The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

gorgeous collar, whereof the pieces interchangeably answering, the one was of diamonds and {310} pearl set with a white enamel, so that by the cunning of the workman it seemed like a shining ice; and the other piece being of rubies and opals, had a fiery glistering, which he thought pictured the two passions of fear and desire, wherein he was enchained. His hurt, not yet fully well, made him a little halt, but he strove to give the best grace he could unto his halting. And in that sort he went to Philoclea’s chamber: whom he found (because her chamber was over-lightsome) sitting on that side of her bed which was from the window, which did cast such a shadow upon her as a good painter would bestow upon Venus, when under the trees she bewailed the murder of Adonis: her hands and fingers (as it were) indented one within the other; her shoulder leaning to her bed’s head, and over her head a scarf, which did eclipse almost half her eyes, which under it fixed their beams upon the wall by, with so steady a manner, as if in that place they might well change but not mend their object: and so remained they a good while after his coming in, he not daring to trouble her, nor she perceiving him, till that (a little varying her thoughts, something quickening her senses) she heard him as he happened to stir his upper garment: and perceiving him, rose up, with a demeanour, where, in the book of beauty, there was nothing to be read but sorrow: for kindness was blotted out, and anger was never there. But Amphialus who had entrusted his memory with long and forcible speeches, found it so locked up in amazement that he could pick nothing out of it but the beseeching her to take what was done in good part, and to assure herself there was nothing but honour meant unto her person. But she making no other answer, but letting her hands fall one from the other, which before were joined (with eyes something cast aside, and a silent sigh) gave him to understand that considering his doings, she thought his speech as full of incongruity, as her answer would be void of purpose: whereupon he kneeling down, and kissing her hand (which she suffered with a countenance witnessing captivity, but not kindness) he besought her to have pity of him, whose love went beyond the bounds of conceit, much more of uttering: that in her hands the balance of his life or death did stand; whereto the least motion of hers would serve to determine, she being indeed the mistress of his life, and he her eternal slave, and with true vehemency besought her that he might hear her speak; whereupon she suffered her sweet breath to turn itself into these kind of words. “Alas! cousin,” said she, “what shall my tongue be able to do, which is informed by the ears one way, and by the eyes another? You call for pity, and use cruelty; you say you love me, and yet do {311} the effects of enmity. You affirm your death is in my hands, but you have brought me to so near a degree of death, as when you will, you may lay death upon me, so that while you say, I am mistress of your life, I am not mistress of mine own. You entitle yourself my slave, but I am sure I am yours. If then violence, injury, terror, and depriving of that which is more dear than life itself, liberty, be fit orators for affection, you may expect that I will be easily persuaded. But if the nearness of our kindred breed any remorse in you, or there be any such thing in you, which you call love toward me, then let not my fortune be disgraced with the name of imprisonment: let not my heart waste itself by being vexed with feeling evil, and fearing worse. Let not me be a cause of my parents’ woeful destruction; but restore me to myself, and so doing, I shall account I have received myself of you. And what I say for myself, I say for my dear sister, and my friend Zelmane, for I desire no well-being without they may be partakers.” With that her tears rained down from her heavenly eyes, and seemed to water the sweet and beautiful flowers of her face. But Amphialus was like the poor woman, who loving a tame doe she had above all earthly things, having long played withal, and made it feed at her hand and lap, is constrained at length by famine, all her flock being spent, and she fallen into extreme poverty, to kill the deer to sustain her life. Many a pitiful look doth she cast upon it, and many a time doth she draw back her hand before she can give the stroke. For even so Amphialus by a hunger-starved affection, was compelled to offer this injury, and yet the same affection made him with a tormenting grief think unkindness in himself that he could find in his heart any way to restrain her freedom. But at length, neither able to grant nor deny, he thus answered her: “Dear lady,” said he, “I will not say unto you (how justly soever I may do it) that I am neither author nor accessory unto this your withholding; for since I do not redress it, I am as faulty as if I had begun it. But this I protest unto you (and this protestation of mine let the heavens hear, and if I lie, let them answer me with a deadly thunderbolt) that in my soul I wish I had never seen the light, or rather, that I never had a father to beget such a child, than that by my means those eyes should overflow their own beauties; than by my means the sky of your virtue should be overclouded with sorrow. But woe is me, most excellent lady, I find myself most willing to obey you: neither truly do mine ears receive the least word you speak, with any less reverence than as absolute and unresistable commandments. But alas, that tyrant love (which now possesseth the hold of all my life and reason) will no way suffer it. It is love, it is love, not I which disobey you. What then shall I say? {312} but that I, who am ready to lie under your feet, to venture, nay to lose my life at your least commandment: