no traitor known till clad in clay This Gibbet here was set it to bewray For the King was terribly enraged when he had heard this strange kind of treason which was the cause that now he loved her whom he had wedded to his son and hated him whom he was by Nature bound to love For lest Periander should return into Albion and marry with me whom he would have to be his wife the King forgetting both the law of Nature and Honesty wrote unto the King of Spain that his Son Periander was guilty of treason against his own person being his Father and therefore desired him upon all friendship and the alliance that had a long time béen between the Kingdomes of Spain and Albion to keep his son close prisoner and to let him be used as hardly as any of all the other Captives which were in his Kingdome or Domions When I had heard what answer the King had returned by the Embassadors of Spain my heart was ready to burst And I was minded divers times to dispatch my self with one of my garters thinking that by my death I should deliver Periander from imprisonment and move the Kings mind to use his son as he ought to do But I know not how I was always so falsly allured with hope that I continually abstained from shortening my life and thereby prolonged my misery You shall therefore understand that I got one of the Embassadors Pages to carry a Letter from me unto Periander and to deliver it secretly into his own hands which the youth promised that he would accomplish though it should cost him his life and to reward his readinesse and to make him the willinger and carefuller to discharge his duty I gave him twentie crowns to drink The Letter was written to this effect Brisilla to the Prince Periander SWeet Periander the joy which poor Brisil conceived when she heard of her Periander was too great to be of long continuance and even as the herb that groweth and fadeth in one hour so the mirth that possessed my soul was in a moment expelled and banished You accused the Pylot Barsalis but you might rather have cursed the traytor Massicourt as the chief cause and first beginning of all our sorrows for the furious love hypocriticaf friendship and malitious policie of that unhappie Knight hath wrought first his own ruine and therewith our adversitie How miserable and unhappy art thou Periander that thy own natural father hateth thee How unfortunate that thy parent conspireth against thee And how unluckie that he who ought to be thy chief friend is become thy enemy Nay rather how wretched is distressed Brisil that unhappie Periander must be thus miserable unfortunate and unluckie for her sake Ah Periander could my captivity set thee at liberty how pleasantly and how willingly should the world see me run to the Prison and yeeld my leg to the Stocks or Iron Gyves Nay might the dearest bloud that succoureth my faithful heart purchase thy ransome from imprisonment and obtain thee thy souls desire how soon should my breast offer it self to my knife to be set a broach and to have a passage made into the inmost part thereof But no the Gods and fortune envy at me too greatly to suffer me to injoy so great happinesse If no man can or dare tel you the cause of your fathers suddain wrath against you know that I have found means to rid you of that doubt and to let you understand that accursed Brisil is the occasion thereof though she had rather die then live to see thee wronged The King thy father will be married to Brisil and therefore must Periander be banished which is more imprisoned among strangers far from home But assure thy self Periander that I will rather die then undo that which is knitted with my faith and bound with my honor If you can patiently endure your imprisonment perswade your self that I will couragiously abide my martyrdome Which for that as it cannot but be the crown of mine honour so also is like to be the cause of my releasement I wish that it may happen with all speed That Brisil being lifeless and forgotten Periander may be reconciled to his father return to his country and injoy his pleasure untill the decease of the King then to be crowned with the glorious title of King of Albion And thus faithfull Brisil biddeth thee farewell lamenting nothing so much as that she was not in the galley by you to row for you and bear all the travel that you by reason of her were constrained to suffer among them unnaturall Moors and galley slaves Adieu Thine and therefore thy self miserable Brisilla This Letter I had no sooner delivered to the Page but Embassadours departed from the Court having taken their leave of the King and embarked themselves the next day after to return into Spain When they were gone the King sent for me and asked me whether I was not yet resolved to love him séeing he hated his own son for love of me Whereunto I answered that if his Majesty loved me indéed he would likewise love his son séeing that I loved none but his son nor could not love any other as long as I lived But to be short and as little tedious loving shepheards as I possibly may after we had reasoned and argued together the space of a full hour he in protesting how intirely he loved me and that he could not live unless he enjoyed Brisil as his Quéen and I in defending that I might not love him nor live if I break my promise made to his son in his presence and by his consent at length he burst out into these raging words Proud Brisil and ungrateful Duches thou despisest the high offers of a King and contemnest the love of a Monarch that governeth a whole Kingdome And thinkest thou not that I cannot command thée séeing an huge people is ruled by me I promise thee that I will teach thee not to say nay when I demand and to be ready to grant when I request Therefore know that thou shalt be married unto me wilt thou or wilt thou not and the Marriage day shall be the ninth day after to morrow See then that thou prepare thy self against that day to condescend to my pleasure lest thou wilt rue thy stubborn hardneckedness And with that he turned from me into the next chamber and left me poor distressed wight ready to yield up the ghost at the sound of his conclusion But snatching hope by the subject I thought either the Kings minde might before the appointed day be altered or fit opportunity offered me to escape his tyranny by flight But neither I could in time get away nor the King had forgotten his intent But the day which he had appointed for the Wedding being come and all things in a readinesse sent for me I although I did not well know what to do yet râ—sting upon this point rather to die then to forsake Periander and
taken the advantage of the Pine to shrowd his weary body from the injury of Apollos heat but they entring in the midst of the thicket to draw as near him as they might hear the sound of his instrument rebound against the bushes wherof they were passing glad hoping that he would bewray his thoughts to the dumb trees and sencelesse bushes They therefore listening heard him sing in this manner Floribusnt plenum ver sic mea vita periclis Piscibus ut que fretum sic ego mille malis Adversis cumnâ—or cumulat ut hortus arenis Gaudia me fugiunt sorte petitque dolor My mind is void of mirth no joy my humor doth possesse No pastime doth avail nor sport my grief for to redresse No muse may move no song delight no no nor pleasure please No tune can touch no fancy like no toy can work my case No game no play no dance no shew no company at all No exercise no use of bow nor yet of boul or ball Ne Bacchus cups ne Ceres chear ne Venus looks unsure From wo to wantonnesse can now my pensive thoughts allure Care care doth waste my years though young and vex my youthful age And therefore since no worldly thing my dolour can asswage I am content because compeld where others laugh to weep At night a thousand thoughts resolve where others take their sleep After he had ended this Sonnet Perina his youngest sister séeing that he arose to depart thence whistled and so staied him For he marvelled who it should be but at length espied both his sisters coming towards him which wonderfully astonished him because they had never done the like before and curteously greeting them asked what the cause was of their coming thither Euphilia answered your self brother Perierio For though we have great regard of our own welfare quoth Perina yet we do not regard our selves onely but are as carefull of your fortune as of our own And therefore we quoth Euphilia marking and perceiving by your solitary walks that you were troubled with some grief or other and that some misfortune had happened unto you we were as sorry as if it had béen our own case This brother Perierio is the cause of our coming to see if we might come in knowledge of the evill which tormenteth your youth that it being known unto us might by our diligence and industry be remedied and amended Therefore brother conceal it not from us whatsoever it be and you shall find in us more then sister-like readinesse if more may be Ah loving sisters quoth Perierio I cannot enough thank you both for the love you bear me and in truth the onely cause that I have smothered my pain with silence not detecting it unto any of you hath been for that I was loath that you should be grieved for my sake and I wished nothing so much as that al the discontent and anguish of my evil should redound to no bodies grief but mine own And therefore sweet sisters if you love your selves and me also wish not to be acquainted with my sore least you suffer part of the pain But content your selves and look to the tranquility of your own hearts not tormenting your selves in my behalf But you be deceived herein brother Perierio quoth Euphilia For in thinking to free us from grief by concealing your evil you do amisse Know you not that they which are carefull of any mans welfare and so tenderly love him that they think themselves hurt if any ill light on him are continually compassed with fear if he be grieved thinking the cause thereof oftentimes to be far greater or worse then it is Quando ego non in tui graviora pericula veris And therefore brother you afflict our hearts with divers torments in concealing your evill from us whereas we can but feel one pain if we knew it For now the torment of suspition in suspecting divers things doth assail us of one side fearing sometimes one mischief sometimes another every one whereof woundeth our hearts with passing sorrow And fear maketh the assault of the other side causing us to imagine that the matter is far worse then it is Lastly hope troubleth us as much as suspicion or fear For though it be a motion of the mind of future luck or good to come and not of evill yet is it but a perturbation of the mind troubling and vexing it continually and he that hopeth enjoyeth not his hearts ease nor quietnesse of mind Why then sister quoth Perierio to rid you of all suspicion fear and hope know that I love and suspect no worse nor hope any better and ask we no more for I should not be able to answer you if you should be too inquisitive The reason is because I know not whom I love nor where she is whom I love And is it love quoth Perina that troubleth you Why then left you not this verse out of the Sonnet which you sung to the Cytharen but even now Ne Bacchus cups ne Ceres chear ne Venus looks unsure From wo to wantonnesse can now my pensive thoughts allure Well remembred sister Perina quoth Euphilia for if he be in love he must needs offer sacrifice to Venus and what but the unsure looks of Venus hath caused him to give over all pasture and mirth and live in passionate grief And yet he saith That Venus looks unsure could no way him allure How then can you love Perierio if you be not allured by be â—â—ty Very well sister quoth Perierio For though Venus be accounted the Goddesse of love in being mother to Cupid yet doth she comand no further then beauty stretcheth which is not the onely object that moveth men to love What think you not that vertue nobility excellency or wealth may move us to love Then you must confesse that I may love and yet not allured by Venus colours Neverthelesse know that beauty is the onely cause and motive of my love and yet do I not think that the verse which my sister Perina so well remembred was unfitly inserted among the other verses of my Sonnet For séeing that I loved and yet was bereft of all hope ever to injoy her whom I loved because I neither knew what she was nor where she was as I have already told you by reason whereof I wished no greater pleasure then grief nor better companion then wo and therefore might very well say that the unsure looks of Venus should not provoke my pensive thoughts from we to wantonnesse meaning not by Venus looks sincere and true love but wanton and voluptuous love CHAP. VII How Maffeo arrived at the place where Perierio and his sisters were how he was enamoured on the Lady Eleonora and departed with her into Spain AS Perina thought to reply she was interpelled by a certain Knight that came galloping towards the place where she Perierio and Euphilia sate being sorely wounded in divers places of his body his sword being drawn and holding a scarf
I have nourished him carefully and maintained him as a father ought to do brought him up painfuly taught him and instructed him and what trouble paines and labour I have had with him what counsel I continually have given him and how mildly I have rebuked and chastised him in his youth Now is he sorely against my will married to the Shepheardess Ismenia and because I have rebuked him therefore instead of revenging himielf on the shepheard Alanio who shamefully entertaineth as all the Village knoweth the said Ismenia his wife he hath turned his rage against me intending to murder me He found meanes the last night to enter into my house yea into my bed-chamber where I lay and slept with my wife Felisarde and there with this ponyard would have slain me and verily had dispatched me if God of his grace had not taken his force from him in such sort that he could not hold the dagger in his hand but was constrained to let it fall and so confounded and bereft of his sences departed without executing his damnable enterprise And this is it that I had to say thus is the matter verily passed as my beloved spouse can better inform you But for as much as I certainly know that my son Lexander had not taken upon him to commit such an horrible treason against me his father unlesse he had been counselled and provoked thereto by the inticements and allurements of his wife Ismenia I beseech you to perpend and weigh what ought herein to be done to the end that my son may be punished for his offence and false Ismenia also as well for the counsel which she hath given unto her husband as for her lightnesse and dishonest love towards Alanio Filene had scarce ended his tale but the people began to murmure and make such a noyse that it séemed that the whole Village should have presently sunck in the ground in so much that the hearts of all the Shepheards were troubled and all conceived generally mortal hatred against Lexander Some said that it was pitty he should live till Phoebus had reached to his Meridian seat others said that he ought to be cast into the River others that it was pitty if he were not burned quick and others that he ought to be committed to the mercy of the cruel and savage beasts finally there was no one person that was not stirred up against him Besides they did likewise all marvel of that which Filene falsly alleaged concerning my life but they were neverthelesse all of them so amazed at the fact Lexander that they did not greatly hearken to the accusation and impeachment which Filene most falsly by reason of Felisarde his wives deceitful spéech had made against me When Lexander had heard what his father had deposed against him in the Court of criminal cause in the presence of the Iustices and audience of all the people he was wonderfully grieved besides when he understood what his father had said against me he conceived such excéeding sorrow that it passeth my ability to express the same And thence commeth all my grief thence took my evil it offspring that was the cause and beginning of all my labours travel pain and sorrowes For my dear husband Lexander remembring that in times past I did love was loved of Alanio and that love forgotten and dead oftentimes may be renewed and revived again because he saw that the Shepheard Alanio whom I could not abide to sée whom I abhorred for Lexanders sake was yet amourous of me daily shewing me such curtesies and importunate cherishments he thought verily and perswaded himself that all was most certain and true which his father had spoken of me in the face of the world In such maner that he dispairing as well for the treason committed unto him by Traitress Sylveria as for the suspition which he conceived of me departed incontinently from the village since which time he was never séen there nor any news brought what is become of him And as I knew that he was departed and the cause wherefore by report of certain shepheards his friends unto whom he had rehearsed the whole matter I likewise left the village to séek him and intend not to rest any where untill I find my sweat spouse to the end that I may excuse and clear my self unto him of that fault which is falsly imputed to me and which he suspecteth to be most true It is long since I have wandred up and down through the world to seek my husband and although I have sought him and inquired for him in most places and especially all the chiefest and principall farmes houses villages and boroughs of the country yet can I not hear any thing of him The best adventure that I have had in this my endlesse voyage was that two days after I departed from our village in a certain valley I met the traitresse Sylveria who having heard of the voluntary exile and banishment of my husband Lexander went after him to discover her treason unto him repenting that she had so highly offended him But she had not as yet found him and as soon as she saw me she approached near me and falling fiâ—t on her face cried me mercy and at my will rising she opened the whole matter vnto me Whereof I was not a little glad thereby understanding how that abhominable treason was practised against us And although I was but a weak woman yet I could have unlaced the traitresse members and teared her to piece-meal with mine own hands yet I withheld my self because she onely could remedy my harm by reporting her own mischief I willed her diligently to seek my beloved Lexander and to give him notice how all the matter was passed and therewith on the sudden I left her going one way and I came anut her to the end that either of us might find him Thus gentle shepheard have you heard the plain and true rehearsall of all my miseries and calamities And for as much as Phoebus is not yet drowsie or sleepy nor like to reach to his Western bed so soon if in like manner you as I have done will take pleasure in reporting the cause and off-spring of your wandring errors I doubt not but we shall reach to the place where I hope we shall rest this night by that time that you have added the canclusion to your narration Alas quoth Perierio the conclusion must néeds follow quickly where the narration is sooner ended then begun For all the speciallity that I can use in declaring the cause of my misery is this generall rule that I know that I am most miserable For I love but whom I know not and that is all I can say concerning my self Perierio hod scarce ended his words but Ismenia made sign that he should hearken to a certain voice which she thought to Have heard in the woods for there was a Gentlewoman in the habit of a shepheard not far from the place where they
