The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
married; if he be well, why should that grieve thee, but for love of
thyself? no, no, pronounce these words if thou can’st, “let Antiphilus
die.”’ Then the images of each side stood before her understanding;
one time she thought she saw Antiphilus dying, another time she
thought Antiphilus saw her by Tiridates enjoyed; twenty times calling
for a servant to carry message of yielding, but before he came the
mind was altered. She blushed when she considered the effect of
granting; she was pale, when she remembered the fruits of denying. For
weeping, sighing, wringing her hands, and tearing her hair, were
indifferent of both sides. Easily she would have agreed to have broken
all disputations with her own death, but that the fear of Antiphilus’s
further torments, stayed her. At length, even the evening before the
day appointed for his death, the determination of yielding prevailed,
especially, growing upon a message of Antiphilus, who with all the
conjuring terms he could devise, besought her to save {195} his life,
upon any conditions. But she had no sooner sent her messenger to
Tiridates, but her mind changed, and she went to the two young
princes, Pyrocles and Musidorus, and falling down at their feet,
desired them to try some way for her deliverance, showing herself
resolved not to over-live Antiphilus, nor yet to yield to Tiridates.
“They that knew not what she had done in private, prepared that night
accordingly: and as sometimes it falls out that what is inconstancy
seems cunning, so did this change indeed stand in as good stead as a
witty dissimulation. For it made the king as reckless as them
diligent, so that in the dead time of the night, the princes issued
out of the town; with whom she would needs go, either to die herself,
or rescue Antiphilus, having no armour, or weapon, but affection. And
I cannot tell you how, or by what device, though Plangus at large
described it, the conclusion was, the wonderful valour of the two
princes so prevailed, that Antiphilus was succoured, and the king
slain. Plangus was then the chief man left in the camp; and therefore
seeing no other remedy, conveyed in safety into her country Artaxia,
now Queen of Armenia, who with true lamentations, made known to the
world that her new greatness did no way comfort her in respect of her
brother’s loss, whom she studied by all means possible to revenge upon
every one of the occasioners, having, as she thought, overthrown her
brother by a most abominable treason. Insomuch, that being at home she
proclaimed great rewards to any private man, and herself in marriage
to any prince that would destroy Pyrocles and Musidorus. But thus was
Antiphilus redeemed, and, though against the consent of all her
nobility, married to Erona; in which case the two Greek princes, being
called away by another adventure, left them.
“But now methinks, as I have read some poets, who when they intend to
tell some horrible matter, they bid men shun the hearing of it, so if
I do not desire you to stop your ears from me, yet may I well desire a
breathing time, before I am to tell the execrable treason of
Antiphilus that brought her to this misery, and withal wish you all,
that from all mankind indeed you stop your ears. O most happy were we,
if we did set our loves one upon another.” And as she spake that word,
her cheeks in red letters writ more than her tongue did speak. “And
therefore since I have named Plangus, I pray you, sister,” said she,
“help me with the rest, for I have held the stage long enough; and if
it please you to make his fortune known, as I have done Erona’s, I
will after take heart again to go on with his falsehood; and so
between us both, my Lady Zelmane shall understand both the cause and
parties of this lamentation.” “Nay, I beshrew me then,” said Miso,
{196} “I will none of that, I promise you, as long as I have the
government, I will first have my tale, and then my Lady Pamela, my
Lady Zelmane, and my daughter Mopsa (for Mopsa was then returned from
Amphialus) may draw cuts, and the shortest cut speak first. For I tell
you, and this may be suffered, when you are married, you will have
first and last word of your husbands.”
The ladies laughed to see with what an eager earnestness she looked,
having threatened not only in her ferret eyes, but while she spoke her
nose seeming to threaten her chin, and her shaking limbs one to
threaten another. But there was no remedy, they must obey, and Miso,
sitting on the ground with her knees up, and her hands upon her knees,
tuning her voice with many a quavering cough, thus discoursed unto
them. “I tell you true,” said she, “whatsoever you think of me, you
will one day be as I am; and I, simple though I sit here, thought once
my penny as good silver, as some of you do: and if my father had not
played the hasty fool, it is no lie I tell you, I might have had
another-gains husband than Dametas. But let that pass, God amend him;
and yet I speak it not without good cause. You are full in your
tittle-tattlings of Cupid, here is Cupid and there is Cupid. I will
tell you now what a good old woman told me, what an old wise man told
her, what a great learned clerk told him, and gave it him in writing:
and here I have it in my prayer-book.” “I pray you,” said Philoclea,
“let us see it and read it.” “No haste, but good,” said Miso, “you
shall first know how I came by it. I was a young girl of seven and
twenty years old, and I could not go through the street of our
village, but I might hear the young men talk: O the pretty little eyes
of Miso: O the fine thin lips of Miso: O the goodly fat hands of Miso:
besides, how well a certain wrying in my neck became me. Then the one
would wink with one eye, and the other cast daisies at me. I must
confess, seeing so many amorous, it made me set up my peacock’s tail
with the highest. Which when this good old woman perceived, O the good
old woman, well may the bones rest of the good old woman, she called
me to her into her house. I remember full well it stood in the lane as
you go to the barber’s shop; all the town knew her, there was a great
loss of her: she called me to her, and taking first a sop of wine to
comfort her heart, it was of the same wine that comes out of Candia,
which we pay so dear for now-a-days, and in that good world was very
good cheap, she called me to her: ‘Minion,’ said she, indeed I was a
pretty one in those days, though I say it, ‘I see a number of lads
that love you, well,’ said she, ‘I say no more; do you know what love
is?’ With that she brought me into a corner, where there was painted a
foul fiend I trow, for he had a pair of horns like a bull, his feet
cloven, as many {197} eyes upon his body as my grey mare hath dapples,
and for all the world so placed. This monster sat like a hangman upon
a pair of gallows; in his right hand he was painted holding a crown of
laurel; in his left hand a purse of money; and out of his mouth hung a
lace of two fair pictures of a man and a woman, and such a countenance
he showed as if he would persuade folks by those allurements to come
thither and be hanged. I, like a tender-hearted wench, shrieked out
for fear of the devil: ‘Well,’ said she, ‘this same is even love;
therefore do what thou list with all those fellows one after another,
and it recks not much what they do to thee, so it be in secret; but
upon my charge, never love none of them.’ ‘Why mother,’ said I, ‘could
such a thing come from the belly of fair Venus? for a few days before,
our priest, between him and me, had told me the whole story of Venus.’
