In real life Sidney was not as lucky as his hero. A bullet unchivalrously shattered his thigh during a charge against a Spanish supply train outside Zutphen, and he died of gangrene three weeks later, on October 17, 1586.
It may be that Sidney’s narrator plays with our wish to find something true about Sidney in his picture of Pyrocles and Philoclea. But Sidney himself is formal and exact. He saw degrees and shades of color, not just simple reds, blues, and golds. When he describes a duel, on foot or horseback, the correct foot is forward, the movement of hands exact. He does not lose track of minor characters or where Musidorus stables his horse. The physical movements of the characters make sense on a map. The back-story holds together, rewarding efforts to follow its deliberately interlaced patterning. The taste of the times encouraged complex plots. The story is meant to be difficult but not impossible to follow.
Although the Arcadia starts in medias res, chronologically it begins when Euarchus, king of Macedon, sends his son Pyrocles to Thessaly to be raised by his sister and have the companionship of Musidorus, who is three years older. Euarchus (whose name means “good ruler”) then fights a war on his eastern frontier and occupies Byzantium. When Pyrocles is old enough, he and Musidorus board a ship to visit, but a storm shipwrecks them on the coast of Phrygia. From there they overthrow tyrants, excite amorous feelings, and cross paths with an unfortunate young man named Plangus, the displaced heir apparent to the king of Iberia, a country Sidney locates in modern Turkey but which doubles as a pun for both Spain (the Iberian Peninsula) and Ireland (Hibernia). A former mistress runs Plangus out of his country after she marries his father. He then winds up working with the wickedest man in the story, King Plexirtus (Shakespeare’s Edmund). This bad man happens to have a daughter named Zelmane who looks like Philoclea. She dies of unrequited love for Pyrocles, and he adopts her name to honor her when he becomes an Amazon. At the end of Book 2, the princes set sail for Macedon but are betrayed by Plexirtus. Their ship is also beset by pirates and eventually destroyed by fire. Musidorus and Pyrocles, now calling themselves Palladius and Daiphantus, wash ashore in Laconia, where a civil war simmers between the local population (the Helots) and their foreign overlords (the Lacedemonians, a name for Spartans). These adventures precede the opening of what the 1593 title page calls The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.
A Note on This Edition
Sidney’s Arcadia is a complex mixture of prose and verse told in language that uses the full resources of rhetoric, figures of speech, metaphors, and balanced words and phrases. As such it has become like an old picture whose beauty is hidden by layers of grime. It has grown dim to our eyes. It needs restoration. But the Arcadia is also a work of genius. One hesitates to touch a syllable, to change a word, to alter the syntax of a sentence so as not to disturb some hidden beauty or lost meaning. Twentieth-century editors have modernized punctuation and spelling for Shakespeare and even the King James Bible. Arcadia needs such touching up, and more. There are so many places, from the first page on, where you cannot read without re-reading, where the sense is lost, or all seems dark. Trying to recompose sentences into modern English, one cannot help thinking how much of the Arcadia has simply never been read.
Part of the problem is that Sidney conveyed ideas, but not necessarily in sentences as we know them. Today most English sentences convey a single idea. Sidney wrote rapidly and at length, with little or no punctuation, often signaling the beginning of a new train of thought with But. In his letters (there are no manuscripts of Arcadia in his own hand) he often wrote the word as B/. To add to the confusion, the word often means nothing more than “and.” Quotation marks were unknown until the eighteenth century. Hence Sidney often starts a quote with a word or two and then “said he” before continuing. It gets annoying.
Another problem is that Sidney also overuses passive constructions and weak verbs like “to be” and “to have” in all their forms. He made frequent use of litotes, a double negative, as in the phrase “being a man of no few words.” Far too often he uses the wordy phrase “as it were” to signal a metaphor. Modifiers dangle. Tenses shift. Some verbs have no subjects. And all the while participles extend the Arcadia’s lengthy prose periods. In the first sentence of Book 1, for example, the sun is running while Strephon is viewing and casting his eyes and setting down in his countenance what he would say. He remembers the nourishing beauty of Urania and worries about his languishing remembrance of her. Sidney sentences often start with a pronoun or proper name followed by a participial phrase, as in “There she sat, vouchsafing my cloak (then most gorgeous) under her” before going on to designate a hill or slope as a “rising of the ground.” These constructions occur because Sidney used the –ing form for continuous action verbs and also to form adjectives and nouns. The style was typical for mid-sixteenth century England, when Thomas Wilson in his Art of Rhetoric (1553) could call a conclusion a “lapping up.”
Contemporary versions of Shakespeare are filled with subtle changes to help actors and audiences. To take one example, Al Pacino, who plays Shylock in the 2004 film version of The Merchant of Venice, regularly substitutes modern English for Shakespeare’s words. He says “informed your grace” for “possessed your grace,” “human flesh” for “carrion flesh,” “by a rat” for “with a rat,” “master of passion” for “mistress of passion,” “this losing suit” for “a losing suit.” Sidney’s Arcadia deserves as much, and probably even more, as in this passage on the good government of King Euarchus (whose name means good ruler, as something euphonius has a pleasing sound):
And therefore, where most Princes (seduced by flatterie to builde upon false grounds of government) make themselves (as it were) an other thing from the people; and so count it gaine what they get from them: and (as if it were two counter-ballances, that their estate goes hiest when the people goes lowest) by a fallacie of argument thinking themselves most Kinges, when the subiect is most basely subiected: He contrariwise, vertuouslie and wisely acknowledging, that he with his people made all but one politike bodie, whereof himselfe was the head; even so cared for them, as he would for his owne limmes: never restrayning their libertie, without it stretched to licenciousnes, nor pulling from them their goods, which they found were not imployed to the purchase of a greater good: but in all his actions shewing a delight in their wellfare, brought that to passe, that while by force he tooke nothing, by their love he had all.
Our version sacrifices some of the rhythm, diction, and syntax of the original for clarity:
Most princes, seduced by flattery, build upon false grounds of government and consider themselves as if they are another thing from the people. They count as their gain what they get from the people. By a fallacy of argument, they think themselves most kingly when their subjects are most basely subjected. Like a counter-balance, as it were, their estate goes highest when the people go lowest.
King Euarchus held the contrary view. He virtuously and wisely acknowledged that together he and his people made but one politic body, of which he was the head. He cared for them as he would care for his own limbs and never restrained their liberty, except when it stretched to licentiousness. Nor did he pull from them their goods, except where he employed them to purchase a greater good. In all his actions, he showed a delight in their welfare and brought it to pass that that while he took nothing by force, by their love he had all.
As the example shows, we have been sparing in moving words around, except in those places where phrases squint in several directions or re-reading is necessary to make sense of a passage. Elsewhere, when characters are speaking in stressful situations, Sidney’s suitably jumpy syntax has been retained. Long sentences that imitate a sequence of physical actions deserve a restorer’s respect. We have tried to stay as close to the original text as possible because Sidney’s rhetorical medium is part of his message. But our intention has been to make the 1593 text accessible, not to remain slavishly tied to inessentials at the cost of clarity. A translator, including one translating from English to English, has an obligation to be clear, and this obligation extends to syntax because reading is a sequential act. Anything that forces the reader backwards works against the intention of the author. Phrases that
