The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
much of that entertainment which she allotted unto him: and therefore
with a desirous sigh chastening his breast for too much desiring,
“Sweet princess of my life,” said he, “what trophies, what triumph,
what monuments, what histories might ever make my fame yield so sweet
a music to my ears, as that it pleaseth you to lend your mind to the
knowledge of any thing touching Pyrocles, only therefore of value,
because he is your Pyrocles? and therefore grow I now so proud as to
think it worth the hearing, since you vouchsafe to give it the
hearing. Therefore only height of my hope, vouchsafe to know, that
after the death of Tiridates, and settling Erona in her government,
for {216} settled we left her; howsoever since, as I perceived by your
speech the last day, the ungrateful treason of her ill-chosen husband
overthrew her, a thing, in truth, never till this time by me either
heard, or suspected: for who could think, without having such a mind
as Antiphilus, that so great a beauty as Erona’s, indeed excellent,
could not have held his affection? so great goodness could not have
bound gratefulness? and so high advancement could not have satisfied
his ambition? but therefore true it is, that wickedness may well be
compared to a bottomless pit, into which it is far easier to keep
one’s self from falling than being fallen, to give one’s self any stay
from falling infinitely. But for my cousin and me, upon this cause we
parted from Erona.
“Euardes, the brave and mighty prince, whom it was my fortune to kill
in the combat for Erona, had three nephews, sons to a sister of his;
all three set among the foremost ranks of fame for great minds to
attempt, and great force to perform what they did attempt, especially
the eldest, by name Anaxius, to whom all men would willingly have
yielded the height of praise, but that his nature was such as to
bestow it upon himself before any could give it. For of so
unsupportable a pride he was, that where his deeds might well stir
envy, his demeanour did rather breed disdain. And if it be true that
the giants ever made war against heaven, he had been a fit
ensign-bearer for that company. For nothing seemed hard to him, though
impossible; and nothing unjust, while his liking was his justice. Now
he in these wars had flatly refused his aid, because he could not
brook that the worthy prince Plangus was by his cousin Tiridates
preferred before him. For allowing no other weights but the sword and
spear in judging of desert, how much he esteemed himself before
Plangus in that, so much would he have had his allowance in his
service.
“But now that he understood that his uncle was slain by me, I think
rather scorn that any should kill his uncle, than any kindness, an
unused guest to an arrogant soul, made him seek his revenge, I must
confess in manner gallant enough. For he sent a challenge unto me to
meet him at a place appointed, in the confines of the kingdom of
Lycia, where he would prove upon me, that I had by some treachery
overcome his uncle, whom else many hundreds such as I, could not have
withstood. Youth and success made me willing enough to accept any such
bargain, especially because I had heard that your cousin Amphialus,
who for some years hath borne universally the name of the best knight
in the world, had divers times fought with him, and never been able to
master him, but so had left him, that every man thought Anaxius in
that one virtue of courtesy far short of him, in all other his match;
Anaxius still deeming himself for his superior. Therefore {217} to him
I would go, and I would needs go alone, because so I understood for
certain, he was; and, I must confess, desirous to do something without
the company of the incomparable prince Musidorus, because in my heart
I acknowledge that I owed more to his presence than to anything in
myself, whatever before I had done. For of him indeed, as of any
worldly cause, I must grant, as received, whatever there is or may be
good in me. He taught me by word, and best by example, giving me in
him so lively an image of virtue, that ignorance could not cast such a
mist over mine eyes, as not to see, and to love it; and all with such
dear friendship and care, as, O heaven, how can my life ever requite
to him? which made me indeed find in myself such a kind of depending
upon him, as without him I found a weakness, and a mistrustfulness of
myself, as one stayed from his best strength, when at any time I
missed him. Which humour perceiving to over-rule me, I strove against
it: not that I was unwilling to depend upon him in judgment, but by
weakness I would not; which though it held me to him, made me unworthy
of him. Therefore I desired his leave and obtained it, such confidence
he had in me, preferring my reputation before his own tenderness, and
so privately went from him, he determining, as after I knew, in secret
manner, not to be far from the place where we appointed to meet, to
prevent any foul play that might be offered unto me. Full loth was
Erona to let us depart from her, as it were, fore-feeling the harms
which after fell to her. But I, rid fully from those cumbers of
kindness, and half a day’s journey in my way towards Anaxius, met an
adventure, which, though in itself of small importance, I will tell
you at large, because by the occasion thereof I was brought to as
great cumber and danger, as lightly any might escape.
