The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

by Philip Sidney

Like those sick folks in whom strange humours flow,

Can taste no sweets, the sower only please,

So to my mind, while passions daily grow,

Whose fiery chains, upon his freedom seize;

Joys strangers seem, I cannot bide their show,

Nor brook aught else but well-acquainted woe.

Bitter griefs taste best, pain is my ease,

Sick to the death, still loving my disease.

“O Venus,” said Zelmane, “who is this so well acquainted with me, that can make so lively a portraiture of my miseries? It is surely the spirit appointed to have care of me, which doth now, in this dark place, bear part with the complaint of his unhappy charge. For if it be so, that the heavens have at all times a measure of their wrathful harms, surely so many have come to my blissless lot that the rest of the world hath too small a portion to make with cause so wailful a lamentation. But,” said she, “whatsoever thou be, I will seek thee out, for thy music well assures me we are at least-hand fellow-prentices to one ungracious master.” So rose she and went, guiding herself by the still plaining voice, till she saw upon a stone a little wax-light set, and under it a piece of paper, with these verses very lately, as it should seem, written in it:

How is my sun, whose beams are shining bright,

Become the cause of my dark ugly night?

Or how do I, captiv’d in this dark plight,

Bewail the case, and in the cause delight?

My mangled mind huge horrors still do fright,

With sense possessed, and claim’d by reason’s right:

Betwixt which two in me I have this fight:

Where who so wins, I put myself to flight.

Come cloudy fears, close up my dazzled sight,

Sorrows suck up the marrow of my might,

Due sighs blow out all sparks of joyful light,

Tire on despair upon my tired spright.

An end, an end, my dull’d pen cannot write,

Nor maz’d head think, nor falt’ring tongue recite.

And hard underneath the sonnet were these words written:

This cave is dark, but it had never light.

This wax doth waste itself, yet painless dies.

These words are full of woes, yet feel they none.

I darkened am, who once had clearest sight.

I waste my heart, which still new torments tries.

I plain with cause, my woes are all mine own.

No Cave, no wasting wax, no words of grief,

Can hold, show, tell my pains without relief.

She did not long stay to read the words, for not far off from the stone she might discern in a dark corner, a lady lying with her face so prostrate upon the ground that she could neither know nor be known. But, as the general nature of man is desirous of knowledge, and sorrow especially glad to find fellows, she went, as softly as she could convey her feet, near unto her, where she heard these words come with vehement sobbings from her. “O darkness,” said she, “which dost lightsomely, methinks, make me see the picture of my inward darkness: since I have chosen thee to be the secret witness of my sorrows, let me receive a false receipt in thee; and esteem them not tedious, but, if it be possible, let the uttering them be some discharge to my over-laden breast. Alas! sorrow, now thou hast the full sack of my conquered spirits, rest thyself awhile, and set not still new fire to thy own spoils: O accursed reason, how many eyes thou hast to see thy evils, and how dim, nay blind thou art in perceiving them? Forlorn creature that I am! I would I might be freely wicked, since wickedness doth prevail: but the footsteps of my overtrodden virtue lie still as bitter accusations against me. I am divided in myself, how can I stand? I am overthrown in myself, who shall raise me? Vice is but a nurse of new agonies, and the virtue I am divorced from, makes the hateful comparison the more manifest. No, no, virtue, either I never had but a shadow of thee, or thou thyself are but a shadow. For how is my soul abandoned? How are all my powers laid waste? My desire is pained because it cannot hope, and if hope came, his best should be but mischief. O strange mixture of human minds; only so much good left, as to make us languish in our own evils. Ye infernal furies, for it is too late for me to awake my dead virtue, or to place my comfort in the angry gods, ye infernal furies, I say, aid one that dedicates herself unto you; let my rage be satisfied, since the effect of it is fit for your service. Neither be afraid to make me too happy, since nothing can come to appease the smart of my guilty conscience, I desire but to assuage the sweltering of my hellish longing dejected Gynecia.”

