The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
by Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
- Free to read
- 23 hours to read
- 4 chapters
- Reading level: 10th to 12th grade
"The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia" by Philip Sidney is a prose pastoral romance written towards the end of the 16th century. This ambitious work blends idealized shepherd life with dramatic tales of jousts, political intrigue, kidnappings, and battles. When a duke receives an ominous oracle predicting stolen daughters and a usurped throne, he retreats to a pastoral lodge—hoping to escape fate. Sidney significantly revised and expanded his original version before his death, creating two major texts that scholars call the Old and New Arcadia.
- Pastoral literature, English
Read the opening
Book I Notes
[b1-01] running at Base] The old game of prisoner’s-base, then a common rustic pastime.
[b1-02]
recklessness] i.e. Carelessness. See Spencer.
[b1-03]
ruefully] Woefully.
[b1-04] Tarantula] A venomous Spider (so called from Tarento a city of Naples) whose bite is of such a nature, that it is to be cured only by music.
[b1-05] Quintain] A rural sport, chiefly used at marriages, wherein, running a tilt on horse-back with poles, at a large stake fixed in the ground, against which, he that breaks most poles, gains the prize.
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About this edition
This free edition of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia by Philip Sidney comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #70854, released 2023-05-24. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer. Genre: Romance, Adventure, Novels, Classics of Literature, British Literature.
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