were which thus complained of her mishap Ah Fortune have I thus long had thee in estimation and yeelded thee such honour and doest thou reward me with continuall and never ceasing travel Ah unthankful and ingratefull Goddesse If a Goddesse For Gods are just constant merciful thou inconstant cruel and most unjust by the rule of contraries therefore art thou no Goddesse Ah foolish wench be wise at last being taught by experience and instead of worshipping fortune curse her detest her and defie her and perswade thy self that the Gods which are jealous and therefore wrathfull and incensed with anger against those that deprive them of the honour due unto them and give unto others have thrown thée into this Charybdis of miseries to punish and chastise thy hainous offence committed against them in worshipping that Idoll fortune Wherefore O heavenly powers Brisilla bendeth her knées and foldeth her hands asking pardon of heaven for her errour She repenteth her of her ignorance she bewaileth her folly Pardon mercifull Gods pardon me and cease to work your vengeance upon a poor distressed virgin that is desolate and bereft of all hope and consolation pleadeth for mercy from heaven And with that she wept so bitterly that Ismenia and Perierio comming unto her could not sée her face it was so vailed with tears Likewise she pulled her golden hair by whole locks off her head with her hands which were so white and so delicately fashioned that it was a marvel to sée such tender hands so cruelly prey upon so brave a head Ismenia therfore not able to behold such an unmerciful spectacle stepped unto her and held her hands which so furiously teared her glistering hair saying Ah distressed shepheardess seek not your own ruine wrong not your self and fight not against your own person for the torment and grief which you suffer by reason of your misfortune is augmented and enlarged not diminished or slacked by these meanes Therfore fair shepheardess hold your hands cease from vexing your self You live not alone in adversity for we are not so happy but that we may worthily complain of Fortunes sicklenesse Company in misery is no small solace comfort your self therefore and with us hope that the Gods will at last be moved to mercy and appoint the end of our miseries Ah gentle Shepheard answered Brisilla for that was her name where dispair ruleth there hope is banished Nay quoth Perierio embrace hope and dispair dareth not approach The extremity of my case replied Brisilla forbiddeth me to take hold of hope Yea but through magnanimity and courage quoth Perierio may you overcome and vanquish your extremity And therfore swéet shepheard let not your heart faint nor your courage slacken but with an invincible heart suffer not any extremity though never so supream to brave your mind and though you be conquered of all your enemies yet yéeld not the liberty of thy mind to the proudest Champion that either Fortune or fate can arme against you Brisilla marking that both Perierio and Ismenia were persons of estimatioÌ„ thought theÌ„ to be some of the chiefest shepheards therabout therfore assoon as she could contain from wéeping thanked theÌ„ for their comfortable persuasions for she received great consolation in that she had met with them taking great delight in beholding their beauty and asking them whether they travelled Ismenia told her that she with Perierio were bound toward the temple of Diana hoping that the Lady president of the same temple would remedy their harm and give them such instruction that they should have cause to hope for the end of their troubles in short time Brisilla hearing that was passing glad and began to clear her eys from the water which continually ran down her face And having chased away such impedimeÌ„ts as hindred her speech by reasoÌ„ of her sorrow she spake to Perierio and Ismenia with such an excellent grace that her words seemed to flow from her mouth as running water issueth out of the fountain Insomuch that they did not doubt but that she was some courtly Princesse though she covered her body with the vesture of a country lasse CHAP. XIII How Pâ—riander Prince of Albion and Brisilla daughter to the Duke Florindos became enamoured of each other and what ensued AFter they had had some talk of each others fortunes and troubles Brisilla at the request of Perierio and Ismenia began to unfold the cause of her travel making a copious and large narration of the course of all her life Permitting this Exordium Loving shepheards though I fear that I shall not be able to accomplish that accordingly which I have undertaken to do mistrusting that I shall both lack time to end the history of my life when I have begun it also discretion to contrive the same into some order and method my memory being weak by reason whereof I may chance to forget and slip over many things yet hoping that you will accept of my good will and readinesse in pleasuring you I will endeavour as neare as I can and as truly as my memory will permit to report and lay down the whole circumstance of my case unto you I was borne in the famous Isle of Albion where my father was generall Commander over all the Kings Forces abroad when the King was at home And if his Majesty chanced to follow the Camp in his proper person then was my father Viceroy and supream Governor at home I had not lived six years but my father venturing himself in the midst of his enemies and pressing into the very bowells of their Camp slew the King of Gaule with his own hand and therewith gave the enemy a terrible overthrow and his King a great victory but it cost him his life For after he had slaine the King there were so many Knights that besought him to revenge the death of their King that he was not able to escape the hour which his destinies had appointed him When the King was informed how that my father had obtained him such a wonderful victory with the price of his life knew not whether he had greater cause to rejoyce for the overthrow of his enemy or to wéep for the loss of such a valiant Souldier and faithful subject Wherefore he in proper person came to my fathers Palace and himself brought my Mother the newes of my Fathers honourable death comforting us all with such friendly spéeches that we could not have béene grieved for his death if Nature had not forced us to lament his losse Yet howsoever we were grieved the King caused my Father to be buried most honourably and erected such a magnificent Tombe at his owne cost that he gave a sufficient Token to all his Countrey how greatly he esteemed of Duke Florindo for so was he called Within foure yeares after my Mother the Duchesse being an aged woman dyed and was buried under the same Tombe with my Father And the King considering that I was young about ten yeares of age
and to curse Fortune yet at this hour For when Periander had séen us in the Arbor he returned home presently and thanking Malorena that she had so faithfully bewrayed our treachery unto him desired her to return home with him where he wrote a Letter unto me and sealing it up gave it to Malorena and not doubting of her fidelity prayed her to deliver it unto me which he promised to do and departed from Periander who incontinently went his way I know not whither for since that time that he went home and I was called by Bergama I never saw him nor heard of him nor could know what is become of him The traitress séeing how cunningly she had deluded her neighbour unripped the seales of the Letter thinking she might be her secretary séeing she had done her so good a turn but by chance looking on the subscription before she had read the contents and seeing Periander written instead of Sybilla was strucken in a maze on the sudden not knowing what it meant but to be the better enformed she read the Letter which was thus penned To Brisil health and pleasure BRisil to the end that thou maist enjoy thy Petulca at thy will and pleasure without any hindrance I have left thee and my self meanes to live solitary in some wilderness seeing the society wherein I onely delighted is taken from me Love Petulca and love him so that thou hate me if thou wilt for I cannot but love love thee and so love thee that for fear lest I be troublesome unto thee I have separated my self from thee wishing thee all the pleasure and delight thou canst desire and praying the Gods to save Petulca from all mischance for thy sake Farewell Ever thine though thou weary to be his PERIANDER When Malorena had read that Letter she could not but marvel at the strangenesse of the case for she perceived thereby what kind of sisters we were and though she was sorrée that she had offered such true Lovers that injury yet glad for that she hoped to enjoy the love of Petulca she stayed till he came home and then she shewed him Perianders Letter telling him from point to point how she had served us For she thought when Petulca should know how he was by us deceived in that he loved a man for a woman a youth for a maid yea Periander for Sybilla that then he would be sorry that he so unwisely had disdained her self and set so little by her love But yet she was deceived for Petulca having attentively listned to her tale and well perpended the Letter was so angry at her and enraged that she had committed such villany against us that he swore he would himself revenge the injury by her offered to us And therewith flung from her and presently declared all the matter unto me with tears trickling down his eys and shewed me the Letter which Periander had written unto me whereat I was both so ashamed and amazed that I fell in a swound But being by the industry of Petulca come to my self again I conceived that grief for the departure of Periander and the false opinion which he holdeth of me which now so tormenteth and vexeth me that I wish I had fared as wicked Malorena did who understanding that Petulca had opened all her treachery and divelish practises unto me falling into desparation for that she had attempted so much villany in vain cast her self into the River and so was drâ—wned By means whereof the whole village yea and the neighbour towns were filled with the rumour of this tragedy and I the next morning making no man of my counsel deparâ—ed from thence to seek my sorrowfull Periander Thus loving shepheards have you heard the discourse of my miserable life which now is so much the more miserable by how much the more pleasure and joy I have had therein For the grief which I suffer because Periander the thought of whom and remembrance of whose love is the onely thing wherby I live departed from me with such an opinion is so extream that the greatest pleasure which ever I enjoyed in al my life is no way equivalent or comparable unto it Iudge then your selvs worthy shepheards whether I have not cause to curse Fortune and blame even the Gods of cruelty Wherewith Brisilla having ended her history began newly to wéep and lament most pittifully But Ismenio and Perierio who had so attentively given eare to her discourse that they had not interrupted any part thereof comforted her as much as they might And séeing that by this they were come to the place where Iâ—menia had appointed to rest that night they made provision for supper as merrily as their passions would suffer them falling to their meat refreshed their weary bodies and afterward took their rest As soon as Apollo had lighted on his fiery steeds to run his wonted course Perierio Ismenia and Brisil rising from their bed be took them to their journy towards the Temple of Diana every one of them hoping that they should have their grief if not remedied yet at least something mitigated for the wisdom and divine power of the Lady president of that Temple was so blazed by the Trump of Fame through all the Countries about her that no man in her time which had heard of her celestiall knowledge doubted but that his evill might by that Lady be redressed though it were nere so marvelous so it passed not the bounds of possibility This Lady was called Felicia of whose wisdome knowledge beauty excellency courtesie gracious favour towards all true Lovers and vertuous piety towards all distressed persons Monte Mayor largely describeth in his Diana and forasmuch as the same Monte Mayor copiously setteth forth the sumptuousnesse and magnificence of the Palace wherein this Lady Felicia kept her Court in the fourth Book of the first part of his said Diana I think it superfluous for me to retain the Readers eare with unnecessary relations of those things that by others have so exactly been performed Wherefore turning the gentle Reader desirous to know the curiosity of the sumptuous building both of the Temple and Pallace before mentioned with the situation of the place to the fourth book of Monte Mayors Diana I will prosecute the matter of my history CHAP. XV. How Perierio Ismenia and Brisil in their travell found Marcelio and Maffeo asleep who departed with them towards the Temple of Diana PErierio with his company had not gone above the space of an hour or thereabout they came into a fair green where they saw a shepheard and a Knight lying on the tender grasse asléep both together Ismenia and the Lady Brisil marvelling at that sight séeing two persons of such different calling so fellow likely sléeping one by the other wist not what it meant for they saw neither flock of shéep by them nor yet any other company But Perierio told them that he knew both the shepheard and the Knight also for he had both séen
hope for the redress remedy of their harms For they were in great hope that some of them whom they so diligently painfully sought for either were already among those gentlemen damosels shepheards which Polydor said that he had séen with the Lady Felicia or should be ere long by means of the said Ladies singular wisdom and experience The Sun by this time began to fall in the Western plains and thereby was not so hot but that Polydor thought good to march forward that they might in good time reach to the pallace of the Lady Felicia Which liking all the coÌ„pany they rose all and went on their journey They had not gone passing a league and a half but they met a certain nymph whom the Lady Felicia foreknowing the comming of this worthy company had sent to let them know of certain things which she would have them acquainted with before they came unto her to the end that all things might succéed according as she through her incredible wisdome thought convenient Marcelio therefore with the rest of his company coming to the place where the nymph was saluted her very curteously as she likewise did him and all the other that were by him and asked them whither they were going whereunto they answered that they weÌ„t toward the temple of Diana She hearing that said for as much as I can gather by the valor and worthinesse of your persons I believe the Lady Felicia of whose nimphs I am one will be very glad of your company And séeing that Phoebus doth now begin to prepare for his evening lodging the day draweth to an end I wil return home with you for I am assured ye shall be received with great triumph They thanked her greatly that she would keep them company and went on with her towards the temple For they conceived marvellous hope by her words and although Polydor Clenarde had been in the Pallace before yet they remembred not that they had séen her among the other nymphs by reason of the multitude of the nymphs of the Lady Felicia who all of them obeying the commandement of their sage Lady are imployed in sundry charges and divers places So that Polydor asked this nimph how she was called whereupon she answered her name was Arethea Clenarde demanded what news was in the Ladies Pallace she answered that the chiefest news she knew was the two hours before her departure from thence there arrived a young Lady in the habit of a shepheardesse who being espied by an aged Knight that was at that present with the Lady Felicia was known to be his daughter and that because she had a long time gone astray through most parts of the world the aged Knight her father was so joyfull of her arrival that the rumor of that young Ladies fortune was spread through al the villages about the temple of Diana Marcelio listening attentively to these words greedily desiring to know whether the Lady she spake of were Alcida could not but interrupt the nymph as she went to go forward in the relation of her news and so he asked her how the aged Knight was called Vnlesse my memory fail me answered the nymph he is called Eugerio and his daughter Alcida Wherewith Marcelio surprized with excéeding joy after he had a long time stood as if he had been in a trance at length burst out into these words Ah most blessed troubles that take end by so prosperous an adventure ah fortune and as he meant to have gone forward he could not utter one word more but fell down on the ground wholly astonished The Lady Brisil Ismenia and Clenarde flocked about him to incourage him and did so much prevail that he came to himself again In the mean time Polydor and Clenarde were marvellous joyfull at that news séeing that all their misfortunes should take end by the comming of their sister Alcida Maffeo Perierio and the Lady Brisil with Ismenia were likewise glad for Marcelio's sake and hoped likewise that as the Lady Felicia had wrought his blisse so she would likewise being moved with compassion of their miseries redresse their grief Ismenia desirous to hear something of her husband Lexander said to Arethee fair Nymgh I was marvellously well contented and received great joy to hear of the general gladnesse that is in the Ladies Pallace by reason of the arrivall of the Lady Alcida but yet I should conceive more perfect pleasure if it would please you to tell me what shepheard of account there is at this present in the Pallace Arethee answered you shall find divers shepheards of account whose names I remember not yet two or three I know above the rest There is one shepheard called Petulca of whom the Lady Felicia maketh great account of for his wit and chastity Besides there is a shepheard called Philorenus whose presence pleaseth the Lady Felicia as much The Lady Brisil hearing Petulca named marvelled to know how he came thither and to what end and therefore asked the nymph whether she knew â—he cause of his commig thither The nymph answered that as she remembred he came to hear of a certain young shepheard whom he sometime had loved instead of a young maid under the name of Sybilla he being apparelled in the habit of a shepheardesse and dwelling with his wife made all the world beleeve they were two sisters And many other things which I cannot quoth Arethee now rehearse shaâ—l you understand of him when you come to the Pallace concerning those two sisters which I promise you are wonderfull strange Strange they are indeed quoth Brisil if you knew all fair nymph Verily I beleeve quoth Arethee that you are either the shepheard Periander or his supposed sister Either of them indeed quoth Brisil but my name is not Periander I promise you quoth Arethee that my Lady will be singularly glad when she séeth you for I have heard her talk much of you and your spouse Periander Ismenia although she heard not that her beloved Lexander was among the other shepheards which Arethee had named yet for that she heard that the Lady Brisil had heard something concerning her matters she took the more heart in her own cause and was glad for the poor distressed Dutchesse sake hoping that she should receive comfort of the Lady Felicia Maffeo and Perierio who had heard nothing of their Ladies were neverthelesse of as good chear as the rest hoping that when they were come to the Temple of Diana they should receive as much comfort as any because the Lady Felicia had written to him and Marcelio as you have heard before CHAP. XX. How Perierio and his company came to the Temple of Diana how they were entertained by the Sage Lady Felicia and the great joy that was there made THis worthy company being convoyed by Arethee the Nymph came into a fair large place which was before the gate of the Pallace weere they saw a most gallant Dame come out of the house being apparelled
