The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
but your presence promiseth that cruelly shall not over-run hate, and
if it did, in truth our state is sunk below the degree of fear.
“‘This old man, whom I lead, was lately rightful prince of this
country of Paphlagonia, by the hard-hearted ungratefulness of a son of
his, deprived not only of his kingdom, whereof no foreign forces were
ever able to spoil him, but of his sight, the riches which nature
grants to the poorest creatures: whereby and by other his unnatural
dealings, he hath been driven to such griefs, as even now he would
have had me to have led him to the top of this rock, thence to cast
himself headlong to death, and so would have had me, who received my
life of him, to be the worker of his destruction. But noble
gentlemen,’ said he, ‘if either of you have a father, and feel what
dutiful affection is ingrafted in a son’s heart, let me entreat you to
convey this afflicted prince to some place of rest and security:
amongst your worthy acts it shall be {172} none of the least, that a
king of such might and fame, and so unjustly oppressed, is in any sort
by you relieved.’
“But before they could make him answer, his father began to speak. ‘Ah
my son,’ said he, ‘how evil an historian are you that leave out the
chief knot of all the discourse? my wickedness, my wickedness! and if
thou dost it to spare my ears, the only sense now left me proper for
knowledge, assure thyself thou dost mistake me: and I take witness of
that sun which you see,’ with that he cast up his blind eyes as if he
would hunt for light, ‘and wish myself in worse case than I do wish
myself, which is as evil as may be, if I speak untruly, that nothing
is so welcome to my thoughts as the publishing of my shame. Therefore
know, you gentlemen (to whom from my heart I wish that it may not
prove some ominous foretoken of misfortune to have met with such a
miser as I am) that whatsoever my son, O God, that truth binds me to
reproach him with the name of my son, hath said is true. But besides
those truths, this also is true, that having had, in lawful marriage,
of a mother fit to bear royal children, this son, such a one as partly
you see, and better shall know by my short declaration, and so enjoyed
the expectations in the world of him, till he was grown to justify
their expectations, so as I needed envy no father for the chief
comfort of mortality, to leave another one’s-self after me, I was
carried by a bastard son of mine, if at least I be bound to believe
the words of that base woman my concubine, his mother, first to
mislike, then to hate, lastly to destroy, or to do my best to destroy
this son, I think you think, undeserving destruction. What ways she
used to bring me to it, if I should tell you, I should tediously
trouble you with as much poisonous hypocrisy, desperate fraud, smooth
malice, hidden ambition, and smiling envy, as in any living person
could be harboured: but I list it not; no remembrance of naughtiness
delights me but mine own; and methinks, the accusing his traps might
in some manner excuse my fault, which certainly I loath to do. But the
conclusion is, that I gave order to some servants of mine, whom I
thought as apt for such charities as myself, to lead him out into a
forest, and there to kill him.
“‘But those thieves, better natured to my son than myself, spared his
life, letting him go to learn to live poorly which he did, giving
himself to be a private soldier in a country hereby: but as he was
ready to be greatly advanced for some noble pieces of service which he
did, he heard news of me, who drunk in my affection to that unlawful
and unnatural son of mine, suffered myself to be governed by him, that
all favours and punishments passed by him, all offices and places of
importance distributed to his favourites; so that, ere I was aware, I
had left myself nothing but the name {173} of a king, which he shortly
weary of too, with many indignities if anything may be called an
indignity which was laid upon me, threw me out of my seat, and put out
my eyes, and then, proud in his tyranny, let me go, neither
imprisoning, nor killing me, but rather delighting to make me feel my
misery; misery indeed, if ever there were any; full of wretchedness,
fuller of disgrace, and fullest of guiltiness. And as he came to the
crown by so unjust means, as unjustly he kept it, by force of stronger
soldiers in citadels, the nests of tyranny and murderers of liberty;
disarming all his own countrymen, that no man durst show himself a
well-willer of mine: to say the truth, I think, few of them being so,
considering my cruel folly to my good son, and foolish kindness to my
unkind bastard: but if there were any who felt a pity of so great a
fall, and had yet any sparks of unslain duty left in them towards me,
yet durst they not show it, scarcely with giving me alms at their
doors, which yet was the only sustenance of my distressed life, nobody
daring to show so much charity as to lend me a hand to guide my dark
steps, till this son of mine, God knows, worthy of a more virtuous,
and more fortunate father, forgetting my abominable wrongs, not
reckoning danger, and neglecting the present good way he was in of
doing himself good, came hither to do this kind office you see him
perform towards me, to my unspeakable grief; not only because his
kindness is a glass even to my blind eyes of my naughtiness, but that
above all griefs, it grieves me he should desperately adventure the
loss of his well-deserving life for mine that yet owe more to fortune
for my deserts, as if he would carry mud in a chest of crystal. For
well I know, he that now reigneth, how much soever, and with good
reason, he despiseth me, of all men despised; yet he will not let slip
any advantage to make away with him, whose just title, ennobled by
courage and goodness, may one day shake the seat of a never secure
tyranny. And for this cause I craved of him to lead me to the top of
this rock, indeed I must confess, with meaning to free him from so
serpentine a companion, as I am. But he finding what I purposed, only
therein since he was born, showed himself disobedient unto me. And now
gentlemen, you have the true story, which I pray you publish to the
world, that my mischievous proceedings may be the glory of his filial
piety, the only reward now left for so great a merit. And if it may
be, let me obtain that of you, which my son denies me: for never was
there more pity in saving any than in ending me, both because therein
my agony shall end, and so you shall perceive this excellent young
man, who else wilfully follows his own ruin.’
