Basilius, whose senses by desire were held open, and conceit was by

love quickened, heard scarcely half her answer out, but that, as if

speedy flight might save his life, he turned away, and ran with all

the speed his body would suffer him towards his daughter Philoclea,

whom he found at that time dutifully watching by her mother, and Miso

curiously watching her, having left Mopsa to do the like service to

Pamela. Basilius forthwith calling Philoclea aside, with all the

conjuring words which desire could indite and authority utter,

besought her she would preserve his life, in whom her life was begun,

she would save his grey hairs from rebuke, and his aged mind from

despair; that if she were not cloyed with his company, and that she

thought not the earth over-burdened with him, she would cool his fiery

grief, which was to be done but by her breath: that in fine,

whatsoever he was, he was nothing but what it pleased Zelmane; all the

powers of his spirit depending of her, that if she continued cruel he

could no more sustain his life than the earth remain fruitful in the

sun’s continual absence. He concluded, she should in one payment

requite all his deserts; and that she needed not to disdain any

service, though never so mean, which was warranted by the sacred name

of father. Philoclea more glad than ever she had known herself that

she might, by this occasion, enjoy the private conference of Zelmane,

yet had so sweet a feeling of virtue in her mind, that she would not

suffer a vile colour to be cast over fair thoughts, but with humble

grace answered her father: that there needed neither promise nor

persuasion to her, to make her do her uttermost for her father’s

service; that for Zelmane’s favour, she would in all virtuous sort

seek it towards him: and that as she would not pierce further into his

meaning, than himself should declare, so would she interpret all his

doings to be accomplished in goodness: and therefore desired, if

otherwise it were, that he would not impart it to her, who then should

be forced to begin, by true obedience, a show of disobedience: rather

performing his general commandment, which had ever been to embrace

virtue than any new particular sprung out of passion, and contrary to

the former. Basilius content to take that, since he could have no

more, thinking it a great point, if, by her means, he could get but a

more free access unto Zelmane, allowed her reasons, and took her

proffer thankfully, desiring only a speedy return of comfort.

Philoclea was parting, and Miso straight behind her, like Alecto

following Proserpina. But Basilius forced her to stay, though with

much ado, she being {211} sharp set upon the fulfilling of a shrewd

office in over-looking Philoclea; and said to Basilius that she did as

she was commanded, and could not answer it to Gynecia, if she were any

whit from Philoclea, telling him true, that he did evil to take her

charge from her. But Basilius, swearing he would put out her eyes, if

she stirred a foot to trouble his daughter, gave her a stop for that

while.

So away departed Philoclea, with a new field of fancies for her

travailing mind: for well she saw her father was grown her adverse

party, and yet her fortune such, as she must favour her rival; and the

fortune of that fortune such, as neither that did hurt her, nor any

contrary mean help her.

But she walked but a little on, before she saw Zelmane lying upon a

bank, with her face so bent over Ladon, that, her tears falling into

the water, one might have thought that she began meltingly to be

metamorphosed to the under-running river. But by and by with speech

she made known, as well that she lived, as that she sorrowed. “Fair

streams,” said she, “that do vouchsafe in your clearness to represent

unto me, my blubbered face, let the tribute offer of my tears unto

you, procure your stay a while with me, that I may begin yet at last

to find something that pities me; and that all things of comfort and

pleasure do not fly away from me. But if the violence of your spring

command you to haste away, to pay your duties to your great prince,

the sea, yet carry with you those few words, and let the uttermost

ends of the world know them. A love more clear than yourselves,

dedicated to a love, I fear, more cold than yourselves, with the

clearness lays a night of sorrow upon me, and with the coldness

inflames a world of fire within me.” With that she took a willow

stick, and wrote in a sandy bank those few verses.

Over those brooks trusting to ease mine eyes,

(Mine eyes even great in labour with their tears)

I laid my face; my face ev’n wherein lies

Clusters of clouds, which no sun ever clears,

In watery glass my watery eyes I see;

Sorrows ill eas’d, where sorrows painted be.

My thoughts imprison’d in my secret woes,

With flamy breath do issue oft in sound,

The sound of this strange air no sooner goes,

But that it does with Echoes’ force rebound;

And make me hear the plaints I would refrain:

Thus outwards helps my inward grief maintain.

{212}

Now in this sand I would discharge my mind,

And cast from me part of my burd’nous cares:

But in the sand my tales foretold I find,

And see therein how well the writer fares.

Since, stream, air, sand, mine eyes and ears conspire:

What hope to quench, where each thing blows the fire?

And as soon as she had written them, a new swarm of thoughts stinging

her mind, she was ready with her feet to give the new-born letters

both death and burial. But Philoclea, whose delight of hearing and

seeing was before a stay from interrupting her, gave herself to be

seen unto her, with such a lightening beauty upon Zelmane, that

neither she could look on, nor would look off. At last Philoclea,

having a little mused how to cut the thread even between her own

hopeless affection and her father’s unbridled hope, with eyes, cheeks,

and lips, whereof each sang their part to make up the harmony of

bashfulness, began to say, “My father, to whom I owe myself;” and

therefore when Zelmane (making a womanish habit to be the armour of

her boldness, giving up her life to the lips of Philoclea, and taking

it again by the sweetness of those kisses) humbly besought her to keep

her speech for a while within the paradise of her mind. For well she

knew her father’s errand, who should soon receive a sufficient answer.

But now she demanded leave not to lose this long sought-for commodity

of time, to ease her heart thus far, that if in her agonies her

destiny was to be condemned by Philoclea’s mouth; at least Philoclea

might know, whom she had condemned. Philoclea easily yielded to grant

her own desire, and so making the green bank the situation, and the

river the prospect of the most beautiful buildings of nature, Zelmane

doubting how to begin, though her thoughts already had run to the end,

with a mind fearing the unworthiness of every word that should be

presented to her ears, at length brought it forth in this manner.

“Most beloved lady, the incomparable excellencies of yourself, waited

on by the greatness of your estate, and the importance of the thing

whereon my life consisted, doth require both many ceremonies before

the beginning, and many circumstances in the uttering my speech, both

bold and fearful. But the small opportunity of envious occasion, by

the malicious eye hateful love doth cast upon me, and the extreme bent

of my affection, which will either break out in words, or break my

heart, compel me not only to embrace the smallest time, but to pass by

the respects due unto you, in respect of your poor caitiff’s life, who

is now, or never to be preserved. I do therefore vow unto you,

hereafter never more to omit all dutiful form, do you only now

vouchsafe to hear the matter {213} of a mind most perplexed, if ever

the sound of love have come to your ears, or if ever you have

understood what force it hath had to conquer the strongest hearts and

change the most settled estates, receive here an example of those

strange tragedies; one, that in himself containeth the particularities

of all those misfortunes, and from henceforth believe that such a

thing may be, since you shall see it is. You shall see, I say, a

living image, and a present story of what love can do when he is bent

to ruin.

“But alas! whither goest thou my tongue? or how doth my heart consent

to adventure the revealing his nearest touching secret? but peace

fear, thou comest too late, when already the harm is taken. Therefore

I say again, O only princess attend here a miserable miracle of

affection. Behold here before your eyes Pyrocles, prince of Macedon,

whom you only have brought to this game of fortune, and unused

Metamorphosis, whom you only have made neglect his country, forget his

father, and lastly forsake to be Pyrocles: the same Pyrocles who, you

heard, was betrayed by being put in a ship, which being burned,

Pyrocles was drowned. O most true presage! for these traitors, my

eyes, putting me into a ship of desire, which daily burneth, those

eyes, I say, which betrayed me, will never leave till they have

drowned me. But be not, be not, most excellent lady, you that nature

hath made to be the load-star of comfort, be not the rock of

shipwreck: you whom virtue hath made the princess of felicity, be not

the minister of ruin: you whom my choice hath made the goddess of my

safety. O let not, let not, from you be poured upon me destruction;

your fair face hath many tokens in it of amazement at my words: think

then what his amazement is, from whence they come, since no words can

carry with them the life of the inward feeling, I desire that my

desire may be weighed in the balances of honour, and let virtue hold

them. For if the highest love in no base person may aspire to grace,

then may I hope your beauty will not be without pity, if otherwise you

be, alas! but let it not be so resolved, yet shall not my death be

comfortless, receiving it by your sentence.”

The joy which wrought into Pygmalion’s mind, while he found his

beloved image was softer and warmer in his folded arms, till at length

it accomplished his gladness with a perfect woman’s shape, still

beautified with the former perfections, was even such, as by each

degree of Zelmane’s words creepingly entered into Philoclea, till her

pleasure was fully made up with the manifesting of his being, which

was such as in hope did overcome hope. Yet doubt would fain have

played his part in her mind and called in question, how she should be

assured that Zelmane was Pyrocles. But love straight stood up and

deposed that a lie could not come from the mouth of Zelmane. Besides,

a certain spark of honour, which rose {214} in her well-disposed mind,

made her fear to be alone with him, with whom alone she desired to be,

withal the other contradictions growing in those minds, which neither

absolutely climb the rock of virtue, nor freely sink into the sea of

vanity, but that spark soon gave place, or at least gave no more light

in her mind than a candle doth in the sun’s presence. But even sick

with a surfeit of joy, and fearful of she knew not what, as he that

newly finds huge treasures, doubts whether he sleep or no; or like a

fearful deer, which then looks most about when he comes to the best

feed, with a shrugging kind of tremor through all her principal parts,

she gave those affectionate words for answer.

“Alas! how painful a thing it is to a divided mind to make a

well-joined answer? how hard it is to bring inward shame to outward

confession? and what handsomeness, trow you, can be observed in that

speech which is made one knows not to whom? Shall I say, ‘O Zelmane’?

alas! your words be against it. Shall I say ‘Prince Pyrocles’? wretch

that I am, your show is manifest against it. But this, this I may well

say; if I had continued as I ought, Philoclea, you had either never

been, or ever been Zelmane: you had either never attempted this

change, set on with hope, or never discovered it, stopped with

despair. But I fear me, my behaviour ill governed, gave you the first

comfort: I fear me, my affection ill hid, hath given you this last

assurance: I fear indeed, the weakness of my government before, made

you think such a mask would be grateful unto me; and my weaker

government since makes you pull off the visor. What should I do then?

shall I seek far-fetched inventions? shall I labour to lay marble

colours over my ruinous thoughts? or rather, though the pureness of my

virgin mind be stained, let me keep the true simplicity of my word.

True it is, alas! too true it is, O Zelmane, for so I love to call

thee, since in that name my love first began, and in the shade of that

name my love shall best lie hidden, that even while so thou wert, what

eye bewitched me I know not, my passions were fitter to desire than to

be desired. Shall I say then, I am sorry, or that my love must be

turned to hate, since thou art turned to Pyrocles? How may that well

be? since when thou wert Zelmane, the despair thou mightest not be

thus did most torment me. Thou hast then the victory, use it with

virtue. Thy virtue won me; with virtue preserve me. Dost thou love me?

keep me then still worthy to be loved.”

Then held she her tongue, and cast down a self-accusing look, finding

that in herself she had, as it were, shot out of the bow of her

affection, a more quick opening of her mind than she minded to have

done. But Pyrocles so carried up with joy that he did not envy the

god’s felicity, presented her with some jewels of right princely

value, as some little tokens of his love and quality: and {215} withal

showed her letters from his father King Euarchus, unto him, which even

in the sea had amongst his jewels been preserved. But little needed

those proofs to one, who would have fallen out with herself rather

than make any contrary conjectures to Zelmane’s speeches; so that with

such embracements, as it seemed their souls desired to meet, and their

hearts to kiss as their mouths did, they passed the promise of

marriage, which fain Pyrocles would have sealed with the chief arms of

his desire, but Philoclea commanded the contrary.

And then at Philoclea’s entreaty, who was willing to purloin all

occasions of remaining with Zelmane, she told her the story of her

life, from the time of their departing from Erona; for the rest she

had already understood of her sister. “For,” said she, “I have

understood how you first, in the company of your noble cousin

Musidorus, parted from Thessalia, and of divers adventures, which with

no more danger than glory you passed through, till your coming to the

succour of the queen Erona; and the end of that war, you might

perceive by myself, I had understood of prince Plangus. But what since

was the course of your doings, until you came, after so many

victories, to make a conquest of poor me, that I know not; the fame

thereof having rather showed it by pieces, than delivered any full

form of it. Therefore, dear Pyrocles, for what can my ears be so

sweetly fed with, as to hear you of you, be liberal unto me of those

things which have made you indeed precious to the world; and now doubt

not to tell of your perils, for since I have you here out of them,

even the remembrance of them is pleasant.”

