The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
“In time past,” said she, “there was a king, the mightiest man in all
his country, that had by his wife the fairest daughter that ever ate
pap. Now this king did keep a great house, that everybody might come
and take their meat freely. So one day as his daughter was sitting in
her window, playing upon a harp as sweet as any rose, and combing her
head with a comb all of precious stones, there came in a knight into
the court, upon a goodly horse, one hair of gold, and the other of
silver; and so the knight casting up his eyes to the window, did fall
into such love with her, that he grew not worth the bread he ate; till
many a sorry day going over his head, with daily diligence and griefly
groans, he won her affection, so that they agreed to run away
together. And so in May, when all true hearts rejoice, they stole out
of the castle without staying so much as for their breakfast. Now
forsooth, as they went together, often fall to kissing one another,
the knight told her, he was brought up among the water-nymphs, who had
so bewitched him that if he were ever ask’d his name, he must
presently vanish away, and therefore charged her upon his blessing,
never to ask him what he was, not whether he would. And so a great
while she kept his commandment; till once, passing through a cruel
wilderness, as dark as pitch, her mouth so watered, that she could not
choose but ask him the question. And then, he making the grievousest
complaints that would have melted a tree to have heard them, vanish’d
quite away: and she lay down, casting forth as pitiful cries as any
shriek-owl. But having lain so, wet by the rain, and burnt by the sun,
five days and five nights, she got up and went over many a high hill,
and many a deep river, till she came to an aunt’s house of hers, and
came and cried to her for help: and she for pity gave her a nut, and
bid her never open her nut till she was come to the extremest misery
that ever tongue could speak of; and so she went, and she went, and
never rested the evening, where she went in the morning, till she came
to a second aunt, and she gave her another nut.”
“Now good Mopsa,” said the sweet Philoclea, “I pray thee at my request
keep this tale till my marriage-day, and I promise thee that the best
gown I wear that day shall be thine.” Mopsa was very glad of that
bargain, especially that it should grow a festival tale: so that
Zelmane, who desired to find the uttermost what these ladies
understood touching herself, and having understood the danger of
Erona, of which before she had never heard, purposing with herself, as
soon as this pursuit she now was in was brought to any effect, to
succour her, entreated again, that she might know as well the story of
Plangus, as of Erona. Philoclea referred it to {200} her sister’s
perfecter remembrance, who with so sweet a voice, and so winning a
grace, as in themselves were of most forcible eloquence to procure
attention, in this manner to their earnest request soon condescended.
“The father of this prince Plangus as yet lives, and is king of
Iberia: a man, if the judgment of Plangus may be accepted, of no
wicked nature, nor willingly doing evil, without himself mistake the
evil, seeing it disguised under some form of goodness. This prince
being married at the first to a princess, who both from her ancestors,
and in herself was worthy of him, by her had this son Plangus. Not
long after whose birth, the queen, as though she had performed the
message for which she was sent into the world, returned again unto her
maker. The king, sealing up all thoughts of love under the image of
her memory, remained a widower many years after; recompensing the
grief of that disjoining from her, in conjoining in himself both a
fatherly and motherly care toward her only child Plangus, who being
grown to man’s age, as our own eyes may judge, could not but fertilely
requite his father’s fatherly education.
“This prince, while yet the errors in his nature were excused by the
greenness of his youth which took all the fault upon itself, loved a
private man’s wife of the principal city of that kingdom, if that may
be called love, which he rather did take into himself willingly than
by which he was taken forcibly. It sufficeth that the young man
persuaded himself he loved her: she being a woman beautiful enough, if
it be possible, that the only outside can justly entitle a beauty. But
finding such a chase as only fled to be caught, the young prince
brought his affection with her to that point, which ought to engrave
remorse in her heart, and to paint shame upon her face. And so
possessed he his desire without any interruption; he constantly
favouring her, and she thinking that the enamelling of a prince’s
name, might hide the spots of a broken wedlock. But as I have seen one
that was sick of a sleeping disease could not be made wake, but with
pinching of him, so out of his sinful sleep his mind, unworthy so to
be lost, was not to be called to itself, but by a sharp accident. It
fell out, that his many times leaving of the court, in undue times,
began to be noted; and, as prince’s ears be manifold, from one to
another came unto the king, who, careful of his only son, sought and
found by his spies, the necessary evil servants to a king, what it
was, whereby he was from his better delights so diverted. Whereupon,
the king, to give his fault the greater blow, used such means by
disguising himself, that he found them, her husband being absent, in
her house together, which he did to make them the more feelingly
ashamed of it. And that way he took, laying threatenings upon her, and
upon him {201} reproaches. But the poor young prince, deceived with
that young opinion, that if it be ever lawful to lie, it is for one’s
lover, employed all his wit to bring his father into a better opinion.
