Читать книгу Arcadia - Sir Philip Sidney - Страница 39

Chapter 1

Gynecia Woos Zelmane

Gynecia cannot sleep, worried that her love (for the man disguised as Zelmane) will undo her. She overhears Zelmane sing about “her” love for Philoclea and sees her throw down her lute. She begs for mercy, but Zelmane denies his disguise. Basilius sings about the advantages of old age, dismisses Gynecia, and attends to Zelmane. Zelmane refuses to talk about anything that would compromise her honor. (1593 ed. 50.1)

In these pastoral pastimes a great number of days were sent to follow their flying predecessors, while the cup of poison that was tasted deeply by this noble company had left no sinew of theirs without mortally searching into it. Yet it never manifested its venomous work till night parted angrily because she could distill no more sleep into the eyes of lovers and gave way to the breaking out of morning light.

No sooner had the sun bestowed its beams upon the tops of the mountains than woeful Gynecia (to whom rest was no ease) left her loathed lodging and got herself into one of the solitary places those deserts were full of, going up and down with such unquiet motions as a grieved and hopeless mind brings forth. There appeared to the eyes of her judgment the evils she was likely to run into. Ugly infamy waited upon them. She felt the terrors of her own conscience. And she was guilty of a long exercised virtue, which made her vice more full of deformity. The uttermost good she could aspire to was a mortal wound to her vexed spirits. Lastly, no small part of her evils was that she was wise enough to see her evils, insomuch that, having for a great while thrown her ghastly countenance about her as if she had called all the powers of the world to witness her wretched estate, at length she cast her watery eyes to heaven and said, “O sun, whose unspotted light directs the steps of mortal mankind, art thou not ashamed to impart the clearness of your presence to such a dust-creeping worm as I am? O ye heavens, which continually keep the course allotted to you, can none of your influences prevail so much upon the miserable Gynecia as to make her preserve the course she has so long embraced?

“O deserts, how fit a guest am I, since my heart can people you with wild ravenous beasts, which in you are wanting? O virtue, where dost thou hide thyself? What hideous thing is this that eclipses thee? Or is it true that you were never more than a vain name, and no essential thing, one who has left thy professed servant when she had most need of thy lovely presence?

“O imperfect proportion of reason, which can too much foresee and too little prevent! Alas, alas,” said she, “if there were only a single hope for my pains or but one excuse for all my faultiness! But wretch that I am, my torment is beyond all succor, and the evil I deserve exceeds my evil fortune.

“For nothing else did my husband take this strange resolution to live so solitarily, but that I (most wretched I) should become a plague to myself and a shame to womankind—for nothing else have the winds delivered this strange guest to my country, for nothing else have the destinies reserved my life to this time.

“Yet if my desire (however unjust it may be) might take effect, even if a thousand deaths followed it and every death were followed with a thousand shames, yet should my sepulcher receive me with some contentment. But though sure I am that Zelmane is such as can answer my love, yet I am as sure that this disguising has come for some fore-taken conceit—and then, wretched Gynecia, where canst thou find a small plot of ground for hope to dwell on? No, no, it is Philoclea his heart is set upon. It is my daughter I have borne who supplants me. But if it is so, the life I have given thee, ungrateful Philoclea, I will sooner with these hands bereave thee of than that my child shall glory, she that has bereaved me of my desires. In shame there is no comfort but to be beyond all bounds of shame.”

Having spoken thus, she began to make a piteous war with her fair hair, when she heard (not far from her) an extremely doleful voice, but so suppressed with a kind of whispering note that she could not conceive the words distinctly. And since a lamentable tune is the sweetest music to a woeful mind, she drew near in hope to find some companion of her misery. As she paced on, she was stopped by a number of trees, so thickly placed together that she was afraid she would, by rushing through, disturb the speech of the lamenting party she was so desirous to understand. Therefore she sat down as softly as she could, once she was in distance to hear.

