ETYMON AND IMAGE IN THE FAERIE QUEENE

Thesis hr the Degree of- Ph. D.
MECHIGAN STATE UNIVERSETY
Nice BEitci
1965

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ABSTRACT
ETYMON AND IMAGE
IN THE FAERIE QUEENE

by Alice Blitch

The purpose of this study is to investigate the
possible etymologies of the proper names in the Faerie
Queene and to determine their influence on the creation
of the poem. Although the science of linguistics did
not exist during the Elizabethan age, in the manner of
the folk etymologist Spenser traced words to their
supposed origins, and this study attempts to follow
his steps. In certain names he seems to be alluding
to a single word, in others to several words, often in
two or three classical and romance languages. There is
much recourse to Greek and Latin, some to French,
Italian, and Gaelic.

Dictionaries in use in Spenser's lifetime were
checked systematically to afford information about
Elizabethan interpretations of words which might have
been in Spenser's mind when he coined or used the
colorful names which.abound in the Faerie Queene. To
establish the validity of each etymology, the descrip-
tion of each character was tallied.with all possibil-
ities offered by the dictionaries. The basic criterion

was appropriateness on the levels of allegory,

characterization, and imagery. At the same time,

generally accept
to former uses C
with Spenser's 11

The result
played a msjcr r
Spenser often c}:
etymon was a bri
Beyond that, how
of these influer.

nclogy sl so s e rv

l n
..g existent r

'9
.V
.

L
t-
of myth, the rat?

the univers all t"
J

 

Alice Blitch

generally accepted literary sources provided a clue
to former uses of some names and these were compared
with Spenser's usage.

The results of this study indicate that etymology
played a major role in the creation of the poem.
Spenser often chose a name because its most obvious
etymon was a brief statement of his intended allegory.
Beyond that, however, he saw other etymons, and each
of these influenced his development of episodes. Ety-
mology also served a mythopoeic role, etymons suggest-
ing existent myths or leading Spenser to the creation
of myth, thereby intensifying both the richness and
the universality of the poem. Rarely did Spenser lose
sight of etymology: he often used name and etymon
contrapuntally, and when he etymologized by contraries
or played one etymon against another, he achieved an
ironic wit which we overlook today. Careful recogni-
tion of multiple etymologies opens the way to new
interpretations of allegory throughout the poem.
Furthermore, such etymologies often elucidate disputed
passages.

Most significantly, etymology and imagery were
found to be causally related. Occasionally Spenser
seems to have desired certain images and have selected
appropriately allusive names, so that image can be
considered the source of etymon; generally, however,

etymon seems to have been the source of image, the poet

selecting 8 n
then recogniz
elements in

S; nser devel:
terization.

and in gery 2;:
stemmed from c

And while S

,er.

his develo;ne:
greatly infLUe
Scuduour, Tim
and Calidore;

A
Reacrcgs, Una ,

GtFEClogfies, or
back
5 v
‘ hOt :1:

frn
on classical

and in the” ar

"
yfl“'

v...

°t3mol«-:

*“e«z

   
  

I
.Qs ‘T‘aSSiv€

CQah
‘acteh
‘8 a
the
vm as “real"
ah?-
ttnorial (113‘

Alice Blitch

selecting a name compatible with the allegory and

then recognizing further elements in the name. These
elements in.turn suggested images, and with these
Spenser developed his episodes and broadened.charac-
terization. tbscriptions of peripheral characters,

and imagery used in episodes centering around them,
stemmed from certain images implicit in their etymons.
And while Spenser uses etymology less consistently in
his development of central characters, etymology
greatly influenced his conception of Guyon, Amoret and
Scudmmour, Timias and.Be1phoebe, Marinell, Artegall,
and Calidore; as well as adding to his portrayal of
Redcross, Una, Duessa, and Britomart. Spenser derived
both persistent and incidental images from multiple
etymologies, for>most characters and.in all of the
books. Not Just coined names, but even names borrowed
from.classica1 or other literatures were etymologized,
and in these are revealed.most convincingly the salutary
effects of Spenser's habitual mode of thought. Indeed,
such etymologizing contributed basically to the writing
of this massive allegory since preoccupation with
characters as names in a sense precludes concern with
them as "real" people. Etymologizing thus assured
authorial distance, essential to the deve10pment of a

sustained allegory.

 

 

in part:

ETYMON AND IMAGE
IN THE FAERIE QUEENE

BY

Alice Blitch

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

1965

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the staffs of the libraries
of Western College for Women, Miami University, and
the University of Indiana for their help in making
available the primary and secondary sources used in
the preparation of this study. I am also indebted
to Drs. Herbert Weisinger and William Whallon for
reading the dissertation and making helpful comments.
‘My greatest debt is to Dr. Arnold Williams, whose
Spenser seminar directly inspired this study and
whose erudition led.me to ideas and sources I would
otherwise have missed. And finally I am grateful to
Dr. John Leon Lievsay, whose contributions to this
work are indirect but no less profound. It was Dr.
Lievsay who introduced me to Elizabethan non-dramatic
literature, and whose scholarly integrity is the

standard by which I must measure my work.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .
INTRODUCTION . 0

Chapter
I. BOOK I .
II. BOOK II
III. BOOK III
Iv. BOOK Iv
v. BOOK v .
v1. BOOK VI

CONCLUSION e o .
BIBLIOGRAPHY . .

TABLE

OF CONTENTS

iii

Page
ii

52
96
130
171
206

250
261

INTRODUCTION

In a poem of sufficient length, the repetition
of certain devices can throw light on the process of
composition. In this study I shall examine one such
device: Spenser's use of etymology in the Faerie
Queene. By means of etymology the linguist attempts
to understand.meaning through historical development;
the folk etymologist proceeds along the same lines,
although he lacks the scientific method which would
ensure accuracy; and the post falls somewhere in be-
tween. He is preoccupied with words, but his interest
is not in accuracy so much as in revelatory power.
For the names in the Faerie Queens Spenser coins words
or uses existent words in their etymological sense, in
either case with an awareness of the contributions,
real or putative, of their classical and romance an-
cestry. At the close of the second book, for example,
when Guyon has freed the men whom.Acrasia has trans-
formed, some resent their reassumption of human form;

But one above the rest in speciall,

That had an hog besne late, hight Grylle by name,
Repyned greatly, and did him miscall,

2‘

That had from higgish forms him brought to
naturall e

Spenser here used y’all/Alas, pig,2 to particularize the
beastliness of man. The procedure is warranted, not
for its advancement of the allegory or of the narra-
tive, but rather for its concentration of the meaning
of both. The episode ends with the observation of the
Palmer that
The donghill kinds
Delightes in filth and fowle incontinence:
Let Gryll be Gryll, and have his hoggish
minds (II.xii. 87).

As Spenser moves from the concept of beastliness
to its correlative of pig-Grylls, he moves also from
etymon to image, ”the donghill." And this, as I shall
demonstrate in the pages that follow, is frequently
the direction of his thought. The same relationship
between allegory, etymology, and imagery is evident in
Sponsor's treatment of Ignaro. Since pride is fostered
by Ignorance, Spenser makes Ignaro the foster-father
of Crgoglio--the allegory hers determines nomenclature.
In developing the actual episode, however, Spenser
turns to the etymology of i naro, literally ”not to
know," and gives Ignaro only one answer to all of

1Faerie ueene, II.xii. 86, in The Com lets
PoeticaI:Works of Spenser, ed. R. E. NeII Dodge
(Boston: Houghton MiffIIn Co., 1936). Subsequent
references to this edition will be made parenthet-

ically in the text.

2Jean Crespin, Lexicon Graecolatinvm (London:
Henri Bynneman, 1581), s.v. flaw/toy, "porous. . . ."

 

 

3
Arthur's questions: "He could not tell" (I.viii.32-3h).
The two examples which I have given reveal Spenser's
etymological mode of thought and the resultant pro-
ductiveneas of imagery. In the course of this study I
will investigate the complexities of the relationship
between name and image.
The mind of the post is not unfathomable. One

can see him at work on such a passage as the following:

The learned lover lost no time nor tyde,

That least avantage mots to him afford,

Yet bore so fairs a sayls, that none sspyde

His secret drift, till he her layd abord (III.x.6).
Spenser begins casually enough, "The learned lover lost
no time," and then quite naturally falls into a cliche,
”time nor tyde,” The "tyde" then takes over the image-
ry, and the result is the nautical metaphor of the
third and fourth lines. If any principle can be said
to govern these lines, it is the principle of associa-
tion. This is a key to the creation of the entire
poem. Again and again Spenser associates sounds with
sounds, not from any inherent logic but simply frond
the day to day workings of a poet's rather than a
philosopher's mind. Of course this is the method of
the folk etymologist: if two words sound alike, surely
they must be related. Spenser's associative mind was
ideally suited for such etymologizing, and the similar-

ities in sound between two or more words led him to

the wealth of detail which prolonged invention

it
absolutely demanded. Both imagery and characterization

were strengthened by Spenser's etymologizing. When
etymon suggested image, the resultant texture of the
poem was enriched, characterization broadened, and

allegory clarified.

CHAPTER I: BOOK I

The Faerie Queene has a large cast; literally
hundreds of characters fill the pages of the poem.
Since these characters often form natural groups (such
as the Abessa, Corceca, Kirkrapins cluster), it seems
best to treat them in order of appearance. This order
will be violated only when some character makes an in-
significant appearance in one book but a major appear-
ance in a later one. I shall not consider certain
characters at all: those who are nothing but a name
are irrelevant to this study, as are those whose sig-
nificance is rather larger than the pinpointing of
meaning or function to which etymology leads.

Such a character is the hero ofthe first book.
The REDCROSS KNIGHT is clearly an.amalgam of legend
and literature.3 The selection of St. George as the

knight of holiness is too natural a one to deserve

 

3The sources have been exhaustively treated.
See The Works of Edmund S sneer: A Variorum.Edition,
ed. Edwin Greenlaw, CEarIes Grosvenor‘OSgood, and
Frederick Morgan Padelford ( 9 vols.; Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins Press, 1932), I, 379-h21. This
edition will hereafter be cited as Variorums Greene
law, ibid., 389-90, feels that literary "sources" are
irrelevant; the first book, he says, is "a new world
symphony upon a familiar folk theme. . . ."

S e

6
comment, and of course with St. George came a red cross
as well.h Since the imagery used in the Redcross epi-
sodes is dominated by so rich a tradition, we should
not expect to find etymology playing a significant
role. As a matter of fact, in only one known case
does Spenser consciously etymologize, and that is in
the story of the upbringing of Redcross: Heavenly Con-
templation tells Redcross that he had been found "in
an heaped furrow" by a pleughman, who

brought thee up in ploughmans stats to byde,
Whereof Georgos he thee gave to name (I.x.66).

, This is an allusion to {eupyo’s ,~ farmer.S In the
letter to Raleigh Spenser tells of his plans to present

 

”Rosamond Tuve, "Spenser and Some Pictorial Con-
ventions," SP, XXXVII (19h0), l73-7h, demonstrates that
in many illuminated.manuscripts one finds St. George
"mounted, with red cross on breastplate and each arm";
he kills a dragon while a "princess stands praying
near, with the lamb on a gold string. . . ." Roland
M. Smith, "Originss‘Arthurianae," JEGP, LIV (1955),
mentions a proclamation of Grey's predecessor which re-
quired "all horsemen that are to intends/ her Ma[jes}
ti[e]s service" to wear red crosses on their breast and
back. He traces, p. 677, this practice of wearing the
cross of St. George back to 1386. Spenser's shift of
one of the crosses to the shield, Smith.maintains, p.
67h, brought his narrative in line with romance tradi-
tions and particularly with the redcross shield of the
grail legend.

5Crespin, 2:1. [so go's , "agricola." Upton,
Variorum, I, 29h: was the first to comment on this ety-
mology. It has been frequently noted since. Martha
Alden Craig, "Language and Concept in the Faerie Queene"
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. of Engl s , Ya e
University, 1959). p. 106, sees in Spenssr's etymology
”an Allusion to Piers Plowman. . . . Piers Plowman
'found' holiness; the same theme is now brought to

Faerie Land by Spenser.”

7

in the twelfth book the beginning of the quest of Red-
cross. He is to be "a tall clownish youngs man" who,
while awaiting the assignment of some task, would rest
on the floor, "unfitte through his rusticity for a
better place." Perhaps in these statements Spenser is
also alluding to the etymon, since "clown" means "coun-
tryman" and thus goes directly back to Jewpyo’s .
Generally, however, Spenser does not refer to Redcross
as St. George and thus he lacks the immediate stimulus
of the name itself. The names of the other major fig-
ures, sounded again and again throughout their books,
are of far greater etymological interest and some
actually dominate Spenser's treatment of those char-
acters. Only in the case of Redcross does Spenser
evince little linguistic interest; the bulk of the
Redcross imagery can be attributed to allegorical re-
quirements. A

It seems fairly certain that the allegory of the
first book of the Faerie Queens was suggested by the
coronation pageants for Queen Elizabeth. Most of the
verse used in the pageants was written by Richard
Mulcaster, Spenser's former headmaster at the Merchant
Taylor's School. In the pageants "Elizabeth is iden-
tified with Truth, Pure Religion, True Religion, as

opposed to Error and other machinations associated

8

with popery."6 Elizabeth herself made the same equa-
tion. When she observed a tableau depicting Truth and
Time between tress representing healthy and unhealthy
states, she commented, "And Time hath brought me
hither!"7 Furthermore, Elizabeth was associated with
the name UNA in Thomas Drant's description of the
Queen's qualities: not only was she "Gloria praesentis
saecli” (the glory of the present age) but also "virtu-
tibus vna" (one in [all] virtues).8 The connection
between Elizabeth and Una is probably responsible for

Spenser's choice of a lion to serve Una.9

 

6Bowie Millican, "Spenser's and Drant's Poetic
Names for Elizabeth," gee, II (1939). 260. -Millican
cites Heffner's analys s of the coronation pageants,
and Baskervill's identification of Mulcaster as the
pageant poet.

7Rosemary Freeman, English Emblem Books (London:
Chatto and Hindus, l9h8), p.‘h9.

BMillican, pp. 252-53. All translations in this
study are mine unless otherwise noted. Millican men-
tions, p. 259, two rather persistent theories of the
etymology of Una's name. warton had noted that the
Irish name means "hunger”; Grosart had shown that in
Irish mythology the name signified "Faery Queen."

But Millican rightly rejects both theories: "No one
can object . . . to any association that Spenser may
have learned . . . about Irish female cognomens in
connection with the obvious Latin-Italian una . . . or
to any association with a faery queen or a—SEnshee
named Una. . . . [but] Una is no faery queen, nor does
she represent this aspect of Elizabeth, in Spenser's
poem. . . . Gaelic has no more to do with Una in The
Faerie Queene than snakes in Ireland have to do wItE

Op 0 08y.

9Tuve, p. 168, suggests rather that the "wide-
grinning lions" of the illuminated manuscripts "with
their tails curved over their backs, stay in the
visual memory.”

9

The word.gng, the feminine form of the Latin
2235 (one), would have seemed ideal to any etymolo-
gizer. Conceiving of Una as the one Truth, the one
true faith, and unique Heavenly Beauty, Spenser cre-
ated a vague but consistent pattern of imagery to de-
velop his allegory. Una hides her own whiteness "under
a vele, that wimplsd was full low," and the whiteness
of her gown under a black stole (I.i.h). This covering
is apprOpriate to the three levels of allegory and in
each case is demanded by the nature of Redcross: he
does not know Truth for what it is, he has not yet
saved the Anglican Church from the forces which Op-
press it, and he has not yet ascended the Platonic lad-
der to Heavenly Beauty. The unveiling of Una indicates
that all three conditions are finally manifest in the
character of Redcross himself. .Ths actual device of
unveiling may have been suggested by what Panofsky
calls a common motif in Renaissance art: "Truth.un-
veiled by Time."10 At the same time, the unveiling
corresponds to the revelation of Heavenly Beauty
granted Redcross because of his capacity to appreciate

it after his long apprenticeship. One critic has

 

10Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconolo (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1939). 9.8 . Panofsky cites
the classical statement "veritas filia temporis” as a
possible basis for such graphic treatment.

lO

traced this apprenticeship through the reactions of
Redcross to the spirit in Una's form and to Duessa:
he sees the "shadow" of Una created by Archimago as
sensual beauty, Duessa as "an imitation of that true
light of heavenly beauty which glows beneath Una's
black veil," and Una herself as spiritual beauty.11
When Una throws aside her stole and wmele "wherewith
her heavenly beautie she did hide" (I.xii.22), she
shines

As bright as doth the morning starre appears

Out of the east, with flaming lockes bedight,

To tell that dawning day is drawing nears,

And to the world does bring long wished

light (I.xii.21).
Light imagery is appropriate on all levels of etymol-
ogy and related allegory. In addition to this rather
distant use of the simple etymon, Spenser in one case
uses it directly when Redcross tells Britomart that he
loves "one, the truest one on ground" (III.i.2h). The
traditional statement of love receives more of our at-
tention because of the etymological pun.
The characters whom Redcross and Una meet in

their journeys bear names of more particular signifi-
cance, names which are tied closely to the descriptions

of their owners. ERROUR is one of these. Redcross,

Una, and the dwarf stumble upon the den of Errour in

 

11LinwoodE. Orange, "Sensual Beauty in Book I
of The Faerie Queene," JEGP, LXI (1962), 555-58.

11
the "wandring wood" (1.1.13), a most logical location
since the Latin srrare meant "to srre, to wander, or
go out of the ways, to stray abrod, to be deceiued."12
Unable to find the path by which they entered the wood,
Una and Redcross
wander too and fro in waies unknowns,

Furthsst from end then, when they nesrest weene,

That makes them doubt, their wits be not their owns:

So many pathes, so many turnings seene,

That which of them to take, in diverse doubt they

been (1.1.10).
The entire description seems to be controlled by the
name of the monster with which Redcross will fight.
Una and Redcross have been beguilsd by the sight

of the many trees they pass along their way. As one
critic has pointed out, the catalogue of trees is not
merely an epic convention; the trees represent the
error "of a man allowing his pursuit of delight of the
senses so to stir him that he cannot make correct per-
ceptions. . . ."13 Undoubtedly, then, Spenser used
the catalogue to represent a wandering of the eyes,

and we are led again to the etymology of the word

”error."

l2.]‘ohn Baret, An Alvsarie or Tri 1e Dictionarie
([London: Henry DenEam, ISVEI), E253. See also

Thomas Cooper, Thesaurus lin uae Romanae & Britannicae
(1565) 5:1. erro; Cooper also lists Errors viarum
from Livy, "By Ignorance of the way, orby goeyng out
of the way."

 

 

13Ernest S. Gohn, "A Note on Spenser's Use of
Traps," MLN, LKIv (191:9): 55.

12

As Virgil Whitaker suggests, Spenser probably
made Errour part woman, part serpent in allusion to
the two things which "proved too much for poor Adam in
the Garden of Eden. . . ."1’4 Perhaps he was confirmed
in his choice of a serpent by its winding nature. As
Errour

lay upon the durtie ground,
Her hugs long tails her den all overspred,
Yet was in knots and.many boughtes upwound (I.i.l5).
It is the winding of the serpent which gives Redcross
such difficulty; Errour
wrapping up her wrethsd sterne arownd,
Lept fierce upon his shield, and her huge trains
All suddenly about his body wound,
That hand or foot to stirr he strove in vaine:
God helps the man so wrapt in Errours endlesse
trains (I. i .xviii).
By making the antagonist a snake, Spenser concentrated
on the winding implicit in Errour's name. She quite
literally goes out of the way or strays abroad.

He further found the snake allegorically sug-
gestive because of certain traits traditionally asso-
ciated with it. The stinging tail; the creeping of a
snake's young into its mouth (1.1.15); the sucking of
"their dying'mothers bloud" (I.i.25)-~all were part of

the natural history of Spenser's tims.15 Beginning,

 

Ihv1rgil K. Whitaker, "The Theological Structure

of the Faerie Queene, Book I,” in That Soueraine Light,
ed. Wil an R. Mus er and Don Cameron Allen

(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1952), p. 75.

15Roland B. Batting, "Spenser's Errour," g3, XVI
(1937). 75-77.

13
then, with the idea of a snake, a choice confirmed by
etymology, Spenser followed through with descriptions
of Errour which were largely controlled by the folk-
lore of snakes.

