A History of the French Novel Volume I Part 15

[Sidenote: The advent of Araminta.]

Now, as this is by no means a very exceptional, certainly not a unique, score of pages, and as it has taken almost a whole one of ours to give a rather imperfect notion of its contents, it follows that it would take about six hundred, if not more, to do justice to the ten or twelve thousand of the original. Which (in one of the most immortal of formulas) "is impossible." We must fall back, therefore, on the system already pursued for the rest of this volume, and perhaps even contract its application in some cases. A rash promise of the now entirely, if not also rather insanely,[171] generous Prince not to marry Mandane without fighting Philidaspes, or rather the King of a.s.syria, beforehand, is important; and an at last minute description of Cyrus's person and equipment as he sets out (on one of the proudest and finest horses that ever was, with a war-dress the superbest that can be imagined, and with Mandane's magnificent scarf put on for the first time) is not quite omissible. But then things become intricate. Our old friend Spithridates comes back, and has first love affairs and afterwards an enormous _recit_-episode with a certain Princess of Pontus, whom Cyrus, reminding one slightly of Bentley on Mr. Pope's _Homer_ and Tommy Merton on Cider, p.r.o.nounces to be _belle, blonde, blanche et bien faite_, but not Mandane; and who has the further charm of possessing, for the first time in literature if one mistakes not, the renowned name of Araminta. A pair of letters between these two will be useful as specimens, and to some, it may be hoped, agreeable in themselves.

SPITHRIDATES TO THE PRINCESS ARAMINTA

[Sidenote: Her correspondence with Spithridates.]

I depart, Madam, because you wish it: but, in departing, I am the most unhappy of all men. I know not whither I go; nor when I shall return; nor even if you wish that I _should_ return; and yet they tell me I must live and hope. But I should not know how to do either the one or the other, unless you order me to do both by two lines in your own hand. Therefore I beg them of you, divine Princess--in the name of an ill.u.s.trious person, now no more, [_her brother Sinnesis, who had been a great friend of his_], but who will live for ever in the memory of

SPITHRIDATES.

[_He can hardly have hoped for anything better than the following answer, which is much more "downright Dunstable"

than is usual here._]

ARAMINTA TO SPITHRIDATES

Live as long as it shall please the G.o.ds to allow you. Hope as long as Araminta lives--she begs you: and even if you yourself wish to live, she orders you to do so.

[_In other words he says, "My own Araminta, say 'Yes'!" and she does. This att.i.tude necessarily involves the despair of a Rival, who writes thus:_]

PHARNACES TO THE PRINCESS ARAMINTA

If Fortune seconds my designs, I go to a place where I shall conquer _and_ die--where I shall make known, by my generous despair, that if I could not deserve your affection by my services, I shall have at least not made myself unworthy of your compa.s.sion by my death.

[_And, to do him justice, he "goes and does it."_]

This episode, however, did not induce Mademoiselle Madeleine to break her queer custom of having something of the same kind in the Third Book of every Part. For though there is some "business," it slips into another regular "History," this time of Prince Thrasybulus, a naval hero, of whom we have often heard, and his Alcionide, not a bad name for a sailor's mistress.[172] Finally, we come back to more events of a rather troublesome kind: for the _ci-devant_ Philidaspes most inconveniently insists in taking part in the rescuing expedition, which--saving scandal of great ones--is very much as if Mr. William Sikes should insist in helping to extract booty from Mr. Tobias Crackit.

And we finally leave Cyrus in a decidedly awkward situation morally, and the middle of a dark wood physically.

[Sidenote: Some interposed comments.]

Here, according to that paulo-post-future precedent which she did so much to create, the auth.o.r.ess was quite justified in leaving him at the end of a volume; and perhaps the present historian is, to compare small things with great, equally justified in heaving-to (to borrow from Mr.

