Arcadia. Sir Philip Sidney

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      Chapter 9

      A Disputation on Honorable Action

      Musidorus presses Pyrocles (Daiphantus) to explain his change of behavior. Pyrocles defends solitary contemplation, but when his features alter and he extols the beauties of Arcadia, Musidorus guesses that his friend is in love. (1593 ed. 16.21)

      But such a change was grown in Daiphantus that he would ever get himself alone, as if cheerfulness had been tediousness and good entertainment were turned to discourtesy. He was most alone when he was in company, so little attention he gave to any who spoke to him.

      Even the color and figure of his face began to receive some alteration, but he showed little heed. Every morning early he went abroad, either to the garden or to some woods towards the desert. It seemed his only comfort was to be without a comforter.

      But long it could not be hid from Palladius, whom true love made ready—and long knowledge able—to mark. He himself grew weary of his abode in Arcadia, having informed himself fully of the strength and riches of the country, of the nature of the people, and the manner of their laws. Because he saw the court could not be visited, for it was prohibited to all men, except certain shepherdish people, he greatly desired a speedy return to his own country after the many mazes of fortune he had trodden. But when he perceived this great alteration in his friend, he decided to let him know his thoughts and then to hasten his return—but he found Pyrocles smally inclined that way.

      Therefore, one day, taking Pyrocles alone with certain graces and countenances, as if he was disputing with the trees, Musidorus began in this manner to say to him:

      “A mind well trained and long exercised in virtue, my sweet and worthy cousin, does not easily change any course it once undertakes, unless upon well-grounded and well-weighed causes. Being witness to itself of its own inward good, it finds nothing outside itself of such high price for which it should alter. Even the very countenance and behavior of such a man shows images of the same constancy by maintaining a right harmony between itself and the inward good in yielding itself suitable to the virtuous resolution of the mind. This speech I direct to you, noble friend Pyrocles, the excellence of whose mind and well-chosen course in virtue, if I do not sufficiently know, it is my weakness, and not your unworthiness. I have seen rare demonstrations of it, and indeed I know it, and knowing it, most dearly love both it and him that has it.

      “And so must I say that since our late coming into this country, I have marked in you, I will not say, an alteration, but truly a relenting and a slacking of the main career you had so notably begun and almost performed, and that in such sort, as I cannot find sufficient reason in my great love toward you how to allow it. I will leave aside the more secret arguments which my acquaintance with you makes me easily find, but this in effect may be to any man manifest, that formerly you were wont in all places you came to give yourself vehemently to the knowledge of those things which might better your mind. You would seek familiarity with men excellent for learning and soldiery. You would put what you learned into practice both by continual wise proceeding and by worthy enterprises, as occasion fell for them. But now you leave all these things undone. You let your mind fall asleep. Your countenance is troubled, which surely comes not of virtue, for virtue like clear heaven is without clouds. And lastly, you subject yourself to solitariness, the sly enemy that most separates a man from well-doing.”

      Pyrocles’ mind was all this while so fixed upon another devotion that he no more attentively marked his friend’s discourse than the child that has leave to play marks the last part of his lesson or the diligent pilot in a dangerous tempest attends the unskillful words of a passenger. Yet the very sound imprinted the general points of Musidorus’ speech in his heart. Pierced by any mislike from such a dearly esteemed friend, Pyrocles desired by degrees to bring Musidorus to a gentler consideration of him. His shamefaced look witnessed that he rather could not help, than did not know, his fault, and he answered him to this purpose:

      “Excellent Musidorus, in the praise you gave me at the beginning of your speech, I easily acknowledge the force of your good will to me. Neither could you have thought so well of me if extremity of love had not made your judgment favor me, nor could you have loved me so entirely if you had not been apt to make so great (though undeserved) judgments of me. Even so I must respond to those imperfections, to which I have ever through weakness been subject. You, by the daily mending of your mind, have of late been able to look into what before you could not discern. That change you speak of falls not out by my impairing, but by your bettering. Yet under the leave of your better judgment, I must say thus much, my dear cousin, that I find myself not wholly condemned because I do not with continual vehemence follow those knowledges which you call the bettering of my mind. For both the mind itself must (like other things) sometimes be unbent, or else it will be either weakened or broken; and, as these knowledges are of good use, so are they not all that the mind may stretch itself unto.

      “Who knows whether I feed not my mind with higher thoughts? Truly, as I may not know all the particularities, so yet I see the bounds of all these knowledges. But the workings of the mind I find much more infinite than can be led unto by the eye or imagined by any of them that distract their thoughts without themselves.

      “And in such contemplation (or, as I think more excellent contemplation), I enjoy my solitariness, and my solitariness perchance is the nurse of these contemplations. Eagles we see fly alone. They are but sheep which always herd together. Condemn not, therefore, my mind that sometimes enjoys itself, nor blame not the taking such times as serve most fitly for it. And alas, dear Musidorus, if I be sad, who knows better than you the just causes I have of sadness?”

      And here Pyrocles suddenly stopped, like a man unsatisfied in himself, though his wit might well have served to satisfy another. And so, with a countenance that looked as though he desired that Musidorus should know his mind without hearing him speak, and yet desirous to speak—to breathe out some part of his inward evil—sending again new blood to his face, he continued his speech in this manner:

      “Lord, dear cousin, does not the pleasantness of this place carry in itself sufficient reward for any time lost in it? Do you not see how all things conspire together to make this country a heavenly dwelling? Do you not see the grasses, how in color they excel the emeralds, every one striving to pass his fellow, and yet they are all kept of an equal height? And see you not the rest of these beautiful flowers, each of which would require a man’s wit to know and his life to express? Do not these stately trees seem to maintain their flourishing old age with the only happiness of their feat, being clothed with a continual spring, because beauty here should never fade? Does not the air breathe a health, which the birds (delightful both to ear and eye) daily solemnize with the sweet consent of their voices? Is not every echo a perfect music? How slowly these fresh and delightful brooks slide away, as loath to leave the company of so many things united in perfection! With how sweet a murmur they lament of their forced departure! Certainly, certainly, cousin, it must be that some goddess inhabits this region, one who is the soul of this soil, for neither is any less than a goddess worthy to be enshrined in such a heap of pleasures, nor could any less than a goddess have made so perfect a plot fit for celestial dwellings.”

      And so he ended with a deep sigh and ruefully cast his eye upon Musidorus, as one more desirous of pity than pleading.

      Musidorus had all this while held his look fixed upon Pyrocles’ countenance, and with no less loving attention he marked how his words proceeded from him. In both these he perceived such strange diversities that they rather increased his doubts than gave him ground to settle any judgment. It was not just that Pyrocles’ eyes were sometimes great with tears, but that his color often changed and his body seemed to shake unsteadily. Musidorus could see in his countenance some great determination mixed with fear. He could perceive in him store of thoughts, rather stirred than digested. His words were interrupted continuously СКАЧАТЬ