The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
last misery embrace in extremity of itself all his former mischiefs.
Arcadia; Arcadia was the place prepared to be the stage of his endless
overthrow; Arcadia was, alas! well might I say it is, the charmed
circle where all his spirits for ever should be enchanted. For here,
and nowhere else, did his infected eyes make his mind know what power
heavenly beauty had to throw it down to hellish agonies. Here, here
did he see the Arcadian king’s eldest daughter, in whom he forthwith
placed so all his hopes of joy, and joyful parts of his heart that he
left in himself nothing but a maze of longing, and a dungeon of
sorrow. But alas! what can saying make them believe, whom seeing
cannot persuade? those pains must be felt before they can be
understood; no outward utterance can command a conceit. Such was as
then the state of the king, as it was no time by direct means to seek
her. And such was the state of his captivated will as he could delay
no time of seeking her.
“‘In this entangled cause, he clothed himself in a shepherd’s weed,
that under the baseness of that form, he might at last have free
access to feed his eyes with that which should at length eat up his
heart. In which doing, thus much without doubt he hath manifested that
this estate is not always to be rejected, since under that veil there
may be hidden things to be esteemed. And if he might with taking on a
shepherd’s look cast up his eyes to the fairest princess nature in
that time created, the like, nay the same desire of mine need no more
to be disdained, or held for disgraceful. But now alas! mine eyes wax
dim, my tongue begins to falter, and my heart to want force to help
either, with the feeling remembrance I have, in what heap of miseries
the caitiff prince lay at this time buried. Pardon therefore most
excellent princess, if I cut off the course of my dolorous tale,
since, if I be understood, {135} I have said enough for the defence of
my baseness, and for that which after might befall to that pattern of
ill fortune, the matters are too monstrous for my capacity, his
hateful destinies must best declare their own workmanship.’
“Thus having delivered my tale in this perplexed manner, to the end
the princess might judge that he meant himself, who spoke so
feelingly; her answer was both strange, and in some respect
comfortable. For would you think it? she hath heard heretofore of us
both by means of the valiant prince Plangus, and particularly of our
casting away, which she (following mine own style) thus delicately
brought forth: ‘You have told,’ said she, ‘Dorus, a pretty tale, but
you are much deceived in the latter end of it. For the Prince
Musidorus with his cousin Pyrocles did both perish upon the coast of
Laconia, as a noble gentleman called Plangus, who was well acquainted
with the history, did assure my father.’ O how that speech of hers did
pour joys in my heart! O blessed name, thought I, of mine, since thou
hast been in that tongue, and passed through those lips, though I can
never hope to approach them. ‘As for Pyrocles,’ said I, ‘I will not
deny it, but that he is perished:’ (which I said lest sooner suspicion
might arise of your being here than yourself would have it) and yet
affirmed no lie unto her, since I only said, I would not deny it. ‘But
for Musidorus,’ said I, ‘I perceive indeed you have either heard or
read the story of that unhappy prince; for this was the very objection
which that peerless princess did make unto him, when he sought to
appear such as he was before her wisdom: and thus I have read it fair
written in the certainty of my knowledge, he might answer her, that
indeed the ship wherein he came, by a treason was perished: and
therefore that Plangus might easily be deceived, but that he himself
was cast upon the coast of Laconia, where he was taken up by a couple
of shepherds, who lived in those days famous; for that both loving one
fair maid, they yet remained constant friends; one of whose songs not
long since was sung before you by the shepherd Lamon, and brought by
them to a nobleman’s house near Mantinea, whose son had, a little
before his marriage, been taken prisoner, and by the help of this
prince Musidorus, though naming himself by another name, was
delivered.’ Now these circumlocutions I did use, because of the one
side I knew the princess would know well the parties I meant; and of
the other, if I should have named Strephon, Claius, Kalander and
Clitophon, perhaps it would have rubb’d some conjecture into the heavy
head of mistress Mopsa.
“‘And therefore,’ said I, ‘most divine lady, he justly was thus to
argue against such suspicions, that the prince might easily by those
parties be satisfied, that upon that wreck such a one was {136} taken
up, and therefore that Plangus might well err, who knew not of any
one’s taking up: again that he that was so preserved brought good
tokens to be one of the two, chief of that wrecked company: which two,
since Plangus knew to be Musidorus and Pyrocles, he must needs be one
of them, although, as I said, upon a fore-taken vow, he was otherwise
at that time called. Besides, the princess must needs judge that no
less than a prince durst undertake such an enterprise, which, though
he might get the favour of the princess, he could never defend with
less than a prince’s power, against the force of Arcadia. Lastly, said
he, for a certain demonstration, he presumed to show unto the princess
a mark he had on his face, as I might,’ said I, ‘show this of my neck
to the rare Mopsa:’ and, withal, showed my neck to them both, where,
as you know, there is a red spot bearing figure, as they tell me, of a
lion’s paw, that she may ascertain herself, that I am Menalcas’
brother. ‘And so did he, beseeching her to send someone she might
trust into Thessalia, secretly to be advertised, whether the age, the
complexion, and particularly that notable sign, did not fully agree
with their prince Musidorus.’ ‘Do you not know further,’ said she,
with a settled countenance not accusing any kind of inward motion, ‘of
that story?’ ‘Alas, no,’ said I, ‘for even here the historiographer
stopped, saying, the rest belonged to astrology.’ And therewith,
thinking her silent imaginations began to work upon somewhat to
mollify them, as the nature of music is to do, and, withal, to show
what kind of shepherd I was, I took up my harp, and sang these few
verses:
My sheep are thoughts, which I both guide and serve,
Their pasture is fair hills of fruitless love:
On barren sweets they feed, and feeding starve:
I wail their lot, but will not other prove.