Pyrocles easily perceived she was content with kindness to put off

occasion of further kindness, wherein love showed himself a cowardly

boy that durst not attend for fear of offending. But rather love

proved himself valiant, that durst with the sword of reverent duty

gain-stand the force of so many enraged desires. But so it was, that

though he knew this discourse was to entertain him from a more

straight parley, yet he durst not but kiss his rod, and gladly make

much of that entertainment which she allotted unto him: and therefore

with a desirous sigh chastening his breast for too much desiring,

“Sweet princess of my life,” said he, “what trophies, what triumph,

what monuments, what histories might ever make my fame yield so sweet

a music to my ears, as that it pleaseth you to lend your mind to the

knowledge of any thing touching Pyrocles, only therefore of value,

because he is your Pyrocles? and therefore grow I now so proud as to

think it worth the hearing, since you vouchsafe to give it the

hearing. Therefore only height of my hope, vouchsafe to know, that

after the death of Tiridates, and settling Erona in her government,

for {216} settled we left her; howsoever since, as I perceived by your

speech the last day, the ungrateful treason of her ill-chosen husband

overthrew her, a thing, in truth, never till this time by me either

heard, or suspected: for who could think, without having such a mind

as Antiphilus, that so great a beauty as Erona’s, indeed excellent,

could not have held his affection? so great goodness could not have

bound gratefulness? and so high advancement could not have satisfied

his ambition? but therefore true it is, that wickedness may well be

compared to a bottomless pit, into which it is far easier to keep

one’s self from falling than being fallen, to give one’s self any stay

from falling infinitely. But for my cousin and me, upon this cause we

parted from Erona.

“Euardes, the brave and mighty prince, whom it was my fortune to kill

in the combat for Erona, had three nephews, sons to a sister of his;

all three set among the foremost ranks of fame for great minds to

attempt, and great force to perform what they did attempt, especially

the eldest, by name Anaxius, to whom all men would willingly have

yielded the height of praise, but that his nature was such as to

bestow it upon himself before any could give it. For of so

unsupportable a pride he was, that where his deeds might well stir

envy, his demeanour did rather breed disdain. And if it be true that

the giants ever made war against heaven, he had been a fit

ensign-bearer for that company. For nothing seemed hard to him, though

impossible; and nothing unjust, while his liking was his justice. Now

he in these wars had flatly refused his aid, because he could not

brook that the worthy prince Plangus was by his cousin Tiridates

preferred before him. For allowing no other weights but the sword and

spear in judging of desert, how much he esteemed himself before

Plangus in that, so much would he have had his allowance in his

service.

“But now that he understood that his uncle was slain by me, I think

rather scorn that any should kill his uncle, than any kindness, an

unused guest to an arrogant soul, made him seek his revenge, I must

confess in manner gallant enough. For he sent a challenge unto me to

meet him at a place appointed, in the confines of the kingdom of

Lycia, where he would prove upon me, that I had by some treachery

overcome his uncle, whom else many hundreds such as I, could not have

withstood. Youth and success made me willing enough to accept any such

bargain, especially because I had heard that your cousin Amphialus,

who for some years hath borne universally the name of the best knight

in the world, had divers times fought with him, and never been able to

master him, but so had left him, that every man thought Anaxius in

that one virtue of courtesy far short of him, in all other his match;

Anaxius still deeming himself for his superior. Therefore {217} to him

I would go, and I would needs go alone, because so I understood for

certain, he was; and, I must confess, desirous to do something without

the company of the incomparable prince Musidorus, because in my heart

I acknowledge that I owed more to his presence than to anything in

myself, whatever before I had done. For of him indeed, as of any

worldly cause, I must grant, as received, whatever there is or may be

good in me. He taught me by word, and best by example, giving me in

him so lively an image of virtue, that ignorance could not cast such a

mist over mine eyes, as not to see, and to love it; and all with such

dear friendship and care, as, O heaven, how can my life ever requite

to him? which made me indeed find in myself such a kind of depending

upon him, as without him I found a weakness, and a mistrustfulness of

myself, as one stayed from his best strength, when at any time I

missed him. Which humour perceiving to over-rule me, I strove against

it: not that I was unwilling to depend upon him in judgment, but by

weakness I would not; which though it held me to him, made me unworthy

of him. Therefore I desired his leave and obtained it, such confidence

he had in me, preferring my reputation before his own tenderness, and

so privately went from him, he determining, as after I knew, in secret

manner, not to be far from the place where we appointed to meet, to

prevent any foul play that might be offered unto me. Full loth was

Erona to let us depart from her, as it were, fore-feeling the harms

which after fell to her. But I, rid fully from those cumbers of

kindness, and half a day’s journey in my way towards Anaxius, met an

adventure, which, though in itself of small importance, I will tell

you at large, because by the occasion thereof I was brought to as

great cumber and danger, as lightly any might escape.

“As I passed through a land, each side whereof was so bordered both

with high timber trees, and copses of far more humble growth, that it

might easily bring a solitary mind to look for no other companions

than the wild burgesses of the forest, I heard certain cries, which,

coming by pauses to mine ears from within the wood of the right hand,

made me well assured by the greatness of the cry, it was the voice of

a man, though it were a very unmanlike voice, so to cry. But making

mine ears my guide, I left not many trees behind me before I saw at

the bottom of one of them a gentleman, bound with many garters hand

and foot, so as well he might tumble and toss, but neither run nor

resist he could. Upon him, like so many eagles upon an ox, were nine

gentlewomen, truly such as one might well enough say, they were

handsome. Each of them held bodkins in their hands, wherewith

continually they pricked him, having been before hand unarmed of any

defence {218} from the waist upward, but only of his shirt: so as the

poor man wept and bled, cried and prayed while they sported themselves

in his pain, and delighted in his prayers as the arguments of their

victory.

“I was moved to compassion, and so much the more that he straight

called to me for succour, desiring me at least to kill him, to deliver

him from those tormentors. But before myself could resolve, much less

any other tell what I would resolve, there came in choleric haste

towards me about seven or eight knights, the foremost of which, willed

me to get away, and not to trouble the ladies while they were taking

their due revenge; but with so over-mastering a manner of pride, as

truly my heart could not brook it; and therefore, answering them, that

how I would have defended him from the ladies I knew not, but from

them I would, I began to combat first with him particularly, and after

his death with the others that had less good manners, jointly. But

such was the end of it, that I kept the field with the death of some,

and flight of others. Insomuch as the women, afraid, what angry

victory would bring forth, ran all away, saving only one, who was so

fleshed in malice that neither during, nor after the fight, she gave

any truce to her cruelty, but still used the little instrument of her

great spite, to the well-witnessed pain of the impatient patient: and

was now about to put out his eyes, which all this while were spared,

because they should do him the discomfort of seeing who prevailed over

him. When I came in, and after much ado brought her to some

conference, for some time it was before she would hearken, more before

she would speak, and most before she would in her speech leave off the

sharp remembrance of her bodkin, but at length when I pulled off my

head-piece, and humbly entreated her pardon, or knowledge why she was

cruel, out of breath more with choler, which increased in his own

exercise, than with the pain she took, much to this purpose, she gave

her grief unto my knowledge.

“‘Gentlemen,’ said she, ‘much it is against my will to forbear any

time the executing of my just revenge upon this naughty creature, a

man in nothing but in deceiving women. But because I see you are

young, and like enough to have the power, if you would have the mind,

to do much more mischief than he, I am content upon this bad subject

to read a lecture to your virtue. This man called Pamphilus, in birth

I must confess is noble, but what is that to him, if it shall be a

stain to his dead ancestors to have left such an offspring, in shape

as you see, not uncomely, indeed the fit mask of his disguised

falsehood, in conversation wittily pleasant, and pleasantly gamesome;

his eyes full of merry simplicity, his words, of hearty

companionableness: and such an {219} one, whose head one would not

think so stayed as to think mischievously; delighted in all such

things, which by imparting the delight to others, makes the user

thereof welcome, as, music, dancing, hunting, feasting, riding, and

such like. And to conclude, such an one, as who can keep him at

arm’s-end, need never wish a better companion. But under these

qualities lies such a poisonous adder, as I will tell you. For by

those gifts of nature and fortune, being in all places acceptable, he

creeps, nay, to say, truly, he flies so into the favour of poor silly

women, that I would be too much ashamed to confess, if I had not

revenge in my hand as well as shame in my cheeks. For his heart being

wholly delighted in deceiving us, we could never be warned, but rather

one bird caught, served for a stale to bring in more. For the more he

got, the more still he showed that he, as it were, gave way to his new

mistress when he betrayed his promises to the former. The cunning of

his flattery, the readiness of his tears, the infiniteness of his

vows, were but among the weakest threads of his net. But the stirring

our own passions, and by the entrance of them, to make himself lord of

our forces, there lay his master’s part of cunning, making us now

jealous, now envious, now proud of what he had, desirous of more; now

giving one the triumph, to see him that was prince of many, subject to

her; now with an estranged look, making her fear the loss of that

mind, which indeed could never be had: never ceasing humbleness and

diligence, till he had embarked us in some such disadvantage that we

could not return dry-shod; and then suddenly a tyrant, but a crafty

tyrant. For so would he use his imperiousness, that we had a

delightful fear, and an awe, which made us loth to lose our hope. And,

which is strangest, when sometimes with late repentance I think of it,

I must confess, even in the greatest tempest of my judgment was I

never driven to think him excellent; and yet so could set my mind,

both to get and keep him, as though therein had laid my felicity: like

them I have seen play at the ball, grow extremely earnest, who should

have the ball, and yet every one knew it was but a ball. But in the

end the bitter farce of the sport was, that we had either our hearts

broken with sorrow, or our estates spoiled with being at his

direction, or our honours for ever lost, partly by our own faults, but

principally by his faulty using of our faults. For never was there man

that could with more scornful eyes behold her at whose feet he had

lately lain, nor with a more unmanlike bravery use his tongue to her

disgrace, which lately had sung sonnets of her praises, being so

naturally inconstant, as I marvel his soul finds not some way to kill

his body, whereto it had been so long united. For so hath he dealt

with us, unhappy fools, as we could never tell whether he made greater

haste after he once liked, to enjoy, or after he once {220} enjoyed,

to forsake. But making a glory of his own shame, it delighted him to

be challenged of unkindness, it was a triumph to him to have his mercy

called for: and he thought the fresh colours of his beauty were

painted in nothing so well as in the ruins of his lovers: yet so far

had we engaged ourselves, unfortunate souls, that we listed not

complain, since our complaints could not but carry the greatest

occasion to ourselves. But every of us, each for herself, laboured all

means how to recover him, while he rather daily sent us companions of

our deceit, than ever returned in any sound and faithful manner. Till

at length he concluded all his wrongs with betrothing himself to one,

I must confess, worthy to be liked if any worthiness might excuse so

unworthy a changeableness, leaving us nothing but remorse for what was

past, and despair of what might follow. Then indeed the common injury

made us all join in fellowship, who till that time had employed our

endeavours one against the other, for we thought nothing was a more

condemning of us, than the justifying of his love to her by marriage:

then despair made fear valiant, and revenge gave shame countenance:

whereupon, we, that you saw here, devised how to get him among us

alone: which he, suspecting no such matter of them whom he had by

often abuses, he thought made tame to be still abused, easily gave us

opportunity to do.

“‘And a man may see, even in this, how soon rulers grow proud, and in

their pride foolish: he came with such an authority among us, as if

the planets had done enough for us, that by us once he had been

delighted. And when we began in courteous manner, one after the other,

to lay his unkindness unto him, he, seeing himself confronted by so

many, like a resolute orator, went not to denial, but to justify his

cruel falsehood, and all with such jests and disdainful passages, that

if the injury could not be made greater, yet were our conceits made

the apter to apprehend it.

“‘Among other of his answers, forsooth, I shall never forget, how he

would prove it was no inconstancy to change from one love to another,

but a great constancy, and contrary, that which we call constancy, to

be most changeable. “For,” said he, “I ever loved my delight, and

delighted always in what was lovely: and wheresoever, I found occasion

to obtain that, I constantly followed it. But these constant fools you

speak of, though their mistress grow by sickness foul, or by fortune

miserable, yet still will love her, and so commit the absurdest

inconstancy that may be, in changing their love from fairness to

foulness, and from loveliness to his contrary; like one not content to

leave a friend, but will straight give over himself, to his mortal

enemy: where I, whom you call inconstant, am ever constant to beauty,

in others, and delight myself.” And so in this jolly scoffing bravery

he went over us all, saying he {221} left one, because she was

over-wayward; another, because she was too soon won; a third, because

she was not merry enough; a fourth, because she was over gamesome; the

fifth, because she was grown with grief subject to sickness; the

sixth, because she was so foolish as to be jealous of him; the

seventh, because she had refused to carry a letter from him to another

that he loved; the eighth, because she was not secret; the ninth,

because she was not liberal: but to me, who am named Dido, and indeed

have met with a false Aeneas: to me I say, O the ungrateful villain,

he could find no other fault to object, but that, perdy, he met with

many fairer.

