“Then lo, if Cupid be a god, or that the tyranny of our own thoughts seem as a god unto us: but whatsoever it was then it did set forth the miserableness of his effects; she being drawn to two contraries by one cause (for the love of him commanded her to yield to no other; the love of him commanded her to preserve his life); which knot might well be cut, but untied it could not be. So that love in her passions, like a right make-bate, whispered to both sides arguments of quarrel. ‘What,’ said he, ‘of the one side, dost thou love Antiphilus, O Erona! and shall Tiridates enjoy thy body? With what eyes wilt thou look upon Antiphilus, when he shall know that another possesseth thee? but if thou wilt do it, canst thou do it? canst thou force thy heart? think with thyself, if this man have thee, thou shalt never have more part of Antiphilus than if he were dead. But thus much more, that the affectation shall be still gnawing, and the remorse still present. Death perhaps will cool the rage of thy affection: where thus, thou shalt ever love, and ever lack. Think this beside, if thou marry Tiridates, Antiphilus is so excellent a man that long he cannot be from being in some high place married; can’st thou suffer that too? if another kill him, he doth him the wrong; if thou abuse thy body, thou dost him the wrong. His death is a work of nature, and either now, or at another time he shall die. But it shall be thy work, thy shameful work, which is in thy power to shun, to make him live to see thy faith falsified, and his bed defiled.’ But when love had well kindled that party of her thoughts, then went he to the other side. ‘What,’ said he, ‘O Erona, and is thy love of Antiphilus come to that point, as thou dost now make it a question whether he shall die, or no? O excellent affection, which for too much love will see his head off. Mark well the reasons of the other side, and thou shalt see it is but love of thyself which so disputeth. Thou can’st not abide Tiridates: this is but love of thyself; thou shalt be ashamed to look upon him afterwards; this is but fear of shame, and love of thyself; thou shalt want him as much then; this is but love of thyself: he shall be married; if he be well, why should that grieve thee, but for love of thyself? no, no, pronounce these words if thou can’st, “let Antiphilus die.”’ Then the images of each side stood before her understanding; one time she thought she saw Antiphilus dying, another time she thought Antiphilus saw her by Tiridates enjoyed; twenty times calling for a servant to carry message of yielding, but before he came the mind was altered. She blushed when she considered the effect of granting; she was pale, when she remembered the fruits of denying. For weeping, sighing, wringing her hands, and tearing her hair, were indifferent of both sides. Easily she would have agreed to have broken all disputations with her own death, but that the fear of Antiphilus’s further torments, stayed her. At length, even the evening before the day appointed for his death, the determination of yielding prevailed, especially, growing upon a message of Antiphilus, who with all the conjuring terms he could devise, besought her to save his life, upon any conditions. But she had no sooner sent her messenger to Tiridates, but her mind changed, and she went to the two young princes, Pyrocles and Musidorus, and falling down at their feet, desired them to try some way for her deliverance, showing herself resolved not to over-live Antiphilus, nor yet to yield to Tiridates.
“They that knew not what she had done in private, prepared that night accordingly: and as sometimes it falls out that what is inconstancy seems cunning, so did this change indeed stand in as good stead as a witty dissimulation. For it made the king as reckless as them diligent, so that in the dead time of the night, the princes issued out of the town; with whom she would needs go, either to die herself, or rescue Antiphilus, having no armour, or weapon, but affection. And I cannot tell you how, or by what device, though Plangus at large described it, the conclusion was, the wonderful valour of the two princes so prevailed, that Antiphilus was succoured, and the king slain. Plangus was then the chief man left in the camp; and therefore seeing no other remedy, conveyed in safety into her country Artaxia, now Queen of Armenia, who with true lamentations, made known to the world that her new greatness did no way comfort her in respect of her brother’s loss, whom she studied by all means possible to revenge upon every one of the occasioners, having, as she thought, overthrown her brother by a most abominable treason. Insomuch, that being at home she proclaimed great rewards to any private man, and herself in marriage to any prince that would destroy Pyrocles and Musidorus. But thus was Antiphilus redeemed, and, though against the consent of all her nobility, married to Erona; in which case the two Greek princes, being called away by another adventure, left them.
