The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

by Philip Sidney

But the darkness of sorrow overshadowing her mind, as the night did her eyes, they were both content to hide themselves under the wings of sleep, till the next morning had almost lost his name, before the two sweet sleeping sisters awaked from dreams, which flattered them with more comfort than their waking could, or would consent unto. For then they were called up by Miso, who, having been with Gynecia, had received commandment to be continually with her daughters, and particularly not to let Zelmane and Philoclea have any private conference but that she should be present to hear what passed: Miso having now her authority increased, but came with scowling eyes to deliver a slavering good morrow to the two ladies, telling them it was a shame for them to mar their complexions, yea and conditions too, with long lying abed; and that when she was of their age, she trowed, she would have made a handkerchief by that time a-day. The two sweet princesses with a smiling silence answered her entertainment, and, obeying her direction, covered their dainty beauties with the glad clothes. But as soon as Pamela was ready, and sooner she was than her sister, of the agony of Dorus’s giving a fit to herself, which the words of his letter, lively imprinted in her mind, still remembered her of, she called to Mopsa, and willed her to fetch Dorus to speak with her; because, she said, she would take further judgment of him before she would move Dametas to grant her in marriage unto him: Mopsa, as glad as of sweetmeat to go of such an errand, quickly returned with Dorus to Pamela, who intended both by speaking with him to give some comfort to his passionate heart, and withal to hear some part of his life past, which although fame had already delivered unto her, yet she desired in more particular certainties to have it from so beloved an historian. Yet the sweetness of virtue’s disposition, jealous, even over itself, suffered her not to enter abruptly into questions of Musidorus, whom she was half ashamed she did love so well, and more than half sorry she could love no better, but thought best first to make her talk arise of Pyrocles, and his virtuous father: which thus she did.

“Dorus,” said she, “you told me the last day that Plangus was deceived in that he affirmed the prince Musidorus was drowned, but, withal, you confessed his cousin Pyrocles perished, of whom certainly in that age there was a great loss, since, as I have heard, he was a young prince, of whom all men expected as much as man’s power could bring forth, and yet virtue promised for him their expectation should not be deceived.” “Most excellent lady,” said Dorus, “no expectation in others, nor hope in himself could aspire to a higher mark than to be thought worthy to be praised by your judgment, and made worthy to be praised by your mouth. But most sure it is, that as his fame could by no means get so sweet and noble an air to fly in, as in your breath, so could not you, leaving yourself aside, find in the world a fitter subject of commendation; as noble as a long succession of royal ancestors, famous and famous for victories, could make him; of shape most lovely, and yet of mind more lovely, valiant, courteous, wise, what should I say more? sweet Pyrocles, excellent Pyrocles, what can my words but wrong thy perfections, which I would to God in some small measure thou had’st bequeathed to him that ever must have thy virtues in admiration, that, masked at least in them, I might have found some more gracious acceptation?” With that he imprisoned his look for a while upon Mopsa, who thereupon fell into a very wide smiling. “Truly,” said Pamela, “Dorus I like well your mind that can raise itself out of so base a fortune as yours is, to think of the imitating so excellent a prince as Pyrocles was. Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure he is, he shall shoot higher than who aims but at a bush. But I pray you, Dorus,” said she, “tell me, since I perceive you are well acquainted with that story, what prince was that Euarchus father to Pyrocles, of whom so much fame goes, for his rightly royal virtues, or by what ways he got that opinion. And then so descend to the causes of his sending first away from him, and then to him for that excellent son of his, with the discourse of his life and loss: and therein you may, if you list, say something of that same Musidorus his cousin, because they going together, the story of Pyrocles, which I only desire, may be the better understood.”

“Incomparable lady,” said he, “your commandment doth not only give me the will, but the power to obey you; such influence hath your excellency. And first, for that famous king Euarchus, he was, at this time you speak of, king of Macedon, a kingdom, which in older time had such a sovereignty over all the provinces of Greece that even the particular kings therein did acknowledge, with more or less degrees of homage, some kind of fealty thereunto: as among the rest, even this now most noble, and by you ennobled, kingdom of Arcadia. But he, when he came to his crown finding by his latter ancestors either negligence, or misfortune that in some ages many of those duties had been intermitted would never stir up old titles, how apparent soever, whereby the public peace, with the loss of many not guilty souls, should be broken; but contenting himself to guide that ship, wherein the heavens had placed him, showed no less magnanimity in dangerless despising than others in dangerous affecting the multiplying of kingdoms: for the earth hath since borne enough bleeding witnesses that it was no want of true courage. Who as he was most wise to see what was best, and most just in the performing what he saw, and temperate in abstaining from anything anyway contrary, so think I, no thought can imagine a greater heart to see and contemn danger, where danger would offer to make any wrongful threatening upon him. A prince, that indeed especially measured his greatness by his goodness: and if for anything he loved greatness it was because therein he might exercise his goodness. A prince of a goodly aspect, and the more goodly by a grave majesty, wherewith his mind did deck his outward graces; strong of body, and so much the stronger, that he by a well-disciplined exercise taught it both to do, and suffer. Of age so as he was above fifty years, when his nephew Musidorus took on such shepherdish apparel for the love of the world’s paragon, as I now wear.

