Arcadia - Sir Philip Sidney Renaissance and Medieval Studies

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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

      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

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