and said, “O lady, you alone have the power to stir up again those flames which had so long lain dead in me! See in me the power of your beauty, which can make old age come to ask counsel of youth and an unconquered prince become a slave to a stranger. When you see that power of yours, love that in me, at the least, since it is yours, although of me you see nothing to be loved.”
“Worthy prince,” answered Zelmane, taking him up from his kneeling, “both your manner and your speech are so strange to me that I know not how to answer better than with silence.”
“If silence please you, “ said the king, “it shall never displease me, since my heart is wholly pledged to obey you. Otherwise, if you would grant my ears such happiness as to hear you, they shall convey your words to such a mind that is, with the humblest degree of reverence, to hear them.”
“I disdain not to speak with you, mighty prince,” said Zelmane, “but I disdain to speak about any matter that may bring my honor into question,” and with a brave, counterfeited scorn she departed from the king, leaving him not so sorry for this short answer as proud in himself that he had broached the matter. Feeding his mind with those thoughts, the king passed great time in writing verses and making more of himself than he was wont to do, so much so that with a little help he would have grown into a pretty kind of dotage.
Once Zelmane was rid of this loving but little-loved company, “Alas,” said she to herself, “poor Pyrocles! Was there ever anyone but I who received wrong and could blame nobody? I have more than I desire, yet I am still in want of what I would have. Truly Love, I must needs say thus much on your behalf, that you have employed my love there where all love is deserved—and for recompense, have sent me more love than ever I desired.
“But what will you do, Pyrocles? Which way can you find to rid yourself of your intricate troubles? To her to whom I would be known, I live in darkness. And to her I am revealed, from whom I would be most secret. What shift shall I find against the diligent love of Basilius? What shield against the violent passions of Gynecia? And if that be done, yet how am I the nearer to quench the fire that consumes me?
“Well, well, sweet Philoclea, my whole confidence must be built in your divine spirit, which cannot be ignorant of the cruel wound I have received from you.”
Chapter 2
Mopsa Wooed
Musidorus, dressed like a shepherd, tells Pyrocles how he found a way to address Pamela (who otherwise scorns his low estate) while avoiding the suspicions of Dametas, Miso, and Mopsa: He so praises Mopsa that Pamela knows he cannot be serious. (1593 ed. 52.32)
But as sick folks who, when they are alone, think company will relieve them, and yet having company find it noisome—changing willingly outward objects, when indeed the evil is inward—so poor Zelmane was no more weary of Basilius than she was of herself when Basilius was gone, and ever the more weary of herself, the more she turned her eyes to become her own judges.
Tired therewith, she longed to meet her friend Dorus so that upon the shoulders of friendship she might lay the burden of sorrow. Therefore she went toward the other lodge, where among certain beech trees she found Dorus appareled in flannel, with a goat’s skin cast upon him and a garland of laurel mixed with cypress leaves on his head.
He was waiting on his master Dametas, who at that time was teaching him how to catch a wanton lamb with his sheep hook and how with the same to cast a little clod at any one that strayed out of company. And while Dorus was practicing, one might see Dametas holding his hands behind him under his girdle, nodding from the waist upwards and swearing he never knew anyone go more awkwardly to work. They might talk of book-learning what they would, but for his part he never saw more unhandy fellows than great clerks were.
But Zelmane’s coming saved Dorus from further chiding. She began to speak with him of the number of his master’s sheep and which province of Arcadia bore the finest wool, then drew him on to follow her in such country discourses till—being out of Dametas’ hearing—with such vehemence of passion, as though her heart would climb into her mouth to take her tongue’s office, she declared to him upon what briars the roses of her affections grew; how time seemed to forget her, bestowing not one hour of comfort upon her; and how she remained still in one plight of ill fortune, only so much worse, since continuance of evil does in itself increase evil.
“Alas, my Dorus,” said she, “You see how long and languishingly the weeks have passed over since we last spoke. And yet I am the same miserable I that I was, only stronger in longing and weaker in hoping.” Then fell she to so pitiful a declaration of the insupportableness of her desires that Dorus’ ears—unable to show what wounds that discourse gave them—sent his eyes to give testimony with tears to how much they suffered for her suffering.
At last passion, a most cumbersome guest to itself, made Zelmane the sooner shake it off and earnestly entreat Dorus that he also, with like freedom of discourse, would bestow a map of his little world upon her, so that she might see whether it was troubled with such uninhabitable climes of cold despairs and hot rages as hers was.
Walking under a few palm trees—which being loving in their own nature, seemed to give their shadow the more willingly because Dorus and Zelmane held discourse of love—Dorus thus entered into the description of his fortune:
“Alas,” said he, “dear cousin, it has pleased the high powers to throw us to such an estate that the only intercourse of our true friendship must be a bartering of miseries. For my part, I must confess indeed that from a huge darkness of sorrows, I am crept, I cannot say to a lightsomeness, but to a certain dawning, or rather, peeping out of some possibility of comfort. But woe is me, I am so far from the mark of desires that I rather think it such a light as comes through a small hole to a dungeon to make a miserable captive better remember the light of which he is deprived. I am like a scholar who has only come to that degree of knowledge that makes him know himself utterly ignorant.
“But thus stands it with me. After I was exalted by your means to serve in yonder blessed lodge, for a while I had, in the furnace of my agonies, this to refresh me: that due to the service I had done in killing the bear, it pleased the princess (in whom indeed stateliness shines through courtesy) to let fall some gracious look upon me, sometimes to see my exercises, sometimes to hear my songs. For my part, my heart would not suffer me to omit any occasion whereby I might make the incomparable Pamela see how much extraordinary devotion I bore to her service. And withal, I strove to appear more worthy in her sight, so that my small desert, joined to so great affection, might somewhat prevail in the wisest lady.
“But too well (alas) I found that she considered a shepherd’s service no more than as from a shepherd, and her acceptance limited to no further proportion than of a good servant. And when my countenance had once given notice that there lay affection under it, I saw straight majesty (sitting in the throne of beauty) draw forth such a sword of just disdain that I remained as a man thunder-stricken, not daring—no, not able—to behold that power.
“Now to make my state known seemed again impossible, by reason of the suspiciousness of Dametas, Miso, and my young mistress Mopsa. For Dametas (according to the constitution of a dull head) thinks there is no better way to show himself wise than by suspecting everything in his way. This suspicion Miso (for the hoggish shrewdness of her brain) and Mopsa (for a very unlikely envy she has stumbled upon against the princess’s unspeakable beauty) were very glad to execute. Finding my service by this means lightly regarded, my affection despised, and myself unknown, I remained no fuller of desire than
