The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
and villages near unto him, that he might thereafter keep his solitary
lodge in more security, upon the making of a fire, or ringing of a
bell, having them in readiness for him.
This Clinias, having his ear one way when his eye was another, had
perceived, and therefore hastened away with mind to tell Cecropia that
she was to take some speedy resolution, or else it were danger those
examinations would both discover and ruin her; and so went his way,
leaving that little company with embracements, and praising of
Zelmane’s excellent proceeding, to show, that no decking sets forth
anything so much as affection. For as, while she stood at the
discretion of those indiscreet rebels, every angry countenance any of
them made seemed a knife laid upon their own throats; so unspeakable
was now their joy that they saw, besides her safety and their own, the
same wrought, and safely wrought by her means, in whom they had placed
all their {266} delights. What examples Greece could ever allege of
wit and fortitude, were set in rank of trifles, being compared to this
action.
But as they were in the midst of those unfeigned ceremonies, a cittern
ill-played on, accompanied with a hoarse voice, who seemed to sing
maugre the Muses, and to be merry in spite of fortune, made them look
the way of the ill-noised song. The song was this
A hateful cure with hate to heal:
A bloody help with blood to save:
A foolish thing with fools to deal.
Let him be bob’d, that bobs will have,
But who by means of wisdom high
Hath sav’d his charge? it is even I.
Let others deck their pride with scars,
And of their wounds make brave lame shows:
First let them die, then pass the stars,
When rotten fame will tell their blows:
But eye from blade, and ear from eye;
Who hath sav’d all? it is even I.
They had soon found it was Dametas, who came with no less lifted up
countenance than if he had passed over the bellies of all his enemies:
so wise a point he thought he had performed in using the natural
strength of the cave. But never was it his doing to come so soon
thence till the coast were more assuredly clear: for it was a rule
with him, that after a great storm there ever fell a few drops before
it be fully finished. But Pamela, who had now experienced how much
care doth solicit a lover’s heart, used this occasion of going to her
parents and sister, indeed as well for that cause, as being unquiet,
till her eye might be assured how her shepherd had gone through the
danger.
But Basilius with the sight of Pamela, of whom almost his head,
otherwise occupied, had left the wanted remembrance, was suddenly
stricken into a devout kind of admiration, remembering the oracle,
which according to the fawning humour of false hope, he interpreted
now his own to his own best, and with the willing blindness of
affection, because his mind ran wholly upon Zelmane, he thought the
gods in their oracles did principally mind her.
But as he was thinking deeply of the matter, one of the shepherds told
him that Philanax was already come with an hundred horse in his
company. For having by chance rode not far off the little desert, he
had heard of this uproar, and so was come upon the spur, gathering a
company of gentlemen, as fast as he could, to the succour of his
master; Basilius was glad of it; but not willing to have him nor any
other of the noblemen, see his mistress, he {267} himself went out of
the lodge: and so giving order unto him of placing garrisons, and
examining those matters; and Philanax with humble earnestness
beginning to entreat him to leave off this solitary course, which
already had been so dangerous unto him, “Well,” said Basilius, “it may
be ere long I will condescend unto your desire. In the meantime, take
you the best order you can to keep me safe in my solitariness. But,”
said he, “do you remember, how earnestly you wrote unto me that I
should not be moved by that oracle’s authority, which brought me to
this resolution?” “Full well, Sir,” answered Philanax, “for though it
pleased you not as then to let me know what the oracle’s words were,
yet all oracles hold in, in my conceit, one degree of reputation, it
sufficed me to know it was but an oracle which led you from your own
course.” “Well,” said Basilius, “I will now tell you the words, which
before I thought not good to do, because when all the events fall out,
as some already have done, I may charge you with your incredulity.” So
he repeated in this sort.
Thy elder care shall from thy careful face
By princely mean be stolen, and yet not lost:
Thy younger shall with nature’s bliss embrace
An uncouth love, which nature hateth most;
Both they themselves unto such two shall wed,
Who at thy bear, as at a bar, shall plead;
Why thee, a living man, they had made dead.
In thine own seat a foreign state shall sit;
And ere that all those blows at thy head do hit,
Thou, with thy wife adultery shall commit.
“For you, forsooth,” said he, “when I told you that some supernatural
cause sent me strange visions, which being confirmed with presagious
chances, I had gone to Delphos, and there received this answer, you
replied unto me that the only supernatural causes were the humours of
my body, which bred such melancholy dreams, and that both they framed
a mind full of conceits, apt to make presages of things, which in
themselves were merely chanceable: and withal, as I say, you remember
what you wrote me touching the authority of the oracle: but now I have
some notable trial of the truth thereof, which hereafter I will more
largely communicate unto you. Only now, know that the thing I most
feared is already performed; I mean, that a foreign state should
possess my throne. For that hath been done by Zelmane, but not as I
feared, to my ruin, but to my preservation.” But when he had once
named Zelmane, that name was as good as a pulley, to make the clock of
his praises run on in such sort that Philanax found was more exquisite
than the only admiration of virtue breedeth: which his faithful {268}
heart inwardly repining at, made him shrink away as soon as he could
to go about the other matters of importance which Basilius had
enjoined unto him.
