The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

by Philip Sidney

"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.