“Here dwelleth and reigneth this prince (whose picture you see) by name Basilius; a prince of sufficient skill to govern so quiet a country, where the good minds of the former princes had set down good laws, and the well-bringing up of the people doth serve as a most sure bond to hold them. But to be plain with you, he excels in nothing so much as the zealous love of his people, wherein he doth not only pass all his own foregoers but, as I think, all the princes living. Whereof the cause is, that though he exceed not in the virtues which get admiration, as depth of wisdom, height of courage, and largeness of magnificence, yet is he notable in those which stir affection, as truth of word, meekness, courtesy, mercifulness, and liberality.
“He, being already well stricken in years, married a young princess, named Gynecia, daughter to the king of Cyprus, of notable beauty, as by her picture you see: a woman of great wit, and in truth of more princely virtues than her husband; of most unspotted chastity; but of so working a mind and so vehement spirits that a man may say, it was happy she took a good course for otherwise it would have been terrible.
“Of these two are brought into the world two daughters, so beyond measure excellent in all the gifts allotted to reasonable creatures that we may think they were born to show that nature is no stepmother to that sex, how much soever some men (sharp-witted only in evil speaking) have sought to disgrace them. The elder is named Pamela; by many men not deemed inferior to her sister: for my part, when I marked them both, methought there was (if at least such perfections may receive the word of more) more sweetness in Philoclea but more majesty in Pamela: methought love played in Philoclea’s eyes, and threatened in Pamela’s; methought Philoclea’s beauty only persuaded, but so persuaded as all hearts must yield; Pamela’s beauty used violence, and such violence as no heart could resist. And it seems that such proportion is between their minds: Philoclea so bashful, as though her excellencies had stolen into her before she was aware; so humble, that she will put all pride out of countenance; in sum, such proceeding as will stir hope but teach hope good manners. Pamela of high thoughts who avoids not pride with not knowing her excellencies, but by making that one of her excellencies to be void of pride; her mother’s wisdom, greatness, nobility, but (if I can guess aright) knit with a more constant temper. Now then, our Basilius being so publicly happy as to be a prince, and so happy in that happiness as to be a beloved prince; and so in his private estate blessed as to have so excellent a wife and so over-excellent children, hath of late taken a course which yet makes him more spoken of than all these blessings. For having made a journey to Delphos, and safely returned, within short space, he brake up his court, and retired himself, his wife and children, into a certain forest hereby which he called his desert; wherein (besides an house appointed for stables and lodgings for certain persons of mean calling who do all household services) he hath builded two fine lodges: in the one of them himself remains with his younger daughter Philoclea (which was the cause they three were matched together in this picture) without having any other creature living in that lodge with him.
“Which though it be strange, yet not strange as the course he hath taken with the princess Pamela whom he hath placed in the other lodge: but how think you accompanied? Truly with none other but one Dametas, the most arrant doltish clown that I think ever was without the privilege of a bauble, with his wife Miso and daughter Mopsa, in whom no wit can devise anything wherein they may pleasure her but to exercise her patience and to serve for a foil of her perfections. This loutish clown is such that you never saw so ill-favoured a vizor; his behaviour such that he is beyond the degree of ridiculous; and for his apparel, even as I would with him: Miso his wife so handsome a beldam, that only her face and her splay-foot have made her accused for a witch; only one good point she hath, that she observes decorum, having a forward mind in a wretched body. Between these two personages (who never agreed in any humour, but in disagreeing) is issued forth mistress Mopsa, a fit woman to participate of both their perfections: but because a pleasant fellow of my acquaintance set forth her praises in verse, I will only repeat them, and spare mine own tongue, since she goes for a woman. The verses are these, which I have so often caused to be sung, that I have them without book.
What length of verse can serve, brave Mopsa’s good to show?
When virtues strange, and beauties such, as no man them may know:
Thus shrewdly burden’d then, how can my Muse escape?
The Gods must help, and precious things must serve, to shew her shape,
Like great God Saturn fair, and like fair Venus chaste:
As smooth as Pan, as Juno mild, like Goddess Iris fac’t,
With Cupid she forsees, and goes God Vulcan’s pace:
And for a taste of all these gifts, she steals God Momus’ grace.
Her forehead Jacinth-like, her cheeks of Opal hue,
Her twinkling eyes bedeck’d with Pearl, her lips a Sapphire blue:
Her hair like Crapal stone; her mouth O heav’nly wide!
Her skin like burnished gold, her hands like silver ore untry’d.
As for her parts unknown, which hidden sure are best:
Happy be they which will believe, and never seek the rest.