My sheep-hook is wan hope, which all upholds:
My weeds, desire, cut out in endless folds.
What wool my sheep shall bear, whiles thus they live,
In you it is, you must the judgment give.
“And then, partly to bring Mopsa again to the matter, lest she should
too much take heed to our discourses, but principally, if it were
possible to gather some comfort out of her answers, I kneeled down to
the princess, and humbly besought her to move Mopsa in my behalf, that
she would unarm her noble heart of that steely resistance against the
sweet blows of love: that since all her parts were decked with some
particular ornament; her face with beauty, her head with wisdom, her
eyes with majesty, her countenance with gracefulness, her lips with
loveliness, her tongue with victory, that she would make her heart the
throne of pity, being the most {137} excellent raiment of the most
excellent part. Pamela without show either of favour or disdain,
either of heeding or neglecting what I had said, turned her speech to
Mopsa, and with such a voice and action, as might show she spoke of a
matter which little did concern her; ‘Take heed to yourself,’ said
she, Mopsa, ‘for your shepherd can speak well: but truly, if he do
fully prove himself such as he saith, I mean, the honest shepherd
Menalcas’s brother and heir, I know no reason why you should think
scorn of him.’ Mopsa though, in my conscience, she were even then far
spent towards me, yet she answered her, that for all my quaint
speeches, she would keep her honesty close enough, and that, as for
the way of matrimony, she would step never a foot further till my
master, her father, had spoken the whole word himself, no she would
not. But ever and anon turning her muzzle towards me, she threw such
a prospect upon me as might well have given a surfeit to any weak
lover’s stomach. But, lord, what a fool am I, to mingle that drivel’s
speeches among my noble thoughts! but because she was an actor in this
tragedy, to give you a full knowledge, and to leave nothing that I can
remember, unrepeated.
“Now the princess being about to withdraw herself from us, I took a
jewel made in the figure of a crab-fish, which, because it looks one
way and goes another, I thought it did fitly pattern out my looking to
Mopsa, but bending to Pamela: the word about it was, ‘By force, not
choice;’ and still kneeling, besought the princess that she would
vouchsafe to give it Mopsa, and with the blessedness of her hand to
make acceptable unto her that toy which I had found following of late
an acquaintance of mine at the plough. ‘For,’ said I, ‘as the earth
was turned up, the ploughshare lighted upon a great stone; we pull’d
that up, and so found both that and some other pretty things which we
had divided betwixt us.’
“Mopsa was benumbed with joy when the princess gave it her: but in the
princess I could find no apprehension of what I either said or did,
but with a calm carelessness letting each thing slide (just as we do
by their speeches who neither in matter nor person do anyway belong
unto us) which kind of cold temper, mix’d with that lightening of her
natural majesty, is of all others most terrible unto me: for yet if I
found she contemned me, I would desperately labour both in fortune and
virtue to overcome it; if she only misdoubted me I were in heaven; for
quickly I would bring sufficient assurance; lastly, if she hated me,
yet I should know what passion to deal with; and either with
infiniteness of desert I would take away the fuel from that fire; or
if nothing would serve, then I would give her my heart’s blood to
quench it. But this cruel quietness, neither retiring to mislike, nor
proceeding {138} to favour; gracious, but gracious still after one
manner; all her courtesies, having this engraven in them that what is
done, is for virtue’s sake, not for the parties, ever keeping her
course like the sun, who neither for our praises nor curses will spur
or stop his horses. This, I say, heavenliness of hers, for howsoever
my misery is, I cannot but so entitle it, is so impossible to reach
unto that I almost begin to submit myself to the tyranny of despair,
not knowing any way of persuasion, where wisdom seems to be
unsensible. I have appeared to her eyes like myself, by a device I
used with my master, persuading him that we two might put on certain
rich apparel I had provided, and so practice something on horseback
before Pamela, telling him, it was apparel I had gotten for playing
well the part of a king in a tragedy at Athens: my horse indeed was it
I had left at Menalcas’s house, and Dametas got one by friendship out
of the prince’s stable. But howsoever I show, I am no base body, all I
do is but to beat a rock and get foam.”
But as Dorus was about to tell further, Dametas (who came whistling,
and counting upon his fingers how many load of hay seventeen fat oxen
eat up in a year) desired Zelmane from the king that she would come
into the lodge where they stayed for her. “Alas!” said Dorus, taking
his leave, “the sum is this, that you may well find you have beaten
your sorrow against such a wall, which, with the force of a rebound,
may well make your sorrow stronger.” But Zelmane turning her speech to