infection. Otherwise, give me leave to leave off this name of friendship as an idle title of a thing which cannot be, where virtue is abolished.”
The length of these speeches before had not so much cloyed Pyrocles (though he were very impatient of long deliberations) as this last farewell of the one whom he loved as his own life wounded his soul. For, thinking himself afflicted, he was more apt to conceive unkindness deeply. So that shaking his head and delivering some show of tears, he thus uttered his griefs:
“Alas, Prince Musidorus, how cruelly you deal with me. If you seek the victory, take it, and, if you want, the triumph. You have all the reason in the world. With me remain all the imperfections, yet such as I can no more lay from me than the crow can be persuaded by the swan to cast off all his black feathers. But truly you deal with me like a physician that, upon seeing his patient in a pestilent fever, should chide him (instead of administering help) and bid him be sick no more. Or rather, like a friend who, visiting his friend condemned to perpetual prison and laden with grievous fetters, should will him to shake off his fetters or he would leave him. I am sick, and sick to death. I am a prisoner. Neither is there any redress but by her to whom I am a slave. Now if you wish, leave him that loves you in the highest degree, but remember ever to carry this with you—you abandon your friend in his greatest extremity.”
And herewith the deep wound of his love, being rubbed afresh with this new unkindness, began to bleed (as it were) again in such a way that he was unable to bear it any longer, but gushing out abundance of tears and crossing his arms over his woeful heart, he sunk down to the ground. This sudden trance went so to the heart of Musidorus that, falling down by him and kissing the weeping eyes of his friend, he besought him not to make account of his speech, which if it had been overly-vehement, yet it was to be borne because it came out of a love much more vehement. He had not thought fancy could have received so deep a wound, but now, finding in him the force of it, he would no further oppose it but employ all his service to medicate it however the nature of it required.
But even this kindness made Pyrocles the more melt in the former unkindness, which his manlike tears well showed with a silent look upon Musidorus, as if to say, “And is it possible that Musidorus should threaten to leave me?” This struck Musidorus’ mind and senses dumb too. Unable to say anything for grief, they rested with their eyes placed one upon the other in such a way as might well paint that the true passion of unkindness is never aright except between those that most dearly love. And thus they remained a time until at length, Musidorus embracing him, said:
“And will you thus shake off your friend?”
“It is you that shakes me off,” said Pyrocles, “because my imperfections are unworthy of your friendship.”
“But this,” said Musidorus, “shows you more imperfect—to be cruel to him that submits himself to you. But since you are imperfect,” said he, smiling, “it is reason that you should be governed by us wise and perfect men. And that authority I will begin to take upon me with three absolute commandments: the first, that you do not increase your evil with further griefs; the second, that you love her with all the powers of your mind; and the last commandment shall be that you command me to do what service I can towards the attaining of your desires.”
Pyrocles’ heart was not so oppressed with the two mighty passions of love and unkindness that he did not yield to some mirth at this commandment of Musidorus that he should love. Something clearing his face from his former shows of grief, he said, “Well, dear cousin, I see by the well choosing of your commandments that you are far fitter to be a prince than a counselor, and therefore I am resolved to employ all my endeavors to obey you with this condition, that the commands that you command me to lay upon you shall only be that you continue to love me and look on my imperfections with more affection than judgment.”
“Love you?” said Musidorus. “Alas, how can my heart be separated from one who would truly embrace it, unless it should burst from being too full? But let us leave off these flowers of new-begun friendship. I pray you again, tell me—but tell it to me fully, omitting no circumstance—the story of your affections, both beginning and proceeding. Assure yourself that there is nothing so great that I will fear to do for you, nor nothing so small that I will disdain to do for you. Let me, therefore, receive a clear understanding, which many times we miss while those things we account small (such as a speech or a look) are omitted, as when a whole sentence may fail to be congruous by the want of one particle. Between friends, all must be laid open, nothing being superfluous or tedious.”
“You shall be obeyed,” said Pyrocles. “And here are we, in as fit a place for it as may be, for into this arbor nobody comes but myself. I use it as my melancholy retiring place, and therefore that respect is borne to it. Yet if by chance anyone should come, say that you are a servant sent from the queen of the Amazons to seek me, and then leave me the rest.”
discreet stays] prudent periods of rest.
A sonnet with a regular rhetorical structure (eyes, thoughts, reason … see, think, know) in which Pyrocles, disguised as the Amazon Zelmane (transformed in show), expresses his love for Philoclea; Sidney was the first to write more than an occasional sonnet in English (Ringler 384).
insinuation … division of sighs] An insinuation is an indirect introduction meant to win favor of a listener, typically by appealing to emotion. The divisions, or arguments, of an oration are here marked by sighs (much like paragraphs).
Chapter 13
Pyrocles Disguised as Zelmane
Pyrocles explains how he fell in love with Philoclea when he saw her picture at Kalander’s house. He wrote a letter for Musidorus, then disappeared from Kalander’s hunt to disguise himself as an Amazon under the name of Zelmane. He fooled Dametas and was welcomed by Basilius, who lodged him with Philoclea, Gynecia, and himself. (1593 ed. 25v.26)
So sat they down, and Pyrocles said: “Cousin, then began the fatal overthrow of all my liberty when, walking among the pictures of Kalander’s house, you yourself delivered unto me what you had understood of Philoclea, who much resembles—though, I must say, much surpasses—the lady Zelmane, whom I loved so well. There were mine eyes infected, and at your mouth did I drink my poison.
“Yet alas, so sweet was it to me that I could not be content until Kalander had made it more and more strong by his declaration. The more I questioned it, the more pity I conceived of her unworthy fortune, and when once my heart was made tender with pity, according to the aptness of the humor, it received quickly a cruel impression of that wonderful passion which is impossible to define because no words reach to the strange nature of it. Only those know it who inwardly feel it. It is called love.
“Yet did I not, poor wretch that I am, at first know my disease. I thought it was only my desire to see rare sights, and that my pity was only the fruit of a gentle nature. But even this arguing with myself came of further thoughts, and the more I argued, the more my thoughts increased.
“I desired to see the place where she remained—as though the architecture of the lodges would have been much for my learning—but I desired more to see Philoclea herself, and thereby to judge the painter’s cunning.
“For thus at first did I flatter myself that the wound had been no deeper. But within a short time I came to the degree of uncertain wishes, and those wishes grew to unquiet longings. When I could fix my thoughts upon nothing but that, they invariably ended with Philoclea; and when each thing I saw seemed to figure out some part of my passions, when even Parthenia’s fair face became a lecture to me of Philoclea’s imagined