I am not the stay of your freedom, but love, love, which ties you in your own knots. It is you yourself that imprison yourself: it is your beauty which makes those castle walls embrace you: it is your own eyes which reflect upon themselves this injury. Then is there no other remedy, but that you some way vouchsafe to satisfy this love’s vehemency; which since it grew in yourself) without question you shall find it (far more than I) tractable.” But with these words Philoclea fell to so extreme a quaking, and her lively whiteness did degenerate to such a deadly paleness that Amphialus feared some dangerous trance: so that taking her hand, and feeling that it (which was wont to be one of the chief firebrands of Cupid) had all the sense of it wrapt up in coldness, he began humbly to beseech her to put away all fear, and to assure herself upon the vow he made thereof unto God, and herself, that the uttermost forces he would ever employ to conquer her affection, should be desire and desert. That promise brought Philoclea again to herself, so that slowly lifting up her eyes upon him, with a countenance ever courteous, but then languishing, she told him that he should do well to do so, if indeed he had ever tasted what true love was: for that where now she did bear him goodwill, she should (if he took any other way) hate and abhor the very thought of him, assuring him withal, that though his mother had taken away her knives, yet the house of death had so many doors that she would easily fly into it if ever she found her honour endangered. Amphialus having the cold ashes of care cast upon the coals of desire, leaving some of his mother’s gentlewomen to wait upon Philoclea, himself indeed a prisoner to his prisoner, and making all his authority to be but a foot-stool to humbleness, went from her to his mother. To whom with words, which affection indited, but amazement uttered, he delivered what had passed between him and Philoclea, beseeching her to try what her persuasions could do with her, while he gave order for all such things as were necessary against such forces, as he looked daily Basilius would bring before his castle. His mother bade him quiet himself, for she doubted not to take fit times: But that the best way was, first to let her own passion tire itself. So they called Clinias and some other of their council, advised upon their present affairs. First, he dispatched private letters to all those principal lords and gentlemen of the country whom he thought either alliance, or friendship to himself might draw, with special motion from the general consideration of duty: not omitting all such, whom either youthful age, or youthlike minds {313} did fill with unlimited desires: besides such whom any discontentment made hungry of change, or an overspended want, made want a civil war: to each (according to the counsel of his mother) conforming himself after their humours. To his friend, friendliness; to the ambitious, great expectations; to the displeased, revenge; to the greedy, spoil; wrapping their hopes with such cunning that they rather seemed given over unto them as partakers, than promises sprung of necessity. Then sent he to his mother’s brother, the king of Argos; but he was then so over-laid with war himself as from thence he could attend small succour. But because he knew how violently rumours do blow the sails of popular judgments, and how few there be that can discern between truth and truth likeness, between shows and substance, he caused a justification of this his action to be written, whereof were sowed[b3-01] abroad many copies, which with some glosses of probability, might hide indeed the foulness of his treason; and from true common-places, fetch down most false applications. For beginning in how much the duty which is owed to the country, goes beyond all other duties, since in itself it contains them all; and that for the respect thereof, not only all tender respects of kindred, or whatsoever other friendships, are to be laid aside, but that even long-held opinions (rather builded upon a secret of government than any ground of truth) are to be forsaken; he fell by degrees to show that since the end whereto anything is directed is ever to be of more noble reckoning, than the thing thereto directed, that therefore the weal-public was more to be regarded than any person or magistrate that thereunto was ordained: the feeling consideration whereof had moved him (though as near of kin to Basilius as could be, yet) to set principally before his eyes, the good estate of so many thousands over whom Basilius reigned, rather than so to hood-wink himself with affection, as to suffer the realm to run to manifest ruin. The care whereof did kindly appertain to those who being subaltern magistrates and officers of the crown, were to be employed, as from the prince, so for the people; and of all other, especially himself, who being descended of the royal race, and next heir male, nature had no sooner opened his eyes, but that the soil whereupon they did look, was to look for at his hands a continual carefulness: which as from his childhood he had ever carried, so now finding that his uncle had not only given over all care of government, but had put into the hands of Philanax (a man neither in birth comparable to many, nor for his corrupt, proud, and partial dealing, liked of any) but beside, had set his {314} daughters, in whom the whole estate, as next heirs thereunto, had no less interest than himself, in so unfit and ill-guarded a place, that it were not only dangerous for their persons, but (if they should be conveyed to any foreign country) to the whole commonwealth pernicious, that therefore he had brought them into this strong castle of his, which way, if it might seem strange, they were to consider that new necessities required new remedies, but there they should be served and honoured as