There has been much discussion of the epic simile
which compares Errour's vomit to the flooding of the
Nile. Scholars have found comparable passages in a
dozen or so classical and Renaissance works,16 so that
we must regard Spenser's details as commonplacss of
the Renaissance naturalist. Spenser's possible rea-
sons for drawing on this material, however, have not
been discussed, and I believe that once again ety-
mology may provide a clue. Since Spenser conceived of
Errour as wandering, going out of the way, straying
abroad, might he not have thought of that river which
all his reading told him acted in a like manner?
Whatever the actual "source" of the simile may be, the
fact that he used it at all can be attributed to the
imagery implicit in the name of Errour. Note his
emphasis on movement and shape in the stanza:

As when old father Nilus gins to swell

With timely pride above the Aegyptian vale,

His fattie waves doe fertile slime outwell,

And overflow each pliine and lowly dale:

But when his later spring gins to avale,

Huge heapes of mudd he leaves, wherin there breed

Ten thousand.kindes of creatures, partly male
And partly femall, of his fruitful seed;

 

16See Variorum, I, l8h-87, for summaries.

11;

Such ugly monstrous shapes slswhsr may no man
reed (1.1.21).

"Swell . . . outwell . . . overflow . . . heapes . . .
monstrous shapes. . . ."--this is the same emphasis
which Spenser placed on Errour herself and her ”thou-
sand yong ones" (1.1.15).

‘ The image of leaving the usual path is thus
found in both the etymology of Errour's name and in
all the descriptions connected with her. Even the
conclusion of the episode emphasizes the same image;
after defeating Errour, Redcross returned to a path

which beaten was most plains,
Ne ever would to any by way bend,
But still did follow one [another pun on Una?]
unto the end,
The which at last out of the wood them
brought (1.1.28).
Though out of the wandering wood, Redcross and
Una immediately encounter another problem in the shape
of ARCHIMAGO. This origin (dppi) of images (imago)17
appears in the first three books of the Faerie Queens

as an agent of deceit, his disguise in each case

serving Spenser's current allegorical purpose. Much

 

17John W. Draper, "Classical Coinage in the

Faerie Queens," PMLA, XLVII (1932), 100, looks to
es Imagjfcian) as the source of the name. He con-

tends that Spenser often first mentions names "in
close connection with the particular matter that makes
them.apt. Archimago (arch-magician) is first named in
connection with his magical powers in summoning up the
sprite of the false Una, though he had been the centre
of attention for the preceding fourteen stanzas" (p.
10h). While Spenser does indeed follow such a pro-
cedure here, Draper's choice of etymology is not in-
evitable and seems rather limited.

15

of the imagery connected with Archimago, however, while
obviously suiting this purpose, relates more directly
to the etymology of his name. Pelegromius had equated
£13352 with ayakfia‘ro F0155 , a word which referred to
both the act and the agent of status making; but, more
specifically, he speaks of the statue itself, which
might be carved, hewn, or cut; and of some melted,
molten, or liquid image.18 Spenser must have had some
such elaboration in mind when he had Archimago create
a spirit ”of liquid ayre" (I.i.hS). Furthermore, the
descriptions of Archimago himself two or three times
refer in an etymologically pointed image to his
sculpted tongue: Archimago was a good conversationalist
since he "well could file his tongue as smooth as glas"
(1.1.35); and a whole book later Spenser was to mention
again "his fayrs fyled tongs” (11.1.3). Even Arch-
imago's method of disappearing may be related to the
definition Pelegromius gives of imegg: included in the
synonyms is conflatile, which connotes not only "to
melts metall: to forge or make," but also "to blow."19
Archimago vanishes before Braggadochio and Trompart by
the blowing of the wind:

18Simon Pelegromius, S on orvm S lva, trans.
and ed. H.F. (London: ThomfiggszIFEIIEFIEEI 1585),
p. 181: "Sculptile, fusile, conflatile."

 

19Cooper, s.v. conflatils.

16
The northerne winds his wings did broad display
At his commaund, and reared him up light
From of the earth to take his asrie
flight (11.111.19).

Nor is this the extent of Archimago's talents,
for he can also transform himself at will into various
shapes, including those of a hermit and of Redcross.
This ability is consistent with the meaning of égggg,
"An Image of man or woman, the proportion of any thing
. . . the signs shadow or likenssse of any thing."20
Both Archimago himself, then, and the spirits which he
creates are the visual counterparts of the Elizabethan
definition of ggggg. The word was also dislogistic
(imagino meant "to make Images, to counterfeite"21)
and this connotation so dominates the imagery that
Archimago becomes a symbol of the misguided creative
act of counterfeiting. He chooses "Sprights" who are
"fittest for to {gage true-seeming lyes" (1.1.38);
the female of the pair is a ”fairs-forged spright" (I.
1.2); and later upon meeting Guyon and the Palmer,
Archimago ”gan to weave a web of wicked guyle" (11.1.
8). Spenser is thus at least as interested in Arch-
imago as a symbol of corrupt creativity as he is in
hum as a symbol of, say, Catholicism. As he brought

the abstraction "Archimago" down to the concrete level

 

21John Veron, A dictionagygin Latins and lish,
ed. R. W[addington] bendon: JOhn Harison, I57g;,
sig. le.

 

41441»

 

 

 

17

of poetry, Spenser fleshed his character with images
suggested by the name itself and in so doing was, it
seems to me, making an allegorical statement about
artistic creativity. Suggesting the arts of sculpture
and weaving, but implying thereby any creative act,
Spenser criticizes any art which does not spring from
Truth or Goodness. As one critic commented in another
connection, ”as a Puritan, [Spenser] was sensitive to
the abuse and perversion of art which had raisedthe

question of its moral value in the first place.
1122

Archimago is

A bold bad man, that dar'd to call by name
Great Gorgon, prince of darknss and dead night
(1.1.37).

Lotspeich points out that here Spenser is following
Boccaccio's equation of Gorgon with Dasmogorgon.23
Spenser was probably led to use Boccaccio's deity by
the etymology of his name. Aphtou’oye'w meant to be

a fabricator or artificsr, and also more generally to

 

22Northrop Frye, "The Structure of Imagery in
The Faerie Queens," in Fables of Identity;, Studies 1g

'PEOetIc Mythologg (New York: Harcourt, Brace and
W0? , Inc., 3): Pa 730

23Henry Gibbons Lotspeich, Classical M tholo in
the Poet of Edmund Spenser ("Pthceton: SIudIes In
EHgIIsE,5 VOI. IX; Princstdn: Princeton University
Press, 1932), p. 52. Jean Seznec, The Survival of the
Pa an Gods, trans. Barbara F. Sessions ("Bollingen
SerIes," Vol. XXXVIII; New.York: Pantheon Books Inc.,
1953), p. 312, mentions Elizabethan use of the Gsnealo 1a

tIcaI

deorum, and calls Demogorgon, P. 222, "a gramma
error, become god."

 

 

 

 

 

 

18
forge or fashion, construct, or form.29 Since Arch-
imago is himself a fabricator, it is particularly
appropriate that the god he summons be etymologically
related to creativity. Spenser later spells the name
Daemogorgon (1.v.22), indicating that he regarded the
god as malevolent.25 Thus the corrupted creativity of
Archimago is echoed in the name he dares utter.
Redcross encounters Sansfoy (who, along with the

other members of the Sans family, Sansjoy and Sansloy,
is of allegorical rather than etymological interest)
and thus DUESSA. The name of this snchantress quite
literally signifies "to be two," and her behavior
throughout books I, II, and V reflects this doubleness.
Spenser's conception of Duessa is basic to the alle-
gory, but it also affects his style and his imagery.
Perhaps the best example of the importance of etymol-
ogy in the determination of style is found in the
description of Duessa at the court of Mercilla:

Then was there brought, as prisoner to the barre,

A ladie of great countenance and place,

But that she it with fouls abuse did marre;

'Yet did appears rare beautie in her face,

But blotted with condition vile and base,

That all her other honour did obscure,
And titles of nobilitie deface (V.ix.38).

 

2”Henri Estienne, Thesaurus Graecae linguae (5
vols.; Geneva, 1572-73), 1, 977, A ”atavpyé},, "Sum
opifex; . . . Item generalius pro Fa ricor, Compingo,
Condo.'

25Cf. Estienne, I, 896, AQL/eo’VCOV, "ssmper de
spiritibus noxiis & impuris, qui & diaboli."

 

 
 

 

19
The carefully balanced style is a mirror of Duessa's
double nature.
Spenser's reading would have acquainted him with
the common practice of multiple etymologizing. In the

Golden Legend, for example, is this account of the

 

name Ambrose:

Ambrose comes from ambra, a costly and
aromatic spice, for he was very precious in the
eyes of the Church, and spread a pleasing
aroma. . . . Or, Ambrose comes from ambra and
s 03, God . . . for through him God spreads a
pIeasing aroma. . . . Or, it comes from ambor,
father of light, mud sior, small, for he was a
father in conceiving spIritual children, a
light in his interpretation of the Scriptures,
and small in his humility.26

Thus we should not be surprised to find Spenser using
two and sometimes even more etymologies for any given
name, and indeed there will be many examples of multi-
ple etymologizing in the Faerie Queene. Duessa is a
case in point. Not only is Spenser thinking of the
basic etymon, the Latin gg-esse, but also of the Greek
615w, which in Homer had the significance of induo
(with two masks).27 Spenser uses this derivation
directly when he states that

Deceipt doth masks in visour fairs,
And cast her coulours died deeps in grains,

 

26Jacobus ds Voragine, The Golden Legegg, trans.
Granger Ryan and Helmut Rippsrger (London: Longmans,
Green and Co., l9hl), p. 2h. Most of the etymologies
in the Golden Legend are handled in this way.

 

27Estienne, I, 1060.

 

 

 

 

20

To seems like Truth, whose shape she well can
faine (I.vii.l);

when he says of Duessa that
under masks of beautie and good grace
Vile treason and fowle falshood hidden
were (IV.i.l7);
and indirectly in the entire scene of the disrobing of
Duessa (I.viii.h6-h9), for Una comments,
Such is the face of Falshood, such the sight
Of fowle Duessa, when her borrowed light
Is laid away, and counterfesauncs
knowne (I.viii.h9).
The conception of Duessa as a two-masked woman may
have led Spenser to conceive of the entire Scarlet-
Whore-of-Babylon sequence, for it is an easy leap from
two heads to seven (I.vii.17-18; viii.20).

Spenser has thus used both Greek and Latin words
in etymologizing this important name; he may have used
an Irish source as well. Roland Smith suggests that
Spenser knew the Irish name Dubesa and that his spelling
is an appropriate approximation of its pronunciation.28
The idea is tenable, of course, because of Spenser's
residence in Ireland, and it gains credibility because
of the relationship between the Irish etymology and
Spenser's imagery. Although two scholars differ on

the meaning of the second and third syllables, they

 

23"Una and Duessa," PMLA, L (1935), 918. Smith
relates the Irish word to dBIBhéas, "vice, bad man-
ners,” and to dobheas, "a Bad EaEIt, an 111 custom."

 

 

 

 

21

agree that the first meant "black."29 At least twice
in the Faerie Queene Duessa covers the sun, once to
obscure the beauty of Fraslissa:

[Duessa] by her hellish science raisd streightway

A foggy mist, that overcast the day,

And a dull blast, that, breathing on her

[Fraslissa's] face

Inmmed.her former beauties shining ray (1.11.38)
thus determining Fradubio's choice between them. When
Redcross is about to kill Sansjoy, she again blacksns
the atmosphere, this time with "a darkesome clowd" (I.
v.13), and, in keeping with the etymological signifi-
cance of her name, seeks help for the wounded Saracen
from Night (I.v.20ff.).

Etymology may take credit for suggesting to
Spenser these two vivid scenes. It certainly would
have encouraged him to see Duessa as a black figure,
though he carefully notes that none of the characters
who meet her sees her "in her proper hew" (1.11.h0).
Influenced as he was by etymology, Spenser was speak-
ing quite literally and thus the metaphor of this last
statement is very much alive. The same force informs

those descriptions of Duessa which I have mentioned

above in another connection, her "colours died deeps

 

29Smith, "Una and Duessa," p. 918: ". . .
Dubes[s]a (Duibésa, Dubsasa) was originally a compound
of Dub, 'Black,' and Esa, itself a woman's name."
SmiEEInotes in "A FurEE_r Note on Una and Duessa,"
PMLA, LXI (l9h6), 59h, that a nineteenth-century

schlar traced the name to dubh + sssa, "nigra nutrix"
(black nurse or mother).

22
in grains" and "her borrowed light," as well as the
following:

[Duessa] now had chang'd her former wonted hew;

For she could d'on so manie shapes in sight,

As ever could cameleon colours newt (IV.i.18).
Basing an interpretation on the relationship between
the triple etymology and related imagery, we see that
Spenser must have conceived of Duessa as that kind of
falsehood which is two things at once, masking itself
quite appropriately with light because its essence is
darkness. Multiple etymologies thus helped Spenser
clarify his ideas as he put them into the demanding
allegorical framework. A

Although Redcross has by his own poor judgment
lost Una and gained Duessa, he is not utterly bereft
of heavenly care. The tree beneath which he sits with
Duessa has a story to tell, a story which, if care-
fully rsad, is a kind of prophecy of what could happen
to Redcross if he continued to be misled by Duessa.
Although a talking tree is found in Ariosto, I believe
that Spenser was influenced by the Dodonian tree of
Jove (he mentions it in "The Visions of Bellay") and
hence must have intended the message of that tree as

God's warning to Redcross.30 The fact that Spenser

 

30Gresnlaw, Variorum, I, 203, disagrees; he
feels that Redcross couId not possibly interpret the
message because at this point he is "spiritually
blind," and that Spenser's purpose is to demonstrate
allegorically that human beings cannot interpret their
experiences.

23

chose transformation to a tree rather than any of the
many other transformations available in literature,
coupled with the providential message, suggests a Bib-
lical prototype: the story of Adam and Eve, with its
tree of life and tree of knowledge.31 In the eleventh
canto, which is the symmetrical mate of this second
canto, Spenser speaks of both trees. Of the tree of
life he says,

From that first tree forth flowd, as from a well,

A trickling streams of balms, most soveraine

And dainty deare, which on the ground still fell,

And overflowed all the fertile plains,

As it had dsawsd bsne with timely rains:

Life and long health that gracious ointment gave,

And deadly wounds could heals, and rears againe

The sencelesse corse appointed for the

grave (I.x1.h8).

The balm of the tree also "scorching heat alay[s]" (I.
xi.50). In contrast, the tree called FRADUBIO pours
forth ”smal drops of gory bloud" (1.11.30) and suffers
from the heat of the sun (1.11.33). Although Fradubio
and Fraslissa were once human beings, they are now

trees: one critic calls these "paralyzed trees" a

symbolic parody of the tree of life in Eden.32 It is

 

31William Nelson, The Poetry of Edmund Spenser
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), pp.‘162-
6h, attributes the transformation to literary, artis-
‘ tic, and Biblical equations of men in trees with men
who have sinned.

 

32Frye, p. 79. Whitaker, p. 79, argues that the
tree image simply shows that Fradubio now lacks the
human quality of reason; if this were true, however,
Spenser could have transformed Fradubio into an
animal 0 '

 

 

 

Ill. .ll It.“ I.‘F....‘.flu

2h

possible to see the entire episode as an elaboration
of that part of the story of Adam and Eve which Spenser
felt necessary to the education of the knight seeking
holiness. The name Fradubio connects the character
with Redcross: they are brothers, even if Redcross
fails to recognize his sibling: Egg is brother, ggggg,
doubt.33 Just as Fradubio could not weigh the "doubt-
full ballaunce” between the charms of Fraslissa and
Duessa, so Redcross was incapable of making the correct
decision between Una and Duessa. And so was Adam in-
capable of choosing wisely between the demands of God
and of Eve. The name Fradubio, then, is the first clue
Spenser gives that he is basing the episode on the
Biblical prototype.

The name FRAELISSA is the second. It is trisyl-
labic, but the euphonistic diphthong should not pre-
vent us from interpreting the name as fra-elissa since
Spenser would have added "fra" to any name chosen in
order to have a convenient doublet for Fradubio.
Spenser would have formed the word ”slissa" from
ékledrm, to neglect or abandon.3h Nelson, who inter-

prets this episode as I do, suggests that Fraslissa's

 

33Beret, D968, "To be in doubts . . . in dubio
esss."

3“Estienne, II, 669, Ellen-w, "Relinquo,
Praetermitto, Praetsreo. . . ."

25

name means "frailty," from the Italian fragilszza.35

 

Since, however, Spenser uses the name Elissa in the
second book and is here using "fra" for a related
character, there seems to be no need to go so far
afield. The name "Brother Abandonment" obviously
points to the kinship between Fradubio and Redcross,
for the latter will abandon God repeatedly in the
course of the first book. At this very moment in his
adventures he has abandoned Una. Spenser does not use
the name to characterize Fraslissa since he is not
particularly interested in Eve; but he chooses the
name to point to the guilt of Adam which parallels
that of Fradubio. Fradubio's description of Fraslissa
makes little sense if we remember that Fraslissa 1n
Spenser's story does absolutely nothing to cause his
downfall:

this wretched lady, my deare love;

0 too deare love, love bought with death too

deare! (1.11.31)
but it makes a great deal of sense when it is applied
to Eve in her relationship with Adam. Because Eve's
responsibility was less than Adam's, Spenssr's empha-
sis, like Milton's after him, was on the man who al-
lowed himself to make a foolish choice because of
human love. The catalyst in both cases is Satanic:

Spenser explicitly calls Duessa "the divslish hag”

 

35Nelson, pp. 162, 327n.

26
(I.ii.u2).

The Biblical prototype controls much of the im-
agery of this episode. As I will show later in this
study, Spenser generally chooses punishments appro-
priate to the crimes which are "hidden" in the names
of his characters. Eve's abandonment of God, and
Adam's doubts of God's power lead both to taste of the
forbidden fruit. Fraelissa and Fradubio are not sent
out into the world but receive a more symbolic punish-
ment: transformation into trees.36 Before Fradubio
is thus transformed, however, he experiences something
comparable to postlapsarian disenchantment: he sees
Duessa "in her proper hew,”'(I.ii.hO),

Her neather partes misshapen, monstruous,

Were hidd in water, that I could not see,

But they did seems more foule and hideous,

Then womans shape man would beleeve to bee.

Thensforth from her most beastly companie

I gan refraine, in minds to slipp away,

Scone as appeard safe Opportunitie:

For danger great, if not assurd decay,

I saw before mine eyes, if I were knowne to

stray (I.ii.hl).

How reminiscent of the shame and fear of Adam and Eve!
And finally, Fradubio tells Redcross that the spell on
himself and Fraslissa will be broken only when they are

"bathed in a living well” (I.ii.h3), a clear reference

 

36Orange, p. 560, argues that the tree is a sym-
bol of a coffin. He identifies the "desert waste" of
I.ii.h2 as a graveyard and Fradubio's banishment as
burial. He bases his argument on Plato's contention
that the souls of those who never get beyond sensual
beauty remain in the world ”prowling about tombs and
sepulchers.”

27
to the salvation of mankind through Christ. The sym—
metrical counterpart in the eleventh canto is the Well
of Life (I.xi.29-30). Particularly because the later
fight against the dragon of original sin is undertaken
in behalf of the king and queen of Paradise (I.vii.h3),

and because Redcross can then be aided by the Well of m-
Life and the Tree of Life, his earlier encounter with u
Fradubio and Fraelissa defines the dangers which he

must avoid and the temptations which he must overcome.
The names Fradubio and Fraelissa, properly understood
by the reader, thus establish the character of Redcross
with fine dramatic irony.

Leaving Redcross in the grasp of Duessa, Spenser
returns to Una, providing her with a lion for her en-
counter with the holy threesome Abessa, Corceca, and
.Kirkrapine. Scholars have long accepted Upton's iden-
tification of ABESSA with abbies,37 assuming that
Spenser was referring to the situation which obtained
in.England during the reign of Henry VIII. The lion
would then symbolize the law of nature which is in-
imical to Catholicism and friendly to the Church of
England. If, however, one does not assume that Abessa
represents anything as specific as the Catholic Church
but instead any form of irrationality by which men de-

base themselves, the entire episode is both more

 

37Upton, Variorum, I, 208.

28
meaningful and more universal. The imagery of the
Abessa episode suggests that when Spenser chose the
name he may have been thinking not of abbesses but

rather of the French abbaisser, "to bring lowe or

 

. . . under foote: to make a thing of small accompt,
value or estimation."38 Abessa is quite literally
"brought low" when she joins her mother, Corceca, on
the floor (I.iii.13); and she is figuratively
"brought low" and made a creature of small value by
Kirkrapine, who used her in "whoredome" (1.111.18).
When Una and the lion approach and Una asks if there
is a dwelling nearby,
the rude wench her answerd nought at all;

She could not heare, nor speake, nor understand;

Till, seeing by her side the lyon stand,

With suddeine feare her pitcher downe she threw,

And fled away: for never in that land

Face of fayre lady she before did vew,

And that dredd lyons looke her cast in deadly

hew (I.iii.ll).

