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Chapter 13

Pyrocles Disguised as Zelmane

Pyrocles explains how he fell in love with Philoclea when he saw her picture at Kalander’s house. He wrote a letter for Musidorus, then disappeared from Kalander’s hunt to disguise himself as an Amazon under the name of Zelmane. He fooled Dametas and was welcomed by Basilius, who lodged him with Philoclea, Gynecia, and himself. (1593 ed. 25v.26)

So sat they down, and Pyrocles said: “Cousin, then began the fatal overthrow of all my liberty when, walking among the pictures of Kalander’s house, you yourself delivered unto me what you had understood of Philoclea, who much resembles—though, I must say, much surpasses—the lady Zelmane, whom I loved so well. There were mine eyes infected, and at your mouth did I drink my poison.

“Yet alas, so sweet was it to me that I could not be content until Kalander had made it more and more strong by his declaration. The more I questioned it, the more pity I conceived of her unworthy fortune, and when once my heart was made tender with pity, according to the aptness of the humor, it received quickly a cruel impression of that wonderful passion which is impossible to define because no words reach to the strange nature of it. Only those know it who inwardly feel it. It is called love.

“Yet did I not, poor wretch that I am, at first know my disease. I thought it was only my desire to see rare sights, and that my pity was only the fruit of a gentle nature. But even this arguing with myself came of further thoughts, and the more I argued, the more my thoughts increased.

“I desired to see the place where she remained—as though the architecture of the lodges would have been much for my learning—but I desired more to see Philoclea herself, and thereby to judge the painter’s cunning.

“For thus at first did I flatter myself that the wound had been no deeper. But within a short time I came to the degree of uncertain wishes, and those wishes grew to unquiet longings. When I could fix my thoughts upon nothing but that, they invariably ended with Philoclea; and when each thing I saw seemed to figure out some part of my passions, when even Parthenia’s fair face became a lecture to me of Philoclea’s imagined beauty, and when I heard no word spoken but that I thought it carried the sound of Philoclea’s name; then indeed, then I did yield to the burden, finding myself a prisoner before I had leisure to arm myself. Like the spaniel that gnaws on the chain that ties him, I would sooner mar my teeth than procure liberty.

“Yet I take the eternal spring of virtue to witness, that I had never read, heard, nor seen anything—I had never any taste of philosophy nor inward feeling in myself—that I did not call upon to help me. But alas, what resistance was there? Before long, I must confess, my very reason was conquered (you will say, corrupted). I thought that reason itself assured me that those who did not honor such beauty had degenerated from their creation.

“Nothing in truth could hold any plea against my love but the reverend friendship I bore to you. For as it went against my heart to break any way from you, so did I fear, more than any assault, to break it to you. I found (as it is indeed) that to a heart fully resolute, counsel is tedious, but reprehension is loathsome, and there is nothing more terrible to a guilty heart than the eye of a respected friend.

“This made me determine with myself (thinking it a less fault in friendship to do a thing without your knowledge, than against your will) to take this secret course. This idea was most built up in me the last day of my parting and speaking with you, when upon your speech with me, and my but naming ‘love’ (when else perchance I would have gone further) I saw your countenance and voice so change, as it assured me that revealing my love would only purchase your grief and my encumbrance. And therefore, dear Musidorus, I ran away from your well-known chiding.

“Having written a letter (which I know not whether you found) and taken my chief jewels with me while you were in the midst of your sport, I found a time unmarked by anyone (as I think) to steal away, I cared not whither, so long as I might escape you. I came to Ithonia in the province of Messenia, where lying secret, I put into practice what I had earlier devised. I remembered by Philanax’s letter and Kalander’s speech how obstinately Basilius was determined not to marry off his daughters. And as I feared that any public dealing should rather increase Philoclea’s captivity than further my love, Love (the refiner of invention) put in my head to disguise myself as an Amazon. Under that mask I might (if it were possible) gain access. And what access could bring forth, I could commit to fortune and industry. Therefore in the most secret manner I could, naming myself Zelmane for that dear lady’s sake to whose memory I am so much bound, I caused this apparel to be made and brought it near the lodges, which are hard at hand. By night I dressed myself, resting till occasion might make me found by them whom I sought. It happened the next morning, as well as my own plot could have laid it.

“For after I had run over the whole pedigree of my thought, I sang a little ditty, which as you know, I ever delighted in—and especially now, whether it is the nature of this climate to stir up poetical fancies or rather, as I think, it is the nature of love, whose scope of pleasure will not so much as utter his grief but in the form of pleasure.

“But I had sung very little when—as I think, displeased with my bad music—master Dametas came with a hedging bill in his hand, chasing and swearing by the pantoffle of Pallas,14 and such other oaths as his rustic bravery could imagine. When he saw me, I assure you, my beauty was no more beholden to him than my harmony, for, while he leaned his hands on his hedging bill and his chin on his hands, with the voice of one that plays Hercules in a play but never had his fancy in his head, the first word he spoke to me was,

“ ‘Am not I Dametas? Why, am not I Dametas?’

