Arcadia, retires to a forest with his wife and two daughters. 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. To the better attainment of their ends, Pyrocles obtains
admittance to the house of Basilius in the disguise of an Amazon, and
Musidorus enters the service of Dametas in the character of a shepherd.
The story which is unrolled in the remainder of the work relates the
extraordinary occurrences which are necessary to the fulfilment of the
Delphian prophecy, together with the intrigues and adventures of the
young lovers. Shipwrecks, attacks by pirates, rescues, journeys through
Arcadia among poetic shepherds, a war with the Helots, through forests
and carving sonnets on trees,--such are the scenes which succeed each
other with unending variety. On the arrival of Pyrocles and Musidorus
in Arcadia, the reader is introduced to that ideal land, never more
happily described than by Sidney's pen[70]:

The third day after, in the time that the Morning did strow roses
and violets in the heavenly floore against the comming of the
sunne, the Nightingales, (striving one with the other which could
in most daintie varietie recount their wrong caused sorrow,) made
them put off their sleepe, and rising from under a tree, (which
that night had bin their pavillion,) they went on their journey,
which by and by welcomed Musidorus eies (wearied with the wasted
soile of Laconia) with delightfull prospects. There were hills
which garnished their proud heights with stately trees: humble
vallies, whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of
silver rivers: medowes, enameled with all sorts of eie pleasing