The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

by Philip Sidney

Then did the two square battles meet, and instead of fighting, embrace one another, singing thus:

R. We are too strong: but Reason seeks no blood.

P. Who be too weak, do fain they be too good.

R. Though we cannot o’ercome, our cause is just.

P. Let us o’ercome, and let us be unjust.

R. Yet Passions yield at length to Reason’s stroke.

P. What shall we win by taking Reason’s yoke?

R. The joys you have shall be made permanent.

P. But so we shall with grief learn to repent.

R. Repent indeed, but that shall be your bliss.

P. How know we that, since present joys we miss?

R. You know it not; of Reason therefore know it.

P. No Reason yet had ever skill to show it.

R. Then let us both to heavenly rules give place.

P. Which Passions kill, and Reason do deface.

Then embraced they one another, and came to the king, who framed his praises of them according to Zelmane’s liking; whose unrestrained parts, the mind and eye, had their free course to the delicate Philoclea, whose look was not short in well requiting it, although she knew it was a hateful sight to her jealous mother. But Dicus, that had in this time taken a great liking of Dorus for the good parts he found above his age in him, had a delight to taste the fruits of his wit, though in a subject which he himself most of all other despised; and so entered speech with him in the manner of this following eclogue.

DICUS and DORUS

DICUS

Dorus, tell me, where is thy wonted motion,

To make those woods resound thy lamentation?

Thy saint is dead, or dead is thy devotion.

For who doth hold his love in estimation,

To witness that he thinks his thoughts delicious,

Thinks to make each thing badge of his sweet passion.

DORUS

But what doth make thee Dicus, so suspicious

Of my due faith, which needs must be immutable?

Who others’ virtues doubt, themselves are vicious:

Not so; although my metal were most mutable,

Her beams have wrought therein most fair impression,

To such a force some change were nothing suitable.

DICUS

The heart well set doth never shun confession;

If noble be thy bands, make them notorious;

Silence doth seem the mask of base oppression.

Who glories in his love, doth make love glorious:

But who doth fear, or bideth mute wilfully,

Shows, guilty heart doth deem his state opprobrious,

Thou then, that fram’st both words and voice most skilfully,

Yield to our ears a sweet and sound relation,

If love took thee by force, or caught thee guilefully.

DORUS

If sunny beams shame heavenly habitation,

If three-leav’d grass seem to the sheep unsavory;

Then base and sour is love’s most high vocation.

Or if sheep’s cries can help the sun’s own bravery,

Then may I hope, my pipe may have ability,

To help her praise, who decks me in her slavery.

No, no; no words ennoble self-nobility,

As for your doubts, her voice was it deceived me,

Her eye the force beyond all possibility.

DICUS

Thy words well voic’d, well grac’d, had almost heaved me,

Quite from myself, to love love’s contemplation;

Till of those thoughts thy sudden end bereaved me,

Go on therefore, and tell us by what fashion,

In thy own proof he gets so strange possession

And how possessed he strengthens his invasion.

DORUS

Sight is his root, in thought is his progression,

His childhood wonder, prenticeship attention,

His youth delight, his age the soul’s oppression,

Doubt is his sleep, he waketh in invention,

Fancy his food, his clothing is of carefulness;

Beauty his book, his play lover’s dissention:

His eyes are curious search, but veil’d with warefulness:

His wings desire, oft clipped with desperation.

Largess his hands could never skill of sparefulness:

But how he doth by might, or by persuasion

To conquer, and his conquest how to ratify,

Experience doubts, and schools hold disputation.

DICUS

But so thy sheep may thy good wishes satisfy,

With large increase, and wool of fine perfection,

So she thy love, her eyes thy eyes may gratify,

As thou wilt give our souls a dear refection,

By telling how she was, how now she framed is

To help, or hurt in thee her own infection.

DORUS

Blest be the name wherewith my mistress named is:

Whose wounds are salves, whose yokes please more than pleasure doth:

Her stains are beams: virtue the fault she blamed is,

The heart, eye, ear, here only find his treasure doth.

All numbering arts her endless graces number not:

Time, place, life, wit, scarcely her rare gifts measure doth,

Is she in rage? so is the sun in summer hot,

Yet harvest brings: doth she (alas!) absent herself?

The sun is hid; his kindly shadows cumber not

But when to give some grace she doth content herself.

O then it shines, then are the heavens distributed,

And Venus seems to make up her, she spent herself.