“As I passed through a land, each side whereof was so bordered both
with high timber trees, and copses of far more humble growth, that it
might easily bring a solitary mind to look for no other companions
than the wild burgesses of the forest, I heard certain cries, which,
coming by pauses to mine ears from within the wood of the right hand,
made me well assured by the greatness of the cry, it was the voice of
a man, though it were a very unmanlike voice, so to cry. But making
mine ears my guide, I left not many trees behind me before I saw at
the bottom of one of them a gentleman, bound with many garters hand
and foot, so as well he might tumble and toss, but neither run nor
resist he could. Upon him, like so many eagles upon an ox, were nine
gentlewomen, truly such as one might well enough say, they were
handsome. Each of them held bodkins in their hands, wherewith
continually they pricked him, having been before hand unarmed of any
defence {218} from the waist upward, but only of his shirt: so as the
poor man wept and bled, cried and prayed while they sported themselves
in his pain, and delighted in his prayers as the arguments of their
victory.
“I was moved to compassion, and so much the more that he straight
called to me for succour, desiring me at least to kill him, to deliver
him from those tormentors. But before myself could resolve, much less
any other tell what I would resolve, there came in choleric haste
towards me about seven or eight knights, the foremost of which, willed
me to get away, and not to trouble the ladies while they were taking
their due revenge; but with so over-mastering a manner of pride, as
truly my heart could not brook it; and therefore, answering them, that
how I would have defended him from the ladies I knew not, but from
them I would, I began to combat first with him particularly, and after
his death with the others that had less good manners, jointly. But
such was the end of it, that I kept the field with the death of some,
and flight of others. Insomuch as the women, afraid, what angry
victory would bring forth, ran all away, saving only one, who was so
fleshed in malice that neither during, nor after the fight, she gave
any truce to her cruelty, but still used the little instrument of her
great spite, to the well-witnessed pain of the impatient patient: and
was now about to put out his eyes, which all this while were spared,
because they should do him the discomfort of seeing who prevailed over
him. When I came in, and after much ado brought her to some
conference, for some time it was before she would hearken, more before
she would speak, and most before she would in her speech leave off the
sharp remembrance of her bodkin, but at length when I pulled off my
head-piece, and humbly entreated her pardon, or knowledge why she was
cruel, out of breath more with choler, which increased in his own
exercise, than with the pain she took, much to this purpose, she gave
her grief unto my knowledge.
“‘Gentlemen,’ said she, ‘much it is against my will to forbear any
time the executing of my just revenge upon this naughty creature, a
man in nothing but in deceiving women. But because I see you are
young, and like enough to have the power, if you would have the mind,
to do much more mischief than he, I am content upon this bad subject
to read a lecture to your virtue. This man called Pamphilus, in birth
I must confess is noble, but what is that to him, if it shall be a
stain to his dead ancestors to have left such an offspring, in shape
as you see, not uncomely, indeed the fit mask of his disguised
falsehood, in conversation wittily pleasant, and pleasantly gamesome;
his eyes full of merry simplicity, his words, of hearty
companionableness: and such an {219} one, whose head one would not
think so stayed as to think mischievously; delighted in all such
things, which by imparting the delight to others, makes the user
thereof welcome, as, music, dancing, hunting, feasting, riding, and
such like. And to conclude, such an one, as who can keep him at
arm’s-end, need never wish a better companion. But under these
qualities lies such a poisonous adder, as I will tell you. For by
those gifts of nature and fortune, being in all places acceptable, he
creeps, nay, to say, truly, he flies so into the favour of poor silly
women, that I would be too much ashamed to confess, if I had not
revenge in my hand as well as shame in my cheeks. For his heart being
wholly delighted in deceiving us, we could never be warned, but rather
one bird caught, served for a stale to bring in more. For the more he
got, the more still he showed that he, as it were, gave way to his new
mistress when he betrayed his promises to the former. The cunning of
his flattery, the readiness of his tears, the infiniteness of his
vows, were but among the weakest threads of his net. But the stirring
our own passions, and by the entrance of them, to make himself lord of
our forces, there lay his master’s part of cunning, making us now
jealous, now envious, now proud of what he had, desirous of more; now
giving one the triumph, to see him that was prince of many, subject to
her; now with an estranged look, making her fear the loss of that
mind, which indeed could never be had: never ceasing humbleness and
diligence, till he had embarked us in some such disadvantage that we
could not return dry-shod; and then suddenly a tyrant, but a crafty
tyrant. For so would he use his imperiousness, that we had a
delightful fear, and an awe, which made us loth to lose our hope. And,
which is strangest, when sometimes with late repentance I think of it,
I must confess, even in the greatest tempest of my judgment was I
never driven to think him excellent; and yet so could set my mind,
both to get and keep him, as though therein had laid my felicity: like
them I have seen play at the ball, grow extremely earnest, who should
have the ball, and yet every one knew it was but a ball. But in the
end the bitter farce of the sport was, that we had either our hearts
broken with sorrow, or our estates spoiled with being at his
direction, or our honours for ever lost, partly by our own faults, but
principally by his faulty using of our faults. For never was there man
that could with more scornful eyes behold her at whose feet he had
lately lain, nor with a more unmanlike bravery use his tongue to her