thy play to see others pained thy pleasure consisteth in plaguing them that implore thy help Thou laughest at them that weep for their mishaps to move thee to pity thou scornest thē that honor thee thou mockest them that praise thee thou deceivest them that trust to thee thou abusest them that flatter thee and them that despise thee thou endeavourest to be revenged of them though they of all others least care for thy might least fear thy power therefore are least injured by thee Fret at them thou mayest and some stare and stamp but hurt them thou canst not for it passeth thy Deity to overthrow them that with true patience forbearance and sufferance shield and arm themselves against thy spight and rancor Therefore seeing that those that invoke thee most religiously are most unrighteously by thee injured that those that most deserve to be rewarded are most punished and that those that account most of thee and think of thee most reverently are most neglected and most villanously dealt withall by thee I that have thus long most zealously made thy altar smoak by reason of the incense which I have always from my cradle offered unto thee will and do now forsake and leave thee as knowing at last and acknowledging the errour and heresie wherewith I have thus long been infected Hereafter shall not Coreandro serve thee any more or offer thee sacrifice seeing thou hast not onely spoyled him of his goods and riches but also deprived him first of his dear and well-beloved Delbia and now at last of his dear son Philorenus whom thou hast appointed to be most barbarously killed and murthered fn his childhood and left me alive to bewail and lament his untimela death My father hearing the latter end of the Captains plaints marvelling what he might be that so railed at fortune for an other mans mishap and mischance for he having heard him repeat the injury which she had offered Coreandro he thought he had meant of himself and went into a certain thicket where he saw the man that so blamed and exclaimed against Fortune for her severe and cruel dealings with Coreandro in depriving him of his lawfull wife Delbia and his welbeloved son Philorenus but because he knew him not nor remembred that he had ever séen him before that time marvelled greatly what he should be and how he came to know him and mee for he had heard him name both him and me Wherefore after he had well looked on him and throughly beheld him he spake unto him in this order Sir I pray you not to be displeased with me for pressing so near you séeing the cause which moveth me thereunto procéedeth not from malice or intent to trouble or injure you any way but rather from love and affection desiring and wishing to comfort or pleasure you according to my power which by Fortunes frowardnesse is so impaired and weakened that my good will is more to be regarded then my ability I perceive by your face and heavy countenance that you have some cause to exclaim against Fortune either for your self or for some other But by the way I am moved by the remembrance of the good amity and great friendship which in times past hath been betwixt me and Coreandro whose mishap in losing his wife and son I heard thou so pittifully to lament to be so bold as to ask you why Coreandros case so grieveth you as that he himself could not more bewail his own misfortune or be more grieved thereat then you are The good Captain not knowing my father more then he was known by my father framed him this answer Good sir though I had had any occasion as I have had none to be displeased at your coming to me yet by reason that you have been so well acquainted with Coreandro as you say your coming unto me could not but have been so welcome unto me that all displeasure would quickly have been banished and forgotten For the great love and affection which I bear unto that man and did bear to his wife Delbia and his son Philorenus above all other creatures in the world is the cause that I so lament and bewail his miserable and pittifull mishap Wherefore séeing I have answered your question I pray you tell me where you have been so acquainted with Coreandro Where quoth my father in Spain in Aragon in Italy at Cinqueni and in every place where Coreandro himself hath been insomuch that he was no where but I was with him nor I any where but he was by me But I pray you quoth my brothers father do you know him if you see him Should I not know him quoth my father As well as my self Why then quoth the Captain my brothers father you know that I am Coreandro do you not Nay quoth my father rather do you know that I am the man Then I perceive said the other that you came to mock with me and so intreated me not to be displeased with you intending to give me cause of displeasure before you meant to depart from me Nay verily answered my father now I mark what the matter is you knew that I was to passe this way and therefore you came to this place to lament the misfortunes of Coreandro to draw and entice me to come unto you and so to be mocked and laughed at But know whatsoever thou art that if thou be so favoured of fortune that thou challengest licence to scoff at them that by fortunes spight are forced to grieve for their crosse hap thou maist so be punished by the just jugement of the revenging Gods that thou shalt be moved to cry peccavi too late and to acknowledge thy offence when it will be too late for thee to repent The good Captain hearing my father so earnest wist not what he might think of the matter but he began to remember that his wives first husband was called Coreandro and that he also had a son called Philorenus But because he thought that he had been dead long ago he could not think it should be he especially because it séemed by him how that he had lived af Cinqueni and that his son Philorenus that is my self should have been killed of the same souldiers that had slain his own son who was also called Philorenus for the same reason which hath already been told you For it seemed scarce credible to him that the other Coreandro and his son whom he thought both to have been dead long since should have lived so near him and that he should not have heard of him yet he thought best to set aside all anger that in case it were he he might shun all occasion of strife and immoderate speeches and therefore though he saw my father so hot yet he nothing changed spake thus cooly to him Sir I neither knew of your coming by this way nor ever saw you or knew you before to my knowledge and therefore the Gods punish me with their wrath if I tither
himself suffered And after we had there walked an half hour or thereabout we returned both of us together to the Court. And as we passed by the Countesse Verina's Garden he espied the Countesse walking all alone whereupon he began to urge me in any case not to let that occasion slip but that I should go unto her and make her acquainted with the love and affection betwéen me and her sister Aureola and that he would go with me to bear me company and to perswade the Countess to consent to the contracting of a marriage betwéen me and Aureola He said furthermore considering the thrée moneths which Aureola appointed to have the matter during that time concealed were expired he had the day before spoken with the King concerning this matter and that his Majesty had promised him to be wholly ours in this point as he had ever before béen in many other and besides told him some things which he should make relation of to the Countesse concerning this match And to tell the truth he grew so importunate to have me go to the Countesse in all hast that I knew not how to shift off this readinesse But because I had purposed to bring that to passe which I will by and by shew unto you I found this excuse to delay our conference with the Countesse that mistresse Aureola for certain causes had urged me to promise her that I would not speak unto her sister concerning any thing touching her before I forewarned her or let her know both that I would do it and the time when I would do it Which promise quoth I being passed I may not break it Whereupon he well contented séemed to take my excuse so well that he rather liked of my unwillingnesse to go to the Countesse then persevered to perswade me thereunto So that we went both to my lodging where we began to read certain chronicles of the ancient estate of Italy things done in times past in the Kingdome of Naples to drive away the rest of the time till dinner were ready that we might have some ancient history or other to delight the King and the Queen withall while they dined For they took such delight in hearing their predecessours déeds and sayings that we could not have done them a greater pleasure then to rehearse either some pretty saying or some other worthy act of such Kings or Quéens as had before them swayed the scepter of Naples But not to be that which I am loath to be I mean tedious unto you noble Princes and shepheards I will hasten to that which I even now promised to let you know concerning that which I had certainly of rips counsell in my heart concluded to do after I knew by my brothers passions that he himself loved Aureola and yet continually furthered my desire to his uttermost part For indeed I was fully resolved to leave Aureola unto him and my self to the hazard of fortune and being so resolved I performed no lesse CHAP. XXXIII How Philorenus the elder secretly left the Court of Naples and how his brother and Aureola went to seek him severally THe next morning I departed very secretly from the Court for Cinqueni thinking to inquire whether I might hear any thing of my father and to be certainly informed whether he were slain among the other unhappy inhabitants or by hap fled and so avoided the furious slaughter which many suffered But before I departed on the cover-lid of a looking-glasse that was in my brothers chamber window I wrote him this farewell I Philo * to * Renus THou which to deck by workman formed art Serve to unfold the cause which made me go And without leave my brother leave and part From Court wherein my onely joy doth grow Love bad me to enjoy my love and stay And love commanded me to go away self-Self-love would have me stay and means procure Loading my self with grief my self to ease considering therefore well the matter sure Self-love doth bid me go my self to please For who else is my brother but my self And tendring him right tender I my self Then know my self the cause which made me part Was love which warned me from love to cease For of two loves my heart felt double smart One love gave place that the other might increase Injoy thine Aureola for I am gone And therefore gone that she should be thine own After my brother had missed me marvelling where I should be so long he went to his chamber to drive away the time and to deceive the tedious hours with some kind of reading exercise thinking that I had been somewhere abroad in the fields in my solitary haunt and that I would ere long return to the Court. And leaning on his window he chanced to spie something written on the cover-lid of his looking glasse which he might ealsiy do by reason that I had written with red ink the lid being of white ivory And so taking it in his hand he read the verses which I had left there to yeeld a reason for my sudden departure But he being ravished into admiration and by admiration led into astonishment fell in an extasie Which extasie he being by himself alone and therefore deprived of help in such a case required had almost brought him to his last home Yet after he had a long time lain in a trance he came at last to himself again and then began to curse and rail at fortune for dealing so partially with him in revealing that unto me the revealing of which onely could make him miserable Insomuch that now he knew that which before he not once mistrusted to wit that I the other morning had in the wood heard him lament his ill fortune whereby I knew that which I also never dreamed of concerning his loving of Aureola But so grievously did he take my absence that all his body received the disposition that is caused by a disquiet soul and his face became the very subject of sorrow his countenance being mournfull and his eys being grown to be the very seats of tears Insomuch that whereas no man as yet could suspect or dream that I should be so gone as I was yet seeing him so wofully fashioned straightways judged that he could not be so altered but upon such a cause and whereas they should have known that he was so distempered by reason of my so being gone they contrarily knew of my being gone by reason that he was so distempered To be short he was so tortured by the Butchers of Greece that he was almost deprived of his wits and the use of his understanding and the rather because he was brought in doubtfull resolution whether he should leave Aureola and follow me or leave me and comfort Aureola lest ranging after me through unknown places he should both lose me and himself also He therefore being drawen now to this conclusion now to that hung in the air hovering between heaven and earth not knowing whether he were best by slight
reach to the one or by falling come to the other So that his mind being thus suspended he perpended the reasons for both parts which were most forcible to perswade him to the one or the other yet in such order that neglecting fully his own case as one altogether careless of his own welfare he referred all matters to the effecting of that which seemed most expedient and necessary to make me happy and to work my felicity Insomuch that he began to consider that if chance he should have left Aureola and commit himself to the laboursome seeking and uncertain finding of me the loving Gentlewoman might have taken the absence of us both so heavily that she might have thereby fallen into some desperate sickness and perchance remediless Well quoth he put the case should die were it not better that she should die then that I should suffer my brother to live in despair to run round about the world to carry hell with him wheresoever he goeth having his affections like furies and fiends teaxing rending his brotherlike heart to irrisate the barren ground with millions of tears to disturb the guiltless air with lamentable shrieks cries accompanied with sighs and sobs and in a word to be always dying and yet never die Death is the lock that shutteth up misery and endeth all calamity and trouble If Aureola then die O happy she but unhappy I Nay my swéet brother thrice unhappy thou For no doubt if Aureola should die the pain which thou wouldest sustain the grief which would molest thy soul and the torment which would ravish thee in the very gulph of all vexation would so far in extremity pass the anguish wherein thou now doest pine that it would be greater then the pain which causeth the soul to depart from the body Why then I will rather remain by Aureola and so both save her life thine and mine own though scarce mine own seeing that I shall scarce be able to live he being absent And what will he think nay what will all the world say but that I forsooth for love of my brother entertain his love and that I so love him that to shew my love towards him I must needs love his Lady and so defraud him of that wherein his chiefest felicity consisteth the jewel of his heart the treasure of his desires the object of his delight the subject of his conceits the hold of his hope the onely and chief pillar of his life and cause of his being swéet Aureola worthy to be all this unto him he deserving to be as much unto her none of them both owing less one to the other As he was thus quite turning from that mind to the other and resolving to leave all to follow me the beams of Aureolaes beauty reverberating the window wherein he lay musing what he might best do warned him that that Sun was in the garden whose light was able to strive with the Rays of Phoebus for force séeing that his beams may well shine upon men not in them whereas the bright lines that glister from the golden forehead of Aureola did penetrate mens bodies and shine not upon them onely but also within them and through them He therefore espying Aureola walking in the garden alone wept that he saw not me with her saying O sacred powers of heaven séeing that your Deities have been divinely worshipped by me since my Cradle why hate ye poor Philorenus your Servant so that the sight which ought to be unto his eys as gold to the covetous man is unto him as poyson to them that wish to live long Not for that I take any disgrace by the gracious presence of Aureola but that my joy is eclipsed when I behold her without him by her who seemed born to be inseparably joyned with her as white unto snow cold to ice and to use a more familiar comparison as beauty to Aureola Having so said as carried away with a sudden strong gale of wind he hasted to the garden and having passed the courtesies used in salutation and gréeting being asked for me for she knew him by reason of a secret token which we had given to her onely to discern him from me and me from him he up and told her all the matter concerning my sudden departure yet so colouring the cause thereof that she thought that I was gone because I despaired that she should love him better then me For he thought that so she might be moved to pity and by pity to sharpen her affection which should have encreased her love towards me Whereas if he had let her know the true cause of my absence that I was gone to leave her to be his she might have been moved to disdain me which disdain should have nourished the fire which was kindled in his brest by the affection which she bore him and so might she have allured him to to leave me in my pilgrimage and enjoy her to displease whom he did count it a sacriledge But she construing of the matter as my most carefull brother and his brotherlike carefulness enformed and being subject to that custome which by nature is an unseparable companion to the desires of all women I mean to wish and covet that which seems most impossible and to long for such things as cannot be gotten or very hardly had now she heard that I was gone no man knew where whereas before her love inclined rather to my brother then to me she was so ravished with desire to be with me that she presently concluded to her self in heart to take the pains to seek me and although she did conceal the same unto him and dissembled the passion which she felt by reason of my absence by words whilest he was by her yet by deed she sufficiently afterwards shewed it unto all the world For after shee was separated from him by the hastiness of her resolution to execute that which she had purposed she went to her chamber where after she had made her handkerchief drunk with sipping up and drinking in the tears which abundantly issued from out her eys most fertilly yielding fruit of the séeds of sorrow sown in them and having astonished the stones and walls with the admirable shrieks and moved the lifeless pictures that hung in her chamber to pity she impoverished her rich apparel by laying it off and enriched her sisters Cooks wives poor cloaths putting them on her ivory body and so making provision of nothing but a knife to conquer Fortunes envy if chance she would go about to make her miserable in the highest degrée by prolonging her life when as she could not live but discontented she committed her self to her journey and her journy to the Gods calling upon their Deities to be directed in her way O ye sacred powers called she that in heaven take care of us poor mortals who wholly depend upon your favour or disfavor if ever my vows have béen acceptable unto you and my offerings