And because he might bend him from that, as he counted it, crooked
conceit of her, he wrested him, as much as he could possibly, to the
other side, not sticking with prodigal protestations to set forth her
chastity; not denying his own attempt, but thereby the more extolling
her virtue. His sophistry prevailed, his father believed, and so
believed, that ere long, though he were already stepped into the
winter of his age, he found himself warm in those desires which were
in his son far more excusable. To be short, he gave himself over unto
it, and, because he would avoid the odious comparison of a young
rival, sent away his son with an army, to the subduing of a province
lately rebelled against him, which he knew could not be less work than
of three or four years. Wherein he behaved himself so worthily, as
even to this country the fame thereof came, long before his own
coming: while yet his father had a speedier success, but in a far more
unnobler conquest. For while Plangus was away, the old man, growing
only in age and affection, followed his suit with all means of
unhonest servants, large promises, and each thing else that might help
to countervail his own unloveliness.
“And she, whose husband about that time died, forgetting the absent
Plangus, or at least not hoping of him to obtain so aspiring a
purpose, left no art unused, which might keep the line from breaking,
whereat the fish was already taken, not drawing him violently, but
letting him play himself upon the hook which he had so greedily
swallowed. For, accompanying her mourning garments with a doleful
countenance, yet neither forgetting handsomeness in her mourning
garments, nor sweetness in her doleful countenance, her words were
ever seasoned with sighs, and any favour she showed, bathed in tears,
that affection might see cause of pity, and pity might persuade cause
of affection. And being grown skilful in his humours, she was no less
skilful in applying his humours; never suffering his fear to fall to
despair, nor his hope to hasten to an assurance: she was content he
should think that she loved him; and a certain stolen look should
sometimes, as though it were against her will, betray it: but if
thereupon he grew bold, he straight was encountered with a mask of
virtue. And that which seemeth most impossible unto me, for as near as
I can repeat it, as Plangus told it, she could not only sigh when she
would, as all can do, and weep when she would, as, they say, some can
do; but, being most impudent in her heart, she could when she would,
teach her cheeks blushing, and make shamefacedness the cloak of
shamelessness. In sum, to leave out many particularities, which he
recited, she did not only use so the spur {202} that his desire ran
on, but so the bit, that it ran on even in such a career as she would
have it; that within a while the king, seeing with no other eyes but
such as she gave him, and thinking on no other thoughts but such as
she taught him; having at first liberal measures of favours, then
shortened of them, when most his desire was inflamed, he saw no other
way but marriage to satisfy his longing, and her mind, as he thought,
loving, but chastely loving: so that by the time Plangus returned from
being notably victorious over the rebels, he found his father not only
married, but already a father of a son and a daughter by this woman.
Which though Plangus, as he had every way just cause, was grieved at;
yet did his grief never bring forth either contemning of her or
repining at his father. But she, who besides that was grown a mother,
and a step-mother, did read in his eyes her own fault, and made his
conscience her guiltiness, thought still that his presence carried her
condemnation; so much the more, as that she, unchastely attempting his
wonted fancies, found, for the reverence of his father’s bed, a bitter
refusal, which breeding rather spite than shame in her, or if it were
a shame, a shame not of the fault, but of the repulse, she did not
only, as hating him, thirst for a revenge, but, as fearing harm from
him, endeavoured to do harm unto him. Therefore did she try the
uttermost of her wicked wit, how to overthrow him in the foundation of
his strength, which was in the favour of his father: which because she
saw strong both in nature and desert, it required the more cunning how
to undermine it. And therefore, shunning the ordinary trade of
hireling Sycophants, she made her praises of him to be accusations;
and her advancing him to be his ruin. For first, with words, nearer
admiration than liking, she would extol his excellencies, the
goodliness of his shape, the power of his wit, the valiantness of his
courage, the fortunateness of his successes, so as the father might
find in her a singular love towards him: nay she shunned not to kindle
some few sparks of jealousy in him: thus having gotten an opinion in
his father that she was far from meaning mischief to the son, then
fell she to praise him with no less vehemency of affection, but with
much more cunning of malice. For then she sets forth the liberty of
his mind, the high flying of his thoughts, the fitness in him to bear
rule, the singular love the subjects bear him, that it was doubtful
whether his wit were greater in winning their favours, or his courage
in employing their favours; that he was not born to live a subject
life, each action of his bearing in it majesty; such a kingly
entertainment, such a kingly magnificence, such a kingly heart for
enterprises; especially remembering those virtues, which in a
successor are no more honoured by the subjects than suspected of the
princes. Then would she, by putting off objections, bring {203} in
objections to her husband’s head, already infected with suspicion.
‘Nay,’ would she say, ‘I dare take it upon my death, that he is no
such son, as many like might have been, who loved greatness so well as
to build their greatness upon their father’s ruin. Indeed ambition,