“The matter in itself lamentable, lamentably expressed by the old
prince, which needed not take to himself the gestures of pity, {174}
since his face could not put off the marks thereof, greatly moved the
two princes to compassion, which could not stay in such hearts as
theirs without seeking remedy. But by and by the occasion was
presented: for Plexirtus, so was the bastard called, came thither with
forty horse, only of purpose to murder his brother, of whose coming he
had soon advertisement, and thought no eyes of sufficient credit in
such a matter but his own, and therefore came himself to be actor and
spectator. And as soon as he came, not regarding the weak, as he
thought, guard but of two men, commanded some of his followers to set
their hands to his, in the killing of Leonatus. But the young prince,
though not otherwise armed but with a sword, how falsely soever he was
dealt with by others, would not betray himself, but bravely drawing it
out, made the death of the first that assailed him, warn his fellows
to come more warily after him. But then Pyrocles and Musidorus were
quickly become parties (so just a defence deserving as much as old
friendship) and so did behave them among that company, more injurious
than valiant, that many of them lost their lives for their wicked
master.
“Yet perhaps had the number of them at last prevailed, if the king of
Pontus, lately by them made so, had not come unlooked for to their
succour. Who (having had a dream which had fixed his imagination
vehemently upon some great danger, presently to follow those two
princes, whom he most dearly loved) was come in all haste, following
as well as he could their track, with a hundred horses in that
country, which he thought, considering who then reigned, a fit place
enough to make the stage of any tragedy.
“But then the match had been so ill made for Plexirtus that his
ill-led life and worse-gotten honour should have tumbled together to
destruction had there not come in Tydeus and Telenor, with forty or
fifty in their suite, to the defence of Plexirtus. These two were
brothers, of the noblest house of that country, brought up from their
infancy with Plexirtus, men of such prowess as not to know fear in
themselves, and yet to teach it in others that should deal with them,
for they had often made their lives triumph over most terrible
dangers, never dismayed, and ever fortunate; and truly no more settled
in valour, than disposed to goodness and justice, if either they had
lighted on a better friend, or could have learned to make friendship a
child, and not the father of virtue. But bringing up, rather than
choice, having first knit their minds unto him (indeed crafty enough,
either to hide his faults, or never to show them, but when they might
pay home) they willingly held out the course, rather to satisfy him
than all the world; and rather to be good friends, than good men: so
as though they did not like the evil he did, yet they liked him that
did the evil: and though {175} not counsellors of the offence, yet
protectors of the offender. Now they having heard of this sudden going
out with so small a company, in a country full of evil-wishing minds
towards him, though they knew not the cause, followed him; till they
found him in such case that they were to venture their lives, or else
he to lose his, which they did with such force of mind and body, that
truly I may justly say, Pyrocles and Musidorus had never till then
found any that could make them so well repeat their hardest lesson in
the feats of arms. And briefly so they did; that if they overcame not,
yet were they not overcome, but carried away that ungrateful master of
theirs to a place of security, howsoever the princes laboured to the
contrary. But this matter being thus far begun, it became not the
constancy of the princes so to leave it; but in all haste making
forces both in Pontus, and Phrygia, they had in few days left him but
only that one strong place where he was. For, fear having been the
only knot that had fastened his people unto him, that once united by a
greater force, they all scattered from him, like so many birds whose
cage had been broken.
“In which season the blind king, having in the chief city of his realm
set the crown upon his son Leonatus’s head, with many tears both of
joy and sorrow, setting forth to the whole people his own faults, and
his son’s virtue; after he had kissed him, and forced his son to
accept honour of him, as of his new-become subject, even in a moment
died, as it should seem, his heart broken with unkindness and
affliction, stretched so far beyond his limits with this access of
comfort that it was able no longer to keep safe his vital spirits. But
the new king, having no less lovingly performed all duties to him
dead, than alive, pursued on the siege of his unnatural brother, as
much for the revenge of his father as the establishing of his own
quiet. In which siege truly I cannot but acknowledge the prowess of
those two brothers, than whom the princes never found in all their
travel, two of greater ability to perform, nor of abler skill for
conduct.
“But Plexirtus finding that if nothing else, famine would at last