And here Pyrocles suddenly stopped, like a man unsatisfied in himself, though his wit might well have served to have satisfied another. And so looking with a countenance as though he desired he should know his mind without hearing him speak, and yet desirous to speak, to breathe out some part of his inward evil, sending again new blood to his face, he continued his speech in this manner: “And lord, dear cousin,” said he, “doth not the pleasantness of this place carry in itself sufficient reward for any time lost in it? do you not see how all things conspire together to make this country a heavenly dwelling? do you not see the grass, how in colour they excel the emeralds, every one striving to pass his fellow, and yet they are all kept of an equal height? and see you not the rest of these beautiful flowers, each of which would require a man’s wit to know, and his life to express? do not these stately trees seem to maintain their flourishing old age with the only happiness of their seat, being clothed with a continual spring, because no beauty here should ever fade? doth not the air breathe health, which the birds, delightful both to ear and eye, do daily solemnize with the sweet consent of their voices? is not every echo thereof a perfect music? And these fresh and delightful brooks how slowly they slide away, as loth to leave the company of so many things united in perfection? and with how sweet a murmur they lament their forced {43} departure? certainly, certainly, cousin, it must needs be that some goddess inhabiteth this region, who is the soul of this soil: for neither is any less than a goddess worthy to be shrined in such a heap of pleasures, nor any less than a goddess could have made it so perfect a plot of the celestial dwellings.” And so ended with a deep sigh, ruefully[b1-03] casting his eyes upon Musidorus, as more desirous of pity than pleading. But Musidorus had all this while held his look fixed upon Pyrocles’s countenance; and with no less loving attention marked how his words proceeded from him: but in both these he perceived such strange diversities, that they rather increased new doubts than gave him ground to settle any judgment: for besides his eyes sometimes even great with tears, the oft changing of his colour, with a kind of shaking unsteadiness over all his body, he might see in his countenance some great determination mixed with fear; and might perceive in him store of thoughts, rather stirred than digested; his words interrupted continually with sighs, which served as a burden to each sentence, and the tenour of his speech, though of his wanted phrase, not knit together to one constant end, but rather dissolved in itself, as the vehemency of the inward passion prevailed: which made Musidorus frame his answer nearest to that humour, which should soonest put out the secret. For having in the beginning of Pyrocles’s speech, which defended his solitariness, framed in his mind