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Updated: May 2, 2025
So Dorus, feigning a love in attendance on Pamela, told her, in the presence of her mistress, the story of the two friends, Pyrocles and Musidorus, but in such words that Pamela understood who it was that was speaking, and carried to Philoclea the news that her Dorus had fallen out to be none other than the Prince Musidorus, famous over all Asia for his heroical enterprises; and, later, Pyrocles, finding himself in private conference with Philoclea, did avow himself Prince of Macedon, and her true lover, and they passed the promise of marriage, and she, to entertain him from a more straight parley, did entreat him to tell the story of his life, and what he did until he came to the shipwreck.
The ditty gave him suspicion, and the voice gave him assurance who the singer was, and entering boldly he perceived it was Pyrocles thus disguised. Then Pyrocles told him he had been infected by love through a sight of the picture of the king's daughter Philoclea, and by what he had heard of her and, in the guise of an Amazon, and under the name of Zelmane, had come forth to seek her.
The princes, becoming tired of inaction, and foreseeing no favourable issue to their concealed suits, persuaded the Princesses to attempt an escape with them to their own dominions; and such was the trust Pamela placed in Musidorus and Philoclea in Pyrocles, that they became willing companions in the flight.
One daughter, Philoclea, lives with her father Basilius, and the other, Pamela, is confided to the care of Dametas, a country fellow, in the service of Basilius, who lives close by with his wife. Pyrocles, prince of Macedon, and Musidorus, prince of Thessaly, are wrecked on the coast of Arcadia, where they soon become enamored of the two daughters of Basilius.
Secondly, it may be observed that the amorous confusion is even greater than in Menaphon, Pyrocles disguising himself as an Amazon in order to enjoy the company of his beloved Philoclea, which leads to her father Basilius falling in love with him in his disguise, and endeavouring to use his daughter to forward his suit, while her mother Gynecia likewise falls in love with him, having detected his disguise, and becomes jealous of her daughter, who on her part innocently accepts her lover as bosom companion .
As they came near the house, Claius asked to know something more of Musidorus and the young man he lamented, that they might inform Kalander how to proportion his entertainment. Musidorus, according to an agreement between Pyrocles and himself to alter their names, answered that he called himself Palladius, and his friend Diaphantus.
The incident of Pyrocles heading the Zelots has been thought to have suggested the scene in the Two Gentlemen of Verona in which Valentine consents to lead the robber band, while to Sidney Shakespeare was likewise indebted, not only for the cowards' fight in Twelfth Night, but in the 'story of the Paphlagonian unkinde king, for the original of the Gloster episode in King Lear.
As a play, the Arcadia is distinctly pleasing; the action is bright and easy, the gulling scenes are very entertaining, and some of the love scenes, notably that in which Pyrocles endeavours to persuade Philoclea to escape with him, are charmingly written. Take for instance the following passage, in which the princess confesses her love:
Palladius, standing upon himself, and misdoubting some craft, "What," said the Captain, "hath Palladius forgotten the voice of Diaphantus?" And by that watchword Palladius knew it was his only friend Pyrocles, whom he had lost upon the sea, and therefore both caused the retreat to be sounded.
And one day, when Kalander had invited them to the hunting of a goodly stag, Diaphantus was missed, after death had been sent to the poor beast with a crossbow, and on returning to the house, Palladius, greatly marvelling, lighted on a letter written by Pyrocles before he went a-hunting, in which he said that violence of love led to his absence.
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