First she might perceive a lute, excellently well played upon, and then the same doleful voice accompanying it with these verses:

In vain, my eyes, you labor to amend

with flowing tears your fault of hasty sight,

since to my heart her shape you so did send

that I see her, though you did lose your light.

In vain, my heart, now you with sight are burned,

with sighs you seek to cool your hot desire,

since sighs, into my inward furnace turned,

for bellows serve to kindle more the fire.

Reason, in vain (now you have lost my heart)

my head you seek, as to your strongest fort,

since there my eyes have played so false a part

that to your strength1 your foes have sure resort.

Then, since in vain I find all were my strife,

to this strange death I vainly yield my life.

The ending of the song served but for a beginning of new plaints, as if a mind oppressed with a heavy burden of cares was fain to discharge itself of all sides and, as it were, paint out the hideousness of that pain in all sorts of colors. For the woeful person threw the instrument to the ground with such-like words, as if the lute had ill-joined with the voice:

“Alas, poor lute, how much are you deceived to think that in my miseries you could ease my woes, as in my careless times you were wont to please my fancies! The time is changed, my lute, the time is changed. My joyful mind no more receives everything to a joyful consideration then than my careful mind now makes each thing taste like the bitter juice of care. The evil is inward, my lute; the evil is inward. All that you do serves but to make me think too freely of it. “What then is your harmony, but the sweetmeats of sorrow? The discord of my thoughts, my lute, ill agrees to the concord of your strings. Therefore be not ashamed to leave your master, since he is not afraid to forsake himself.”

With thus much spoken, he finished with such hearty groaning instead of a conclusion that Gynecia could not refrain from showing herself, thinking such griefs could serve fitly for nothing if not her own fortune. But as she came into the little arbor of this sorrowful music, her eyes met with the eyes of Zelmane, the party that had indicted herself to misery, so that both of them remained confused in sudden astonishment.

Zelmane feared that Gynecia had heard some part of those complaints which she had risen up early that morning on purpose to breathe out in secret. But Gynecia a great while stood still, with a kind of dull amazement, looking steadfastly upon her. At length she returned to some use of herself and began to ask Zelmane, what cause carried her so early abroad? But as if the opening of her mouth to Zelmane opened some great flood-gate of sorrow (whereof her heart could not abide the violent issue), Gynecia sank to the ground, with her hands over her face, crying vehemently:

“Zelmane, help me! O, Zelmane, have pity on me!”

Zelmane ran to her, marveling what sudden sickness had thus possessed her. She began to ask her the cause of her pain and offer her service. Gynecia opened her eyes wildly upon her, pricked with the flames of love and the torments of her own conscience,

“O Zelmane, Zelmane!” she said, “You offer me physic, who are my only poison! Or will you do me service, who have already brought me into eternal slavery?”

Zelmane then knowing well at what mark she shot, yet loath to enter into it, said,

“Most excellent lady, you were best to retire yourself into your lodging, that you may better pass this sudden fit.”

“Retire myself?” said Gynecia. “If I had retired myself into myself, my unfortunate guest, when you to me came to draw me from myself, blessed had I been, and no need had I had of this counsel. But now I am forced to fly to you for succor—you whom I accuse of all my hurt—and to make you the judge of my cause, who are the only author of my mischief.”

Zelmane was the more astonished the more she understood her. “Madam,” said she, “whereof do you accuse me, that I will not clear myself? Or wherein may I help you, that you may not command me?”

“Alas,” answered Gynecia, “what more shall I say? Take pity of me, O Zelmane, but not as Zelmane. Do not disguise with me in words, as I know you do in apparel.”

Zelmane was much troubled with that word, finding herself brought to this strait. But as she was thinking what to answer her, they might see old Basilius pass hard by them without ever seeing them, complaining likewise of love very freshly, and ending his complaint with this song, for love had renewed both his invention and voice:

Let not old age disgrace my high desire,

O heavenly soul in human shape contained!

Old wood inflamed does yield the bravest fire,

when younger does in smoke his virtue spend.

Nor let white hairs, which on my face do grow,

seem to your eyes of a disgraceful hue,

since whiteness doth present the sweetest show,

which makes all eyes do homage unto you.

