The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia 36 – Sidney · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia 36The Eclogues
18
Literature · Romance
The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia 36
The Eclogues
SidneyEnglish
Kalodulus now minded to marry his daughter, and uncertain whether he should bestow her on the contended young Arcadian Menalcas, or the much having, much wanting Thessalian Corydon, who both were then present, hearing of this summons; puts over their cause to be determined by Basilius; and Strephon and Claius, no less desirous to bring Urania’s name to court, joined themselves to the rest. Nor was Agelastus wanting, who, not for a mistress, but, Heraclitus-like, thinking man was made to mourn, and repining at the vanity of greatness, had maintained a religious sorrow. No sooner was the company set, and that their silence began to proclaim their expectation, but Strephon, who, before his coming, had prepared an Epithalamium, began thus to sing.
STREPHON
Sweet link of hearts, joy’s surest anchor-hold,
Love’s peaceful crown, the harbour of desires,
Hymen, approach, but think not Pan too bold,
If to invoke thy name our love aspires.
Dwell here for ever, that this couple may
Renew the blessings of their marriage-day.
Firm be their root of love, and cause a bliss,
From forth this royal happy stock to spring;
That all the world may justly say, he is
Worthy to be, and to succeed a king.
But shorten not their days; for ’tis decreed,
The best can be but worthy to succeed.
Amphialus thanked Strephon for his hearty wishes; but he had scarce ended, when Claius, looking upon him with as sour a countenance as their friendship could allow, thus said:
CLAIUS
I pray thee, Strephon, if these glorious shows
Of court’s admired greatness, do not close
Thy mind from former thoughts, where can thy lays
Find other subject than Urania’s praise?
Or, dost thou fondly think, thou wert to blame
To breathe among these lords Urania’s name?
Or, is it certain that her flames in thee
Are quench’d, that lately doubled were in me?
STREPHON
Nor so, nor thus; that verse I last day made,
As with my flock I sat in Hestar’s shade:
I studied it, yet all my study was,
I vow, to strive to let Urania pass.
For ’twas the only name my pen would write,
My thoughts imagine, or my lips indite.
Am I not bold when night’s vast stage is set,
And all the stars and heavenly audience met,
To speak my mind, while their bright twinkling flame
Seems to rejoice to hear Urania’s name?
And shall I fear that what the heaven’s approv’d,
By men (though great men) should be disallow’d?
But where you think that I have check’d mine eye,
And freed your Strephon from their treachery:
O no, mine is the giant Titius’s maw,
That doth increase to feel a vulture’s paw.
CLAIUS
No day runs over, but my love’s deep sore
Renews his pain, and festers more and more:
Alas! where’s pity then? belike it flies
The place we come to, frighted with our cries.
STREPHON
Pity! why friend, ’tis certain that their eyes,
Who know they can o’ercome, learn to despise:
Yet, Claius, why should we repine? our saint
Is pleas’d sometime to hear our love’s complaint.
And if mine eyes, to ease my inward pain,
Become not flatterers, she doth not disdain.
CLAIUS
Disdain! that were a bliss, so great a weight
Might lift our sorrows to their utmost height;
And then, perhaps, our own despair would mend
Our ling’ring hopes, that must or break, or bend.
O no, ours is a worse calamity,
A heedless care, and careless courtesy.
Then Claius pausing a while, with crossed arms and a downcast look, began again these following verses to Strephon, whom he spoke to as representing the person of sorrow.
CLAIUS
Foul Sorrow, wilt thou alway build thy nest
In the wild mountains of thy care-swollen breast?
STREPHON
O yes, I find it happy for my breed,
And near your heart, whereon I use to feed.
CLAIUS
But, gentle grief, if not for pity, spare
Me for Urania’s sake: she hath a share
In these my wounds, and she must feel the smart,
Whose image’s carv’d so lively in my heart.
STREPHON
O no, she shares no pain, from whose fair eyes
The wound did first, and now the cure must rise.