For the first time Abessa is confronted with a vision
of what she is and what she might have been. She can
neither speak nor understand because she is on a level
with the beasts. Kirkrapine treats her as an animal;
he "fed her fatt" and mated with her (1.111.18). The
name Abessa, and the imagery associated with this
character, are thus of a piece: both show the debase-

ment of specifically human characteristics and the

triumph of the bestial.

 

38Baret, A7.

29
Although I believe that Abessa's importance in

the moral allegory was Spenser's primary concern, and
that he first conceived of her name in the manner
which I have outlined above, I am convinced that both
her name and actions were also relevant to the religious
allegory, although not as an attack on the Catholic "-
Church. Mother Mary Robert Falls suggests that Spenser %
in this episode was censuring the abuses of his own .
church. She feels that the name Abessa was taken from
ab-esse and signifies "non-residence,"39 a serious
problem in Spenser's time. Poorly trained.ministers
substituting for the non-resident clerics were so in-
adequate that in 1562 Sussex was prompted to write:

. . . the ministers for disability and greedi-

ness be had in contempt; and the wise fear

more the impiety of the licentious professors

than t e superstition of the erroneous Pa-

pists. 0

The non-resident clerics spent their time at their

country homes, a setting to which Spenser seems to

 

39"Spenser's Kirkrapine and the Elizabethans,"
SP, L (1953): M60. In an interesting footnote, p. h59,
mother Mary demonstrates that almost all of the fem-
inine names in the first book end in "a," only twice
because their models ended thus. If Spenser arrived
at his feminine names by some rather unusual routes,
she reasonably contends that he derived this feminine
noun from an infinitive.

thuoted in ibid., p. M69. Mother Mary also
notes, p. ueu, that Grindal, about whom Spenser wrote
in the Shepherd's Calendar, never went to Pembroke
Hall in_the three year period during which he was its
master.

 

 

 

30

allude in his description of Abessa carrying "a pot of
water" as she walked on "the troden gras . . . Under
the steepe foot of a mountains hore" (I.iii.lO)1-l1

If, then, Abessa represents the evil of non-
residence, it follows that KIRKRAPINE because of his
relationship to her also represent some abuse of the
Anglican rather than of the Roman Catholic ChurchJ-L2
In Spenser's time the term "church-robbery" was fre-
quently used to condemn the practices of Anglican
clergymen and laymen alike who used church funds for
their own needs.h3 If Mother Mary is correct, and her
evidence does seem trustworthy, then Spenser was here
portraying most vividly the evils which he saw within
his own church, and was making a veiled suggestion for
their eradication. The lion would represent not the
laws of nature but rather the laws of the state, and
Spenser would be suggesting that Elizabeth put an end
to the abuses within her church.hh

 

thalls, p. hSB, comments that this setting
"scarcely fills the role of abbess which critics gen-
erally see in [Abessa]."

”ZAgain we must question Upton, Variorum, I,
208, who suggests that Kirkrapine is a symbol for the
powerful abbies which drained the churches of their
wealth.

h3Fa113, p. h6l.

uthid., pp. h71-72, notes that an attempt in
1586 to make such practices illegal was foiled because
those who defended the abuses knew and used Eliza-
beth's complicity in the matter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

31

Besides the obviously controlling idea of
"church-robbery" in the name Kirkrapine, Spenser would
also have thought of "rape," and thus the relationship
between Abessa and Kirkrapine is demanded by the ety-
mologies of both names.

Abessa's mother, the blind CORCECA, is also a
thoroughly consistent character. Her name opened sev-
eral possibilities to Spenser and he seems to have
taken something from each of them. Most obviously,
the name is derived from 223 (heart) and caecus
(blind); such an interpretation is sufficient to the
allegory. But both Latin words have further meanings.
Egg can signify courage as well as heart;u5 and
Corceca tries to bar Una's entrance of their hovel
"full of ghastly fright and cold affray" (I.iii.12),
forgets her beads for fear (I.iii.lh), and will not
answer the door because Una's lion so frightens her
(I.iii.l9). The same syllable of her name could also
conceivably be derived from koloe’w, to drag or trail
on the ground; in truth this is Corceca's habitual
posture. A third possibility, tracing "cor” to Ko’loos ,
which Estienne defines as "Niger, ,ue’las ,"1*6 leads us
to the remainder of Corceca's name and intensifies its

meaning. "-ceca" must allude to caecus, "Blinds:

 

hsBaret, 3196.
“611. 379.

32
darke: unknowen: uncertaine."1-|-7 That both l<épos and
caecus connote blackness suggests that Spenser took much
of the imagery of this scene from etymology. Corceca
"sate in eternall night" (1.111.12); she and her
daughter were "in darkesome corner pent" (I.iii.13);
and even the traditionally poetic treatment of night
in the sixteenth stanza uses the Cassiopeia myth which
was sure to remind Spenser's Renaissance readers of
Andromeda, princess of Ethiopia. Thus each image with
which Spenser establishes the character of Corceca,
with the exception of the purely Catholic imagery, can
be said to derive from the multiplicity of images in-
herent in the etymology of her name.
The Catholic imagery itself can be related to

the etymons of the two persons associated with Corceca.
Mother Mary suggests that Corceca represents only "the
ignorance and crude superstition that flourished" in an
age given to such corruption within the Anglican-
church.br8 She of course ignores the obvious associa-
tions with Catholicism in the picture of Corceca sit-
ting ”in darkesome corner,"

Where that old woman day and night did pray

Upon her beads, devoutly penitent:

Nine hundred Pater nosters every day,

And thrise nine hundred Aves, she was wont to
say (1.111013).

 

h7Cooper, s.v. caecus.

Ll81>. u69.-

33
But one cannot ignore the imagery nor its implications.
It seems to me that Spenser made Corceca the mother of
Abessa because he saw in the abuses of the Church of
England much the same abasement which Protestants as-
cribed to the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the
Reformation. The very fact that this episode can be
interpreted as anti-Catholic and anti-Anglican allegory
speaks for their fellowship in abuses. If the episode
is Spenser's warning, he could have given Abessa no
more frightening a mother than Corceca, for the child
can be expected to grow more like her mother as time
goes on.

The fourth canto of Book I, picking up the Red-
cross thread, takes him to the House of Pride. Red-
cross is admitted by the porter, MALVENU:

Arrived there, they passed in forth right;

For still to all the gates stood open wide:

Yet charge of them was to a porter hight,

Cald Malvenu, who entrance none denide (I.iv.6).
The allegorical import is clear enough: although we
are "welcome" to the House of Pride, we are in truth
poorly-come. And yet Spenser is achieving a little
more than a warning, for the name of the porter also
underscores the characterization of Redcross. Since
the expression "Jeune homme mal venu” refers to an
awkward youth, we can understand the admission of Red-

cross to the House of Pride as a function of his own

moral uncertainty.

un—:__‘

un-

3h
The House of Pride is the domain of LUCIFERA. I

imagine that Spenser was here coining a feminine noun
from the Christian Lucifer, ruler of another House of
Pride. Lucifera's genealogy seems to be an allusion
to such a source:

Of griesly Pluto she the daughter was,

And sad Proserpine, the queens of hell;

Yet did she thinks her pearelesse worth to pas

That parentage, with pride so did she swell,

And thundring Jove, that high in heaven doth dwell,
And wield the world, she claymed for her syrs,

Or if that any else did Jove sxcell (I.iv.ll).

Her association with the remaining six deadly sins
also strongly suggests Satanic corruption.

But Spenser's conception of Lucifera is quite
complex, drawing on not only Christian but also pagan
symbolism. Lucifera shines

like Phoebus fayrest childs,
That did presume his fathers fyrie wayne,
And flaming mouthes of steedes unwonted wilds,
Through highest heaven with weaker hand to rayne;
Proud of such glory and advancement vayne,
While flashing beames do daze his feeble eyen,
He leaves the welkin way most beaten playns,
And, rapt with whirling wheeles, inflames the
skyen
With fire not made to burns, but fayrely for to
shyne (I.iv.9).
As Seznec points out, in the Renaissance interpretation
"Phaethon represents Lucifer and his revolt against
God.",49 Thus the simile is a natural one for a char-
acter whose name was derived from Lucifer. It is,

however, appropriate on another level, and that is one

 

h9p. 93.

35
to which Spenser would have been attracted through the

name Lucifera itself. Comes identified Lucifera with

the moon:
Luna shines with alien light; she is said to
be the daughter of the Sun and is of crasssr
matter. She is said to be the guardian of

roads and mountains, since she gives light at
night to travellers, for which reason she is

also called Lucifera. 0
Spenser seems to think of Lucifera in terms of the
moon. Hankins claims that the comparison with Phaethon,
whose use of the sun chariot is another case of “alien
light," may have been prompted by Comes' statement
about the moon. He also demonstrates Spenser's debt
to Comes by the facts that Lucifera shines like the
sun (I.iv.8) and that she is of "crasssr matter" than
she would care to admit.51 I think that his point is
well taken, although one could as easily use the same
evidence, as indeed I have, to show kinship between
Lucifera and Lucifer. There is one detail which
Hankins neglected to mention that actually strengthens
his case, and that is the reference to Lucifera as "a

mayden queene" (I.iv.8). We cannot assume that Spenser

T

50John E. Hankins, "Spenssr's Lucifera and
’hilotims," MLN, LIX (19kb,). 11,13, quotes. Comes: "Atque
um Luna .‘Lumine luceat alieno, iure solis 8c crassioris

ateriae filia ssse dicitur. Dicta est viarum 8c
antium esse custos, quoniam viatoribus lumen praebeat

3r noctem, quare estiam Lucifera vocata est."

513mm.

 

 

36
was referring to Elizabeth in this picture of pride,
but since Spenser would undoubtedly have known of
Diana Lucifera,52 we can readily suppose that he made

Lucifera a virgin because of her nominal relationship

with the virgin goddess.
Both the classical Lucifera and the

Lucifer, then, contributed to Spenser's portrayal of

Christian

Lucifera. The two figures are so perfectly blended
that one must look to both of them for the inspiration

of Sp‘enser's heavy emphasis on the fact that Lucifera

thinks of herself as a queen,

Yet rightfull kingdoms she had none at all,
Ne heritage of native soveraintie,

But did usurpe with wrong and tyrannie
Upon the scepter, which she now did hold:

Ne ruld her realms with lawss, but
pollicie (I.iv.lZ).

This can be considered as true of the moon as it is of

Lucifer, for both "usurp" their power.

" Even these two controlling figures do not compre-

hend the richness of Spenser's imagery in the Lucifera

episode. Much of it is based on a kind of ultimate

etymologizing, tracing names further and further back

until one arrives at their elements. The classical and

Christian names which he was using would have led
3penser to the literal meaning of Lucifera, light-bearing.

.‘hus when Lucifera comes forth she is likened to "fairs

'—

52Seznec, p. 215, mentions an allusion in Giraldi
:o a medal of Diana Lucifera.

37
Aurora" who calls "out of the east the dawning day"
(I.iv.l6). Perhaps he was thinking here of another
Lucifer, "the dais sterre,"S3 that is, Venus, the
morning star and herald of the sun.

And finally, much of the remaining imagery in
the Lucifera passages seems to draw on a second.mean-
ing of lux, eye.5h Eye imagery pervades this section
of the poem. Lucifera greets Redcross and Duessa
"with loftie eyes" (I.iv.lh); as she rises, "Her
glitterand light doth all mens eies amaze" (I.iv.l6);
and finally,

. . . forth she comes, and to her coche does
clyme,
Adorned all with gold and girlonds gay,
That sesmd as fresh as Flora in her prime,
And strove to match, in roiall rich array,
Great Junoes golden chayre, the which, they say,
The gods stand gazing on, when she does ride
To Joves high hous through heavens bras-paved way,
Drawns of fayre pecocks, that excell in pride,
And full of Argus e as their tayles dispredden
wide (I.iv.l7 .
Eyes are everywhere. Combined with the moon imagery
they make up a vivid picture. Lucifera is a product
of multiple etymologizing, each association broadening
and intensifying Spenser's conception of pride.
Spenser returns to the adventures of Una in the

sixth canto, where she is threatened by Sansloy but

saved by a group of satyrs. Since Spenser would have

 

53COOper, s.v. Lucifer.

SLlCOOper, s.v. lux.

"ma-l

38
asn familiar with classical descriptions of these
salvage people," he would have had a large stock of
nagss at his disposal. One pervasive image, however,
ay have been suggested by an unclassical milieu.

com time to time in the Faerie Queene Spenser draws

 

1 his Irish experiences and the terrain and legends

f Ireland. It has been demonstrated that in this

ary episode Spenser recalls Irish myth, paralleling
is adventures of Satyrane and the god Labraid; and

3 makes Satyrane the grandson of Labryde (I.vi.21).SS
nus it is not surprising that in this Irish context
penser might have related the word "satyr" to the
aelic Sitig (loud laughter).56 Spenser does refer to
16 "rurall meriment" of the satyrs (I.vi.8). The
irase helps the reader to view the satyrs as Spenser
Lshed, and this is fortunate; the editors of the
iriorum state that Spenser ignores in his treatment

f the satyrs the "ordinary moral considerations" and
ius avoids ”a moral anomaly in an allegory of holi-

3ss."57 The emphasis on an etymological link with

 

I:

55J. M. Williams, "A Possible Source for
penssr's Labryde,” MLN, LXXVI (1961), h83. The pre-
Lously held view of‘SEtyrane's lineage relates the
me Labryds to Adppos , interpreted rather broadly
3 "the lower Appetites." See Variorum, I, 2h5.

56Cher1es Mackay, The Gaelic EM of the

agguaées of Western Europe (London: N. Trubner and
3U 3 P. e
S7Variorum, I, 2h5.

 

 

 

 

Fm“?

39
iughter may indeed have suggested the rightness of an
pisods of the satyrs in the first place.

Spenser's descriptions of SATYRANE, who rescues
is from the satyrs, are woven with this same thread
? laughter; its influence on the imagery is strong-
st in the third book when Satyrane listens to the tale
? the Squyre of Dames:

HMote I," then laughing sayd
The knight, "inquire of thee, what were those
three,
The which thy proffred curtesie
denayd?" (III.vii.57)
1en the Squyre of Dames answers that one was a "common
>urtisane" Satyrane "full hartely laughed" (III.vii.58).
1e merriment of the satyrs and the laughter of Satyrane
ike of them appropriate characters in books of holiness
1d of chastity, emphasizing the joyful innocence rather
1an the moral laxity of these mythological beings.

The seventh canto Opens with Redcross (still ac-
>mpanisd by Duessa) weaker than ever from the debil-
:ating effects of a magic fountain and thus unprepared
3r his encounter with ORGOGLIO. The name means lit-
rally "pride," in Italian orgoglio and in French
:gugi1.58 And yet allegorically Orgoglio must repre-
ant acme form of pride which differs from that of

'—

58John Florio, A Worlds of Wordes (n.p.: Edw.
Lount, 1598), p. 2A8, §;z, orgoglio, "pride, disdaine,
iughtiness." A Dictionarie Frenchfiand English, trans.
. H. (1571), 5:1. or ueiI, ifpryds, haufiness, lofti-
ass."

 

 

 

 

 

 

ho

Lucifera, since Redcross refused to accompany her on
her little outing with the rest of the deadly sins,
and from that of the House of Pride, since he repudi-
ated what it stood for by leaving the premises rather
abruptly.59 The ease with which Redcross resisted
:hese temptations reminds one of Becket's almost non-
:halant dismissal of the three tempters whom he had
‘xpected; and his defeat at the hands of Orgoglio
akes one realize that Redcross is not yet a saint,
hat he cannot, like Becket, resist the temptation of
piritual pride.

Orgoglio is a complex figure. When I say that
, represents spiritual pride, I am telling only half
L6 story; but since it is a rather long story, I
all be content to look first at just this much.
K. Heninger, Jr. considers Orgoglio "the mythical
bodiment of an earthquake"60 and convincingly draws
rallels between Spenser's imagery and contemporary
:ounts of the origin and characteristics of earth-
(kes. He shows that Redcross' dalliance with Duessa,
'. the allusion to the myth of Salmacis and

 

59Whiteker, p. 80, objects to all efforts to dis-
guish the pride of Orgoglio from that of Lucifera;
h a distinction, he claims, is "required by the
borical, not the moral allegory." His view seems
us to be an oversimplification of Spenser's method
it seriously underestimates his powers of
antione

60"The Orgoglio Episode in The Faerie Queens,"
,, JCXVI (1959). 173.

 

i1
‘

r

 

hl
Hermaphroditus, which was customarily interpreted as a
cautionary tale against sloth and lechery, both justify
Spenser's use of earthquake imagery, since earthquakes
were regarded as "visitation[s] of God's wrath to warn
men to repentance. . . ."61 Heninger's carefully doc-
umented account is attractive, and yet it does not
recognize the triumph of Redcross over simple sloth
and simple lechery (if I may use the word "simple” for
either of these strikingly portrayed counselors of
Lucifera) in his refusal to accompany them while at the
House of Pride.
A second discussion of Orgoglio, by Vern Torczon,
shows that there is more than one way of looking at
earthquakes:
It was thought that natural phenomena like
earthquakes, where the wind and the earth ap-
peared to be in conflict with the heavens, were
responsible for the allegorical fables which
arose aggut the struggles between God and the
giants.

Since giants were considered rebels against God, and

since before his encounter with Orgoglio Redcross re-

moves the armor which is a symbol of God's protection,

Torczon concludes that "Red Cross has been guilty of

rebellion against God."63 Taking the evidence of

 

6IIb1dos Pp. 173-75.

62Vern[on] [James] Torczon, "Spenser's Orgoglio
and Despaire," TSLL, III (1961), 125.

63IEEQ. He points out, p. 126, that the removal

h2

Heninger and Torczon, then, there is sufficient war-
rant for interpreting Orgoglio as spiritual pride.

As I said above, this is only half of the story.
To investigate its other half we must turn to the ety-
mology of the name Orgoglio. As Spenser particular-
ized the abstraction with which he was working, he
very likely saw in the Italian word a Greek element,
ataxia), to desire with impatience (and this is said
characteristically of animals with pressing longing or
violent impulse, or of those which desire most ar-
dently and are unable to abstain).6u Most of the im-
agery of the Orgoglio episode can be interpreted as
sexual. Although I think Schroeder's analysis of the
episode as an "erotic drama" is extreme, his findings
certainly support my contention that Spenser had in
mind the Greek verb as he created Orgoglio. Schroeder
sees the fountain as a symbol of female genitalia,
Redcross' drink there a symbol of the sexual act, and
Orgoglio and his oak tree club symbols of male gen-
italia.65

 

of armor symbolizes "presumption," which, along with
despair, is a stage "of the religious experience
leading to sanctification and holiness."

6“Estienne, II, 11428, O’pydu, "appsto impa-
tienter . . . ac proprie de animantibus dicitur quae
urgent libidine, & quodam eius impstu concitantur,
seu quae ardentissime appetunt & abstiners non possunt."

6SJohn W. Schroeder, "Spenssr's Erotic Drama:
The Orgoglio Episode," ELH, XXIX (1962), lhh-hB.

 

 
 

#3

Every reference to exhaustion or to wind, Schroeder
maintains, reflects either Aristotelian or Elizabethan
physiology of sex.66 To all Schroeder's evidence I
might add a reference to a passage which is clearly
related to the definition of slayer/.40 given above:
when Arthur manages to cut off Orgoglio's arm,
He lowdly brayd with beastly yelling sownd,
That all the fieldes rebellowed againe:
As great a noyss, as when in Cymbrian plains
An heard of bulles, whom kindly rage doth sting,
Doe for the milky mothers want complains,
And fill the fieldes with troublous bellowing
(I.viii.1l).
The evidence seems contradictory: we have an
Orgoglio who on the one hand represents spiritual
pride, on the other extreme sensuality. There is,
however, a form of pride which combines these two
elements, and that is hubris. From the start Redcross
is arrogant: he ignores the warning of Una and the
dwarf and plunges headlong into Errour's den. And
from the start he is sensual: he has lustful dreams
and is immediately drawn to the attractive Duessa.

Although he has been able to resist the seven deadly
sins in their emblem-book form, he is basically guilty

 

66Ibid., pp. lhh-hS: Redcross feels faint and
cold, symptoms in Aristotelian physiology of "the
aftermath of coition"; pp. 150-51: anything puffed
up with wind is a phallus since Elizabethan physiology
attributed erections to the presence of air; p. 15h:
Redcross is defeated by the force of wind from
Orgoglio's club, for "Aristotle supposed that pneuma,
among its cOpulatory roles, has that of effecting
ejaculation."

an

of the overweening pride and rampant sensuality of
hubris. For this reason he is conquered by Orgoglio,
in the etymology of whose name we find ample evidence
of the guilt of Redcross.