Zelmane no sooner heard the name of Gynecia, but that, with a cold sweat all over her, as if she had been ready to tread upon a deadly stinging adder, she would have withdrawn herself, but her own passion made her yield more unquiet motions than she had done in coming. So that she was perceived, and Gynecia suddenly risen up, for indeed it was Gynecia, gotten into the cave, the same cave wherein Dametas had safely kept Pamela in the late uproar, to pass her pangs, with change of places. And as her mind ran still upon Zelmane, her piercing lover’s eye had soon found it was she. And seeing in her countenance to fly away, she fell down at her feet, and catching fast hold of her: “Alas!” said she, “whither, or from whom dost thou fly away? The savagest beasts are won with service, and there is no flint but may be mollified: how is Gynecia so unworthy in thine eyes? or whom cannot abundance of love make worthy? O think not that cruelty, or ungratefulness can flow from a good mind! O weigh, alas! weigh with thyself the new effects of this mighty passion, that I, unfit for my estate, uncomely for my sex, must become a suppliant at thy feet! By the happy woman that bare thee, by all the joys of thy heart, and success of thy desire, I beseech thee turn thyself to some consideration of me, and rather show pity in now helping me, than in too late repenting my death, which hourly threatens me.” Zelmane imputing it to one of her continual mishaps, thus to have met with this lady, with a full weary countenance; “Without doubt, Madam,” said she, “where the desire is such as may be obtained, and the party well deserving as yourself, it must be a great excuse that may well colour a denial: but when the first motion carries with it a direct impossibility, then must the only answer be, comfort without help, and sorrow to both parties; to you not obtaining, to me not able to grant.” “O,” said Gynecia, “how good leisure you have to frame these scornful answers? Is Gynecia thus to be despised? Am I so vile a worm in your sight? No, no, trust to it hard-hearted tiger, I will not be the only actor of this tragedy: since I must fall, I will press down some others with my ruins; since I must burn, my spiteful neighbours shall feel my fire. Dost thou not perceive that my diligent eyes have pierced through the cloudy mask of thy disguisement? Have I not told thee, O fool (if I were not much more fool) that I knew thou wouldst abuse us with thy outward show? wilt thou still attend the rage of love in a woman’s heart? The girl, thy well-chosen mistress, perchance shall defend thee when Basilius shall know how thou hast sotted his mind with falsehood, and falsely sought the dishonour of his house. Believe it, believe it, unkind creature, I will end my miseries with a notable example of revenge, and that accursed cradle of mine shall feel the smart of my wound, thou of thy tyranny, and lastly (I confess) myself of mine own work.”

Zelmane that had long before doubted herself to be discovered by her, and now plainly finding it was, as the proverb saith, like them that hold the wolf by the ears, bitten while they hold, and slain if they loose. If she held her off in these wonted terms, she saw rage would make her love work the effects of hate; to grant unto her, her heart was so bound upon Philoclea, it had been worse than a thousand deaths. Yet found she it was necessary for her to come to a resolution, for Gynecia’s sore could bide no leisure, and once discovered, besides the danger of Philoclea, her desires should be for ever utterly stopped. She remembered withal the words of Basilius, how apt he was to leave this life, and return to his court, a great bar to her hopes. Lastly, she considered Dorus’s enterprise might bring some strange alteration of this their well-liked fellowship. So that encompassed with these instant difficulties, she bent her spirits to think of a remedy, which might at once both save her from them, and serve her to the accomplishment of her only pursuit. Lastly, she determined thus, that there was no way but to yield to the violence of their desires, since striving did the more chafe them. And that following their own current, at length of itself it would bring her to the other side of her burning desires.