CLAIUS
Why, gentle grief, thou’rt witness of my love;
Then always sigh my plaints, until you move.
STREPHON
O no, there’s too much rigor in such laws,
They bind a man to speak against his cause.
Suppose I move, this is my recompense;
Joy must succeed, and I am banish’d hence.
CLAIUS
Then must I die unpitied, no help’s found,
Since you, my spokesman, do conceal my wound.
STREPHON
O no, let not that make us to despair:
She knows we love her, but she knows she’s fair.
When they ended, Musidorus (in whose memory their courtesy to him, had engraven a beholdingness) forgot not to approve what they had said. But the audience had little time to determine whether they deserved what the Prince thought them worthy of, when Corydon, who longed to hear the debate between him and Menalcas, for Kalodulus’s daughter, ended, clapping him on the shoulder, thus said:
CORYDON
Fond beardless boy! now shall the chastisement
(Fit for thy rash youth’s unweigh’d attempt)
Fall heavy on thee; but you may relent,
I’ll not be cruel if you do repent.
O no, you will not, you’ll be always blind,
That graceless smile betrays thy scornful mind.
Sing then, and show these goodly dotes in thee,
With which thy brainless youth can equal me.
MENALCAS
Grey-bearded frenzy, what canst thou allege,
To shun my blows, but thy age’s privilege?
Thy tongue may safely snarl, while his offence
Is still protected by that reverence.
The dotes, old dotard, I can bring to prove
Myself deserves that choice, are only love.
A priceless treasure, not to be express’d,
A guest too great for thy cough-breeding breast.
CORYDON
Young man, thou speak’st as if thy brains were wood;
Who can determine of that inward good?
I say, I love, and will Menalcas grieve
That all the world should Corydon believe?
But, that’s not it, these flames will soon decay,
If they be not maintain’d some other way.
A thousand sheep I have, whose snow-white fleece,
Do add a lustre to these parts of Greece:
On whom as many lambs do wait hard by,
That wear their dams white curled livery.
O! what a joy will’t be to her I love;
Each morn, and even, to see her sheep remove
From field to fold, while she may freely say,
That lamb is fat, that lamb I’ll eat to-day?
MENALCAS
Blind fortune, I’ll confess, hath given you more:
Yet I am richer, my content’s my store.
A thousand sheep thou hast, ’tis very like,
But thy diseases want Arithmetic.
Nature between our years a marriage made,
We bloom together, and at once may fade.
But your old age is gone too far before,
Time beats you on, and you’ll return no more.
CORYDON
Hasty young man, do not despise the end
To which yourself, as to a centre, bend.
What, if I want your body’s active toys,
My settled mind a greater good enjoys.
MENALCAS
Old man, thou speak’st, as if thy brains were wood;
Who can determine of that inward good?
Think’st thou, will that sweet beauty take delight
To hear thee cough a proverb in the night?
O no, there are some other joys in bed,
She must partake whom you desire to wed.
Corydon, inwardly out of countenance to hear his own words bite so sore upon him, would have shrunk away, but hoping he had found a judge whom the cause concerned stood a while to attend what Basilius would have said. But the King put it over to Musidorus, who (glad to find an occasion to pleasure Menalcas, his first master in the practice of a shepherd’s life) thus ended it.
“Corydon,” said he, “could I as well lop away some of your over-grown years, to make your match with Kalodulus’s daughter equal, as I can add to Menalcas’s state, I would, for a time, suspend my judgment: for readily I know not whether of you two deserves best: but in the one, my power seconds my will; as in the other, my will over-goes my power. Kalodulus’s daughter I therefore adjudge to Menalcas, and I will make him worthy of her, the rather, that I know his rash youth would impatiently bear a repulse, where your experience (when it reflects upon itself), with more discretion may consider she was but a woman.” Glad was Menalcas to speed so well: nor was Corydon displeased, because the Prince, as he conceived, had entertained a good opinion of his wisdom. Thus, when they ended, Pyrocles, who marked Agelastus’s silent pensiveness, desired to hear him disburden his mind of the thoughts that brought him to so deep a study: thinking that Agelastus stood fixed, with the eye of his mind cast upon the beauty of some fair mistress: but he, who thought of nothing less, thus answered his expectation.