PRINCE ARTHUR, who rescues Redcross from
Orgoglio, is one of those characters whose function is
in general too broad to fit within the bounds of this
study. Merritt Hughes sees in Arthur not a single
character but a composite of an "imperial Arthur," a
"synthesis of nature and grace," and a "rival of Her-
cules."67 Two of Hughes' points are of special inter-
est to this study. He agrees with Ruskin that in res-
cuing Redcross "Arthur is the 'magnificence, or liter-
ally the great-doing of the Kingdom of’England'
against Rome. . . ."68 He does not make the claim,
however, that the etymology of the word "magnificence"
plays a major role in Spenser's conception of Arthur,
and he is quite right in seeing Arthur as a much
broader figure. Hughes' most interesting point is his

67"The Arthurs of The Faerie ueene," Etudes.
Anglaises, VI (1953), 19;, I99, 255.

68Ibid., p. 199. Cf. Cooper, s.v. ma num
facsre, "To doe some great mattier." Cra g, p. 19,
adds that "'Magnificence' is not properly the lavish-
ness of Skelton's interlude but 'doing great deeds,‘
as the etymology shows." Don Cameron Allen, "Arthur's
Diamond Shield," JEGP, XXXVI (1937), 2&3, gives a
different interpretation of the episode, based on the
contemporary Christian interpretation of diamonds as
symbols of repentance. When Arthur rescues Redcross,
"repentance . . . comes to the aid and rescue of
Faith."

 

 

 

e
e
e
O
,__ I
0
~ 0
Y
Y ._.
C 0 e I e
r
T
e
e o n g
I e ' e I I ' I
D e r e g
I Y ;
Y I
1 l
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C O O
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1+5

suggestion that in choosing Hercules as a prototype
for Arthur in many of the episodes, Spenser may have
been influenced by the conventional etymology of
Hercules, "heris clsose-the glory of struggle or of
the wars of the spirit." Hughes demonstrates that
Spenser could have known this well-established ety-
mology and suggests that "its prestige among the
mythographers played a part in his invention of an
Herculean Arthur in love with glory."69

Spenser's reasons for selecting Arthur as the

central hero of the Faerie Queene cannot of course be

 

known. Scholars have theorized endlessly. I should
like to suggest that, whatever his motive, etymology
may have confirmed Spenser in his choice of Arthur.
In the letter to Raleigh Spenser states that the
"generall end" of the poem was

to fashion a gentleman or noble person in
vertuous and gentle discipline: which for
that I conceived shoulde be most plausible
and pleasing, being coloured with an his-
toricall fiction . . . I chose the historys
of King Arthurs. . . . I labour to pourtraict
in Arthurs . . . the image of a brave knight,
perfected in the twelve private morall ver-
tues. . . . in the person of Prince Arthurs

I sette forth magnificence in particular,
which vertue, for that . . . it is the per-
fection of all the rest, and conteineth in it
them all, therefore in the whole course I
mention the deedes of Arthurs applyable to
that vertue which I write of in that books.

The letter was clearly written after the fact, and it

 

691bid., pp. 208-209.

h6

is a commonplace of Spenser scholarship that Spenser
sought thereby to give a semblance of plan and cohe-
siveness to a poem which he may have felt lacked both.
Spenser was in a sense "stuck" with Arthur, and if
etymology did not help him to the choice it clearly
did help him justify it. Ate/see , to form or fashion,
and to put together carefully,7O would have been a
natural etymology for a name of uncertain ancestry.
In recognizing the Greek verb, illogical though it may
have seemed for a Celtic name, Spenser would have been
contravening no established tradition since the ety-
mology of the name was not known. And in the Greek
verb Spenser would have found the two ideas which he
emphasized in the letter to Raleigh: the idea of
fashioning something and the idea of Joining various
elements into a whole.

After a digression on Arthur's "lignage" and
his search for the Faerie Queene, Spenser dispatches
Redcross and Una to their next adventure, a visit to
Despayre. To make Redcross aware of the suicide which
despair can lead to, Spenser invents a messenger named
Trevisan, and has him recount the tale of SIR TERWIN,
who has killed himself because of unrequited love and

his subsequent feelings of despair. The figure of

 

7001‘6313111, s.v. grafo’w , "formo, COHOiDflOe e e e!

4,44

 

’47
Despayre has been traced to a literary source,71 but
no one as far as I know has attempted to explain Spen-
ser's nomenclature in the early parts of this episode.
Neither "Trevisan" nor "Terwin" can be satisfactorily
traced to the classical or romance languages which
Spenser habitually used. And yet the name Terwin is
no darker a disguise than Tramtrist in the Tristram
legend or Algrind in the Shepheardes Calender: clearly
the name is an anagram of Winter. Spenser would have
chosen the name because of the common association of
winter with death, an association he frequently makes.
In the December eclogue, for example,
Winter is come, that blowes the bitter blasts,
And after winter drserie death does
hast (ll. 1h9-50).
Thus Spenser assigned an appropriate seasonal name to
a knight whose only function in the poem is to die:
the winter of his discontent is made Terwin. A second
reason for the choice might have been Spenser's own
discontent with his world, a world which in many
places he claimed had degenerated. Don Cameron Allen,
commenting on the pessimism of the Despayre passages,

refers to a Spanish philosopher of the Renaissance who

 

71M. S. and G. H. Blayney, "The Faerie Queens
and an English Version of.ChartrisrTs;Trait87de
1'Esperance," SP, LV (1958), 160-61, trace the ap-
pearance of Detpayre, and 157-58, 161, the argument of
Despayre, to Alain Chartrier. They suggest, 160, that
Trevisan's behavior in I.ix.21 is similar to that of
Chartrier's Diffidence.

 

 

 

 

,‘I

IQ

h8
"compare[d] the ages of the world to the four seasons,
an ordinary comparison for the life of man; and
[said] that the world is now approaching its winter."72
The personal experience of Terwin, then, might have
been intended as a cautionary tale to a world over
which Spenser despaired.

TREVISAN himself has no personal motive for
despair: although he feels compassion for his friend
Terwin, nothing but the demands of the narrative seems
to cause his

bitter byting griefe

Which love had launched with his deadly

darts (I.ix.29). '
And as soon as Trevisan has served his purpose as mes-
senger, Spenser promptly forgets him and we hear no
more of him after Redcross forces him to remain at the
cave of Despayre. That this character has a name is
therefore surprising and must be significant of some
further purpose. I believe that the purpose was lit-
erary allusion. Giovanni Della Casa wrote a large
number of extremely melancholy poems; of these "the
most detached and austere were written in the poet's
last years, when . . . he had retired to Venice or

Treviso."73 If Spenser knew the poems of Della casa,

72"The Degeneration of Man and Renaissance Pes-
simism," SE, XXXV (1938), 219.

73F[rank] T[empleton] Prince, The Italian Ele-
ment in Milton's Verse (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

I95h). P0 26e

 

 

 

 

1+9
as there is good reason to believe,7h and if he would
have called an inhabitant of Treviso a "Trevisano"
(although one need not go so far to account for the
simple change to an "an" suffix), it seems reasonable
to conclude that he might have been referring to Della
Casa's ideas in the name Trevisan. The poems of Della
Casa stress two major themes, both of which are
sounded in the descriptions of Trevisan: extreme un-
happiness and the recurrent image of flight. In his
sonnet to sleep he says,

Oh sleep, oh son of the quiet, damp, shady,
placid night, oh comfort of miserable mortals,
sweet forgetfulness of such grave events where
life is hard and fretful; come now to the help
of my heart which languishss and has no re-
pose, and relieve these tired and frail parts.
Give me a quick flight, oh sleep, and unfold
your shadowy wings and place them over me.
Where is the silence which flees the day and
light? And the light dreams which are accus-
tomed to follow you with insecure step? Alas,
in vain I call you, and in vain I flatter the
dark and cold shadows. on wings of utgost
sharpness! Oh bitter and hard night!7

 

7“John M. Steadman, "Spenser's House of Care,"
Studies in the Renaissance, VII (1960), 208-209, 220,
demonstrates marked similarities between Spenser's
and Della Case's treatments of jealousy, and inti-
mates that Spenser may havs known Della Casa through
the commentary of Benedetto Varchi.

 

75Giovanni Della Casa, Le Rims, ed. Adriano
Seroni (Florence: Casa EditrIce F. Le Monnier, 19hh),
pp. 16h-6S. The sonnet reads,

0 sonno, 0 de la queta, umide, ombrosa
Notte placido figlio; 0 de' mortali
Egri conforto, oblio dolce de' mali
Si gravi ond'e la vita aspra e noiosa;

 

 

50
There is no single stanza in this episode in the

Faerie Queene which is an exact parallel, and of

 

course Spenser could have found the same images in
many posts other than Della Casa. Della Casa could
nonetheless have been the immediate inspiration of
the Trevisan episode. Trevisan appears on the scene
fleeing from "some feared foe" (I.ix.2l). The foe is
Despayre, who later describes the rest of the dead
Terwin as "sleep after toyle":

He there does now enjoy eternall rest

And happy ease, which thou doest want and crave,

And further from it daily wandersst:

What if some little payne the passage have,

That makes frayle flesh to fears the bitter wave?

Is not short payne well borne, that bringes long

ease,
And layes the souls to sleeps in quiet grave?
Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas,

Ease after warre, death after life does greatly
please (I.ix.h0).

The fact that it is Trevisan who acquaints Redcross
with the purveyor of this philosophy is surely sig-
nificant. Spenser would have expected his courtly

 

Soccorri a1 core omai, che langus e posa

Non ave, e quests membra stanche s frali

Solleva: a me ten vola, o sonno, e 1'ali
Tue brune sovra me distendi e posa.

Ov's '1 silenzio che '1 di fugge e '1 lume?
E i lievi sogni, che con non secure
Vestigia di seguirti han per costume?

Lasso, che 'nvan ts chiamo, e quests oscure
E gelide ombre invan lusingo. O piume
D'asprezza colme! o notti acerbe e dure!

I am grateful to Dr. Eugenia Buchanan for translating
this sonnet and others in the volume of Della Case's
Poems e

 

 

51
audience to understand the allusion and thus to read
the entire episode as an authentic portrayal of bitter
despair. The episode can also be read on the level of
religious allegory if the name Trevisan is accepted as
an allusion to Della Case. Throughout the first book
Redcross meets symbols of the Roman Catholic Church.
Della Casa was at one time Papal Secretary and would
thus represent Catholicism in the religious allegory.
Only Una, the one true faith, can save Redcross from
the despair to which his contact with Catholicism, in

the person of Trevisan, leads him (I.ix.52*53).

 

CHAPTER II: BOOK II

The hero of the second book is etymologically
one of the most interesting in the entire Faerie
Queens. For almost two hundred years scholars agreed
with Upton's contention that the name GUYON came from
the verb "to guide."76 A second school of thought
now sees the name simply as a variant of "the Guyan
(Guienns) of the Elizabethan Chronicles. . . ."77 But
perhaps the most significant contribution to the solu-
tion of the problem is Fowler's, for he most sensibly
relates etymology to allegory in his identification of
"Guyon" as one of the rivers of Paradise:

These rivers were from patristic times iden-
tified with the four cardinal virtues, Pison
usually being prudence, Tigris fortitude,

Euphrates justice, and Gghon (Geon, Gaeon,
Gyon, etc.) temperance.7

 

f

76John Upton, ed. Spenser's Faerie Queene (2
vols.; London: J. and.R. Tonson, 1758), II, h31.
Upton cites the Italian uidare and the Gallic guider.
Craig, p. 185, thinks that the name illustrates
Spenser's frequent practice of using archaisms, here
"the old form 'guy' meaning to 'guide.'"

77Winstanley as quoted in Variorum, II, 187.

78A. D. S. Fowler, "Emblems of Tem erance in
The Faerie Queene, Book II," RES, XI (19 O), 1&7. In
"The Ritér Guyon," gag, LXXV T1960), 289-91, Fowler
traces the evolution of the river as a symbol of
tolerance from Josephus, through Philo, to Ambrose,

S2

53

This association of Guyon with water is crucial to
Fowler's argument, for he sees Guyon's presence at the
Bower of Bliss as a symbolic combination of water and
wine. Thus the river Guyon provides a key to our under-
standing of the nature of temperance: it is "the mix-
ture or integration of extremes, as distinct from
their avoidance. . . ."79

Although each of the etymologies offered has its
merits, all ignore one for which Spenser himself fur-
nishes the best clue. Just as he frequently adds to
the name of one of his characters the phrase "rightly
called," so here he speaks of Guyon "whose living
hands immortalized his name" (II.viii.13). Perhaps
scholars have felt that this expression is figurative,
but as I shall show, Spenser obviously was speaking
quite literally here. The word xvfov signifies any
limb, especially the hand or the foot.80 All meanings

contribute to the imagery associated with Guyon.

 

until finally the connection "took its place in the
structure of religious symbolism which dominated the
medieval'imagination."* He attributes, p. 292, Spen-
ser's change in spelling to a desire to bring the '
name closer to "that of a romance hero, such as 931."

79Fowler,"Emblems," pp. lh7-h8.

80Crespin, 3:1. 22th V, "membrum, proprie menus
8c pedea"; ’Estienne, I, 880, xULov, "Membrum. Sed
proprie yyo. . . . pedesmanusque. . . ." Marie
Walther, Variorum, I. 391, mentions Gareth (Beaumayns)
as a possIEIs prototype for Redcross. I think it en-
tirely possible that "Beaumayns" remained in Spenser's
imagination and reappeared in Book II in the form of
Guyon.

 

 

 

F C
e o .
C
. ’
I 9
e
n e e I ?
e
n
'
v
0
e
M a
O I
e e . e
e
O I
I
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-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sh

Spenser's reference to Guyon's "living hands"
does not stand alone. He speaks of Guyon's "mighty
hands" in the Furor episode (II.iv.6), and Guyon's
first adventure begins with his meeting the dying
Amavia, mother of RUDDYMANE. Although the baby
clearly has his name from "his cruell sport,"

For in her streaming blood he did embay
His litle hands, and tender joints
embrew (II.i.h0),
Spenser probably first thought of his unusual behavior
because of his preoccupation in this book with.images
of hands. Later in the second book Guyon answers
Mammon's offers of wealth with-an analogy which is of
particular interest in connection with such images:
At the well head the purest streames arise:
But mucky filth his braunching armes annoyes,
And with uncomely weedes the gentle wave
accloyes (II.vii.lS).
If we interpret the "well head" as God, and "mucky
filth" as Mammon (and these are certainly conventional
enough metaphors), then God's "braunching armes" would
refer to Guyon himself--an elaborate etymological pun.

Spenser's description of the seige by the "twelve
troupes" against the castle of Alma contains a passage
which until recently had been badly misinterpreted:

And those two brethren gyauntes did defend

The walles so stoutly with their sturdie mayne,

That never entraunce any durst pretend,

But they to direfull death their groning ghosts
did send (II.xi.lS).

Gilbert correctly maintains that "those two brethren

 

 

.h
..

 

.3...

 
 

SS

gyauntes" are the hands of the body, and the pun in
the second line surely supports his contention. He
mentions the continuance of the body metaphor and also
contemporary uses of hands as warriors, and concludes
that
Spenser, familiar with the organic allegory,
assumed that his readers would catch the mean-
ing of his word those (meaning those defenders
mentioned in allegories of the body), and

would understand that 7thosettwo brethren
giants' are the warrior hands.81

 

 

 

Since Guyon has left the scene some ten stanzas ear-
lier, I agree with Gilbert that Spenser is not refer-
ring to him in this stanza. Nevertheless one should
not be misled by the narrative, which Spenser manipu-
lates to serve his varied purposes. I assume that in
the reference to hands Spenser is speaking of the
principle of which Guyon is the embodiment. Temper-
ance defends the body and thus, by a process which I
will discuss below, the soul. The use of "the war-
rior hands" is one aspect of temperance.

A suggestion that the name Guyon may be related
to gygn, wrestler,82 although ignoring the difference

 

81Allan Gilbert, "'Those two brethren giants'
(Faerie Queeng, 2.11.15),"‘M§N, LXX (1955), 9h.
Gilbert feelswthat the reference cannot be to Arthur
and Timias since they are "neither brethren nor
giants."

82Susan Snyder, "Guyon the Wrestler," Renais-
sance News, XIV (1961), 250. Snyder cites Caxton‘s
etymOIOgy of "George" in his translation of the
Golden Legend: gera, holy, and gyon, wrestler. She

56
in spelling, does lend support to my contention that
Guyon means, literally, hands. I have stressed Guyon's
use of his hands; Snyder sees a wrestling motif run-
ning through the entire second book, and feels that
"Spenser's insistence on hand-to-hand struggle rein-
forces his theme of self-mastery."83 The spelling
Spenser chose to use indicates that he had in mind
just such an emphasis: Guyon is the hands.

Guyon is, furthermore, a pedestrian hero: no one
else in the Faerie Qpeene must pursue his adventures
on foot to the extent that Guyon must. Because his
horse has been stolen, he must "fare on foot" to the
castle of Medina (II.ii.12); and

forth he farid, as now befsll, on foot,
Sith his good steed is lately from him
gone (II.iii.3);
and yet again Guyon "the whiles on foot was forced for

to yeed" (II.iv.2); he even beheads Pyrochles' horse

 

suggests, pp. 251-52, that Redcross and Guyon are
meant to represent two aspects of Christian virtue.
Snyder was apparently unaware of Padelford and
O'Connor's mention, Variorum, I, 389, of Caxton's
etymology and their suggestion that it may have con-
firmed Spenser in his decision to use St. George as
the knight of holiness and may "also have suggested
the name of Guyon for the hero of the second book,
that other knight who wrestled so valiantly with
every form of incontinence."

 

83Snyder, p. 251. She mentions, pp. 250-51, five
occurrences of the motif in the second book: (1)
Guyon and Furor, (2) Guyon and Occasion, (3) Arthur
and Impatience, (h) Arthur and.Maleger, and (5) a
parody of the theme in Braggadochio, II.iii.l6.

 

 

P Vw
.
a e
o .
I. '
e
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pi K II
D h
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.31 e a... w .. .14 “fi
4 a -

 

57

So him, dismounted low, he did compell
On foot with him to matchen squall fight (II.v.h).

Spenser does not allow Guyon to reclaim his stolen
horse from Braggadochio until the fifth book, for the
nature of the allegory demanded a hero who could use
his feet we11.8u This idea so dominates the second
book that Spenser can achieve a neat implied contrast
between Guyon and Genius, who is hampered by long-
flowing garments from "speedy pace or manly exercise"
(II.xii.h6). Even one of the epic similes to wild
animals which Spenser enjoyed for battle scenes seems
more than usually fresh because of the image implicit
in Guyon's name: when Huddibras and Sansloy unite
against Guyon, they end their private quarrel,

As when a bears and tygre, being met

In cruell fight on Lybicke ocean wide,

Espye a traveiler with feet surbet (II. ii.22).
Spenser furthermore defined the Palmer's function
using the same image: the Palmer "suffred not his
[Guyon's] wandring feete to slide" (II.iv.3).

Having chosen a hero with whom he associated

images of hands, arms, and feet, Spenser in his search

 

GUI cannot agree with Maurice Evans, "The Fall
of Guyon," ELH, XXVIII (1961), 222, when he claims
that Guyon sees not realize his own human frailty:

". . . the best horseman of them all without a horse
on which to demonstrate his peculiar excellence--this
is the imperfect life which Guyon hopes to govern by
reason alone." Since Guyon actually does very much
better than, say, Redcross, Spenser must be sagim
that he is a man of many excellences, one of w ich is
the pedestrian life. Temperance is not an occasional
virtue but a way of life.

58

for an appropriate companion for Guyon would have
found an etymologically "correct" figure through sim-
ple thought association: the PALMER. It has been
suggested that the romance elements implicit in the
name "Guy" would have been enough to lead Spenser to a
palmer as a logical companion for Guyon.85 And of
course allegorically a religious figure seems a well-
suited guide for a young knight whose temperance must
be tested and developed. It is impossible to prove
the matter one way or the other, but the association
of Guyon with hands must have contributed to Spenser's
choice of a character whose name in English, Latin,
and Greek would have meant "palm," and, by extension,
"hand" as well. The two belong together physically
just as the prudence of the palmer is necessary to
the temperance of Guyon.