Kipling) and addressing a small critical sermon to such crew as he may have attracted. We have surveyed not quite a third of the book; but this ought in any case--_teste_ the loved and lost "three-decker" which the allusion just made concerns--to give us a notion of the author's quality and of his or her _faire_. It should not be very difficult for anybody, unless the foregoing a.n.a.lysis has been very clumsily done, to discern considerable method in Madeleine's mild madness, and, what is more, not a little originality. The method has, no doubt, as it was certain to have in the circ.u.mstances, a regular irregularity, which is, or would be in anybody but a novice, a little clumsy: and the originality may want some precedent study to discover it. But both are there. The skeleton of this vast work may perhaps be fairly constructed from what has already been dissected of the body; and the method of clothing the skeleton reveals itself without much difficulty. You have the central idea in the loves of Cyrus and Mandane, which are to be made as true as possible, but also running as roughly as may be. Moreover, whether they run rough or smooth, you are to keep them in suspense as long as you possibly can.

The means of doing this are laboriously varied and multiplied. The clumsiest of them--the perpetual intercalation or interpolation of "side-shows" in the way of _Histoires_--annoys modern readers particularly, and has, as a rule, since been itself beautifully and beneficently lessened, in some cases altogether discarded, or changed--in emanc.i.p.ation from the influence of the "Unities"--to the form of second plots, not ostentatiously severed from the main one. But, as has been pointed out, a great deal of trouble is at any rate taken to knit them to the main plot itself, if not actually and invariably to incorporate them therewith; and the means of this are again not altogether uncraftsmanlike. Sometimes, as in the case of Spithridates, the person, or one of the persons, is introduced first in the main history; his own particular concerns are dealt with later, and, for good or for evil, he returns to the central scheme. Sometimes, as in that of Amestris, you have the _Histoire_ before the personage enters the main story. Then there is the other device of varying direct narrative, as to this main story itself, with _Recit_; and always you have a careful peppering in of new characters, by _histoire_, by _recit_, or by the main story, to create fresh interests. Again, there is the contrast of "business," as we have called it--fighting and politics--with love-making and miscellaneous fine talk. And, lastly, there are--what, if they were not whelmed in such an ocean of other things, would attract more notice--the not unfrequent individual phrases and situations which have interest in themselves. It must surely be obvious that in these things are great possibilities for future use, even if the actual inventor has not made the most of them.

Their originality may perhaps deserve a little more comment.[173] The mixture of secondary plots might, by a person more given to theorise than the present historian--who pays his readers the compliment of supposing that that excessively easy and therefore somewhat negligible business can be done by themselves if they wish--be traced to an accidental feature of the later mediaeval romances. In these the congeries of earlier texts, which the compiler had not the wits, or at least the desire, to systematise, provided something like it; but required the genius of a Spenser, or the considerable craft of a Scudery, to throw it into shape and add the connecting links. Many of the other things are to be found in the Scudery romance practically for the first time. And the suffusion of the whole with a new tone and colour of at least courtly manners is something more to be counted, as well as the constant exclusion of the clumsy "conjuror's supernatural"

of the _Amadis_ group. That the fairy story sprung up, to supply the always graceful supernatural element in a better form, is a matter which will be dealt with later in this chapter. The oracles, etc., of the _Cyrus_ belong, of course, to the historical, not the imaginative side of the presentation; but may be partly due to the _Astree_, the influence of which was, we saw, admitted.

[Sidenote: a.n.a.lysis resumed.]

It may seem unjust that the more this complication of interests increases, the less complete should be the survey of them; and yet a moment's thought will show that this is almost a necessity. Moreover, the methods do not vary much; it is only that they are applied to a larger and larger ma.s.s of acc.u.mulating material. The first volume of the Fourth Part, the seventh of the twenty, follows--though with that absence of slavish repet.i.tion which has been allowed as one of the graces of the book--the general scheme. Cyrus gets out of the wood literally, but not figuratively; for when he and the King of a.s.syria have joined forces, to pursue that rather paradoxical alliance which is to run in couple with rivalry for love and to end in a personal combat, they see on the other side of a river a chariot, in which Mandane probably or certainly is. But the river is unbridged and unfordable, and no boats can be had; so that, after trying to swim it and nearly getting drowned, they have to relinquish the game that had been actually in sight. Next, two things happen. First, Martesie appears (as usually to our satisfaction), and in consequence of a series of accidents, shares and solaces Mandane's captivity. Then, on the other side, Panthea, Queen of Susiana, and wife of one of the enemy princes, falls into Cyrus's hands, and with Araminta (who is, it should have, if it has not been, said earlier, sister of the King of Pontus) furnishes valuable hostage for good treatment of Mandane and other Medo-Persian-Phrygian-Hircanian prisoners.

