ARCADIA
BOOK VI
[This Sixth Book was written in the Year 1633.]
What changes in fortune the princes of Macedon and Thessaly have passed, together with what event the uncertain actions of so blind a goddess have been crowned, they may remember, whose ears have been fed with the eloquent story, written by the never-enough renowned Sir Philip Sidney.
Basilius, therefore, having beheld with the eye of success, the accomplishment of his misinterpreted oracle, hastened (together with Euarchus) to his court of Mantinea; where the infinite assembly, and the public sacrifices of his subjects, did well witness what joy did possess their hearts, whose eyes were restored to the sight of long eclipsed sovereignty. Fame, also, proud to be the messenger of such royal news, had soon (with speedy flight) passed the limits of Arcadia, so that in few days the court was filled with foreign princes, whom either the tie of a long observed league of amity, or a nearness in blood to Basilius, at such a time, brought thither to congratulate with him, or were such, whose honour-thirsty minds hunted after occasions to make known their acts in chivalry.
And now was the marriage-day come, when Pamela, attired in the stately ornament of beauteous majesty, led by the constant forwardness of a virtuous mind, waited on by the many thoughts of his fore-past crosses in her love, which now made up a perfect harmony in the pleasing discord of endeared affection, was brought to church; whom, soon after, her sister Philoclea (being in the same degree of happiness, clad in the bashful innocency of an unspotted soul, guided by the shame-faced desire of her Pyrocles’s satisfaction, attended on by many graces of a mild cheerfulness) followed; both equally admired, both equally looked on.
The temple (whereto in triumph beauty and majesty were led prisoners by the famous sisters) was a fit dwelling-place for the Arcadian deities, fenced from the sun and winds’ too free access, by many ranks of even-grown, even-set trees, near which, in divided branches, ran two clear streams, whose sweet murmur (as they tumbled over their bed of pebble stones) did much adorn the religious solitariness of that place. And, that nothing should be wanting that might set forth the careful judgment of the builder, it was seated in such a near distance from the palace, as might not presently bury the gloriousness of the show, nor cloy the beholders with the tediousness of the sight. In the way, on both hands, were many altars, on which the crowned entrails of the much-promising sacrifices were laid. At the door the two sisters were received by as many virgins, attired in a white lawn livery, with garlands on their heads of lilies and roses intermixed, holding in their left hands a pair of pigeons, the grateful offering to the queen of love. Soon after, the accustomed rites in the Arcadian nuptials being ended, the King and Euarchus, with the rest of the princes, returned unto a stately palace, sumptuously furnished, where both art and nature seemed to be at variance, whether should bestow most ornaments to enrich so rare a work: seated where the earth did rise a little (as proud to be the supporter of so curious a building) by means whereof, the sight had freedom to overlook a large territory, where the green level of the Arcadian plains, beautified by the intercourse of many forests, represented the delightful mixture of a civil wilderness. The building of marble, where, whether the art in carving into many forms the in vain resisting hardness of the stone, the cunning in knitting these disjointed members, or the invention in contriving their several rooms, did excel, was hard to be judged of.
The inside also might well be the inner part of so glorious an outside; for, besides the well-matched largeness of the rooms, and lightsome pleasantness of the windows, it was all hung with the choice rareness of far-fetched arras, in which the ingenious workman, with the curious pencil of his little needle, had limned the dumb records of revived antiquity. Here did he present the memorable siege of Thebes, where the ruins of her walls seemed yet to hang, and make the beholders fear the downfall of the lively stones. There you might see how cunningly he had expressed the constrained flight of the Trojan prince, and the cruel sacrifice of enraged Dido’s love. Nor was the story of Scylla forgotten, who there stood before Minos, with the present of her father’s fatal hair; while you might perceive, by his bent brows and disdainful countenance, the just reward of her unnatural attempt. With these and others, wherein cost and invention strove for the mastery, were the hangings adorned; yet these many stories did so stealingly succeed each other that the most curious observer’s eye (though his admiration might dwell on each piece) could find no cause of stay until he had overlooked them all. But neither these, nor what art or nature could have added, did set forth so much the palace, as the graceful presence of the Arcadian sisters; whose beauties, till now, of long time had borne a part with their troubled minds, in a sweet pilgrimage to a happy event; and therefore at this present, so far disburdened of those thoughts, as it was to be settled in the most desired enjoying of unspeakable bliss, the imagination would needs persuade, if it were possible, were bettered.
