without sense of pain. Many times when my master’s cattle came hither to chew their cud in this fresh place, I might see the young bull testify his love. But how? With proud looks and joyfulness.
“ ‘O wretched mankind,’ said I then to myself, ‘in whom wit, which should be the governor of his welfare, becomes the traitor to his blessedness! These beasts, like children to nature, inherit her blessings quietly. We, like bastards, are laid abroad, even as foundlings to be trained up by grief and sorrow. Their minds grudge not at their bodies’ comfort, nor are their senses prevented from enjoying their objects. We have the impediments of honor and the torments of conscience.’
“Truly in such cogitations have I sometimes so long stood that methought my feet began to grow into the ground with such a darkness and heaviness of mind that I might easily have been persuaded to have resigned over my very essence. But when I was at the lowest of my downward thoughts, love (which one time lays burdens, another time gives wings) pulled up my heart to remember that nothing is achieved before it is thoroughly attempted, and that lying still, one never goes forward—and that therefore it was time, now or never, to sharpen my invention, to pierce through the hardness of this enterprise, never ceasing to assemble all my conceits, one after the other, how to manifest both my mind and estate. At last I lighted and resolved on this way, which yet perchance you will think was a way rather to hide it.
“I began to counterfeit the extremest love toward Mopsa that might be. As for the love, so lively it was indeed within me (although to another subject) that little I needed to counterfeit any notable demonstrations of it. And so making a contrariety the place of my memory, in Mopsa’s foulness I beheld Pamela’s fairness. I looked on Mopsa but thought of Pamela, as if I saw my sunshine in a puddle of water. I cried out of nothing but Mopsa: to Mopsa my attendance was directed, to Mopsa the best fruits I could gather were brought, and to Mopsa it seemed still that my eye conveyed my tongue, so that Mopsa was my saying, Mopsa was my singing, Mopsa—who is only suitable to lay a foul complexion upon a filthy favor and set forth both in sluttishness—was the lode-star of my life, the blessing of my eyes, the overthrow of my desires and yet the recompense of my overthrow. She was the sweetness of my heart, even sweetening the death that her sweetness drew upon me.
“In sum, whatsoever I thought of Pamela, that I said about Mopsa. Thereby I got my master’s good will, who before spited me, fearing that I should win the princess’ favor from him. Moreover, my behavior made the princess the better content to allow me her presence. Whether indeed it was that a certain spark of noble indignation rose in her not to suffer such a baggage to win away anything of hers (however meanly she reputed of it), or whether (as I think) my words were so passionate and shot so quite contrary from the marks of Mopsa’s worthiness that she perceived well enough where they were directed, she was contented as a sport of wit to attend them, being so masked.
“Wherefore, one day I was determined to find some means to tell (as of a third person) the tale of my own love and estate. Finding Mopsa (like a cuckoo by a nightingale) alone with Pamela, I came unto them, and with a face (I am sure) full of cloudy fancies, took a harp and sang this song:
Since so mine eyes are subject to your sight
that in your sight they fixèd have my brain;
since so my heart is fillèd with that light,
that only light doth all my life maintain;
since in sweet you all goods so richly reign
that where you are, no wishèd good can want;
since so your living image lives in me
that in my self your self true love does plant,3
how can you him unworthy then decree,
in whose chief part your worths implanted be?
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