“‘But when he had thus played the careless prince, we, having those

servants of ours in readiness, whom you lately so manfully overcame,

laid hold of him, beginning at first but that trifling revenge, in

which you found us busy; but meaning afterwards to have mangled him so

as should have lost his credit for ever abusing more. But as you have

made my fellows fly away, so for my part the greatness of his wrong

overshadows, in my judgment, the greatness of any danger. For was it

not enough for him to have deceived me, and through the deceit abused

me, and after the abuse forsaken me, but that he must now, of all the

company, and before all the company, lay want of beauty to my charge?

many fairer, I trow even in your judgment, sir, if your eyes do not

beguile me, not many fairer; and I know, whosoever says the contrary,

there are not many fairer. And of whom should I receive this reproach,

but of him who hath best cause to know there are not many fairer? and

therefore howsoever my fellows pardon his injuries, for my part I will

ever remember, and remember to revenge his scorn of all scorns.’ With

that she to him afresh; and surely would have put out his eyes, who

lay mute for shame, it he did not sometimes cry for fear, if I had not

leapt from my horse and mingling force with entreaty, stayed her fury.

“But while I was persuading her to meekness, comes a number of his

friends, to whom he forthwith cried, that they should kill that woman,

that had thus betrayed and disgraced him. But then I was fain to

forsake the ensign under which I had before served, and to spend my

uttermost force in the protecting of the lady: which so well prevailed

for her, that in the end there was a faithful peace promised of all

sides. And so I leaving her in a place of security, as she thought,

went on my journey towards Anaxius, for whom I was forced to stay two

days in the appointed place, he disdaining to wait for me, till he

were sure I was there.

“I did patiently abide his angry pleasure, till about that space of

time he came, indeed, according to promise, alone: and that I may not

say too little, because he is wont to say too much, like a {222} man

whose courage is apt to climb over any danger. And as soon as ever he

came near me, in fit distance for his purpose, he with much fury, but

with fury skilfully guided, ran upon me, which I, in the best sort I

could, resisted, having kept myself ready for him, because I had

understood that he observed few compliments in matter of arms, but

such as a proud anger did indite unto him. And so, putting our horses

into a full career, we hit each other upon the head with our lances: I

think he felt my blow; for my part, I must confess, I never received

the like: but I think, though my senses were astonished, my mind

forced them to quicken themselves, because I had learned of him how

little favour he is wont to show in any matter of advantage. And

indeed he was turned and coming upon me with his sword drawn, both our

staves having been broken, at that encounter, but I was so ready to

answer him, that truly I know not who gave the first blow. But

whosoever gave the first, was quickly seconded by the second. And

indeed, excellentest lady, I must say true, for a time it was well

fought between us; he undoubtedly being of singular valour, I would

God, it were not abased by his too much loftiness: but as, by the

occasion of the combat, winning and losing ground, we changed places,

his horse, happened to come upon the point of the broken spear, which,

fallen to the ground, chanced to stand upward, so as it lightning upon

his heart the horse died. He driven to dismount, threatened, if I did

not the like, to do as much for my horse as fortune had done for his.

But whether for that, or because I would not be beholden to fortune

for any part of the victory, I descended. So began our foot-fight in

such sort, that we were well entered to blood on both sides, when

there comes by that inconstant Pamphilus, whom I had delivered, easy

to be known, for he was bare-faced, with a dozen armed men after him;

but before him he had Dido, that lady, who had most sharply punished

him, riding upon a palfrey, he following her with most unmanlike

cruelty, beating her with wands he had in his hand, she crying for

sense of pain, or hope of succour: which was so pitiful a sight unto

me, that it moved me to require Anaxius to defer our combat till

another day, and now to perform the duties of knighthood in helping

this distressed lady. But he that disdains to obey anything but his

passion, which he calls his mind, bid me leave off that thought; but

when he had killed me, he would then perhaps, go to her succour. But I

well finding the fight would be long between us, longing in my heart

to deliver the poor Dido, giving him so great a blow as somewhat

stayed him, to term it aright, I flatly ran away from him toward my

horse, who trotting after the company in mine armour I was put to some

pain, but that use made me nimble unto it. But as I followed my horse,

Anaxius followed me; but this proud heart did {223} so disdain that

exercise, that I quickly over-ran him, and overtaken my horse, being,

I must confess, ashamed to see a number of country folks, who happened

to pass thereby, who halloed and hooted after me, as at the arrantest

coward that ever showed his shoulders to his enemy. But when I had

leapt on my horse, with such speedy agility that they all cried, ‘O

see how fear gives him wings,’ I turned to Anaxius, and aloud promised

him to return thither again as soon as I had relieved the injured

lady. But he railing at me, with all the base words angry contempt

could indite; I said no more but ‘Anaxius assure thyself, I neither

fear thy force, nor thy opinion;’ and so using no weapon of a knight

at that time but my spurs, I ran in my knowledge after Pamphilus, but

in all their conceits from Anaxius, which as far as I could hear, I

might well hear testified with such laughters and games, that I was

some few times moved to turn back again.

“But the lady’s misery over-balanced my reputation, so that after her

I went, and with six hours’ hard riding, through so wild places, as it

was rather the cunning of my horse sometimes than of myself, so

rightly to hit the way, I overgat them a little before night, near to

an old ill-favoured castle, the place where I perceived they meant to

perform their unknightly errand. For there they began to strip her of

her clothes, when I came in among them, and running through the first

with a lance, the justness of the cause so enabled me against the

rest, false-hearted in their own wrong doing, that I had in as short

time almost as I had been fighting with only Anaxius, delivered her

from those injurious wretches, most of whom carried news to the other

world, that amongst men secret wrongs are not always left unpunished.

As for Pamphilus, he having once seen, and as it should seem,

remembered me, even from the beginning began to be in the rearward,

and before they had left fighting, he was too far off to give them

thanks for their pains. But when I had delivered to the lady a full

liberty, both in effect and in opinion, for some time it was before

she could assure herself she was out of their hands, who had laid so

vehement apprehensions of death upon her, she then told me, how as she

was returning towards her father’s, weakly accompanied, as too soon

trusting to the falsehood of reconcilement, Pamphilus had set upon her

and, killing those that were with her, carried herself by such force,

and with such manner as I had seen, to this place, where he meant in

cruel and shameful manner to kill her, in the sight of her own father,

to whom he had already sent word of it, that out of his castle window,

for this castle, she said, was his, he might have the prospect of his

only child’s destruction in my coming, whom, she said, he feared as

soon as he knew me by the armour, had not warranted her from that near

approaching cruelty. I was glad I had done so good a deed for a {224}

gentlewoman not unhandsome, whom before I had in like sort helped. But

the night beginning to persuade some retiring place, the gentlewoman,

even out of countenance before she began her speech, much after this

manner invited me to lodge that night with her father.

“‘Sir,’ said she, ‘how much I owe you, can be but abased by words,

since the life I have, I hold it now the second time, of you: and

therefore need not offer service unto you, but only to remember you,

that I am your servant: and I would my being so, might any way yield

any small contentment unto you. Now only I can but desire you to

harbour yourself this night in this castle, because the time requires

it, and in truth this country is very dangerous for murdering thieves,

to trust a sleeping life among them. And yet I must confess that as

the love I bear you makes me thus invite you, so the same love makes

me ashamed to bring you to a place where you shall be so, not spoken

by ceremony, but by truth, miserably entertained.’

“With that she told me, that though she spoke of her father, whom she

named Chremes, she would hide no truth from me; which was in sum, that

he was of all that region the man of greatest possessions and riches,

so was he either by nature, or an evil received opinion, given to

sparing in so unmeasurable sort, that he did not only bar himself from

the delightful, but almost from the necessary use thereof, scarcely

allowing himself fit sustenance of life, rather than he would spend of

those goods for whose sake only he seemed to joy in life. Which

extreme dealing, descending from himself upon her, had driven her to

put herself with a great lady of that country, by which occasion she

had stumbled upon such mischances as were little for the honour either

of her, or her family. But so wise had he showed himself therein, as

while he found his daughter maintained without his cost, he was

content to be deaf to any noise of infamy, which though it had wronged

her much more than she deserved, yet she could not deny but she was

driven thereby to receive more than decent favours. She concluded,

that there at least I should be free from injuries, and should be

assured to her-ward to abound as much in the true causes of welcomes,

as I should find wants of the effects thereof.

“I, who had acquainted myself to measure the delicacy of food and rest

by hunger and weariness, at that time well stored of both, did not

abide long entreaty, but went with her to the castle, which I found of

good strength, having a great moat round about it, the work of a noble

gentleman, of whose unthrifty son he had bought it; the bridge drawn

up, where we were fain to cry a good while before we could have

answer, and to dispute a good while before {225} answer would be

brought to acceptance. At length a willingness, rather than a joy to

receive his daughter whom he had lately seen so near death, and an

opinion brought into his head by course, because he heard himself

called father, rather than any kindness that he found in his own

heart, made him take us in; for my part by that time grown so weary of

such entertainment that no regard of myself, but only the importunity

of his daughter, made me enter. Where I was met with this Chremes, a

driveling old fellow, lean, shaking both of head and hands, already

half earth, and yet then most greedy of earth: who scarcely would give

me thanks for what I had done, for fear, I suppose, that thankfulness

might have an introduction of reward; but with a hollow voice, giving

me a false welcome, I might perceive in his eye to his daughter, that

it was hard to say whether the displeasure of her company did not

overweigh the pleasure of her own coming. But on he brought me into so

bare a house, that it was the picture of miserable happiness, and rich

beggary (served only by a company of rustical villains, full of sweat

and dust, not one of them other than a labourer) in sum, as he counted

it, profitable drudgery; and all preparations both for food and

lodging such as would make one detest niggardness, it is so sluttish a

vice. His talk of nothing but of his poverty, for fear, belike, lest I

should have proved a young borrower. In sum, such a man, as any enemy

would not wish him worse than to be himself. But there that night bid

I the burden of being a tedious guest to a loathsome host;

over-hearing him sometimes bitterly warn his daughter of bringing such

costly mates under his roof, which she grieved at, desired much to

know my name, I think partly of kindness, to remember who had done

something for her, and partly, because she assured herself I was such

a one as would make even his miser-mind contented with that he had

done. And accordingly, she demanded my name and estate, with such

earnestness, that I, whom love had not as then so robbed me of myself,

as to be other than I am, told her directly my name and condition:

whereof she was no more glad than her father, as I might well perceive

by some ill-favoured cheerfulness, which then first began to wrinkle

itself in his face.

“But the causes of their joys were far different; for as the shepherd

and the butcher both may look upon one sheep with pleasing conceits,

but the shepherd with mind to profit himself by preserving, the

butcher with killing him, so she rejoiced to find that mine own

benefits had made me to be her friend, who was a prince of such

greatness, and lovingly rejoiced. But his joy grew, as I to my danger

after perceived, by the occasion of the queen Artaxia’s setting my

head to sale for having slain her brother Tiridates, which being the

sum of an hundred thousand crowns, to {226} whosoever brought me alive

into her hands, that old wretch, who had over-lived all good nature,

though he had lying idly by him much more than that, yet above all

things loving money, for money’s own sake, determined to betray me, so

well deserving of him, for to have that which he was determined never

to use. And so knowing that the next morning I was resolved to go to

the place where I had left Anaxius, he sent in all speed to a captain

of a garrison near by, which though it belonged to the king of Iberia,

yet knowing the captain’s humour to delight so in riotous spending,

that he cared not how he came by the means to maintain it, doubted not

that to be half with him in the gain, he would play his quarter part

in the treason. And therefore that night agreeing of the fittest

places where they might surprise me in the morning, the old caitiff

was grown so ceremonious, that he would needs accompany me some miles

in my way, a sufficient token to me, if nature had made me apt to

suspect; since a churl’s courtesy rarely comes, but either for gain or

falsehood. But I suffered him to stumble into that point of good

manners: to which purpose he came out with all his clowns, horsed upon

such cart-jades, and so furnished, as in good faith I thought with

myself, if that were thrift, I wish none of my friends or subjects

ever to thrive. As for his daughter, the gentle Dido, she would also,

but in my conscience with a far better mind, prolong the time of

farewell, as long as he.

“And so we went on together: he so old in wickedness, that he could

look me in the face, and freely talk with me, whose life he had

already contracted for: till coming into the falling of a way which

led us into a place, of each side whereof men might easily keep

themselves undiscovered, I was encompassed suddenly by a great troop

of enemies, both of horse and foot, who willed me to yield myself to

the queen Artaxia. But they could not have used worse eloquence to

have persuaded my yielding than that; I knowing the little goodwill

Artaxia bare me. And therefore making necessity and justice my best

sword and shield, I used the other weapons I had as well as I could; I

am sure to the little ease of a good number, who trusting to their

number more than to their valour, and valuing money higher than

equity, felt that guiltiness is not always with ease oppressed. As for

Chremes, he withdrew himself, so gilding his wicked conceits with his

hope of gain, that he was content to be a beholder how I should be

taken to make his prey.

“But I was grown so weary that I supported myself more with anger than

strength, when the most excellent Musidorus came to my succour, who

having followed my trace as well as he could, after he found I had

left the fight with Anaxius, came to the niggard’s castle, where he

found all burned and spoiled by the {227} country people, who bare

mortal hatred to that covetous man, and now took the time when the

cattle was left almost without guard, to come in and leave monuments

of their malice therein: which Musidorus not staying either to

further, or impeach, came upon the spur after me, because with one

voice many told him, that if I were in his company, it was for no good

meant unto me, and in this extremity found me. But when I saw that

cousin of mine, methought my life was doubled, and where I before

thought of a noble death, I now thought of a noble victory. For who

can fear that hath Musidorus by him? who, what he did there for me,

how many he killed, not stranger for the number than for the strange

blows wherewith he sent them to a well-deserved death, might well

delight me to speak of, but I should so hold you too long in every

particular. But in truth, there if ever, and ever, if ever any man,

did Musidorus show himself second to none in able valour.

