Arcadia. Sir Philip Sidney

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СКАЧАТЬ who could do much good and meant no harm. Her eyes had in them such a cheerfulness that nature seemed to smile in them. Although her mouth and cheeks obeyed to that pretty demureness, the more one marked, the more one would judge the poor soul inclined to believe, and therefore the more pity to deceive her.

      Next came the queen of Laconia, one that seemed born in the confines of beauty’s kingdom, for her lineaments were neither perfect possessors of it, nor absolute strangers to it, but she was a queen and therefore beautiful.

      But she that followed conquered indeed by being conquered, and might well have made all the beholders wait upon her triumph while she herself was led captive. It was the excellently fair Queen Helen, whose hyacinth hair, curled by nature but intercurled by art (like a fine brook through golden sands) had a rope of fair pearls, which, now hiding, now hidden by the hair, did (as it were) play at fast and loose each with other, mutually giving and receiving richness. In her face so much beauty and favor was expressed that if Helen had not been known, some would rather have judged it the painter’s exercise to show what he could do than the counterfeiting of any living pattern. The most fault-finding wit could have found no fault other than that in comparison to the rest of the body, the face was somewhat little, but that little was such a spark of beauty as was able to enflame a world of love. Every part was full of such a choice fineness that if it lacked anything in majesty, it compensated with an increase in pleasure, and if at the first it struck not admiration, it ravished with delight. And no soul was so indifferent that he would not long to have such a playfellow, even if he might resist subjecting himself to her by making her his princess.

      As for her attire, it was costly and curious, though her gaze (fixed with more sadness than it seemed nature had bestowed to any that knew her fortune) betrayed that, as she used those ornaments not for herself but to prevail with another, so she feared that all would not serve.

      Of a far differing (though esteemed equal) beauty was the fair Parthenia, who next waited on Artesia’s triumph, though far better she might have sat in the throne. For in her, everything was goodly and stately; yet so it might seem that great-mindedness was but the standard-bearer to humbleness. For her great grey eye, which might seem full of her own beauty, and her large and exceedingly fair forehead, with all the rest of her face and body were cast in the mold of nobleness, but so attired as might show the mistress thought she either did not deserve or did not need any exquisite decking, having no adorning but cleanliness—and so far from all art that it was full of carelessness, unless that carelessness itself (in spite of itself) grew from artifice.

      Basilius could not abstain from praising Parthenia as the perfect picture of womanly virtue and wifely faithfulness. He told Zelmane how he had understood that her picture (maintained in the court of Laconia by a certain Sicyonian knight) was lost through lack of valor rather than through justice. Her husband, the famous Argalus, would in a chafe have gone and redeemed it with a new trial. But she, more sporting than sorrowing for her underserved champion, told her husband that she desired to be beautiful in nobody’s eye but his, and that she would rather mar her face as badly as ever it had been than allow that it become a cause to make Argalus put on armor.

      Then Basilius would have told Zelmane that which he already knew, of the rare trial of their coupled affection: but the next picture made their mouths give place to their eyes.

      It was of a young maid who sat pulling a thorn out of a lamb’s foot with a look so attentive upon it, as if that little foot could have been the circle of her thoughts. Her apparel was so poor that it had nothing but the inside to adorn it. A sheep-hook was lying by her with a bottle upon it. But with all that poverty, beauty ruled and commanded as many hearts as the greatest queen there did. Her beauty and her estate made her quickly known as the fair shepherdess Urania, whom a rich knight called Lacemon, far in love with her, had unluckily defended.

      The last of all in place, because last in the time of her being captive, was Zelmane, daughter to the King Plexirtus. At the first sight she seemed to resemble Philoclea, but with closer marking (comparing it to the present Philoclea, who indeed had no paragon but her sister) they might see that it was only such a likeness as an imperfect mirror might give, answerable enough in some features and colors, but erring in others.

      Zelmane sighed, turning to Basilius, and said, “Alas sir, here are some pictures that might better become the tombs of their mistresses than the triumph of Artesia.”

      “It is true, sweetest lady,” said Basilius. “Some of them are dead and some others captive, but that has happened so late as it may be the knights who defended their beauty did not know so much, unless we say (as in some other hearts I know it would fall out) that death itself could not blot out the image which love has engraved in which love has engraved in them. Others besides these has Phalantus won, but he leaves the rest, carrying only such, who either for greatness of estate or of beauty may justly glorify the glory of Artesia’s triumph.”

      Chapter 17

      The Tournament

      Phalantus defeats everyone until an ill-appareled knight wins the right to face him. He is chosen over a black knight and a halting knight, who had themselves fought over a picture of Pamela. Phalantus asks permission from Basilius to escort haughty Artesia to Cecropia’s castle. (1593 ed. 32.6)

      Thus Basilius talked with Zelmane, glad to make any matter subject for conversation with his mistress.

      Meanwhile Phalantus in this pompous manner brought Artesia with her gentlewomen into one tent. Nearby he had another, where they both waited for the one that would first strike upon the shield.

Basilius, the judge, appointed sticklers22 and trumpets to determine who would respond. But none that day appeared nor the next, until already it had consumed half its allowance of light. But then there came in a knight, declaring himself as contrary to Phalantus in mind as he was in apparel, for Phalantus was all in white, having a waving water embroidered in his bases and caparison,23 at each side of which he had nettings cast over, in which were various fish made so naturally and so prettily that when his horse stirred, the fishes seemed to strive and leap in the net.

      The other knight—by name Nestor and by birth an Arcadian and vowed in affection to the fair shepherdess—was all in black, with fire burning both upon his armor and horse. The impresa on his shield was a fire made of juniper with this word, “More easy, and more sweet.” But this hot knight was cooled by a fall which at the third course he received from Phalantus, leaving his picture to keep company with the others of the same stamp. He went away without remedy, chafing at his rebuke.

The next was Polycetes, greatly esteemed in Arcadia for deeds he had done in arms. He was much spoken of for the honorable love he had long borne to Gynecia, which Basilius himself was content not only to allow, but to delight in because carried in so honorable and open plainness, and he set no other mark to his love than to do her faithful service. But neither her fair picture nor his fair running could warrant him from overthrow. Gynecia became the last of Artesia’s victories, a thing her virtues would little have cared about at another time, nor then, if Zelmane had not seen it. Her champion then went away as much discomforted as discomfited.24

      Then Telamon for Polexena, and Euryleon for Elpine, and Leon for Zoana—all brave knights, all fair ladies—by their going down, lifted up the balance of his praise for activity, hers for fairness.

As the beholders were discussing those losses, there came a shepherd stripling into the place where they ran. His height made him more than a boy, and his face would not allow him a man. He was brown of complexion (whether by nature or by the sun’s familiarity) but very lovely withal, and for the rest, so perfectly proportioned that nature showed she does not behave like men who slubber up matters of mean account.25 And well might his proportion be judged, for he had nothing upon him but a pair of slops, and upon his body a goat skin, which he cast over his shoulder, doing all things with СКАЧАТЬ