shall be Empresse but both of them the Paramours and Concubines of an Emperour Farewell This letter was with all spéed by the said said Noblemen delivered unto Camillo who unclosing the same and breaking us the seal soon read that which was sufficient to break his heart in pieces and work his death had not his destinies reserved him to defend his daughters honesty and frée themfrom the tyrants outragious lust through his sage counsel and politick deliberation So that having read the Letters after he had something meditated upon the contents thereof he gave the Noblemen answer that for as much as hee being a widower could not live being separated from his two daughters and his sonne Perierio he would with his sonne accompany them to the Court there doing his Majesty such service as it might please him to command expecting the day of his departure out of this world leaving not his daughters onely but his son also at his Majesties pleasure But to the end that he might take order for the preparation of his journey and provide such necessaries as were expedient for him his son and his daughters he desired them to obtain of his Majesty but the space of one moneth which expired he would without all doubt be at the Court with his children The Noblemen finding old Camillo so ready to pleasure Nero the Emperour promised him to do what they might and so departed But Camillo calling his son Perierio with his daughters Euphilia and Perina to him sending a world of tears from his eyes which distilling along his pale chéeks streamed on his silver hairs and fetching a long sigh from the innermost part his heart said unto them Ah Perierio ah Euphilia ah Perina ah my loving children in whose prosperity consisteth all my hope yea in whose felicity my life is harboured insomuch that through the increase of your honourable vertues I have inlarged the term of my life and now séeing that Fate or Fortune doth threaten your dishonour I doubt not but that I shall be overcome by grief to end my aged days and with a tragical and mournfull death shut up all those happy and blessed hours which the Gods have hitherto granted me Ye have heard the Tyrants will ye know his lust and likewise ye are not ignorant what shame what infamy what dishonour that would be not onely to you two Euphilia and Perina but also unto me unto your Brother yea unto all the line and stock of our race and kindred What answer I have made the Noble-men is not unknown to any of you But as I do not mean to be found as good as my word in the least point of all that which I have promised them so I am of opinion that ye cannot beléeve otherwise but that my tongue spake further then it had command from my heart and that my lips pronounced that which was not in my breast concluded But loving children where Lust is a Lord Ryot ruleth equity and justice is expelled and where a Tyrant governeth all is Law that he doth like Wherefore fearing lest contradiction and denial might be cause of our disgrace I stuffed the Tyrants Messengers with such a pleasing and soothing answer But to be short know loving children that I had rather that we should all agrée to die one death then to condiscend unto the Tyrants outragious and lividinous desire Perierio having heard his Fathers noble resolution wondering that such courage harboured in his breast he being a man of such an aged life considering that old men are commonly deprived of natural heat and so become cold fearfull and void of all heroical vertues amazed therefore at his fathers vertue and rejoycing that he was the son of such a father answered him in this mander Father the extream sorrow which I conceived by reason of Nero his hainous intent to disgrace us with the spot of infamy in demanding my sisters to deflower them and make a prey of their chastities no doubt had smothered my heart and stopped my sences not suffering me to utter one word had not the joy which your noble vertue and valiant courage worketh in me gotten the superiority and freed me from the excessive injury of sorrow Therefore if it would please the Gods to be so gracious unto us that we might escape the imminent ruine and fall of our honour I for my part am ready to resign not onely my liberty but also my life and with ransome of the cruellest death that man may excogitate redéem the honour of our linage and progeny Perierio had no sooner declared his readinesse in agréeing to his fathers resolved will but Euphilia though by grief commanded to kéep silence uttered forth these words Father the Tyrant can rule the body but not the mind he may threaten us shame dishonour and disgrace but shall not be able to accomplish or execute the least of his menaces Cowards fear the threatnings of those that would flye were they threatned but where courage displayeth his Ensigns no menaces may approach And therefore let the Tyrant do what he can for his power is not sufficient to dishonour our kindred by threatning us disgrace for that we neither fear him nor all his torments For death which the Gods have appointed a fearfull token to most men to warn them to leave their worldly pleasures and to resign their vital breath is unto us a most swéet and pleasant object and yéeldeth us comfort being the onely mean by which we may escape infamy and shame Death therefore shall frée us from the Tyrants intended villany and redéem our kindred from disgrace Perina glad that her sister concluded so well to her liking said Father séeing then that as my sister hath well declared death must be our redéemer I beséech you not to torment your old age with anxietie and grief for us and you brother though we die may passe your youth in pleasing rest And therefore let my sister and me care for this matter which toucheth us onely and fear not that by means of our cowardise ye shall reap any dishonour And séeing that of two evils the least must be chosen and the greatest avoided let me perswade you to look to your selves and avoid the Tyrants anger which ye are sure to incur if you resist his will and obey not his command accomplishing your promise made unto his Messengers Wherefore Father send us and wring your self from Fortunes wrong consider your age which requireth rest take your delight comfort your self with the presence of my brother Perierio in viewing whose vertues and perfections you may easily forget us though we were Goodesses and not mortal maids So shall both yoâ— and my brother escape danger and my sister and I gâ—in honour and renown For we fear not the Tyrant he may tyrâ—nize where he can for our hearts which will never yeeld to vice are of too noble a disposition to be conquered by him that iâ— overcome by his own lusts and lividinous affections
she so freely and of her own voluntary goodnesse had promised Whereupon taking his leave of her Perina and Perierio notwithstanding that they were loth to let hiâ— depart ere morning yet he so earnestly desired them to take his most just excuse in good part and to suffer him to do according to his own intent that they could not but let him accomplish his pleasure So that Marcelio thanking them all in most curteous manner for their rare hospitality singular benevolence towards him departed late in the night from those famous shepheards and took his wonted course in running up and down the woods rocks plains caves and all such solitary and desert places where he thought he might meat with the cause of his grief and yet the sole mistresse of his heart and onely object of his content and delight The noble shepheards were marvellously sorrowfull for his departure but especially Perierio who as you have heard was in love with the Lady that fled from him in the wood For he had purpose to ask Marcelio certain tokens of his Alcida because he doubted whether that Lady which he had seen had been Alcida but for that Marcelio had declared that his Lady was apparelled in the habit of a shepheard he gathered that it was not Alcida because the Lady which he saw was most sumptuously and gorgiously attirâ—d more like some Princesse then a counterfeit shepheard Whereof he was glad for two respects the one because Marcelio had rehearsed Alcida her protestation ingraâ—en in the rock Whereby he signified that she would never love any man living more The other because Marcelio was Alcidas husband in troth and promise therefore thought he should have but hard luck to become competitor and corrivall to so worthy a Knight and faithfull lover as Marcelio Euphilia and Perina went to their rest but Perierios mind was so intangled in the conceit which he had of his strange love that he could not rest but tumbling and tossing up and down in his bed by that time the day appeared he went from bâ—d as he came unto it for he had not so much as shut his eyes all the time that he lay Assoon as he had put on his cloaths he went into the Orchard to drive away his melancholy passions but the more he strived against love the lesse he prevailed and the means wherewith he sought to quench the fire which Cupid had inflamed in his breast did kindle the same For hearing the birds sing their naturall notes and â—ill the air with their chirping noise he began in this manner to renue his passions Ah pleasant birds that bewray your wished content by your shril voice which soundeth so swéetly in the air would I were so happy that I might have cause to sing with you Ah cruel fortune that didst send me into the wood to meet with my enemy Ah unmercifull Cupid that goest about to stay me by her for whose service I would willingly offer my life Why hast thou made me love her that hateth me And why prolongest thou my life to increase my torment If I may not enjoy her in whom my felicity consisteth I must die And therefore if I must be deprived of my wished desires swéet death mend thy pace and deliver me out of this intollerable grief Make hast ye fatall dames and cut the line of my life that with the losse of the same I may gain a pleasing rest and quietnesse But why do I request where I may command Have not I this dagger which at my pleasure may cause the breadfull Destinies to throw my miserable body the very habitation of grief breathlesse on this ground True but what if with one stroke I make four wounds in four severall bodies For if I die aged Camillo cannot live nor yet either Euphilia or Perina Therefore rather then my father or my sisters should end my Tragedy I will indure the extreamest torment that love or fortune can invent Why then come woe and be my daily weed Come come and wend with me in every place Come be the drink and meat whereon I feed And paint thy colours in my youthfull face Let fortune frown let wanton Venus hate Let Cupid fret woe is my trusty matâ— And therewith Perierio flung out of the Orchard and went with his shéep to the field And after Euphilia and Perina being warned by Phoebus silver lines that Aurora had cleared the air and expelled the darknesse of the night followed with their flocks also But Perierio lest they should perceive his inward grief by his outward looks led his shéep something farre out of the way where he thought he might be out of sight until he had powred forth the tears which as yet sate in his eyes Dinner time being come he washed the tears from his face and looked as chearfully as he could least his father or his sisters should mark any alteration in him He lived thus for the space of two moneths wéeping and lamenting the absence of the Lady which he loved oftentimes ranging through woods to sée if he might be so fortunate as to méet with her again CHAP. VI. How Euphilia and Perina came to the knowledge of Perierio's love and what conference passed between them HOw runningly soever Perierio cloaked his grief under a pleasant countenance yet because he so delighted to be alone haunting solitary places Euphilia and Perina began to suspect that their brother had something or other that troubled him And they could not enough marvel why he so often separated himself from their company whereas notwithstanding he was wont so pleasantly to recreate them either rehearsing some history or sounding his instrument or discoursing of the disposition of the water inclinations of the Planets and of the celestial orbs And therefore they could not imagine what might be the cause that he was of a merry become melancholy and to delight in solitarinesse where he so coveted company And to the end that they might know what moved him to alter and change his natural complexion upon a certain morning when the air was something darkned with a grosse myst they followed him secretly into the woods and although he almost tired them with trotting up and down all the paths and crosse ways of the wood yet they marvelling at the strangenesse of his walk rested not untill the bright beams of the sun had chased away the duskish myst for then they were compelled to stay behind Perierio a pretty way lest they should be séen by him At length he being overcome with wearinesse the sooner because he laboured in vain grief and travel together forced him to rest He therefore espying a tall Pine which did cast a large and enticing shadow threw himself down on the hard ground under the same and taking his country Cytheren sung so sweetly unto it that the heavenly harmony of his musick amazed all the Deer and birds in the wood Euphilia and Perina had no sooner marked that their brother had
beséech you to tell me whether it will please you to command me any service for I must hast homeward None other quoth she but that thou thank him for his present and give him this from me which is no lesse worth then his and so I do owe him nothing Wherewith she reached me a Hat that was sent her father from a Spanish Duke being a most costly Iewel I therefore taking my leave she bid me farewell adding this clause to shut up her Vale Molest me no more for thy master do for thy self what thou wilt Maffeo To be short I returned unto my master with such answer as Eleonora commanded me But I began to be so love-sick that I knew not how it was possible that a man might be so greatly altered and so wonderfully changed in so short a time Within a few days after my master had prepared a letter to be sent to Elconora which I put in my pocket and walked up and down the streets not far from the place where she dwelled and when I thought good I returned home with such answer as my brains could invent and so I served my master obeying the command of Eleonora Who was so fixed in my heart that I could not be separated from the thought of her beauty and excellency one minute of an hour And though I sought by all means possible to extinguish the fire that consumed me least at length it might grow to an unquenchable flame al helped not I strove against the stream and to go about to root out the sparkles of love was as hard a matter for me as it were to any man to pluck the stars out of the christaline orb wherein they be sixed Therefore at length not able to endure any longer I wrote Eleonora a Letter to this effect Maffeo to Elonora LAdy the extream pain which my overburthened heart doth fuffer causeth me to let you understand the greatness thereof I was in liberty but you have brought me into bondage I mean of the mind I was free from those butchers the affections which torture the hearts of men but now by you am delivered into the hands of those cruell vexations which so poster my passionate heart that I am forced to flie unto your mercy Pity therefore your poor Maffeo least he die who if he hath been too bold in bewraying his grief and torment unto you hopeth himself to be excused in that your self are the cause thereof Farewell Lady and think on poor Maffeo She had no sooner received my Letter but she sent me this bitter answer which she did but to try my constancy as afterwards it very well appeared The contents were such Eleonora to base Maffeo I Perceive Maffeo that baseness and fondness strive in thy heart for superiority of which foolish strife I mean not to be an arbitress Could you find no fitter person then my self to part the fray Poor â—wad could thy tongue pronounce in my presence which thy heart cannot perceive in mine absencee and cannot you with deep study having had all this time attain to the knowledge of my humour whereas notwithstanding extempore you gave so right a censure of my vein When Eleonora mocketh thou must not imagine that she meaneth and when she jesteth thou must not think that she is in earnest As for the loss of thy liberty not I but thy base ignorance and dul wit is the cause thereof But grant I were do always they that imprison set at liberty No many are taken by one and delivered by another Leave thy fondness Maffeo least I have cause to hate thee for I may not love thee I bid the farewell for I wish thee no evill And therefore take heed thou offer me no occasion thereto Ye may suppose gentle shepheards how coldly that letter comforted distressed Maffeo when he expected the sentence of life or death But then I perceived that she had but mocked with me when she used her merry prittle prattle unto me in her chamber at her own house yet ceased not to burn and fry in the furious flames of my burning passions and so remained as long as I could striving against love like a valiant champion and passed over two moneths in continual skirmishes against Cupid but alasse who was compelled to yéeld at length but I that fought against a God of such force and puissance insomuch that I chose rather to die then to live without the love of Eleonora and in all hast dispatched another letter which I secretly conveyed unto her the meaning where of was much to this purpose Maffeo to Eleonora LAdy I am loath to molest you and yet cannot chuse but trouble you Love hath so conquered the bulwark of my heart that I have determined to offer my life for your service I know that Eleonora did mock and doth now disdain but I am forced to suffer and am ready to die because both mocked and disdained by her in whom my life consisteth And therefore though by fortune I am base as you urged yet by nature I find the contrary in that noble Eleonora is the subject of my restless thoughts You willed me to take heed lest I should give you occasion to hate me if I do though it grieve me yet I cannot help it Nevertheless so you give me leave to love you I shall be content though you hate me Farewell Vnto this Letter she sent me no answer but it happened within two or three days after that she had read it that I had occasion to passe through the stréet where she dwelled she séeing me and sitting in the dore alone called me unto her and brake forth into these bitter words Why Maffeo thinkest thou not that thou doest me displeasure enough to trouble me with thy odious letters but must you also fret me with the sight of thy ignominious person I have wished these two days that I might sée thee to cast out all the anger and spight unto which thou hast moved me upon thée But séeing thou hast vowed thy life to my service I mean to try thy faithfulnesse and obedience and yet desire not to have thy life I command thee therefore to carry this letter unto thy master Sylvestro but I will allow thee to read it before I seal it With that she felt in her pocket and with her hand in colour like to Juno when she braved the Quéen of love for the golden apple before the Troyan youth drew forth the letter and bid me read it The meaning I remember to be such Eleonora to Sylvestro THe knavery of your Maffeo hath given me occasion to use your service Sylvestro Therefore if I may be so bold with you I would intreat you to punish his knavish sawciness for because he seeth I make little account of his masters feigned love he offereth me letters wherein he painteth his own passions I have admonished and warned him to leave his peevishnesse but seeing he despiseth my warning let him fear your threatening
