[Sidenote: The _Grand Cyrus_.]
[Sidenote: Its preface to Madame de Longueville.]
To turn from the Pastoral to the Heroic, the actual readers, English or other, of _Artamene ou le Grand Cyrus_[151] in late years, have probably been reckonable rather as single spies (a phrase in this connection of some rather special appropriateness) than in battalions. And it is to be feared that many or most, if not nearly all of them, have opened it with little expectation of pleasure. The traditional estimates are dead against it as a rule; it has constantly served as an example--produced by wiseacres for wiseacres--of the _un_wisdom of our ancestors; and, generous as were Sir Walter"s estimates of all literature, and especially of his fellow-craftsmen"s and craftswomen"s work, the lively pa.s.sage in _Old Mortality_ where Edith b.e.l.l.e.n.den"s reference to the book excites the (in the circ.u.mstances justifiable) wrath of the Major--perhaps the only _locus_ of ordinary reading that touches _Artamene_ with anything but vagueness--is not entirely calculated to make readers read eagerly. But on turning honestly to the book itself, it is possible that considerable relief and even a little astonishment may result. Whether this satisfaction will arise at the very dedication by that vainglorious and yet redoubtable cavalier, Georges de Scudery, in which he characteristically takes to himself the credit due mainly, if not wholly, to his plain little sister Madeleine, will depend upon taste. It is addressed to Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, d.u.c.h.ess of Longueville, sister of Conde, and adored mistress of many noteworthy persons--the most noteworthy perhaps being the Prince de Marcillac, better known, as from his later t.i.tle, as Duc de la Rochefoucauld, and a certain Aramis--not so good a man as three friends of his, but a very accomplished, valiant, and ingenious gentleman. The blue eyes of Madame de Longueville (M. de Scudery takes the liberty to mention specially their charm, if not their colour) were among the most victorious in that time of the "raining" and reigning influence of such things: and somehow one succ.u.mbs a little even now to her as the Queen of that bevy of fair, frail, and occasionally rather ferocious ladies of the Fronde feminine.
(The femininity was perhaps most evident in Madame de Chevreuse, and the ferocity in Madame de Montbazon.) Did not Madame de Longueville--did not they all--figuratively speaking, draw that great philosopher Victor Cousin[152] up in a basket two centuries after her death, even as had been done, literally if mythically, to that greater philosopher, Aristotle, ages before? But the governor of Our Lady of the Guard[153]
says to her many of these things which that very Aramis delighted to hear (though not perhaps from the lips of rivals) and described, rebuking the callousness of Porthos to them, as fine and worthy of being said by gentlemen. The Great Cyrus himself "comes to lay at her Highness"s feet his palms and his trophies." His historian, achieving at once advertis.e.m.e.nt and epigram, is sure that as she listened kindly to the _Death of Caesar_ (his own play), she will do the same to the Life of Cyrus. Anne Genevieve herself will become the example of all Princesses (the Reverend Abraham Adams might have groaned a little here), just as Cyrus was the pattern of all Princes. She is not the moon, but the sun[154] of the Court. The mingled blood of Bourbon and Montmorency gives her such an _eclat_ that it is almost unapproachable.
He then digresses a little to glorify her brother, her husband, and Chapelain, the famous author of _La Pucelle_, who had the good fortune to be a friend of the Scuderys, as well as, like them, a strong "Heroic"
theorist. After which he comes to that personal inventory which has been referred to, decides that her beauty is of a celestial splendour, and, in fact, a ray of Divinity itself; goes into raptures, not merely over her eyes, but over her hair (which simply effaces sunbeams); the brightness and whiteness of her complexion; the just proportion of her features; and, above all, her singularly blended air of modesty and gallantry; her intellectual and spiritual match; her bodily graces; and he is finally sure that though somebody"s misplaced acuteness may discover faults which n.o.body else will perceive (Georges would like to see them, no doubt), her extreme kindness will pardon them. A commonplace example of flattery this? Well, perhaps not. One somehow sees, across the rhetoric, the blue eyes of Anne Genevieve and the bristling mustachios and "swashing outside" and mighty rapier of Georges; and the thing becomes alive with the life of a not ungracious past, the ills of which were, after all, more or less common to all times, and its charms (like the charms of all things and persons charming) its own.
