if my love were not far past, my desperate presumption would
not bring a truth, much less an untruth, to move your anger. And if
those after hopes have not clean compelled you to forget you are my
father, have pity on me? If so, I crave the trial of the law.’ This
last request (after conference with Fluento) finding my obstinacy, he
condescended to. But because, I perceive, Sir, you are a stranger
here, and that the knowledge of this law doth much concern the story
of my present mishap, I will make it known to you.
“This kingdom of Argos, wherein you are, was governed not long since
by Phenissa, a woman worthy to have come to that place by election if
nature had not bestowed it upon her by descent from her famous
ancestors. This queen (that you may see we want not the precedent of
greatness to excuse affection) in her father’s life-time, though by
him she was promised to Deoxippus, the tyrant of Syracusa, was
enamoured of one Eumenes, governor (for the Lacedaemonians) of the
island and city of Delphos. And when it well might be thought the
king’s death, and her succession, had taken away the restraint of her
will, yet she, growing less willing when she was most powerful, like a
horse that finding the reins hang loose upon him begins to stay his
fury; so she, though by this change she had not received any slackness
into her affection, began to tender the cause of her country that lay
open to the invasion of her proud enemy Deoxippus, if so she would
have made him. Preferring therefore now this common respect, before
her private satisfaction, as she had done her obedience in her
father’s life-time before her love, she buries herself in the grave of
Deoxippus’s loathsome bed.
“When the unexpected news of Phenissa’s marriage came to the ears of
her faithful lover Eumenes, his passion (as Agamemnon’s at the death
of Iphigenia) can best be expressed in silence, all the wild furies
that distracted grief could gather, being summoned to the siege of his
soon-overthrown heart: hastily thereupon to the temple his mad passion
bears him, where, casting himself at the feet of Apollo, ‘Unjust god!’
said he, ‘have I for this thy ungratefulness given up the offerings of
my daily prayers? But if I wrong thy name, show thy justice in
revenging my death.’ Whereat, transported with violence of sorrow,
running his head {658} against the altar, his bloody brains flew forth
of their battered lodging. Soon after, the contagion of a most
pestilent air brought such a plague among the Argians, that many daily
felt the fury of the gods revenging indignation: amongst whom, the
King and Queen (reserved, belike, the more to be punished in their
subjects’ calamity) after the desolation of their well-peopled
country, both in one day, by the same infection, ended their lives and
government; wherewith this mortality ceased, as hitting now at length
the mark it aimed at.
“The few remnant of the nobility sent to Delphos to know what fault of
theirs had brought these miseries upon their country? Where, being
informed of what was past, Apollo advised them to provide, that no
such mischief should after happen. They, well weighing whence it
arose, being fully satisfied by the oracle, enact this law: that
neither private nor public respect should detain a virgin from
revealing her love; and if her friends, or parents, think another than
she hath chosen more fit for her, the combat between the two shall
determine the god’s pleasure. How unwilling I was to hazard my
Persidas in this trial, love, that bleeds in the thought of a danger,
can best assure you: but his earnestness that it might be so, and the
hard constraint that it could not be otherwise, won me to it.
“The day therefore being appointed, Fluento (upon whom fame the
flatterer of greatness had pinned the opinion of valour) entered the
lists, mounted on a bay courser, whose armour all over represented a
green plain, through which ran little rivulets of blood that sprang
from the wounds of many centaurs dispersed over all the field. In his
shield he bore the counterfeit of Hercules and Deianira, with these
words, ‘Endeared by Conquest.’ From him my Persidas drew the eyes and
hearts of all the company; his horse was a fiery sorrel; his armour
like the azure sky, curiously spotted with many stars (whose glimpse
the well set diamonds, by reflection of the sun, represented) showed
as if night had flown thither to end, in that assembly, some
controversy between her and her brother. In his shield he caused
Andromeda and Perseus to be engraven, with these words, ‘Never too
dearly bought.’ ‘But I must hasten to the event,’ said she; ‘for long
I find you may not enjoy your historian: Know, therefore, that my
Persidas, contenting himself only with the victory, when he might have
taken (woe is me that he was so merciful!) Fluento’s life, was
accepted by my father for his son-in-law; good fortune, as I then
thought, changing my husband, and not my day of marriage. In the
meantime Fluento, repining at this disgrace, and desirous, even now
upon the basest terms to be revenged, plotted a treachery unheard-of
against him. This morning, having before heard we {659} were to hunt
in this forest, Fluento (with that company your valour hath brought to
their deserved ends) lay in wait for us; and when myself and my
Persidas (Count Brunio my father, and the rest, having followed the
chase) were left alone, behold these bloody villains, coming unawares
upon him, with many wounds, sent his soul to that place whither mine
(hoping to find a more lasting union in that life than our loves hath
done in this) doth also hasten.’ And with this word, her dull
languishing eyes began to roll as if they strove to reserve motion in
spite of death: yet, raising herself a little, her love found breath
to say this, ‘Let me be buried by my Persidas!’ and so grasping my
hand, as it were, to put me in mind of her last words, alas! she dies.