The House of Temperance has often been criti-
cized because of Spenser's rather naive description of

the human body.86 It seems to me, however, that just

 

85Josephine Waters Bennett, The Evolution of
"The Faerie Queene"A(Chicago: University of Chicago
PFess, [1952]), p. 82, points out that "palmers are
not infrequent in the romances, but Gu of Warwick is
a palmer romance par excellence." She relates, p. 81,
this literary allusion to the historical allegory,
claiming that Guyon is thus a tribute to Leicester.

 

863ee, for example, Dodge as quoted in Variorum,
II, 186: ". . . the House of Temperance with—iti cut
and dried allegory of the human body, the house of the
soul, is perillously close to a 'reductioaad
absurdum.'" Bennett, p. 129, feels that the section

59
such a focus is needed in a book which is exploring a
virtue by means of a body metaphor. Spenser intro-
duces the House in these words:

Of all Gods workes, which doe this world adorns,

There is no one more fairs and excellent,

Then is mans body both for powre and forms,

Whiles it is kept in sober government (II.ix.l).
The statement is not abrupt nor is the description of
the human body unnecessarily detailed since Spenser
has been discussing just this throughout the entire
book. Because of his emphasis on bodily images
throughout his treatment of Guyon and the Palmer, the
words just quoted are an effective transition from
the particular to the general. In the earlier cantos
Spenser demonstrated that the proper use of one's
hands and feet is temperance.

Guyon and the Palmer meet the dying AMAVIA, an
event which is necessary to the development of the
narrative since it is from her that they first hear of
Acrasia. But the episode is also necessary allegori-
cally, for it further defines Guyon's nature. A look
at the name in this episode is instructive. Generally

the name Amavia has been interpreted as either she

"that loves to live" or as "I have loved."87 The

 

is "an old piece, worked over to fit its present place
in the poem by the insertion of the passage on the
affections which mentions Arthur and Guyon. . . ."

87Dodge, p. 791, supplies a "t": Ame-vi[t]a.
Draper, Variorum, II, 20h, cites amavi, the perfect
tense of amo.

 

60

former etymology fits Acrasia's curse on "her that
loves to live" (11.1.55); the latter seems inconsis-
tent with Amavia's behavior since she kills herself
because she is still in love. Neither interpretation
is compelling, although the former demonstrates that
Spenser etymologized further after selecting the name.
Since Mordant has left his wife for the wiles of
Acrasia, I should think that Spenser composed the name
Amavia of two elements, gmg_(love) + gig (path), al-
luding to the belief that the path of love leads to
death.88

Such an interpretation lends support to the
theory of A. D. S. Fowler, who reads the entire epi-
sode as religious allegory. Fowler suggests that
MORDANT is "him that death does give" (11.1.55) be-
cause "he was flesh (all flesh doth frayltie breed)"
(11.1.52); and "the concept of the flesh as virtual
death is . . . a central theme throughout the epistles
of Paul."89 He further points out that "the reiter-
ated floral imagery . . . conveys the transience of

the flesh--flowers being a standard symbol of human

 

88Cooper, s.v. via, "A way . . . A passage."
Cf. Della Case's—stnntt: p. #7, "Amor, per lo tuo
calls a morte vassi."; and Dante, Inferno, v. 106,
"Amor condusse noi ad una morte," "Love led us to
one death."

89A. D. S. Fowler, "The Image of Mortality:
the Faerie Queepg_11.i-ii,"'HLg, XXIV (1961), 92.

61
frailty."90 The entire episode is thus seen to be a
tightly woven one in which narrative, allegorical, and
etymological levels give mutual support and clarifi-
cation.

I have noted above the etymological relationship
between the names Guyon and Ruddymane. Now the rela-
tionship can be viewed in its fullest implications.
Ruddymane is the child of spiritual death (i.e.,
Mordant) and of one who herself follows the path of
love to commit the totally immoderate act of self de-
struction (i.e., Amavia). Such a child must needs
have bloody hands, for the sins of the father are
passed on to the child.91 Guyon, on the other hand,
is the son of an elf (11.1.6), and for Spenser this
means that, unlike Ruddymane, Guyon is the child of
spiritual life. He is a descendant of the man created
by Prometheus:

That man so made he called Elfe, to west
Quick. e e e

and of a woman found in "the gardins of Adonis"

 

901bid., p. 92h.

91Fowler, "Image," p. 98, feels that Ruddymane
is a resurrection symbol: the burial of his parents
represents "a burial of the 'old man,'" and the child
represents "the new man put on at baptism." He ex-
plains the bloody hands as the "corruptible flesh"
which baptism cannot cleanse. Since Spenser in the
first book shows that Redcross is able to defeat the
dragon after being "baptised" in the Well of Life, I
cannot regard Fowler's interpretation as tenable.

 

 

 

 

 

62

(symbols in the Renaissance for generation),

th' authour of all woman kynd;
Therefore a Fay he her according hight (11.x.71).

The contrast with Ruddymane's parentage could not be
more striking: Guyon is the son of life and of the
life force. 'And significantly there is no "Ruddy" in
Guyon's name.

Guyon takes Ruddymane, as indeed he should, to
the castle of MEDINA, a name chosen for its obvious
allegorical suggestions of the goldenmean.92
Medina's hair, naturally, is "golden" (II.ii.15).

This emphasis on gold probably inspired Spenser in his
choice of SIR HUDDIBRAS as a mate for Medina's sister
and allegorical contrast Elissa. Although Spenser
falls back on the use of Sansloy for Perissa, he cre-
ates this new character to serve as Elissa's lover.
One can see the fecundity of his imagination at work
here: if the images associated with one sister are of
gold, then he would quite naturally think of another
metal, and a baser one, for an inferior sister:

He that made love unto the eldest dame [Elissa]
Was hight Sir Huddibras, a hardy man;

More huge in strength the wise in workes h was,
And reason with foole-hardize over ran;
Sterne melancholy did his courage pas;

 

9ZCooper, s.v. Medius, "The middle: equallie
distant from the-titremities: means. . . ." Spenser
identifies Medina explicitly in the argument to
canto ii.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

632

And was, for terrour more, all armd in shyning
bras (11.11.17).

Spenser obviously so armed Huddibras because of the
brazen element in his name, which in turn would have
been suggested because of the association of the two
metals and perhaps because of some desire to underline
the allegory with hints of the Age of Brass as con-
trasted to the Golden Age.

Medina's sisters are the extremes demanded by the
allegory. ELISSA, the sullen, stingy sister, takes
part in none of the activities which the others enjoy,
for she is to represent the lower end of the scale of
which Medina is the mean:

ns ought would eat,
Ne ought would speake, but evermore did seems
As discontent for want of merth or meat;
No solace could her paramour intreat
Her once to show, no court, nor
dalliaunce (11.11.35).
Her behavior here is of a piece with the etymology of
her name, for Ella/1n.) meant both to suffer the want
of something, and to take no part in various activ-
ities.93 Spenser pays the same close attention to
etymology in his handling of the youngest sister,
PERISSA. The name is a logical choice of course since

Tre’occro’ts meant Specifically a going beyond the

 

93Crespin, s__.___v. Elke (Tl'td, "indi so . . e ‘
absum." See also Estienne, II, 669, Alanine , a
leaving out or omission.

 

E
’e’tti E'fi
)1
' Am

 

r:

 

 

6h

mean.9u Spenser explicitly refers to this aspect of
Perissa: "No measure in her mood, no rule of right"
(11.11.36), and his choice of paramour for Perissa is
entirely consistent, for the name Sansloy is a restate-
ment of the phrase just quoted. But once Spenser had
coined the name Perissa, its etymology would have domi-
nated his thinking as he drew his portrait of the
character. Beginning with "going beyond the mean," he
would have thought also of "superfluous,"95 and this
alone would have stimulated a visually oriented mind
to see a river overflowing its banks. Thus Spenser
says of Perissa,

No measure in her mood, no rule of right,

But poured out in pleasure and delight;

In wine and meats she flowd above the

banck (11.11.36).
Rarely does one find so exact a correspondence between
etymon and image.
Guyon leaves Medina's castle on foot because his

horse has been stolen by BRAGGADOCHIO. The name would

seem to be a coinage of Spenser's.96 Although a

 

91l-Estienne, III, 250, fiepccn’ds, "Modum
excedens."

\
95Estienne, III, 250, #6 («60.3, "Item
Superuacaneus." Equally signi icant is the definition
of We cheu'co , "Abundo [overflow], Affluo [flow
to--of rivers]. . . ." (III, 251).

96The NED so credits it. Jakob Schoembs, quoted
in Variorum, 11, 209, mentions Stephan Taylor's "A
Whippe For Worldlings Or The Centre Of Content" as a
possibly earlier source, but points out that the

 

 

. . fuller

 

 

 

“A

 

65

single source is difficult to find, Spenser's famil-
iarity with French, Irish, and Italian would have led
to such a choice since in all three languages the first
syllable at any rate had just the right connotations
for the vain comical figure he needed in many of the
episodes of Books 11 through V. Basically the name
goes back to the word "brag," which has been related
to the Celtic "brggg, to lie, and breugach, lying,
false, deceitful, vainglorious."97 Such is the char-
acter described in the following lines:

. . . puffed up with smoke of vanity,

And with selfe-loved personage deceiv'd,

He gan to hope of men to be receiv'd

For such as he him thought, or faine would
bee (11.111.5).

Whereas Orgoglio had been puffed up with wind, Spenser:
carefully uses "smoke" to describe a character whose
frailty is deceit.98 To further express in images the

exact nature of Braggadochio's deceit, Spenser draws

 

suggested date of 1586 cannot be definitely assigned
Taylor's work since there is no known copy which bears
such a date. Schoembs therefore concludes that
"Braggadocchio" "ist eine glfickliche Neubildung
Spensers."

97Charles Mackay, A Glossary of Obscure Wordg
and Phrases in the Writings o S a spears and His Con-

tem oraries (London: —§§mpson, Low, Marston, Searle,
an R v ngton, 1887), p. 37.

98John Leon Lievsay, "Braggadochio: Spenser's
Legacy to the Character Writers," ML , 11 (l9hl),
h77n, suggests that Spenser found e smoke image in
Alessandro Piccolomini's Institutions Morale, where
the adjective fumosi is used for braggarts.

 

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66

on ideas supplied by the etymology of the name. In
the Shepheardes Calendar he had used the word "brag"

 

to connote beauty ("Seest not thilk hawthorn/ How
bragly it begins to bud"), and the contemporary mean-
1ng of bragard in French was "dapper fellows."99
Thus Spenser continues the stanza quoted above,

But for in court gay portaunce he perceiv'd

And gallant shew to be in greatest gree,

Estsoones to court he cast t'advaunce his first

degree (II.iii.5).

Braggadochio is thus a "brag" character in more than
one sense. Wearing shining stolen armor and riding a
stolen horse with "golden sell," he is an impressive
enough figure to fool the wily Archimago (11.111.11-12);
and later in the poem he appears with Artegall's
shield "which bore the sunne brode blazed in a golden
field" (Viii.lh).

In both cases his resplendence is borrowed. To
discover what lurked beneath the "brag" exterior, we
must turn once again to etymology. The Italian 23252,
which Spenser must have had in mind as he wittily
clothed the bumbling would-be knight in others' mag-

nificence, meant "mud, dirt, mire, earth, or clay.

. ."100 I suspect that Spenser was punning, then,

 

QgfiictionariegFrench,.331. Bragard. Mackay,
Gaelic, s.v. brag, notes a possible etym010gy to the
French GEtHic braguer, "to go stately or proudly; and
this manifestly from the Latin paratug, ready or fit.

loOFlorio, p. h8.

 

O
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e.
v
a e e
C
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0
hp.
Q . D
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4 C . Q
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67

in naming Braggadochio. Basically he was thinking of
"brag" in the sense of "boast"; but the additional
meanings, "beauty" and "mud," would have convinced him
that he could find no better name for his miles glo-
riosus since the two latter meanings together consti-
tute the essence of boasting. The knight of beautiful
appurtenances is in reality nothing but a man of mud.
As John Lievsay has said, the portrait of Braggadochio
could be entitled "The Counterfeit Magnanimous Man."101

Borrowing Lievsay's phrase I would like to sug-
gest that an even.more telling title would be "The
Counterfeit Man," for as Spenser characterizes Brag-
gadochio through imagery we witness a further reduction
of his pretensions: he is stripped of his supposed
manhood and revealed a eunuch. It is this stroke
which makes the brag complete, and Spenser achieves it
through a thorough and consistent representation of
Braggadochio as a bird, and a rather inadequate bird
at that. Spenser associates feur varieties of birds
with Braggadochio: the false knight wears the "bor-
rowed plumes" (V.iii.20) of the jackdaw;1023 he is

 

101Lievsay, p. h76.

102Lievsay, p. h79, notes the relationship be-
tween this image and Aesop's fable of the jackdaw. He
shows, p. h80, that the "uncasing" of Braggadochio and
Trompart reflects Guazzo's interpretation of this
fable: a plagiarizer is stripped out of his borrowed
plumage like a jackdaw, "and.mockt and laught at as a
counterfeite theefe."

68

compared to a peacock as he approaches Trompart,
To whom avaunting in great bravery,
As peacocks, that his painted plumes doth
pranck (II.iii.6);
he is called a "capon" when Sir Ferraugh advances to
take from him the snowy Florimell (III.viii.15); and
throughout the poem Spenser refers to "his kestrell
kynd" (e.g., II.iii.h). The two latter varieties may
have been related in Spenser's mind because both would
have reminded him of castrated males (kestrel was
often pronounced "castrel" in Spenser's t1melo3).
Braggadochio's actions are indeed effeminate, and the
bird imagery neatly underscores this characteristic.
Spenser interestingly reverts to the kestrel
image again and again in his development of Bragga-
dochio, and if he chose this particular bird because
of associations in his own mind with "castrate," he
would also have found it apprOpriate for the braggart
since that bird is the smallest of the falcons as
Braggadochio is the least of the knights. Thus when
Malbecco seeks Braggadochio's aid in finding the lost
Hellsnore and fighting Paridell, Spenser has his
braggart pause before accepting the task:

Yet stoupt he not, but lay still in the winds,
Waiting advauntage on the pray to asses (III.x.30).

 

1°3The NED cites the Middle English castrel as
the source of_"kbstrel," and quotes Googe's 1577 use
of the word: "There is a kinds of Hauke . . . the
common people call it castrell."

69

This image from falconry is the more humorous because
it applies not to a large falcon, who might indeed
seize some prey, but only to Braggadochio. Spenser
uses the same source for an image just a few stanzas
later when Paridell approaches without Hellsnore:

Alone he rode without his paragone;

For having filcht her bells, her up he cast

To the wide world, and let her fly alone (111.x.35)o
In both stanzas falconry dominates the imagery, forcing
the reader to view the little kestrel with amusement.
The tone of Spenser's hidden wit blends well with the
generally light treatment of the entire Malbecco epi-
sode and gives it more texture than it might on the
surface seem to have.

Spenser thus involves Braggadochio, then, in a
framework of falconry although he is only a kestrel;
and yet even this does not exhaust the possibilities
which the "brag" element in the name opened up for
Spenser. Perhaps the greatest indignity he could in-
flict on the inept knight was to make him the prey of
another falcon, to reduce him to an even ignobler
role, that of a "fearfull fowle." While Belphoebe
speaks to Trompart, Braggadochio was "mewd" in a bush,
and left it only at the threat of a volley of arrows:

. . . he crauld out of his nest,
Forth creeping on his caitive hands and thies,
And standing stoutly up, his lofty crest

Did fiercely shake, and rowze, as comming late
from rest.

70

As fearfull fowle, that long in secret cave

For dread of soring hauke her selfe hath hid,

Not caring how, her silly life to save,

She her gay painted plumes disorderid,

Seeing at last her selfe from daunger rid,

Peepes forth, and scene renews her native pride;

She gins her feathers fowle disfigured

Prowdly to prune, and sett on every side;

So shakes off shame, ne thinks how erst she did

her hide (11.111.35-36).
The feminine pronoun of course is central to Spenser's
conception of Braggadochio, and the reversal of roles
from hunter to hunted similarly emphasizes the
knight's self-deceit and his attempted deception of
others. The consistency and artistry of Spenser's
imagery are remarkable in the Braggadochio episodes,
and their relationship to the etymology of the name
reveals the subtlety of Spenser's wit.
TROMPART, the quasi squire of this quasi knight,

is an etymologically "fitt man for Braggadochio"(11.
111.10). Spenser would have looked for another name

connoting deception, and the French tromper and
tromperte would be a logical start.10u Once he had

 

settled on the name, however, Spenser would have dis-
covered further possibilities of characterization
through etymological suggestions. The obvious rela-
tionship between "trompart" and the French trompe or

trompette, not to mention an.Elizabethan spelling of

 

10"Dictionarie French, 24!! tromper, "to begile,
to deceyue." Beret, DIVE, "Deceyte, frauds or guile:
a snare or trappe to beguile. . . . Tromperte, frauds,
deception, malengin"; see also D155 and D162.

 

 

v C
C
e Ox
0
O. e. e.
. a
_
O,
i
.
.
!\ O
O a
I O n
I Q
.
',
l
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e.
Pg 0
i
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v i. v.

 

 

 
 

71

trumpet, "trompet," might have suggested the image of
blowing which concludes this description of Trompart:

For he was wylie witted, and growne old

In cunning sleightes and practick knavery.

From that day forth he cast for to uphold

His ydle humour with fine flattery,

And blow the bellowes to his swelling

vanity (II.iii.9).

Here the "cunning sleightes" reflect the tromper-

tromperte element in the name; the "blow the bellowes"

 

image reflects the trompe-trompette element. A few
lines later Spenser uses much the same image:

Vaineglorious man, when fluttring wind does blow
In his light winges, is lifted up to skye,

stimulated no doubt by the same etymology. Later in
this episode Spenser seems to have thought of still
another possible etymology for Trompart, TPo/ue’w ,
a natural enough thought for someone who often coined
names with Greek roots. -nbeyiéu , to tremble or
quake,105 suggested Trompart's description of his re-
action to Belphoebe, "I quake and tremble over all"
(II.iii.hh), and may indeed by extension have influ-
enced even the description of Braggadochio and
Trompart, who, after Archimago's disappearance, hear
"each trembling leafs" (11.111.20).

The fourth canto takes up again the adventures
of Guyon and the Palmer. Here they meet Furor and his
mother OCCASION, both of whom Spenser describes fairly

 

lOSCrespin. s.v. Woo/ash: a "tremor tPGPidO:
timeo."

'WI.

'1.
1

 

I
..
'V

I
.-

'2.
II

,.

 

 

 

   

72

conventionally.106 His emphasis on Occasion's lame-
ness, however, could have derived from the etymology
of the name as easily as from any literary or pic-
torial source (just as the latter might have taken a
clue from etymoloSY). Occido ("to fall downe: to
perish vtterly: to die: to go downe as the sunne
doth; to decay"107) would seem to be in back of the
following:

And him behynd, a wicked hag did stalks,

In ragged robes and filthy disaray:

Her other leg was lame, that she no'te walks,
But on e staffs her feeble steps did stay

And ever as she went, her toung did walks
In fowle reproch and termes of vile despight,

Sometimes she raugh him stones, wherwith to smite,
Sometimes her staffs, though it her one leg were,
Withouten which she could not goe upright

(II.iv.h-5).
After he has captured both Furor and Occasion,
Guyon comforts their dying victim, PHEDON. Phedon's
story is an old one,108 but the names are new and of
some interest, since in this episode Spenser seems to
be etymologizing by contraries. The practice was com-
mon: Isidore of Seville had stated that words were

often formed in reference to their antitheses, and

 

106For a full discussion of possible sources,
see Variorpm, II, 22h-28.

 

107Cooper, s.v. occido.

108Ariosto has been cited as a primary source;
for this, other analogues, and references see
Variorum, II, 229.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

 

 

73

cited."lg£gm (mud) from lavare--since mud is not
clean--and.lggg§ (sacred grove), because being shady
it has little light (pgggm_luceat)."109 Spenser's use
of this practice can be seen in his handling of name
and narrative in the Phedon episode. Phedon has
pledged fidelity to both his betrothed, Claribell, and
his friend, Philemon; he has broken that pledge to
both, has, in fact, slain them both. Thus the name of
the protagonist is ironic for "Phedon" seems to be a
Greek transliteration of the Latin figg.llo The shift
to a Greek form was probably motivated by Spenser's
customary desire to have alliterating nemes--in this
case Phedon and Philemon.

