The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
So are thy pains my pains too.
Thy heated heart my seat is
Wherein I burn: thy breath is
My voice, too hot to keep in.
Besides, lo here the author
Of all thy harms: lo here she,
That only can redress thee,
Of her will I demand help.”
My muse I yield, my muse I sing,
But all thy song herein knit.
The life we lead is all love:
The love we hold is all death,
Nor ought I crave to feed life,
Nor ought I seek to shun death,
But only that my goddess,
My life my death do count hers.
Basilius, when she had fully ended her song, fell prostrate upon the
ground, and thanked the gods they had preserved his life so long as to
hear the very music they themselves used in an earthly body. And then
with like grace to Zelmane, never left entreating her, till she had,
taking a lyre Basilius held for her, sung those Phaleuciacks:
Reason, tell me thy mind, if here be reason
In this strange violence, to make resistance,
Where sweet graces erect the stately banner
Of virtue’s regiment, shining in harness
Of fortune’s diadems, by beauty mustered:
Say then reason; I say, what is thy counsel?
Her loose hairs be the shot, the breasts the pikes be
Scouts each motion is, the hands be horsemen,
Her lips are the riches the wars to maintain,
Where well couched abides a coffer of pearl,
Her legs carriage is of all the sweet camp:
Say then reason; I say, what is thy counsel?
Her cannons be her eyes, mine eyes the walls be,
Which at first volley gave too open entry,
Nor rampier did abide; my brain was up blown,
Undermin’d with a speech, the piercer of thoughts.
Thus weakened by myself, no help remaineth;
Say then reason: I say, what is thy counsel?
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And now fame the herald of her true honour,
Doth proclaim with a sound made all by men’s mouths,
That nature sovereign of earthly dwellers,
Commands all creatures to yield obeisance
Under this, this her own, her only darling.
Say then reason; I say what is thy counsel?
Reason sighs, but in end he thus doth answer:
“Nought can reason avail in heavenly matters.”
Thus nature’s diamond receive thy conquest,
Thus pure pearl, I do yield my senses and soul,
Thus sweet pain, I do yield whate’er I can yield,
Reason look to thyself, I serve a goddess.
Dorus had long he thought kept silence, from saying somewhat which
might tend to the glory of her, in whom all glory to his seeming was
included, but now he broke it, singing those verses called
Asclepiadiks.
O sweet woods the delight of solitariness!
O how much I do like your solitariness!
Where man’s mind hath a freed consideration
Of goodness to receive lovely direction.
Where senses do behold th’ order of heav’nly host,
And wise thoughts do behold what the creator is:
Contemplation here holdeth his only seat:
Bounded with no limits, borne with a wing of hope,
Climbs even unto the stars, nature is under it.
Nought disturbs thy quiet, all to thy service yields,
Each sight draws on a thought, thought mother of science:
Sweet birds kindly do grant harmony unto thee,
Fair trees’ shade is enough fortification,
Nor dangers to thyself, if ’t be not in thyself.
O sweet woods the delight of solitariness!
O how much do I like your solitariness!
Here nor treason is hid, veiled in innocence,
Nor envy’s snaky eye finds any harbour here,
Nor flatterers’ venomous insinuations,
Nor coming humourists’ puddled opinions,
Nor courteous ruin of proffered usury,
Nor time prattled away, cradle of ignorance,
Nor causeless duty, nor cumber of arrogance,
Nor trifling title of vanity dazzleth us,
Nor golden manacles stand for a paradise.
Here wrong’s name is unheard; slander a monster is,
Keep thy spirit from abuse, here no abuse doth haunt,
What man grafts in a tree dissimulation?
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O sweet woods the delight of solitariness!
O how well I do like your solitariness!
Yet dear soil, if a soul clos’d in a mansion
As sweet as violets, fair as a lily is,
Strait as a cedar, a voice strains the canary birds,
Whose shade safely doth hold, danger avoideth her;
Such wisdom, that in her lives speculation:
Such goodness, that in her simplicity triumphs:
Where envy’s snaky eye, winketh or else dieth,
Slander wants a pretext, flattery gone beyond:
Oh! if such a one have bent to a lonely life,
Her steps, glad we receive, glad we receive her eyes.
And think not she doth hurt our solitariness,
For such company decks such solitariness.
The other shepherds were offering themselves to have continued the
sports, but the night had so quietly spent the most part of herself
among them that the king for that time licensed them to depart. And so
bringing Zelmane to her lodging, who would much rather have done the
same for Philoclea; of all sides they went to counterfeit a sleep in
their beds, for a true one their agonies could not afford them. Yet
there they lay, so might they be most solitary for the food of their
thoughts, till it was near noon the next day, after which Basilius was
to continue his Apollo devotions, and the other to meditate upon their
private desires.
