The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
perchance is the nurse of these contemplations. Eagles we see fly
alone, and they are but sheep which always herd together; condemn not
therefore my mind sometimes to enjoy itself; nor blame not the taking
of such times as serve most fit for it. And alas, dear Musidorus! if I
be sad who knows better than you the just causes I have of sadness?”
And here Pyrocles suddenly stopped, like a man unsatisfied in himself,
though his wit might well have served to have satisfied another. And
so looking with a countenance as though he desired he should know his
mind without hearing him speak, and yet desirous to speak, to breathe
out some part of his inward evil, sending again new blood to his face,
he continued his speech in this manner: “And lord, dear cousin,” said
he, “doth not the pleasantness of this place carry in itself
sufficient reward for any time lost in it? do you not see how all
things conspire together to make this country a heavenly dwelling? do
you not see the grass, how in colour they excel the emeralds, every
one striving to pass his fellow, and yet they are all kept of an equal
height? and see you not the rest of these beautiful flowers, each of
which would require a man’s wit to know, and his life to express? do
not these stately trees seem to maintain their flourishing old age
with the only happiness of their seat, being clothed with a continual
spring, because no beauty here should ever fade? doth not the air
breathe health, which the birds, delightful both to ear and eye, do
daily solemnize with the sweet consent of their voices? is not every
echo thereof a perfect music? And these fresh and delightful brooks
how slowly they slide away, as loth to leave the company of so many
things united in perfection? and with how sweet a murmur they lament
their forced {43} departure? certainly, certainly, cousin, it must
needs be that some goddess inhabiteth this region, who is the soul of
this soil: for neither is any less than a goddess worthy to be shrined
in such a heap of pleasures, nor any less than a goddess could have
made it so perfect a plot of the celestial dwellings.” And so ended
with a deep sigh, ruefully[b1-03] casting his eyes upon Musidorus, as
more desirous of pity than pleading. But Musidorus had all this while
held his look fixed upon Pyrocles’s countenance; and with no less
loving attention marked how his words proceeded from him: but in both
these he perceived such strange diversities, that they rather
increased new doubts than gave him ground to settle any judgment: for
besides his eyes sometimes even great with tears, the oft changing of
his colour, with a kind of shaking unsteadiness over all his body, he
might see in his countenance some great determination mixed with fear;
and might perceive in him store of thoughts, rather stirred than
digested; his words interrupted continually with sighs, which served
as a burden to each sentence, and the tenour of his speech, though of
his wanted phrase, not knit together to one constant end, but rather
dissolved in itself, as the vehemency of the inward passion prevailed:
which made Musidorus frame his answer nearest to that humour, which
should soonest put out the secret. For having in the beginning of
Pyrocles’s speech, which defended his solitariness, framed in his mind
a reply against it in the praise of honourable action, in showing that
such a kind of contemplation is but a glorious title to idleness; that
in action a man did not only better himself, but benefit others; that
the gods would not have delivered a soul into the body which had arms
and legs, only instruments of doing, but that it were intended the
mind should employ them, and that the mind should best know his own
good or evil by practice; which knowledge was the only way to increase
the one, and correct the other; besides many other arguments, which
the plentifulness of the matter yielded to the sharpness of his wit.
When he found Pyrocles leave that, and fall into such an affected
praising of the place, he left it likewise, and joined with him
therein: because he found him in that humour utter more store of
passion; and even thus kindly embracing him, he said, “Your words are
such, noble cousin, so sweetly and strongly handled in the praise of
solitariness, as they would make me likewise yield myself up into it,
but that the same words make me know it is more pleasant to enjoy the
company of him that can speak such words than by such words to be
persuaded to follow solitariness. And even so do I give you leave,
sweet Pyrocles, ever to defend solitariness, so long as to defend it,
you ever keep company. But I marvel at the excessive {44} praises you
give to this country; in truth it is not unpleasant, but yet if you
would return into Macedon you should either see many heavens, or find
this no more than earthly. And even Tempe in my Thessalia (where you
and I, to my great happiness, were brought up together) is nothing
inferior unto it. But I think you will make me see that the vigour of
your wit can show itself in any subject: or else you feed sometimes
your solitariness with the conceits of the poets, whose liberal pens
can as easily travel over mountains as molehills, and so like
well-disposed men, set up everything to the highest note; especially,
when they put such words in the mouths of one of these fantastical,
mind-infected people, that children and musicians call ‘Lovers.’” This
word “Lover,” did no less pierce poor Pyrocles, than the right tune of
music toucheth him that is sick of the Tarantula.[b1-04] There was not
one part of his body that did not feel a sudden motion, while his
heart with panting seemed to dance to the sound of that word; yet
after some pause (lifting up his eyes a little from the ground, and
yet not daring to place them in the eyes of Musidorus) armed with the
very countenance of the poor prisoner at the bar, whose answer is
nothing but guilty: with much ado he brought forth this question. “And
alas,” said he, “dear cousin, what if I be not so much the poet (the
freedom of whose pen can exercise itself in any thing) as even that
miserable subject of his cunning whereof you speak?” “Now the eternal
gods forbid,” mainly cried out Musidorus, “that ever my ear should be
poisoned with so evil news of you. O let me never know that any base
affection should get any lordship in your thoughts.” But as he was
speaking more, Kalander came and brake off their discourse with
inviting them to the hunting of a goodly stag, which being harboured
in a wood thereby, he hoped would make them good sport, and drive away
some part of Daiphantus’s melancholy. They condescended, and so going
to their lodgings, furnished themselves as liked them, Diaphantus
writing a few words which he sealed in a letter against their return.