“Now truly having made these descriptions unto you, methinks you should imagine that I rather feign some pleasant device than recount a truth that a prince (not banished from his own wits) could possibly make so unworthy a choice. But truly (dear guest) so it is that princes (whose doings have been often smoothed with good success) think nothing so absurd, which they cannot make honourable. The beginning of his credit was by the prince’s straying out of the way, one time he hunted, where meeting this fellow, and asking him the way; and so falling into other questions, he found some of his answers (as a dog sure, if he could speak, had wit enough to describe his kennel) not unsensible, and all uttered with such rudeness, which he interpreted plainness (though there be great difference between them) that Basilius, conceiving a sudden delight, took him to his court, with apparent show of his good opinion: where the flattering courtier had no sooner taken the prince’s mind, but that there were straight reasons to confirm the prince’s doing, and shadows of virtues found for Dametas. His silence grew wit, his bluntness integrity, his beastly ignorance virtuous simplicity, and the prince (according to the nature of great persons, in love with what he had done himself) fancied that his weakness with his presence would much be mended. And so like a creature of his own making, he liked him more and more; and thus having first given him the office of principal herdsman; lastly, since he took this strange determination, he hath in a manner put the life of himself and his children into his hands. Which authority (like too great a sail for so small a boat) doth so oversway poor Dametas, that, if before he was a good fool in a chamber, he might be allowed it now in a comedy, so as I doubt me (I fear me indeed) my master will in the end (with his cost) find that his office is not to make men, but to use men as men are, no more than a horse will be taught to hunt, or an ass to manage. But in sooth I am afraid I have given your ears too great a surfeit with gross discourses of that heavy piece of flesh. But the zealous grief I conceive to see so great an error in my lord hath made me bestow more words than I confess so base a subject deserveth.
“Thus much now that I have told you is nothing more than in effect any Arcadian knows. But what moved him to this strange solitariness hath been imparted (as I think) but to one person living. Myself can conjecture, and indeed more than conjecture by this accident that I will tell you: I have an only son, by name Clitophon, who is now absent, preparing for his own marriage, which I mean shortly shall be here celebrated. This son of mine (while the prince kept his court) was of his bed-chamber: now since the breaking up of thereof returned home, and showed me (among other things he had gathered) the copy which he had taken of a letter: which when the prince had read, he had laid in a window, presuming nobody durst look in his writings: but my son not only took a time to read it, but to copy it. In truth I blamed Clitophon for the curiosity which made him break his duty in such a kind, whereby kings’ secrets are subject to be revealed, but since it was done, I was content to take so much profit as to know it. Now here is the letter that I ever since, for my good liking, have carried about me: which before I read unto you, I must tell you from whom it came. It is a nobleman of his country, named Philanax, appointed by the prince regent, in this time of his retiring, and most worthy so to be: for, there lives no man whose excellent wit more simply embraceth integrity, beside his unfeigned love to his master, wherein never yet any could make question, saving whether he loved Basilius, or the prince better: a rare temper, while most men either servilely yield to all appetites, or with an obstinate austerity looking to that they fancied good, in effect neglect the prince’s person. This then being the man, whom of all other (and most worthy) the prince chiefly loves, it should seem (for more than the letter I have not to guess by) that the prince upon his return from Delphos (Philanax then lying sick) had written unto him his determination, rising (as evidently appears) upon some oracle he had there received: whereunto he wrote this answer:
Philanax’s letter to Basilius.
