Henry Craik, ed. English Prose. 1916.
Vol. I. Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century
Robert Greene (15581592)
A
The orgies which the Bacchanals kept in Thessaly, the feasts which the melancholy Saturnists founded in Danuby, were never so quatted with silence, but in their festival days they did frolic amongst themselves with many pleasant parleys: were it not a shame, then, that we of Arcadia, famous for the beauty of our nymphs, and the amorous roundelays of our shepherds, should disgrace Pan’s holiday with such melancholy dumps. Courteous country swains, shake off this sobriety; and, seeing we have in our company damsels both beautiful and wise, let us entertain them with prattle, to try our wits, and tire our time. To this they all agreed with a plaudit. Then quoth Melicertus: “By your leave since I was first in motion, I will be first in question, and therefore, new-come shepherdess, first to you!” At this Samela blushed, and he began thus:
“Fair damsel, when Nereus chatted with Juno, he had pardon, in that his prattle came more to pleasure the goddess than to ratify his own presumption. If I, mistress, be overbold, forgive me; I question not to offend, but to set time free from tediousness. Then, gentle shepherdess, tell me: if you should be transformed, from the anger of the gods, into some shape, what creature would you reason to be in form?” Samela, blushing that she was the first that was boarded, yet gathered up her crumbs, and desirous to shew her pregnant wit (as the wisest women be ever tickled with self love) made him this answer:
“Gentle shepherd, it fits not strangers to be nice, nor maidens too coy, lest the one feel the weight of a scoff, the other the fall of a frump; pithy questions are mind’s whetstones, and by discoursing in jest, many doubts are deciphered in earnest: therefore you have forestalled me in craving pardon, when you have no need to feel any grant of pardon. Therefore, thus to your question: Daphne, I remember, was turned to a bay-tree, Niobe to a flint, Lampetia and her sisters to flowers, and sundry virgins to sundry shapes according to their merits; but if my wish might serve for a metamorphosis, I would be turned into a sheep.” “A sheep, and why so, mistress?” “I reason thus,” quoth Samela, “my supposition should be simple, my life quiet, my food the pleasant plains of Arcadia and the wealthy riches of Flora, my drink the cool streams that flow from the concave promontory of this continent; my air should be clear, my walks spacious, my thoughts at ease; and can there none, shepherd, be my better premisses to conclude my reply, than these?” “But have you no other allegations to confirm your resolution?” “Yes sir,” quoth she, “and far greater.” “Then, the law of our first motion,” quoth he, “commands you to repeat them.” “Far be it,” answered Samela, “that I should not do of free will anything that this pleasant company commands; therefore, thus: were I a sheep, I should be guarded from the folds with jolly swains, such as was Luna’s love on the hills of Latmos; their pipes sounding like the melody of Mercury, when he lulled asleep Argus: but more, when the damsels tracing along the plains, should with their eyes like sun’s bright beams, draw on looks to gaze on such sparkling planets: then, weary with food, should I lie and look on their beauties, as on the spotted wealth of the richest firmament; I should listen to their sweet lays, more sweet than the sea-borne sirens: thus, feeding on the delicacy of their features, I should like the Tyrian heifer fall in love with Agenor’s darling.” “Ay, but,” quoth Melicertus, “those fair-faced damsels oft draw forth the kindest sheep to the shambles.” “And what of that, sir,” answered Samela, “would not a sheep, so long fed with beauty, die for love?” “If he die,” quoth Pesana, “it is more kindness in beasts than constancy in men: for they die for love, when larks die with leeks.”