city of Constantinople wherein was mentioned that he was purposely sent to séek us Besides he brought letters written with Eleonoras father Don Francesco de Guerdonaes own hand Whereof we were so glad especially Eleonora that we could not but pardon my master who now became our servant You may well think that we made as speedy preparation as we could to return to Constantinople For within eight days we found a ship rigged and throughly furnished with provision of victuals and all things necessary which was bound to Constantinople In which ship we conveyed our selves with all that we had and haysing fail committed the vessel to Neptunes mercy But variable fortune that cannot be reduced into any order sometimes being lighter then the wind and flying more swiftly then an arrow being shot out of the bow and sometimes heavy and marching slowly and resembling the Tortyse Variable fortune I say being loth that we should rejoyce of our felicity without any proof of sinister hap raised such a tempest on the sea that the ship being battered with the swelling waves clove asunder and burst into pieces So that every man câ—tching hold some on a piece of mast some on a piece of a board some on the ship hatches Eleonora having a young child by her for God had inriched us with a young Spaniard called Alonso though the poor babe was as soon hated of fortune as it was born therein not unlike his unfortunate father for it was but three moneths old when we came to sea she emptied one of our greatest chests and therein clapped her self and her young Alonso stirring the boat up down with a piece of an Oar which she had spied in a ship My cousin Sylvestro reaching to two or three oars thinking to lay theÌ„ under him tumbled into the sea I for my part had gotteÌ„ a great piece of cork which such as it was by the help of the Gods saved my life But nothing so galled me as thâ—t I saw my onely Eleonora and Alonso floating on the terrible sea within the chest and yet I could not come near her and the traiterous waves would not drive my cork the same way that the chest was carried For the winds blew so crabbedly that the chest floated one way and I with my cursed cork was driven quite contrary So that in short space I lost the sight of the chest and therewith of all my joy Imagine gentle shepheards in what plight poor Maffeo was at that instant For as long as I could see my Eleonora and her Alonso I perceived not the perillous case I was in but after I had lost that blessed sight I marked in what danger I was to be swallowed up by the greedy waves at every moment Yet the grief that I suffered for that I knew not how Eleonora fared permitted me not to care for my self who almost an hundred times had purposed to leave my cork and cast my self into the depth of the roaring sea and very Court where Neptune sate to rail at him for his fierce government But yet I know not how my dreadfull destinies inveigling my heart with vain hope reserved me to worse mishaps After that I had rowled up and down the seas a whole night in the morning betimes I espied a great ship of war on the sea so that I being something comforted at the sight thereof began to call unto them that were aboard of her as loud as my voice could reach But the Marriners though they heard not my voice by reason of the noise of the waves which did beat against the belly of that great ship yet seeing me considered in what necessity I was and steering the ship as near as the steer man could they threw out a cable rope which I catched by the end and so got into the ship Thus God had redressed my necessity howsoever it fared with poor Eleonora and Alonso My life was saved but my sorrow nothing ceased yea increased rather For thinking on Eleonora and Alonso I was so beset with grief that my life was in greater danger then when I lay rowling up and down the rising waves on the Cork I had not been in the ship above the space of three days but the wind blew so slowly that we were not the better for our sales but were compelled to use all the oars thâ—t were in the ship As we had thus rowed one day and a night we espied a chest floating on the sea which by reason of the lightnesse was carried away more swifter then our great ship At length it approached so near us that I might well perceive it to be the same chest wherein my Eleonora was And when I saw that no body was in the chest suppose gentle shepheards whether I had not sufficient occasion to think that fortune had made Eleonora and my unfortunate boy Alonso a prey unto the hngry Whereupon I fell into such a trance that having by the diligence of the Mariners recovered my sences again I heard them say that they had never seen the like extasie O spitefull fortune when she beginneth to frown on men she never ceaseth untill she maketh them most miserable and bringeth them into despair And when they are in such distresse that they think it impossible to be worse handled then she to shew her power augmenting their evill causeth them to acknowledge their heresie As I for example who could be in worse case then I was when sprawling on the cork amidst the raging waves I was in danger every moment to be devoured of Neptune Yet I farto worse when I iost the sight of my dearest Eleonora And a thousand times greater was my misery when I saw the empty chest At which time cursing the winds as helping causes to my mishap the sea as greedily desiring the prey the ship as the instrument that brought me into that Charibdis of calamity the celestial Planets as hard hearted séeing me injured and not revenging my wrong the stars as witnesses of my misery and fortune as the efficient cause yea primum mobile and onely author of what mischief soever had betided me I would have cast my self over-board but my intent being hindered by the Mariners I was forced to comfort my self as much as the greatnesse of my hap could permit and to arm my self with that old poesie Dum Spiro Spero Though my greatest hope was despair and my life worse then death Within a few days after the Mariners taking occasion by a gale of wind which blew something strongly hoysed up their sails arrived at Constantinople within two days after Where incontinently I went to my father in laws Don Francesco de Guerdonas house and declared the whole history of our navigation unto him how we suffered shipwrack how I saw Sylvestro my cousin fall into the sea how I had lost Eleonora and my child how I was saved in the other ship But least I should kill the old Knights heart I suppressed the sight of
and true love that by reason thereof I am fallen into the misery in which I now finde my selfe at this present Now continuing the history of my life you shall know that Lexanders father called Filene sometimes frequented my fathers house by reason of certain businesse that my father and he had betwéen them concerning Oxen and Kyne and séeing me although he was something old yet he fell in love with me and that so greatly that he became foolish mad and frantick He became so importunate unto me and troubling me above a thousand times daily declared me his passions grief but all could not help For I would never give eare to his prattle nor mark what he said and though he had been much younger or lesse aged and by many parts more perfect then he was yet for him could I not have forgotten his son Lexander who had so won my heart that I had wholly given him the possession thereof The old man knew not what friendship was between his son and me for Lexander was so obeysant and dutifull that he behaved himself secretly in wooing me least his father knowing thereof should have rebuked him and have occasion to be angry with him And in like manner was Lexander altogether ignorant of his fathers folly who because he should not give his son example of lightnesse took all the regard he might to his love from him Neverthelesse the foolish cocks-comb ceased not to molest me with importunate requests to take him to my husband He made me wonderful large proffers he promised to give me many cloathes and jewels and he sent me many Letters hoping thereby to change my mind In his time he had been a Shepheard most excellently qualified eloquent in spéech and witty which you may easily gather by a Letter which he wrote me as I yet remember Filene to Ismenia FAir Shepheard love is cause of all such fault as I can commit in writing unto hoping that I have not commited any in loving you And if perhaps my Letter be troublesome unto you believe certainly that I already fear the answer you will make I have a thousand times signified and declared unto you what affection I bear you and in recompence thereof you take pleasure in mocking me You openly laugh at me to see me like to dye for love of you but as for me I am glad to see you laugh though it be to my ruine and destruction For when I remember and think of my evil and see that you take pleasure therein rejoycing at my misery I perceive that you will not remedy my grief insomuch that it were an exceeding folly for me to regard your mocking seeing that my life and death consisteth in you to dispose of me as you please If you ask why I should love you I answer because I am forced and cannot but love you insomuch that though I might live and not love you yet I had rather to dye then so to live for when I remember your graces and perfections I cannot but judge them happier that die for love of you then those that can behold you without admiring your exceeding vertues for I cannot be perswaded that a man may die more happily then he who loseth his life by reason of such heavenly beauty as yours which hath so pierced my breast that I am not mine own but yours for as soon as I saw you I began to love and to pine for grief And if you say that I am to be blamed because I am amourous and yet old in that respect I sue for remedy unto you seeing that I have not so greatly offended in loving you as in knowing you so late For I acknowledge that I am old and I am not a little grieved that this my pain is not as ancient as the course of my age and I am sorry that I might not have loved you from the first day that I was born as well as since the first hour that I saw you certifying you that this love shall dure and continue till death Marvel not sweet to see me grey and wrinkled and though you surpass me in valour yet I think it but small reason that a man should lose his pay and salary under this colour that he is an old Souldier The new built houses are not comparable to the ancient buildings of Rome and commonly all men alwayes say that among all things the old is the best Love would not untill this present time make me feel the pinching pain of amorous passions because he well knew that affection was more firm and fancy less fickle in an old man as I am then in tender age where every look is love and every face a new fancy I am firm and constant to love you for ever and old never to be loved as long as I live Young men that say they love are double and subtle they fain but not fancy their forehead is marked with Venus badge but their heart never felt Cupids shaft And when they plead for mercy alledging that they dye for love then are they less subject to passion most free from fancy Their changeable affection is assured liberty their passion pastime their love a custome and not a pain Think not sweet that I am like the amourous youth who having received a favour of his mistress vaunteth and boasteth thereof to all the world for though I had received ten thousand I should be as constant and firme in keeping them secret But as I see you disposed and bent to work my death I fear that I shall endure much torment and have occasion to say little and brag less yet the chiefest favour whereof I may boast is to die for the love of Ismenia With what great reason may I find fault with the time considering that I who love you most am least esteemed But alas I loved you too late and seeing I was not born at the same time that you were it is reason that I should dye for love of you Ah fair Shepheardess had my Fortune been such that I might have been of your time I had had that which had been sufficient to win your love and to deserve favour of you for though it becommeth no man to blaze his owne praises yet affection forceth me to say that among all the young men of our time none might compare with me at dancing leaping foot-ball hand-ball bowle bow cithren pipe flute and all such kinds of exercise wherewith our Countrey youths recreate themselves and win the hearts of their mistresses But ah cruell chance what serveth either that which is or that which hath been unto him poor wretch that is buried in the bowels of forgetfulness because he is neer unto his death In the mean time may it please you to consider by that which I have said that the glory of your perfection which at this present maketh you famous to all the countrey shall finally fade as the pride of the sweet violet decaieth with the
and that I was onely heire to the Dukedome to the end that I might be carefully brought up and well looked unto he caused me to be brought to the Court where I waighted on the Quéen who made as great account of me as if I had been her daughter And to the end that I might perceive the love and affection she and her husband the King did bear me I was honoured with the title of a Duchesse and disposer of all my fathers signiores and Lordships yea of the Dukedom also at mine own pleasure neither did the King withhold from me any part of the revenues thereof so that I lived in as great joy as any mortal maid might for I wanted nothing that I was able to think of I was loved and favoured both of the King and Quâ—en and therefore honoured of all the country But alack this my felicity was too great to be perpetuall and I was seated too high to escape the stormy blasts of adversity The tall Oaks are shaken with the winds and the climing stéeples rent with the thunder clap where the low brambles féel not the fury of the wind nor the base cottage the force of the storm The tops of high mountains are chopped through Apollos heat where the low plains and green medows are beautified with flowers and being cherished with Phoebus rays produce swâ—et hearbs and yeeld food to the shepheards flocks And so poor Brisilla lifted up to high estate triumphing in Court and glorying in her happinesse is brought in this most miserable torment whereas many simple maids and countrey wenches injoy sweet content and passe their lives in supream pleasure You shall therefore understand loving shepheards that I being 15 years of age or thereabout the young prince was sent for by the King from the Vniversity for the Qeen had purposed to marry me unto him Who being about eight or ten moneths younger then my self was thought too young to be married so soon but the Queen fearing least some one or other for there was many noble mens sons of great houses and high descent in the Court should win my heart and love used the matter so that few or none could have my company but her son whom she wished to be matched with none but my self And in truth by reason of our daily conversation at length grew such familiarity and acquaintance between Periander and me that love creeping into our hearts united us together and of two bodies made but one heart one will one desire one pleasure and one mind Insomuch that the Queen yea and all the Court began to perceive the affection that we did bear one to another Suppose shepheards what a pleasure it was both to the King his wife and most of all the noblemen of the realm yea generally to all men in the country to see such likelihood of a marriage which they so earnestly wished and greedily desired And dy that time that Periander had reached to the age of eighteen years the King fearing least delay might breed danger and my affection to chaÌ„ge or his sons mind alter called us both into his chamber and in presence of the Queen his wife spake unto us after this manner intending to try our constancy Marvell not my son Periander nor you young Duches that I have sent for you hither for I will not keep close the cause thereof Know therefore that my pleasure is that you Periander love not Lady Brisil any longer have I sent for you from the Vniversity to court your mothers maids Did I cal you to the Court to learn how to play Mars in the field and do you take upon you so young to serve Venus in the chamber you are but a boy yet Periander and therefore unfit for love And you Lady Brisill have we shewed you such friendly entertainment in the Court and honored you with such an high estate to allure our son to fancy you where I purposed to marry him to the King of Portugals eldest daughter heir apparent to the crown of Portugal thy father the deceased Duke was a man of great desert but his daughter not so worthy as to become a Queen Be contented with the title of a Duchess Lady Brisil and reach not so high a bough as a crown for thou mayest both misse of thy purpose and incur danger to lose their favour in whom consisteth your welfare Therefore I exhort you both to leave these familiar meetings these lovely Salves which you give one to another in the morning curteous good nights you bid one another in the evening also those pleasant smiles passionate looks and continual winks wherewith you favour one an other will I have you not to use any longer And to be short I forbid you to use company one with the other any more Periander hearing his father concluded so peremptory against his bliss answered Then father my Lord and Soveraign if it please your Majesty to seperate me from the conversation of Duches Brisil I beseech you to give me leave to separate my self from the company of all men and with that he drew his dagger and would have wounded his loving heart with the sharp point thereof had not his Mother the Quéen hindred his intent holding his arme As for me I was so perplexed both at the Kings words and his rashness that I fell on the ground in such manner that the king himself thinking that I had been dead ran from his chair of estate and lifted me from the ground calling Lady Brisil speak speak Lady Brisil young Queen of Albion speak but one word But I lay in that extasie a good hour All which time the King the Queen and all that were present but especially Periander were so grieved that none of them could abstain from wéeping The King called the Quéen hallowed in mine eares with a lamentable voyce and Periander almost breathless being choaked with excéeding sorrow which he conceived could neither call nor cry At length with much ado I came to my self and stood upright to the joy of all those that had heard of my mischance Whereupon the King told us that he had used his formor words but to learne whether our love was firm intending if I liked of Periander and Periander of me as of man and wife to marry us together To be short before we departed from the King he sent for some of the chiefest Noblemen and in their presence Periander made promise never to marry other woman then my self and in like manner affirmed that I was content to have him to my husband and would die rather then be married to any other So that our marriage was presently concluded and the wedding to be a month after CHAP. XIV How Massicourt betrayed the Prince Periander and sold him to the Moores for a Gally-slave and the sorrow that was made for his absence IMagine loving Shepheards what joy there was through the country when it was reported that the young Prince and