Old age is wise, and full of constant truth.

Old age well stayed from ranging humor lives.

Old age has known whatever was in youth.

Old age overcome, the greater honor gives.

And to old age, since you yourself aspire,

let not old age disgrace my high desire.

Which being done, he looked very curiously upon himself, sometimes fetching a little skip, as if he had said his strength had not yet forsaken him.

But Zelmane, having in this time gotten some leisure to think for an answer, looked upon Gynecia, as if she thought she did her some wrong.

“Madam,” said Zelmane, “I am not acquainted with those words of disguising. Neither is it the profession of an Amazon, nor are you a party with whom it is to be used. If my service may please you, employ it, so long as you do me no wrong in misjudging me.”

“Alas, Zelmane,” said Gynecia, “I perceive that you know full little how piercing the eyes of a true lover are. Any one beam of those thoughts you have planted in me is able to see through a greater cloud than you go in. Seek not to conceal yourself further from me, nor force not the passion of love into violent extremities.”

Now was Zelmane brought to an exigent,2 when the king, turning his eyes that way through the trees, perceived his wife and mistress together. Framing the most lovely countenance he could, he came straight away towards them, and at the first word—thanking his wife for having entertained Zelmane—desired her that she now return to the lodge because he had certain matters of estate to impart to the Lady Zelmane.

The queen (being nothing troubled with jealousy in that point) obeyed the king’s command. But she was full of raging agonies and determinately bent that, as she would seek all loving means to win Zelmane, so she would stir up terrible tragedies rather than fail of her intention. And so went she from them toward the lodge with such a battle in her thoughts and so deadly an overthrow given to her best resolutions that even her body, where the field was fought, was oppressed by it all. She made a languishing sickness wait upon the triumph of passion, which, the more it prevailed in her, the more it made her jealousy watchful both over her daughter and Zelmane, ever keeping one of them entrusted to her own eyes.

As soon as Basilius was rid of his wife’s presence, he fell down on his knees and said, “O lady, you alone have the power to stir up again those flames which had so long lain dead in me! See in me the power of your beauty, which can make old age come to ask counsel of youth and an unconquered prince become a slave to a stranger. When you see that power of yours, love that in me, at the least, since it is yours, although of me you see nothing to be loved.”

“Worthy prince,” answered Zelmane, taking him up from his kneeling, “both your manner and your speech are so strange to me that I know not how to answer better than with silence.”

“If silence please you, “ said the king, “it shall never displease me, since my heart is wholly pledged to obey you. Otherwise, if you would grant my ears such happiness as to hear you, they shall convey your words to such a mind that is, with the humblest degree of reverence, to hear them.”

“I disdain not to speak with you, mighty prince,” said Zelmane, “but I disdain to speak about any matter that may bring my honor into question,” and with a brave, counterfeited scorn she departed from the king, leaving him not so sorry for this short answer as proud in himself that he had broached the matter. Feeding his mind with those thoughts, the king passed great time in writing verses and making more of himself than he was wont to do, so much so that with a little help he would have grown into a pretty kind of dotage.

Once Zelmane was rid of this loving but little-loved company, “Alas,” said she to herself, “poor Pyrocles! Was there ever anyone but I who received wrong and could blame nobody? I have more than I desire, yet I am still in want of what I would have. Truly Love, I must needs say thus much on your behalf, that you have employed my love there where all love is deserved—and for recompense, have sent me more love than ever I desired.

“But what will you do, Pyrocles? Which way can you find to rid yourself of your intricate troubles? To her to whom I would be known, I live in darkness. And to her I am revealed, from whom I would be most secret. What shift shall I find against the diligent love of Basilius? What shield against the violent passions of Gynecia? And if that be done, yet how am I the nearer to quench the fire that consumes me?

“Well, well, sweet Philoclea, my whole confidence must be built in your divine spirit, which cannot be ignorant of the cruel wound I have received from you.”

strength] fortress.

exigent] pressing need.