Thus then, I say, my mischiefs have contributed

A greater good by her divine reflection,

My harms to me, my bliss to her attributed.

Thus she is framed: her eyes are my direction,

Her love my life, her anger my destruction:

Lastly, what so she is, that’s my protection.

DICUS

Thy safety sure is wrapped in destruction,

For that construction thine own words do bear.

A man to fear a woman’s moody eye,

Makes reason lie a slave to servile sense,

A weak defence where weakness is thy force:

So is remorse in folly dearly bought.

DORUS

If I had thought to hear blasphemous words,

My breast to swords, my soul to hell have sold

I rather would, than thus mine ear defile

With words so vile, which viler breath doth breed.

O herds take heed; for I a wolf have found,

Who hunting round the strongest for to kill,

His breast doth fill with earth of others’ woe:

And loaden so pulls down, pull’d down destroys.

O shepherd boys, eschew those tongues of venom,

Which do envenom both the soul and senses;

Our best defences are to fly those adders.

O tongues like ladders made to climb dishonour,

Who judge that honour which hath scope to slander!

DICUS

Dorus you wander far in great reproaches,

So love encroaches on your charmed reason,

But it is season for to end our singing,

Such anger bringing: as for me, my fancy

In sick-man’s frenzy rather takes compassion,

Than rage for rage: rather my wish I send to thee,

Thou soon may have some help, or change of passion:

She oft her looks, the stars her favour bend to thee,

Fortune store, nature health, love grant persuasion.

A quiet mind none but thyself can lend to thee,

Thus I commend to thee all our former love.

DORUS

Well do I prove, error lies oft in zeal,

Yet it is zeal, though error of true heart.

Nought could impart such hates to friendly mind,

But for to find thy words did her disgrace,

Whose only face the little heaven is:

Which who doth miss, his eyes are but delusions,

Bar’d from their chiefest object of delightfulness,

Thrown on this earth, the chaos of confusions;

As for thy wish, to my enraged spitefulness,

The lovely blow, which rare reward, my prayer is:

Thou may’st love her, that I may see thy sightfulness.

The quiet mind (whereof myself impairer is,

As thou dost think) should most of all disquiet me.

Without her love, than any mind who fairer is:

Her only cure from surfeit woes can diet me.

She holds the balance of my contentation:

Her cleared eyes, nought else in storms can quiet me.

Nay rather than my ease discontentation

Should breed to her, let me for aye dejected be

From any joy, which might her grief occasion.

With so sweet plagues my happy arms infected be:

Pain wills me die, yet of death I mortify:

For though life irks, in life my loves protected be,

Thus for each change my changeless heart I fortify.

When they had ended, to the good pleasing of the assistants, especially of Zelmane, who never forgot to give due commendations to her friend Dorus, Basilius called for Lamon to end his discourse of Strephon and Claius, wherewith the other day he marked Zelmane to have been exceedingly delighted. But him sickness had stayed from that assembly; which gave occasion to Histor and Damon, two young shepherds, taking upon them the two friendly rivals’ names, to present Basilius with some other of their complaints eclogue-wise, and first with this double Sestine.

STREPHON and CLAIUS

STREPHON

Ye goat-herd gods, that love the grassy mountains,

Ye nymphs that haunt the springs in pleasant valleys,

Ye satyrs joy’d with free and quiet forests,

Vouchsafe your silent ears to plaining music,

Which to my woes give still an early morning,

And draws the dolour on till weary evening.

CLAIUS

O Mercury, foregoer to the evening,

O heavenly huntress of the savage mountains,

O lovely star, entitled of the morning,

While that my voice doth fill those woeful valleys,

Vouchsafe your silent ears to plaining music,

Which oft hath echo tir’d in secret forests.

STREPHON

I that was once free burgess of the forests,

Where shade from sun, and sports I sought at evening,

I that was once esteem’d for pleasant music,

Am banish’d now among the monstrous mountains

Of huge despair, and foul affliction’s valleys

Am grown a screech-owl to myself each morning.

CLAIUS

I that was once delighted every morning,

Hunting the wild inhabiters of forests:

I that was once the music of those valleys

So darken’d am, that all my day is evening,

Heart-broken so, that mole hills seem high mountains,

And fill the vales with cries instead of music.

STREPHON

Long since, alas! my deadly swannish music

Hath made itself a crier of the morning:

And hath with wailing strength climb’d highest mountains.

Long since my thoughts more desert be than forests:

Long since I see my joys come to their evening,

And state thrown down to over-trodden valleys.

