The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
soon as he knew me by the armour, had not warranted her from that near
approaching cruelty. I was glad I had done so good a deed for a {224}
gentlewoman not unhandsome, whom before I had in like sort helped. But
the night beginning to persuade some retiring place, the gentlewoman,
even out of countenance before she began her speech, much after this
manner invited me to lodge that night with her father.
“‘Sir,’ said she, ‘how much I owe you, can be but abased by words,
since the life I have, I hold it now the second time, of you: and
therefore need not offer service unto you, but only to remember you,
that I am your servant: and I would my being so, might any way yield
any small contentment unto you. Now only I can but desire you to
harbour yourself this night in this castle, because the time requires
it, and in truth this country is very dangerous for murdering thieves,
to trust a sleeping life among them. And yet I must confess that as
the love I bear you makes me thus invite you, so the same love makes
me ashamed to bring you to a place where you shall be so, not spoken
by ceremony, but by truth, miserably entertained.’
“With that she told me, that though she spoke of her father, whom she
named Chremes, she would hide no truth from me; which was in sum, that
he was of all that region the man of greatest possessions and riches,
so was he either by nature, or an evil received opinion, given to
sparing in so unmeasurable sort, that he did not only bar himself from
the delightful, but almost from the necessary use thereof, scarcely
allowing himself fit sustenance of life, rather than he would spend of
those goods for whose sake only he seemed to joy in life. Which
extreme dealing, descending from himself upon her, had driven her to
put herself with a great lady of that country, by which occasion she
had stumbled upon such mischances as were little for the honour either
of her, or her family. But so wise had he showed himself therein, as
while he found his daughter maintained without his cost, he was
content to be deaf to any noise of infamy, which though it had wronged
her much more than she deserved, yet she could not deny but she was
driven thereby to receive more than decent favours. She concluded,
that there at least I should be free from injuries, and should be
assured to her-ward to abound as much in the true causes of welcomes,
as I should find wants of the effects thereof.
“I, who had acquainted myself to measure the delicacy of food and rest
by hunger and weariness, at that time well stored of both, did not
abide long entreaty, but went with her to the castle, which I found of
good strength, having a great moat round about it, the work of a noble
gentleman, of whose unthrifty son he had bought it; the bridge drawn
up, where we were fain to cry a good while before we could have
answer, and to dispute a good while before {225} answer would be
brought to acceptance. At length a willingness, rather than a joy to
receive his daughter whom he had lately seen so near death, and an
opinion brought into his head by course, because he heard himself
called father, rather than any kindness that he found in his own
heart, made him take us in; for my part by that time grown so weary of
such entertainment that no regard of myself, but only the importunity
of his daughter, made me enter. Where I was met with this Chremes, a
driveling old fellow, lean, shaking both of head and hands, already
half earth, and yet then most greedy of earth: who scarcely would give
me thanks for what I had done, for fear, I suppose, that thankfulness
might have an introduction of reward; but with a hollow voice, giving
me a false welcome, I might perceive in his eye to his daughter, that
it was hard to say whether the displeasure of her company did not
overweigh the pleasure of her own coming. But on he brought me into so
bare a house, that it was the picture of miserable happiness, and rich
beggary (served only by a company of rustical villains, full of sweat
and dust, not one of them other than a labourer) in sum, as he counted
it, profitable drudgery; and all preparations both for food and
lodging such as would make one detest niggardness, it is so sluttish a
vice. His talk of nothing but of his poverty, for fear, belike, lest I
should have proved a young borrower. In sum, such a man, as any enemy
would not wish him worse than to be himself. But there that night bid
I the burden of being a tedious guest to a loathsome host;
over-hearing him sometimes bitterly warn his daughter of bringing such
costly mates under his roof, which she grieved at, desired much to
know my name, I think partly of kindness, to remember who had done
something for her, and partly, because she assured herself I was such
a one as would make even his miser-mind contented with that he had
done. And accordingly, she demanded my name and estate, with such
earnestness, that I, whom love had not as then so robbed me of myself,
as to be other than I am, told her directly my name and condition:
whereof she was no more glad than her father, as I might well perceive
by some ill-favoured cheerfulness, which then first began to wrinkle
itself in his face.