Then went they together abroad, the good Kalander entertaining them
with pleasant discoursing, how well he loved the sport of hunting when
he was a young man, how much, in the comparison thereof, he disdained
all chamber-delights, that the fun (how great a journey soever he had
to make) could never prevent him with earliness, nor the moon, with
her sober countenance, dissuade him from watching till midnight for
the deer feeding. “O,” said he, “you will never live to my age,
without you keep yourselves in breath with exercise, and in heart with
joyfulness. Too much {45} thinking doth consume the spirits, and oft
it falls out that while one thinks too much of his doing, he leaves to
do the effect of his thinking.” Then spared he not to remember how
much Arcadia was changed since his youth: activity and good fellowship
being nothing in the price it was then held in; but, according to the
nature of the old growing world, still worse and worse. Then would he
tell them stories of such gallants as he had known: and so with
pleasant company beguiled the time’s haste, and shortened the way’s
length, till they came to the side of the wood, where the hounds were
in couples staying their coming, but with a whining accent craving
liberty, many of them in colour and marks so resembling, that it
shewed they were of one kind. The huntsmen handsomely attired in their
green liveries as though they were children of summer, with staves in
their hands to beat the guiltless earth when the hounds were at a
fault, and with horns about their necks to sound an alarm upon a silly
fugitive: the hounds were straight uncoupled, and ere long the stag
thought it better to trust to the nimbleness of his feet than to the
slender fortification of his lodging: but even his feet betrayed him,
for howsoever they went, they themselves uttered themselves to the
scent of their enemies, who one taking it of another, and sometimes
believing the wind’s advertisement, sometimes the view of their
faithful counsellors, the huntsmen, with open mouths then denounced
war, when the war was already begun; their cry being composed of so
well-sorted mouths, that any man would perceive therein some kind of
proportion, but the skilful woodmen did find a music. Then delight,
and variety of opinion, drew the horsemen sundry ways, yet cheering
their hounds with voice and horn, kept still, as it were, together.
The wood seemed to conspire with them against his own citizens,
dispersing their noise through all his quarters, and even the nymph
Echo left to bewail the loss of Narcissus, and become a hunter. But
the stag was in the end so hotly pursued that, leaving his flight, he
was driven to make courage of despair, and so, turning his head, made
the hounds, with change of speech, to testify that he was at a bay, as
if from hot pursuit of their enemy, they were suddenly come to a
parley.
But Kalander, by his skill of coasting the country, was amongst the
first that came into the besieged deer; whom when some of the younger
sort would have killed with their swords, he would not suffer, but
with a cross-bow sent a death to the poor beast, who with tears showed
the unkindness he took of man’s cruelty.
But by the time that the whole company was assembled, and that the
stag had bestowed himself liberally among them that had killed him,
Daiphantus was missed, for whom Palladius carefully inquiring, no news
could be given him, but by one that said he {46} thought he was
returned home; for that he marked him in the chief of the hunting,
take a byway which might lead to Kalander’s house. That answer for the
time satisfying, and they having performed all duties, as well for the
stag’s funeral as the hounds’ triumph, they returned; some talking of
the fatness of the deer’s body; some of the fairness of his head; some
of the hounds’ cunning; some of their speed, and some of their cry;
till coming home, about the time that the candles begin to inherit the
sun’s office, they found Daiphantus was not to be found. Whereat
Palladius greatly marvelling, and a day or two passing, while neither
search nor inquiry could help him to knowledge, at last he lighted
upon the letter which Pyrocles had written before he went a-hunting,
and left in his study among other of his writings: The letter was
directed to Palladius himself, and contained these words:
My only friend! violence of love leads me into such a course, whereof
your knowledge may much more vex you, than help me. Therefore pardon
my concealing it from you, since, if I wrong you, it is in the respect
I bear you. Return into Thessalia, I pray you, as full of good fortune
as I am of desire; and if I live, I will in a short time follow you;
if I die, love my memory.
This was all, and this Palladius read twice or thrice over. “Ah,” said
he, “Pyrocles what means this alteration? what have I deserved of thee
to be thus banished of thy counsels? Heretofore I have accused the
sea, condemned the pirates, and hated my evil fortune that deprived me