The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
ears such happiness as to hear you, they shall convey your words to
such a mind as will with the humblest degree of reverence receive
them.” “I disdain not to speak to you, mighty prince,” {126} said
Zelmane, “but I disdain to speak of any matter which may bring my
honour into question”: and therewith, with a brave counterfeited scorn
she departed from the king, leaving him not so sorry for his short
answer as proud in himself that he had broken the matter. And thus did
the king, feeding his mind with those thoughts, pass great time in
writing verses, and making more of himself than he was wont to do,
that, with a little help, he would have grown into a pretty kind of
dotage.
But Zelmane being rid of this loving, but little loved company,
“Alas!” said she, “poor Pyrocles, was there ever one, but I, that had
received wrong, and could blame nobody? that having more than I
desire, am still in want of what I would? truly, love, I must needs
say thus much on my behalf; thou hast employed my love there, where
all love is deserved; and for recompense hast sent me more love than
ever I desired. But what wilt thou do Pyrocles? which way canst thou
find to rid thee of thy intricate troubles? to her whom I would be
known to, I live in darkness; and to her am revealed from whom I would
be most secret. What shift shall I find against the diligent love of
Basilius? what shield against the violent passions of Gynecia? and if
that be done, yet how am I the nearer to quench the fire that consumes
me? Well, well, sweet Philoclea, my whole confidence must be builded
in thy divine spirit which cannot be ignorant of the cruel wound I
have received by you.”
But as sick folks when they are alone think company would relieve
them, and yet having company do find it noisome, changing willingly
outward objects, when indeed the evil is inward, so poor Zelmane was
no more weary of Basilius, than she was of herself when Basilius was
gone: and ever the more, the more she turned her eyes to become her
own judges. Tired therewith, she longed to meet her friend Dorus that
upon the shoulders of friendship she might lay the burden of sorrow,
and therefore went toward the other lodge, where among certain beeches
she found Dorus, apparelled in flannel, with a goat’s-skin cast upon
him and a garland of laurel mix’d with cypress leaves on his head,
waiting on his master Dametas, who at that time was teaching him how
with his sheep-hook to catch a wanton lamb, and how with the same to
cast a little clod at any one that strayed out of company. And while
Dorus was practising, one might see Dametas holding his hand under his
girdle behind him, nodding from the waist upwards, and swearing he
never knew man go more awkwardly to work, and that they might talk of
book-learning what they would, but for his part he never saw more
unfeaty fellows than great clerks were.
But Zelmane’s coming saved Dorus from further chiding. {127} And so
she beginning to speak with him of the number of his master’s sheep,
and which province of Arcadia bare the finest wool, drew him on to
follow her in such country-discourses; till, being out of Dametas’s
hearing, with such vehemency of passion, as though her heart would
climb into her mouth to take her tongue’s office, she declared unto
him upon what briars the roses of her affections grew; how time still
seemed to forget her, bestowing no one hour of comfort upon her; she
remaining still in one plight of ill fortune, saving so much worse as
continuance of evil doth in itself increase evil. “Alas, my Dorus,”
said she, “thou seest how long and languishingly the weeks are passed
over since our last talking. And yet I am the same, miserable I, that
I was, only stronger in longing, and weaker in hoping.” Then fell she
to so pitiful a declaration of the insupportableness of her desires
that Dorus’s ears, not able to show what wounds that discourse gave
unto them, procured his eyes with tears to give testimony how much
they suffered for her suffering; till passion, a most cumbersome guest
to itself, made Zelmane, the sooner to shake it off, earnestly entreat
Dorus that he also, with like freedom of discourse, would bestow a map
of his little world upon her that she might see whether it were
troubled with such unhabitable climes of cold despairs and hot rages
as hers was.
And so walking under a few palm-trees (which being loving in her own
nature seemed to give their shadow the willinglier because they held
discourse of love) Dorus thus entered to the description of his
fortune.
“Alas,” said he, “dear cousin, that it hath pleased the high power to
throw us to such an estate as the only intercourse of our true
friendship must be a bartering of miseries: for my part, I must
confess, indeed, that from a huge darkness of sorrows I am crept, I
cannot say to a lightsomeness, but, to a certain dawning, or rather
peeping out of some possibility of comfort: but woe is me; so far from
the mark of my desires, that I rather think it such a light as comes
through a small hole to a dungeon that the miserable caitiff may the
better remember the light of which he is deprived, or, like a scholar
who is only come to that degree of knowledge to find himself utterly
ignorant: but thus stands it with me. After that by your means I was
exalted to serve in yonder blessed lodge, for a while I had, in the
furnace of my agonies, this refreshing that, because of the service I
had done in killing of the bear, it pleased the princess, in whom
indeed stateliness shines through courtesy, to let fall some gracious
look upon me: sometimes to see my exercise, sometime to hear my songs.