CLAIUS

Long since the happy dwellers of those valleys

Have pray’d me leave my strange exclaiming music,

Which troubles their day’s work, and joys of evening:

Long since I hate the night, more hate the morning:

Long since my thoughts chase me like beasts in forests,

And make me wish myself laid under mountains.

STREPHON

Meseems I see the high and stately mountains,

Transform themselves to low dejected valleys

Meseems I hear in these ill-changed forests,

The Nightingales do learn of Owls their music:

Meseems I feel the comfort of the morning,

Turn’d to the mortal serene of an evening.

CLAIUS

Meseems I see a filthy cloudy evening,

As soon as sun begins to climb the mountains:

Meseems I feel a noisome scent, the morning

When I do smell the flowers of those valleys:

Meseems I hear, when I do hear sweet music,

The dreadful cries of murder’d men in forests.

STREPHON

I wish to fire the trees of all those forests,

I give the sun a last farewell each evening,

I curse the fiddling finders out of music:

With envy I do hate the lofty mountains:

And with despite despise the humble valleys:

I do detest night, evening, day and morning.

CLAIUS

Curse to myself my prayer is, the morning;

My fire is more than can be made with forests;

My state more base, than are the basest valleys:

I wish no evenings more to see, each evening;

Shamed I hate myself in sight of mountains,

And stop my ears lest I grow mad with music.

STREPHON

For she whose parts maintain’d a perfect music,

Whose beauty shin’d more than the blushing morning,

Who much did pass in state the stately mountains,

In straightness pass’d the cedars of the forests,

Hath cast me wretch into eternal evening,

By taking her two suns from those dark valleys.

CLAIUS

For she, to whom compar’d, the alps are valleys,

She, whose least word brings from the spheres their music,

At whose approach the sun rose in the evening,

Who where she went bare in her forehead morning,

Is gone, is gone, from those our spoiled forests,

Turning to deserts our best pastur’d mountains.

STREPHON

Those mountains witness shall, so shall those valleys,

Those forests eke, made wretched by our music.

CLAIUS

Our morning hymn is this, and song at evening.

But as though all this had been but the taking of a taste of their wailings, Strephon again began this Dizain which was answered unto him in that kind of verse which is called the crown.

STREPHON and CLAIUS

STREPHON

I joy in grief, and do detest all joys;

Despise delight, am tir’d with thought of ease:

I turn my head to all forms of annoys,

And with the change of them my fancy please,

I study that which may me most displease,

And in despite of that displeasure’s might,

Embrace that most, that most my soul destroys;

Blinded with beams, fell darkness is my sight:

Dwell in my ruins, feed with sucking smart,

I think from me, not from my woes to part.

CLAIUS

I think from me not from my woes to part,

And loath the time call’d life, nay think that life

Nature to me for torment did impart;

Think, my hard haps have blunted death’s sharp knife,

Not sparing me, in whom his works be rife:

And thinking this, think nature, life and death

Place sorrow’s triumph on my conquered heart,

Whereto I yield, and seek none other breath,

But from the scent of some infectious grave:

Nor of my fortune ought, but mischief crave.

STREPHON

Nor of my fortune ought but mischief crave,

And seek to nourish that, which now contains

All what I am: if I myself will save,

Then must I save, what in me chiefly reigns,

Which is the hateful web of sorrow’s pains.

Sorrow then cherish me, for I am sorrow:

No being now, but sorrow I can have:

Then deck me as thine own; thy help I borrow,

Since thou my riches art, and that thou hast

Enough to make a fertile mind lie waste.

CLAIUS

Enough to make a fertile mind lie waste,

Is that huge storm, which pours itself on me:

Hailstones of tears, of sighs a monstrous blast,

Thunders of cries; lightnings my wild looks be,

The darkened heav’n my soul, which nought can see,

The flying sprites which trees by roots uptear,

Be those despairs which have my hopes quite rased.

The difference is; all folks those storms forbear,

But I cannot; who then myself should fly,

So close unto myself my wrecks do lie.

STREPHON

So close unto myself my wrecks do lie,

But cause, effect, beginning, and the end

Are all in me: what help then can I try?

My ship, myself, whose course to love doth bend,

Sore beaten doth her mast of comfort spend:

Her cable reason, breaks from anchor’d hope:

Fancy, her tackling torn away doth fly:

Ruin, the wind, hath blown her from her scope:

Bruised with waves of cares, but broken is

On rock despair, the burial of my bliss.

