But when he espied Musidorus to be none of the shepherds allowed in
that place he would fain have persuaded himself to utter some anger,
but that he durst not; yet muttering and champing, as though his cud
troubled him, he gave occasion to Musidorus to come near him, and
feign his tale of his own life: that he was a younger brother of the
shepherd Menalcas, by name Dorus, sent by his father in his tender age
to Athens, there to learn some cunning more than ordinary, that he
might be the better liked of the prince; and that after his father’s
death, his brother Menalcas lately gone thither to fetch him home, was
also deceased, where, upon his death, he had charged him to seek the
service of Dametas, and to be wholly and ever guided by him, as one in
whose judgment and integrity the prince had singular confidence. For
token whereof, he gave to Dametas a good sum of gold in ready coin:
which Menalcas had bequeathed unto him, upon condition he should
receive this poor Dorus into his service, that his mind and manners
might grow the better by his daily example. Dametas, that of all
manners of style could best conceive of golden eloquence, being withal
tickled by Musidorus’s praises, had his brain so turned, that he
became slave to that which he that sued to be his servant offered to
give him, yet, for countenance sake, he seemed very squeamish, in
respect of the charge he had of the princess Pamela. But such was the
secret operation of the gold, helped with the persuasion of the
Amazon, Zelmane (who said it was pity so handsome a young man should
be anywhere else than {92} with so good a master) that in the end he
agreed (if that day he behaved himself so to the liking of Basilius,
as he might be contented) that then he would receive him into his
service.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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