Arcadia. Sir Philip Sidney
Both these conspired poor reason’s overthrow.
False in myself, thus have I lost the field.
Thus are my eyes still captive to one sight.
Thus all my thoughts are slaves to one thought still.
Thus reason to his servants yields his right.
Thus is my power transformèd to your will.
What marvel, then, I take a woman’s hue,
since what I see, think, know is only you?
The ditty gave him some suspicion, but the voice gave him almost assurance who the singer was. And therefore, boldly thrusting open the door and entering the arbor, he perceived that it was indeed Pyrocles thus disguised. Wherewith, not receiving so much joy to have found him as grief to have found him in that state, he looked with amazement upon him (as Apollo is painted when he saw Daphne suddenly turned into a laurel), unable to bring forth a word.
Pyrocles had as much shame as Musidorus had sorrow, and, turning to him, would have formed a substantial excuse, but (his insinuation being of blushing and his division of sighs)13 his whole oration stood upon a short narration of what caused this metamorphosis. By that time Musidorus had gathered his spirits together, and yet casting a ghastly countenance upon him (as if he would conjure some strange spirits) he thus spoke to him:
“And is it possible that this is Pyrocles, the only young prince in the world formed by nature and framed by education to the true exercise of virtue? Or is it indeed some Amazon that has counterfeited the face of my friend to vex me in this way, for I would surely have thought it more likely that any outward face might have been disguised than that the face of so excellent a mind could have been thus blemished.
“O sweet Pyrocles! Separate yourself a little (if it be possible) from yourself, and let your own mind look upon your own proceedings. So shall my words be needless, and you best instructed. See for yourself how fit it will be for you in this your tender youth—born so great a prince, and so rare not only of expectation but of proof—to divert your thoughts from the way of goodness, to lose, nay to abuse, your time when you are now so near your home and are desired by your old father and wanted by your native country; and, lastly, to overthrow all the excellent things you have done, which have filled the world with your fame. It is as if you should drown your ship in the long desired haven, or like an ill player, mar the last act of a tragedy.
“Remember (for I know you know it) that if we will be men, the reasonable part of our soul is to have absolute commandment. If any sensual weakness arises, we are to commit all our sound forces to the overthrow of so unnatural a rebellion. And how can we lack courage, since we are to deal against an adversary so weak that in itself it is nothing but weakness?
“Nay, we are to resolve that if reason directs it, we must do it, and if we must do it, we will do it: for to say ‘I cannot’ is childish; and ‘I will not,’ womanish. And see how extremely you endanger your mind in every way, for to take this womanish habit is wholly vain, unless you frame your behavior accordingly. Your behavior can never come naturally from you, but as the mind is proportioned unto it. If you will play your part to any purpose, you must resolve to soften your heart to receive whatever peevish imperfections are in that sex—the very first step down to all wickedness. For do not deceive yourself, my dear cousin, there is no man suddenly either excellently good or extremely evil who does not grow so, either as he holds himself up in virtue or lets himself slide to viciousness.
“And, let us see, what power is the author of all these troubles? Forsooth, love! Love—a passion, and the basest and most fruitless of all passions. Fear breeds wit, anger is the cradle of courage, joy opens and enables the heart. Sorrow, as it closes, draws itself inward to look to the correcting of itself. And so all of them generally have power towards some good by the direction of reason. But this bastard love (for indeed the name of love is most unworthily applied to so hateful a humor) is engendered betwixt lust and idleness, and the matter it works upon is nothing but a certain base weakness, which some gentle fools call a gentle heart. And as its adjoined companions are disquiet, longings, fond comforts, faint discomforts, hopes, jealousies, ungrounded rages, and causeless yielding, so the highest end it aspires unto is a little pleasure with much pain before and great repentance after.
“That end—how endlessly it runs to infinite evils—would be fit enough for the matter we speak of, although not for your ears, because you have so much true disposition to virtue. Yet thus much of love’s worthy effects is to be seen in you that, besides your breaking laws of hospitality with Kalander, and of friendship with me, it utterly subverts the course of nature in making reason give place to feeling and man to woman.
“And truly I think hereupon it first got the name of love. For indeed true love has that excellent nature in it, that it transforms the very essence of the lover into the thing loved, uniting and, as it were, incorporating it with a secret and inward working. And in this way certain kinds of love imitate the more excellent kind, for as the love of heaven makes one heavenly, the love of virtue, virtuous; but so does the love of the world make one become worldly, and this effeminate love of a woman so womanize a man that (if he yields to it) it will not only make him an Amazon, but a launderer, a distaff-spinner, or whatsoever other vile occupation their idle heads can imagine and their weak hands perform.
“Therefore (to trouble you no longer with my tedious but loving words) if either you remember what you are, what you have been, or what you must be; if you consider what it is that moved you or by what kind of creature you are moved, you shall find the cause so small, the effect so dangerous, yourself so unworthy to run into the one or to be driven by the other, that I doubt not that I shall quickly have occasion rather to praise you for having conquered it than to give you further counsel on how to do it.”
But in Pyrocles, this speech wrought nothing, except where before he was espied he was afraid and after being perceived he was ashamed, now, being hardly rubbed upon, he left both fear and shame and was moved to anger. But the exceeding good will he bore to Musidorus strove against anger. He thus answered him, partly to satisfy him but principally to loosen the reins of his own emotions:
“Cousin, whatsoever good disposition nature bestowed upon me, or howsoever that disposition has been confirmed by my upbringing, I must confess that I am not yet come to that degree of wisdom to think light of the sex from whom I have my life, since if I am anything (which your friendship rather finds, than I acknowledge), I was, to come of it, born of a woman and nursed by a woman. And certainly (for this point of your speech does nearest touch me) it is strange to see the unmanlike cruelty of mankind, who, not content with their tyrannous ambition to have brought the others’ virtuous patience under them, like childish masters think their masterhood nothing without doing injury to those who (if we will argue by reason) are framed of nature with the same qualities of the mind for the exercise of virtue as we are.
“And for example, even this estate of Amazons (which I now for my greatest honor do seek to counterfeit) well witnesses that if generally the sweetness of their disposition did not make women see the vainness of these things that we account glorious, nonetheless they neither lack valor of mind nor yet does their fairness take away their force. And truly we men, and the praisers of men, should remember that if we have such excellencies, it is reasonable to think them excellent creatures of whom we are born, since a kite never brought forth a good flying hawk. But to tell you true, as I think superfluous to use any words of such a subject that is so praised in itself as it needs no praises, I fear lest my mind (not able to reach unto them) may bring forth words whose unworthiness may be a disgrace to those whom I so inwardly honor.
“Let this suffice, that they are capable of virtue, and virtue is to be loved—as you yourself say, and I too, truly. But this I willingly confess, that I much better like to find virtue in a fair lodging than to seek it in an ill-favored creature, like a pearl in a dunghill.
“As to my fault of being an uncivil guest to Kalander, if you could feel what an inward guest I am host to, you would think it very excusable that I rather perform the duties of a host than the ceremonies of a guest.
“And as for my breaking the laws of friendship with