[Sidenote: The "Address to the Reader."]
But the Address to the Reader, though it discards those "temptations of young ladies" (Madame de Longueville can never have been old) which Dr.
Johnson recognised, and also the companion attractions of Cape and Sword, is of perhaps directly greater importance for our special and legitimate purpose. Here the brother and sister (probably the sister chiefly) develop some of the principles of their bold adventure, and they are of no small interest. It is allowed that the varying accounts of Cyrus (in which, as almost every one with the slightest tincture of education[155] must be aware, doctors differ remarkably), at least those of Herodotus and Xenophon (they do not, or she does not, seem to have known Ctesias), are confounded, and selected _ad libitum_ and _secundum artem_ only. Further "lights" are given by the selection of the "Immortal Heliodorus" and "the great Urfe" as patterns and patrons of the work. In fact, to any expert in the reading and criticism of novels it is clear that a great principle has been--imperfectly but somehow--laid hold of.
[Sidenote: The opening of the "business."]
Perhaps, however, "laid hold of" is too strong; we should do better by borrowing from Dante and saying that the author or authors have "glimpsed the Panther,"--have seen that a novel ought not to be a mere chronicle, unselected and miscellaneous, but a work which, whether it has actual unity of plot or not, has unity of interest, and will deal with its facts so as to secure that interest. At first, indeed, they plunge us into the middle of matters quite excitingly, though perhaps not without more definite suggestion, both to them and to us, of the "immortal" Heliodorus. The hero, who still bears his false name of Artamene,[156] appears at the head of a small army, the troops of Cyaxares of Media; and, at the mouth of a twisting valley, suddenly sees before him the town of Sinope in flames, the shipping in the harbour blazing likewise, all but one bark, which seems to be flying from more than the conflagration. A fine comic-opera situation follows; for while Artamene is trying to subdue the fire he is attacked by the traitor Aribee, general under the King of a.s.syria, who is himself shut up in a tower and seems to be hopelessly cut off from rescue by the fire. The invincible hero, however, subdues at once the rebel and the destroying element; captures the a.s.syrian, who is not only his enemy and that of his master Cyaxares, but his Rival (the word has immense importance in these romances, and is always honoured with a capital there), and learns that the escaping galley carried with it his beloved Mandane, daughter of Cyaxares, of whom he is in quest, and who has been abducted from her abductor and lover by another, Prince Mazare of Sacia.
[Sidenote: The ups and downs of the general conduct of the story.]
All this is lively and business-like enough, and one feels rather a brute in making the observation (necessary, however) that Artamene talks too much and not in the right way. When things in general are "on the edge of a razor" and one is a tried and skilful soldier, one does not, except on the stage, pause to address the unjust G.o.ds, and inquire whether they have consented to the destruction of the most beautiful princess in the world; discuss with one"s friends the reduction into cinders[157] of the adorable Mandane, and further enquire, without the slightest chance of answer, "Alas! unjust Rival! hast thou not thought rather of thine own preservation than of hers?" However, for a time, the incidents do carry off the verbiage, and for nearly a hundred small pages there is no great cause for complaint. It is the style of the book; and if you do not like it you must "seek another inn." But what succeeds, for the major part of the first of the twenty volumes,[158] is open to severer criticisms. We fall into interminable discussions, _recits_, and the like, on the subject of the ident.i.ty of Artamene and Cyrus, and we see at once the imperfect fashion in which the nature of the novel is conceived. That elaborate explanation--necessary in history, philosophy, and other "serious" works--cannot be cut down too much in fiction, is one truth that has not been learnt.[159] That the stuffing of the story with large patches of solid history or pseudo-history is wrong and disenchanting has not been learnt either; and this is the less surprising and the more pardonable in that very few, if indeed any, of the masters and mistresses of the novel, later and greater than Georges and Madeleine de Scudery, have not refused to learn it or have not carelessly forgotten the learning. Even Scott committed the fault sometimes, though never in his very best work.