[End of Book II]
ARCADIA
BOOK III
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This last day’s danger, having made Pamela’s love discern what a
loss it should have suffered if Dorus had been destroyed, bred such
tenderness of kindness in her toward him that she could no longer keep
love from looking out through her eyes, and going forth in her words,
whom before as a close prisoner she had to her heart only committed;
so that finding not only by his speeches and letters, but by the
pitiful oration of a languishing behaviour, and the easily deciphered
character of a sorrowful face, that despair began now to threaten him
destruction, she grew content both to pity him, and let him see she
pitied him, as well by making her own beautiful beams to thaw away the
former iciness of her behaviour, as by entertaining his discourses
(whensoever he did use them) in the third person of Musidorus, to so
far a degree, that in the end she said that if she had been the
princess whom that disguised prince had virtuously loved, she would
have requited his faith with faithful affection; finding in her heart
that nothing could so heartily love as virtue: with many more words to
the same sense of noble favour, and chaste plainness. Which when at
the first it made that unexpected bliss shine upon Dorus, he was like
one frozen with extremity of cold, overhastily brought to a great
fire, rather oppressed than relieved with such a lightning of
felicity. But after the strength of nature had made him able to feel
the sweetness of joyfulness, that again being a child of passion, and
never acquainted with mediocrity, could not set bounds upon his
happiness, nor be content to give desire a kingdom, but that it must
be an unlimited monarchy. So that the ground he stood upon being
over-high in happiness, and slippery through affection, he could not
hold himself from falling into such an error, which with sighs blew
all comfort out of his {300} breast, and washed away all cheerfulness
of his cheer with tears. For this favour filling him with hope, hope
encouraging his desire, and desire considering nothing but
opportunity; one time (Mopsa being called away by her mother, and he
left alone with Pamela) the sudden occasion called love, and that
never stayed to ask reason’s leave, but made the too much loving Dorus
take her in his arms, offering to kiss her, and, as if it were, to
establish a trophy of his victory. But she, as if she had been ready
to drink a wine of excellent taste and colour, which suddenly she
perceived had poison in it, so did she put him away from her, looking
first up to heaven, as amazed to find herself so beguiled in him; then
laying cruel punishment upon him of angry love, and lowering beauty,
showing disdain, and a despising disdain. “Away,” (said she),
“unworthy man to love or to be loved. Assure thyself, I hate myself
being so deceived; judge then what I do to thee for deceiving me. Let
me see thee no more, the only fall of my judgment, and stain of my
conscience.” With that she called Mopsa, not staying for any answer
(which was no other but a flood of tears) which she seemed not to mark
(much less to pity) and chid her for having left her alone.
It was not a sorrow, but it was even a death which then laid hold of
Dorus: which certainly at that instant would have killed him, but that
the fear to tarry longer in her presence (contrary to her commandment)
gave him life to carry himself away from her sight, and to run into
the woods, where, throwing himself down at the foot of a tree, he did
not fall into lamentation (for that proceeded of pitying) or grieving
for himself (which he did no way) but to curses of his life, as one
that detested himself. For finding himself not only unhappy, but
unhappy after being fallen from all happiness: and to be fallen from
all happiness, not by any misconceiving, but by his own fault, and his
fault to be done to no other but Pamela; he did not tender his own
estate, but despised it, greedily drawing into his mind, all conceits
which might more and more torment him. And so remained he two days in
the woods, disdaining to give his body food, or his mind comfort,
loving in himself nothing but the love of her. And indeed that love
only strove with the fury of his anguish, telling it that if it
destroyed Dorus, it should also destroy the image of her that lived in
Dorus: and when the thought of that was crept in unto him, it began to
win of him some compassion to the shrine of that image, and to bewail
not for himself (whom he hated) but that so notable a love should
perish. Then began he only so far to wish his own good, as that Pamela
might pardon him the fault, though not the punishment: and the
uttermost height he aspired unto, was that after his death she might
yet pity his error and {301} know that it proceeded of love, and not
of boldness. That conceit found such friendship in his thoughts, that
at last he yielded, since he was banished her presence, to seek some
means by writing to show his sorrow, and testify his repentance.
Therefore getting him the necessary instruments of writing, he thought
best to counterfeit his hand (fearing that already as she knew his,
she would cast it away as soon as she saw it) and to put it in verse,
hoping that would draw her on to read the more, choosing the elegiac
as fittest for mourning. But never pen did more quakingly perform his
office; never was paper more double moistened with ink and tears;
never words more slowly married together, and never the Muses more
tired than now, with changes and re-changes of his devices: fearing
how to end, before he had resolved how to begin, mistrusting each
word, condemning each sentence. This word was not significant; that
word was too plain; this would not be conceived; the other would be
ill-conceived; here sorrow was not enough expressed, there he seemed
too much for his own sake to be sorry; this sentence rather showed art
than passion, that sentence rather foolishly passionate than forcibly
moving. At last, marring with mending, and putting out better than he
left, he made an end of it; being ended, was divers times ready to
tear it, till his reason assuring him, the more he studied the worse
it grew, he folded it up, devoutly invoking good acceptation unto it;
and watching his time, when they were all gone one day to dinner,
saving Mopsa to the other lodge, stole up into Pamela’s chamber, and
in her standish (which first he kissed, and craved of it a safe and
friendly keeping) left it there to be seen at her next using her ink
(himself returning again to be true prisoner to desperate sorrow)
leaving her standish upon her bed’s head, to give her the more