Things having thus been fairly bustled up for a time, a _Histoire_ is, of course, imminent, and we have it, of about usual length, concerning the Lydian Princess Palmis and a certain Cleandre; while, even when this is done, we fall back, not on the main story, but once more on that of Aglatidas and Amestris, which is in a sad plight, for Amestris (who has been married against her will and is _maumariee_ too) thinks she is a widow, and finds she is not.

It has just been mentioned that Palmis is a Lydian Princess; and before the end of this Part Croesus comes personally into the story, being the head of a formidable combination to supplant the King of Pontus, detain Mandane, and, if possible (as the well-known oracle, in the usual ambiguity (_v. inf._), encourages him to hope), conquer the Medo-Persian empire and make it his own. But the _Histoire_ mania--now further excited by consistence in working the personages so obtained in generally--is in great evidence, and "Lygdamis and Cleonice" supply a large proportion of the early and all the middle of the eighth volume, the second of the Fourth Part. There is, however, much more business than usual at the end to make up for any slackness at the beginning. In a side-action with the Lydians both Cyrus and the King of a.s.syria are captured by force of numbers, though the former is at once released by the Princess Palmis, as well as Artames, son of Cyrus's Phrygian ally, whom Croesus chooses to consider as a rebel, and intends to put to death. Here, however, the captive Queen and Princess, Panthea and Araminta, come into good play, and exercise strong and successful influence through the husband of the one and the brother of the other.

But at the end of book, volume, and part we leave Cyrus once more in the dismals. For though he has actually seen Mandane he cannot get at her, and he has heard three apparently most unfavourable oracles; the Babylonian one, which was quoted above, and which he, like everybody else, takes as a promise of success to Philidaspes; the ambiguous Delphic forecast of "the fall of _an_ Empire" to Croesus; and that of his own death at the hands of a hostile queen, the only one which, historically, was to be fulfilled in its apparent sense, while the others were not. He cares, indeed, not much about the two last, but infinitely about the first.

At the opening of the Fifth Part (ninth volume) there is a short but curious "Address to the Reader," announcing the fulfilment of the first half of the promised production, and bidding him not be downhearted, for the first of the second half (the Sixth Part or eleventh volume of the whole) is actually at Press. It may be noticed that there is a swagger about these _avis_ and such like things, which probably _is_ attributable to Georges, and not to Madeleine.[174]

The inevitable _Histoire_ comes earlier than usual in this division, and is of unusual importance; for it deals with two persons of great distinction, and already introduced in the story, Queen Panthea and her husband Abradates. It is also one of the longer batch, running to some four hundred pages; and a notable part in it and in the future main story is played by one Doralise--a pretty name, which Dryden, making it prettier still by subst.i.tuting a _c_ for the _s_, borrowed for his most original and (with that earlier Florimel of _The Maiden Queen_, who is said to have been studied directly off Nell Gwyn) perhaps his most attractive heroine, the Doralice of _Marriage a la Mode_. Another important character, the villain of the sub-plot, is one Mexaris.[175]

At the end of the first instalment we leave Cyrus preparing elaborate machines of war to crush the Lydians.