“This king left orphan both of father and mother, whose father and grandfather likewise had died young, he found his estate, when he came to the age which allowed his authority, so disjointed even in the noblest and strongest limbs of government that the name of a king was grown even odious to the people, his authority having been abused by those great lords and little kings, who in those between-times of reigning, by unjust favouring those that were partially theirs, and oppressing them that would defend their liberty against them, had brought in, by a more felt than seen manner of proceeding, the worst kind of Oligarchy; that is, when men are governed indeed by a few, and yet are not taught to know what those few be to whom they should obey.

“For they having the power of kings, but not the nature of kings, used the authority as men do their farms, of which they see within a year they shall go out; making the king’s sword strike whom they hated, the king’s purse reward whom they loved; and, which is worst of all, making the royal countenance serve to undermine the royal sovereignty. For the subjects could taste no sweeter fruits of having a king than grievous taxation to serve vain purposes; laws made rather to find faults than to prevent faults: the court of a prince rather deemed as a privileged place of the unbridled licentiousness than as the abiding of him, who as a father should give a fatherly example unto his people. Hence grew a very dissolution of all estates, while the great men, by the nature of ambition never satisfied, grew factious among themselves: and the underlings glad indeed to be underlings to them they hated least, to preserve them from such they hated most. Men of virtue suppressed, lest the shining should discover the others’ filthiness; and at length virtue itself almost forgotten, when it had no hopeful end whereunto to be directed; old men long nusled in corruption, scorning them that would seek reformation, young men were fault-finding, but very faulty, and so given to new-fangleness both of manners, apparel, and each thing else, by the custom of self-guilty evil, glad to change, though oft for worse; merchandise abused, and so towns decayed for want of just and natural liberty; offices even of judging souls, sold; public defences neglected; and in sum, left too long I trouble you, all awry, and, which wried it to the most wry course of all, wit abused, rather to feign reason why it should be amiss, than how it should be amended.

“In this, and a much worse plight than it is fit to trouble your excellent ears withal, did the king Euarchus find his estate when he took upon him the regiment, which, by reason of the long stream of abuse, he was forced to establish by some even extreme severity, not so much for the very faults themselves, which he rather sought to prevent than to punish, as for the faulty ones, who, strong even in their faults, scorned his youth, and could not learn to digest that the man which they so long had used to mask their own appetites, should now be the reducer of them into order. But so soon as some few, but indeed notable examples, had thundered a duty into the subjects’ hearts, he soon showed, no baseness of suspicion, nor the basest baseness of envy, could any whit rule such a ruler. But then shined forth indeed all love among them, when an awful fear engendered by justice, did make that love most lovely: his first and principal care being to appear unto his people such as he would have them be, and to be such as he appeared; making his life the example of his laws, and his laws as it were his axioms arising out of his deeds. So that within small time he won a singular love in his people, and ingraffed singular confidence. For how could they choose but love him, whom they found so truly to love them? he even in reason disdaining, that they that have charge of beasts, should love their charge and care for them; and that he that was to govern the most excellent creature, should not love so noble a charge. And, therefore, where most princes, seduced by flattery to build upon false grounds of government, make themselves, as it were, another thing from the people, and so count it gain what they get from them and, as it were two counter-balances, that their estate goes highest when the people goes lowest, by a fallacy of argument thinking themselves most kings when the subject is most basely subjected, he contrariwise, virtuously and wisely acknowledging that he with his people made all but one politic body, whereof himself was the head, even so cared for them as he would for his own limbs, never restraining their liberty, without it stretched to licentiousness, nor pulling from them their goods, which they found were not employed to the purchase of a greater good; but in all his actions showing a delight in their welfare, brought that to pass, that, while by force he took nothing, by their love he had all. In sum, peerless princess, I might as easily set down the whole art of government as to lay before your eyes the picture of his proceedings. But in such sort he flourished in the sweet comfort of doing much good, when, by an occasion of leaving his country, he was forced to bring forth his virtue of magnanimity, as before he had done of justice.

“He had only one sister, a lady, least I should too easily all to partial praises of her, of whom it may be justly said, that she was no unfit branch to the noble stock whereof she was come. Her he had given in marriage to Dorilaus prince of Thessalia, not so much to make a friendship, as to confirm the friendship between their posterity, which between them, by the likeness of virtue, had been long before made: for certainly, Dorilaus could need no amplifier’s mouth for the highest point of praise.” “Who hath not heard,” said Pamela, “of the valiant, wise, and just Dorilaus, whose unripe death doth yet, so many years since, draw tears from virtuous eyes; and indeed, my father is wont to speak of nothing with greater admiration, than of the notable friendship, a rare thing in princes, more rare between princes, that so holily was observed to the last of those two excellent men. But,” said she, “go on I pray you.”