small gift of the King and of me although his newes was so evil because he told us that he saw the Prince fléeting up and downe the waves upon one of the ship-hatches hoping that he was somewhere cast on land though perhaps so far that he could not so soon return home to Albion I will not hear make mention what a living death or dying life I poor wretch led all the while that Periander was absent sometimes perswading my self that he was dead and sometimes hoping to see him and injoy his presence but this I will leave to your discretion loving shepheards and passe on forwards in the declaration of this lamentable history You shall therefore know that after Barsalis had been six moneths at home the Admirals son returned to his fathers house attired like a ship slave and told us such a tale of his wonderfull adventure how he was cast on the shore side with his mast-piece and how he fared on the land that not the Court onely but all the Country also admired at his hard fortune But concerning the Prince he could tell no more then the other traitor had done yet to give a colour of likelihood he agreed to the same report which the Villain Barsalis had made And though my hope was small yet I took the greater courage because sir Massicour◠that Arch-traitor had escaped such dangers and troubles as he made us beleeve And howsoever my young heart strived against sorrow and grief yet the Queen being old and weak of nature consumed for very grief and dyed Who being buried and intombed what mourning what grief and what sorrow was made not in the Court onely but generally over all the Countrey I am not able to expresse And as for my selfe though I was very sorry for her death yet was the grief and pain which I suffered for the absence of Periander so great and excéeding that I could scarce think up-any other thing and therefore the sooner forgate the death of the Quéen CHAP. XV. How the traitor Massicourt slew himself because he could not obtain the love of fair Brisilla also how the King was enamoured on her BY this time began the traitor Massicourt to make love unto me and to cast such passionate looks upon me at all times that he passed by me or came into the place where I was that I could not chuse but perceive that he was becom darling to Venus by the forcing dart of her Son Cupid and that he suffered great pain for my sake I was sorry for his case because he was a most gallant Gentleman excéeding both in perfection of body and readines of wit but yet my hart was so fixed on Periander that although I had certainly known that he was dead yet could I not have forgotten him to love any other Yet howsoever I was affected Massicourt found meanes to enter into the Orchard I being there alone and emboldned himself so far that he came unto me gréeted me and with all humility by word of mouth declared what torment he suffered for love of me desiring me to be merciful unto him Whereunto I answered that I could shew him mercy in pittying his case and exhorting him to change his mind but other mercy I could not shew him and so I flung into the Palace and left him among the trées which might have been witnesses of the teares he shead Yet he gave not over the field for all he had had but ill successe at the first assault and purposed to send me a Letter hoping that ink and paper would do more then his bare words had done Especially because he being passionate was not able in my presence to expresse his mind neither would I hearken unto his speech Insomuch that he thinking that I could not do lesse then read all whatsoever he wrote though I could not give ear to his sayings dispatched a Letter and conveyed it into my hands as secretly as he could which letter was written to such an end Massicourt to the Dutchess Brisil PArdon me gracious Lady if I am troublesome unto your grace for I am forced by that Lord whom I must obey The sum of my desire is to please your grace and my chiefest felicity consisteth in your content therefore think not Lady that I would willingly molest you My humble Petition is that it may please your grace to weigh the torment grief and pain which I suffer which if your gracious mercy do not slacken is like to seal my love with death and to give the world cause to accuse your grace of cruelty Mercy Madam is an ornament to Ladies of high estate I wish not that you should forget the Prince Periander but to admit me as copartner and pertaker of your grief Neither do I crave that your grace should not love Periander whether he be dead or yet live but give me leave to love you and to accept of my love as a comfort to asswage the sorrow you suffer for Periander Farewell When I had read this Letter I could not but be angry for it grieved me that he went about to withdraw me from the love of Periander though he séemed to wish the contrary For how could I have loved him and not forget Periander how could I have been merry with him and mourn for Periander and how could I laugh with him and wéep for Periander wherefore incontinently I wrote him this answer Brisilla to Sir Massicourt YOur conscience urged you Sir Massicourt to crave pardon in the beginning of your letter foreknowing your offence But your excuse is for that you are constrained by him whom you must obey Cupid you mean I am sute but how shamefull it is that a Knight should so bewray his pusilanimity and faintnesse of courage I leave to your own consideration And to let you understand furthermore that if your desire be to please me and therefore far from undertaking any thing that may trouble me you shall obtein your wish and enjoy true felicity which you affirm to consist in my content if you molest me with neither letter nor speech to love you For in so doing you shall bind me to acknowledge that you have done me a singular pleasure You know that I have already told you that I am sorry for your torment and passion though I may not be your Physitian Neither do I think the world so mad as to judge me cruell if your folly cause you to die Though it be a common and usual custom unto all your sex to talk of the mate befor you have the check You can teach me that mercy beseemeth maids but you forget in the mean time that Knights ought not to be unmerciful as to seek the overthrow of our honesty and to spoil us of our honour Have not I given faith to love Periander and shal I not incur foul shame and dishonor if contrary to my promise I love you but would you have me use your love as a pastime to forget the dolor
which otherwise I should suffer for the absence of Periander How far do you run beyond reason for I will have you know that such love as you talk of yea the very memory thereof onely should be a whetstone to sharpen my grief seeing there is nothing more painful or odious unto me than that which draweth my mind from thinking on Periander and encumbereth my thoughts with matters taking away the remembrance of Periander thinking no time il spent but that wherein I shed not tears for Periander Therefore cease to molest me seeing the sum of your delight consisteth in pleasing me After Massicourt had received this Letter he durst not so often molest me Northelesse of purpose he came divers times to the Court preasing near the privy chamber to have occasion to speak with me but I could watch him as well to shun him as he could watch me to talk with me In so much that since I wrâ—te him that Letter I spake with him but once at which time I so sharply rebuked his importunity seeing that no mild or courteous spéeches could serve that a long time he absented himself from the Court. At length when I thought surely that I had been altogether rid of such a troublesome sutor on the sudden he greeted me upon a certain morning being but newly risen And although I was alone yet I was so angry that I turned my face from him and would not speak unto him This happened to my remembrance twice or thrice after which time I saw him no more But about thrée weeks after a little casket covered with a cloth of gold was brought me whereon there was written this inscription in golden letters My Supreme will and pleasure is that this be given to Dutchesse Brisil I marvelling what that meant asked the messenger who sent it or to what end To which he answered that he that sent it is not now but living was called Sir Massicourt Who being in his chamber quoth the messenger this morning willed me to go into the next room till he called me and that I should presently carry the casket which I should find upon the table to Duâ—hesse Brisil when I had stayed there three or four hours I marvelled what my master did there so long alone and péeping through the crease of the chamber door I saw him lie breathless on the ground and so amazed I stepped in and found this casket what is in it I know not and so the messenger being Sir Massicourts chamberlain departed I opening the casket found a dagger all bloudy on the blade whereof was this message ingraven in such small letters that I could scarce read it Go tell the Queen that in my heart inthron'd Doth sway the scepter of my haughty mind That thou hast pierct the seat whereon she sate And overcome the Kingdome which she rul'd That thou hast massacred that Massicourt Whereover she so proudly tyranniz'd That thou hast drowned all his thoughts in bloud Who loved her as never wight was lov'd That thou hast rid him from her cruell face Who prais'd her beauty to the sovereign skies That thou hast sent him to the groves of hell That deem'd his heaven consisted in her grace That thou hast ended his exceeding pain Whose grief her mercy would not mittigate And that thou hast his torment finished Whom she for cruel caused to dispair This do and let the colour of thy coat Give to the butcher of my death a note In what case I was loving shepheards after I had read that message and béen informed of that rufull tragedy I will not now declare For the sorrow which I conceived for the end of Massicourt was incredible Besides what a suddain rumor was spread through the Court of his death you may consider insomuch that I need not to stand upon that point But I will passe on to the rest of my misery For within thrée or four moneths after the decease of sir Massicourt I got a stronger enemy to my content then Massicourt for the King himself though he was above fifty years of age solicited me to give over all remembrance of his son and yéeld to his request which was to become his wife and be crowned with the diadem of Albion Yet could not that precious object alter the mind of Brisil or any whit in her diminish the memory of Periander But the King knowing that he might command when he perceived that I could not be induced by prayers fair words lofty promises and other allurements to grant his sute soon used the tyranous sentence of all those that may do what they will Sic volo sic jubeo stat pro ratione voluntas And thought to try whether he could by threatnings and menaces obtain that which by fair means I would not consent unto but all could not help for except death onely nothing could take from me that faith and promise which I made to Periander And whilest the King I thus strove he in loving I in hating a letter was brought to the Court from the King of Spain wherein he informed the King that his son Periander was with him intending to be in Albion with his father and loving Brisil very shortly But that he had sent a messenger before his coming that they should be informed of his health and fortune could scarce believe it but that they saw it was manifest séeing the Prince Periander had written that Massicourt was by the Pylot Barsalis cast over-board and yet notwithstanding he complained not of Barsalis but agréed with him in the report of the tempest which was none Besides that love which he bore me was sufficient proof of his treason For he sent us the whole declaration of the treason practised by Barsalis against him He also informed us how he had heard of the Quéen his mothers death whereof he was very sorry The King having received these Letters at the first was glad that his son was living and caused Barsalis to be apprehended who with a little racking confessed the whole matter and appeached the Admirals son that was dead as the Author and cause of all that he had executed Whereat the whole world so marvelled that they could scarce beleeve it And whereas many had pitied the Knights lamentable and tragical end now they judged him rewarded according to his deserts And I for my part was so inraged against him that if he had yet lived I beleeve I had with my owne hands wrung his head from his shoulders for he was the cause of all my calamities The King caused Barsalis to be hanged and quartered and in the place where Massicourt that politick traytor was buried did he command a gibbet to be set up reaching over his Tombe and this written on the top of it in great letters Here lieth entomb'd a Knight of ancient fame An Earls son Sir Massicourt by name This Knight for love an heinous treason tri'd Yet could not help he pierc'd his heart and di'd He was
Therefore least if his father the King of Albion should upon my flight send new Embassadors to the King of Spain to have his son put to death for he divers times swore unto me that Periander should die if he any way hindered his marriage with me or brought Albion to be dealt withall not according to fatherly affection but his mercilesse rage we thought best not to expect the worst but to play safe as long as time and occasion was offered us To make few words Periander the next morning by break of day got out of the prison telling the Iaylor that he went to a place where Florina had appointed him to méet her and coming to the hous where I waited for him she presently departed from Sivil intending to trabel towards some solitary place where we might live untill we heard of the death of the King of Albion And because we should not be known if search were made after us we cloathed our selves both alike in the habite of country maids as if we had been two sisters CHAP. XVII How the Prince Periander and Brisilla became shepheards and how by the means of Malorena and Bergama the Prince departed from Brisill AT length travelling thus together we arrived to a certain village which is called Ezla where we purposed to keep our residence And although we had sufficient wherewithto maintain our selves yet the better to avoid suspition and to have wherein to imploy our leisure and to take our delight and pastimes we bought a flock of sheep and learned to play the shepheards as wel as we could none of al the inhabitants knowing but that we were two sisters For Periander was yet but young and had no beard and besides he was so fair of complexion that it had been impossible for one to suspect that he was no woman After we had passed over one moneth in that haven of content and passing pleasant kind of life I enjoying the presence of my Periander and he of his Brisil in spight of the world fortunâ— began to envy at our felicity and to evert the happy estate wherein we lived For it chanced that we being both at the feast which was celebrated in honour of the Goddesse Ceres there was a young shepheard being son unto one of the richest farmers in our village who casting his eys on Sybilla for so I named Periander who was thought to be my sister was fetttered in the snare of his beauty that we were so troubled with importunate requests and sutes of this youth that we wist not how to dehort him from folly or how to quench the burning flames which consumed the poor shepheards hearâ— For the crueller Sybilla my supposed sister seemed to be the more he was provoked to hope for mercy the colder she shewed her self to be the hotter he was the more she disdained the more earnest he sued the more she crossed him for his fondnes the more he hoped for kindnesse Insomuch that poor Petulca for so was that wretched shepheard called so miserably loved that all the Countrey knew by his colour what Captain he honoured and served His joy and welfare which was wont to recreate the whole company of the Inhabitants was changed into Melancholy His young face which was a fashion of Modesty Grace Mirth Beauty and Comliness waxed wrinkled his limbes weakened and all his body decayed So that as he was generally pittied of all men so were we most wofully grieved at his hard Fortune though wée could not help or remedy the same Nevertheless séeing that Petulca ceased not from his suit but so hotly followed his cause pleading for mercy to save his life I counselled Periander to fain as if he loved him hoping that we might by that devise and meane escape the ill will and anger which we were like to gain of all our Neighbours if the youth had died For his passion was such that nothing but death only could move him to leave his love Thus Petulca loving a young Prince in the habit of a lovely shepheard and perceiving that he had won the Fort which he had so fiercly assaulted revived again and in short time became as pert as trim as ever he had been He came twice or thrice in the week unto us and so pleasantly discoursed of divers matters as occasion offered that we could not have changed the recreation which he had by his honest company and merry conversation for the richest jewell of India As he had lived in this contented and pleasant manner one month it happened that the daughter of a shepheard called Petrueco dwelling in the next Farm to our cotage was fo intricated in the net of affection and so intangled in the beauty of Petulca that she allured him by continuall favours loving glaunces curteous gréetings pleasant spéeches and all means she could invent to gain his good will and to move him to love her but all the world was not able to alter his minde though we wished that he might have béen inticed by her deserts to repent of his first bargain At length when Malorena so was this unhappy shepheard named espied that Petulca was so ungratefull that he would not any way requite her curtesies with favour she began most deadly to hate my sister I mean Periander supposing her to be the cause of all her wo For as she knew Petulca was in love of my said sister so she thought that he was as well liked of her which induced her to be perswaded that we of purpose entertaind him the more kindly to hinder her matter whereas contrarily when we knew that she so dearly affectioned him we made less account of him hoping that he wearied with our coynesse might have lent his eare to his new Mistresse that honoured him so highly Yet howsoever we wisht her well and longed that she might enjoy her hearts desire she nevertheless being of contrary opinion became our mortall foe If she chanced to passe by us she did cast such a lowring look upon us as if she would have eaten us if she had lighted at unawares in the company where we were she thought her self the worse if she spake of us to others she belyed us and invented tales to defame and discredit us Yet all this served not but intending fully to revenge her self of the injury which she dreamed that we offered her she excogitated this stratagem There was in the same Village a beautiful young Mâ—id Neece to this Malorena who by reason that she kept her sheep in the next pasture to ours kept great company with us and became very familiar and friendly unto us Which her Neece Malorena espying thought to use her as the instrument of her supposed practises Therefore on a certain morning she sent for her made such a sugred spéech unto her declaring the occasion why she sent for her the estate of her love towards Petulca the love of Petulca towards Sybilla alias Periander and briefly all that concerned this matter