Early in Book II. we hear of a mysterious warrior on the enemy side whom n.o.body knows, who calls himself Telephanes, and whom Cyrus is very anxious to meet in battle, but for the time cannot. He is also frustrated in his challenge of the King of Pontus to fight for Mandane--a challenge of which Croesus will not hear. At last Telephanes turns out to be no less a person than Mazare, Prince of Sacia, whom we know already as one of the ever-multiplying lovers and abductors of the heroine; while, after a good deal of confused fighting, another inset _Histoire_ of him closes the tenth volume (V. ii.). It is, however, only two hundred pages long--a mere parenthesis compared to others, and it leads up to his giving Cyrus a letter from Mandane--an act of generosity which Philidaspes, otherwise King of a.s.syria, frankly confesses that he, as another Rival, could never have done. After yet another _Histoire_ (now a "four-some") of Belesis, Hermogenes, Cleodare, and Leonice, Abradates changes sides, carrying us on to an "intricate impeach" of old and new characters, especially Araminta and Spithridates, and to the death in battle of the generous King of Susiana himself, and the grief of Panthea. There is, at the close of this volume, a rather interesting _Privilege du Roi_, signed by Conrart ("_le silencieux Conrart_"), sealed with "the great seal of yellow wax in a simple tail" (one ribbon or piece of ferret only?), and bestowing its rights "non.o.bstant Clameur de Haro, Charte Normande, et autres lettres contraires."

The first volume of the Sixth Part (the eleventh of the whole and the first of what, as so many words of the kind are required, we may call the Second Division) has plenty of business--showing that the author or her adviser was also a business-like person--to commence the new venture. Cyrus, after being victorious in the field and just about to besiege Sardis in form, receives a "bolt from the blue" in the shape of a letter "From the unhappy Mandane to the faithless"--himself! She has learnt, she tells him, that his feelings towards her are changed, requests that she may no longer serve as a pretext for his ambition, and--rather straining the prerogatives a.s.sumed even by her nearest ancestresses in literature, the Polisardas and Miraguardas of the _Amadis_ group, but scarcely dreamt of by the heroines of ancient Greek Romance--desires that he will send back to her father Cyaxares all the troops that he is, as she implies, commanding on false pretences.

Now one half expects that Cyrus, in a transport of Amadisian-Euphuist-heroism, will comply with this very modest request.

In fact it is open to any one to contend that, according to the strictest rules of the game, he ought to have done so and gone mad, or at least marooned himself in some desert island, in consequence. The sophistication, however, of the stage appears here. After a very natural sort of "Well, I never!" translated into proper heroic language, he sets to work to identify the person whom Mandane suspects to be her rival--for she has carefully abstained from naming anybody. And he asks--with an ingenious touch of self-confession which does the author great credit, if it was consciously laid on--whether it can be Panthea or Araminta, with both of whom he has, in fact, been, if not exactly flirting, carrying on (as the time itself would have said) a "commerce of respectful and obliging admiration." He has a long talk with his confidant Feraulas (whose beloved and really lovable Martesie is, unluckily, not at hand to illuminate the mystery), and then he writes as "The Unfortunate Cyrus to the Unjust Mandane," tells her pretty roundly, though, of course, still respectfully, that if she knew how things really were "she would think herself the cruellest and most unjust person in the world." [I should have added, "just as she is, in fact, the most beautiful."] She is, he says, his first and last pa.s.sion, and he has never been more than polite to any one else. But she will kindly excuse his not complying with her request to send back his army until he has vanquished all his Rivals--where, no doubt, in the original, the capital was bigger and more menacing than ever, and was written with an appropriate gnashing of teeth.

The traditional balance of luck and love, however, holds; and the armies of Croesus and the King of Pontus begin to melt away; so that, after a short but curious pastoral episode, they have to shut themselves up in the capital. The dead body of Abradates is now found, and his widow Panthea stabs herself upon it. This removes one of Mandane's possible causes of jealousy, but Araminta remains; and, as a matter of fact, it _is_ this Princess on whom her suspicion has been cast, arising partly, though helped by makebates, from the often utilised personal resemblance between her actual lover, Prince Spithridates, and Cyrus. The treacherous King of Pontus has, in fact, shown her a letter from Araminta (his sister, be it remembered) which seems to encourage the idea.

