The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
For near acquaintance doth diminish reverent fear.
And having bound them fast by Styx, they should obey
To all what I decreed, did thus my verdict say.
“How ill both you can rule, well hath your discord taught;
Nay yet for ought I see, your beauties merit ought.
To yonder Nymph therefore” (to Mira I did point)
“The crown above you both for ever I appoint.”
I would have spoken out; but out they both did cry;
“Fie, fie, what have we done? ungodly rebel, fie.
But now we needs must yield, to that our oaths require.”
“Yet thou shalt not go free,” quoth Venus. “Such a fire
Her beauty kindle shall within thy foolish mind,
That thou full oft shall wish thy judging eyes were blind.”
“Nay then,” Diana said, “the chasteness I will give,
In ashes of despair, though burnt, shall make thee live.”
“Nay thou,” said both, “shalt see such beams shine in her face,
That thou shalt never dare seek help of wretched case.”
And with that cursed curse away to heaven they fled,
First having all their gifts upon fair Mira spread.
The rest I cannot tell; for therewithal I wak’d,
And found with deadly fear that all my sinews shak’d.
Was it a dream? O dream, how hast thou wrought in me,
That I things erst unseen should first in dreaming see?
And thou, O traitor sleep, made for to be our rest;
How hast thou fram’d the pain wherewith I am oppress’d?
O coward Cupid, thus dost thou thy honour keep,
Unarm’d, alas! unwarn’d to take a man asleep?
Laying not only the conquest, but the heart of the conqueror at her
feet. But she receiving him after her wonted sorrowful, but otherwise
unmoved, manner, it made him think his good success was but as a
pleasant monument of a doleful burial: Joy itself seeming bitter unto
him, since it agreed not to her taste.
Therefore, still craving his mother’s help to persuade her, he himself
sent for Philanax unto him, whom he had not only long {336} hated but
now had his hate greatly increased by the death of his squire Ismenus.
Besides, he had made him as one of the chief causes that moved him to
this rebellion, and therefore was inclined, to colour the better his
action, and the more to embrew the hands of his accomplices by making
them guilty of such a trespass, in some formal sort to cause him to be
executed, being also greatly egged thereunto by his mother, and some
other, who long had hated Philanax; only because he was more worthy
than they to be loved.
But while that deliberation was handled, according rather to the
humour, than the reason of each speaker; Philoclea coming to the
knowledge of the hard plight wherein Philanax stood, she desired one
of the gentlewomen appointed to wait upon her to go in her name and
beseech Amphialus, that, if the love of her had any power of
persuasion in his mind, he would lay no further punishment than
imprisonment upon Philanax. This message was delivered even as
Philanax was entering to the presence of Amphialus, coming, according
to the warning was given him, to receive judgment of death. But when
he, with manful resolution, attended the fruit of such a tyrannical
sentence, thinking it wrong, but no harm to him that should die in so
good a cause; Amphialus turned quite the form of his pretended speech,
and yielded him humble thanks that by his means he had come to that
happiness, as to receive a commandment of his lady: and therefore he
willingly gave him liberty to return in safety whither he would,
quitting him not only of all former grudge, but assuring him that he
would be willing to do him any friendship and service: only desiring
thus much of him, that he would let him know the discourse and intent
of Basilius’s proceeding.
“Truly, my Lord,” answered Philanax, “if there were any such, known to
me, secret in my master’s counsel, as that the revealing thereof,
might hinder his good success, I should loathe the keeping of my blood
with the loss of my faith, and would think the just name of a traitor
a hard purchase of a few years’ living. But since it is so, that my
master hath indeed no way of privy practice; but means openly and
forcibly to deal against you, I will not stick, in few words, to make
your required declaration.” Then told he him in what a maze of
amazement, both Basilius and Gynecia were when they missed their
children and Zelmane. Sometimes apt to suspect some practice of
Zelmane, because she was a stranger; sometimes doubting some relic of
the late mutiny, which doubt was rather increased than anywise
satisfied, by Miso, who, being found almost dead for hunger by certain
country people, brought home word with what cunning they were trained
out, and with what violence they were carried away. But that within a
few {337} days they came to knowledge where they were by Amphialus’s
own letters sent abroad to procure confederates in his attempts; that
Basilius’s purpose was never to leave the siege of the town till he
had taken it, and revenged the injury done unto him. That he meant
rather to win it by time and famine, than by force of assault; knowing
how valiant men he had to deal withal in the town: that he had sent
orders that supplies of soldiers, pioneers, and all things else
necessary, should daily be brought unto him: so as, “My Lord,” said
Philanax, “let me now, having received my life by your grace, let me
give you your life and honour by my counsel; protesting unto you, that
I cannot choose but love you, being my master’s nephew; and that I
wish you well in all causes but this. You know his nature is as apt to
forgive as his power is able to conquer. Your fault past is excusable,
in that love persuaded, and youth was persuaded. Do not urge the
effects of angry victory, but rather seek to obtain that constantly by
courtesy, which you can never assuredly enjoy by violence.”