“He needed not to name himself, for Kalander’s description had set such a note on him as made him very notable to me, and, therefore, the height of my thoughts would not descend so much as to make him any answer. I continued my inner discourses, but he—perchance witness of his own unworthiness and therefore more apt to think himself slighted—took it in so heinous a manner that he stood on his tiptoes and stared as if he would have had a mote pulled out of his eye.

“ ‘Why,’ said he, ‘thou woman, or boy—or both, whatever thou be, I tell thee here is no place for thee. Get thee gone! I tell thee it is the prince’s pleasure! I tell thee it is Dametas’ pleasure!’

“I could not choose but to smile at him, seeing him look so like an ape that had newly taken a purgation, yet pretending I had been caught, I spoke these words to myself:

“ ‘O spirit,’ said I, ‘of mine, how canst thou receive any mirth in the midst of thy agonies? And thou mirth, how darest thou enter into a mind grown of late thy professed enemy?’

“ ‘Thy spirit?’ said Dametas. ‘Dost thou think me a spirit? I tell thee I am Basilius’ officer and have charge of him and his daughters.’

“ ‘O only pearl!’ said I, sobbing, ‘that so vile an oyster should keep thee.’

“ ‘By the comb case of Diana,’ swore Dametas, ‘this woman is mad. Oysters and pearls? Dost thou think I will buy oysters? I tell thee once again, get thee packing,’ and with that he lifted up his bill to hit me with the blunt end of it.

“Indeed, that put me quite out of my lesson, so that I forgot Zelmane-ship. I drew out my sword, but the baseness of the villain (who, as Kalander told me, had since his childhood feared the blade of a sword) made me stay my hand. He ran backward with his hands above his head at least twenty paces, gaping and staring with the very grace, I think, of the clowns that by Latona’s prayers were turned into frogs.

“At length staying, finding himself beyond the compass of my blows, he fell to a fresh scolding in such a mannerly15 manner as might well show he had passed through the discipline of a tavern. But seeing me walk up and down without marking what he said, he went his way (as I perceived after) to Basilius.

“For within a while Basilius came to me, bearing indeed the appearance in his countenance of an honest and well-minded gentleman. With as much courtesy as Dametas showed rudeness, he saluted me:

“ ‘Fair lady,’ said he, ‘it is nothing strange that such a solitary place as this should receive solitary persons, but much do I marvel how such beauty as yours should be permitted to be thus alone.’

“I (that now knew it was my part to play) looked with a grave majesty upon him, as if I found in myself cause to be reverenced:

“ ‘Those who are accompanied by noble thoughts,’ said I, ‘are never alone.’

“ ‘But in this, your loneliness,’ replied Basilius, ‘those thoughts can neither protect you from suspicion in others nor defend you from melancholy in yourself.’

“I then showed a dislike that he pressed me so far: ‘I seek no better warrant,’ said I, ‘than my own conscience, nor any greater pleasure than my own contentment.’

“ ‘Yet virtue seeks to satisfy others,’ said Basilius.

“ ‘Those that are good,’ said I, ‘will be satisfied as long as they see no evil.’

“ ‘Yet will the best in this country,’ said Basilius, ‘suspect so excellent a beauty, being so weakly guarded.’

“ ‘Then are the best but stark naught,’16 answered I, ‘for openly suspecting others comes of secretly condemning themselves. But in my country—whose manners I am in all places to maintain and reverence—the general goodness nourished in our hearts makes everyone think others also have the strength of virtue of which we find the assured foundation in ourselves.’

“ ‘Excellent lady,’ he said, ‘you praise so greatly—and yet so wisely— your country, that I must needs desire to know what the nest is out of which such birds do fly.’

“ ‘You must first deserve it,’ said I, ‘before you may obtain it.’

“ ‘And by what means,’ said Basilius, ‘shall I deserve to know your estate?’

“ ‘By letting me first know yours,’ answered I.

“ ‘To obey you,’ said he, ‘I will do it, although there is much more reason yours should be known first, since in all points you deserve to be put first. Know you, fair lady, that my name is Basilius, unworthily lord of this country. The rest, either fame has already brought to your ears, or—if it please you to make this place happy by your presence—at more leisure you shall understand from me.’

“I had from the beginning assured myself it was he, but would not seem I did so. To keep my gravity the better, I made a piece of reverence unto him,17

“ ‘Mighty prince,’ said I, ‘let my not-knowing you serve for the excuse of my boldness, and impute the little reverence I do you to the manner of my country, the invincible land of the Amazons. I am niece to Senicia, queen thereof, lineally descended from the famous Penthesilea, slain by the bloody hand of Pyrrhus. Having in this my youth determined to make the world see the Amazons’ excellencies—as well in private as in public virtue—I passed some dangerous adventures in diverse countries, till the unmerciful sea deprived me of my companions. Shipwreck cast me not far hence; uncertain wandering brought me to this place.’

“But Basilius—who now began to taste of that which he has since swallowed up, as I will tell you—fell to more cunning entreating about my abode than any greedy innkeeper would use to well-paying travelers.

