The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
though in itself it have deformities. For indeed, for severer eyes it
is not, being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled. Your dear
self can best witness the manner, being done in loose sheets of paper,
most of it in your presence; the rest by sheets sent unto you, as fast
as they were done. In sum, a young head, not so well stayed as I would
it were, and shall be when God will, having many fancies begotten in
it, if it had not been in some way delivered, would have grown a
monster, and more sorry might I be that they came in, than that they
gat out. But this chief safety shall be the not walking abroad; and
his chief protection, the bearing the livery of your name, which, if
much {xl} goodwill do not deceive me, is worthy to be a sanctuary for
a greater offender. This say I, because I know thy virtue so, and this
say I, because it may be ever so, or, to say better, because it will
be ever so. Read it, then, at your idle times, and the follies your
good judgment will find in it blame not, but laugh at. And so, looking
for no better stuff than as in a haberdasher’s shop, glasses, or
feathers, you will continue to love the writer, who doth exceedingly
love you, and most heartily prays you may long live to be a principal
ornament to the family of the Sidneys. Your loving brother,
PHILIP SIDNEY.
ARCADIA
BOOK I
{1}
It was in the time that the earth begins to put on her new apparel
against the approach of her lover, and that the sun, running a most
even course, becomes an indifferent arbiter between the night and the
day, when the hopeless shepherd Strephon was come to the sands, which
lie against the island of Cithera; where viewing the place with a
heavy kind of delight, and sometimes casting his eyes to the isleward,
he called his friendly rival the pastor Claius unto him; and setting
first down in his darkened countenance a doleful copy of what he would
speak, “O my Claius,” said he, “hither we are now come to pay the
rent, for which we are so called unto by over-busy remembrance,
remembrance, restless remembrance, which claims not only this duty of
us, but for it will have us forget ourselves. I pray you, when we were
amid our flock, and that of other shepherds some were running after
their sheep, strayed beyond their bounds; some delighting their eyes
with seeing them nibble upon the short and sweet grass; some
medicining their sick ewes; some setting a bell for an ensign of a
sheepish squadron; some with more leisure inventing new games of
exercising their bodies, and sporting their wits; did remembrance
grant us any holiday, either for pastime or devotion, nay either for
necessary food, or natural rest, but that still it forced our thoughts
to work upon this place, where we last (alas! that the word _last_
should so long last) did graze our eyes upon her ever-flourishing
beauty, did it not still cry within us? ‘Ah, you base-minded
wretches!--are your thoughts so deeply bemired in the trade of
ordinary worldings, as for respect of gain some paltry wool may yield
you, to let so much time pass without knowing perfectly her estate,
especially in so troublesome a season; to leave that shore unsaluted
from whence you may see to the island where she dwelleth; to leave
those steps unkissed wherein Urania printed the farewell of all
beauty?’
{2}
“Well, then, remembrance commanded, we obeyed, and here we find that
as our remembrance came ever clothed unto us in the form of this
place, so this place gives new heat to the fever of our languishing
remembrance. Yonder, my Claius, Urania lighted; the very horse,
methought, bewailed to be so disburdened: and as for thee, poor
Claius, when thou wentest to help her down, I saw reverence and desire
so divide thee, that thou didst at one instant both blush and quake,
and instead of bearing her wert ready to fall down thyself. There she
sat, vouchsafing my cloak (then most gorgeous) under her: at yonder
rising of the ground she turned herself, looking back towards her
wonted abode, and because of her parting, bearing much sorrow in her
eyes, the lightsomeness whereof had yet so natural a cheerfulness that
it made even sorrow seem to smile; at that turning she spake to us
all, opening the cherry of her lips, and Lord how greedily mine ears
did feed upon the sweet words she uttered! And here she laid her hand
over thine eyes, when she saw the tears springing in them, as if she
would conceal them from other, and yet herself feel some of thy
sorrow. But woe is me, yonder, yonder, did she put her foot into the
boat, at that instant, as it were, dividing her heavenly beauty
between the earth and the sea. But when she was embarked, did you not
mark how the winds whistled and the seas danced for joy, how the sails
did swell with pride, and all because they had Urania? O Urania,
blessed be thou Urania, the sweetest fairness, and fairest sweetness!”
With that word his voice brake so with sobbing, that he could say no
further; and Claius thus answered:
“Alas my Strephon,” said he, “what needs this score to reckon up only
our losses? What doubt is there, but that the sight of this place doth
call our thoughts to appear at the court of affection, held by that
racking steward remembrance? As well may sheep forget to fear when
they spy wolves, as we can miss such fancies when we see any place
made happy by her treading. Who can choose that saw her, but think
where she stayed, where she walked, where she turned, where she spoke?