Most redoubted and beloved prince! if as well it had pleased you at your going to Delphos, as now, to have used my humble service, both I should in better season, and to better purpose have spoken; and you (if my speech had prevailed) should have been at this time, as no way more in danger, so much more in quietness? I would then have said that wisdom and virtue be the only destinies appointed to man to follow; whence we ought to seek all our knowledge, since they be such guides as cannot fail; which, besides their inward comfort, do lead so direct a way of proceeding, as either prosperity must ensue; or, if the wickedness of the world should oppress it, it can never be said that evil happeneth to him who falls accompanied with virtue: I would then have said the heavenly powers ought to be reverenced and searched into, and their mercies rather by prayers to be fought than their hidden counsels by curiosity. These kinds of sooth-sayings (since they have left us in ourselves sufficient guides) be nothing but fancy, wherein there must either be vanity, or infallibleness, and so either not to be respected, or not to be prevented. But since it is weakness too much to remember what should have been done, and that your commandment stretched to know what is to be done, I do (most dear Lord!) with humble boldness say that the manner of your determination doth in no sort better please me than the cause of your going. These thirty years you have so governed this region, that neither your subjects have wanted justice in you, nor you obedience in them; and your neighbours have found you so hurtlessly strong, that they thought it better to rest in your friendship, than to make new trial of your enmity. If this then have proceeded out of the good constitution of your state, and out of a wise providence generally to prevent all those things which might encumber your happiness, why should you now seek new courses, since your own example comforts you to continue, and that it is to me most certain (though it please you not to tell me the very words of the oracle) that yet no destiny nor influence whatsoever can bring man’s wit to a higher point than wisdom and goodness: why should you deprive yourself of government for fear of losing your government, like one that should kill himself for fear of death? Nay, rather, if this oracle be to be accounted of, arm up your courage the more against it: for who will stick to him that abandons himself: let your subjects have you in their eyes, let them see the benefits of your justice daily more and more, and so much they needs rather like of present sureties than uncertain changes. Lastly, whether your time call you to live or die, do both like a prince. Now for your second resolution, which is to suffer no worthy prince to be a suitor to either of your daughters, but while you live to keep them both unmarried, and, as it were, to kill the joy of posterity, which in your time you may enjoy, moved perchance by a misunderstood oracle? what shall I say, if the affection of a father to his own children cannot plead sufficiently against such fancies? once, certain it is, the God which is God of nature doth never teach unnaturalness; and even the same mind hold I touching your banishing them from company, lest I know not what strange loves should follow. Certainly, Sir, in my ladies, your daughters, nature promiseth nothing but goodness, and their education by your fatherly care hath been hitherto such as hath been most fit to restrain all evil, giving their minds virtuous delights, and not grieving them for want of well-ruled liberty. Now to fall to a sudden straightening them, what can it do but argue suspicion? a thing no more unpleasant than unsure for the preserving of virtue. Leave women’s minds the most untamed that way of any: see whether a cage can please a bird; or whether a dog grow not fiercer with tying? what doth jealousy but stir up the mind to think what it is from which are restrained? for they are treasures or things of great delight, which men use to hide for the aptness they have to each man’s fancy: and the thoughts once awaked to that, harder sure it is to keep those thoughts from accomplishment than had been before to have kept the mind (which being the chief part, by this means is defiled) from thinking. Lastly, for the recommending of so principal a charge of the princess Pamela (whose mind goes beyond the governing of many thousand such) to such a person as Dametas is (besides that the thing in itself is strange) it comes of a very ill ground that ignorance should be the mother of faithfulness. Oh no, he cannot be good that knows not why he is good; but stands so far good as his fortune may keep him unassayed; but coming once to that, his rude simplicity is either easily changed, or easily deceived: and so grows that to be the last excuse of his fault, which seemed to have been the foundation of his faith. Thus far hath your commandment and my zeal drawn me; which I, like a man in a valley that may discern hills, or like a poor passenger that may spy a rock, so humbly submit to your gracious consideration, beseeching you again to stand wholly upon your own virtue, as the surest way to maintain you in that you are, and to avoid any evil which may be imagined.
“By the contents of this letter you may perceive, that the cause of all hath been the vanity which possesseth many who (making a perpetual mansion of this poor baiting-place of man’s life) are desirous to know the certainty of things to come, wherein there is nothing so certain as our continual uncertainty. But what in particular points the oracle was, in faith I know not, neither (as you may see by one place of Philanax’s letter) he himself distinctly knew. But this experience shews us that Basilius’s judgment, corrupted with a prince’s fortune, hath rather heard than followed the wise (as I take it) counsel of Philanax. For having left the stern of his government with much amazement to the people, among whom many strange bruits are received for current, with some appearance of danger in respect of the valiant Amphialus his nephew, and much envying the ambitious number of the nobility against Philanax, to see Philanax so advanced, though (to speak simply) he deserve more than as many of us as there be in Arcadia: the prince himself hath hidden his head, in such sort as I told you, not sticking plainly to confess that he means not (while he breathes) that his daughters shall have any husband, but keep them thus solitary with him: where he gives no other body leave to visit him at any time but a certain priest, who being excellent in poetry, he makes him write out such things as he best likes, he being no less delightful in conversation than needful for devotion, and about twenty specified shepherds, in whom (some for eclogues) he taketh greater recreation.
“And now you know as much as myself: wherein if I have held you over-long, lay hardly the fault upon my old age, which in the very disposition of it is talkative, whether it be (said he smiling) that nature loves to exercise that part most, which is least decayed, and that is our tongue, or, that knowledge being the only thing whereof we poor old men can brag, we cannot make it known but by utterance: or, that mankind by all means seeking to eternize himself so much the more, as he is near his end, doth it not only by the children that come of him, but by speeches and writings recommended to the memory of hearers and readers. And yet thus much I will say for myself, that I have not laid these matters either so openly or largely to any as to yourself: so much (if I much fail not) do I see in you which makes me both love and trust you.”