“Yet what the unmeasurable excess of their number would have done in

the end, I know not, but the trial thereof was cut off by the

chanceable coming thither of the king of Iberia, that same father of

the worthy Plangus, whom it hath pleased you sometimes to mention,

who, not yielding over to old age his country delights, especially of

hawking, was at that time following a merlin, brought to see this

injury offered unto us, and having great numbers of courtiers waiting

upon him, was straight known by the soldiers that assaulted us, to be

their king, and so most of them withdrew themselves.

“He, by his authority, knowing of the captain’s own constrained

confession, what was the motive of this mischievous practice;

misliking much such violence should be offered in his country to men

of our rank, but chiefly disdaining it should be done in respect of

his niece, whom, I must confess wrongfully, he hated, because he

interpreted that her brother and she had maintained his son Plangus

against him, caused the captain’s head presently to be stricken off,

and the old bad Chremes to be hanged, though truly for my part, I

earnestly laboured for his life, because I had eaten of his bread. But

one thing was notable for a conclusion of his miserable life, that

neither the death of his daughter, who, alas! poor gentlewoman, was by

chance slain among his clowns, while she over-boldly for her weak sex

sought to hold them from me, nor yet his own shameful end was so much

in his mouth as he was led to execution, as the loss of his goods, and

burning of his house which often, with more laughter than tears of the

hearers, he made pitiful exclamations upon.

“This justice thus done, and we delivered, the king indeed, in royal

sort invited us to his court, not far thence: in all point

entertaining us so, as truly I must ever acknowledge a beholdingness

{228} unto him; although the stream of it fell out not to be so sweet

as the spring. For after some days being there, curing ourselves of

such wounds as we had received, while I, causing diligent search to be

made for Anaxius, could learn nothing, but that he was gone out of the

country, boasting in every place how he had made me run away, we were

brought to receive the favour of acquaintance with the Queen

Andromana, whom the princess Pamela did in so lively colours describe

the last day, as still methinks the figure thereof possesseth mine

eyes, confirmed by the knowledge myself had.

“And therefore I shall need the less to make you know what kind of

woman she was; but this only, that first with the reins of affection,

and after with the very use of directing, she had made herself so

absolute a master of her husband’s mind, that a while he would not,

and after, he could not tell how to govern without being governed by

her: but finding an ease in not understanding, let loose his thoughts

wholly to pleasure, entrusting to her the entire conduct of all his

royal affairs. A thing that may luckily fall out to him that hath the

blessing to match with some heroical-minded lady. But in him it was

neither guided by wisdom, nor followed by fortune, but thereby was

slipped insensibly into such an estate that he lived at her indiscreet

discretion: all his subjects having by some years learned so to hope

for good, and fear of harm, only from her, that it should have needed

a stronger virtue than his to have unwound so deeply an entered vice.

So that either not striving, because he was contented, or contented

because he would not strive, he scarcely knew what was done in his own

chamber, but as it pleased her instruments to frame the relation.

“Now we being brought known unto her, the time that we spent in curing

some very dangerous wounds, after once we were acquainted, and

acquainted we were sooner than ourselves expected, she continually

almost haunted us, till, and it was not long a doing, we discovered a

most violent bent of affection, and that so strangely that we might

well see an evil mind in authority doth not only follow the sway of

the desires already within it, but frames to itself new desires, not

before thought of. For, with equal ardour she affected us both; and so

did her greatness disdain shamefacedness that she was content to

acknowledge it to both. For, having many times torn the veil of

modesty, it seemed, for a last delight, that she delighted in infamy,

which often she had used to her husband’s shame, filling all men’s

ears, but his, with his reproach; while he, hoodwinked with kindness,

least of all men knew who struck him. But her first decree was, by

setting forth her beauties, truly in nature not to be misliked, but as

much advanced to the eye as abased to the judgment by art, thereby to

{229} bring us, as willingly caught fishes, to bite at her bait. And

thereto had she that scutcheon of her desires supported by certain

badly diligent ministers, who often cloyed our ears with her praises,

and would needs teach us a way of felicity by seeking her favour. But

when she found that we were as deaf to them as dumb to her, then she

listed no longer stay in the suburbs of her foolish desires, but

directly entered upon them, making herself an impudent suitor,

authorizing herself very much with making us see that all favour and

power in that realm so depended upon her, as now, being in her hands,

we were either to keep or lose our liberty at her discretion; which

yet awhile she so tempered, as that we might rather suspect than she

threaten. But when our wounds grew so as that they gave us leave to

travel, and that she found we were purposed to use all means we could

to depart thence, she, with more and more importunateness, craved,

which in all good manners was either of us to be desired, or not

granted. Truly, most fair and every way excellent lady, you would have

wondered to have seen how before us she would confess the contention

in her own mind between that lovely, indeed most lovely brownness of

Musidorus’s face, and this colour of mine, which she, in the

deceivable style of affection would entitle beautiful: but her eyes

wandered like a glutton at a feast, from the one to the other; and how

her words would begin half of the sentence to Musidorus, and end the

other half to Pyrocles, not ashamed, seeing the friendship between us,

to desire either of us to be a mediator to the other, as if we should

have played one request at tennis between us: and often wishing that

she might be the angle where the lines of our friendship might meet,

and be the knot which might tie our hearts together. Which proceeding

of hers I do the more largely set before you, most dear lady, because

by the foil thereof, you may see the nobleness of my desire to you and

the warrantableness of your favour to me.”

At that Philoclea smiled with a little nod. “But,” said Pyrocles,

“when she perceived no hope by suit to prevail, then, persuaded by the

rage of affection, and encouraged by daring to do anything, she found

means to have us accused to the King, as though we went about some

practice to overthrow him in his own state, which, because of the

strange successes we had had in the kingdoms of Phrygia, Pontus and

Galatia, seemed not unlikely to him, who, but skimming anything that

came before him, was disciplined to leave the thorough-handling of all

to his gentle wife, who forthwith caused us to be put in prison,

having, while we slept, deprived us of our arms: a prison, indeed

injurious, because a prison, but else well testifying affection,

because in all respects as commodious as a prison might be: and indeed

so placed, as she might at all hours, {230} not seen by many, though

she cared not much how many had seen her, come unto us. Then fell she

to sauce her desires with threatenings, so that we were in a great

perplexity, restrained to so unworthy a bondage, and yet restrained by

love, which I cannot tell how, in noble minds, by a certain duty,

claims an answering. And how much that love might move us, so much,

and more that faultiness of her mind removed us; her beauty being

balanced by her shamelessness. But that which did, as it were, tie us

in a captivity, was, that to grant had been wickedly injurious to him

that had saved our lives; and to accuse a lady that loved us, of her

love unto us, we esteemed almost as dishonourable: and but by one of

those ways we saw no likelihood of going out of that place, where the

words would be injurious to your ears, which would express the manner

of her suit: while yet many times earnestness dyed her cheeks with the

colour of shamefacedness, and wanton languishing borrowed of her eyes

the down-cast look of modesty. But we in the meantime far from loving

her, and often assuring her that we would not so recompense her

husband’s saving of our lives; to such a ridiculous degree of trusting

her, she had brought him, that she caused him to send us word, that

upon our lives we should do whatsoever she commanded us: good man not

knowing any other but that all her pleasures were directed to the

preservation of his estate. But when that made us rather pity than

obey his folly, then fell she to servile entreating us, as though

force could have been the school of love, or that an honest courage

would not rather strive against, than yield to injury. All which yet

could not make us accuse her, though it made us almost pine away for

spite to lose any of our time in so troublesome an idleness.

“But while we were thus full of weariness of what was past, and doubt

of what was to follow, love, that I think in the course of my life

hath a sport sometimes to poison me with roses, sometimes to heal me

with wormwood, brought forth a remedy unto us: which though it helped

me out of that distress, alas, the conclusion was such that I must

ever while I live think it worse than a wreck so to have been

preserved. This king by his queen had a son of tender age, but of

great expectation, brought up in the hope of themselves, and already

acceptation of the inconstant people, as successor of his father’s

crown, whereof he was as worthy, considering his parts, as unworthy in

respect of the wrong was thereby done against the most noble Plangus,

whose great deserts now either forgotten, or ungratefully remembered;

all men set their sails with the favourable wind, which blew on the

fortune of this young prince, perchance not in their hearts, but

surely in their mouths, now giving Plangus, {231} who some years

before was their only champion, the poor comfort of calamity, pity.

This youth therefore accounted prince of that region, by name

Palladius, did with vehement affection love a young lady brought up in

his father’s court, called Zelmane, daughter to that mischievously

unhappy prince Plexirtus, of whom already I have, and sometimes must

make, but never honourable mention, left there by her father, because

of the intricate changeableness of his estate, he, by the mother’s

side, being half brother to this queen Andromana, and therefore the

willinger committing her to her care. But as love, alas! doth not

always reflect itself, so fell it out that this Zelmane, though truly

reason there was enough to love Palladius, yet could not ever persuade

her heart to yield thereunto: with that pain to Palladius, as they

feel that feel an unloved love. Yet loving indeed, and therefore

constant, he used still the intercession of diligence and faith, ever

hoping, because he would not put himself into that hell to be

hopeless: until the time of our being come, and captived there,

brought forth this end, which truly deserves of me a further degree of

sorrow than tears.

“Such was therein my ill destiny, that this young lady Zelmane, like

some unwisely liberal, that more delight to give presents than pay

debts, she chose, alas more the pity, rather to bestow her love, so

much undeserved as not desired, upon me, than to recompense him, whose

love, besides many other things, might seem, even in the court of

honour, justly to claim it of her. But so it was; alas that so it was!

whereby it came to pass, that as nothing doth more naturally follow

this cause than care to preserve, and benefit doth follow unfeigned

affection, she felt with me what I felt of my captivity, and straight

laboured to redress my pain, which was her pain; which she could do by

no better means than by using the help therein of Palladius, who, true

lover considering what, and not why, in all her commandments; and

indeed she concealing from him her affection, which she entitled,

compassion, immediately obeyed to employ his uttermost credit to

relieve us; which though as great as a beloved son with a mother,

faulty otherwise, but not hard-hearted toward him, yet it could not

prevail to procure us liberty. Wherefore he sought to have that by

practice which he could not by prayer. And so being allowed often to

visit us, for indeed our restraints were more or less, according as

the ague of her passion was either in the fit or intermission, he used

the opportunity of a fit time thus to deliver us.

“The time of the marrying that queen was, every year, by the extreme

love of her husband, and the serviceable love of the courtiers, made

notable by some public honours, which did, as it were, proclaim to the

world, how dear she was to that people. {232} Among other, none was

either more grateful to the beholders, or more noble in itself, than

jousts, both with sword and lance, maintained for seven nights

together; wherein that nation doth so excel, both for comeliness and

ableness, that from neighbour-countries they ordinarily come, some to

strive, some to learn, some to behold.

“This day it happened that divers famous knights came thither from the

court of Helen Queen of Corinth; a lady whom fame at that time was so

desirous to honour that she borrowed all men’s mouths to join with the

sound of her trumpet. For as her beauty hath won the prize from all

women that stand in degree of comparison, for as for the two sisters

of Arcadia, they are far beyond all conceit of comparison, so hath her

government been such as hath been no less beautiful to men’s judgments

than her beauty to the eyesight. For being brought by right of birth,

a woman, a young woman, a fair woman, to govern a people in nature

mutinously proud, and always before so used to hard governors, that

they knew not how to obey without the sword were drawn, could she for

some years so carry herself among them, that they found cause in the

delicacy of her sex, of admiration, not of contempt: and which was not

able, even in the time that many countries about her were full of

wars, which for old grudges to Corinth were thought still would

conclude there, yet so handled she the matter, that the threatened

ever smarted in the threateners; she using so strange, and yet so well

succeeding a temper that she made her people by peace warlike; her

courtiers by sports, learned; her ladies by love, chaste. For by

continual martial exercises without blood, she made them perfect in

that bloody art. Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge

upon the stream of delight: and such the behaviour both of herself and

her ladies, as builded their chastity not upon waywardness, but choice

of worthiness: so as it seemed that court to have been the

marriage-place of love and virtue, and that herself was a Diana

apparelled in the garments of Venus. And this which fame only

delivered unto me, for yet I have never seen her, I am the willinger

to speak of to you, who, I know, know her better, being your near

neighbour, because you may see by her example, in herself wise, and of

others beloved, that neither folly is the cause of vehement love, nor

reproach the effect. For never, I think, was there any woman that with

more unremovable determination gave herself to the counsel of love,

after she had once set before her mind the worthiness of your cousin

Amphialus, and yet is neither her wisdom doubted of, nor honour

blemished. For, O God, what doth better become wisdom, than to discern

what is worthy the loving? what more agreeable to goodness, than to

love it so {233} discerned? and what to greatness of heart, than to be

constant in it once loved? but at that time that love of hers was not

so publicly known as the death of Philoxenus, and her search of

Amphialus hath made it: but then seemed to have such leisure to send

thither divers choice knights of her court, because they might bring

her, at least the knowledge, perchance the honour of that triumph.