“But the causes of their joys were far different; for as the shepherd
and the butcher both may look upon one sheep with pleasing conceits,
but the shepherd with mind to profit himself by preserving, the
butcher with killing him, so she rejoiced to find that mine own
benefits had made me to be her friend, who was a prince of such
greatness, and lovingly rejoiced. But his joy grew, as I to my danger
after perceived, by the occasion of the queen Artaxia’s setting my
head to sale for having slain her brother Tiridates, which being the
sum of an hundred thousand crowns, to {226} whosoever brought me alive
into her hands, that old wretch, who had over-lived all good nature,
though he had lying idly by him much more than that, yet above all
things loving money, for money’s own sake, determined to betray me, so
well deserving of him, for to have that which he was determined never
to use. And so knowing that the next morning I was resolved to go to
the place where I had left Anaxius, he sent in all speed to a captain
of a garrison near by, which though it belonged to the king of Iberia,
yet knowing the captain’s humour to delight so in riotous spending,
that he cared not how he came by the means to maintain it, doubted not
that to be half with him in the gain, he would play his quarter part
in the treason. And therefore that night agreeing of the fittest
places where they might surprise me in the morning, the old caitiff
was grown so ceremonious, that he would needs accompany me some miles
in my way, a sufficient token to me, if nature had made me apt to
suspect; since a churl’s courtesy rarely comes, but either for gain or
falsehood. But I suffered him to stumble into that point of good
manners: to which purpose he came out with all his clowns, horsed upon
such cart-jades, and so furnished, as in good faith I thought with
myself, if that were thrift, I wish none of my friends or subjects
ever to thrive. As for his daughter, the gentle Dido, she would also,
but in my conscience with a far better mind, prolong the time of
farewell, as long as he.
“And so we went on together: he so old in wickedness, that he could
look me in the face, and freely talk with me, whose life he had
already contracted for: till coming into the falling of a way which
led us into a place, of each side whereof men might easily keep
themselves undiscovered, I was encompassed suddenly by a great troop
of enemies, both of horse and foot, who willed me to yield myself to
the queen Artaxia. But they could not have used worse eloquence to
have persuaded my yielding than that; I knowing the little goodwill
Artaxia bare me. And therefore making necessity and justice my best
sword and shield, I used the other weapons I had as well as I could; I
am sure to the little ease of a good number, who trusting to their
number more than to their valour, and valuing money higher than
equity, felt that guiltiness is not always with ease oppressed. As for
Chremes, he withdrew himself, so gilding his wicked conceits with his
hope of gain, that he was content to be a beholder how I should be
taken to make his prey.
“But I was grown so weary that I supported myself more with anger than
strength, when the most excellent Musidorus came to my succour, who
having followed my trace as well as he could, after he found I had
left the fight with Anaxius, came to the niggard’s castle, where he
found all burned and spoiled by the {227} country people, who bare
mortal hatred to that covetous man, and now took the time when the
cattle was left almost without guard, to come in and leave monuments
of their malice therein: which Musidorus not staying either to
further, or impeach, came upon the spur after me, because with one
voice many told him, that if I were in his company, it was for no good
meant unto me, and in this extremity found me. But when I saw that
cousin of mine, methought my life was doubled, and where I before
thought of a noble death, I now thought of a noble victory. For who
can fear that hath Musidorus by him? who, what he did there for me,
how many he killed, not stranger for the number than for the strange
blows wherewith he sent them to a well-deserved death, might well
delight me to speak of, but I should so hold you too long in every
particular. But in truth, there if ever, and ever, if ever any man,
did Musidorus show himself second to none in able valour.
“Yet what the unmeasurable excess of their number would have done in
the end, I know not, but the trial thereof was cut off by the
chanceable coming thither of the king of Iberia, that same father of
the worthy Plangus, whom it hath pleased you sometimes to mention,
who, not yielding over to old age his country delights, especially of
hawking, was at that time following a merlin, brought to see this
injury offered unto us, and having great numbers of courtiers waiting
upon him, was straight known by the soldiers that assaulted us, to be
their king, and so most of them withdrew themselves.
“He, by his authority, knowing of the captain’s own constrained
confession, what was the motive of this mischievous practice;
misliking much such violence should be offered in his country to men
of our rank, but chiefly disdaining it should be done in respect of
his niece, whom, I must confess wrongfully, he hated, because he
interpreted that her brother and she had maintained his son Plangus
against him, caused the captain’s head presently to be stricken off,
and the old bad Chremes to be hanged, though truly for my part, I
earnestly laboured for his life, because I had eaten of his bread. But
one thing was notable for a conclusion of his miserable life, that
neither the death of his daughter, who, alas! poor gentlewoman, was by
chance slain among his clowns, while she over-boldly for her weak sex
sought to hold them from me, nor yet his own shameful end was so much
in his mouth as he was led to execution, as the loss of his goods, and
burning of his house which often, with more laughter than tears of the
hearers, he made pitiful exclamations upon.
“This justice thus done, and we delivered, the king indeed, in royal
sort invited us to his court, not far thence: in all point
entertaining us so, as truly I must ever acknowledge a beholdingness
{228} unto him; although the stream of it fell out not to be so sweet
as the spring. For after some days being there, curing ourselves of
such wounds as we had received, while I, causing diligent search to be
made for Anaxius, could learn nothing, but that he was gone out of the
country, boasting in every place how he had made me run away, we were