Nous [whom he should have chased] has to go to hell with him” (Ringler 496).
pursuivants] “official messengers” (Ringler 496).
“Strephon breaks away from Nous, which is, of course, against the rules, and runs after Urania by himself. At the same time Claius, who is only a spectator, also runs after Urania. The two friends catch her, and completely disrupt the game” (Ringler 496).
Strephon would have been “victor” had he caught Geron.
darts] beams from Urania’s backcast eyes.
nearer] Strephon’s approach moves Urania to speed, enhancing her beauty, as the Phoenix is reborn brighter than before, making the day shine doubly, attracting Claius, who also pursues her.
Boreas] the stormy north wind.
treble baas] says “baa” three times.
murrain] pestilence. I don’t care what plague kills you.
Book 2
Chapter 1
Gynecia Woos Zelmane
Gynecia cannot sleep, worried that her love (for the man disguised as Zelmane) will undo her. She overhears Zelmane sing about “her” love for Philoclea and sees her throw down her lute. She begs for mercy, but Zelmane denies his disguise. Basilius sings about the advantages of old age, dismisses Gynecia, and attends to Zelmane. Zelmane refuses to talk about anything that would compromise her honor. (1593 ed. 50.1)
In these pastoral pastimes a great number of days were sent to follow their flying predecessors, while the cup of poison that was tasted deeply by this noble company had left no sinew of theirs without mortally searching into it. Yet it never manifested its venomous work till night parted angrily because she could distill no more sleep into the eyes of lovers and gave way to the breaking out of morning light.
No sooner had the sun bestowed its beams upon the tops of the mountains than woeful Gynecia (to whom rest was no ease) left her loathed lodging and got herself into one of the solitary places those deserts were full of, going up and down with such unquiet motions as a grieved and hopeless mind brings forth. There appeared to the eyes of her judgment the evils she was likely to run into. Ugly infamy waited upon them. She felt the terrors of her own conscience. And she was guilty of a long exercised virtue, which made her vice more full of deformity. The uttermost good she could aspire to was a mortal wound to her vexed spirits. Lastly, no small part of her evils was that she was wise enough to see her evils, insomuch that, having for a great while thrown her ghastly countenance about her as if she had called all the powers of the world to witness her wretched estate, at length she cast her watery eyes to heaven and said, “O sun, whose unspotted light directs the steps of mortal mankind, art thou not ashamed to impart the clearness of your presence to such a dust-creeping worm as I am? O ye heavens, which continually keep the course allotted to you, can none of your influences prevail so much upon the miserable Gynecia as to make her preserve the course she has so long embraced?
“O deserts, how fit a guest am I, since my heart can people you with wild ravenous beasts, which in you are wanting? O virtue, where dost thou hide thyself? What hideous thing is this that eclipses thee? Or is it true that you were never more than a vain name, and no essential thing, one who has left thy professed servant when she had most need of thy lovely presence?
“O imperfect proportion of reason, which can too much foresee and too little prevent! Alas, alas,” said she, “if there were only a single hope for my pains or but one excuse for all my faultiness! But wretch that I am, my torment is beyond all succor, and the evil I deserve exceeds my evil fortune.
“For nothing else did my husband take this strange resolution to live so solitarily, but that I (most wretched I) should become a plague to myself and a shame to womankind—for nothing else have the winds delivered this strange guest to my country, for nothing else have the destinies reserved my life to this time.
“Yet if my desire (however unjust it may be) might take effect, even if a thousand deaths followed it and every death were followed with a thousand shames, yet should my sepulcher receive me with some contentment. But though sure I am that Zelmane is such as can answer my love, yet I am as sure that this disguising has come for some fore-taken conceit—and then, wretched Gynecia, where canst thou find a small plot of ground for hope to dwell on? No, no, it is Philoclea his heart is set upon. It is my daughter I have borne who supplants me. But if it is so, the life I have given thee, ungrateful Philoclea, I will sooner with these hands bereave thee of than that my child shall glory, she that has bereaved me of my desires. In shame there is no comfort but to be beyond all bounds of shame.”
Having spoken thus, she began to make a piteous war with her fair hair, when she heard (not far from her) an extremely doleful voice, but so suppressed with a kind of whispering note that she could not conceive the words distinctly. And since a lamentable tune is the sweetest music to a woeful mind, she drew near in hope to find some companion of her misery. As she paced on, she was stopped by a number of trees, so thickly placed together that she was afraid she would, by rushing through, disturb the speech of the lamenting party she was so desirous to understand. Therefore she sat down as softly as she could, once she was in distance to hear.
First she might perceive a lute, excellently well played upon, and then the same doleful voice accompanying it with these verses:
In vain, my eyes, you labor to amend
with flowing tears your fault of hasty sight,
since to my heart her shape you so did send
that I see her, though you did lose your light.
In vain, my heart, now you with sight are burned,
