“and if the failing of hope should end the pleasure of life” (Ringler 386).
Thyrsis “begins in terza rima with three-syllable rhyme, but is not able to keep up the pace and descends to feminine and then to masculine rhyme” (Ringler 385-86).
measure] Thyrsis saw his treasure (Kala) measure out quantities of corn (grain).
Her body, which is for Dorus the outward apparel of love, clothed the earth—referring to the episode when Pamela swooned in fear of the bear at 1.19. Musidorus took her in his arms, but when she recovered, she pushed him away.
rays] beams of light from her eyes.
love] Thyrsis shifts to masculine (one-syllable) rhyme.
“In an effort to outdistance Dorus, who has easily followed him, [Thyrsis] shifts to an intricate system of medial rhyme in which the final syllable of one line is made to rhyme with the fourth syllable of the following line” (Ringler 386).
dare] I dare not mention your real name.
“[I]n a final desperate effort [Thyrsis] changes to an intricate five-line stanza rhyming a5b3c5c3b5 … but Dorus surpasses him by beginning his reply with the last line of [Thyrsis’] stanza and then repeating the same form. The roles are now reverse, for [Thyrsis] is forced to reply to Dorus by beginning with his last line. He manages to do so for one stanza, but when Dorus again successfully caps his effort, he returns to the terza rima with which he had begun and acknowledges defeat" (Ringler 386).
elegiac verses] Sidney regarded quantitative verse as noble and courtly (Ringler 393); in the 1593 Arcadia only Pyrocles and Musidorus use this Greek and Latin versification form based on long and short syllables rather than stresses. Elegiac couplets are common in quantitative verse; for example, in Ovid’s Heroides and Ars Amatoria and much medieval Latin poetry:
— — / — — / — ∪ ∪ / — ∪ ∪/ — ∪ ∪ / —
— — / — ∪ ∪ / — // — ∪ ∪ / — ∪ ∪ / —
A long syllable may substitute for two shorts except in the penultimate foot. The first two lines of Musidorus’ poem are scanned:
— — / — — / — — / — — / — ∪ ∪ / — —
For-tune, / Na-ture, / Love, long / have con- / tend-ed a- / bout me
— — / — ∪ ∪ / — // — ∪ ∪ / — ∪ ∪ / —
which should / most mi - se- / ries , // cast on a / worm that I / am.
adusted] “[W]hen choler (one of the four humours of the body) becomes adusted (loses its moisture through heat), melancholy results” (Ringler 393).
her] the “beauty divine” (Pamela).
spite] Pamela still disdains Dorus.
shamefastness] modesty. (She blushes.)
Sapphics] A verse form used by the Latin love poet Catullus (11 and 51) in imitation of the Greek female poet Sappho, and therefore well suited for Zelmane:
— ∪ — — — ∪ ∪ — ∪ — —
If my eyes can speak to do heart-y er-rand,
— ∪ — — — ∪ ∪ — ∪ — —
or my eyes’ lan-guage she do hap to judge of
— ∪ — — — ∪ ∪ — ∪ — —
so that eyes’ mes-sage be of her re-ceiv-ed
— ∪ ∪ — —
hope, we do both die.
vale] “the world as a place of sorrow and tears” (OED).
“The disguised Musidorus and Pyrocles together sing of their loves ‘in a secret manner,’ hoping that the ‘parties intended’ (Pamela and Philoclea) will understand their meaning; but they are no more successful than Shakespeare’s Viola was when she addressed Orsino in similar fashion” (Ringler 394).
Lady] Zelmane (Pyrocles in disguise).
Both princes use the same hexameter verse form:
— ∪ ∪ / — ∪ ∪ / — ∪ ∪ / — ∪ ∪ / — ∪∪ / — —.
Thus the first four lines read:
La-dy re- / served by the / heav’ns to do / pas-tor’s / com-pa-ny / ho-nor,
join-ing / your sweet / voice to the / ru-ral / muse of a / de-sert,
here you / ful-ly do / find the / strange o-per- / a-ti-on / of love—
how to the / woods love / runs, as / well as / rides to the / pa-lace.
Cyparissus] Pyrocles envies Musidorus because he can cool his passions, hot as the sun (Phoebus), in the guise (shade) of an unassuming heterosexual male (Cyparissus, as in Spenser’s Faerie Queene 1.6.17) lodged