The latter name again shows Spenser etymolo-
gizing by contraries. PHILEMON, Phedon's supposed

friend, betrays him by prevailing upon Pryene to dress

 

1090 are Omnia, in Patrologia Laggpe, ed.
J[acques]-P a M gne (Paris, 1850), LXXXII, 105:
"Sunt autem etymologies nominum . . . ex contrariis,
ut a lavando lutum, dum lutum non sit mundum, et
lucus, quia umbra opacus, parum luceat." Translation
5y Ernest Brehaut, An Encyc Opedist of the Dark Ages:
Isidore of Seville ("Columbia University Stfidies in
History, Economics and Public Law," Vol. XLVIII, No.
1; New York: Columbia University Press, 1912), p. 100.

 

 

 

 

110Draper, pp. 98-99 and 99n, attributes the

name to Plato's friend ac’d'wv , but classes it with
those names used "with no apparent allusion to those
who bore them in Greek or Roman times or to the ety-
mological meaning of the word itself." I feel, how-
ever, that Cooper's definition of fidus provides ample
evidence for etymological allusion: "Trustie: faith-
full: sure: true harted."

 

 

e
O
O
O Q
Q U (
._. '5
._. ' .

 

 

 

 

   

7h

as Claribell111 and thus "prove" her unfaithful.
Phedon tells Guyon, "Our selves in league of vowed
love wee knitt" (II.iv.18); since such sworn friend-
ships were to last forever, Spenser calls Phedon's
friend Philemon. Draper has mentioned the irony of the
first syllable,112 but it is the remaining syllables
which deepen the irony if we can assume that Spenser
had in mind ’el/u/uovos , "stabilis, permeneus,
diuturnus."113 Such a possibility fits well the
classical ideal of friendship. The entire episode,
centering as it does on unfeithfulness, takes on an
appropriately ironic tone, then, through Spenser's
choice of the names Phedon and Philemon. Had Phedon
been more temperate he would not have so readily be-
lieved anyone making a promise of eternal friendship.

Just as Phedon begins an account of his lineage,

the group is joined by ATIN,

 

111The women's names in this tale are of less
interest. Mention of the beauty of Claribell could be
a nod to clerus and belle, although the adjective
"fair" is too common to need an etymological source.
"Pryene," the handmaid's name, could have come from
that of a Greek nymph although I have found no motive
for such a choice. It is tempting to think that
Spenser's fire imagery ("blazing pride" II.iv.26;
"with my heat kindled his cruell fyre" II.iv.32;
"Wrath is a fire" II.iv.35) may have been engendered
by metathesis of Pryene's name.

112Variorum, II, 229. He adds that "the last
two syllaEles [may come] from the possessive adjective
of the first person, é/adv . Popular etymology
flourished in the age."

11301-631311}, s.v. éI/u/U-OVOS e

75

A varlet ronning towardes hastily,

Whose flying feet so fast their way applyde,

That round about a cloud of dust did fly,

Which, mingled all with sweats, did dim his

eye (II.iv.37).
Two major elements in this description of Atin can be
traced to a Greek etymology in the verb disc‘s (Attic
>a’.T‘I‘m), "Ruo . . . Irruo"11h: ruo denotes running or
rushing, and thus accounts for the image of lines one
and two; end irruo means not only to rush upon some-
thing but also to rush blindly, and thus accounts for
the image of lines three and four. That Spenser had
such an etymology in mind is doubly certain since in
the argument to the fifth canto and several other
places he spells the name Attin.115 Throughout his
descriptions of Atin Spenser draws on imagery implicit
in this etymology: Guyon asks Atin why he travels
"so swifte and light" (II.iv.h3); later, fearing for
the life of Pyrochles, Atin "flsdd feet away" (II.v.
25); and when he summons Cymochles,
he would not endure that wofull theame

For to dilate at large, but urged sore,

With percing wordes and pittifull implore,

Him hasty to arise (II.v.37).

It has been suggested that Spenser may have

 

ll"Estienne, I, 233, also-w .

115A. Kent Hieatt, "Spenser's Atin from Atine?"
MEN, LXII (1957), 251, uses this variant spelling as
support for his hypothesis that the name comes from
the French word since attine was a common Old French
variant.

76

derived the name from 2f17 ,116 but such a possibility
seems remote since the imagery associated with Atin
fits ili'a'a'w much more exactly and since Spenser goes
on to name another character Ate. Another suggestion,
that Spenser was thinking of the French 23$EE:117 is
reasonable and may provide a clue to the evolution of
this character. Perhaps Spenser began with a general
idea of the allegorical figure necessary at this point
in his narrative, a figure who provoked others to mis-
chief. For this the French atiner would be adequate.118
Then, as so often happened in his thinking about his
characters, watiner suggested a’Trw( a live-w ); and
377w , finally, suggested images of rushing and of
blindness.

Atin tells Guyon of PYROCHLES and Cymochles,
brothers whose adventures will be the focus of several
cantos. Spenser would have found the name Pyrochles

in the Arcadia,119 and immediately have seen its uses

 

116Kitchin, Variorum, II, 230.

117Hieatt, ibid.: ". . . as the conveyor of
Pyrochles' frantic defi to the world, Atin performs
actions congruent with most of the meanings" of atine.
Hieatt feels that although Spenser was primarily In-
fluenced by the French etymology he also had an”
in mind.

118

Dictionarie French, s.v. atiner, "to moue,
prouoke."

119winstanley, cited in Variorum, II, 231.

77
in an allegory of temperance and its imagistic possi-
bilities. "ITS/3 ,. fire,120 controls much of the im-
agery associated with Pyrochles:

. . . [he] so shined bright,
And round about him threw forth sparkling fire,
That seemd him to enflame on every side (II.v.2)

[Pyrochles] prickt so fiers, that underneath his
facts

The smouldring dust did rownd about him smoke,
Both horse and man nigh able for to choke (II.v.3).

Incensed with Guyon's slaughter of his horse, Pyrochles
"drew his flaming sword" (II.v.6); and his fierce re-
taliation made Guyon more wary "in the heat of all his
strife" (II.v.9). Later, when Atin saves Pyrochles
from suicide, Pyrochles explains his plight:

'I burne, I burne, I burnel' then lowd he cryde,
'0 how I burne with implacable fyre!
Yet nought can quench mine inly flaming

syde (II.vi.hh)

'Burning in flames, yet no flames can I
see' (II.vi.hS)

'These flames, these flames,‘ he cryde, 'do me
tormentl' '

'Harrow! the flames whic me consume,’ said hee,

'Ne can be quencht, within my secret bowelles
bee (II.vi.h9).

[Furor's] whott fyre burnes in mine entralles
bright,

Kindled through his infernall brond of spight;

Sith late with him I batteill vaine would boste;

That now I weene Joves dreaded thunder light

Does scorch not half so sore, nor damned ghoste

In flaming Phlegeton does not so felly roste'

(IIoVioSO)o

 

laocrespin, s.v. 118f, , "ignis, vis ignea, calor,
incendium."

 

 

 

   

78
Archimago and Atin kindle "coles of contention and
whot vengeaunce" (II.viii.1l) in the minds of Pyro-
chles and his brother. Nor does this exhaust the
examples of fire imagery, but they should suffice to
show the relationship with the etymology of the name
Pyrochles.

The second element in this name also contributes
to imagery. 031x52, , to cause annoyance or cha-
grin,121 combined with 1T5Fu exactly diagnoses Pyro-
chles' ailment; as seen in the examples above, he is
driven by the fire within him so that neither he nor
anyone else can tolerate his behavior. An incidental
image, but one on which Spenser lavishes two stanzas,
is that of Pyrochles' stouping "unto his knee" (II.
v.ll-12). This may have been suggested by a further
etymology of "ochles" to our/\a/Jo, to bend the knees:
to the ground.122

CYMOCHLES is a more complex character, perhaps
because of the multiple etymologies of the name. Spen-
ser would have formed the name analogically since he
was fond of pairs of names for brothers, and hence the

basic meaning of the first two syllables must be

 

1211mm” s.v. 5%"5’0 , "molestiam exhibeo.
W

122mm, am and?» , "flecto genua ad
terram. . . ."

79

"waves."123 In the Bower of Bliss

[Cymochles] now has pourd out his ydle mynd

In daintie delices and lavish joyes,

Having his warlike weapons cast behynd,

And flowes in pleasures. . . . (II. v. 28).
In the Bower, in fact, water imagery is predominant.12h
This fact has frequently been noticed, but as far as I
know no critic has commented on the interesting combi-
nation of images inherent in Cymochles' name or in

Spenser's presentation of the character. Riven means

not only waves but also storm or tempest.125 This

 

123Ibid., s.v. Ky , "fluctus vnda. . . ."
This fact Has been _notedflbay Child, Osgood, and Draper,
cited in Variorum, II, 231. ~

 

12hSee II.v.30, 33, 3a, 36; v1.27; viii.36.

Most of these instances have been commented upon by
the critics mentioned above. Fowler, "Emblems," p.
1M6, would associate these liquid images with wine
rather than with water; he says that "the temptation
of the Bower of Bliss is presented as a wine-cup. . .
." and he sees Guyon as the water-symbol which in com-
bination with the wine-symbol of the Bower equals an
"emblem of temperance." A. H. Gilbert, Variorum, II,
231, prefers Kay/u... as the etymon since It would ac-
count for the fire images which occasionally are asso-
ciated with Cymochles. Such images could of course
arise from his close connection with Pyrochles, but I
think Gilbert does have a point. Multiple etymologies
are common in Spenser. Furthermore, Spenser might
have considered Kaagua., not because of its reference
to heat, as Gilbert suggests, but rather because of
its connection with the sea (cf. Crespin, s.v. kav/Aa. .

"calor, aestus [seething and raging of the sea] . . .
."). Frye, p. 81, makes a most interesting suggestion:
"Temperance is also good temperament, or the balancing
of humours, and Guyon's enemies are mainly humours in
the Elizabethan sense, although the humours are usually
symbolized by their corresponding elements, as the
choleric Pyrochles is associated with fire and the
phlegmatic Cymochles with water."

1250333313111, s.v. KC/ua. , "fluctus vnda, tem-
pestas. . . ."

 

 

 

80

would seem to be the source of Spenser's observations
on Cymochles' sloth:

So easie was, to quench his flamed minde

With one sweete drop of sensuall delight;

So easie is, t'appease the stormy winde

Of malice in the calme of pleasaunt woman-

kind (II.vi.8).

Phaedria's explanation of the phenomenon is based on
the same etymology:

Ne care, ne feare I, how the wind do blow,

Or whether swift I wend, or whether slow;

Both slow and swift a like do serve my tourne:

Ne swelling Neptune, ne lowd thundring Jove

Can chaunge my cheare . . . . (II.vi.lO).

Even these images, however, do not exhaust the
connotations of l<9ua.; a third though less frequent
meaning is bud or offspring.126 Spenser seems to be
thinking of this meaning when he describes the Bower
of Bliss as "a litle nest" in which all sorts of
flowers and herbs "bud out fairs" (II.vi.lZ). This
etymology may have suggested to Spenser the interest-
ing parody of the "lilies of the field" with which
Phaedria charms Cymochles:

Behold, 0 man, that toilesome paines doest take,
The flowrs, the fields, and all that pleasaunt

growes,
They spring, they bud, they blossoms fresh and
fairs,

The lilly, lady of the flowring field,

The flowre deluce, her lovely paramoure,

Bid thee to them thy fruitlesse labors
yield (II QV1.15"16) o

 

126Ibid., "Interdwm foetus germen. . . ."

81
And again Phaedria advises him to "Refuse such fruit-
lesse toile, and present pleasures chuse" (II.vi.lY).
The repetition is purposeful, for Spenser does not
want his reader to miss the allegorical point mani-
fested in the pun on the name of Cymochles, who is the
bud which will never bear fruit.

We first see Cymochles in the Bower of Bliss,
and the site is well chosen since the Bower, like
Cymochles, is on one level both etymologically and
allegorically a sterile place. Its evil genius is
ACRASIA, who is in a sense the personification of
impotence.127 Cymochles in Acrasia's bower is no more
than a voyeur:

. . . his frayle eye with spoyle of beauty feedes:
Sometimes he falsely faines himselfe to sleepe,
Whiles through their lids his wanton eies do peepe,
To steale a snatch of amorous conceipt (II.v.3h).
Spenser further exploits the image of impotence found
in Acrasia's name by calling the porter of the Bower
of Bliss GENIUS. "Genius" immediately focuses atten-
8

tion on generation,12 and yet this "comely personage

 

127Estienne, II, hOLL, "NWT?" "Impotens."

laaCI’GSpin, SQVO {LIVOMQL OI‘ rt aVO/Kat ,
"fio, nascor, sum"_Ttb be made, to be born, to be in
life or exist). C. S. Lewis, The Alle or of Love
(London: Oxford University Press, 193%). pp. 351-63,
distinguishes between the god of generation and the
many spirits which work for good and evil in men's
lives. Hecfeels, p. 363, that Spenser confuses the
two forms. I suspect that part of the confusion can

be attributed to etymologizing, which controls some,
although not all, of the stanzas.

 

 

 

 

 

4‘

 

 

82

of stature tall" is as clothed that he is not "fitt
for . . . manly exercise" (II.xii.h6). Spenser takes
care to inform the reader that this is

Not that celestiall powre, to whom the care

Of life, and generation of all

That lives, perteines in charge particu-

lare (II.xii.u7)

and places near him "a mighty mazer bowle of wine" (II.
xii.h9). Perhaps "mazer" is meant not simply as a
synonym for drinking, but also as a punning reminder
that the wine "mazed" or bewildered those who drank it.
Instead of fostering virility, then, this Genius may
cause impotence.

And yet there is much in the Bower of Bliss to
lead one to question the traditional interpretation of
Acrasia as impotence, and much in Renaissance defini-
tions of awed-H): to support a further interpretation.
The Greek word referred to someone who could not be
restrained, checked, curbed, or held back.129 Both
Acrasia and the men in her power have not been
Cymochles-like voyeurs; the men are explicitly called
"her lovers, which her lustes did feed" (II.xii.85).
And VERDANT, who is indeed sleeping in her arms when

we see him, is resting after having enjoyed "her late

sweet toyle" (II.xii.78).130 Although the word

 

12913311611119, II, ADS, asparbs , "Qui contineri
seu coerceri aut compesci non potest, vel etiam
refraenari."

130Graham Hough, A Preface to "The Faerie Queene"

83
"verdant" today occasionally refers to lack of experi-
ence and sophistication, it was not so used in Spen-
ser's time.131 If Spenser was coining a word and in-
tended the reader to think of the etymology of the
name, then of course "green" would have carried with
it the connotation of inexperience.132 Since Verdant
bears the name when he enters the Bower of Bliss, some
such etymology would be warranted; but to say that he
is inexperienced during his stay with Acrasia is to
misinterpret the scene mentioned above. Rather, "Ver-
dant" would suggest the greenness of abundant life133
and would thus imply procreation. Such an allusion is

consistent with the description of the character.

 

(London: Gerald Duckworth and Co., Ltd., 1962, p.
16h, comments on this passage: "I do not suppose that
the toil referred to is watering the garden." Hough
thereby refutes C. S. Lewis' long-accepted idea that
there is nothing but lascivious looking in the Bower.

131NED cites Byron's Don Juan as the first use:
"Because my _business is to dress society, And stuff
with as e that very verdant goose." The definition
reads, Of persons: Green, inexperienced, gullible."

 

132NED lists three examples of such usage in the
second half of the sixteenth century.

133Interestingly, the NED cites Spenser as the
first to use "green" in the sense of "Green with veg-
etation; characterized by abundance of verdure" (the
reference is to I. 11.17). Fowler, "Emblems," pp.
lh6-h7, shows tha Spenser uses various symbols of
Bacchus in the Bower of Bliss. One of these is
Verdant, who, "as his name suggests, enjoys the green
age of youth which was the perpetual condition of the
god [Bacchus]." Maurice Evans, p. 223, sees the name
Verdant as a sign of hope: whereas Mordant died,
Verdant is rescued and lives.

 

'
o
c
U
U
‘ O
C
O
.
o e
. ' e
. -
V
..
O o
O
I
. -
I
p
O
.
o e
t e . .
. .‘
C
' o

 

 

 

8h
Those who stress Acrasia as sexual impotence mention
the fact that Verdant sleeps even though the seduc-
tress Acrasia is by his side and that his manly ac-
coutrements (arms, shield) are unused. The first ob-
jection is answered when we consider the cause of
Verdant's fatigue; the second when we realize that
Spenseris thereby showing not sexual impotence but
rather that impotence in other manly pursuits which
follows sexual intemperance. Both Verdant and the
former lovers who are now beasts have been debilitated
by intemperance. This is the focus which Spenser
surely intended when he created Acrasia in Guyon's
book.

Not only does the etymology of "Acrasia" furnish
suggestions for the frequent allusions to unrestrained
sexuality, but it also provides a clue for the many
scenes of debility found in the Bower. A’K‘oarfis con-
noted not only impotence and lack of restraint, but
also indisposition, feebleness, and sickness.13h Spen-
ser was not here thinking of sexual impotence but
rather of the sickness resulting from intemperance, as
his use of medical metaphors attests: Amavia tells
Guyon she found.Mordant

In chaines of lust and lewde desyres ybownd,
And so transformed from his former skill,

 

lBHEStienne, II, nos, ". . . Inualidus, Debilis,
Imbecillus."

85

That me he knew not, nether his owne ill; ‘

Till through wise handling and fairs governaunce,

I him recured to a better will,

Purged from drugs of fowle intemperaunce (II.i.5H).
And Guyon comes across Acrasia hanging over the sleep-
ing Verdant "as seeking medicine whence she was stong"
(II.xii.73).

Through the unusual collocation of ordinarily
incompatible imagery Spenser makes his point about
temperance. He is not speaking of a simple matter
and thus the multiple etymologies of akpan'as ena-
bled him to achieve the complexity his subject de-
manded. Impotence is only one of the evils of Acrasia's
way of life; misdirected potency is another, for it
saps virility and destroys the natural course of men's
lives; and unrestrained sexuality is yet another of
the evils since it diseases the entire organism.

To make a major statement Spenser will employ a
large number of minor characters whose function it is
to define the nature of a particular virtue by embody-
ing some part of its antithesis. Closely related to
the entire section devoted to Acrasia, Cymochles, and
Pyrochles is another intemperate figure, PHAEDRIA.
Just as Spenser had punned on the name of Cymochles in
the statement mentioned above,"Refuse such fruitlesse
toile, and present pleasures chuse," so he would also
seem to be punning on Phaedria's name since "present

pleasures" would include the "merry mariner" herself.

 

 

 

 

86
Spenser chose a name whose etymon, fhzcdfdk, implied,
among other things, something loud, joyful-browed,
swift, well-sounding, and gay or cheerful.13S The
images he uses for Phaedria embody these meanings.
She is certainly one of the loudest creatures in the

Faerie Queene: she calls loudly and laughs loudly

 

(II-3:11.15), and
Sometimes she song, as lowd as larke in ayre,
Sometimes she laught, that nigh her breth was
gone (II.vi.3).
Her laughter sounds throughout the sixth canto (see,
6.8., stanzas 21-23), but perhaps etymology did its
greatest service in suggesting this beautiful descrip-
tion of the island to which Phaedria takes Guyon:
The fields did laugh, the flowres did freshly
spring,
The trees did bud, and early blossomes bore,
And all the quire of birds did sweetly sing,
And told that gardins pleasures in their
caroling (II.vi.2h).
Here we have much of the definition of fatdfo’s in
the form of images.

Phaedria's boat glides "more swift then swallow
shares the liquid skye" (II.vi.5), and she herself
sings "more sweete then any bird on bough"(II.vi.25).
Even her boat ties in with the etymology of her name.

Spenser calls it a "little frigot" (II.vi.7) and a

 

135Crespin, s.v. aLJPo’S : "0181“118 . . . (1111
est lasts fronte, aIacer . . . splendidus. . . ." s.v.
faLJwaS 9 "hilaritar. o e .N‘

87

"small gondelay" (II.vi.ll), both of which unusual
nouns come from Italian verbs meaning to laugh.136
All of this emphasis on laughter could have made of
Phaedria a rather silly female, but the portrait is
saved from being ludicrous because Spenser utilizes
the full imagistic potential of the etymology of the
name. The bird imagery suggested by "swift" and
"well-sounding," the song imagery suggested by the
latter, and even the hyperbole of the "loud" images--
all give Phaedria a certain substance and thus make
resistance to her charms more difficult and temperance
thereby a more admirable virtue.