“But now methinks, as I have read some poets, who when they intend to tell some horrible matter, they bid men shun the hearing of it, so if I do not desire you to stop your ears from me, yet may I well desire a breathing time, before I am to tell the execrable treason of Antiphilus that brought her to this misery, and withal wish you all, that from all mankind indeed you stop your ears. O most happy were we, if we did set our loves one upon another.” And as she spake that word, her cheeks in red letters writ more than her tongue did speak. “And therefore since I have named Plangus, I pray you, sister,” said she, “help me with the rest, for I have held the stage long enough; and if it please you to make his fortune known, as I have done Erona’s, I will after take heart again to go on with his falsehood; and so between us both, my Lady Zelmane shall understand both the cause and parties of this lamentation.” “Nay, I beshrew me then,” said Miso, “I will none of that, I promise you, as long as I have the government, I will first have my tale, and then my Lady Pamela, my Lady Zelmane, and my daughter Mopsa (for Mopsa was then returned from Amphialus) may draw cuts, and the shortest cut speak first. For I tell you, and this may be suffered, when you are married, you will have first and last word of your husbands.”
The ladies laughed to see with what an eager earnestness she looked, having threatened not only in her ferret eyes, but while she spoke her nose seeming to threaten her chin, and her shaking limbs one to threaten another. But there was no remedy, they must obey, and Miso, sitting on the ground with her knees up, and her hands upon her knees, tuning her voice with many a quavering cough, thus discoursed unto them. “I tell you true,” said she, “whatsoever you think of me, you will one day be as I am; and I, simple though I sit here, thought once my penny as good silver, as some of you do: and if my father had not played the hasty fool, it is no lie I tell you, I might have had another-gains husband than Dametas. But let that pass, God amend him; and yet I speak it not without good cause. You are full in your tittle-tattlings of Cupid, here is Cupid and there is Cupid. I will tell you now what a good old woman told me, what an old wise man told her, what a great learned clerk told him, and gave it him in writing: and here I have it in my prayer-book.” “I pray you,” said Philoclea, “let us see it and read it.” “No haste, but good,” said Miso, “you shall first know how I came by it. I was a young girl of seven and twenty years old, and I could not go through the street of our village, but I might hear the young men talk: O the pretty little eyes of Miso: O the fine thin lips of Miso: O the goodly fat hands of Miso: besides, how well a certain wrying in my neck became me. Then the one would wink with one eye, and the other cast daisies at me. I must confess, seeing so many amorous, it made me set up my peacock’s tail with the highest. Which when this good old woman perceived, O the good old woman, well may the bones rest of the good old woman, she called me to her into her house. I remember full well it stood in the lane as you go to the barber’s shop; all the town knew her, there was a great loss of her: she called me to her, and taking first a sop of wine to comfort her heart, it was of the same wine that comes out of Candia, which we pay so dear for now-a-days, and in that good world was very good cheap, she called me to her: ‘Minion,’ said she, indeed I was a pretty one in those days, though I say it, ‘I see a number of lads that love you, well,’ said she, ‘I say no more; do you know what love is?’ With that she brought me into a corner, where there was painted a foul fiend I trow, for he had a pair of horns like a bull, his feet cloven, as many eyes upon his body as my grey mare hath dapples, and for all the world so placed. This monster sat like a hangman upon a pair of gallows; in his right hand he was painted holding a crown of laurel; in his left hand a purse of money; and out of his mouth hung a lace of two fair pictures of a man and a woman, and such a countenance he showed as if he would persuade folks by those allurements to come thither and be hanged. I, like a tender-hearted wench, shrieked out for fear of the devil: ‘Well,’ said she, ‘this same is even love; therefore do what thou list with all those fellows one after another, and it recks not much what they do to thee, so it be in secret; but upon my charge, never love none of them.’ ‘Why mother,’ said I, ‘could such a thing come from the belly of fair Venus? for a few days before, our priest, between him and me, had told me the whole story of Venus.’ ‘Tush,’ said she, ‘they are all deceived;’ and therewith gave me this book which she said a great maker of ballads had given to an old painter, who, for a little pleasure, had bestowed both book and picture of her. ‘Read there,’ said she, ‘and thou shalt see that his mother was a cow, and the false Argus his father.’ And so she gave me this book, and there now you may read it.” With that the remembrance of the good old woman, made her make such a face to weep, as if it were not sorrow, it was the carcass of sorrow that appeared there. But while her tears came out, like rain falling upon dirty furrows, the latter end of her prayer-book was read among these ladies, which contained this:
Poor Painters oft with silly Poets join,
To fill the world with strange but vain conceits:
One brings the stuff, the other stamps the coin,
Which breeds nought else but glosses of deceits.