Dumas--when he went out and left the "young men" to fill in, and stayed too long, and made them fill in too much--did it constantly. Yet again, that mixture of excess and defect in talking, which has been noted already, becomes more and more trying in connection with the previously mentioned faults and others. Of _mere_ talk there is enough and immensely to spare; but it is practically never real dialogue, still less real conversation. It is harangue, narrative, soliloquy, what you will, in the less lively theatrical forms of speech watered out in prose, with "pa.s.sing of compliments" in the most gentlefolkly manner, and a spice of "Phebus" or Euphuism now and then. But it is never real personal talk,[160] while as for conveying the action _by_ the talk as the two great masters above mentioned and nearly all others of their kind do, there is no vestige of even an attempt at the feat, or a glimpse of its desirableness.
Again, one sees before long that of one priceless quality--a sense of humour--we shall find, though there is a little mild wit, especially in the words of the ladies named in the note, no trace in the book, but a "terrible _minus_ quant.i.ty." I do not know that the late Sir William Gilbert was a great student of literature--of cla.s.sical literature, to judge from the nomenclature of _Pygmalion and Galatea_ mentioned above, he certainly was not. But his eyes would surely have glistened at the unconscious and serious antic.i.p.ation of his own methods at their most Gilbertian, had he ever read pp. 308 _sqq._ of this first volume. Here not only do Cyrus and a famous pirate, by boarding with irresistible valour on each side, "exchange ships," and so find themselves at once to have gained the enemy"s and lost their own, but this remarkable manoeuvre is repeated more than twenty times without advantage on either side--or without apparently any sensible losses on either side.
From which it would appear that both contented themselves with displays of agility in climbing from vessel to vessel, and did nothing so impolite as to use their "javelins, arrows, and cutla.s.ses" (of which, nevertheless, we hear) against the persons of their compet.i.tors in such agility on the other side. It did come to an end somehow after some time; but one is quite certain that if Mr. Crummles had had the means of presenting such an admirable spectacle on any boards, he never would have contented himself without several encores of the whole twenty operations.
An experienced reader, therefore, will not need to spend many hours before he appreciates pretty thoroughly what he has to expect--of good, of bad, and of indifferent--from this famous book. It is, though in a different sense from Montaigne"s, a _livre de bonne foi_. And we must remember that the readers whom it directly addressed expected from books of this kind "pastime" in the most literal and generous, if also humdrum, sense of the word; n.o.ble sentiments, perhaps a little learning, possibly a few hidden glances at great people not of antiquity only. All these they got here, most faithfully supplied according to their demand.
[Sidenote: Extracts--the introduction of Cyrus to Mandane.]
Probably nothing will give the reader, who does not thus read for himself, a better idea of the book than some extract translations, beginning with Artamene"s first interview with Mandane,[161] going on to his reflections thereon, and adding a perhaps slightly shortened version of the great fight recounted later, in which again some evidence of the damaging absence of humour, and some suggestions as to the originals of divers well-known parodies, will be found. (It must be remembered that these are all parts of an enormous _recit_ by Chrisante, one of Artamene"s confidants and captains, to the King of Hircania, a monarch doubtless inured to hardships in the chase of his native tigers, or requiring some sedative as a change from it.)
No sooner had the Princess seen my Master than she rose, and prepared to receive him with much kindness and much joy, having already heard, by Arbaces, the service he had done to the King, her father. Artamene then made her two deep bows, and coming closer to her, but with all the respect due to a person of her condition, he kissed [_no doubt the hem of_]
her robe, and presented to her the King"s letter, which she read that very instant. When she had done, he was going to begin the conversation with a compliment, after telling her what had brought him; but the Princess antic.i.p.ated him in the most obliging manner. "What Divinity, generous stranger," said she, "has brought you among us to save all Cappadocia by saving its King? and to render him a service which the whole of his servants could not have rendered?"
"Madam," answered Artamene, "you are right in thinking that some Divinity has led me hither; and it must have been some one of those beneficent Divinities who do only good to men, since it has procured me the honour of being known to you, and the happiness of being chosen by Fortune to render to the King a slight service, which might, no doubt, have been better done him by any other man." "Modesty," said the Princess (smiling and turning towards the ladies who were nearest her), "is a virtue which belongs so essentially to our own s.e.x, that I do not know whether I ought to allow this generous stranger so unjustly to rob us of it, or--not content with possessing eminently that valour to which we must make no pretension--to try to be as modest when he is spoken to of the fineness of his actions as reasonable women ought to be when they are praised for their beauty. For my part," she added, looking at Artamene, "I confess I find your proceeding a little unfair. And I do not think that I ought to allow it, or to deprive myself of the power of praising you infinitely, although you cannot endure it."