“But many tears I could not have bestowed as obsequies upon her, when
some of her father’s train, who by chance crossing that way where
Persidas lay dead, guided by Fidutio (who, with their helps, had now
taken my horse) came to this place; to whom when I had related all
what I learned from Leaucade of Persidas’s death, together with her
last will, we all joined hands in carrying her to the next village;
whither also certain of their fellows (whom they had left behind to
that end) conveyed the body of Persidas; from whence, soon after,
Count Brunio (having begged of grief a little respite of life to
fulfil his daughter’s testament) brought them both with all funeral
pomp to his chief city Coniga, where he caused a stately tomb to be
built for them, on which this epitaph was engraven,
Love, beauty, valour, when their death drew nigh,
Consulted long where they should buried lie:
At length, with one consent they hasten’d hither,
And chose this place to be intomb’d together.
“Leaving the woeful kingdom of Argos, no better accompanied than with
Fidutio, yet better guarded by Satibarsis’s armour, my sorrow, I
think, that bore infection with it, made all places where I came, fit
stages for tragedies: for, descending into a green valley, where, of
each side the rocky mountains threatened the humble earth with the
frowns of their downcast brows, I might see a young man leaning with
both hands on his sword, breathing as over-toiled with labour, and
round about him four or five cast prostrate at his feet, who were
dead, or thought their counterfeiting so to be, would prove their best
defence against this young man’s fury. But the clashing of my armour
had no sooner made known my approach, than he came running towards me,
uttering words whereby I might gather his quarrel to me brought the
excuse of mistake with it. Not to draw on therefore his misconceived
opinion, that his breathless companions did witness would be {660}
dangerous for me; ‘Sir,’ replied I, ‘I am so far from maintaining
their cause, whose revenge upon a lone man, being so many, mine own
eyes do persuade me was injurious, that had I come at the beginning of
your fight (though this event shows I should but have robbed you of
part of the honour of this action) I would have joined myself to you.’
“‘Alas! Sir,’ said he, ‘to oppose yourself against me (though it were
the more unjust) would be the more secure way, for what you see is but
a fore-runner of a certain destruction soon at hand. Leave me
therefore, courteous sir, and seek for safety: death to me is so
grateful that I envy you should be a partner in so great a gain. But
it were a fault unpardonable, to have abandoned the most accomplished
man that ever mine eyes before that time, beheld.’ My resolution
therefore, though hard against his will, must have prevailed with him:
so that entreating to know the cause of his former fight, and further
doubt, I found his courtesy as forward in the relation of his own
danger as it was obstinate in the care of my safety.
“‘Sir,’ said he, ‘seeing my story will be but a heap of misfortunes,
I shall do well to lay the foundation myself, than whom the sun looks
not upon a more miserable creature: My name is Cariclio, nephew, by
his brother Castor, to the King of Natolia, brought up in my youth in
the good opinion of my uncle, and the great expectation of many;
fortune, then belike, proroguing my miseries until a more serious age
should make me more sensible of them: which time had no sooner brought
on, but that my ill fate, to train me up for the burden of the
mischief that was prepared for me, began by little and little to make
me acquainted with the course I was to run; first taking away my
father, whose virtuous age deserved (if that may be thought a
recompense for desert) a longer time in this life: When he was dead,
and that the slippery steps of my rash youth wanted the stay of his
fatherly advice, presently (not knowing what one man’s hands I should
put the reins of my then unbridled youth into, and yet well seeing I
might not trust myself with mine own government) I chose many friends;
and being by nature given to hate pride, to eschew a vice so loathsome
(thinking it might not be done otherwise) I began to affect
popularity. But I had scarce lived thus a twelve-month, when my cousin
the King’s son, a young man, who (besides the hope of succession, for
which the courtiers did adore him) had nothing more than ordinary in
him, grew suspicious of my practices, as he termed them: to which
humour (besides the mistrust of his own little desert) his sycophants,