Thus painters Cupid paint, thus poets do
A naked god, blind, young, with arrows two.
Is he a god that ever flies the light:
Or naked he, disguis’d in all untruth?
If he be blind, how hitteth he so right?
How is he young that tam’d old Phoebus’ youth?
But arrows two, and tipped with gold or lead?
Some hurt, accuse a third with horny head.
No, nothing so; an old false knave he is,
By Argus got on Io, then a cow:
What time for her Juno her Jove did miss,
And charge of her to Argus did allow.
Mercury kill’d his false sire for this act,
His dam a beast was pardon’d beastly fact.
With father’s death and mother’s guilty shame,
With Jove’s disdain of such a rival’s seed:
The wretch compell’d a runagate became,
And learn’d what ill a miser-state doth breed:
To lie, to steal, to pry, and to accuse,
Nought in himself each other to abuse.
Yet bears he still his parents’ stately gifts,
A horned head, cloven feet, and thousand eyes,
Some gazing still, some winking wily shifts,
Whose long large ears, where never rumour dies.
His horned head doth seem the heaven to spite,
His cloven foot doth never tread aright.
Thus half a man, with man he daily haunts,
Cloth’d in the shape which soonest may deceive:
Thus half a beast, each beastly vice he plants,
In those weak hearts that his advice receive.
He prowls each place still in new colours decked,
Sucking one’s ill, another to infect.
To narrow breasts, he comes all wrapped in gain:
To swelling hearts he shines in honour’s fire:
To open eyes all beauties he doth rain;
Creeping to each with flattering of desire.
But for that love is worst which rules the eyes,
Thereon his name, there his chief triumph lies.
Millions of years this old drivel Cupid lives,
While still more wretch, more wicked he doth prove.
Till now at length that Jove him office gives
(At Juno’s suit, who much did Argus love)
In this our world a hangman for to be
Of all those fools, that will have all they see.
The ladies made sport at the description and story of Cupid. But Zelmane could scarce suffer those blasphemies, as she took them, to be read, but humbly besought Pamela she should perform her sister’s request of the other part of the story. “Noble lady,” answered she, beautifying her face with a sweet smiling, and the sweetness of her smiling with the beauty of her face, “since I am born a prince’s daughter, let me not give example of disobedience. My governess will have us draw cuts, and therefore I pray you let us do so: and so perhaps it will light upon you to entertain this company with some story of your own; and it is reason our ears should be willinger to hear, as your tongue is abler to deliver.” “I will think,” answered Zelmane, “excellent princess, my tongue of some value if it can procure your tongue thus much to favour me.” But Pamela pleasantly persisting to have fortune their judge, they set hands, and Mopsa (though at the first for squeamishness going up and down with her head like a boat in a storm,) put to her golden gols[1] among them, and blind fortune, that saw not the colour of them, gave her the pre-eminence: and so being her time to speak, wiping her mouth, as there was good cause, she thus tumbled into her matter.
“In time past,” said she, “there was a king, the mightiest man in all his country, that had by his wife the fairest daughter that ever ate pap. Now this king did keep a great house, that everybody might come and take their meat freely. So one day as his daughter was sitting in her window, playing upon a harp as sweet as any rose, and combing her head with a comb all of precious stones, there came in a knight into the court, upon a goodly horse, one hair of gold, and the other of silver; and so the knight casting up his eyes to the window, did fall into such love with her, that he grew not worth the bread he ate; till many a sorry day going over his head, with daily diligence and griefly groans, he won her affection, so that they agreed to run away together. And so in May, when all true hearts rejoice, they stole out of the castle without staying so much as for their breakfast. Now forsooth, as they went together, often fall to kissing one another, the knight told her, he was brought up among the water-nymphs, who had so bewitched him that if he were ever ask’d his name, he must presently vanish away, and therefore charged her upon his blessing, never to ask him what he was, not whether he would. And so a great while she kept his commandment; till once, passing through a cruel wilderness, as dark as pitch, her mouth so watered, that she could not choose but ask him the question. And then, he making the grievousest complaints that would have melted a tree to have heard them, vanish’d quite away: and she lay down, casting forth as pitiful cries as any shriek-owl. But having lain so, wet by the rain, and burnt by the sun, five days and five nights, she got up and went over many a high hill, and many a deep river, till she came to an aunt’s house of hers, and came and cried to her for help: and she for pity gave her a nut, and bid her never open her nut till she was come to the extremest misery that ever tongue could speak of; and so she went, and she went, and never rested the evening, where she went in the morning, till she came to a second aunt, and she gave her another nut.”