“Dorilaus,” said he, “having married his sister, had his marriage in short time blest, for so are folk wont to say, how unhappy soever the children after grow, with a son, whom they named Musidorus, of whom I must needs first speak before I come to Pyrocles, because as he was born first, so upon his occasion grew, as I may say accidentally, the other’s birth. For scarcely was Musidorus made partaker of this oft-blinding light, when there were found numbers of soothsayers who affirmed strange and incredible things should be performed by that child; whether the heavens at that time listed to play with ignorant mankind, or that flattery be so presumptuous as even at times to borrow the face of divinity. But certainly, so did the boldness of their affirmation accompany the greatness of what they did affirm, even descending to particularities, what kingdoms he should overcome, that the king of Phrygia, who over-superstitiously thought himself touched in the matter, sought by force to destroy the infant, to prevent his after expectations: because a skilful man, having compared his nativity with the child, so told him. Foolish man, either vainly fearing what was not to be feared, or not considering that if it were a work of the superior powers, the heavens at length are never children. But so he did, and by the aid of the kings of Lydia and Crete, joining together their armies, invaded Thessalia, and brought Dorilaus to some behind-hand of fortune, when his faithful friend and brother Euarchus came so mightily to his succour, that with some interchanging changes of fortune, they begat of a just war, the best child, Peace. In which time Euarchus made a cross marriage also with Dorilaus’s sister, and shortly left her with child of the famous Pyrocles, driven to return to the defence of his own country, which in his absence, helped with some of the ill-contented nobility, the mighty king of Thrace, and his brother king of Pannonia, had invaded. The success of those wars was too notable to be unknown to your ears, to which it seems all worthy fame hath glory to come unto. But there was Dorilaus, valiantly requiring his friend’s help, in a great battle deprived of life, his obsequies being no more solemnized by the tears of his partakers than the blood of his enemies; with so piercing a sorrow to the constant heart of Euarchus that the news of his son’s birth could lighten his countenance with no show of comfort, although all the comfort that might be in a child, truth itself in him forthwith delivered. For what fortune only soothsayers foretold of Musidorus, that all men might see prognosticated in Pyrocles, both heavens and earth giving tokens of the coming forth of an heroical virtue. The senate house of the planets was at no time so set for the decreeing of perfection in a man, as at that time all folks skilful therein did acknowledge: only love was threatened, and promised to him, and so to his cousin, as both the tempest and haven of his best years. But as death may have prevented Pyrocles, so unworthiness must be the death of Musidorus.

“But the mother of Pyrocles, shortly after her childbirth dying, was cause that Euarchus recommended the care of his only son to his sister, doing it the rather because the war continued in cruel heat, betwixt him and those ill neighbours of his. In which meantime those young princes, the only comforters of that virtuous widow, grew on so that Pyrocles taught admiration to the hardest conceits: Musidorus, perchance because among his subjects, exceedingly beloved; and by the good order of Euarchus, well performed by his sister, they were so brought up that all the sparks of virtue which nature had kindled in them were so blown to give forth their uttermost heat, that, justly it may be affirmed, they inflamed the affections of all that knew them. For almost before they could perfectly speak, they began to receive conceits not unworthy of the best speakers; excellent devices being used, to make even their sports profitable; images of battles and fortifications being then delivered to their memory, which after, their stronger judgments might dispense, the delight of tales being converted to the knowledge of all the stories of worthy princes, both to move them to do nobly, and teach them how to do nobly; the beauty of virtue still being set before their eyes, and that taught them with far more diligent care than grammatical rules, their bodies exercised in all abilities, both of doing and suffering, and their minds acquainted by degrees with dangers; and in sum, all bent to the making up of princely minds: no servile fear used towards them, nor any other violent restraint, but still as to princes: so that a habit of commanding was naturalized in them, and therefore the further from tyranny: nature having done so much for them in nothing, as that it made them lords of truth, whereon all the other goods were builded.

“Among which nothing I so much delight to recount, as the memorable friendship that grew betwixt the two princes, such as made them more like than the likeness of all other virtues, and made them more near one to the other than the nearness of their blood could aspire unto; which I think grew the faster, and the faster was tied between them by reason that Musidorus being older by three or four years, it was neither so great a difference in age as did take away the delight in society, and yet by the difference there was taken away the occasion of childish contentions, till they had both passed over the humour of such contentions. For Pyrocles bare reverence full of love to Musidorus, and Musidorus had a delight full of love in Pyrocles. Musidorus, what he had learned either for body or mind, would teach it to Pyrocles; and Pyrocles was so glad to learn of none as of Musidorus: till Pyrocles, being come to sixteen years of age, he seemed so to over-run his age in growth, strength, and all things following it, that not Musidorus, no nor any man living, I think, could perform any action, either on horse, or foot, more strongly, or deliver that strength more nimbly, or become the delivery more gracefully, or employ all more virtuously. Which may well seem wonderful: but wonders are no wonders in a wonderful subject.