Arcadia. Sir Philip Sidney
though like wax this magic makes me waste,
or like a lamb, whose dam away is fet,112
stol’n from her young by thief’s unchoosing haste—
he treble baas113 for help, but none can get—
though thus, and worse, though now I am at last
of all the games that here ere now I met,
do you remember still, you once were mine,
till my eyes had their curse from blessèd eyne.114
“Be you with me while I unheard do cry,
while I do score my losses on the wind,
while I in heart my will write ere I die,
in which by will my will and wits I bind
still to be hers—about her aye115 to fly
as this same sprite about my fancies blind
doth daily haunt, but so that mine becomes
as much more loving as less cumbersome.
“Alas! a cloud has overcast my eyes,
and yet I see her shine amidst the cloud.
Alas! of ghosts I hear the ghastly cries,
yet there, me seems, I hear her singing loud.
This song she sings in most commanding wise:
‘Come, shepherd’s boy, let now thy heart be bowed,
to make itself to my least look a slave.
Leave sleep, leave all, I will no piecing116 have.’
“I will, I will, alas! alas! I will:
Wilt thou have more? More have, if more I be.
Away ragg'd rams! Care I what murrain117 kill?
Out shrieking pipe, made of some witchèd tree!
Go, bawling cur, thy hungry maw go fill
on yond foul flock belonging not to me.”
With that his dog he henced.118 His flock, he cursed.
With that, his pipe (yet kissèd first) he burst.
This said, this done, he rose (even tired with rest)
with heart as careful as with careless grace,
with shrinking legs but with a swelling breast,
with eyes which threatened they would drown his face.
Fearing the worst, not knowing what were best,
and giving to his sight a wondering race,
he saw behind a bush where Claius sate119—
his well known friend, but yet his unknown mate,
Claius the wretch, who lately yielden was
to bear the bonds which time nor wit could break,
with blushing soul at sight of judgment’s glass
while guilty thoughts accused his reason weak,
this morn alone to lovely walk did pass
within himself of her dear self to speak,
till Strephon’s plaining voice him nearer drew,
where by his words his self-like case he knew.
For hearing him so oft with words of woe
Urania name, whose force he knew so well,
he quickly knew what witchcraft gave the blow
which made his Strephon think himself in hell,
which, when he did in perfect image show
to his own wit, thought upon thought did swell,
breeding huge storms within his inward part,
which thus breathed out with earth-quake of his heart.
As Lamon would have proceeded, Basilius—knowing by the wasting of the torches that the night also was far wasted, and remembering Zelmane’s hurt—asked Zelmane whether she thought it not better to reserve the complaint of Claius till another day, which she, though much delighted with what was spoken, willingly agreed to, perceiving the song had already worn out much time and not knowing when Lamon would end (being even now stepping over to a new matter). And so of all sides they went to recommend themselves to the elder brother of death.
Thyrsis] The name of a shepherd in Virgil’s seventh eclogue, but also a wand twined with ivy and twigs, which followers of Bacchus use for incitement, just as Thyrsis provokes Musidorus to admit his passion.
the pie still] the magpie continually.
singled] singled out. Good hunters can detect a deer different from the common herd. Musidorus deliberately riddles about whether he or Pamela or both are lost in a herd (of common shepherds).
mingled be] Nor does a true lover want his lover made common.
Having urged Dorus to sing, but not “perceiving the ingenuity of his refusal, which consists entirely of proverbs feigning ‘plaine speech’ but artfully grouped together,” Thyrsis then “issues a direct challenge which Dorus accepts” (Ringler 385).
fashion] fásh-i-on, pás-si-on, per-féc-ti-on, etc.
“and if the failing of hope should end the pleasure of life” (Ringler 386).
Thyrsis “begins in terza rima with three-syllable rhyme, but is not able to keep up the pace and descends to feminine and then to masculine rhyme” (Ringler 385-86).
measure] Thyrsis saw his treasure (Kala) measure out quantities of corn (grain).
Her body, which is for Dorus the outward apparel of love, clothed the earth—referring to the episode when Pamela swooned in fear of the bear at 1.19. Musidorus took her in his arms, but when she recovered, she pushed him away.
rays] beams of light from her eyes.
love] Thyrsis shifts to masculine (one-syllable) rhyme.
“In an effort to outdistance Dorus, who has easily followed him, [Thyrsis] shifts to an intricate system of medial rhyme in which the final syllable of one line is made to rhyme with the fourth syllable of the following line” (Ringler 386).