‘Tush,’ said she, ‘they are all deceived;’ and therewith gave me this
book which she said a great maker of ballads had given to an old
painter, who, for a little pleasure, had bestowed both book and
picture of her. ‘Read there,’ said she, ‘and thou shalt see that his
mother was a cow, and the false Argus his father.’ And so she gave me
this book, and there now you may read it.” With that the remembrance
of the good old woman, made her make such a face to weep, as if it
were not sorrow, it was the carcass of sorrow that appeared there. But
while her tears came out, like rain falling upon dirty furrows, the
latter end of her prayer-book was read among these ladies, which
contained this:
Poor Painters oft with silly Poets join,
To fill the world with strange but vain conceits:
One brings the stuff, the other stamps the coin,
Which breeds nought else but glosses of deceits.
Thus painters Cupid paint, thus poets do
A naked god, blind, young, with arrows two.
Is he a god that ever flies the light:
Or naked he, disguis’d in all untruth?
If he be blind, how hitteth he so right?
How is he young that tam’d old Phoebus’ youth?
But arrows two, and tipped with gold or lead?
Some hurt, accuse a third with horny head.
No, nothing so; an old false knave he is,
By Argus got on Io, then a cow:
What time for her Juno her Jove did miss,
And charge of her to Argus did allow.
Mercury kill’d his false sire for this act,
His dam a beast was pardon’d beastly fact.
With father’s death and mother’s guilty shame,
With Jove’s disdain of such a rival’s seed:
{198}
The wretch compell’d a runagate became,
And learn’d what ill a miser-state doth breed:
To lie, to steal, to pry, and to accuse,
Nought in himself each other to abuse.
Yet bears he still his parents’ stately gifts,
A horned head, cloven feet, and thousand eyes,
Some gazing still, some winking wily shifts,
Whose long large ears, where never rumour dies.
His horned head doth seem the heaven to spite,
His cloven foot doth never tread aright.
Thus half a man, with man he daily haunts,
Cloth’d in the shape which soonest may deceive:
Thus half a beast, each beastly vice he plants,
In those weak hearts that his advice receive.
He prowls each place still in new colours decked,
Sucking one’s ill, another to infect.
To narrow breasts, he comes all wrapped in gain:
To swelling hearts he shines in honour’s fire:
To open eyes all beauties he doth rain;
Creeping to each with flattering of desire.
But for that love is worst which rules the eyes,
Thereon his name, there his chief triumph lies.
Millions of years this old drivel Cupid lives,
While still more wretch, more wicked he doth prove.
Till now at length that Jove him office gives
(At Juno’s suit, who much did Argus love)
In this our world a hangman for to be
Of all those fools, that will have all they see.
The ladies made sport at the description and story of Cupid. But
Zelmane could scarce suffer those blasphemies, as she took them, to be
read, but humbly besought Pamela she should perform her sister’s
request of the other part of the story. “Noble lady,” answered she,
beautifying her face with a sweet smiling, and the sweetness of her
smiling with the beauty of her face, “since I am born a prince’s
daughter, let me not give example of disobedience. My governess will
have us draw cuts, and therefore I pray you let us do so: and so
perhaps it will light upon you to entertain this company with some
story of your own; and it is reason our ears should be willinger to
hear, as your tongue is abler to deliver.” “I will think,” answered
Zelmane, “excellent princess, my tongue of some value if it can
procure your tongue thus much to favour me.” But Pamela pleasantly
persisting to have fortune their judge, they set hands, and Mopsa
(though at the first for squeamishness going up and down with her head
like a boat in a storm,) put to her golden gols[b2-01] among them, and
blind fortune, that saw not the colour of them, gave her the
pre-eminence: and so being her time {199} to speak, wiping her mouth,
as there was good cause, she thus tumbled into her matter.