"Persons like you," retorted Artamene, but with profound respect, "ought to receive praise from all the earth, and not to give it lightly. "Tis a thing, Madam, of which it is not pleasant to have to repeat; for which reason I beg you not to expose yourself to such a danger. Wait, Madam, till I have the honour of being a little better known to you."
There are several pages more of this _carte_ and _tierce_ of compliment; but perhaps a degenerate and impatient age may desire that we should pa.s.s to the next subject. Whether it is right or not in so desiring may perhaps be discussed when the three samples have been given.
Artamene has been dismissed with every mark of favour, and lodged in a pavilion overlooking the garden. When he is alone--
[Sidenote: His soliloquy in the pavilion.]
After having pa.s.sed and re-pa.s.sed all these things over again in his imagination, "Ye G.o.ds!" said he, "if, when she is so lovable, it should chance that I cannot make her love me, what would become of the wretched Artamene? But," and he caught himself up suddenly, "since she seems capable of appreciating glory and services, let us continue to act as we have begun! and let us do such great deeds that, even if her inclination resisted, esteem may introduce us, against her will, into her heart! For, after all, whatever men may say, and whatever I may myself have said, one may give a little esteem to what one will never in the least love; but I do not think one can give much esteem to what will never earn a little love. Let us hope, then; let us hope! let us make ourselves worthy to be pitied if we are not worthy to be loved."
After which somewhat philosophical meditation it is not surprising that he should be informed by one of his aides-de-camp that the Princess was in the garden. For what were Princesses made? and for what gardens?
The third is a longer pa.s.sage, but it shall be subjected to that kind of _cento_ing which has been found convenient earlier in this volume.
[Sidenote: The Fight of the Four Hundred.]
[_The dispute between the kings of Cappadocia on the one hand and of Pontus on the other has been referred to a select combat of two hundred men a side. Artamene, of course, obtains the command of the Cappadocians, to the despair of his explosive but not ungenerous rival, "Philip Dastus." After a very beautiful interview with Mandane (where, once more, the most elegant compliments pa.s.s between these gentlefolkliest of all heroes and heroines) and divers preliminaries, the fight comes off._][162] They began to advance with heads lowered, without cries or noise of any kind, but in a silence which struck terror. As soon as they were near enough to use their javelins, they launched them with such violence that [_a slight bathos_] these flying weapons had a pretty great effect on both sides, but much greater on that of the Cappadocians than on the other. Then, sword in hand and covered by their shields, they came to blows, and Artamene, as we were informed, immolated the first victim [_but how about the javelin "effect"?_] in this b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice. For, having got in front of all his companions by some paces, he killed, with a mighty sword-stroke, the first who offered resistance. [_Despite this, the general struggle continues to go against the Cappadocians, though Artamene"s exploits alarm one of the enemy, named Artane, so much that he skulks away to a neighbouring knoll. At last_] things came to such a point that Artamene found himself with fourteen others against forty; so I leave you to judge, Sir [_Chrisante parle toujours_], whether the party of the King of Pontus did not believe they had conquered, and whether the Cappadocians had not reason to think themselves beaten. But as, in this fight, it was not allowed either to ask or to give quarter, and was necessary either to win or to die, the most despairing became the most valiant. [_The next stage is, that in consequence of enormous efforts on his part, the hero finds himself and his party ten to ten, which "equality" naturally cheers them up. But the wounds of the Cappadocians are the severer; the ten on their side become seven, with no further loss to the enemy, and at last Artamene finds himself, after three hours" fighting, alone against three, though only slightly wounded. He wisely uses his great agility in retiring and dodging; separates one enemy from the other two, and kills him; attacks the two survivors, and, one luckily stumbling over a buckler, kills a second, so that at last the combat is single. During this time the coward Artane abstains from intervening, all the more because the one surviving champion of Pontus is a personal rival of his, and because, by a very ingenious piece of casuistry, he persuades himself that the two combatants are sure to kill each other, and he, Artane, surviving, will obtain the victory for self and country!_]
He is nearly right; but not quite. For after Artamene has wounded the Pontic Pharnaces in six places, and Pharnaces Artamene in four (for we wound "by the card" here), the hero runs Pharnaces through the heart, receiving only a thigh-wound in return. He flourishes both swords, cries "I have conquered!" and falls in a faint from loss of blood. Artane thinks him dead, and without caring to come close and "mak sicker," goes off to claim the victory. But Artamene revives, finds himself alone, and, with what strength he has left, piles the arms of the dead together, writes with his own blood on a silver shield--
TO JUPITER GUARDIAN OF TROPHIES,
and lies beside it as well as he can. The false news deceives for a short time, but when the stipulated advance to the field takes place on both sides, the discovery of the surviving victor introduces a new complication, from which we may for the moment abstain.
