she puts pride out of countenance, stirring hope while teaching hope good manners. Pamela, high-minded, avoids pride not by not knowing her virtues but by making it one of her virtues to be void of pride. She has her mother’s wisdom, greatness, and nobility, but (if I can guess right) knit with a more constant temper.
“Now then, our Basilius, being so publicly happy, and so happy in that happiness as to be a beloved prince, and in his private life so blessed as to have so excellent a wife and over-excellent children, has of late taken a course that makes him spoken of beyond all these blessings. Having made a journey to Delphos and safely returned, within a short time he broke up his court and retired himself, his wife, and children to a certain forest nearby which he calls his desert. There he built two fine lodges, in one of which he lives with his wife and their younger daughter Philoclea, alone, without any other company. Another house was furnished for stables, and still other lodgings for certain persons of mean calling who do all the household services.
“Yes, this is strange, but not so strange as his course with the princess Pamela, whom he placed in the other lodge, and with whom? None other than one Dametas, the most errant, doltish clown that ever there was without the privilege of a bauble, along with his wife Miso and daughter Mopsa, whose wit can devise nothing to amuse Pamela; they simply exercise her patience and serve as a foil for her perfections. In this loutish buffoon you never saw so ill favored a visage. His behavior goes beyond the ridiculous; his apparel is exactly what I would wish him. Miso, his wife, is so handsome an old lady that by her face and her splayfoot alone she has been marked a witch. Her one good point: with an ill-disposed mind in a wretched body she observes decorum.
“These two persons (who never agree in any humor but in disagreeing) have brought forth mistress Mopsa, who shares all their perfections. A pleasant fellow of my acquaintance said her praises in verse, so I will merely repeat them and spare my own tongue, since she goes for a woman. The verses are these, which I have so often caused to be sung that I know them without book.
What length of verse3 can serve brave4 Mopsa’s good to show?
Her virtues strange and beauties such that no man may them know!
Thus shrewdly burdened then, how can my Muse escape?
The gods must help, and precious things must serve to show her shape:
Like great god Saturn, fair; and like fair Venus, chaste;
As smooth as Pan; as Juno, mild; like goddess Isis faced;
with Cupid she foresees, and goes god Vulcan’s pace,
and for a taste of all these gifts, she steals god Momus’ grace.
Her forehead, jacinth-like; her cheeks of opal hue;
her twinkling eyes bedecked with pearl; her lips as sapphire, blue.
Her hair like crapal stone; her mouth: O, heavenly wide!
her skin like burnished gold; her hands like silver ore untried.
As for her parts unknown, which hidden sure are best,
happy be they who will believe and never seek the rest.
“Now having heard these descriptions,” Kalander said, “you might think I was feigning some pleasant device rather than recounting the truth that a rational-minded prince had made so unworthy a choice. But truly, dear guest, so it is that princes, their doings often soothed by good success, find nothing so absurd they cannot make it honorable. Dametas first earned credit with the prince when he found him lost while hunting. The prince asked him the way, then falling into other questions, found some of the answers not unintelligent (as a dog, if he could speak, would have wit enough to describe his kennel), and uttered with such rudeness, which he interpreted as plainness (though there is a great difference), that Basilius filled with sudden delight. He took him to court, making apparent his good opinion of the man—where flattering courtiers no sooner perceived the prince’s mind than they found reasons to support his action, and shadows of virtue for Dametas. Dametas’ silence grew wit, his bluntness integrity, his beastly ignorance virtuous simplicity.
“According to the nature of great persons in love with what they themselves have done, the prince fancied that his own presence would mend any small weakness in Dametas. And as one does with a creature of one’s own making, he liked him more and more. He gave him the office of principal herdsman, and then, since undertaking his strange determination, he has in effect put his life and that of his children into Dametas’ hands. Like too great a sail for so small a boat, authority has overpowered poor Dametas. Formerly a good fool in a chamber, he is the same now in a theater. I suspect (indeed I fear) my master will one day find out to his cost that his duty is not to make men but to use men as they are. No more can a horse be taught to hunt or an ass to manage.
“In sooth, I am afraid that I have talked too much about that heavy piece of flesh, and made our conversation gross. My zealous grief at my lord’s great error has made me bestow more words, I confess, than so base a subject deserves.
What length of verse] Mopsa is ironically described in the ungraceful verse form called poulter’s measure, “which Sidney considered awkward and old fashioned” (The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. William A. Ringler, Jr. [Oxford, 1962], 384). The term “poulter” refers to a chicken merchant or poulterer who might add extra eggs to a dozen. The lines of verse alternate between twelve and fourteen syllables.
brave] bright or fair. For the rest of the poem: Saturn is dark and ugly, not fair. Venus is the goddess of love, not chastity. Pan had rough goatlike skin. Juno is never mild, but vengeful. The Egyptian goddess Isis is often shown with the horns of a cow. Cupid is blindfolded. Vulcan limps. Momus is a god of mockery, not grace. Jacinth is blue or yellow; opal is many-colored. The “crapal stone” is the lump on the head of a toad. Wide mouths and tanned skin were not regarded as beautiful. Unsmelted (untried) silver ore is black.
Chapter 4
Philanax’ Letter
Kalander continues. He does not know what the oracle said to make Basilius retire to the country. He tells Palladius how his son Clítophon had found a letter from Philanax, a nobleman whom Basilius assigned to take his place during his retirement. In the letter Philanax urges Basilius not to give his daughters the feeling that he does not trust them, and not to put Pamela in the hands of such a person as Dametas. (1593 ed. 6v.13)
“What I have told you now is no more than every Arcadian knows. But I have determined there is only one living person to whom the prince has imparted what moved him to this strange solitariness. This I conjecture, and indeed more than conjecture, from an accident which I will now recount to you.
“My only son, Clitophon, is absent now preparing for his marriage, which we soon will celebrate here. This son of mine was a gentleman of the bedchamber when my master Basilius still kept his court. After it was disbanded, my son returned home and showed me a paper among other things that he had gathered. It was a copy of a letter that the prince had read and laid afterwards on a window seat, presuming that nobody would dare to look at his correspondence. Yet my son not only took the time to read it but to copy it. In truth I blame Clitophon for the curiosity that made him forget his duty. Kings’ secrets should not be revealed. However, since it was done, I was content to take whatever profit would come thereby.
“Here is the letter, which I have carried with me ever since. Before I read it to you, I must tell you from whom it came; a nobleman of this country named Philanax, appointed regent