Dinner being set and ended, while the knights (who, to honour that day with tilting, and to show what they dared and could effect in the service, as they thought, of unresistable beauties) were putting on their armour, there entered the hall a page, who, with submissive humbleness, told the King, he was sent from his master, the naked knight, who desired there to be received as a challenger, to eternize, as the justness of his cause required, the famous memory of his deceased mistress Helen, the Queen of Corinth. Basilius, much pitying the before-unheard death of so excellent a queen, willed the page to relate the circumstance, which being strange in itself, and of so great a subject, wrought a passionate willingness in the hearers to be attentive.
“After that fortune,” said he, “had bestowed, by the conquest of Amphialus, at Cecropia’s castle, the victory on his adversary the black knight, this queen (having long time, by the command of love, her inward tyrant, made all Greece a stage for her wandering passions) at length went thither, where the end of her search was the beginning of her sorrows. Finding the curtains of eternal night ready to close up his eyes, who (in the voyage her affection made) had alway been the port she steered to; yet hoping she knew not what, that if perhaps Proserpine should meet in Elysium his departed soul, she would in mere compassion of her sorrow, send it back to reinhabit her ancient seat; she carried the life little-desiring body, to Corinth, where, at that time, lived an aged man, by name Artelio, one whose fortunate experience in desperate cures had made famous. Him, by the powerful command of his queen, and the humble tears of a still-mistrusting lover, she conjures to employ the uttermost of his skill in preserving him in whom she lived. Some time there was ere his vital spirits, almost now proved strangers to their wonted mansion, would accept the tie of hospitality; but when the hand of art had taught them courtesy, and that each sense, though faintly, did exercise his charge, Amphialus, returning to himself, from that sweet ignorance of cares wherein he lived, began to question, in what estate the castle was against the besiegers? thinking he had always been there; when Helen entered the room with a countenance where beauty appeared through the clouds of care and fear of his danger: Her, the double and deeply wounded patient (bearing still about him the inward picture of Philoclea, whom long I have heard, in vain he loved) thought to be the same saint, the remembrance of whom returned, together with his wandering soul, from which it was inseparable. Now, therefore, with a languishing look (the true herald of what he suffered) ‘Lady,’ said he, ‘though the welcome harbinger of a near-following death hath provided this body (while it was mine, alway devoted to your service) as a lodging for his master an ever-certain guest, yet when I pass to the Elysian plains (if any memory there remain of this world of comfort you now vouchsafe, heaven knows! your faithful, though unfortunate servant) I shall never cease to pay the eternal tribute of thanks to well-deserving death, who, with his presence brings the happiness in life denied me.’
“The Queen with a pensive silence, sorrowing she stood to act the counterfeit of her rival, and still desirous to enjoy the sweet speech of her revived Amphialus, was like a passenger, whom the loud command of the rough winds had forced to wander through the unevenness of the deep-furrowed seas, now in sight of land, equally distracted between the desire to leave his unnatural habitation, where each wave seems to be the proud messenger of destruction, and fear to approach it, being jealous of his hard entertainment on the rocky shore: thus did she continue (fixed in a doubtful imagination) loth to interrupt his pleasing speech, and more than grieved he meant not her whom he spoke to, until Amphialus (strengthening his newly recovered senses with the conceited presence of Philoclea) found his error, and then, with a look on his mistaken object (which he could not make disdainful, because his happy thoughts had once adored it for Philoclea) he suddenly fell into a deadly trance, whereat Helen (feelingly suffering in his danger) ran to him, and bedewing his even then lovely face with the loving oblation of her many tears, she together poured forth the most passionate plaints that love could invent, or grief utter; so as a while, this accident overthrowing the fabric of her half-built comfort with the suddenness of so unlooked-for an assault, constrained her (with bemoaning his case) to forget the care of his safety; but being withdrawn by her servants, the indisposition of her body, caused her a while to entertain in bed the fever of her affectionate sorrow.