CLAIUS

On rock despair, the burial of my bliss,

I long do plough with plough of deep desire:

The seed fast-meaning is, no truth to miss:

I harrow it with thoughts, which all conspire,

Favour to make my chief and only hire.

But woe is me, the year is gone about,

And now I fain would reap, I reap but this

Hatefully grown, absence new sprung out.

So that I see, although my sight impair,

Vain is their pain, who labour in despair.

STREPHON

Vain is their pain, who labour in despair.

For so did I, when with my angle will,

I sought to catch the fish Torpedo fair,

Ev’n then despair did hope already kill:

Yet fancy would perforce employ his skill,

And this hath got; the catcher now is caught.

Lam’d with the angle, which itself did bear,

And unto death, quite drown’d in dolours, brought

To death, as then disguis’d in her fair face:

Thus, thus, alas, I had my loss in chase.

CLAIUS

Thus, thus, alas, I had my loss in chase,

When first that crowned Basilisk I knew;

Whose footsteps I with kisses oft did trace,

Till by such hap, as I must ever rue,

Mine eyes did light upon her shining hue,

And hers on me, astonish’d with that sight.

Since then my heart did lose his wonted place,

Infected so with her sweet poison’s might,

That, leaving me for dead, to her it went:

But ha! her flight hath her my dead reliques spent.

STREPHON

But ah! her flight hath my dead reliques spent,

Her flight, from me, from me, though dead to me,

Yet living still in her, while her beams lent

Such vital spark, that her mine eyes might see.

But now those living lights absented be,

Full dead before, now I to dust should fall,

But that eternal pains my soul have bent,

And keep it still within this body thrall,

That thus I must while in this death I dwell,

In earthly fetters feel a lasting hell.

CLAIUS

In earthly fetters feel a lasting hell,

Alas I do; from which to find release,

I would the earth, I would the heavens fell:

But vain it is to think those pains should cease,

Where life is death, and death cannot breed peace.

O fair, O only fair, from thee alas,

Those foul, most foul disasters to me fell;

Since thou from me, O me! O sun did’st pass.

Therefore esteeming all good blessings toys,

I joy in grief, and do detest all joys.

STREPHON

I joy in grief, and do detest all joys,

But now an end, O Claius, now an end:

For even the herbs our hateful music stroys,

And from our burning breath the trees do bend.

So well were those wailful complaints accorded to the passions of all the princely hearers, while every one made what he heard of another the balance of his own fortune, that they stood a long while stricken in sad and silent consideration of them. Which the old Geron no more marking than condemning in them, desirous to set forth what counsels the wisdom of age had laid up in store against such fancies, as he thought, follies of youth, yet so as it might not appear that his words respected them, bending himself to a young shepherd, named Philisides, who neither had danced nor sung with them, and had all this time lain upon the ground at the foot of a Cypress tree, leaning upon his elbow with so deep a melancholy, that his senses carried to his mind no delight from any of their objects, he struck him upon the shoulder with a right old man’s grace, that will seem livelier than his age will afford him. And thus began unto him this eclogue.

GERON and PHILISIDES

GERON

Up, up, Philisides, let sorrows go,

Who yields to woe, but doth increase his smart.

Do not thy heart to plaintful custom bring:

But let us sing; sweet tunes do passions ease,

An old man hear who would thy fancies raise.

PHILISIDES

Who minds to please the mind drown’d in annoys

With outward joys, which inly cannot sink,

As well may think with oil to cool the fire:

Or with desire to make such foe a friend,

Who doth his soul to endless malice bend.

GERON

But sure an end to each thing time doth give,

Though woes now live, at length thy woes must die:

Then virtue try, if she can work in thee

That which we see in many time hath wrought,

And weakest hearts to constant temper brought.

PHILISIDES

Who ever taught a skilless man to teach,

Or stop a breach that never cannon saw?

Sweet virtue’s law bars not a causeful moan.

Time shall in one my life and sorrows end,

And me perchance your constant temper lend.

GERON

What can amend where physick is refus’d?

The wit’s abus’d that will no counsel take.

Yet for my sake discover us thy grief.

Oft comes relief when most we seem in trap.

The stars thy state, fortune may change thy hap.

PHILISIDES

If fortune’s lap became my dwelling place,

And all the stars conspired to my good,

Still were I one, this still should be my case,

Ruin’s relique, care’s web, and sorrow’s food:

Since she fair fierce to such a state me calls,

Whose wit the stars, whose fortune, fortune thralls.