“I thought nothing could shoot righter at the mark of my desires, yet had I learned already so much: that it was against my womanhood to be forward in my own wishes. And therefore he—to prove whether intercessions in fitter mouths might better prevail—commanded Dametas to bring forthwith his wife and daughters thither, three ladies, all of differing yet excellent beauty.

“His wife wore grave matron-like attire, with countenance and gesture suitable, and was of such fairness—being in the strength of her age—that if her daughters had not been by, she might with just price have purchased admiration. But they being there, it was enough that the most dainty eye would think her a worthy mother of such children.

“Fair Pamela’s noble heart, I find, greatly disdains that the trust of her virtue is reposed in such a lout’s hands as Dametas. Nevertheless, to show obedience, she had taken on shepherdish apparel, which was but of russet-cloth cut after their fashion: with a straight body, open breasted, the nether part full of pleats, and with long and wide sleeves. But believe me, she appareled her apparel and with the preciousness of her body made it most sumptuous. Her hair, at the full length, was wound about with gold lace, only by the comparison to show how far her hair excels gold in color. Between her breasts—which sweetly rose up like two fair little mountains in the pleasant vale of Tempe—there hung a very rich diamond set but in black horn. The motto inscribed on it, I have since read, is this: ‘Yet still myself.’

“And thus particularly I have described Gynecia and Pamela so that you may know that my eyes are not so partial but that I marked them too. But then the ornament of the earth, the model of heaven, the triumph of nature, the life of beauty, the queen of love—young Philoclea—appeared in her nymph-like apparel, so near nakedness as one might well discern part of her perfection, and yet so appareled, as she kept the best store of her beauty to herself.

“Her hair (alas, too poor a word, why should I not rather call them her beams?) was drawn up into a net able to have caught Jupiter when he was in the form of an eagle. Her body (O sweet body) was covered with a light taffeta garment, so cut as the wrought smock came through it in places enough to have made even your restrained imagination have thought what was under it. Her eyes were black indeed, whether nature so made them that we might be the more able to behold and bear their wonderful shining or that she (goddess-like) would work this miracle with herself, in giving blackness the price above all beauty.

“Then, I say, indeed methought the lilies grew pale for envy, the roses methought blushed to see sweeter roses in her cheeks, and the apples methought fell down from the trees to pay homage to the apples of her breast. The clouds gave place that the heavens might more freely smile upon her—at least the clouds of my thoughts quite vanished—and my sight (then more clear and forcible than ever) was so fixed there that (I imagine) I stood like a well-wrought image with some life in show but none in practice.

“And so I had been like enough to have stayed a long time, but that Gynecia stepped between my sight and the only Philoclea, and the change of object made me recover my senses, so that I could with reasonably good manner receive a salutation from her and the princess Pamela. I did them no further reverence than one princess uses to another, but when I came to the never-enough praised Philoclea, I could not but fall down on my knees, taking by force her hand and kissing it (I must confess) with more than womanly ardency.

“ ‘Divine lady,’ said I, ‘let not the world, nor these great princesses, marvel to see me (contrary to my manner) do this special honor to you, since all men and women owe this to the perfection of your beauty.’ She blushed like a fair morning in May at this my singular behavior and caused me to rise.

“ ‘Noble lady,’ said she, ‘it is no marvel to see your judgment much mistaken in my beauty, since you begin with so great an error as to do more honor unto me than them to whom I myself owe all service.’

“ ‘Rather,’ answered I, with a bowed down countenance, ‘that shows the power of your beauty, which forced me to do such an error, if it were an error.’

“ ‘You are so well acquainted,’ she said sweetly, and most sweetly smiling, ‘with your own beauty that it makes you easily fall into the discourse of mine.’

“ ‘Beauty in me?’ said I, truly sighing. ‘Alas, if there be any, it is in my eyes, which your blessed presence has imparted unto them.’

“But then, as I think Basilius wished her to do, ‘Well,’ said she, ‘I must confess, I have heard that it is a great happiness to be praised by those who are most praiseworthy. And well I find that you are an invincible Amazon, since you will overcome, though in a wrong matter. If my beauty is anything, then let it obtain thus much of you, that you will remain some while in this company to ease your own travel and our solitariness.’

“ ‘First, let me die,’ said I, ‘before any word spoken by such a mouth should come in vain.’

“And thus my stay among them was concluded with some other words of entertainment, and I was led among them to the lodge—truly a place for pleasantness, not unfit to flatter solitariness. It sits upon such an imperceptible rising of the ground that you come to a pretty height almost before you perceive that you are ascending. It gives lordship over a good, large circuit, which according to the nature of the country is diversified between hills and dales, woods and plains. One place is clear, another more darksome. It seems a pleasant picture of nature, with lovely lightsomeness and artificial shadows.

“The lodge is of a yellow stone, built in the form of a star, having round about a garden framed in like points; and beyond the garden, riding paths are cut out, each answering the angle of the lodge. At the end of one of them is the other lodge, smaller but of similar fashion, where the gracious Pamela lives. The main lodge seems like a fair comet, whose tail stretches itself to a star of less greatness.

pantoffle of Pallas] slipper of Athena.

mannerly] polite.

stark naught] wrong.

gravity … piece of reverence] solemn behavior … bow or curtsey.