Now in the meanwhile, the divided Dorus, long divided between love and friendship, and now for his love divided from his friend, though indeed without prejudice of friendship’s loyalty, which doth never bar the mind from his free satisfaction: yet still a cruel judge over himself, thought he was some ways faulty, and applied his mind how to amend it with a speedy and behoveful return. But then was his first study, how to get away, whereto already he had Pamela’s consent confirmed and concluded under the name of Mopsa in her own presence: Dorus taking this way, that whatsoever he would have of Pamela he would ask her, whether in such a case it were not best for Mopsa so to behave herself, in that sort making Mopsa’s envy an instrument of that she did envy. So having passed over his first and most feared difficulty, he busied his spirits how to come to the harvest of his desires, whereof he had so fair a show. And thereunto (having gotten leave for some days of his master Dametas, who now accounted him as his son-in-law) he roamed round about the desert, to find some unknown way that might bring him to the next seaport, as much as might be out of all course of other passengers: which all very well succeeding him, and he having hired a barque for his life’s traffic, and provided horses to carry her thither, returned homeward, now come to the last point of his care, how to go beyond the loathsome watchfulness of these three uncomely companions, and therein did wisely consider how they were to be taken with whom he was to deal, remembering that in the particularities of everybody’s mind and fortune, there are particular advantages, by which they are to be held. The muddy mind of Dametas he found most easily stirred with covetousness. The cursed mischievous heart of Miso, most apt to be tickled with jealousy, as whose rotten brain could think well of nobody. But young mistress Mopsa, who could open her eyes upon nothing that did not all to be-wonder her, he thought curiosity the fittest bait for her. And first for Dametas, Dorus having employed a whole day’s work, about a ten mile off from the lodge, quite contrary way to that he meant to take with Pamela, in digging and opening the ground under an ancient oak that stood there, in such sort as he might longest hold Dametas’s greedy hopes in some show of comfort, he came to his master with a countenance mixed between cheerfulness and haste, and taking him by the right hand, as if he had a great matter of secrecy to reveal unto him: “Master,” said he, “I did never think that the gods had appointed my mind freely brought up to have so longing a desire to serve you, but that they minded thereby to bring some extraordinary fruit to one so beloved of them as your honesty makes me think you are. This binds me even in conscience to disclose that which I persuade myself is allotted unto you, that your fortune may be of equal balance with your deserts.” He said no further, because he would let Dametas play upon the bit a while, who not understanding what his words intended, yet well finding they carried no evil news, was so much the more desirous to know the matter, as he had free scope to imagine what measure of good hap himself would. Therefore putting off his cap to him, which he never had done before, and assuring him he should have Mopsa, though she had been all made of cloth of gold, he besought Dorus not to hold him long in hope, for that he found a thing his heart was not able to bear. “Master,” answered Dorus, “you have so satisfied me with promising me the utmost of my desired bliss, that if my duty bound me not, I were in it sufficiently rewarded. To you therefore shall my good hap be converted, and the fruit of my labour dedicated.” Therewith he told him, how under an ancient oak (the place he made him easily understand by sufficient marks he gave to him) he had found digging but a little depth, scatteringly lying a great number of rich medals, and that, piercing further into the ground he had met with a great stone, which, by the hollow sound it yielded, seemed to be the cover of some greater vault, and upon it a box of cypress, with the name of the valiant Aristomenes, graven upon it: and that within the box he found certain verses, which signified that some depth again under that all his treasures lay hidden, what time for the discord fell out in Arcadia, he lived banished. Therewith he gave Dametas certain medals of gold he had long kept about him, and asked him, because it was a thing much to be kept secret, and a matter one man in twenty hours might easily perform, whether he would have him go and seek the bottom of it, which he refrained to do till he knew his mind, promising he would faithfully bring him what he found, or else that he himself would do it, and be the first beholder of that comfortable spectacle; no man need doubt which part Dametas would choose, whose fancy had already devoured all this great riches, and even now began to grudge at a partner, before he saw his own share. Therefore taking a strong jade, laden with spades and mattocks, which he meant to bring back otherwise laden, he went in all speed thitherward, taking leave of nobody, only desiring Dorus he would look well to the princess Pamela, promising him mountains of his own labour, which nevertheless he little meant to perform, like a fool, not considering, that no man is to be moved with part, that neglects the whole. Thus away went Dametas, having already made an image in his fancy, what palaces he would build, how sumptuously he would fare, and among all other things imagined what money to employ in making coffers to keep his money; his ten miles seemed twice so many leagues, and yet contrary to the nature of it, though it seemed long, it was not wearisome. Many times he cursed his horse’s want of consideration, that in so important a matter would make no greater speed: many times he wished himself the back of an ass to help to carry away the new sought riches (an unfortunate wisher, for if he had as well wished the head, it had been granted him). At length being come to the tree, which he hoped should bear so golden acorns, down went all his instruments, and forthwith to the renting up of the hurtless earth, where by and by he was caught with the lime of a few promised medals, which was so perfect a pawn unto him of his further expectation that he deemed a great number of hours well employed in groping further into it, which with logs and great stones was made as cumbersome as might be, till at length, with sweaty brow, he came to the great stone. A stone, God knows, full unlike to the cover of a monument, but yet there was the cypress box with “Aristomenes” graven upon it, and these verses written in it.

A banish’d man, long barr’d from his desire

By inward lets, of them his state possessed,

Hid here his hopes, by which he might aspire

To have his harms with wisdom’s help redressed.

Seek then and see what man esteemeth best,

All is but this, this is our labour’s hire:

Of this we live, in this we find our rest;

Who holds this fast no greater wealth require,

Look further then, so shalt thou find at least,

A bait most fit for hungry minded guest.