All this, however, and more fills but a hundred pages or so, and then we are as usual whelmed in a _Histoire de Timarete et de Parthenie_, which takes up four times the s.p.a.ce, and finishes the First Book. The Second opens smartly enough with the actual siege of Sardis; but we cannot get rid of Araminta (it is sad to have to wish that she was not "our own Araminta" quite so often) and Spithridates. Conversations between the still prejudiced Mandane and the Lydian Princess Palmis--a sensible and agreeable girl--are better; but from them we are hurled into a _Histoire de Sesostre_ (the Egyptian prince, son of Amasis, who is now an ally of Cyrus) _et de Timarete_, which not only fills the whole of the rest of the volume, but swells over into the next, being much occupied with the villainies of a certain Heracleon, who is at the time a wounded prisoner in Cyrus's Camp. The siege is kept up briskly, but Cyrus's courteous release of certain captives adds fuel to Mandane's wrath as having been procured by Araminta. He will do anything for Araminta! The releases themselves give rise to fresh "alarums and excursions," among which we again meet a pretty name (Candiope), borrowed by Dryden. Doralise is also much to the fore; and we have a regular _Histoire_, though a shorter one than usual, of _Arpalice and Thrasimede_, which will, as some say, "bulk largely" later. The length of this part is, indeed, enormous, the double volume running to over fourteen hundred pages, instead of the usual ten or twelve. But its close is spirited and sufficiently interim-catastrophic. Cyrus discovers in the _enceinte_ of Sardis the usual weak point--an apparently impregnable scarped rock, which has been weakly fortified and garrisoned--takes it by escalade in person with his best paladins, and after it the city.

But of course he cannot expect to have it all his own way when not quite twelve-twentieths of the book are gone, and he finds that Mandane is gone likewise; the King of Pontus, who has practically usurped the authority of Croesus, having once more carried her off--perhaps not so entirely unwilling as before. Cyrus pursues, and while he is absent the King of a.s.syria (Philidaspes) shows himself even more of a "Philip Devil" than usual by putting the captive Lydian prince on a pyre, threatening to burn him if he will not reveal the place of the Princess's flight, and actually having the torch applied. Of course Cyrus turns up at the nick of time, has the fire put out, rates the King of a.s.syria soundly for his violence, and apologises handsomely to Croesus. The notion of an apology for nearly roasting a man may appear to have its ludicrous side, but the way in which the historic pyre and the mention of Solon are brought in without discrediting the hero is certainly ingenious. The Mandane-hunt is renewed, but fruitlessly.

At the beginning of Part VII. there are--according to the habit noticed, and in rather extra measure as regards "us" if not "them"--some interesting things. The first is an example--perhaps the best in the book--of the elaborate description (called in Greek rhetorical technique _ecphrasis_) which is so common in the Greek Romances. The subject is an extraordinarily beautiful statue of a woman which Cyrus sees in Croesus's gallery, and which will have sequels later. It, or part of it, may be given:

[Sidenote: The statue in the gallery at Sardis.]

But, among all these figures of gold, there was to be seen one of marble, so wonderful, that it obliged Cyrus to stay longer in admiring it than in contemplating any of the others, though it was not of such precious material. It is true that it was executed with such art, and represented such a beautiful person, as to prevent any strangeness in its charming a Prince whose eyes were so delicate and so capable of judging all beautiful objects. This statue was of life-size, placed upon a pedestal of gold, on the four sides of which were bas-reliefs of an admirable beauty. On each were seen captives, chained in all sorts of fashions, but chained only by little Loves, unsurpa.s.sably executed. As for the figure itself, it represented a girl about eighteen years old, but one of surprising and perfect beauty. Every feature of the face was marvellously fine;[176] her figure was at once so n.o.ble and so graceful that nothing more elegant[177] could be seen; and her dress was at once so handsome and so unusual, that it had something of each of the usual garbs of Tyrian ladies, of nymphs, and of G.o.ddesses; but more particularly that of the Wingless Victory, as represented by the Athenians, with a simple laurel crown on her head. This statue was so well set on its base, and had such lively action, that it seemed actually animated; the face, the throat, the arms, and the hands were of white marble, as were the legs and feet, which were partly visible between the laces of the buskins she wore, and which were to be seen because, with her left hand, she lifted her gown a little, as if to walk more easily. With her right she held back a veil, fastened behind her head under the crown of laurel, as though to prevent its being carried away by the breeze, which seemed to agitate it. The whole of the drapery of the figure was made of divers-coloured marbles and jaspers; and, in particular, the gown of this fair Phoenician, falling in a thousand graceful folds, which still did not hide the exact proportion of her body, was of jasper, of a colour so deep that it almost rivalled Tyrian purple itself. A scarf, which pa.s.sed negligently round her neck, and was fastened on the shoulder, was of a kind of marble, streaked with blue and white, which was very agreeable to the eye. The veil was of the same substance; but sculptured so artfully that it seemed as soft as mere gauze. The laurel crown was of green jasper, and the buskins, as well as the sash she wore, were, again of different hues. This sash brought together all the folds of the gown over the hips; below, they fell again more carelessly, and still showed the beauty of her figure. But what was most worthy of admiration in the whole piece was the spirit which animated it, and almost persuaded the spectators that she was just about to walk and talk. There was even a touch of art in her face, and a certain haughtiness in her att.i.tude which made her seem to scorn the captives chained beneath her feet: while the sculptor had so perfectly realised the indefinable freshness, tenderness, and _embonpoint_ of beautiful girls, that one almost knew her age.