in a black Velvet Gowne with a large Veile of precious Lawne over her head accompanied with three beautifull Nymphs resembling the stately Goddesse Juno when she went to intreat Aeolus to disturb the Seas when Aeneas sayled towards Latium Arethee espying her advertised all the company that it was the Lady Felicia and the three Nymphs Doride Cynthia and Polidora And approaching near unto her fell down at her féet and saluted her as in like manner Marcelio with the rest of his company did in all submisse and humble manner Felicia séemed to be wonderfully pleasant for their arrivall and spake unto them with a most chearfull countenance saying Worthy Knights Ladies and notable shepheards howbeit that the pleasure which I take in this your presence is great yet that content which you shall reap by mine shal be no lesse But forasmuch as you are overtravelled by reason of your wearisome journey go now take your rest and forget your sorrows séeing the one cannot be wanting unto you in my house and I am to take care for the other by means of my skill They thanked her most humbly and finally took their leave of her but she caused Polydor and Clenarde to stay with her saying she had something to say unto them but the others were led by Arethee to a side place of the Pallace where they were feasted that night and provided of all things necessary for their cherishment and rest This house was so sumptuous and magnificent garnished with such rich moveables and beautified with such delightfull gardens orchâ—rds rivers and fountains that there is nothing comparable to the excellency thereof Marcelio Maffeo Perierio with Ismenia and the Lady Brisil were lodged in that part of the pallace which abutted upon the garden in sundry chambers being hanged with cloth of of gold and most precious tapistry wrought with admirable cunning Supper was prepared for them most magnificently and it was served up unto them in vessels of Gold and Christal And when the night was approached and bed time at hand they were laid on such good and easie beds that howbeit their bodies were wearied by travel yet the softnesse of the delicate down with the hope which Felicia had given them provoked them to a most pleasant and swéet sléep On the other side the Lady Felicia with Polydor and Clenarde whom she willed to make no mention of the arrival of Marcelio and the rest of his company went into one of her most pleasant gardens where Eugerio walked alone his daughter Alcida onely being by him who although she yet had on the same shepheardlike apparel that she did wear at her first comming there neverthelesse was incontinently known of her brother and sister Polydor and Clenarde It were impossible for me to expresse the joy which old Eugerio made for the happy méeting of al his children whom he so dearly loved embracing them one after another and welcomming Polydor and Clenarde with flâ—uds of tears flowing out of his aged eys Alcida greatly welcommed Polydor her brother and Clenarde her sister but farre more affectionately cherished him then Clenarde imagining that she had purposely gone away with Marcelio and left her alone and distressed in the desart and solitary Isle of Formentera as you have heard before But the Lady Felicia intending to unfold these errours and make the cause thereof knowne unto Alcida desiring to end their wonderfull misfortunes and restore them to the blessed estate wherein they were before they committed themselves to cruel Nâ—ptune to saile towards the haven of Lisbone there to celebrate the concluded Marriage in the presence of the Lusitâ—n King their Soveraign she spake unto Alcida in this manner Most noble and beautifull Alcica notwithstanding that Fortune hath beene so great an enemy unto you in afflicting you with so many troubles and vexations yet cannot you deny but that by reason of the great content which you now enjoy you are fully revenged of the injury which she hath hitherto done you And for as much as the errour which you have lived in until this present day without cause abhorring your Marcelio is sufficient if you yet hold the same opinion to alter your heart and to breed his excéeding misery it is necessary that I should declare unto you how that you are terriblie deceived if you be of that opinion For the presumption which you have of Marcelio is quite contrary and otherwise then you mean for when you were left alone in the Isle that came not by his fault but by the villany of a certain traitor subborned by Fortune to aggravate your mishap who to recompence the wrong which she hath offered you hath directed your steps hither towards me in whose mouth you shall not find any other then truth Your sister Clenarde shall largely tell you all that concerneth this matter and how it wholly standeth mark well what she shall say unto you and give credit to her words for as for me I swear unto you that whatsoever she shall rehearse concerning this shall be most certain and veritable Whereupon presently Clenarde began to inform Alcida how all things had chanced excusing Marcelio and her selfe and largely declared the treason of Bartophamus and all that which already hath been said touching the same Alcida having very attentively given ear to her sisters spéech was wonderfully well contented to know the verity and truth of the case and as she did drive away and exclude her former rancor and false opinion from her heart so did she in like manner manner expel all such anger and hate which she had underservedly conceived against Marcelio Wherefore she now knowing the errour and perceiving that she wrongfully had given over the love which in times past she had born to Marcelio the sparkles of love that had so long béen raked up in the ashes of oblivion began to shew their force in her and the affection which had slept thus long began now to waken insomuch that she said unto Felicia Madam I acknowledge my fault and the singular pleasure which you have done me in bringing me into the knowledge thereof But being at this present time delivered from that false opinion and as well affectioned towards Marcelio as ever I was who for that he is now absent if I may not injoy his company I shall not obtain the perfect joy which I hoped to receive by your means nay rather shall I conceive another grief so excessive and intollerable that I shall be compelled to sue for new favours at your graces hands to remedy the same It is a manifest token of love answered the Lady Felicia to fear the absence but as for that you shall have no cause to care The Sun hath now drawen in his beams it is time for you to retire and to go to your chambers to take your rest with your father and your sister to morrow morning will we talk of the rest Therewith she went forth of the garden and so did Eugerio with
that we conceive by your comming is such that we think our selves honoured with your presence and therefore acknowledge our selves beholding unto you in that you disdain not of the unworthy company of such simple shepheards as we be As for the acquaintance which you say you have had with our friend Petulca as we are altogether ignorant of so doe we not envy at his luck in that so gracious a Princesse as your self beareth a remembrance of him As Petulca thought to ask pardon for his unmindfulnes and to excuse the weakness of his memory in that he could not remember that he had in all his life time séen any Lady comparable to her for her beauty or estate much less to have seene her the Duches staied him saying Well Petulca thy company thinketh thée happy that I beare memory of thée but I pray you unhappy may I be thought to be séeing that thou disdainest to know her whom I thought you would not have forgotten so soone Is this the memory you have of me and my sister Sybil whom you so dearly loved Is this the remembrance you beare of cursed Malorena and dissembling Bergama who for thy sake sought our ruine Petulca amazed to hear her say this and knowing her by her voyce to be the same Brisil that sojourned among the shepheards of his Countrey at length burst out into these words Ah gracious Princesse the Gods know that I have not forgotten neither you nor Periander who under the name of Sybil in the habit of a shepheard bearing title to be your sister hath caused my grief and forced me to undertake this troublesome journey intending never to return home till I have found him and letting him know the Treason and malicious dealing of Malorena and Bergama to exhort him to race out the false surmise and suspition which he hath grounded in the bottome of his heart of your disloyalty For séeing that for my sake he hath been so horribly abused and brought into that errour I will hazard my life to restore him unto his former estate againe to the end that he may enjoy you and your self to him And marvel nor Lady that I knew not your person though I will remember you◠acquaintance for as the Sun is in respect of the least star of the sky the rose in respect of the nettle the juniper trée in respect of the thorn bush and the Lordly Chrystal in respect of the base glasse so is your Ladiship now in respect of the time that we were feasted by the dissembling Traitress Bergama in her Arbor And therefore séeing that I had not as yet understood having enquired of the Lady Felicias Nymphs of your calling any other thing of you but that you were a certain Princesse of Albion and that we should shortly hear of the cause of your comming and more largely know the course of your fortune I hope your Grace will not think the worse of me who have vowed my body and life to do service unto your loving Periander what state or calling soever he be of Thanks kind Petulca quoth the Duches and perswade thy self that I think no otherwise of thée then I did at any time And to the end that thou mayst understand the truth and verity of all my troubles and know what Periander is and also what caused him to fain himself to be my sister being attired in shepheards attire I will briefly and truly rehearse unto thee in this good company of shepheards so I be not troublesome unto them the whole state of my fortune But first I must intreat you to tell me how long you have béen here when you departed from the village and what successe you have had in your journey Then may it please you to understand quoth Petulca that after the malicious traitresse Malorena had cast her self into the river to take penance for her heinous offence by her own appointment the whole Village was made acquainted with her villany detesting her for her malice and marvelling at Periander and your self for your perfect love in marvellous manner mourning for his departure and your mishap Insomuch that the chiefest of the village sent for me to understand the truth of the whole matter which when I had declared they took order with me that I should speak with you and comfort you letting you know what they had appointed to do in your behalf for they intended to make enquiry through all the country after Periander to the end that he might be enformed of all that had hapned in the Village concerning malicious Malorena and so be induced to return again unto you knowing the sayings of Malorena to be false and invented by her pestiferous brain Whereupon I most ready to do any thing that might redownd to your content betimes the next morning went to your lodging but there I found you not nor could learn of any one of your Neighbours what was become of you whereof how sorry I was I leave to the Gods to witness and not I onely but the whole Village most grievously lamented your sodain departure At length I resolved not to rest in any place till I had found Periander and let him know how he had been abused by Malorena and how you were injured by him in that he giving credit to such a malicious maid lest you to passe your life in such discontent and grief for his cause To the end that if Fortune had been so froward as to deprive him of your company for ever by some sinister hap yet he should know how faithfully you loved him séeing that your loyalty was knowne unto the whole Countrey Whereupon I having first caused dissembling Bergama as an instrument and helping cause of this mischief to be banished until such time as Periander and you were together and consented to have her released from exile I betook my self to my journey and having travelled two dayes and two nights at last I arrived in a Country house where I was very courteously used by a certain shepheard who took pleasure to talk with me concerning the cause of my comming for that he had himself not passing eight year since almost coursed over the world to seek his wife which was carried away upon a certain time by a Duke that riding that way caused his men to take her with them he being abroad in the field And that after he had taken so much paines it was his luck at length to come to the Temple of Diana where the Lady Felicia dwelleth who helped him to his wife again Therefore the shepheard having entertained and feasted me very courteously and bountifully set me into a way which directly brought me to this place assuring me that I should of this Lady be enformed of all matters concerning those that I sought for as in truth I have found his words not disagréeing unto verity For being arrived here two dayes since the Lady welcomed me not as a simple Shepheard but rather like some worthy person of
set upon me and my men being either all slain or some fled robbed me of all my treasure and baggage that I had with me and either pittying to kill me outright or rather supposing they should use me too curteously if they ended my misery with death they have kept me here in this cell in such manner as you find me leaving me here this morning and going to some town or other to sell the apparel which I had seeing the money which they found in my male was much diminished and their store greatly impaired Cerasilla ravished into admiration by the strangenesse of this accident was doubtfull at the first of me thinking that I had been the same Philorenus that came with her from the Court and whose life she had saved by her policy but wel perpending my words and applying them to the things both passed and present she remembred that the Knights who were sent into Persia said that they had heard that I had been seen in a certaine towne within two dayes after I departed from Naples and besides she did see that I had on other cloaths then the man whom she left in the woods which forced her to beleeve me and to know how she had been deceived in taking another man instead of me CHAP. XXX How Philorenus the elder came to the Court with Cerasilla how he came to meet with his brother and apprehended the Aegyptian theeves I Will not here make mention of such congratulations and cherishments as she made me leaving it unto your discretions to judge how joyfull men be at such happy meetings In the mean time it may please you to understand that Cerasilla told me all that had happened in the Court concerning the other Philorenus how he had not only my name but my favour and my fortune being born where I was born exiled where I was in exile and had the same parents that I had for mine how that he was in the Court taken of all men for me how that the Knights were sent into Persia and bringing news that I had not been there he was condemned to be torn in pieces by four wild horses And finally how she had delivered him from danger of death and lost him in the wood supposing that it had been he when she heard me speak Whereat I did the more marvell by reason that I never heard that I had any brother But after wee had parleyed of all things fearing lest we should be taken together by the villains before we were out of sight of that accursed cell we went into the wood as deep as we could partly to escape them and partly to find Philorenus my brother for as Cerasilla could not be altogether merry for the hard luck that he was lost so was I excéeding sorry by reason that I so gréedily desired to see him to know whether he were my brother indeed or no. And as we had for the space of one whole day and night ranged up and down the same huge wood at length we purposed to return to the Court and to certifie the King of all matters informing his Majesty of the right truth Hoping that his Majesty would not onely pardon Cerasilla who was forced by love to do whatsoever she had practised in going away with Philorenus my brother but also by proclamation recal him again and the Gentlemen in like manner that were fled to shun his unjust wrath and anger restoring them their goods and livings that were confiscated As in truth his majesty did For when we were returned to the Court not without great admiration of the King Hyppolito the young Prince with all the rest of those that were in the Court and knéeling before his Majesty had declared the whole estate of all such accidents and events as had hapned he did not onely pardon Cerasilla but descending from his chair of estate embraced me and so curteously welcommed me that I well perceived that his Majesty was no otherwise affected towards me then he was at my departure from the Court. Furthermore he rested not but the same day recalled the Gentlemen that had testified how my brother had dwelled with the Sergeant and not onely restored them their goods and lands but also bestowed no small gift on the said Sergeant my brothers master taking order besides that my brother should also be recalled promising that as soon as he were returned to the Court he would Knight both him and my self in memorial of that so rare an example of two brothers that were so like one the other the one neverthelesse not knowing of the other But I to revenge the injury done unto me by those Egyptian théeves and to punish them according as they for the cause of their abhominable and wicked life merited I obtained leave of the King to take one of the companies that lay in garrison in Naples for the custody and safeguard both of the City and Court therewith to march to the Cel where those villains had kept me so long and coming thither we had such good luck that we took them all saving one being but newly returned to the cell the night before But missing one of them I commanded two or three souldiers to go into the cell to see whether they could find no more there They finding none but one being bound in such manner as they had used me thinking that it was some poor man that the villains had caught for they could not see what he was in the cell brought him forth unto me whom I and all the company that was with me presently knew to be the other Philorenus my supposed brother Which thing so filled my heart with joy that I imbraced him before he was unlosed He not knowing who I was at the first marvelled but after he had heard me declare unto him how I had found Cerasilla that had shewed him favour he perceived that I was the same Philorenus whom he was thought to be beholding me at lēgth burst out into these or such like words Sir séeing I neither dream nor behold my proportion in a looking glasse I confess that both the King had great cause to bear an opinion of me as he did and these villains to use me as they intended who meeting me in the wood as I had lost mistress Cerasilla thinking I had béen the man they robbed kept in their cel because I denied I knew either thē or their cel they appointed to kil me assoon as their fellow was returned whereby I perceived that you had béen in their hands and had got from them seeing they could as little be perswaded that they had never seen me as the King all his courtiers for in truth I my self if I had not known as much as by fortunes frowardness I have tried cōcerning the similitude likeness between your person and my self I would now have thought that you had béen of the nature of the glasse that receiveth the colour of every object
