Arcadia. Sir Philip Sidney

      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,

      “