Then come two more startling events. A wicked Prince Phraortes bolts with the unwilling Araminta, and the King of a.s.syria (_alias_ Philidaspes) slips away in search of Mandane on his own account--two things inconvenient to Cyrus in some ways, but balancing themselves in others. For if it is unpleasant to have a very violent and rather unscrupulous Rival hunting the beloved on the one hand, that beloved's jealousy, if not cured, is at least not likely to be increased by the disappearance of its object. This last, however, hits Spithridates, who is, as it has been and will be seen, the _souffre-douleur_ of the book, much harder. And the double situation ill.u.s.trates once more the extraordinary care taken in systematising--and as one might almost say _syllabising_--the book. It is almost impossible that there should not somewhere exist an actual syllabus of the whole, though, my habit being rather to read books themselves than books about them, I am not aware of one as a fact.[178]

Another characteristic is also well ill.u.s.trated in this context, and a further translated extract will show the curious, if not very recondite, love-casuistry which plays so large a part. But these French writers of the seventeenth century[179] did not know one-tenth of the matter that was known by their or others' mediaeval ancestors, by their English and perhaps Spanish contemporaries, or by writers in the nineteenth century.

They were not "perfect in love-lore"; their _Liber Amoris_ was, after all, little more than a fashion-book in divers senses of "fashion." But let them speak for themselves:

[Sidenote: The judgment of Cyrus in a court of love.]

[_Menecrate and Thrasimede are going to fight, and have, according to the unqualified legal theory[180] and very occasional actual practice of seventeenth-century France, if not of the Medes and Persians, been arrested, though in honourable fashion. The "dependence" is a certain Arpalice, who loves Thrasimede and is loved by him. But she is ordered by her father's will to marry Menecrate, who is now quite willing to marry her, though she hates him, and though he has previously been in love with Androclee, to whom he has promised that he will not marry the other. A sort of informal_ Cour d'Amour _is held on the subject, the President being Cyrus himself, and the judges Princesses Timarete and Palmis, Princes Sesostris and Myrsilus, with "Toute la compagnie" as a.s.sessors and a.s.sessoresses. After much discussion, it is decided to disregard the dead father's injunction and the living inconstant's wishes, and to unite Thrasimede and Arpalice. But the chief points of interest lie in the following remarks:_]

"As it seems to me," said Cyrus, "what we ought most to consider in this matter is the endeavour to make the fewest possible persons unhappy, and to prevent a combat between two gentlemen of such gallantry, that to whichever side victory inclines, we should have cause to regret the vanquished. For although Menecrate is inconstant and a little capricious, he has, for all that, both wits and a heart. We must, then, if you please," added he, turning to the two princesses, "consider that if Arpalice were forced to carry out her father's testament and marry Menecrate, everybody would be unhappy, and he would have to fight two duels,[181] one against Thrasimede and one against Philistion (_Androclee's brother_), the one fighting for his mistress, the other for his sister." "No doubt," said Lycaste, "several people will be unhappy, but, methinks, not all; for at any rate Menecrate will possess _his_ mistress."