Canto vii interrupts the testing of Guyon by
Acrasia and these agents of intemperance clustering
around her and introduces him to the temptations of

avarice and ambition. Spenser's descriptions of

 

136Craig, p. 53: "Spenser seems to be etymolo-
gizing them, 'gondola' to the Italian verb 'gongolare'
'to laugh till one's heart be sore or shoulders ache,
to chuckle and be full of joy or excessive gladness,‘
'frigot' to 'frigotare' 'to chuckle, to shrug or strut
for overjoy.'" Craig's point is that Spenser uses one
foreign word to explain another; it is further evi-
dent that in this case he used both to correspond to
the etymology of the name of the character with whom
they are associated.

Spenser uses the word "frigot" again in his de-
scription of Guyon and the Palmer's row boat (II.xii.
10). The etymology of this word may explain the odd
shift in imagery there from turbulent and threatening
waters to lightly dancing bubbles; and Spenser's
choice of the word probably was the result of his plan
to bring Phaedria into the picture soon again.

 

 

 

i.

 

.13 '

_,.

88

MAMMON are what one would expect because of the asso-
ciation between riches and Hell (his eyes are bleared,
beard sooty, hands and face blackened as if they had
been burned) and because of the obvious need to sur-
round his figure with gold. One room to which Mammon
takes Guyon has been shown to be modelled after the
Guildhall,137 an obvious connection with.Mammon as
riches. But even with so conventional a figure Spen-
ser's habit of etymologizing was operant: from Mammon
he went to mamma, breast,138 and from this word to
Mammon's boast,

. . . of my plenty [I] poure out unto all,

And unto none my graces do envye:

Riches, renowme, and principality,

Honour, estate, and all this worldes good,

For which men swinck and sweat incessantly,

Fro me do flow into an ample flood,

And in the hollow earth have their eternall

brood (II.vii.8).

Thus the "ample flood" which issues from Mammon does
not nourish, as Guyon suggests it should (he accuses
Mammon of hiding the gold "from the worldes eye, and
from her right usaunce" (II.vii.7). but rather is
wasted on "the hollow earth," the only "brood" which

Mammon has. Mammon's name thus contains the image of

a lactating mother who fails to nurse her offspring,

 

137Frederick Hard, "Princelie Pallaces," Sewanee
Review, XLII (l93h), 307-308.

138Cooper, s.v. mamma, "A dugge or pappe. . . ."3
s.v. mammo, "To geue the pappe or dugge."

 

 

J
‘

 

 

89
and the name therefore is a highly condensed metaphor
for wastefulness. The image of a liquid which fails
to perform its proper function adds some variety to
Spenser's treatment of avarice. He is obviously using
the same imagery in Guyon's observation that men can
learn to despise "such superfluities" (II.vii.15).139
The imagery of these stanzas is impressive in its
tightness: name and images suggest fertility and
liquids, with the result that the reader understands
Mammon not simply as riches but also as the evil which
is inherent in wealth, for it causes a perversion of
the natural order.

Mammon takes Guyon to Hell to show him its
treasures. At the entrance to the room of Ambition,
they meet its keeper, DISDAYNE. Obviously Spenser was
thinking of the English word and its French sourcelhO
when he began the following description:

”Disdayne he called was, and did disdayne
To be so cald, and who so did him call:

Sterne was his looke, and full of stomacke
vayne (II.vii.h1).

 

139Spenser, with his intensely visual orienta-
tion, always uses the word literally; in the same
stanza he goes on to speak of streams and waves. When
Mammon takes Guyon on a tour of Hell, he calls it "the
fountaine of the worldes good" (II.vii.38).

1"(ODictionarie French, 3:1. desdaigner,
"Desdaigner quelqu'vn, too disdayne, to dispise."
Baret, D710, "To contemne with disdayne: to abhorre:
to lothe: to haue in abhomination. . . . Reacter
quelque chose auec desdaing, desdaigner."

 

90
But as he continues one senses the use of a second
etymology:

His portaunce terrible, and stature tall,

Far passing th' hight of men terrestriall,

Like an huge gyant of the Titans race (II.vii.h1)
for two Greek words would have inspired him to change
Disdayne in mid-stanza from the familiar figure of
Romance to a giant. Aec vo’s meant terrible,1u1
and, even more significantly, (fecvo'co meant to raise
or elevate or in general to enlarge.1)4-2 Spenser may
even have been thinking of the pejorative civs as
the first syllable of the name, although Jewo’w
would have been sufficient for him to conceive of
Disdayne as a giant.

Presiding over the room Guyon enters is
PHILOTIME, "and fayre Philotime she rightly hight"
(II.vii.h9) for the name is appropriate not only alle-
gorically, but also etymologically in its connection
with "Mammon." Basically qJLXO'rL/u’a. means the love
of honor,1h3‘but when the quality is excessive, as

here, it is reprehensible.1uh Another meaning of the

 

JJ41Estienne, I, 923, detvo’s, "Terribilis,
Horribilis, Formidabilis. . . ."

lI‘LZCrespin, s.v. decvow , "exaggero";
EStienne, II, 925, BELVOU , "a e o Amplificoon

l1‘3Crespin, s.v. fickorL/M/a- 9 ". . . honoris
amor, honoris studim honorum appetitus, splendoris
& gloriae cupiditas. . . ."

luhHankins, pp, h13-1h, suggests that Spenser

91
word is ostentation,1h5 and this makes Philotime the
logical daughter for Mammon (riches). This sense of
her name, ostentation, also controls much of the im-
agery of this episode: the pillars of the room are
decorated with crowns (II.vii.h3); Philotime is
cladd in robes of royaltye,
That never earthly prince in such aray
His glory did enhaunce and pompous pryde
display (II.vii.hh)
and
her broad beauties beam great brightnes
threw
Through the dim shade, that all men might it
see (II.vii.h5).
Here is the public display which is as much a part of
the name Philotime as "love of honor" is. Philotime
holds a golden chain which Spenser labels Ambition,
maintaining the "love of honor" theme but also re-
leasing another etymologically inspired image. "Ambi-
tion" he would have traced to the Latin ambio, "To
compasse: to goe about. . . ."1u6‘and hence
all that preace did rownd about her
[Philotime] swell,
To catchen hold of that long chaine, thereby

To climbe aloft, and others to excell:
That was Ambition. . . . (II.vii.h6)

 

may have been influenced by Aquinas in this conception
of the love of honor.

lltSCrespin, s __.__v. (PLXOTL/ua, "Item magnifi-
centia, liberalitas & largitio, munificentia, sumptus,
erogatio publice facta. . . ."

1&6

C00per, s.v. ambio.

92
Regardless of the exact method by which each one hoped
to rise, "all by wrong waies for themselves prepard"
(II.vii.h7). Which is perfectly natural since for‘
Spenser ambition was a "going about." The multiple
etymologies for Philotime and Ambition led Spenser to
the imagery which would clarify his allegory.

Guyon's further adventures take him through the
Garden of Proserpine and finally back to his own world,
where he is threatened once again by Cymochles and
Pyrochles, and saved by Prince Arthur. Arthur's sword
is here named Morddure or Mordure, "rightfully," says
Spenser, since it would neither break nor bend (II.
viii.21). The allusion is to the French £2335, "to
harden, to continue, to last long,"1h7 and ultimately
to the Latin $332; and to support this name Spenser
invents a suitable myth (II.viii.20). When Cymochles
attempts to use Morddure, the sword "would not his
owner byte" (II.viii.38); and even when it pierces
Arthur's mail, Morddure "bit no more" (II.viii.hh).

In this case a traditionally magical property of ro-
mance swords probably suggested the nomenclature. The
evolution of the scene was undoubtedly from image to
etymon, Spenser using the Italian or French, and again

ultimately Latin, verb mordere or mordrelbt8 to maintain

 

1’47Dictionarie French, s.v. durer.

 

luaFlorio, p. 232, s.v. mordere, "to bite. . . .";
Dictionarie French, s.v. mordre, "to byte. . . ."

 

93
consistency between name and image.

Arthur and Guyon proceed to the House of Tem-
perance, where they are entertained by ALMA. Ob-
viously the Italian 21mg, soulful9 is the source of
the name; but the word would have attracted Spen-
ser's attention for a second and perhaps equally
important reason. I have discussed above the appro-
priateness of the physiological metaphor for an alle-
gory of temperance--Guyon's name itself demanded as
much. Spenser's choice of "Alma" for the soul is
equally appropriate since the soul nourishes the body
and makes it beautiful--cf. Latin glmu§.lso Con-

sidering the length of the Faerie Queene, there is

 

relatively little mention of food; two such refer-
ences are associated with Alma, who
to her guestes doth bounteous banket dight,
Attempred goodly well for health and for de-
light (II.xi.2).
And after a battle Alma meets Arthur

With balme and wine and costly spicery,
To comfort him in his infirmity (II.xi.u9).

Such emphasis on Alma's nourishment was probably sug-

gested by etymology.

 

lthlorio, p. 1h, s.v. alma, "the souls of man."

150Cooper, gLv. almus, "That norisheth; fayre;
beautifull." Several critics have proposed sources
for the allegorg of the House of Temperance. See
Variorum, II, 2 5ff. Lowes, Variorum, II, 286, thinks
Gower's Mirour de L'Omme may have suggested the name
Alma.

 

 

 

O
a
o u
C
a
l
.. '
g
I
m
- --
o o
o
....
u
y
—.
O Q O
O O I
O
I f 0 U ‘ Q I
p . . e
O
C
‘ ' O O a
O

 

 

Mun—”r

 

9h

Arthur has just defeated MALEGER, the leader of
the siege against Alma's castle. The name surely was
taken from §_e_g_e_r, sick,151 with the addition of 139;,
which Spenser often used either to intensify or negate
what follows; in this case the adverb is intensive:
very or badly diseased. Osgood suggests that such an
interpretation of the name corresponds to the many
images of death in the descriptions of Maleger.152
Beyond a doubt Spenser coined the name in order to
demonstrate that "physical weakness undermines mo-
rale."153 In addition, the name thus arrived at in
turn produced a further association, one which any
classicist would have felt: that of Maleger and
Meleager. Spenser's interest in the Hercules legend
is well known; he does, in fact, borrow from the
Antaeus episode the miraculous recovery of Maleger
each time he falls to the earth (II.xi.35, 38, h2).
In the twelfth labor Hercules descended to Tartarus,
where he saw the ghost of Meleager. In Spenser's asso-

ciation of Meleager and Tartarus we can see the

 

lSlCooper, Eslfi aeger, "Sicke. . . ."; vale-
tudine aeger, "Diseased. Child was the first to pro-
pose this etymology; Osgood's support is conclusive.
See Variorum, II, 3M3.

15zCharles G. Osgood, "Comments on the Moral
Allegory of the Faerie Queens," MLN, XLVI (1931),
506. See also Nelson, p. I97.

153Osgood, p. 505. Thus Maleger~ provokes his
men "the breaches to assay."

9S

inspiration for the comparison of Maleger and a Tartar
(II.xi.26). Indeed, such an association may have con-
tributed to Spenser's decision to portray Maleger as a
ghost (II.xi.20) and to give him a helmet "made of a
dead mans skull, that seemd a ghastly sight" (II.xi.22).

Sound is always a powerful stimulus for Spenser;
it is the basis of his etymologizing, often to the most
unlikely sources. If he formed the name Maleger from
the Latin ggggr, might he not have selected a beast for
Maleger to ride from a rhyming association: 32523 with
tiger? Allegorically many wild animals would have been
appropriate, but etymologically only one.

CHAPTER III: BOOK III

Spenser undoubtedly derived the name of BRITOMART,
the titular heroine of the third book, from the Cretan
goddess Britomartis. In the legend, Britomartis fled
from Minos, who loved her, and managed to escape only
by leaping into the see, where she was rescued by fish-
ermen. Spenser used this sequence of events for an-
other character, and in reversing it for Britomart, who
pursues Artegall, would seemto be etymologizing by
contraries.15u At the same time, he saw in the name a
direct etymological link with "martial Britoness," per-

haps suggested by the equation of Britomartis and

 

151‘Thomas P. Roche, Jr., The Kindl Flame
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, I96H), p. 5h,
finds in Virgil's Ciris the source of the name;
Spenser "transferred the name of the chaste daughter
to the passionate foster-child of Carme. Britomart
then has the name of a dedicated virgin and the pas-
sion of a love-sick maiden. . . ." He relates, p. 56,
the "ambiguity of her name" to the "theme of discordia
concors" which dominates the third book. John E.
Hankins, "The Sources of Spenser's Britomart," MLN,
LVIII (l9h3), 609, sees no such ambiguity; he EItes
the "obscure" etymology of the name Britomartis in
Solinus' Collectanea: ". . . quod sermone nostro
sonat virginem dulcem" (which in our language means
sweet virgin). Bough, p. 169, adds that the mytho-
logical Britomartis was sometimes equated with Diana,
whom she served, and that "a lingering suggestion of
the goddess Diana survives through her name and be-
comes a part of her character."

96

 

 

 

l.

97
Britona in dictionaries he is presumed to have known.155
Britomart figures prominently in Books III, IV,
and V, and Spenser therefore had to devote to her a
great deal of descriptive material. His task was made
easier because of the peculiar turn of his mind which
led him to view names etymologically, and from more
than one starting point. The second starting point for
Britomart was located in the first syllable of her name:
brit, which Spenser would have associated with the Mid-
dle English E£lQ9 bird, with which he was obviously
familiar. Bird imagery frequently figures in the de-
scriptions of Britomart. When, for example, she is
easily duped by Malecasta, Spenser comments,
The bird, that knowes not the false fowlers call,
Into his hidden nett full easely doth
fall (III.i.Sh).
But Britomart manages to avoid the advances of Male-
casta for a time, and she undresses and goes to bed--
or, as Spenser puts it,
she gan her selfe despoile,
And safe committ to her soft fathered
nest (III.i.58).
When Britomart later discovers Malecasta.in this

nest, she and Redcross battle it out with Malecasta's

men and go on their way. In the course of their

 

155De Witt T. Starnes and Ernest William Talbert,
Classical M th and Legend in Renaissance Dictionariesfi
(CEapeI Hill: University of;North Carolina Press,
1955). P. 87. See also Nelson, p. lhl.

 

 

 

 

 

C
9 b
.
e
.
o
O
.
my
I —. '
’1
. .
.. .
n o o
. -
x
O
0
1
O Q Q
—
—. . . .
o u
a
O O O
i
a
'
a
" I
n
O 0 ' g ' ,

 

 

 

 

98
conversation Redcross asks

what uncouth wind
Brought her into those partes (III.i.h).

Spenser gives the history of her love for Artegall,
and once again he uses bird imagery. After Britomart
had seen Artegall in a magic mirror, she suffered the
agonies of love:

Thenceforth the father in her lofty crest, '
Ruffed of love, gan lowly to avails (III.ii.27),156

and "sleeps full far away from her did fly" (III.ii.
28); one night, suffering again from insomnia, she
leaped "out of her loathed nest" (III.ii.30). One
might assume that the image of Britomart's crest was a
conventional one for any warrior, but Spenser rarely
uses it elsewhere in the Faerie Queene, and coupled as
it is with the insistent bird images, it seems fair to
conclude that the crest has the same origin. The de-
tail is as much a part of Spenser's descriptions of
Britomart as the crest is of the descriptions of cer-
tain birds. He calls her "that warrioresse with
haughty crest" (V.vii.27), and compares her flowing
hair with the night sky in summer which "is creasted
all with lines of firie light" (IV.i.13)157

 

156NED defines "ruff," "or a bird: To ruffle
(the feathers)."

157Jortin, Variorum, IE, 16?, considers this a
reference to the Aurora Borealis; Upton, Variorum, IV,
166, feels it alludes to "the 'hairy beamesl which .

. . meteors flung out. . . ." The latter contends

 

 

 

 

 

 

99
Thus far the ornithological element in Brito-
mart's name has yielded images of a nest, a propelling
wind, flight, and crests. To complete the picture, i
the Renaissance bridwatcher mentions wings: when
Artegall is detained by Radigund, Britomart
to a window came, that opened west
And sent her winged th8ughts: more swift then wind,
To beare unto her love the message of her
mind (V.vi.7). -
Throughout her adventures, Britomart is "as trew in
love as turtle to her make" (III.xi.2).158 The simile
is highly conventional of course, but it is signifi-
cant that of the large stock from which Spenser could
draw he selected this comparison. One or two bird
images could well be adventitious; the large number
associated with Britomart, however, are no accident
but rather betray a secondary etymology Spenser saw
in her name.

Britomart is known as the "Knight of the Hebene

Spears" (IV.v.8). Since his contemporaries spelled

 

that "creasted" comes from cristatus, tufted, plumed.
Although I would say that Jortin is obviously right,
the word "creasted" can nonetheless be explained as
an image suggested by the name Britomart itself.

158When Britomart visits the House of Busirane,
she sees hangings which depict Jove in his various
disguises. Perhaps Spenser conceived of this device
not only allegorically but also etymologically since
he stresses the Leda story ("the proud bird, ruffing
his fathers: wyde/ And brushing his fairs brest, did
her invade" III.xi.32).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

100
ebony with or without the "h" interchangeably, Spen-
ser's preference for the form "hebene" might indicate
some linguistic preoccupation crucial to the allegory.
When, in the episode in the Garden of Proserpina
Spenser speaks of the "heben sad," (II.vii.52), he is
probably alluding to the blackness of the wood and
perhaps also to the fact that the ebony tree was said
to lack both leaves and fruit.159 But surely he does
not intend the reader to associate sterility or death
with Britomart, for she is to be the founder of Eliza-
beth's family. We must therefore look for a further
symbolic meaning of the "hebene" spear. His intention
becomes apparent when we realize that "heben" was a
variant spelling of "heaven,"160 and thus Britomart's
spear is a heavenly one. This can be interpreted in
two ways, either of which advances the moral allegory;
chastity establishes God's will; God aids the cause
of those who are chaste. 0n the level of political
allegory, either interpretation is a compliment to the
virgin queen. Since Spenser thought of Britomart as a
bird, and the realm of birds is the heavens, he may
have conceived of a heavenly spear as the most fitting

weapon, linguistically and allegorically, for his

 

159Cooper, s.v. hebenus, "A tree wherof the
wodde is blacks as Iette wItHin, and beareth nor
leaues nor fruite."

160NED, s.v. heaven.

101
knight of chastity.

Britomart's first major antagonist is MALECASTA,
and her men. Spenser chose the name because of its
basic meaning of unchastity,161 appropriate for his
"Lady of Delight." Having selected an allegorically
apposite name from Latin, however, Spenser would have
noticed its English meanings as well. "Cast" meant
then, as it does now, "to cast an eye, glance, look.
. . ."162 Spenser could easily have thought of the
name, then, at second glance, as a portmanteau word
combining the Latin malus, wicked or lewd, and the
English cast: to give lewd glances.163' He does in-
deed describe Malecasta in just these terms:

She seemd a woman of great bountihed

And of rare beautie, saving that askaunce
Her wanton eyes, ill signes of womanhed,
Did roll too lightly, and too often glaunce,
Without regard of grace or comely

amenaunce (III.i.hl).

Malecasta's "wanton eyes" here, and her "false eies"

 

161Male connotes evil in Italian and goes back
to the Latin malus (see COOper, s.v. malus, "Ill:
naught: wicked: lewde: not goEd?’ not Eoneste.").
-casta is from the Latin castus: Cooper, s.v. castus,
"Chaste: pure: honest: continent: undefIIed Igigl,
uncorrupted."

162NED, s.v. cast.

163Roche, Kindl , p. 68, does not notice the
"cast" in Malecasta's name, but he does recognize the
fact that Spenser is describing "lust of the eyes" or
"skeptOphilia" in III.i.h1. He further notes, p. 71,
that "Castle Joyous as the ordinary social world is
deliberately set up to trap the eye. . . ."

102
(III.i.50) are a transcription into imagery of her
name. In addition, the verb "cast" also meant "to
form (metal, or the like) into a shape, by pouring it
when melted or soft into a mould. . . ."164 so that
the name might also have suggested "wicked pouring."
Spenser uses images indicating such an etymology:

. . . she was given all to fleshly lust,
And poured forth in sensuall delight (III.i.h8) '

and again, at Malecasta's banquet, whose excess betrays
its evil,
fruitfull Ceres and Lyaeus fatt
Pourd out their plenty, without spight or spare:
Nought wanted there that dainty was and rare;
And aye the cups their bancks did overflow,
And aye, betweene the cups, she did prepare
Way to her love, and secret darts did
throw (III.i.51).
The last stanza shows Spenser richly combining the
"wicked pouring" with "wicked looking" to clarify, in
etymologically suggested imagery, the allegory.
The second and third cantos are largely given
over to descriptions of Britomart's passion, which I
have discussed above; and of the eventual union of
Britomart and Artegall and "the famous progeny, which
from them springen shall." Much of the fourth canto
is devoted to an account of the whereabouts of several
of the characters. In establishing this, Spenser in-

troduces DONY, a dwarf. Dony is one of those char-

acters who make brief appearances in the poem.