“Now good Mopsa,” said the sweet Philoclea, “I pray thee at my request keep this tale till my marriage-day, and I promise thee that the best gown I wear that day shall be thine.” Mopsa was very glad of that bargain, especially that it should grow a festival tale: so that Zelmane, who desired to find the uttermost what these ladies understood touching herself, and having understood the danger of Erona, of which before she had never heard, purposing with herself, as soon as this pursuit she now was in was brought to any effect, to succour her, entreated again, that she might know as well the story of Plangus, as of Erona. Philoclea referred it to her sister’s perfecter remembrance, who with so sweet a voice, and so winning a grace, as in themselves were of most forcible eloquence to procure attention, in this manner to their earnest request soon condescended.
“The father of this prince Plangus as yet lives, and is king of Iberia: a man, if the judgment of Plangus may be accepted, of no wicked nature, nor willingly doing evil, without himself mistake the evil, seeing it disguised under some form of goodness. This prince being married at the first to a princess, who both from her ancestors, and in herself was worthy of him, by her had this son Plangus. Not long after whose birth, the queen, as though she had performed the message for which she was sent into the world, returned again unto her maker. The king, sealing up all thoughts of love under the image of her memory, remained a widower many years after; recompensing the grief of that disjoining from her, in conjoining in himself both a fatherly and motherly care toward her only child Plangus, who being grown to man’s age, as our own eyes may judge, could not but fertilely requite his father’s fatherly education.
“This prince, while yet the errors in his nature were excused by the greenness of his youth which took all the fault upon itself, loved a private man’s wife of the principal city of that kingdom, if that may be called love, which he rather did take into himself willingly than by which he was taken forcibly. It sufficeth that the young man persuaded himself he loved her: she being a woman beautiful enough, if it be possible, that the only outside can justly entitle a beauty. But finding such a chase as only fled to be caught, the young prince brought his affection with her to that point, which ought to engrave remorse in her heart, and to paint shame upon her face. And so possessed he his desire without any interruption; he constantly favouring her, and she thinking that the enamelling of a prince’s name, might hide the spots of a broken wedlock. But as I have seen one that was sick of a sleeping disease could not be made wake, but with pinching of him, so out of his sinful sleep his mind, unworthy so to be lost, was not to be called to itself, but by a sharp accident. It fell out, that his many times leaving of the court, in undue times, began to be noted; and, as prince’s ears be manifold, from one to another came unto the king, who, careful of his only son, sought and found by his spies, the necessary evil servants to a king, what it was, whereby he was from his better delights so diverted. Whereupon, the king, to give his fault the greater blow, used such means by disguising himself, that he found them, her husband being absent, in her house together, which he did to make them the more feelingly ashamed of it. And that way he took, laying threatenings upon her, and upon him reproaches. But the poor young prince, deceived with that young opinion, that if it be ever lawful to lie, it is for one’s lover, employed all his wit to bring his father into a better opinion. And because he might bend him from that, as he counted it, crooked conceit of her, he wrested him, as much as he could possibly, to the other side, not sticking with prodigal protestations to set forth her chastity; not denying his own attempt, but thereby the more extolling her virtue. His sophistry prevailed, his father believed, and so believed, that ere long, though he were already stepped into the winter of his age, he found himself warm in those desires which were in his son far more excusable. To be short, he gave himself over unto it, and, because he would avoid the odious comparison of a young rival, sent away his son with an army, to the subduing of a province lately rebelled against him, which he knew could not be less work than of three or four years. Wherein he behaved himself so worthily, as even to this country the fame thereof came, long before his own coming: while yet his father had a speedier success, but in a far more unnobler conquest. For while Plangus was away, the old man, growing only in age and affection, followed his suit with all means of unhonest servants, large promises, and each thing else that might help to countervail his own unloveliness.