"'Tis true," said Cyrus, "that he will possess Arpalice's beauty; but I am sure that as he would not possess her heart, he could not call himself satisfied; and his greatest happiness in this situation would be having prevented the happiness of his Rival. As for the rest of it, after the first days of his marriage, he would be in despair at having wedded a person who hated him, and whom he, perhaps, would have ceased to love; for, considering Menecrate's humour, I am the most deceived of all men if the possession of what he loves is not the very thing to kill all love in his heart.

As for Arpalice, it is easy to see that, marrying Menecrate, whom she hates, and _not_ marrying Thrasimede, whom she loves, she would be very unhappy indeed; nor could Androclee, on her side, be particularly satisfied to see a man like Menecrate, whom she loves pa.s.sionately, the husband of another. Philistion could hardly be any more pleased to see Menecrate, after promising to marry his sister, actually marrying another. As for Thrasimede, it is again easy to perceive that, being as much in love with Arpalice as he is, and knowing that she loves him, he would have good reason for thinking himself one of the unhappiest lovers in the world if his Rival possessed his mistress. Therefore, from what I have said, you will see that by giving Arpalice to Menecrate, everybody concerned is made miserable; for even Parmenides [_not the philosopher, but a friend of Menecrate, whose sister, however, has rejected him_], though he may make a show of being still attached to the interests of Menecrate, will be, unless I mistake, well enough pleased that his sister should not marry the brother of a person whom he never wishes to see again, and by whom he has been ill-treated. Then, if we look at the matter from the other side and propose to give Arpalice to Thrasimede, it remains an unalterable fact that these two people will be happy; that Philistion will be satisfied; that justice will be done to Androclee; that nothing disobliging will be done to Parmenides, and that Menecrate will be made by force more happy than he wishes to be; for we shall give him a wife by whom he is loved, and take from him one by whom he is hated.

Moreover, things being so, even if he refuses to subject his whim to his reason, he can wish to come to blows with Thrasimede alone, and would have nothing to ask of Philistion; besides which, his sentiments will change as soon as Thrasimede is Arpalice's husband. One often fights with a Rival, thinking to profit by his defeat, when he has not married the beloved object; but one does not so readily fight the husband of one's mistress, as being her lover.[182]"

Much about the "Good Rival" (as we may call him) Mazare follows, and there is an illuminative sentence about our favourite Doralise's _humeur enjouee et critique_, which, as the rest of her part does, gives us a "light" as to the origin of those sadly vulgarised lively heroines of Richardson's whom Lady Mary very justly wanted to "slipper." Doralise and Martesie are ladies, which the others, unfortunately, are not. And then we pay for our _ecphrasis_ by an immense _Histoire_ of the Tyrian elise, its original.

At the beginning of VII. ii. Cyrus is in the doldrums. Many of his heroes have got their heroines--the personages of bygone _histoires_--and are honeymooning and (to borrow again from Mr. Kipling) "dancing on the deck." He is not. Moreover, the army, like all seventeenth-century armies after victory and in comfortable quarters, is getting rather out of hand; and he learns that the King of Pontus has carried Mandane off to c.u.mae--not the famous Italian c.u.mae, home of the Sibyl whom Sir Edward Burne-Jones has fixed for us, and of many cla.s.sical memories, but a place somewhere near Miletus, defended by unpleasant marshes on land, and open to the sea itself, the element on which Cyrus is weakest, and by which the endlessly carried off Mandane may readily be carried off again. He sends about for help to Phoenicia and elsewhere; but when, after a smart action by land against the town, a squadron does appear off the port, he is for a time quite uncertain whether it is friend or foe. Fortunately Cleobuline, Queen of Corinth, a young widow of surpa.s.sing beauty and the n.o.blest sentiments, who has sworn never to marry again, has conceived a Platonic-romantic admiration for him, and has sent her fleet to his aid. She deserves, of course, and still more of course has, a _Histoire de Cleobuline_. Also the inestimable Martesie writes to say that Mandane has been dispossessed of her suspicions, and that the King of Pontus is, in the race for her favour, nowhere. The city falls, and the lovers meet. But if anybody thinks for a moment that they are to be happy ever afterwards, Arithmetic, Logic, and Literary History will combine to prove to him that he is very much mistaken. In order to make these two lovers happy at all, not only time and s.p.a.ce, but six extremely solid volumes would have to be annihilated.