One might easily have seen in the cheer of Amphialus that disdainful
choler would fain have made the answer for him, but the remembrance of
Philoclea served for forcible barriers between anger, and angry
effects: so as he said no more, but that he would not put him to the
trouble to give him any further counsel, but that he might return, if
he listed, presently. Philanax glad to receive an uncorrupted liberty,
humbly accepted his favourable convoy out of the town; and so
departed, not visiting the princesses, thinking it might be offensive
to Amphialus, and no way fruitful to them, who were no way, but by
force, to be rescued.
The poor ladies, indeed, not suffered either to meet together, or to
have conference with any other, but such as Cecropia had already
framed, to sing all their songs to her tune, she herself omitting no
day, and catching hold of every occasion to move forward her son’s
desire, and remove their own resolutions; using the same arguments to
the one sister, as to the other; determining that whom she could win
first, the other should, without her son’s knowledge, by poison be
made away. But though the reasons were the same to both, yet the
handling was diverse, according as she saw their humours to prepare a
more or less aptness of apprehension. This day having long speech to
Philoclea, amplifying not a little the great dutifulness her son had
shown in delivering Philanax; of whom she could get no answer, but a
silence sealed up in virtue, and so sweetly graced, as that in one
instant it carried with it both resistance and humbleness: Cecropia
threatening in herself to run a more rugged race with her, went to her
sister Pamela, who that day having wearied herself with reading, and
with the height of her heart disdaining to keep company with any {338}
of the gentlewomen appointed to attend her, whom she accounted her
jailors, was working upon a purse certain roses and lilies, as by the
fineness of the work, one might see she had borrowed her wits of the
sorrow that then owed them, and lent them wholly to that exercise. For
the flowers she had wrought carried such life in them that the
cunningest painter might have learned of her needle, which with so
pretty a manner made his careers to and fro through the cloth, as if
the needle itself would have been loth to have gone fromward such a
mistress but that it hoped to return thitherward very quickly again,
the cloth looking with many eyes upon her, and lovingly embracing the
wounds she gave it: the shears also were at hand to behead the silk
that was grown too short. And if at any time she put her mouth to bite
it off, it seemed, that where she had been long in making of a rose
with her hands, she would in an instant make roses with her lips; as
the lilies seemed to have their whiteness rather of the hand that made
them than of the matter whereof they were made, and that they grew
there by the suns of her eyes, and were refreshed by the most, in
discomfort, comfortable air, which an unawares sigh might bestow upon
them. But the colours for the ground were so well chosen, neither
sullenly dark, nor glaringly lightsome; and so well proportioned, as
that, though much cunning were in it, yet it was but to serve for
ornament of the principal work; that it was not without marvel to see
how a mind which could cast a careless semblant upon the greatest
conflicts of fortune could command itself to take care for so small
matters. Neither had she neglected the dainty dressing of herself; but
as if it had been her marriage time to affliction, she rather seemed
to remember her own worthiness than the unworthiness of her husband.
For well might one perceive she had not rejected the counsel of a
glass, and that her hands had pleased themselves in paying the tribute
of undeceiving skill to so high perfections of nature.
The sight whereof so divers from her sister, who rather suffered
sorrow to dress itself in her beauty than that she would bestow any
entertainment of so unwelcome a guest, made Cecropia take a sudden
assuredness of hope that she should obtain somewhat of Pamela:
thinking, according to the squaring out of her own good nature that
beauty carefully set forth, would soon prove a sign of an unrefusing
harbour. Animated therewith, she sat down by Pamela, and taking the
purse, and with affected curiosity looking upon the work: “Fully happy
is he,” said she, “at least if he knew his own happiness, to whom a
purse in this manner, and by this hand wrought, is dedicated. In faith
he shall have cause to account it, not as a purse for treasure, but as
a treasure itself, worthy to be pursed up in the purse of his own
heart.” “And {339} think you so indeed?” said Pamela, half smiling, “I
promise you I wrought it but to make some tedious hours believe that I
thought not of them; for else I valued it but even as a very purse.”
“It is the right nature,” said Cecropia, “of beauty to work unwitting
effects of wonder.” “Truly,” said Pamela, “I never thought till now
that this outward gloss, entitled beauty, which it pleaseth you to lay
to my (as I think) unguilty charge, was but a pleasant mixture of
natural colours, delightful to the eye, as music is to the ear,
without any further consequence, since it is a thing, which not only
beasts have, but even stones and trees many of them do greatly excel
in it.” “That other things,” answered Cecropia, “have some portion of
it, takes not away the excellency of it, where indeed it doth excel:
since we see that even those beasts, trees and stones are in the name
of beauty only highly praised. But that the beauty of human persons is
beyond all other things, there is great likelihood of reason, since to
them only is given the judgment to discern beauty; and among
reasonable wights, as it seems, that our sex hath the pre-eminence, so
that in that pre-eminence, nature countervails all other liberalities
wherein she may be thought to have dealt more favourably toward
mankind. How do men crown, think you, themselves with glory for having