The singlestick rattle of compliment in the interview first given, and the rather obvious and superfluous meditations of the second, may seem, if not exactly disgusting, tedious and jejune. But the "Fight of the Four Hundred" is not frigid; and it is only fair to say that, after the rather absurd pa.s.sage of _cha.s.se croise_ on ship-board quoted or at least summarised earlier, the capture of Artamene by numbers and his surrender to the generous corsair Thrasybulus are not ill told, while there are several other good fights before you come to the end of this very first volume. There is, moreover, an elaborate portrait of the Princess, evidently intended to "pick up" that vaguer one of Madame de Longueville in the Preface, but with the blue of the eyes here fearlessly specified. Here also does the celebrated Philidaspes (most improperly, if it had not been for the justification to be given later, transmogrified in the above-mentioned pa.s.sage by Major b.e.l.l.e.n.den into "Philip Dastus? Philip Devil") make his appearance. The worst of it is that most, if not the whole, is done by the _recit_ delivered, as noted above, by Chrisante, one of those representatives of the no less faithful than strong Gyas and Cloanthus, whom imitation of the ancients has imposed on Scudery and his sister, and inflicted on their readers.
[Sidenote: The abstract resumed.]
The story of the Cappadocian-Pontic fight[163] is continued in the second volume of the First Part by the expected delivery of harangues from the two claimants, and the obligatory, but to Artane very unwelcome, single combat. He is, of course, vanquished and pardoned by his foe,[164] making, if not full, sufficient confession; and it is not surprising to hear that the King of Pontus requests to see no more of him. The rest--for it must never be forgotten that all this is "throwing back"--then turns to the rivalry of Artamene and Philidaspes for the love of Mandane, while she (again, of course) has not the faintest idea that either is in love with her. Philidaspes, who (still, of course) is not Philidaspes at all, is a rough customer--(in fact the Major hardly did him injustice in calling him "Philip Devil"--betraying also perhaps some knowledge of the text), and it comes to a tussle. This rather resembles what the contemptuous French early Romantics called _une boxade_ than a formal duel, and Artamene stuns his man with a blow of the flat. Cyaxares[165] is very angry, and imprisons them both, not yet realising their actual fault. It does not matter much to Artamene, who in prison can think, aloud and in the most beautiful "Phebus," of Mandane. It matters perhaps a little more to the reader; for a courteous jailer, Aglatidas, takes the occasion to relate his own woes in a "History of Aglatidas and Amestris," which completes the second volume of the First Part in three hundred and fifty mortal pages to itself.
The first volume of the Second Part returns to the main story, or rather the main series of _recits_; for, Chrisante being not unnaturally exhausted after talking for a thousand pages or so, Feraulas, another of Artamene"s men, takes up the running. The prisoners are let out, and Mandane reconciles them, after which--as another but later contemporary remarks (again of other things, but probably with some reminiscence of this)--they become much more mortal enemies than before. The reflections and soliloquies of Artamene recur; but a not unimportant, although subordinate, new character appears--not as the first example, but as the foremost representative, in the novel, of the great figure of the "confidante"--in Martesie, Mandane"s chief maid of honour. n.o.body, it is to be hoped, wants an elaborate account of the part she plays, but it should be said that she plays it with much more spirit and individuality than her mistress is allowed to show. Then, according to the general plan of all these books, in which fierce wars and faithful loves alternate, there is more fighting, and though Artamene is victorious (as how should he not be, save now and then to prevent monotony?) he disappears and is thought dead. Of course Mandane cries, and confesses to the confidante, being entirely "finished" by a very exquisite letter which Artamene has written before going into the doubtful battle. However, he is (yet once more, of course) not dead at all. What (as that most sagacious of men, the elder Mr. Weller, would have said)"d have become of the other seventeen volumes if he had been?