Wherein so they behaved themselves, that for three days they carried

the prize; which being come from so far a place to disgrace her

servants, Palladius, who himself had never used arms, persuaded the

queen Andromana to be content for the honour sake of her court, to

suffer us two to have our horse and armour, that he with us might

undertake the recovery of their lost honour; which she granted, taking

our oath to go no further than her son, nor ever to abandon him. Which

she did not more for saving him, than keeping us: and yet not

satisfied with our oath, appointed a band of horsemen to have an eye

that we should not go beyond appointed limits. We were willing to

gratify the young prince, who, we saw, loved us. And so the fourth day

of that exercise we came into the field: where, I remember, the manner

was, that the forenoon they should run a tilt, one after the other;

the afternoon in a broad field in manner of a battle, till either the

strangers, or that country knights won the field.

“The first that ran was a brave knight, whose device was to come in

all chained, with a nymph leading him. Against him came forth an

Iberian, whose manner of entering was with bagpipes instead of

trumpets; a shepherd’s boy before him for a page, and by him a dozen

apparelled like shepherds for the fashion, though rich in stuff, who

carried his lances, which though strong to give a lancely blow indeed,

yet so were they coloured with hooks near the mourn, that they

prettily represented sheephooks. His own furniture was dressed over

with wool, so enriched with jewels artificially placed, that one would

have thought it a marriage between the lowest and the highest. His

impresa was a sheep marked with pitch, with those words, ‘Spotted to

be known.’ And because I may tell you out his conceit, though that

were not done, till the running of that time was ended, before the

ladies’ departure from the windows, among whom there was one, they

say, that was the Star whereby his course was only directed, the

shepherds attending upon Philisides went among them, and sang an

eclogue; one of them answering another, while the other shepherds

pulling out recorders, which possessed the place of pipes, accorded

their music to the others’ voice. The eclogue had great praise: I only

remember six verses, while having questioned one with the other of

their fellow-shepherd’s sudden growing a man of arms, and the cause of

his doing, they thus said:

{234}

Me thought some staves he miss’d: if so, not much amiss;

For where he most would hit, he ever yet did miss.

One said he broke a cross; full well it so might be:

For never was there man more crossly crossed than he.

But most cried, ‘O well broke’; O fool full gaily blest:

Where failing is a shame, and breaking is his best.

“Thus I have digressed, because his manner liked me well, but when he

began to run against Lelius, it had near grown, though great love had

ever been betwixt them, to a quarrel. For Philisides breaking his

staves with great commendation, Lelius, who was known to be second to

none in the perfection of that art, ran ever over his head, but so

finely to the skilful eyes, that one might well see he showed more

knowledge in missing, than others did in hitting. For if so gallant a

grace his staff came swimming close over the crest of the helmet, as

if he would represent the kiss, and not the stroke of Mars. But

Philisides was much moved with it, while he thought Lelius would show

a contempt of his youth: till Lelius, who therefore would satisfy him,

because he was his friend, made him know that to such bondage he was

for so many courses tied by her, whose disgraces to him were graced by

her excellency, and whose injuries he could never otherwise return,

than honours.

“But so by Lelius’s willing missing was the odds of the Iberian side,

and continued so in the next by the excellent running of a knight,

though fostered so by the Muses, as many times the very rustic people

left both their delights and profits to hearken to his songs, yet

could he so well perform all armed sports, as if he had never had any

other pen than a lance in his hand. He came in like a wild man, but

such a wildness as showed his eyesight had tamed him, full of withered

leaves, which though they fell not, still threatened falling. His

impresa was a mill-horse still bound to go in one circle; with those

words, ‘Data fata secutus.’ But after him the Corinthian knights

absolutely prevailed, especially a great nobleman of Corinth, whose

device was to come without any device, all in white like a new knight,

as indeed he was, but so new, as his newness shamed most of the

others’ long exercise. Then another, from whose tent I remember a bird

was made fly, with such art to carry a written embassage among the

ladies, that one might say, if a live bird, how so taught? if a dead

bird, how so made? then he, who hidden, man and horse in a great

figure lively representing the Phoenix, the fire took so artificially

as it consumed the bird, and left him to rise as it were, out of the

ashes thereof. Against whom was the fine frozen knight, frozen in

despair; but his armour so naturally representing ice, and all his

{235} furniture so lively answering thereto, as yet did I never see

anything that pleased me better.

“But the delight at those pleasing sights have carried me too far into

an unnecessary discourse. Let it then suffice, most excellent lady!

that you know, the Corinthians that morning in the exercise, as they

had done the days before, had the better; Palladius neither suffering

us nor himself, to take in hand the party till the afternoon, when we

were to fight in troops, not differing otherwise from earnest, but

that the sharpness of the weapons was taken away. But in the trial,

Palladius, especially led by Musidorus, and somewhat aided by me,

himself truly behaving himself nothing like a beginner, brought the

honour to rest itself that night on the Iberian side, and the next

day, both morning and afternoon being kept by our party. He, that saw

the time fit for the delivery he intended, called unto us to follow

him, which we both bound by oath, and willing by goodwill, obeyed, and

so the guard not daring to interrupt us, he commanding passage, we

went after him upon the spur, to a little house in a forest near by;

which he thought would be the fittest resting place, till we might go

further from his mother’s fury, whereat he was no less angry and

ashamed, than desirous to obey Zelmane.

“But his mother, as I learned since, understanding by the guard her

son’s conveying us away, forgetting her greatness, and resigning

modesty to more quiet thoughts, flew out from her place, and cried to

be accompanied, for she herself would follow us. But what she did,

being rather with vehemency of passion that conduct of reason, made

her stumble while she ran, and by her own confusion hinder her own

desires. For so impatiently she commanded, as a good while nobody knew

what she commanded, so as we had gotten so far the start, as to be

already past the confines of her kingdom before she overtook us: and

overtake us she did in the kingdom of Bithynia, not regarding shame,

or danger of having entered into another’s dominions, but, having with

her about threescore horsemen, straight commanded to take us alive,

and not to regard her son’s threatening therein, which they attempted

to do, first by speech, and then by force. But neither liking their

eloquence, nor fearing their might, we esteemed few words in a just

defence, able to resist many unjust assaulters. And so Musidorus’s

incredible valour, beating down all lets, made both me, and Palladius,

so good way, that we had little to do to overcome weak wrong.

“And now had we the victory in effect without blood, when Palladius,

heated with the fight, and angry with his mother’s fault, so pursued

our assailers, that one of them, who as I heard since, had before our

coming been a special minion of Andromana’s, and {236} hated us for

having dispossessed him of her heart, taking him to be one of us, with

a traitorous blow slew his young prince, who falling down before our

eyes, whom he especially had delivered; judge, sweetest lady, whether

anger might not be called justice in such a case: once, so it wrought

in us, that many of his subjects’ bodies we left there dead, to wait

on him more faithfully to the other world.

“All this while disdain, strengthened by the fury of a furious love,

made Andromana stay to the last of the combat; and when she saw us

light down to see what help we might do to the helpless Palladius, she

came running madly unto us, then no less threatening, when she had no

more power to hurt. But when she perceived it was her only son that

lay hurt, and that his hurt was so deadly, as that already his life

had lost the use of reasonable, and almost sensible part, then only

did misfortune lay his own ugliness upon her fault, and make her see

what she had done, and to what she was come; especially finding in us

rather detestation than pity, considering the loss of that young

prince, and resolution presently to depart, which still she laboured

to stay. But deprived of all comfort, with eyes full of death, she ran

to her son’s dagger, and before we were aware of it, who else would

have stayed it, struck herself a mortal wound. But then her love,

though not her person, awaked pity in us, and I went to her, while

Musidorus laboured about Palladius. But the wound was past the cure of

a better surgeon than myself, so as I could but receive some few of

her dying words, which were cursings of her ill-set affection, and

wishing unto me many crosses and mischances in my love, whensoever I

should love, wherein I fear, and only fear that her prayer is from

above granted. But the noise of this fight, and issue thereof being

blazed by the country people to some noblemen thereabouts; they came

thither, and finding the wrong offered us, let us go on our journey,

we having recommended those royal bodies unto them to be conveyed to

the king of Iberia.”

With that Philoclea seeing the tears stand in his eyes with

remembrance of Palladius, but much more of that which thereupon grew,

she would needs drink a kiss from those eyes, and he suck another from

her lips; whereat she blushed, and yet kissed him again to hide her

blushing, which had almost brought Pyrocles into another discourse,

but that she with so sweet a rigour forbade him, that he durst not

rebel, though he found it a great war to keep that peace, but was fain

to go on in his story; but so she absolutely bade him, and he durst

not know how to disobey.

“So,” said he, “parting from that place before the sun had much abased

himself of his greatest height, we saw sitting upon the dry sands,

which yielded, at that time, a very hot reflection, a fair {237}

gentlewoman, whose gesture accused her of much sorrow, and every way

showed she cared not what pain she put her body to, since the better

part, her mind, was laid under so much agony: and so was she dulled,

withal, that we could come so near as to hear her speeches, and yet

she not perceive the hearers of her lamentation. But well we might

understand her at times say, ‘Thou doest kill me with thy unkind

falsehood: and it grieves me not to die, but it grieves me that thou

art the murderer: neither doth mine own pain so much vex me, as thy

error. For God knows, it would not trouble me to be slain for thee,

but much it torments me to be slain by thee; thou art untrue,

Pamphilus, thou art untrue, and woe is me therefore. How oft did’st

thou swear unto me that the sun should lose his light, and the rocks

run up and down like little kids, before thou would’st falsify thy

faith to me? sun therefore put out thy shining, and rocks run mad for

sorrow; for Pamphilus is false. But alas! the sun keeps his light,

though thy faith be darkened; the rocks stand still, though thou

change like a weather-cock. O fool that I am, that thought I could

grasp water, and bind the wind. I might well have known thee by

others, but I would not; and rather wished to learn poison by drinking

it myself, while my love helped thy words to deceive me. Well, yet I

would thou had’st made a better choice when though did’st forsake thy

unfortunate Leucippe. But it is no matter, Baccha, thy new mistress,

will revenge my wrongs. But do not Baccha, let Pamphilus live happy,

though I die.’

“And much more to such like phrase she spoke, but that I, who had

occasion to know something of that Pamphilus, stepped to comfort her:

and though I could not do that, yet I got thus much knowledge of her,

that this being the same Leucippe, to whom the unconstant Pamphilus

had betrothed himself, which had moved the other ladies to such

indignation as I told you: neither her worthiness, which in truth was

great, nor his own suffering for her, which is wont to endear

affection, could fetter his fickleness, but that before his marriage

day appointed, he had taken to wife that Baccha, of whom she

complained, one that in divers places I had heard before placed, as

the most impudently unchaste woman of all Asia, and withal of such an

imperiousness therein, that she would not stick to employ them whom

she made unhappy with her favour, to draw more companions of their

folly: in the multitude of whom she did no less glory, than a captain

would do of being followed by brave soldiers: waywardly proud; and

therefore bold, because extremely faulty: and yet having no good thing

to redeem both these, and other unlovely parts, but a little beauty,

disgraced with wandering eyes, and unweighed speeches, yet had

Pamphilus, for her, left Leucippe, and withal, {238} left his faith;

Leucippe, of whom one look, in a clear judgment, would have been more

acceptable than all her kindnesses so prodigally bestowed. For myself,

the remembrance of his cruel handling Dido, joined to this, stirred me

to seek some revenge upon him, but that I thought it should be again

for him to lose his life, being so matched: and therefore, leaving him

to be punished by his own election, we conveyed Leucippe to a house

thereby, dedicated to Vestal nuns, where she resolved to spend all her

years, which her youth promised should be many, in bewailing the

wrong, and yet praying for the wrong-doer.