Basilius returned into the lodge, thus by himself construing the
oracle: that in that, he said, his elder care should by princely mean
be stolen away from him, and yet not lost, it was now performed, since
Zelmane had, as it were, robbed from him the care of his first
begotten child, yet was it not lost, since in his heart the ground of
it remained. That his younger should with nature’s bliss embrace the
love of Zelmane, because he had so commanded her for his sake to do,
yet should it be with as much hate of nature, for being so hateful an
opposite to the jealousy he thought her mother had of him. The sitting
in that seat he deemed by her already performed. But that which most
comforted him was his interpretation of the adultery, which he thought
he should commit with Zelmane, whom afterwards he should have to his
wife. The point of his daughter’s marriage, because it threatened his
death withal, he determined to prevent with keeping them while he
lived, unmarried. But having, as he thought, gotten thus much
understanding of the oracle, he determined for three days after to
perform certain rites to Apollo: and even then began with his wife and
daughters to sing this hymn, and by them yearly used.
Apollo great, whose beams the greater world do light,
And in our little world do clear our inward sight,
Which ever shine, though hid from earth by earthly shade,
Whose lights do ever live, but in our darkness fade;
Thou god, whose youth was decked with spoil of Python’s skin
(So humble knowledge can throw down the snakish sin)
Latona’s son, whose birth in pain and travail long
Doth teach, to learn the good what travails do belong:
In travail of our life, a short but tedious space,
While brittle hour glass runs, guide thou our panting pace:
Give us foresightful minds: give us minds to obey
What foresight tells; our thoughts upon thy knowledge stay.
Let so our fruits grow up that nature be maintain’d:
But so our hearts keep down, with vice they be not stain’d.
Let this assured hold our judgments overtake,
That nothing wins the heaven, but what doth earth forsake.
As soon as he had ended his devotion (all the privileged shepherds
being now come) knowing well enough he might lay all his care upon
Philanax, he was willing to sweeten the taste of this past tumult with
some rural pastimes. For which, while the shepherds prepared
themselves in the best manner, Basilius took his daughter Philoclea
aside, and with such haste, as if his ears hunted for words, {269}
desired to know how she had found Zelmane. She humbly answered him
according to the agreement betwixt them, that thus much for her sake
Zelmane was content to descend from her former resolution, as to hear
him whenever he would speak; and further than that she said, as
Zelmane had not granted, so she neither did nor ever would desire.
Basilius kissed her with more than fatherly thanks, and straight, like
a hard-kept ward new come to his lands, would fain have used the
benefit of that grant, in laying his sickness before his only
physician. But Zelmane, that had not yet fully determined with herself
how to bear herself toward him, made him in few words understand, that
the time, in respect of the company, was unfit for such a parley; and
therefore to keep his brains the busier, letting him understand what
she had learned of his daughters, touching Erona’s distress, whom in
her travel she had known and been greatly beholden to, she desired him
to finish the rest, for so far as Plangus had told him; because, she
said, and she said truly, she was full of care for that lady, whose
desert, only except an over-base choice, was nothing agreeable to
misfortune. Basilius glad that she would command him anything, but
more glad that in executing the unfitness of that time, she argued an
intention to grant a fitter, obeyed her in this manner.
“Madame,” said he, “it is very true that since years enabled me to
judge what is or is not to be pitied, I never saw anything that more
moved me to justify a vehement compassion on myself than the estate of
that prince, whom strong against all his own afflictions, which yet
were great as I perceive you have heard, yet true and noble love had
so pulled down, as to lie under sorrow for another. Insomuch as I
could not temper my long idle pen in that subject, which I perceive
you have seen. But then to leave that unrepeated, which I find my
daughters have told you, it may please you to understand, since it
pleaseth you to demand, that Antiphilus being crowned, and so left by
the famous princes Musidorus and Pyrocles (led thence by the challenge
of Anaxius, who is now in those provinces of Greece, making a
dishonourable inquiry after that excellent prince Pyrocles, already
perished) Antiphilus I say, being crowned and delivered from the
presence of those two, whose virtues, while they were present, like
good schoolmasters, suppressed his vanities, he had not strength of
mind enough in him to make long delay of discovering what manner of
man he was. But straight like one carried up to so high a place that
he loseth the discerning of the ground over which he is, so was his
mind lifted so far beyond the level of his own discourse, that
remembering only that himself was in the high seat of a king, he could
not perceive that he was a king of reasonable creatures who would
quickly scorn follies, and repine at injuries. But imagining {270} no
so true property of sovereignty as to do what he listed, and to list
whatsoever pleased his fancy, he quickly made his kingdom a