‘And by what means,’ said Basilius, ‘shall I deserve to know your estate?’
“ ‘By letting me first know yours,’ answered I.
“ ‘To obey you,’ said he, ‘I will do it, although there is much more reason yours should be known first, since in all points you deserve to be put first. Know you, fair lady, that my name is Basilius, unworthily lord of this country. The rest, either fame has already brought to your ears, or—if it please you to make this place happy by your presence—at more leisure you shall understand from me.’
“I had from the beginning assured myself it was he, but would not seem I did so. To keep my gravity the better, I made a piece of reverence unto him,17
“ ‘Mighty prince,’ said I, ‘let my not-knowing you serve for the excuse of my boldness, and impute the little reverence I do you to the manner of my country, the invincible land of the Amazons. I am niece to Senicia, queen thereof, lineally descended from the famous Penthesilea, slain by the bloody hand of Pyrrhus. Having in this my youth determined to make the world see the Amazons’ excellencies—as well in private as in public virtue—I passed some dangerous adventures in diverse countries, till the unmerciful sea deprived me of my companions. Shipwreck cast me not far hence; uncertain wandering brought me to this place.’
“But Basilius—who now began to taste of that which he has since swallowed up, as I will tell you—fell to more cunning entreating about my abode than any greedy innkeeper would use to well-paying travelers.
“I thought nothing could shoot righter at the mark of my desires, yet had I learned already so much: that it was against my womanhood to be forward in my own wishes. And therefore he—to prove whether intercessions in fitter mouths might better prevail—commanded Dametas to bring forthwith his wife and daughters thither, three ladies, all of differing yet excellent beauty.
“His wife wore grave matron-like attire, with countenance and gesture suitable, and was of such fairness—being in the strength of her age—that if her daughters had not been by, she might with just price have purchased admiration. But they being there, it was enough that the most dainty eye would think her a worthy mother of such children.
“Fair Pamela’s noble heart, I find, greatly disdains that the trust of her virtue is reposed in such a lout’s hands as Dametas. Nevertheless, to show obedience, she had taken on shepherdish apparel, which was but of russet-cloth cut after their fashion: with a straight body, open breasted, the nether part full of pleats, and with long and wide sleeves. But believe me, she appareled her apparel and with the preciousness of her body made it most sumptuous. Her hair, at the full length, was wound about with gold lace, only by the comparison to show how far her hair excels gold in color. Between her breasts—which sweetly rose up like two fair little mountains in the pleasant vale of Tempe—there hung a very rich diamond set but in black horn. The motto inscribed on it, I have since read, is this: ‘Yet still myself.’
“And thus particularly I have described Gynecia and Pamela so that you may know that my eyes are not so partial but that I marked them too. But then the ornament of the earth, the model of heaven, the triumph of nature, the life of beauty, the queen of love—young Philoclea—appeared in her nymph-like apparel, so near nakedness as one might well discern part of her perfection, and yet so appareled, as she kept the best store of her beauty to herself.
“Her hair (alas, too poor a word, why should I not rather call them her beams?) was drawn up into a net able to have caught Jupiter when he was in the form of an eagle. Her body (O sweet body) was covered with a light taffeta garment, so cut as the wrought smock came through it in places enough to have made even your restrained imagination have thought what was under it. Her eyes were black indeed, whether nature so made them that we might be the more able to behold and bear their wonderful shining or that she (goddess-like) would work this miracle with herself, in giving blackness the price above all beauty.
“Then, I say, indeed methought the lilies grew pale for envy, the roses methought blushed to see sweeter roses in her cheeks, and the apples methought fell down from the trees to pay homage to the apples of her breast. The clouds gave place that the heavens might more freely smile upon her—at least the clouds of my thoughts quite vanished—and my sight (then more clear and forcible than ever) was so fixed there that (I imagine) I stood like a well-wrought image with some life in show but none in practice.
“And so I had been like enough to have stayed a long time, but that Gynecia stepped between my sight and the only Philoclea, and the change of object made me recover my senses, so that I could with reasonably good manner receive a salutation from her and the princess Pamela. I did them no further reverence than one princess uses to another, but when I came to the never-enough praised Philoclea, I could not but fall down on my knees, taking by force her hand and kissing it (I must confess) with more than womanly ardency.
“ ‘Divine lady,’ said I, ‘let not the world, nor these great princesses, marvel to see me (contrary to my manner) do this special honor to you, since all men and women owe this to the perfection of your beauty.’ She blushed like a fair morning in May at this my singular behavior and caused me to rise.
“ ‘Noble lady,’ said she, ‘it is no marvel to see your judgment much mistaken in my beauty, since you begin with so great an error as to do more honor unto me than them to whom I myself owe all service.’
“ ‘Rather,’ answered I, with a bowed down countenance, ‘that shows the power of your beauty, which forced me to do such an error, if it were an error.’
“ ‘You are so well acquainted,’ she said sweetly, and most sweetly smiling, ‘with your own beauty that it makes you easily fall into the discourse of mine.’
“ ‘Beauty in me?’ said I, truly sighing. ‘Alas, if there be any, it is in my eyes, which your blessed presence has imparted unto them.’
“But then, as I think Basilius wished her to do, ‘Well,’ said she, ‘I must confess, I have heard that it is a great happiness to be praised by those who are most praiseworthy. And well I find that you are an invincible Amazon, since you will overcome, though in a wrong matter. If my beauty is anything, then let it obtain thus much of you, that you will remain some while in this company to ease your own travel and our solitariness.’
“ ‘First, let me die,’ said I, ‘before any word spoken by such a mouth should come in vain.’
“And thus my stay among them was concluded with some other words of entertainment, and I was led among them to the lodge—truly a place for pleasantness, not unfit to flatter solitariness. It sits upon such an imperceptible rising of the ground that you come to a pretty height almost before you perceive that you are ascending. It gives lordship over a good, large circuit, which according to the nature of the country is diversified between hills and dales, woods and plains. One place is clear, another more darksome. It seems a pleasant picture of nature, with lovely lightsomeness and artificial shadows.
“The lodge is of a yellow stone, built in the form of a star, having round about a garden framed in like points; and beyond the garden, riding paths are cut out, each answering the angle of the lodge. At the end of one of them is the other lodge, smaller but of similar fashion, where the gracious Pamela lives. The main lodge seems like a fair comet, whose tail stretches itself to a star of less greatness.