But what is all this? truly no more, but as this place served us to
think of those things, so those things serve as places to call to
memory more excellent matters. No, no, let us think with
consideration, and consider with acknowledging, and acknowledge with
admiration, and admire with love, and love with joy in the midst of
all woes. Let us in such sort think, I say, that our poor eyes were so
enriched as to behold and our low hearts so exalted as to love a maid
who is such, that as the greatest thing the world can shew is her
beauty, so the least thing that may be praised in her is her beauty.
Certainly as her eye-lids are more pleasant to behold than two {3}
white kids climbing up a fair tree, and browsing on its tenderest
branches, and yet are nothing comparing to the day-shining stars
contained in them; and as her breath is more sweet than a gentle
south-west wind, which comes creeping over flowery fields and shadowed
waters in the extreme heat of summer; and yet is nothing, compared to
the honey-flowing speech that breath doth carry: no more all that our
eyes can see of her (though when they have seen her, what else they
shall ever see is but dry stubble after clover-grass) is to be matched
with the flock of unspeakable virtues laid up delightfully in that
best-builded fold. But indeed, as we can better consider the sun’s
beauty by marking how he gilds these waters and mountains than by
looking upon his own face, too glorious for our weak eyes: so it may
be our conceits (not able to bear her sun-staining excellency) will
better weigh it by her works upon some meaner subject employed. And
alas, who can better witness that than we, whose experience is
grounded upon feeling? Hath not the only love of her made us (being
silly ignorant shepherds) raise up our thoughts above the ordinary
level of the world, so that great clerks do not disdain our
conference? Hath not the desire to seem worthy in her eyes made us,
when others were sleeping, to sit viewing the course of the heavens;
when others were running at Base[b1-01], to run over learned writings;
when others mark their sheep, we to mark ourselves? Hath not she
thrown reason upon our desires, and, as it were, given eyes unto
Cupid? Hath in any but in her love-fellowship maintained friendship
between rivals, and beauty taught the beholders chastity?”
He was going on with his praises, but Strephon bade him stay and look:
and so they both perceived a thing which floated, drawing nearer and
nearer to the bank; but rather by the favourable working of the sea
than by any self-industry. They doubted a while what it should be till
it was cast up even hard before them, at which time they fully saw
that it was a man. Whereupon running for pity’s sake unto him, they
found his hands (as it should appear, constanter friends to his life
than his memory) fast gripping upon the edge of a square small coffer
which lay all under his breast: else in himself no show of life, so
that the board seemed to be but a bier to carry him to land to his
sepulchre. So drew they up a young man of goodly shape, and
well-pleasing favour, that one would think death had in him a lovely
countenance; and that, though he were naked, nakedness was to him an
apparel. That sight increased their compassion, and their compassion
called up their care; so that lifting his feet above his head, making
a great deal of salt water come out of his mouth, {4} they laid him
upon some of their garments, and fell to rub and chafe him, till they
brought him to recover both breath, the servant, and warmth, the
companion, of living. At length opening his eyes, he gave a great
groan (a doleful note, but a pleasant ditty, for by that they found
not only life but strength of life in him). They therefore continued
on their charitable office until, his spirits being well returned,
he--without so much as thanking them for their pains--gat up, and
looking round about to the uttermost limits of sight, and crying upon
the name of Pyrocles, nor seeing nor hearing cause of comfort, “What,”
said he, “and shall Musidorus live after Pyrocles’s destruction?”
Therewithal he offered wilfully to cast himself again into the sea: a
strange sight to the shepherds, to whom it seemed that before being in
appearance dead, had yet saved his life, and now coming to his life,
should be a cause to procure his death; but they ran unto him, and
pulling him back (then too feeble for them) by force stickled that
unnatural fray.
“I pray you,” said he, “honest men, what such right have you in me, as
not to suffer me to do with myself what I list, and what policy have
you to bestow a benefit where it is counted an injury?”
They hearing him speak in Greek (which was their natural language)
became the more tender-hearted towards him, and considering by his
calling and looking that the loss of some dear friend was great cause
of his sorrow, told him, they were poor men that were bound, by course
of humanity, to prevent so great a mischief; and that they wished him,
if opinion of some body’s perishing bred such desperate anguish in
him, that he should be comforted by his own proof, who had lately
escaped as apparent danger as any might be.
“No, no,” said he, “it is not for me to attend so high a blissfulness:
but since you take care of me, I pray you find means that some barque
may be provided, that will go out of the haven that if it be possible
we may find the body, far, far too precious food for fishes: and for
that hire I have within this casket of value sufficient to content
them.”
Claius presently went to a fisherman, and having agreed with him, and
provided some apparel for the naked stranger, he embarked, and the
shepherds with him: and were no sooner gone beyond the mouth of the
haven, but that some way into the sea they might discern, as it were,
a stain of the water’s colour, and by times some sparks and smoke
mounting thereout. But the young man no sooner saw it, but that
beating his breast he cried that there was the beginning of his ruin,
entreating them to bend their course as near unto it as they could;
telling, how that smoke was but a small relique of a great fire which
had driven both him and {5} his friend rather to commit themselves to