“Enjoy thy bloody conquest, tyrannical Euarchus,” said he, “for neither is convenient the title of a king to a murderer, nor the remembrance of kindred to a destroyer of his kindred. Go home and glory that it hath been in thy power, shamefully to kill Musidorus. Let thy flattering orators dedicate crowns of laurel unto thee, that the first of thy race thou hast overthrown a prince of Thessalia. But for me, I hope the Thessalians are not so degenerate from their ancestors but that they will revenge my injury and their loss upon thee. I hope my death is no more unjust to me than it shall be bitter to thee; howsoever it be, my death shall triumph over thy cruelty; neither as now would I live to make my life beholden unto thee. But if thy cruelty hath not so blinded thine eyes, that thou canst not see thine own hurt, if thy heart be not so devilish, as thou hast no power but to torment thyself, then look upon this young Pyrocles with a manly eye, if not with a pitiful; give not occasion to the whole earth to say: ‘See how the gods have made the tyrant tear his own bowels!’ Examine the eyes and voices of all this people; and what all men see, be not blind in thine own cause. Look, I say look upon him, in whom the most curious searcher is able to find no fault but that he is thy son. Believe it, thy own subjects will detest thee for robbing them of such a prince, in whom they have right as well as thyself.”
Some more words to that purpose he would have spoken, but Pyrocles, who often had called to him, did now fully interrupt him, desiring him not to do him the wrong to give his father ill words before him, willing him to consider it was their own fault and not his injustice; and withal, to remember their resolution of well suffering all accidents, which this impatiency did seem to vary from: and then kneeling down with all humbleness, he took the speech in this order to Euarchus: “If my daily prayers to the almighty gods had so far prevailed as to have granted me the end whereto I have directed my actions, I should rather have been now a comfort to your mind than an example of your justice; rather a preserver of your memory by my life than a monument of your judgment by my death. But since it hath pleased their unsearchable wisdoms to overthrow all the desires I had to serve you and make me become a shame unto you; since the last obedience I can show you is to die, vouchsafe yet, O Father, if my fault have not made me altogether unworthy so to term you, vouchsafe I say to let the few and last words your son shall ever speak, not be tedious unto you. And if the remembrance of my virtuous mother, who once was dear unto you, may bear any sway with you, if the name of Pyrocles have at any time been pleasant, let one request of mine, which shall not be for mine own life, be graciously accepted of you. What you owe to justice is performed in my death: A father to have executed his only son, will leave a sufficient example for a greater crime than this. My blood will satisfy the highest point of equity, my blood will satisfy the hardest hearted in this country. O save the life of this prince; that is the only all I will with my last breath demand of you. With what face will you look upon your sister, when in reward of nourishing me in your greatest need, you take away, and in such sort take away that which is more dear to her than all the world, and is the only comfort wherewith she nourisheth her old age? O give not such an occasion to the noble Thessalians, for ever to curse the match that their prince did make with the Macedonian blood. By my loss there follows no public loss, for you are to hold the seat, and to provide yourself perchance of a worthier successor. But how can you or all the earth recompense that damage that poor Thessalia shall sustain? Who sending out, whom otherwise they would no more have spared than their own eyes, their prince to you, and your requesting to have him, by you he should thus dishonourably be extinguished. Set before you, I beseech you, the face of that miserable people, when no sooner shall the news come that you have met your nephew, but withal they shall hear that you have beheaded him. How many tears they shall spend, how many complaints they shall make, so many just execrations will light upon you. And take heed, O Father, for since my death answers my fault, while I live I will call upon that dear name, lest seeking too precise a course of justice, you be not thought most unjust in weakening your neighbours’ mighty estate by taking away their only pillar. In me, in me this matter began, in me let it receive his ending. Assure yourself no man will doubt your severe observing the laws, when it shall be known Euarchus hath killed Pyrocles. But the time of my ever farewell approaches: if you do think my death sufficient for my fault, and do not desire to make my death more miserable than death, let these dying words of him that was once your son, pierce your ears. Let Musidorus live, and Pyrocles shall live in him, and you shall not want a child.”
“A child,” cried out Musidorus, “to him that kills Pyrocles?” With that he fell again to entreat for Pyrocles, and Pyrocles as fast for Musidorus, each employing his wit how to show himself most worthy to die, to such an admiration of all the beholders, that most of them examining the matter by their own passions, thought Euarchus, as often extraordinary excellencies, not being rightly conceived, do rather offend than please, an obstinate hearted man, and such an one, who being pitiless, his dominion must needs be insupportable. But Euarchus that felt his own misery more than they, and yet loved goodness more than himself, with such a sad assured behaviour as Cato killed himself withal, when he had heard the uttermost of that their speech tended unto, he commanded again they should be carried away, rising up from the seat, which he would much rather have wished should have been his grave, and looking who would take the charge, whereto every one was exceeding backward.