we as we found our selves to be brothers having the same Name Parents Countrey Shape fortune so we swore everlasting friendship and allegiance one to another so loving one the other that though I know that it were impossible for any man in the world so to love any one as I loved him yet am I forced by the consideration of his wonderfull deserts towards me and by the tryal which I have had of his loyalty to doubt whether my love or his were the greatest And because we would in all things be alike and deprive the world of all means to know and discern one of us from the other we continually apparelled our selves alike both in the same colour fashion and order Insomuch that it was hard for the best discerning wit that the world could bring forth to know the one from the other or to find any difference between us Which thing as generally it troubled most of all the courtiers so particularly it was cause of Cerasillacs death who as I told you before bearing me good will and taking my brother for me when she conveyed him out of prison and saved his life and having lost him in the wood afterwards also delivered me from the villainous Egyptians and so was cause of all our blisse This poor Gentlewoman loving us both excellently well and deserving likewise to be honoured of us for very sorrow that she could not discern me from my brother pined and falling into a consumption died Whereof though we were passing sorry yet the youthfulnesse of our young hearts receiving the impression of the beauty of a young Gentlewoman sister to the Countesse Verina quickly forgot the funerals of Mistresse Cerasilla Yet because we could not but acknowledge that we were in great sort beholding unto her we bestowed this Epitaph upon her Sweet sweetness lies beneath this marble stone Which prays all loving hearts her death to mourn Her flower is fall'n though were her years but green When Life's most sweet she bitter Death hath seen We that of her this here have written in Had but for her now neither of us bin By Phi lore nus Phi lore nus But leaving her in her sepulcher I will return the sister of Countesse Verina who being a most beautifull Gentlewoman named Mistresse Aureola so inchanted my mind by the commanding force of her swéet face and sugred tongue that I admiring the much decent colour of the one and the well governed volubility of the other was so ravished in the pleasing delight which her perfections caused in my heart that I judged no woman fair none witty and none eloquent but golden Aureola Who as she passed all women in comelinesse of body and pure snow-like whitenesse of skin so none came near her in those hidden qualities which bred in the brain and fostred in the heart are made known by the tongue But to be short such were her graces both inward and outward that they pierced my heart in such manner that I was forced to acknowledge my self her servant and Cupids captive being subdued by his policy in using the imperiall beams of her beauty instead of darts to infringe and break the priviledge of my liberty Well I loved Aureola and so loved Aureola that for the love of Aureola I could have hated my self I then being in this case began to imploy my brains in searching out manner and procuring means to make my affection known to the Saint I so truly honoured And truly in short time not Aureola's self onely but my brother also began to perceive the fire which being kindled in my heart did cast out such a cloud of love-smoak Now I glad that Aureola knew the manner of my sicknesse but gladder that she seemed not male-content of my welcontentednesse and nothing displeased that my brother was acquainted with my passion seeing that he was an Alterego my self in I will not say another body for it was too like mine to be differenced but another place thought my self the happiest man that lived Ye may judge how much more blessed I would have accounted my self to have been if I might have doubled my single life by marriage with her Vnto whom to lay open the pain which punished my heart for the cause of her I sought occasion very diligently Insomuch that opportunity being presented unto me within a few days after and espying her walking by her self and the trées alone in the garden where her sisters lodging was I thought it but a negligent part to omit that fortunate hour and therefore knowing that the Countesse her sister was gone to the Quéen I posted to my mistresse with a sound courage hoping to return victorious or with good hope of victory Into the Garden I stepped and having set on half a dozen paces forwards towards her I might sée her turn being at the end of the walk Whose heavenly face so dazeled mine eys with the glance that she cast from the other end of the garden that I soon acknowledged that no Sun could so have dimmed my eys but the double Titan which like two little worlds of grace are such ornaments to her face that as they are beholding to it for that it hourdeth them so is it bounden unto them because it is by them adorned and beautified At length I came so near her that manners warned me to salute her though I was so astonished at her celestial shape that I could more fixe mine eys to behold her with admiration then fashion my mouth to salute her with civility Yet love taught me to beware of committing so foul and grosse a fault as not to give her a courteous good morrow who was the efficient of my disquiet evenings Therefore gréeting her after the humblest and lovingest manner my passiō forced me she answered me after this manner Good morrow sir Knight you are very maticuous this morning whatsoever the cause be but I pray you what weather drove you towards these quarters so early Truly Madam quoth I my good fortune séeing I have met with no worse company then your swéet self For as I passed by the Garden wall by chance looking over with a long neck I espied you walking by your self alone and so I thought it good manners to step near and give you the buen giorno And if I thought that my boldnesse in pressing so near you perhaps in such time as you had rather give respite to your solitary delight then otherwise be troubled should offend you as I came intending not to displeasure you so I would depart without performing any thing whereby you might have occasion to be discontented No no sir Knight quoth she beshrew me if ever I could be offended with good company neither have I any such melancholy humour as to delight in beeing alone but that sometimes I am compelled to be solitary for lack of good company And then I must of necessity walk alone and recreate my self with viewing natures diligent businesse in beautifying the earth
account it gain Life hates my hap shall I it call my blisse I loth to live but more the life I live Sweet death unto my joys beginning give Yet death you make no hast to pity me Whil'st life the tyrant still his part doth play And makes me grieve and grieve to call for thee But I will make you both learn to obey Know I your Mistresse am who with one blow Can teach you both your duties quickly know This is is the wand that beateth life away This is the wink to which death comes in hast This is the cast that maketh double play This bringeth sweetnesse wrapt in bitter tast How sweet must Death needs be since Life is sow'r For contraries be of contrary pow'r My Brother knowing her by her voice and hearing her desperate resolution would not stay the end of her tragical Sonnet fearing lest it might have brought unto his eys too tragical a spectacle but stepping out of the bush behind her as she was proceeding forward beginning the next verse thus Death therefore now I call and Death must come I will not live more therefore needs must die Why die I will die Which my brother thus interrupted Nay rather sweet Aureola let Philorenus die to redeem thee from death She incontinently looking back and thinking that it was I for that she knew not certainly whether my brother had followed from Naples to seek either of us fixed her so stedfastly in his face that her soul seemed to issue out of her body through them to joyn it self unto him For she sunk down and the knife fel out of her weakned hands her lips were knit her tongue tied her eys turned her colour gone her body as if it had been without life at all Which dismal sight so dismaied my brother that unlesse provident Nature had strengthened him where he so much néeded his force he had certainly véen in no better case then Aureola her self But falling down by her he strived to wake her out of that unnatural kind of sléep where with much a doe he felt her crush his hand between her thumb and her other fingers while he pulled her sweet hand to have some token of recovery And at length obtaining the power of her sight again turning her eys towards him she unsealed her fast closed lips and with a sigh breaking the knots wherewith her tongue was knitted she said Ah Philorenus why doest thou not revenge the injury offered thee by her that is cause of thy exile My guilty conscience accuseth me and therefore crave I pardon My brother was so galled with that because he knew that he was the onely cause indeed though sore against his will himself which made me leave the Court yet because he had told her that I was gone because she seemed to love him better then me and perceiving that she now took him for me purposed for her better comfort to hold her in that opinion and therefore framed her this answer Lovely Aureola thou blamest thy self to make me blush who cannot but be ashamed that I have put thee to all this trouble in taking so tedious and dangerous a voyage fraught with so much grief and sorrow and onely for my foolish and rash departure being grounded upon no reason moving me thereto but onely the force of my passions becomming masters over reason brought me to this absurdity and thy self to this extremity wherein I find you in this place whither no doubt the Gods pittying your case and hearing your vows sent me to stay so pittifull and tragicall event as otherwise had happened For the Gods themselves with tears of bloud would have deplored the death of such a heavenly person as is Aureola Why then what would all the world have done what mourning would all mortals have made had they been deprived of that beauty whereof men glory in the East and West and where not Ah sweet Aureola what should miserable Philorenus nay and more then thrice miserable being the cause and author of so great losse have done who would have nay doth yet think that no â—orment neither in hell nor elsewhere would have been sufficiently extream to punish his offence in offering unto thee the world and himself such wrong Whereupon Aureola replied No no my heart thou canst not offer me no wrong unlesse it be in doing thy self injury For I for my part am in thee I am not thine but thy self I am not any more Aureola separable from thee or any other distinct person different unto thee but I am even thine own self And therefore in hurting thy self thou mayest harm me not else But here may we leave them noble Princes and shepheards talking together of their adventures hapned to each in their journey noting this as I have already admonished that Aureola knew not but that she was with me and that it was I that came so happily unto her in her uttermost extremity For my brother to comfort her though so doing he did me displeasure seeing that I rather wished him that happinesse then my self still dissembled not revealing unto her who he was and suffering her to delight her self in that pleasing opinion thinking she injoyed my presence which she then wished for above any other in the world yea and above his own whom she before seemed to love better then me Which her change did so tear his loving and brotherlike-heart that he was pestred with incredible grief and yet gloried in himself that the matter succeeded so well for me wishing for nothing else but that he might find me to give me Aureola and to see us married For he doubted not but he might use such means that if ever he could find me she should not know but that it was he whom they joyntly together sought and not I. For whereas Aureola very earnestly urged him to return to Naples to be married my brother to hinder that purpose spake thus unto her I have been said he by certain shepheards informed that my brother you must consider gentle reader that this is spoken of himself and so to be understood seeing he is now of Aureola taken for me in which opinion he did continue her after he had let you know of my sudden departure and afterwards had heard that thereupon you were gone secretly from Naples to seek me he in like manner taking his leave of the King having of his Majesty license thereto left Naples and pursued his quest after us both Wherefore said he dear Aureola let us first seek my nay our dear beloved brother that we may all three together return to the Court and so have our marriage feast celebrated in full joy no cause of sorrow eclipsing our mirth Which perswasion printed so good a liking in her heart that he obteined the same of her she being ready to go any where so she went as she thought with me Here noble Princes and shepheards seeing the Lady Felicia expected our coming to supper will to morrow or
will not be subject unto any part of the mind and I hold opinion thâ—â— reason is governed of love and not love guided by reason For when love hath once taken hold of the heart when it thinketh good it calleth for the counsell and assistance of reason but otherwise it will not wait or attend upon reason to be directed by it Neither do I judge them to be reasonable lovers that in love take counsel of reason or go about to love with reason For they that love indéed unlesse they do many ways surpasse that which reason teacheth them or do more then by reason they are moved to do I think their love to be but of a small account and scarce to be called love And not to fetch any instance a far of but even from your self if you had not left your father and your sisters as I have heard you say to séek the Lady in whose beauty your soul danced and forsaken your country for so I call the place where your dwelling was planted to travel through desart places and unknown regions to find out her who was cause that you lost your self no doubt you would not have thought that you had loved nor any man else would have said that you had done so And yet if you had hearkened to reason undoubtedly you had not left your aged father and comfortlesse sisters deprived of your company to seek the company of the Lady who fled your company for reason would have conducted an whole army of arguments to disswade you from that enterprise which would have been nothing else but to force you to cease from love For certainly had you stayed at home you had either not loved at all or at least but very little béen troubled with passion Insomuch that you sée how that reason and love cannot agrée together for they are opposite enemies one to the other And therefore I cannot see what love it is that thou say thou would have guided by reason That love Madam quoth Perierio which I onely account love and not I onely but all such as will not disgrace the excellency of so worthy a thing as love is For to let you know how I would have love guided with reason I understand the matter so that I would have them that love therein to shuâ— such inconveniences as bréed shame infamy and reproach unto them that love if they be not avoided As to love that which ought not to be loved as Pasiphae loved the Bul by whom she bore Minotaurus many other things which might be considered which onely can be judged by the rule of reason Besides I remember many that describe love whose descriptions I like not for my part say that love is full of dissembling hypocrisie strife debate brawling vice offence quarrelling envy hate jealousie murther prodigality gréedinesse covetousness anger and many other mischievous inconveniences which I think one that loves may very well avoid all I mean by the help and counsel of reason which tells us that they ought to be shunned Why but good sir quoth the Dutchess that love whereof you talk is not love but lust the gulph of all mischief for lust is subject to all such vices and more but not love Why then inferred Perierio must you grant that love not limited by reason is lust Nothing so quoth the Dutchess for love in the very nature and essence therof considered otherwise it is diversly taken is a knot or bond which tieth knitteth and uniteth two hearts inseparably and maketh them one insomuch that love it self so considered to attain to the very purity and singularity thereof is to endeavour and labor by al means whatsoever to the making of them Two hearts One and to that one thing must all actions be directed Insomuch I say that such persons as will claim the right title of lovers must neither be feared with dangers nor driven back by force nor chased with terrour nor removed with reason from endevouring and working to make themselves deserve to be inseparably joyned with that which they love and to become as the same thing it self and one thing with it Wherein I pray you cannot this be the onely and very force of love and not of lust Very well Madam quoth Perierio So sir quoth she I pray you have you forgotten that you even now said that you accounted all love not guided by reason lust which how grossely it was spoken I will thus with one small example make you confess your self Put case the Duke of Florence loveth some Lady either for her beauty grace comliness vertue or other gifts by God and nature bestowed on her which Lady he cannot enjoy as his own I mean have her heart united to his as his is tied to hers and be loved of her as he loveth her for there must be reciprocation in love unless he spend all his Revenues his Dukedome and afterward having obtained his hearts desire of her and hath of her heart and his made but one yet cannot enjâ—y her by reason of her parents that for one reason or other would have her either married to some other or rather not married at all then to him and so lives still in body separated from her though in heart and soul never but by her his Dukedome gone and all his wealth consumed thinking the jewel which he hath thereby gotten of a higher price then all his substance I mean the love of his Lady being onely content with this that she loves him Now let me ask you this question would not reason if the Duke had guided his love by the rational measure of his understanding have counselled him not to lose his credit his wealth his renown and not to have undone himself for that which he might not fully enjoy though he enjoyed as he desired It may be so Madam quoth Perierio but what then Marry this quoth she Then his love was not guided by reason yet there is no man that will nay can say but that it was pure love not spotted with the blot of any lust and therefore against your former principle are you forced to confess that all love not guided by reason is not lust Perierio marking the subtilty of the Dutchess in taking hold of his words and going about to canvas him that way séeing she could not go through with her matter which was to prove that no love could be too extream great and that upright love was not to be guided or governed by reason he unwilling to let her yet so carry it away made answer thus Many things may be spoken which divers ways are to be understood For sometimes things properly taken are improperly applied to sundry purposes And so when I said that love not not guided by reâ—son was lust I understood not lust as it is properly taken for the carnal desire and libidinous cipidity of the flesh â—ut rather for the vice which is committed by desiring that which ones affections urge him to covet and