“But the next morning, we, having striven with the sun’s earliness,

were scarcely beyond the prospect of the high turrets of that

building, when there overtook us a young gentleman, for so he seemed

to us: but indeed, sweet lady, it was the fair Zelmane, Plexirtus’s

daughter, whom unconsulting affection, unfortunately born to me-wards,

had made borrow so much of her natural modesty, as to leave her more

decent raiments, and taking occasion of Andromana’s tumultuous

pursuing us, had apparelled herself like a page, with a pitiful

cruelty cutting off her golden hair, leaving nothing, but the short

curls, to cover that noble head, but that she wore upon it a fair

headpiece, a shield at her back, and a lance in her hand, else

disarmed. Her apparel of white, wrought upon with broken knots, her

horse, fair and lusty; which she rid so, as might show a fearful

boldness, daring to do that which she knew that she knew not how to

do: and the sweetness of her countenance did give such a grace to what

she did that it did make handsome the unhandsomeness, and make the eye

force the mind to believe that there was a praise in that

unskilfulness. But she straight approached me, and with few words,

which borrowed the help of her countenance to make themselves

understood, she desired me to accept her into my service, telling me

she was a nobleman’s son of Iberia, her name Diaphantus, who having

seen what I had done in that court, had stolen from her father, to

follow me. I enquired the particularities of the manner of Andromana’s

following me, which by her I understood, she hiding nothing but her

sex from me. And still methought I had seen that face, but the great

alteration of her fortune, made her far distant from my memory: but

liking very well the young gentleman, such I took her to be, admitted

this Diaphantus about me, who well showed there is no service like

his, that serves because he loves. For though born of princes’ blood,

brought up with tenderest education, unapt to service, because a

woman, and full of thoughts, because in a strange estate, yet love

enjoined such diligence, that no apprentice, no, no bondslave could

ever be by fear more ready at all commandments than that young {239}

princess was. How often, alas! did her eyes say unto me that they

loved? and yet, I not looking for such a matter, had not my conceit

open to understand them: how often would she come creeping to me,

between gladness to be near me, and fear to offend me? truly I

remember, that then I marvelled to see her receive my commandments

with sighs, and yet do them with cheerfulness: sometimes answering me

in such riddles, as then I thought a childish inexperience, but since

returning to my remembrance they have come more clear unto my

knowledge: and pardon me, only dear lady, that I use many words, for

her affection to me, deserves of me an affectionate speech.

“But in such sort did she serve me in that kingdom of Bithynia, for

two months space: in which time we brought to good end a cruel war

long maintained between the king of Bithynia and his brother. For my

excellent cousin, and I, dividing ourselves to either side, found

means, after some trial we had made of ourselves, to get such credit

with them, as we brought them to as great peace between themselves as

love toward us for having made the peace. Which done, we intended to

return through the kingdom of Galatia, called Thrace, to ease the care

of our father and mother, who, we were sure, first with the shipwreck,

and then with the other dangers we daily passed, should have little

rest in their thoughts till they saw us. But we were not entered into

that kingdom, when by the noise of a great fight we were guided to a

pleasant valley, which like one of those circuses, which in great

cities somewhere doth give a pleasant spectacle of running horses, so

of either side, stretching itself in a narrow length, was it hemmed in

by woody hills, as if indeed nature had meant therein to make a place

for beholders. And there we beheld one of the cruellest fights between

two knights that ever hath adorned the most martial story. So as I

must confess, a while we stood bewondered, another while delighted

with the rare beauty thereof; till seeing such streams of blood, as

threatened a drowning of life, we galloped toward them to part them.

But we were prevented by a dozen armed knights, or rather villains,

who using this time of their extreme feebleness, altogether set upon

them. But common danger broke off particular discord, so that, though

with a dying weakness, with a lively courage they resisted, and by our

help drove away, or slew those murdering attemptors: among whom we

happened to take alive the principal. But going to disarm those two

excellent knights, we found, with no less wonder to us than

astonishment to themselves, that they were the two valiant, and indeed

famous brothers, Tydeus and Telenor, whose adventure, as afterward we

made that ungracious wretch confess, had thus fallen out.

{240}

“After the noble prince Leonatus had by his father’s death, succeeded

in the kingdom of Galatia, he forgetting all former injuries, had

received that naughty Plexirtus into a strange degree of favour, his

goodness being as apt to be deceived, as the other’s craft was to

deceive; till by plain proof, finding that the ungrateful man went

about to poison him, yet would he not suffer his kindness to be

overcome, not by justice itself; but calling him to him, used words to

this purpose; ‘Plexirtus,’ said he, ‘this wickedness is found by thee;

no good deeds of mine have been able to keep it down in thee: all men

counsel me to take away thy life, likely to bring forth nothing but as

dangerous as wicked effects; but I cannot find it in my heart,

remembering what father’s son thou art: but since it is the violence

of ambition which perchance pulls thee from thine own judgment, I will

see whether the satisfying that, may quiet the ill-working of thy

spirits. Not far hence is the great city of Trebizond; which, with the

territory about it, anciently pertained unto this crown; now unjustly

possessed, and as unjustly abused by those who have neither title to

hold it, nor virtue to rule it. To the conquest of that for thyself I

will lend thee force, and give thee my right: go therefore, and, with

less unnaturalness glut thy ambition there; and that done, if it be

possible, learn virtue.’

“Plexirtus, mingling foresworn excuses with false-meant promises,

gladly embraced the offer: and hastily sending back for those two

brothers, who at that time were with us succouring the gracious queen

Erona, by their virtue chiefly, if not only, obtained the conquest of

that goodly dominion. Which indeed, done by them, gave them such an

authority, that though he reigned, they in effect ruled, most men

honouring them because they only deserved honour, and many thinking

therein to please Plexirtus, considering how much he was bound unto

them: while they likewise, with a certain sincere boldness of

self-warranting friendship, accepted all openly and plainly, thinking

nothing should ever by Plexirtus be thought too much in them, since

all they were was his.

“But he, who by the rules of his own mind, could construe no other end

of men’s doings but self-seeking, suddenly feared what they could do,

and as suddenly suspected what they would do, and as suddenly hated

them, as having both might and mind to do. But dreading their power,

standing so strongly in their own valour, and others’ affection, he

durst not take open way against them, and as hard it was to take a

secret, they being so continually followed by the best, and every way

ablest of that region: and therefore used this devilish slight which I

will tell you, not doubting, most wicked man, to turn their own

friendship toward him to {241} their own destruction. He, knowing that

they well knew there was no friendship between him and the new king of

Pontus, never since he succoured Leonatus, and us, to his overthrow,

gave them to understand, that of late there had passed secret defiance

between them, to meet privately at a place appointed. Which though not

so fit a thing for men of their greatness, yet was his honour so

engaged, as he could not go back. Yet feigning to find himself weak,

by some counterfeit infirmity, the day drawing near, he requested each

of them to go in his stead, making either of them swear to keep the

matter secret, even each from other, delivering the self-same

particularities to both; but that he told Tydeus, the king would meet

him in a blue armour; and Telenor that it was a black armour: and with

wicked subtlety, as if it had been so appointed, caused Tydeus to take

a black armour, and Telenor a blue; appointing them ways how to go, so

that he knew they should not meet till they came to the place

appointed, where each promised to keep silence, lest the king should

discover it was not Plexirtus; and there in a wait had he laid those

murderers, that who overlived the other should by them be dispatched:

he not daring trust no more than those with that enterprise, and yet

thinking them too few till themselves, by themselves, were weakened.

“This we learned chiefly by the chief of those way-beaters, after the

death of those two worthy brothers, whose love was no less than their

valour: but well we might find much thereof by their pitiful

lamentation, when they knew their mismeeting, and saw each other, in

despite of the surgery we could do unto them, striving who should run

fastest to the goal of death: each bewailing the other, and more dying

in the other, than in himself; cursing their own hands for doing, and

their breasts for not sooner suffering; detesting their

unfortunately-spent time in having served so ungrateful a tyrant, and

accusing their folly in having believed he could faithfully love, who

did not love faithfulness; wishing us to take heed how we placed our

goodwill upon any other ground than proof of virtue: since length of

acquaintance, mutual secrecies, nor heat of benefits could bind a

savage heart; no man being good to other, that is not good in himself.

Then, while any hope was, beseeching us to leave the care of him that

besought, and only look to the other. But when they found by

themselves, and us, no possibility, they desired to be joined; and so

embracing and craving that pardon each of other which they denied to

themselves, they gave us a most sorrowful spectacle of their death;

leaving few in the world behind them, their matches in anything, if

they had soon enough known the ground and limits of friendship. But

with woeful hearts we caused those bodies to {242} be conveyed to the

next town of Bithynia, where we learning thus much, as I have told

you, caused the wicked historian to conclude his story with his own

well-deserved death.

“But then, I must tell you, I found such woeful countenances in

Daiphantus, that I could not much marvel, finding them continue beyond

the first assault of pity, how the case of strangers, for further I

did not conceive, could so deeply pierce. But the truth indeed is,

that partly with the shame and sorrow she took of her father’s

faultiness, partly with the fear that the hate I conceived against

him, would utterly disgrace her in my opinion, whensoever I should

know her, so vehemently perplexed her, that her fair colour decayed,

and daily and hastily grew into the very extreme working of

sorrowfulness, which oft I sought to learn, and help. But she as

fearful as loving, still concealed it: and so decaying still more and

more in the excellency of her fairness, but that whatsoever weakness

took away, pity seemed to add: yet still she forced herself to wait on

me with such care and diligence, as might well show had been taught in

no other school but love.

“While we, returning again to embark ourselves for Greece, understood

that the mighty Otanes, brother to Barzanes, slain by Musidorus in the

battle of the six princes, had entered upon the kingdom of Pontus,

partly upon the pretences he had to the crown, but principally,

because he would revenge upon him whom he knew we loved, the loss of

his brother, thinking, as indeed he had cause, that wheresoever we

were, hearing of his extremity, we would come to relieve him; in spite

whereof he doubted not to prevail, not only upon the confidence of his

own virtue and power, but especially because he had in his company two

mighty giants, sons to a couple whom we slew in the same realm; they

having been absent at their father’s death, and now returned,

willingly entered into his service, hating more than he, both us and

that king of Pontus. We therefore with all speed went thitherward, but

by the way this fell out, which whensoever I remember without sorrow,

I must forget withal, all humanity.

“Poor Diaphantus fell extreme sick, yet would needs conquer the

delicacy of her constitution, and force herself to wait on me: till

one day going toward Pontus, we met one who in great haste went

seeking for Tydeus and Telenor, whose death as yet was not known unto

the messenger; who, being their servant, and knowing how dearly they

loved Plexirtus, brought them word, how since their departing,

Plexirtus was in present danger of a cruel death, if by the

valiantness of one of the best knights of the world, he were not

rescued: we enquired no further of the matter, being glad he should

now to his loss find what an unprofitable treason it had been unto

him, to dismember himself of two such friends, {243} and so let the

messenger part, not sticking to make him know his master’s destruction

by the falsehood of Plexirtus.

“But the grief of that, finding a body already brought to the last

degree of weakness, so overwhelmed the little remnant of the spirits

left in Daiphantus, that she fell suddenly into deadly swoonings;

never coming to herself, but that withal she returned to make most

pitiful lamentations; most strange unto us, because we were far from

guessing the ground thereof. But finding her sickness such as began to

print death in her eyes, we made all haste possible to convey her to

the next town: but before we could lay her on a bed, both we, and she

might find in herself, that the harbingers of over-hasty death had

prepared his lodging in that dainty body, which she undoubtedly

feeling, with a weak cheerfulness showed comfort therein, and then

desiring us both to come near her, and that nobody else might be

present; with pale, and yet, even in paleness, lovely lips: ‘Now or

never, and never indeed but now it is time for me,’ said she, ‘to

speak: and I thank death which gives me leave to discover that, the

suppressing whereof perchance hath been the sharpest spur that hath

hasted my race to this end. Know then my lords, and especially you my

lord and master Pyrocles, that your page Daiphantus is the unfortunate

Zelmane, who for your sake caused my, as unfortunate, lover and cousin

Palladius, to leave his father’s court, and consequently, both him and

my aunt, his mother, to lose their lives. For your sake myself have

become, of a princess, a page, and for your sake have put off the

apparel of a woman, and, if you judge not more mercifully, the

modesty.’ We were amazed at her speech, and then had, as it were, new

eyes given us to perceive that which before had been a present

stranger to our minds: for indeed forthwith we knew it to be the face

of Zelmane, whom before we had known in the court of Iberia. And

sorrow and pity laying her pain upon me, I comforted her the best I

could by the tenderness of goodwill, pretending indeed better hope

than I had of her recovery.

“But she that had inward ambassadors from the tyrant that shortly

would oppress her: ‘No, my dear master,’ said she, ‘I neither hope nor

desire to live. I know you would never have loved me,’ and with that

word she wept, ‘nor, alas! had it been reason you should, considering

many ways my unworthiness. It sufficeth me that the strange course I

have taken, shall to your remembrance witness my love; and yet this

breaking of my heart, before I would discover my pain will make you, I

hope, think that I was not altogether unmodest. Think of me so, dear

master, and that thought shall be my life;’ and with that

languishingly looking upon me; ‘and I pray you,’ said she, ‘even by

those dying eyes of {244} mine, which are only sorry to die because

they shall lose your sight, and by those polled locks of mine which,

while they were long, were the ornament of my sex, now in their short

curls, the testimony of my servitude, and by the service I have done

you, which God knows hath been full of love, think of me after my

death with kindness, though you cannot with love. And whensoever ye

shall make any other lady happy with your well-placed affection, if

you tell her my folly, I pray you speak of it, not with scorn, but

with pity.’ I assure you, dear princess, of my life (for how could it

be otherwise) her words and her manner, with the lively consideration

of her love, so pierced me, that though I had divers griefs before,

yet methought I never felt till then how much sorrow infeebleth all

resolution: for I could not choose but yield to the weakness of

abundant weeping; in truth with such grief, that I could willingly at

that time have changed lives with her.