There is one of the _quiproquos_ or misunderstandings which are as necessary to this kind of novel as the flirtations and the fisticuffs, brought about by the persistence of an enemy princess in taking Artamene for her son Spithridates;[166] but all comes right for the time, and the hero returns to his friends. The plot, however, thickens. An accident informs Artamene that Philidaspes is really Prince of a.s.syria, sure to become King when his mother, Nitocris, dies or abdicates, and that, being as he is, and as Artamene knows already, desperately in love with Mandane, he has formed a plot for carrying her off. The difficulties in the way of preventing this are great, because, though the hero is already aware that he is Cyrus, it is for many reasons undesirable to inform Cyaxares of the fact; and at last Philidaspes, helped by the traitor Aribee (_v. sup._), succeeds in the abduction, after an interlude in which a fresh Rival, with a still larger R, the King of Pontus himself, turns up; and an immense episode, in which Thomyris, Queen of Scythia, appears, not yet in her more or less historical part of victress of Cyrus. She is here only a young sovereign, widowed in her earliest youth, extremely beautiful (see a portrait of her _inf._), who has never yet loved, but who falls instantly in love with Cyrus himself (when he is sent to her court), and is rather a formidable person to deal with, inasmuch as, besides having great wealth and power, she has established a diplomatic system of intrigue in other countries, which the newest German or other empire might envy. By the end of this volume, however, the Artamene-Cyrus confusion is partly cleared up (though Cyaxares is not yet made aware of the facts), and the hero is sent after Mandane, to be disappointed at Sinope, in the fashion recounted some thousand or two pages before.
[Sidenote: The oracle to Philidaspes.]
With the beginning of vol. iv. (that is to say, part ii. vol. ii.) we return, though still in retrospect, to the direct fate of Mandane.
Nitocris is dead, Philidaspes has succeeded to the crown of a.s.syria, and has carried Mandane off to his own dominions. The situation with so robustious a person as this prince may seem awkward, and indeed, as is observed in a later part of the book, the heroine"s repeated sojourns (there are three if not four of them in all[167]) in the complete power of one of the Rivals, with a large R, are very trying to Cyrus. However, such a shocking thing as violence is hardly hinted at, and the Princess always succeeds, as the Creole lady in _Newton Forster_ said she did with the pirates, in "temporising," while her abductors confine themselves for the most part to the finest "Phebus." Even the fiery Philidaspes, though he breaks out sometimes, conveys his wish that Mandane should accompany him to Babylon by pointing out that "the Euphrates is jealous of the Tigris for having first had the honour of her presence," and that "the First City of the World ought clearly to possess the most ill.u.s.trious princess of the Earth." Of course, if there is any base person who cannot derive an Aramisian satisfaction (_v.
sup._) from such things as this, he had better abstain from the _Cyrus_.
But happier souls they please--not exquisitely, perhaps, or tumultuously, but still well--with a mild tickle which is not unvoluptuous. One is even a very little sorry for Philip Dastus when he begs his cruel idol to write to him the single word ESPEREZ, and meanwhile kindly puts it in capitals and a line to itself. Almost immediately afterwards an oracle juggles with him in fashion delightful to himself, and puzzling to everybody except the intelligent reader, who, it is hoped, will see the double meaning at once.
Il t"est permis d"esperer De la faire soupirer, Malgre sa haine: Car un jour entre ses bras, Tu rencontreras La fin de ta peine.
Alas! without going further (upon honour and according to fact), one sees the _other_ explanation--that Mandane will have to perform the uncomfortable duty--often a.s.signed to heroines--of having Philidaspes die in her lap.