GERON

Alas what falls are fall’n unto thy mind?

That there where thou confessed thy mischief lies,

Thy wit dost use still more harms to find.

Whom wit makes vain, or blinded with his eyes;

What counsel can prevail, or light give light?

Since all his force against himself he tries.

Then each conceit that enters in his sight,

Is made, forsooth, a jurate of his woes:

Earth, sea, air, fire, heaven, hell, and ghastly spright.

Then cries to senseless things, which neither knows

What aileth thee, and if they knew thy mind,

Would scorn in man, their king, such feeble shows.

Rebel, rebel, in golden fetters bind

This tyrant love; or rather do suppress

Those rebel-thoughts, which are thy slaves by kind.

Let not a glittering name thy fancy dress

In painted clothes; because they call it love:

There is no hate that can thee more oppress.

Begin, and half the work is done, to prove

By rising up, upon thyself to stand,

And think she is a she, that doth thee move.

He water ploughs, and soweth in the sand,

And hopes the flickering wind with net to hold

Who hath his hopes laid upon woman’s hand.

What man is he that hath his freedom sold?

Is he a manlike man, doth not know, man

Hath power that sex with bridle to withhold?

A fickle sex, and true in trust to no man,

A servant sex soon proud if they be coy’d:

And to conclude thy mistress is a woman.

PHILISIDES

O gods, how long this old fool hath annoy’d

My wearied ears! O gods, yet grant me this,

That soon the world of his false tongue be void.

O noble age who place their only bliss,

In being heard until the hearer die,

Uttering a serpent’s mind with a serpent’s hiss.

Then who will bear a well-authorized lie

(And patience hath) let him go learn of him

What swarms of virtues did in his youth fly

Such hearts of brass, wise heads, and garments trim

Were in his days: which heard, one nothing hears,

If from his words the falsehood he do skim.

And herein most their folly vain appears,

That since they still allege, when they were young,

It shows they fetch their wit from youthful years,

Like beast for sacrifice, where save the tongue

And belly nought is left: such sure is he,

This life-dead man in this old dungeon flung.

Old houses are thrown down for new we see:

The oldest rams are culled from the flock:

No man doth wish his horse should aged be.

The ancient oak well makes a fired block:

Old men themselves do love young wives to choose:

Only fond youth admires a rotten stock.

Who once a white long beard, well handle does

(As his beard him, he his beard did bare)

Though cradle-witted, must not honour lose,

O when will men leave off to judge by hair;

And think them old that have the oldest mind,

With virtue fraught, and full of holy fear!

GERON

If that thy face were hid, or I were blind,

I yet should know a young man speaketh now,

Such wandering reasons in thy speech I find,

He is a beast, that beasts use will allow.

For proof of man, who sprung of heav’nly fire

Hath strongest soul when most his reigns do bow.

But fondlings fond, know not your own desire

Loth to die young, and then you must be old.

Fondly blame that to which yourselves aspire.

But this light choler that doth make you bold,

Rather to wrong than unto just defence,

Is past with me, my blood is waxed cold,

Thy words, though full of malapert offence,

I weigh them not, but still will thee advise

How thou from foolish love mayest purge thy sense.

First think they err, that think them gaily wise,

Who well can set a passion out to show:

Such sight have they that see with goggling eyes,

Passion bears high when puffing wit doth blow.

But is indeed a toy, if not a toy,

True cause of evils: and cause of causeless woe,

If once thou mayest that fancy gloss destroy

Within thyself, thou soon wilt be ashamed

To be a player of thine own annoy.

Then let thy mind with better books be tamed.

Seek to espy her faults as well as praise,

And let thine eyes to other sports be framed.

In hunting fearful beasts, do spend some days,

Or catch the birds with pit-falls or with lime,

Or train the fox that train so crafty lays.

Lie but to sleep, and in the early prime

Seek skill of herbs in hills, haunt brooks near night,

And try with bait how fish will bite sometime.

Go graft again and seek to graft them right,

Those pleasant plants, those sweet and fruitful trees

Which both the palate and the eyes delight.

Cherish the hives of wisely painful bees,

Let special care upon thy flock be stayed,

Such active mind but seldom passion sees.

PHILISIDES

Hath any man heard what this old man said?

Truly not I, who did my thoughts engage,

Where all my pains one look of her hath paid.