The close of VII. ii. and the whole of VIII. i. are occupied with imbroglios of the most characteristic kind. There is a certain Anaxaris, who has been instrumental in preventing Mandane from being, according to her almost invariable custom, carried off from c.u.mae also. To whom, though he is one of the numerous "unknowns" of the book, Cyrus rashly confides not only the captainship of the Princess's guards, but various and too many other things, especially when "Philip Devil" turns up once more, and, seeing the lovers in apparent harmony, claims the fulfilment of Cyrus's rash promise to fight him before marrying. This gets wind in a way, and watch is kept on Cyrus by his friends; but he, thinking of the parlous state of his mistress if both her princ.i.p.al lovers were killed--for Prince Mazare is, so to speak, out of the running, while the King of Pontus is still lying _perdu_ somewhere--entrusts the secret to Anaxaris, and begs him to take care of her. Now Anaxaris--as is so usual--is not Anaxaris at all, but Aryante, Prince of the Ma.s.sagetae and actually brother of the redoubtable Queen Thomyris; and he also has fallen a victim to Mandane's fascinations, which appear to be irresistible, though they are, mercifully perhaps, rather taken for granted than made evident to the reader. One would certainly rather have one Doralise or Martesie than twenty Mandanes. However, again in the now expected manner, the fight does not immediately come off. For "Philip Devil," in his usual headlong violence, has provoked another duel with the a.s.syrian Prince Intaphernes,[183] and has been badly worsted and wounded by his foe, who is unhurt. This puts everything off, and for a long time the main story drops again (except as far as the struggles of Anaxaris between honour and love are depicted), first to a great deal of miscellaneous talk about the quarrel of King and Prince, and then to a regular _Histoire_ of the King, Intaphernes, Atergatis, Princess Istrine, and the Princess of Bithynia, Spithridates's sister and daughter of a very robustious and rather usurping King Arsamones, who is a deadly enemy of Cyrus. The dead Queen Nitocris, and the pa.s.sion for her of a certain Gadates, Intaphernes's father, and also sometimes, if not always, called a "Prince," come in here. The story again introduces the luckless Spithridates himself, who is first, owing to his likeness to Cyrus, persecuted by Thomyris, and then imprisoned by his father Arsamones because he will not give up Araminta and marry Istrine, whom Nitocris had wanted to marry her own son Philidaspes--a good instance of the extraordinary complications and contrarieties in which the book indulges, and of which, if d.i.c.kens had been a more "literary" person, he might have thought when he made the unfortunate Augustus Moddle observe that "everybody appears to be somebody else's." Finally, the volume ends with an account of the leisurely progress of Mandane and Cyrus to Ecbatana and Cyaxares, while the King of a.s.syria recovers as best he can. But at certain "tombs" on the route evidence is found that the King of Pontus has been recently in the land of the living, and is by no means disposed to give up Mandane.

The second volume of this part is one of the most eventless of all, and is mainly occupied by a huge _Histoire_ of Puranius, Prince of Phocaea, his love Cleonisbe, and others, oddly topped by a pa.s.sage of the main story, describing Cyrus's emanc.i.p.ation of the captive Jews. He is for a time separated from the Princess.

The first pages of IX. i. are lively, though they are partly a _recit_.

Prince Intaphernes tells Cyrus all about Anaxaris (Aryante), and how by representing Cyrus as dead and the King of a.s.syria in full pursuit of her, he has succeeded in carrying off Mandane; how also he has had the cunning, by availing himself of the pa.s.sion of another high officer, Andramite, for Doralise, to induce him to join, in order that the maid of honour may accompany her mistress. Accordingly Cyrus, the King of a.s.syria himself, and others start off in fresh pursuit; but the King has at first the apparent luck. He overtakes the fugitives, and a sharp fight follows. But the guards whom Cyrus has placed over the Princess, and who, in the belief of his death, have followed the ravishers, are too much for Philidaspes, and he is fatally wounded; fulfilling the oracle, as we antic.i.p.ated long ago, by dying in Mandane's arms, and honoured with a sigh from her as for her intended rescuer.