“But when she saw my tears, ‘O God,’ said she, ‘how largely am I

recompensed for my losses? why then,’ said she, ‘I may take boldness

to make some requests unto you.’ I besought her to do, vowing the

performance, though my life were the price thereof. She showed great

joy. ‘The first,’ said she, ‘is this, that you will pardon my father

the displeasure you have justly received against him, and for this

once succour him out of the danger wherein he is: I hope he will

amend: and I pray you, whensoever you remember him to be the faulty

Plexirtus, remember withal that he is Zelmane’s father. The second is,

that when you come once into Greece, you will take unto yourself this

name, though unlucky, of Daiphantus, and vouchsafe to be called by it:

for so shall I be sure you shall have cause to remember me, and let it

please your noble cousin to be called Palladius, that I may do that

right to that poor prince, that his name yet may live upon the earth

in so excellent a person: and so between you, I trust sometimes your

unlucky page shall be, perhaps with a sigh, mentioned; lastly, let me

be buried here obscurely, not suffering my friends to know my fortune

(till, when you are safely returned to your own country) you cause my

bones to be conveyed thither, and, laid I beseech you, in some place

where yourself vouchsafe sometimes to resort.’ Alas! small petitions

for such a suitor; which yet she so earnestly craved that I was fain

to swear the accomplishment. And then kissing me, and often desiring

me not to condemn her of lightness, in mine arms, she delivered her

pure soul to the purest place, leaving me as full of agony as

kindness, pity, and sorrow could make an honest heart. For I must

confess for true, that if my stars had not only reserved me for you,

there else perhaps I might have loved, and, which had been most

strange, begun my love after death: whereof let it be the less marvel,

because somewhat {245} she did resemble you, though as far short of

your perfection as herself dying, was of herself flourishing: yet

something there was, which, when I saw a picture of yours, brought

again her figure into my remembrance, and made my heart as apt to

receive the wound, as the power of your beauty with unresistable force

to pierce.

“But we in woeful, and yet private, manner burying her, performed her

commandment: and then enquiring of her father’s estate, certainly

learned that he was presently to be succoured, or by death to pass the

need of succour. Therefore we determined to divide ourselves; I,

according to my vow, to help him, and Musidorus toward the king of

Pontus, who stood in no less need than immediate succour: and even

ready to depart one from the other, there came a messenger from him,

who after some enquiry found us, giving us to understand that he,

trusting upon us two, had appointed the combat between him and us,

against Otanes and the two giants. Now the day was so accorded, as it

was impossible for me both to succour Plexirtus, and be there, where

my honour was not only so far engaged, but, by the strange working of

unjust fortune, I was to leave the standing by Musidorus, whom better

than myself I loved, to go save him, whom for just causes, I hated.

But my promise given, and given to Zelmane, and to Zelmane dying,

prevailed more with me than my friendship to Musidorus, though

certainly I may affirm, nothing had so great rule in my thoughts as

that. But my promise carried me the easier, because Musidorus himself

would not suffer me to break it. And so with heavy minds, more careful

each of other’s success than of our own, we parted; I toward the

place, where I understood Plexirtus was prisoner to an ancient lord,

absolutely governing a goodly castle, with a large territory about it,

whereof he acknowledged no other sovereign but himself, whose hate to

Plexirtus grew for a kinsman of his whom he maliciously had murdered,

because in the time that he reigned in Galatia, he found him apt to

practice for the restoring of his virtuous brother Leonatus. This old

knight still thirsting for revenge, used as the way to it a policy,

which this occasion, I will tell you prepared for him. Plexirtus in

his youth had married Zelmane’s mother, who dying of that only

childbirth, he a widower and not yet a king, haunted the court of

Armenia, where, as he was cunning to win favour, he obtained great

good liking of Artaxia; which he pursued: till, being called home by

his father, he falsely got his father’s kingdom: and then neglected

his former love: till, thrown out of that by our means, before he was

deeply rooted in it, and by and by again placed in Trebizond,

understanding that Artaxia by her brother’s death was become queen of

Armenia, he was hotter {246} than ever in that pursuit, which being

understood by this old knight, he forged such a letter, as might be

written from Artaxia, entreating his present, but very private, repair

thither, giving him faithful promise of present marriage: a thing far

from her thought, having faithfully and publicly protested that she

would never marry any, but some such prince who would give sure proof

that by his means we were destroyed. But he no more witty to frame,

than blind to judge hopes, bit hastily at the bait, and in private

manner posted toward her, but by the way he was met by this knight,

far better accompanied, who quickly laid hold of him, and condemned

him to a death, cruel enough, if anything may be both cruel and just.

For he caused him to be kept in a miserable prison, till a day

appointed, at which time he would deliver him to be devoured by a

monstrous beast of most ugly shape, armed like a rhinoceros, as strong

as an elephant, as fierce as a lion, as nimble as a leopard, and as

cruel as a tiger; whom he having kept in a strong place, from the

first youth of it, now thought no fitter match than such a beastly

monster with a monstrous tyrant; proclaiming yet withal, that if any

so well loved him as to venture their lives against his beast for him,

if they overcame, he should be saved: not caring how many they were,

such confidence he had in that monstrous strength, but especially

hoping to entrap thereby the great courages of Tydeus and Telenor,

whom he no less hated, because they had been principal instruments of

the other’s power.

“I dare say, if Zelmane had known what danger I should have passed,

she would rather have let her father to perish, than me to have bidden

that adventure. But my word was past; and truly the hardness of the

enterprise was not so much a bit as a spur unto me, knowing well that

the journey of high honour lies not in plain ways. Therefore going

thither, and taking sufficient security that Plexirtus should be

delivered if I were victorious, I undertook the combat: and to make

short, excellent lady, and not to trouble your ears with recounting a

terrible matter, so was my weakness blessed from above that, without

dangerous wounds, I slew that monster, which hundreds durst not

attempt; to so great admiration of many, who from a safe place might

look on that there was order given, to have the fight both by

sculpture and picture, celebrated in most parts of Asia. And the old

nobleman so well liked me that he loved me; only bewailing my virtue

had been employed to save a worse monster than I killed: whom yet,

according to faith given, he delivered, and accompanied me to the

kingdom of Pontus, whither I would needs in all speed go, to see

whether it were possible for me, if perchance the day had been

delayed, to come to the combat: but that, before I came, had been thus

finished.

{247}

“The virtuous Leonatus understanding two so good friends of his were

to be in that danger, would perforce be one himself; where he did

valiantly, and so did the king of Pontus. But the truth is, that both

they being sore hurt, the incomparable Musidorus finished the combat

by the death of both the giants, and the taking of Otanes prisoner. To

whom as he gave his life, so he got a noble friend, for so he gave his

word to be, and he is well known to think himself greater in being

subject to that, than in the greatness of his principality.

“But thither, understanding of our being there, flocked great

multitudes of many great persons, and even of princes, especially

those whom we had made beholding unto us: as, the kings of Phrygia,

Bithynia, with those two hurt of Pontus and Galatia, and Otanes the

prisoner, by Musidorus set free; and thither came Plexirtus of

Trebizond, and Antiphilus then king of Lycia; with as many more great

princes, drawn either by our reputation, or by willingness to

acknowledge themselves obliged unto us for what we had done for the

others. So as in those parts of the world, I think, in many hundreds

of years there was not seen so royal an assembly, where nothing was

let pass to do us the highest honours; which such persons, who might

command both purses and inventions, could perform: all from all sides

bringing unto us right royal presents, which we, to avoid both

unkindness and importunity, liberally received; and not content

therewith, would needs accept as from us their crowns, and acknowledge

to hold them of us: with many other excessive honours, which would not

suffer the measure of this short leisure to describe unto you.

“But we quickly aweary thereof, hasted to Greece-ward, led thither

partly with the desire of our parents, but hastened principally

because I understood that Anaxius with open mouth of defamation had

gone thither to seek me, and was now come to Peloponnesus, where from

court to court he made enquiry of me, doing yet himself so noble deeds

as might hap to authorize an ill opinion of me. We therefore suffered

but short delays, desiring to take this country in our way, so

renowned over the world that no prince could pretend height, nor

beggar lowness, to bar him from the sound thereof: renowned indeed,

not so much for the ancient praises attributed thereunto, as for the

having in it Argalus and Amphialus, two knights of such rare prowess,

as we desired especially to know, and yet by far, not so much for

that, as without suffering of comparison for the beauty of you and

your sister, which makes all indifferent judges that speak thereof,

account this country as a temple of deities. But those causes indeed

moving us to come by this land, we embarked ourselves in the next

port, whither all those princes (saving Antiphilus, who {248}

returned, as he pretended, not able to tarry longer from Erona)

conveyed us. And there found we a ship most royally furnished by

Plexirtus, who had made all things so proper, as well for our defence,

as ease, that all the other princes greatly commended him for it, who

seeming a quite altered man, had nothing but repentance in his eyes,

friendship in his gesture, and virtue in his mouth: so that we, who

had promised the sweet Zelmane to pardon him, now not only forgave,

but began to favour, persuading ourselves with a youthful credulity

that perchance things were not so evil as we took them, and as it

were, desiring our own memory that it might be so. But so were we

licensed from those princes, truly not without tears, especially of

the virtuous Leonatus, who with the king of Pontus would have come

with us, but that we, in respect of the one’s young wife, and both

their new settled kingdoms, would not suffer it. Then would they have

sent whole fleets to guard us; but we that desired to pass secretly

into Greece, made them leave that motion when they found that more

ships than one would be displeasing unto us. But so committing

ourselves unto the uncertain discretion of the wind, we (then

determining as soon as we came to Greece to take the names of

Daiphantus and Palladius, as well for our own promises to Zelmane, as

because we desired to come unknown into Greece) left the Asian shore

full of princely persons, who even upon their knees recommended our

safeties to the devotion of their chief desires, among whom none had

been so officious, though I dare affirm, all quite contrary to his

unfaithfulness, as Plexirtus.

“And so having failed almost two days, looking for nothing, but when

we might look upon the land, a grave man, whom we had seen of great

trust with Plexirtus, and was sent as our principal guide, came unto

us, and with a certain kind manner mixed with shame, and repentance,

began to tell us that he had taken such a love unto us, considering

our youth and fame, that though he were a servant, and a servant of

such trust about Plexirtus, as that he had committed unto him even

those secrets of his heart, which abhorred all other knowledge, yet he

rather chose to reveal at this time a most pernicious counsel, than by

concealing it bring to ruin those whom he could not choose but honour.

So went he on, and told us, that Plexirtus (in hope thereby to have

Artaxia, endowed with the great kingdom of Armenia, to his wife) had

given him order, when we were near Greece, to find some opportunity to

murder us, bidding him to take us asleep, because he had seen what we

could do waking. ‘Now, Sirs,’ said he, ‘I would rather a thousand

times lose my life than have my remembrance, while I live, poisoned

with such a mischief: and therefore if it were only I, that knew

herein the king’s order, then should my disobedience {249} be a

warrant of your safety. But to one more,’ said he, ‘namely the captain

of the ship, Plexirtus hath opened so much touching the effect of

murdering you, though I think laying the cause rather upon an old

grudge, than his hope of Artaxia. And myself, before the consideration

of your excellencies had drawn love and pity into my mind, imparted it

to such, as I thought fittest for such a mischief: therefore I wish

you to stand upon your guard, assuring you that what I can do for your

safety, you shall see, if it come to the push, by me performed.’ We

thanked him, as the matter indeed deserved, and from that time would

no more disarm ourselves, nor the one sleep without his friend’s eyes

waked for him; so that it delayed the going forward of their bad

enterprise, while they thought it rather chance, than providence,

which made us so behave ourselves.

“But when we came within half a day’s sailing of the shore, so that

they saw it was speedily, or not at all to be done; then, and I

remember it was about the first watch in the night, came the captain

and whispered the counsellor in the ear: but he, as it would seem,

dissuaded him from it: the captain, who had been a pirate from his

youth, and often blooded in it, with a loud voice swore that if

Plexirtus bade him, he would not stick to kill God himself. And

therewith called his mates, and in the King’s name willed them to take

us alive or dead, encouraging them with the spoil of us, which he

said, and indeed was true, would yield many exceeding rich jewels. But

the counsellor, according to his promise, commanded them they should

not commit such a villainy, protesting that he would stand between

them and the king’s anger therein. Wherewith the captain enraged:

‘Nay,’ said he, ‘then we must begin with this traitor himself,’ and

therewith gave him a sore blow upon the head, who honestly did the

best he could to revenge himself.

“But then we knew it time rather to encounter, than wait for mischief.