For the present, however, only discomfiture, not death, awaits him. The Medes blockade Babylon to recover their princess; it suffers from hunger, and Philidaspes, with Mandane and the chivalrous Sacian Prince Mazare, whom we have heard of before, escapes to Sinope. Then the events recorded in the very beginning happen, and Mandane, after escaping the flames of Sinope through Mazare"s abduction of her by sea, and suffering shipwreck, falls into the power of the King of Pontus. This calls a halt in the main story; and, as before, a "Troisieme Livre" consists of another huge inset--the hugest yet--of seven hundred pages this time, describing an unusually, if not entirely, independent subject--the loves and fates of a certain Philosipe and a certain Polisante. This volume contains a rather forcible boating-scene, which supplies the theme for the old frontispiece.
Refreshed as usual by this excursion,[168] the author returns (in vol.
v., bk. i., chap. iii.) to Cyrus, who is once more in peril, and in a worse one than ever. Cyaxares, arriving at Sinope, does not find his daughter, but does discover that Artamene, whom he does not yet know to be Cyrus and heir to Persia, is in love with her. Owing chiefly to the wiles of a villain, Metrobate, he arrests the Prince, and is on the point of having him executed, despite the protests of the allied kings.
But the whole army, with the Persian contingent at its head, a.s.saults the castle, and rescues Cyrus, after the traitor Metrobate has tried to double his treachery and get Cyaxares a.s.sa.s.sinated. n.o.body who remembers the _Letter of Advice_ already quoted will doubt what the conduct of Cyrus is. He only accepts the rescue in order that he may post himself at the castle gate, and threaten to kill anybody who attacks Cyaxares.
After this burst, which is really exciting in a way, we must expect something more soporific. Martesie takes the place of her absent mistress to some extent, and a good deal of what might be mistaken for "Pa.s.serelle"[169] flirtation takes place, or would do so, if it were not that Cyrus would, of course, die rather than pay attention to anybody but Mandane herself, and that Feraulas, already mentioned as one of the Faithful Companions, is detailed as Martesie"s lover. She is, however, installed as a sort of Vice-Queen of a wordy tourney between four unhappy lovers, who fill up the rest of the volume with their stories of "Amants _In_fortunes" (cf. the original t.i.tle of the _Heptameron_), dealing respectively with and told by--
(1) A lover who is loved, but separated from his mistress.
(2) One who is unloved.
(3) A jealous one.
(4) One whose love is dead.[170]
They do it moderately, in rather less than five hundred pages, and Martesie sums up in a manner worthy of any Mistress of the Rolls, contrasting their fates, and deciding very cleverly against the jealous man.
The first twenty pages or so of the sixth volume (nominally iii. 2) afford a good example of the fashion in which, as may be observed more fully below, even an a.n.a.lysis of the _Grand Cyrus_, though a great advance on mere general description of it, must be still (unless it be itself intolerably voluminous) insufficient. Not very much actually "happens"; but if you simply skip, you miss a fresh ill.u.s.tration of magnanimity not only in Cyrus, but in a formerly mentioned character, Aglatidas, with reference to the heroine Amestris earlier inset in the tale (_v. sup._). And this is an example of the new and sometimes very ingenious fashion in which these apparent excursions are turned into something like real episodes, or at any rate supply connecting threads of the whole, in a manner not entirely unlike that which some critics have so hastily and unjustly overlooked in Spenser. Then we have an imbroglio about forged letters, and a clearing-up of a former charge against the hero, and (still within the twenty pages) a very curious scene--the last for the time--of that flirtation-without-flirtation between Cyrus and Martesie. She wants to have back a picture of Mandane, which she has lent him to worship; and he replies, looking at her "attentively" (one wonders whether Mandane, if present, would have been entirely satisfied with his "attention"), addresses her as "Cruel Person," and asks her (he is just setting out for the Armenian war) how she thinks he can conquer when she takes away what should make him invincible. To which replies Miss Martesie, "You have gained so many victories [_ahem!_] without this help, that it would seem you have no need of it." This is very nice, and Martesie, who is herself, as previously observed, quite nice throughout, lets him have the picture after all. But Cyrus, for once rather ungraciously, will not allow her lover, and his henchman, Feraulas to escort her home; first, because he wants Feraulas"s services himself, and secondly, because it is unjust that Feraulas should be happy with Martesie when Cyrus is miserable without Mandane--an argument which, whether slightly selfish or not, is at any rate in complete keeping with the whole atmosphere of the book.