But as this pitiful matter was entering into, those that were next the Duke’s body, might hear from under the velvet, wherewith he was covered, a great voice of groaning. Whereat every man astonished, and their spirits appalled with these former miseries, apt to take any strange conceit, when they might perfectly perceive the body stir, then some began to fear spirits, some to look for a miracle, most to imagine they knew not what. But Philanax and Kalander, whose eyes honest love, though to divers parties, held most attentive, leaped to the table, and putting off the velvet cover, might plainly discern, with as much wonder as gladness, that the Duke lived. For so it was, that the drink he received was neither as Gynecia first imagined, a love-potion, nor, as it was after thought, a deadly poison, but a drink made by notable art, and as it was thought not without natural magic, to procure for thirty hours such a deadly sleep, as should oppress all show of life. The cause of the making of this drink had first been that a princess of Cyprus, grandmother to Gynecia, being notably learned, and yet not able with all her learning to answer the objections of Cupid, did furiously love a young nobleman of her father’s court, who fearing the king’s rage, and not once daring either to attempt or accept so high a place, she made that sleeping drink, and found means by a trusty servant of hers, who of purpose invited him to his chamber, to procure him that suspected no such thing, to receive it. Which done, he, no way able to resist, was secretly carried by him into a pleasant chamber, in the midst of a garden she had of purpose provided for this enterprise, where that space of time, pleasing herself with seeing and cherishing of him, when the time came of the drink’s end of working, and he more astonished than if he had fallen from the clouds, she bade him choose either then to marry her, and to promise to fly away with her in a bark she had made ready, or else she would presently cry out, and show in what place he was, with oath he was come thither to ravish her. The nobleman in these straights, her beauty prevailed, he married her, and escaped the realm with her. And after many strange adventures, were reconciled to the king her father, after whose death they reigned. But she gratefully remembering the service that drink had done her, preserved in a bottle, made by singular art long to keep it without perishing, great quantity of it, with the foretold inscription, which wrongly interpreted by her daughter-in-law, the Queen of Cyprus, was given by her to Gynecia at the time of her marriage; and the drink finding an old body of Basilius, had kept him some hours longer in the trance than it would have done a younger. But a while it was before the good Basilius could come again to himself: in which time Euarchus more glad than of the whole world’s monarchy to be rid of his miserable magistracy, which even in justice he was now to surrender to the lawful prince of that country, came from the throne unto him, and there with much ado made him understand how these intricate matters had fallen out. Many garboils passed through his fancy before he could be persuaded Zelmane was other than a woman. At length remembering the oracle, which now indeed was accomplished, not as before he had imagined, considering all had fallen out by the highest providence, and withal weighing in all these matters his own fault had been the greatest; the first thing he did was with all honourable pomp to send for Gynecia, who, poor lady, thought she was leading forth to her lively burial, and, when she came, to recount before all the people, the excellent virtue was in her, which she had not only maintained all her life most unspotted, but now was content so miserably to die, to follow her husband. He told them how she had warned him to take heed of that drink: and so with all the exaltings of her that might be, publicly desired her pardon for those errors he had committed. And so kissing her, left her to receive the most honourable fame of any princess throughout the world, all men thinking, saving only Pyrocles and Philoclea, who never betrayed her, that she was the perfect mirror of all wifely love. Which though in that point undeserved, she did in the remnant of her life duly purchase, with observing all duty and faith to the example and glory of Greece: so uncertain are mortal judgments, the same person most infamous, and most famous, and neither justly. Then with princely entertainment to Euarchus, and many kind words to Pyrocles, whom still he dearly loved, though in a more virtuous kind, the marriage was concluded, to the inestimable joy of Euarchus, towards whom now Musidorus acknowledged his fault, betwixt the peerless princes and princesses. Philanax for his singular faith ever held dear of Basilius while he lived, and no less of Musidorus, who was to inherit that kingdom, and therein confirmed to him and his the second place in that province, with great increase of his living to maintain it. With like proportion he used to Kalodulus in Thessalia: highly honouring Kalander while he lived, and after his death continuing in the same measure to love and advance his son Clitophon. But as for Sympathus, Pyrocles, to whom his father in his own time gave the whole kingdom of Thrace, held him always about him, giving him in pure gift the great city of Abdera. But the solemnities of these marriages, with the Arcadian pastorals, full of many comical adventures happening to those rural lovers; the strange stories of Artaxia and Plexirtus, Erona and Plangus, Helen and Amphialus, with the wonderful chances that befell them; the shepherdish loves of Menalcas with Kalodulus’s daughter; the poor hopes of the poor Philisides in the pursuit of his affections; the strange continuance of Claius and Strephon’s desire; lastly, the son of Pyrocles, named Pyrophilus, and Melidora, the fair daughter of Pamela by Musidorus, who even at their birth entered into admirable fortunes; may awake some other spirit to exercise his pen in that wherewith mine is already dulled.
[End of Book V]
A SIXTH BOOK TO THE COUNTESS OF
PEMBROKE’S ARCADIA
By R.B., of Lincoln’s-Inn, Esq.
TO THE READER
To strive to lessen the greatness of the attempt, were to take away the glory of the action. To add to Sir Philip Sidney, I know is rashness; a fault pardonable in me, if custom might as well excuse the offence, as youth may prescribe in offending in this kind. That he should undergo that burthen, whose mother-tongue differs as much from this language, as Irish from English, augments the danger of the enterprise, and gives your expectation, perhaps, an assurance what the event must be. Yet, let no man judge wrongfully of my endeavours: I have added a limb to Apelles’s picture; but my mind never entertained such vain hopes, to think it of perfection sufficient to delude the eyes of the most vulgar, with the likeness in the workmanship. No, no, I do not follow Pythagoras’s opinion of transmigration: I am well assured divine Sidney’s soul is not infused into me, whose judgment was only able to finish what his invention was only worthy to undertake. For this, courteous reader, let it suffice I place Sir Philip Sidney’s desert (even in mine own esteem) as far beyond my endeavours, as the most fault-finding censor can imagine this essay of mine to come short of his Arcadia. Vale.
R. B.