For my part, my heart would not suffer me to omit any occasion whereby
I might make the incomparable Pamela see how much extraordinary {128}
devotion I bare to her service: and withal strove to appear more
worthy in her sight, that small desert, joined to so great affection,
might prevail something in the wisest lady. But too well, alas! I
found that a shepherd’s service was but considered of as from a
shepherd, and the acceptation limited to no further proportion than of
a good servant. And when my countenance had once given notice that
there lay affection under it, I saw straight, majesty, sitting in the
throne of beauty, draw forth such a sword of just disdain that I
remained as a man thunderstruck, not daring, no not able to behold
that power. Now to make my estate known, seemed again impossible, by
reason of the suspiciousness of Dametas, Miso and my young mistress
Mopsa: for Dametas, according to the constitution of a dull head,
thinks no better way to show himself wise than by suspecting
everything in his way, which suspicion Miso, for the hoggish
shrewdness of her brain, and Mopsa (for a very unlikely envy she hath
stumbled upon against the princess’s unspeakable beauty) were very
glad to execute: so that I (finding my service by this means lightly
regarded, my affection despised, and myself unknown) remained no
fuller of desire than void of counsel how to come to my desire; which,
alas! if these trees could speak, they might well witness, for many
times have I stood here, bewailing myself unto them, many times have
I, leaning to yonder palm, admired the blessedness of it, that it
could bear love without sense of pain; many times, when my master’s
cattle came hither to chew their cud in this fresh place, I might see
the young bull testify his love? but how? with proud looks and
joyfulness. ‘O wretched mankind,’ said I then to myself, ‘in whom wit,
which should be the governor of his welfare, becomes the traitor to
his blessedness: these beasts, like children to nature, inherit her
blessings quietly; we like bastards are laid abroad, even as
fondlings, to be trained up by grief and sorrow. Their minds grudge
not at their bodies’ comfort, nor their senses are letted from
enjoying their objects; we have the impediments of honour, and the
torments of conscience.’ Truly in such cogitations I have sometimes so
long stood that methought my feet began to grow into the ground, with
such a darkness and heaviness of mind, that I might easily have been
persuaded to have resigned over my very essence. But love (which one
time lay burdens, another time giveth wings) when I was at the lowest
of my downward thoughts, pulled up my heart to remember, that nothing
is achieved before it be throughly attempted, and that lying still,
doth never go forward; and that therefore it was time, now or never,
to sharpen my invention, to pierce through the hardness of this
enterprise, never ceasing to assemble all my conceits, one after
another, how to manifest both my mind and {129} estate, till at last I
lighted and resolved on this way, which yet perchance you will think
was a way rather to hide it. I began to counterfeit the extremest love
towards Mopsa that might be; and as for the love, so lively it was
indeed within me, although to another subject, that little I needed to
counterfeit any notable demonstrations of it; and so making a
contrariety the place of my memory, in her foulness I beheld Pamela’s
fairness, still looking on Mopsa, but thinking on Pamela, as if I saw
my sun shine in a puddled water: I cried out of nothing but Mopsa, to
Mopsa my attendance was directed; to Mopsa the best fruits I could
gather were brought; to Mopsa it seemed still that mine eyes conveyed
my tongue: so that Mopsa was my saying; Mopsa was my singing; Mopsa
(that is only suitable in laying a foul complexion upon a filthy
favour, setting forth both in sluttishness) she was the load-star of
my life; she the blessing of mine eyes; she the overthrow of my
desires, and yet the recompense of my overthrow; she the sweetness of
my heart, even sweetening the death which her sweetness drew upon me.
In sum, whatsoever I thought of Pamela, that I said of Mopsa; whereby
as I got my master’s goodwill, who before spited me, fearing lest I
should win the princess’s favour from him, so did the same make the
princess the better content to allow me her presence: whether indeed
it were that a certain spark of noble indignation did rise in her not
to suffer such a baggage to win away anything of hers, how meanly
soever she reputed of it, or rather, as I think, my words being so
passionate, and shooting so quite contrary from the marks of Mopsa’s
worthiness, she perceived well enough whither they were directed; and
therefore being so masked, she was contented as a sport of wit to
attend them: whereupon one day determining to find some means to tell,
as of a third person, the tale of mine own love and estate, finding
Mopsa, like a cuckoo by a nightingale, alone with Pamela, I came in
unto them, and with a face, I am sure, full of cloudy fancies, took a
harp and sung this song:
Since so mine eyes are subject to your sight,
That in your sight they fixed have my brain:
Since so my heart is filled with that light,
That only light doth all my life maintain.
Since in sweet you, all goods so richly reign,
That where you are, no wished good can want
Since so your living image lives in me,
That in myself yourself true love doth plant:
How can you him unworthy then decree,
In whose chief part your worths implanted be?
{130}
“The song being ended, which I had often broken off in the midst with
grievous sighs which overtook every verse I sung, I let fall my harp
from me, and casting mine eye sometimes upon Mopsa, but settling my
sight principally upon Pamela. ‘And is it the only fortune, most
beautiful Mopsa,’ said I, ‘of wretched Dorus that fortune must be the
measure of his mind? am I only he, that because I am in misery more
misery must be laid upon me? must that which should be cause of
compassion become an argument of cruelty against me? alas! excellent