And so against the captain we went, who straight was environed with

most part of the soldiers and mariners. And yet the truth is, there

were some, whom either the authority of the counsellor, doubt of the

king’s mind, or liking of us, made draw their swords of our side, so

that quickly it grew a most confused fight. For the narrowness of the

place, the darkness of time, and the uncertainty in such a tumult how

to know friends from foes, made the rage of the swords rather guide

than be guided by their masters. For my cousin and me, truly I think

we never performed less in any place, doing no other hurt than the

defence of ourselves, and succouring them who came, for it, drove us

to: for not discerning perfectly, who were for, or against us, we

thought it less evil to spare a foe, than spoil a friend. But from the

highest {250} to the lowest part of the ship there was no place left,

without cries of murdering, and murdered persons. The captain I

happened a while to fight withal, but was driven to part with him by

hearing the cry of the counsellor, who received a mortal wound,

mistaken of one of his own side.

“Some of the wiser would call to parley, and wish peace: but while the

words of peace were in their mouths, some of their evil auditors gave

them death for their hire. So that no man almost could conceive hope

of living, but by being last alive: and therefore every one was

willing to make himself room, by dispatching almost any other: so that

the great number in the ship was reduced to exceeding few, when of

those few the most part weary of those troubles, leapt into the boat,

which was fast to the ship; but while they that were first were

cutting off the rope that tied it, others came leaping in so

disorderly that they drowned both the boat and themselves.

“But while even in that little remnant, like the children of Cadmus,

we continued still to slay one another, a fire, which, whether by the

desperate malice of some, or intention to separate, or accidentally,

while all things were cast up and down, it should seem had taken a

good while before, but never heeded of us; who only thought to

preserve or revenge, now violently burst out in many places and began

to master the principal parts of the ship. Then necessity made us see,

that a common enemy sets one at a civil war: for that little all we

are, as if we had been waged by some man to quench a fire, straight

went to resist that furious enemy by all art and labour: but it was

too late, for already it did embrace and devour from the stern to the

waist of the ship: so as labouring in vain, we were driven to get up

to the prow of the ship, by the work of nature seeking to preserve

life as long as we could; while truly it was a strange and ugly sight

to see so huge a fire, as it quickly grew to be in the sea; and in the

night, as if it had come to light as to death. And by and by it had

burned off the mast, which all this while had proudly borne the sail,

the wind, as might seem, delighted to carry fire and blood in his

mouth, but now it fell overboard, and the fire growing nearer us, it

was not only terrible in respect of what we were to attend, but

insupportable through the heat of it.

“So that we were constrained to bide it no longer, but disarming and

stripping ourselves, and laying ourselves upon such things as we

thought might help our swimming to the land, too far for our strength

to bear us, my cousin and I threw ourselves into the sea. But I had

swam a very little way when I felt, by reason of a wound I had, that I

should not be able to abide the travel: and therefore seeing the mast,

whose tackling had been burnt off, float {251} clear from the ship, I

swam unto it, and getting on it, I found mine own sword, which by

chance, when I threw it away, caught by a piece of canvas, had hung to

the mast. I was glad because I loved it well, but gladder, when I saw

at the other end the captain of the ship, and of all this mischief,

who having a long pike, belike had borne himself up with that till he

had set himself upon the mast. But when I perceived him, ‘Villain,’

said I, ‘dost thou think to over-live so many honest men whom thy

falsehood hath brought to destruction?’ with that bestriding the mast,

I got by little and little towards him after such a manner as boys are

wont, if ever you saw that sport, when they ride the wild mare. And he

perceiving my intention, like a fellow that had much more courage than

honesty, set himself to resist: but I had in short space gotten within

him, and, giving him a sound blow, sent him to feed fishes. But there

myself remained, until by pirates I was taken up, and among them again

taken prisoner, and brought into Laconia.”

“But what,” said Philoclea, “became of your cousin Musidorus?” “Lost,”

said Pyrocles. “Ah, my Pyrocles,” said Philoclea, “I am glad I have

taken you. I perceive you lovers do not always say truly: as though I

knew not your cousin Dorus the shepherd?” “Life of my desires,” said

Pyrocles, “what is mine, even to my soul, is yours, but the secret of

my friend is not mine. But if you know so much, then I may truly say,

he is lost since he is no more his own. But I perceive your noble

sister and you are great friends, and well doth it become you so to

be.” “But go forward, dear Pyrocles, I long to hear out till your

meeting me: for there to me-ward is the best part of your story.” “Ah

sweet Philoclea,” said Pyrocles, “do you think I can think so precious

leisure as this well spent in talking? are your eyes a fit book, think

you, to read a tale upon? is my love quiet enough to be an historian?

dear princess, be gracious unto me.” And then he fain would have

remembered to have forgot himself. But she with a sweetly disobeying

grace, desired him that her desire once for ever might serve, that no

spot might disgrace that love which shortly she hoped should be to the

world warrantable. Fain he would not have heard, till she threatened

anger; and then the poor lover durst not, because he durst not. “Nay,

I pray thee, dear Pyrocles,” said she, “let me have my story.” “Sweet

princess,” said he, “give my thoughts a little respite: and if it

please you, since this time must be so spoiled, yet it shall suffer

the less harm if you vouchsafe to bestow your voice, and let me know

how the good queen Erona was betrayed into such danger, and why

Plangus sought me. For indeed I should pity greatly any mischance

fallen to that princess.” “I will,” said Philoclea, smiling, “so you

{252} give me your word your hands shall be quiet auditors.” “They

shall,” said he, “because subject.”

Then began she to speak, but with so pretty and delightful a majesty,

when she set her countenance to tell the matter, that Pyrocles could

not choose but rebel so far as to kiss her. She would have pulled her

head away, and spoke, but while she spoke, he kissed, and it seemed he

fed upon her words; but she got away. “How will you have your

discourse,” said she, “without you let my lips alone?” He yielded, and

took her hand. “On this,” said he, “will I revenge my wrong;” and so

began to make much of that hand, when her tale, and his delight were

interrupted by Miso, who taking her time, while Basilius’s back was

turned, came unto them, and told Philoclea, she deserved she knew what

for leaving her mother, being evil at ease, to keep company with

strangers. But Philoclea telling her that she was there by her

father’s commandment, she went away muttering that though her back and

her shoulders and her neck were broken, yet as long as her tongue

would wag, it should do her errand to her mother; and so went up to

Gynecia, who was at that time miserably vexed with this manner of

dream. It seemed unto her to be in a place full of thorns, which so

molested her that she could neither abide standing still, nor tread

safely going forward. In this case she thought Zelmane being upon a

fair hill, delightful to the eye, and easy in appearance, called her

thither, whither with such anguish being come, Zelmane was vanished

and she found nothing but a dead body like unto her husband, which

seeming at the first with a strange smell to infect her, as she was

ready likewise within a while to die; the dead body, she thought, took

her in his arms, and said, “Gynecia, leave all, for here is thy only

rest.”

With that she awaked, crying very loud, “Zelmane, Zelmane.”

But remembering herself, and seeing Basilius by (her guilty conscience

more suspecting than being suspected) she turned her call, and called

for Philoclea. Miso forthwith like a valiant shrew, looking at

Basilius, as though she would speak though she died for it, told

Gynecia that her daughter had been a whole hour together in secret

talk with Zelmane. “And,” said she, “for my part I could not be heard,

your daughters are brought up in such awe, though I told her of your

pleasure sufficiently.” Gynecia as if she had heard her last doom

pronounced against her, with a side look and changed countenance, “O

my lord,” said she, “what mean you to suffer those young folks

together?” Basilius, that aimed nothing at the mark of her suspicion,

smiling, took her in his arms: “Sweet wife,” said he, “I thank you for

your care of your child; but they must be youths of other metal than

Zelmane that can endanger her.” “O but----,” cried Gynecia, and

therewith {253} she stayed, for then indeed she did suffer a right

conflict betwixt the force of love, and rage of jealousy. Many times

was she about to satisfy the spite of her mind, and tell Basilius how

she knew Zelmane to be far otherwise than the outward appearance. But

those many times were all put back by the manifold objections of her

vehement love. Fain she would have barred her daughter’s hap, but loth

she was to cut off her own hope. But now, as if her life had been set

upon a wager of quick rising, as weak as she was, she got up; though

Basilius (with a kindness flowing only from the fountain of

unkindness, being indeed desirous to win his daughter as much time as

might be) was loth to suffer it, swearing he saw sickness in her face,

and therefore was loth she should adventure the air.

But the great and wretched lady Gynecia, possessed with those devils

of love and jealousy, did rid herself from her tedious husband: and

taking nobody with her, going toward them; “O jealousy,” said she,

“the frenzy of wise folks, the well-wishing spite, and unkind

carefulness, the self-punishment for other’s faults, and self-misery

in other’s happiness, the cousin of envy, daughter of love, and mother

of hate, how could’st thou so quietly get thee a seat in the unquiet

heart of Gynecia! Gynecia,” said she sighing, “thought wise and once

virtuous! alas! it is thy breeder’s power which plants thee there: it

is the flaming agony of affection, that works the chilling access of

thy fever, in such sort, that nature gives place; the growing of my

daughter seems the decay of myself; the blessings of a mother turn to

the curses of a competitor; and the fair face of Philoclea appears

more horrible in my sight than the image of death.” Then remembered

she this song, which she thought took a right measure of her present

mind.

With two strange fires of equal heat possessed,

The one of love, the other of jealousy,

Both still do work, in neither I find rest:

For both, alas, their strength together tie:

The one aloft doth hold, the other high.

Love wakes the jealous eye, lest thence it moves:

The jealous eye, the more it looks it loves.

Those fires increase; in those I daily burn,

They feed on me, and with my wings do fly:

My lovely joys to doleful ashes turn:

Their flames mount up, my prayers prostrate lie;

They live in force; I quite consumed die.

One wonder yet far passes my conceit,

The fuel small; how be the fires so great?

{254}

But her unleisured thoughts ran not over the ten first words; but

going with a pace not so much too fast for her body, as slow for her

mind, she found them together, who after Miso’s departure had left

their tale, and determined what to say to Basilius. But full abashed

was poor Philoclea, whose conscience now began to know cause of

blushing, for first salutation, receiving an eye from her mother, full

of the same disdainful scorn which Pallas showed to poor Arachne that

durst contend with her for the price of well weaving: yet did the

force of love so much rule her that, though for Zelmane’s sake she did

detest her, yet for Zelmane’s sake she used no harder words to her

than to bid her go home, and accompany her solitary father.

Then began she to display to Zelmane the store-house of her deadly

desires, when suddenly the confused rumour of a mutinous multitude

gave just occasion to Zelmane to break off any such conference, for

well she found they were not friendly voices they heard, and to retire

with as much diligence as conveniently they could towards the lodge.

Yet before they could win the lodge by twenty paces, they were

overtaken by an unruly sort of clowns, and other rebels, which like a

violent flood, were carried, they themselves knew not whither. But as

soon as they came within perfect discerning those ladies, like enraged

beasts, without respect of their estates, or pity of their sex, they

began to run against them, as right villains thinking ability to do

hurt to be a great advancement; yet so many as they were, so many

almost were their minds, all knit together only in madness. Some

cried, “take;” some, “kill;” some, “save.” But even they that cried

“save,” ran for company with them that meant to kill. Everyone

commanded, none obeyed, he only seemed chief captain, that was most

rageful.

Zelmane, whose virtuous courage was ever awake, drew out her sword,

which upon those ill-armed churls giving as many wounds as blows, and

as many deaths almost as wounds, lightning courage, and thundering

smart upon them, kept them at a bay, while the two ladies got

themselves into the lodge, out of the which Basilius, having put on an

armour long untried, came to prove his authority among his subjects,

or at least, to adventure his life with his dear mistress, to whom he

brought a shield, while the ladies trembling attended by the issue of

this dangerous adventure. But Zelmane made them perceive the odds

between an eagle and a kite, with such nimble steadiness, and assured

nimbleness, that while one was running back for fear, his fellow had

her sword in his guts.

And by and by was her heart and her help well increased by the coming

in of Dorus, who having been making of hurdles for {255} his master’s

sheep, heard the horrible cries of this mad multitude, and having

straight represented before the eyes of his careful love, the peril

wherein the soul of his soul might be, he went to Pamela’s lodge, but

found her in a cave hard by, with Mopsa and Dametas, who at that time

would not have opened the entry to his father. And therefore leaving

them there, as in a place safe, both for being strong and unknown, he

ran as the noise guided him. But when he saw his friend in such danger

among them, anger and contempt, asking no counsel but of courage, made

him run among them, with no other weapon but his sheep-hook, and with

that overthrowing one of the villains, took away a two-hand sword from

him, and withal helped him from ever being ashamed of losing it. Then

lifting up his brave head, and flashing terror into their faces, he

made arms and legs go complain to the earth, how evil their masters

had kept them. Yet the multitude still growing, and the very killing

wearying them, fearing lest in long fight they should be conquered

with conquering, they drew back towards the lodge; but drew back in

such sort, that still their terror went forward like a valiant

mastiff, whom, when his master pulls back by the tail from the bear,

with whom he had already interchanged a hateful embracement, though

his pace be backward, his gesture is forward, his teeth and his eyes

threatening more in the retiring than they did in the advancing: so

guided they themselves homeward, never stepping step backward, but

that they proved themselves masters of the ground where they stepped.