AGELASTUS
Nor fate, nor fortune, whose enforcing power,
Man still complains upon his state to lower,
Do work these changes: man himself’s the cause;
They be but wheels that keep their mover’s laws:
Yet alway, when he sees his fault too late,
He turns it over upon chance, or fate.
Each man is born a king, his passions be
The practice of his sovereignty:
Who, though they still their sovereign’s good pretend,
Conspire his ruin for their private end.
The love of skin-thick beauty draws his eye
To yield to love, his reason’s majesty.
His fear throws bugbears in his way; his state
Is still infested by revengeful hate.
His idle grief, for what he might prevent,
Or might not, doth usurp his government.
Thus he, whom God ordain’d a king to be,
Obeys his subjects, and is never free.
Besides, whose state’s so firm, into whose way
The world flings not his joy’s injurious stay?
The surges of the deep, whose joys devour
The merchant’s far-fetch’d hopes, the skies that pour
A second deluge on the ploughman’s corn,
When now his fields are ready to be shorn:
The soldiers long remote, the doubtful chance
Of bloody war, the new-found ordinance;
The city-horns, the court’s brave flattery,
Do force content to dwell with poverty.
Then looking round upon the princes, as if by their survey he were again enabled to speak, he thus said:
Honour, thou spongy idol of man’s mind,
That soak’st content away, thou hast confin’d.
Ambitious man, and not his destiny,
Within the bounds of form and ceremony.
Oh! happy life of shepherds, whose content
Rests in a soul that’s free and innocent;
They stay their lodging, and remove their roof,
Not for their own, but for their flock’s behoof.
While some (to fill the blanks of their mean story)
Do travel in their cares, to gain vain-glory,
They never leave the plains, unless, sometime,
To look about them, they the mountains climb:
But dwell not there; for ev’n this change doth show
What choicer sweets they do enjoy below:
Here the rough winds do buzz about their ears,
The rocky steepness adds unto their fears:
Here they are ready to be torn asunder,
By malice’s hateful blasts, and envy’s thunder:
From hence they may descend; but, greatness, stay,
If you come down, it must be th’ other way:
For ’tis a bliss, on which your honour shares,
That though you would, you cannot leave your cares.
When Agelastus ended, the company might see a man who seemed to be misfortune’s herald, with a rope about his neck, make towards the Queen of Corinth, and cast himself at her feet. They, thinking it had been some shepherdish invention, expected awhile the conceit of it: but approaching, after a time, nearer to him, they might discern it was Tenarus the usurper of Corinth, who, hearing of the Queen’s welfare, and her happy marriage to Amphialus (finding in his own practice for the crown the Corinthians aptness to embrace change, and considering the powerfulness of his enemies) had come thither, in the basest form of humbleness to set a belief upon his submission. Him the Queen (because he was a suitor on her marriage-day) pardoned, and restored to his possessions, forfeited by his treason to the crown; only she caused his liberty to be restrained until her going to Corinth, whither, after she had taken leave of Basilius, and the rest of the royal company, she took her journey; making Amphialus, within a year after her departure, a happy father of a much-promising son, whom they named Heleamphialus. Euarchus also, soon after, with his son Pyrocles and Philoclea, and his nephew Musidorus, together with Pamela (who was desirous both to accompany her sister, and to see her mother of Thessaly) parted from Mantinea; leaving Basilius and Gynecia, when they had accompanied them to the frontiers of Arcadia, to the happy quiet of their after-life.
Tu longe sequere & vestigia semper adoro,
Sidnei----
Statius.