 

léhNED, s.v. cast.

103
Spenser uses him to forward the plot rather than to
develop it. Needing a character who would race onto
the scene and then race out again, he probably thought
of Jove-{co , to move hastily, and thus of the name
Dony.165 When Arthur meets Dony, the drawf "traveiled
so fast" that he was "panting for breath" (III.v.3-h);
and again, Artegall meets him
in hasty course;

Whom he requir'd his forward hast to stay,

Till he of tidings mote with him discourse.

Loth was the dwarfs, yet did he stay

perforse (V.ii.2).

He stays to act as messenger, but disappears from the
scene when he has performed this function. Thus Spen-
ser's name choice here need not be allegorically ap-
propriate; but it is etymologically appropriate since
it fits imagery so exactly. Spenser seems to be amus-
ing himself in giving a name at all to a rather unim-
portant character, but an inveterate etymologizer
would not miss such an opportunity.

The fifth canto resumes the action. TIMIAS,

Arthur's squire, has been pursuing a forester who had

 

léSEstienne, I, thO, Joves) , "Agito." None
of the theories advanced to account for the name
really contributes to our understanding of the char-
acter's function. Upton, Variorum, V, 169, calls it
a contraction of Adonio; Draper, p. 99. notes that a
moral philosopher was named Doni but assumes that
Spenser simply chose a pleasant-sounding name; and
Roland Smith, "Irish Names in the Faerie_gueene," MLN,
LXI (l9h6), 35, says Dony was an Irish nickname for
Donogh, Donall, and Dunadhach.

 

 

 

10h
been threatening Florimell; now the forester enlists
the aid of his two brothers to attack Timias. The ex-
periences of Timias in the course of this combat, and
of a later one with Despetto, Decetto, and Defetto, of
his relationship with Belphoebe, with Duessa, with
Amoret, with Mirabella--all lead one to question the
generally accepted etymology of the name Timias:
TW;M(<J$ , honored, valued, or esteemed.166 If one
does accept such a derivation, one must admit to a
large degree of irony in the name, for it would be
rather difficult in a tale of knighthood to value a
squire who is so frequently inept. It seems to me
that Spenser would have done one of two things:
either he would have thought of the name as an ap-
propriate one for someone associated with Arthur and
then have realized further etymological possibilities,
or he would have from the first thought of a unique
name which embodied certain ideas he was interested in
developing through the use of a squire. Regardless of
exact genesis, though, the name he chose seems to have

been meant as a combination of two Greek words, the

 

166See, a. g., Draper, p. th. Allan H. Gilbert,
"Belphoebe's Misdeeming of Timias," PMLA, LXII (19h7),
638, who is primarily concerned with topical allusions,
agrees that the Greek meaning "valued (dear in the
sense of high-priced only), or honored. . . ." is
implied, but feels that it "was not as vised for Ralegh.
. ." He points out, p. 638n, that Timias is dear to

Arthur, citing I. vii. 37, I. viii. 15, IV.vii.h3, VI.v. 23.

 

105
indefinite pronoun Tc , something; and fuels , a
pollution, dyeing, stain, defilsment.167 Timias is
indeed "something of a defilement." Each episode in
which he takes part, even those in which he is osten-
sibly the victor, shows him dyed, stained, defiled.
Although he manages, with difficulty, to defeat the
three foresters, he is seriously wounded in the thigh.
Allegorically he has been corrupted by lust, for he
has been wounded by the forester who represents this
quality. Etymologically he ii that corruption, as the
imagery used in this episode demonstrates:
. . . of that cruell wound he bled so sore,
That from his steed he fell in deadly swowne;
Yet still the blood forth gusht in so great
store,
That he lay wallowd all in his owne
gore (III.v.26).

If this were an isolated case of the "staining"
of Timias, it would be no more than the usual hyper-
bole of Spenser's battle scenes; but it is followed
by scene after scene which employs the same imagery.
Belphoebe comes across Timias "with blood deformed,"

His locks, like faded leaves fallen to grownd,
Knotted with blood in bounches rudely ran;

And his sweete lips, on which before that stownd
The bud of youth to blossoms fairs began,

Spoild of their rosy red, were woxen pale and

wan (III.v.29).
Timias responds to the ministrations of Belphoebe by

 

167Crespin, s.v./Leeds ,. &/¢/a.a-/.¢a,n. . .
impuritas . . . impiamentum. . . ."

 

 

 

 

   

106
calling himself a "sinfull wight" (III.v.3S), a state-
ment which shows that he knows his own nature. Spen-
ser does not think of Timias as an "honored" person
but rather as an ordinary, sinful, defiled, postlap-
sarian creature. It seems that he cannot repeat often
enough that Timias is a "goodly boy, with blood / De-
fowlsd" (III.v.38), and it is no figure of speech that
Timias utters when he regards Belphoebe as heavenly
grace (III.v.BS). She and her hunting companions take
Timias to a place in the forest which is so beautiful
and peaceful that Spenser calls it "an earthly para-
dize" (III.v.38). Timias rightfully feels unworthy of
Belphoebe, but he cannot restrain the love he feels for
her; in a mood of abject guilt he accuses himself of
desiring
with villsinous despight
To blott her honour and her heavenly
light (III.v.hS).
The imagery is consistently drawn from the defilement
in the squire's name. But the beautiful lyric of which
the last quotation is a part uses the image even more
freely and cleverly than anything that has gone before.
The refrain of the three stanzas is, "Dye rather, dye"
(III.v.h5vh7). As the idea is worked out, we find not
only the usual Elizabethan pun on "die" but also a
third.meaning is brought in since we think of Timias as
"a dyeing." The lyric thus achieves a real intensity
by bringing all Timias' problems together with great

 

 

 

'5

.
k . .. .
i ‘ t
[a -

L
e o
v e

 

 

107
economy.

This scene, which discloses the true nature of
Timias, clarifies in retrospect an earlier episode.
When Arthur was fighting Orgoglio, Timias attempted
to aid him by taking on Duessa's seven-headed beast,
and "with his body bard the way atwixt them twaine"
(I.viii.13). But his body is particularly vulnerable;
it is the defilement of an otherwise good man. Duessa
has but to sprinkle a magic liquid

on his weaker partes;
[and] therewith his sturdie corage soone was
quayd (I.viii.1h).
He is an easy prey to the beast, and once again it is
God's grace (this time Arthur) which saves him from
death.

Timias is always well-meaning but he cannot ac-
complish his lofty aims because he suffers the taint
of guilt. When he has been separated from Belphoebe
he goes to the aid of Amoret, who has just been recap-
tured by Lust; yet the blows Timias aims at Lust fall
on.Amoret (IV.vii.26), and when Timias finally does
wound Lust,

A streams of coleblacke bloud thence gust amaine,
That all her silken garments did with bloud
bestaine (IV.vii.27).
Amoret has been stained by not only her contact with
Lust but also her rescue by Timias. The point is em-

phasized in the later scene where Timias is comforting

Amoret,

108
Who lay the whiles in swoune, full sadly set,
From her fairs eyes wiping the deawy wet,
Which softly stild, and kissing them atweene,
And handling soft the hurts which she did get:
For of that carle [Lust] she sorely bruz'd had
beens,
Als of his [Timias'] owne rash hand one wound was
to be seene (IV.vii.35).
Once again it is Belphoebe who must kill the antagonist,
since once again Timias is unable to do so.

The episode of Belphoebe coming upon Timias with
his "new lovely mate," and his subsequent exile, are
generally thought to be an allusion to Raleigh's affair
with a maid of Queen Elizabeth's court; if this is
historical allegory, Spenser could not have chosen a
better name for Raleigh, for the picture he paints is
of a man defiled and deformed by his guilt, his lauds .
Timias let "his fairs lockes"

grow and griesly to concrew,
Uncomb'd, uncurl'd, and carslesly unshed;
That in short time his face they overgrew,
And over all his shoulders did dispred,
That who he whilome was, uneath was to be
red (IV.vii.h0).
He is so pale that Arthur does not recognize the
"pined ghost" (IV.vii.hl, h3); and Belphoebe does not
guess the identity of Timias "with heary glib de-
form'd" (IV.viii.12). The fact that the name Timias
is not mentioned in this episode has led Gilbert to
postulate two stages in the creation of Timias, the

first using him as a squire of romance and the second

as a figure in the historical allegory. The name, he

 

 

   

109
reasons, "was not devised for Ralegh. . . ."168 Since
this hypothesis is based on an etymology of reams
rather than of Th/acas , however, and since fl-yutc‘zs
does indeed control the imagery of this episode, I
would question Gilbert's conclusion. It is quite pos-
sible that Spenser was thinking of Raleigh's "defile-
ment" before the creation of the Belphoebe episode;
it is certain, if the episode is an allusion to
Raleigh's difficulties, that Spenser made Timias the
central figure because he found in the etymology of
the squire's name the very quality about which he
wished to speak.

I have suggested that the "defilement" of Timias
is his own sinful nature, and though Spenser may have
been defending Raleigh in his estrangement from the
queen he nonetheless clearly sides with Belphoebe in
her disappointment at Timias' infidelity. Spenser was
a man of large sensibility and it was perfectly pos-
sible for him to at once criticize a man's foibles and
criticize his detractors. He abhorrsd the Blatant
Beast, but in releasing him Spenser was stating alle-

gorically that slander will exist as long as man is

 

168Gilbert, "Belphoebe's," pp. 637-38. Gilbert
points out that Timias is called by name in the ear-
1ier episode with the forester; "yet in his rescue by
Belphoebe, his love, his offence, and his reconcilia-
tion, he is either Boy or Squire, but not Timias."

 

 

   

 

llO
corrupted. The "defilement" of Timias thus becomes
both the nature of the man himself and the nature of
the world around him. This is best illustrated in
Timias' encounter with Despetto, Decetto, Defetto, and
the Blatant Beast. The very names of the three broth-
ers who attack him are illustrative of Timias' "de-
filement." DESPETTO is clearly the Italian despitto,
"despight, spite. Also despised, or contemned" and
DEFETTO the Italian defetto or difetto, "a defect, a
fault, an error, a want, an offence, a blame."169
Timias tries, as usual, to defeat his foes, but he is
not the chivalric hero who subdues large numbers of
antagonists; he is only Timias, and therefore Prince
Arthur must rescue him (VI.v.22). But the result of
the encounter for Timias is a severe wound, and "fee-
blsnesse, which all his limbes oppressed has" (VI.v.
31). The "sharps disease" (VI.v.32) which afflicts
Timias is thus the stain within him which attracts
further defilement.

Spenser completes his picture of this embodiment
of [Lb&$ in Timias' abortive rescue of Mirabella.
Disdaine and Scorns solabuse this lady that "his gentle
heart with indignation sweld" and we hOpe that Timias
will be successful in his attempt to free her. But of

 

7

169Florio, p. 99, s.v. despitto; p. 101, s.v.
difetto.

F

 

 

 

 

lll
course given his nature this is not to happen: just
as he is about to capture Scorn, "his foote slipt"
(VI.vii.h8). Scorne leads him by a rope, whips him,
and heaps abuse on him. Again Spenser provides
Arthur, for only God's grace can save corrupted man.
The reaction of Timias at this juncture emphasizes his
own sense of guilt:
The squire him selfe, when as he saw his lord,
The witnesse of his wretchednesse, in place,
Was much asham'd, that with an hempen cord
He like a dog was led in captive case,
And did his head for bashfulnesse abase,
As loth to see, or to be scene at all:
Shame would be hid (VI.viii.5).
In every episode involving Timias Spenser portrays a
man both sinned against and sinning; his choice of
name and the overwhelming congruence of images based
on defilement suggest that this man is sinned against
because sinning. The presence of Timias in four of
the six books of the Faerie Queene thus provides a
moral backdrOp to much of the action of the poem.
Spenser characteristically develops the moral
allegory through contrast. The contrast to the de-
filement of Timias is found in BELPHOEBE. In the letn
ter to Raleigh Spenser states that Belphoebe is one of
the characters representing Queen Elizabeth:
For considering she beareth two persons, the
one of a most royal queene or empresse, the
other of a most vertuous and beautiful lady,

this latter part in some places I doe expresse
in Belphoebe, fashioning her name according

112
to your owne excellent conceipt of Cynthia,
(Phaebe and Cynthia being both names of
Diana.)
Belphoebe first appears in the poem "clad in hunters
weed" (II.iii.21),
And in her hand a sharp bore-spears she held,
And at her backs a bow and quiver gay,
Stuft with steels-headed dartes, wherewith she
queld
The salvage beastes in her victorious
play (II.iii.29).
It is not necessary to document Spenser's debt to
classical mythology in his creation of this character,
for the subject has been treated at length by others.
The relationship between Belphoebe and Diana, however,
cannot be regarded as a simple equation. There is
much in each character which we do not find in the
other. One critic suggests that Spenser was blending
in Belphoebe the traits of two goddesses, Venus and
Diana. She shows that there was an established prece-
dent for such blending, and that the arrows of Diana
and of Cupid furnished an image with which writers
could emphasize the relationship. Spenser seems to
have used the "Venus-Diana exchanges" in the episode
in which Belphoebe pursues a wounded beast and finds

instead the wounded Timias (III.v.28-29).170

This episode is of particular interest as an

 

17oKathleen Williams, "Venus and Diana: Some
Uses of Myth in The Faerie Queens," ELH, XXVIII
(1961). 109.

 

 

 

 

   

113

example of Spenser's etymologizing. First Spenser
says, "Belphoebe was her name, as fairs as Phaebus
sunne" (III.v.27). a literal interpretation of bel-
Phoebe. Next, "that lady bright . . . with melting
eies did vew” the wounded Timias (III.v.30), and here
he draws on 9702(403 2 bright,l71 and associates the
sun with eyes. In the second book Spenser had devoted
most of a stanza to the same particulars:

In her fairs eyes two living lamps did flame,

Kindled above at th' Hevenly Makers light,

And darted fyrie beames out of the same,

So passing persant, and so wondrous bright,

That quite bereav'd the rash beholders sight;
The brightness of her eyes, furthermore, is undefiled
by lust:

In them the blinded god his lustfull fyre

To kindle oft assayd, but had no might;

For with dredd majestis and awfull yre

She broke his wanton darts, and quenched bace

desyre (110111.23).

Crespin defines ¢ozleos not only as "bright," but also
as "pure and undefiled."172 In describing the birth of
Belphoebe Spenser says,

Her berth was of the wombe of morning dew,

And her conception of the joyous prime,

And all her whole creation did her shew

Pure and unspotted from all loathly

crime (III.vi.3).

The phrase "pure and unspotted" is clearly a translation

 

171Crespin. s.v. (p02’eos . "lucidus. . - 0"

172Ibid., (potpos , "lucidus, purus 8c
impollutus. . . ."

11h

of purus & impollutus. As I have shown, Timias is the

 

most appropriate person to be healed by a woman of un-
defiled beauty.

The dialogue between Timias and Belphoebe after
she has dressed his wounds shows the extent of Spen-
ser's debt to etymology for imagery:

What service may I doe unto thee meets,

That hast from darkenes me returnd to light,

And with thy hevenly selves and med'cines sweete

Hast drest my sinfull wounds?

Thereat she blushing said: 'Ahl gentle squire,

Nor goddesse I, nor angell, but the mayd

And daughter of a woody nymphs, desire

No service but thy safety and ayd'(III.v.35-36).
Let us examine the major images in these stanzas.
Timias is returned from darkness to light, a reference
not only to death and life but also to death and Bel-
phoebe, whose name means light. She dresses his "sin-
full wounds" using the juice of herbs to cleanse them
(III.v.32-33), perhaps an allusion to the verb
¢o¢f3a’u , cleanss,l73 with which Spenser would have
associated the name Belphoebe. Spenser develops a
pleasant little irony in the fact that the "better
salves" with which Belphoebe cures Timias only lead to
a new wound, love (III.v.hl). But to return to the
stanza under discussion, Belphoebe's answer that she

desires the "safety and ayd" of Timias takes us to

¢a’os , a word used metaphorically for aid and

 

173Crespin, s.v. ¢oclaafw, "purge."

 

 

 

   

 

 

115
safety.l7u In short, although Spenser draws on the
figure of Diana for his basic conception of Belphoebe,
he finds the images to be used in her description in
the complex etymology of her name.

Spenser uses the myth of Danae in the story of
Belphoebe and Amoret's birth. Their mother is
CHRYSOGONEE, a name chosen in allusion to the golden
shower of Zeus. Spenser's knowledge of the myth is
evident in his later description of one of the scenes
depicted in the House of Busirane (III.xi.3l).l75 His
choice of the name is an interesting example of imagery
determining etymon. Yet even here the process is not
as simple as it might seem. From myth-image Spenser
went to etymology, and from etymology again to image.
Chrysogonee is the daughter of Amphisa, "yborne of
high degree" (III.vi.h). The latter phrase is prob-
ably another reference to golden birth, and Spenser's
name for the mother seems to allude to the same fact.
He undoubtedly knew the story of another Chrysogonee
in Theocritus; there he would have found mention of

an "offering of a chaste woman, to wit of Chrysogone,

 

171+cresp1n, s.v. ya’os , "Capitur 8: pro auxilio
& salute."

17SStarnes and Talbert, p. 85, demonstrate that
the actual details of this stanza were probably taken
from the dictionary of Charles Stephanus and from
Comss' Mythologiae.

 

116

in the house of Amphicles. . . ."176 I suspect that
this coupling of the name Amphicles with Chrysogonee
led Spenser to Amphisa. The change in name is char-
acteristic of the etymologizing in this stanza; as
Draper has pointed out, Spenser probably coined the
name from é/u. , both, and ¢u’¢ts , nature, because of
the "double nature" of this Faerie.177

The adventures of Sir Satyrane, whose name has
been discussed in Chapter II, lead him to an encounter
with the giantess Argante. But let us first consider
the name of Argante's twin, OLLYPHANT, for I feel that
Spenser probably first thought of the brother and then
provided him with a suitably named sister. Josephine
Bennett suggests that Spenser had earlier written a
continuation of Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas (where he
would have found mention of an Ollyphant) and had then
used it in the third book of the Faerie Queens.178

 

 

176The Greek Bucolic Poets, trans. J. M. Edmonds
(London: Heinemann, 1923), p.573.

177Variorum, III, 2h9. Draper does not mention
Amphicles, But I think that in that name Spenser found
one of those clues which so often inspired him.
Roche, Kindl , p. 106, feels that the names Chrysogonee
and Amphisa prove that "Spenser is insisting that this
miraculous birth is an analogue to the Incarnation"
and thus demonstrate "the true genealogy of Christian
virginity and marriage." I cannot agree with Roche,
for Belphoebe is a particularly insensitive virgin and
Amoret an utter failure as a wife. I shall discuss
the latter at length below.

178Pp. 18-20.

117

Whether or not this is the exact genesis of the Olly-
phant episodes in Spenser, he doubtless took the name
from Chaucer. But once he had the name, he developed
the character in his own way. The spelling is a com-
mon one in Spenser's time for "elephant," and we would
therefore expect Ollyphant to exhibit the character-
istics associated with elephants. Of these the most
frequently cited is their chastity.179 Yet Ollyphant
"surpassed his sex masculine,/ In beastly use" (III.
xi.h). Is this a case of etymologizing by contraries?
I think not. It is rather an instance of etymologizing
by misreading. Spenser would have found a description

of the elephant in Isidore's Etymologiae which in-

 

cluded this phrase: "Rostrum . . . promuscis dicitur.

 

. . ." (his snout is called promuscis).180 Promuscis,

 

 

a corruption of the classical word for an elephant's
trunk, proboscis, could easily have been misread

promiscus (promiscuous). The result would have been

 

the conception of Ollyphant which Spenser brought to

the Faerie Queene. Thus Ollyphant and his sister

 

Whiles in their mothers wombe enclosd they were,

 

179COOper, s.v. elsphas, "An Oliphant. . . . He
neuer toucheth agayne the femaile, that he hath ones
seasoned. . . ." The Book of Beasts, trans. T. H.
White (New York: Putnam's, l95h), pp. 2h, 28, states
that the elephant "has no desire to copulate" and that
"adultery is unknown to them."

 

180Isidore, p. A36.

llllll‘ll llllllll

 

 

 

 

118
Ere they into the lightsom world were brought,
In fleshly lust were mingled both
yfere (III.vii.h8).
And thus it is that Ollyphant fears not Satyrane but
Britomart,
the flowre of chastity;
For he the powre of chaste hands might not
bears (III.xi.6).
Spenser was indeed so convinced of the lasciviousness
of elephants, that he describes another character,
Lust, in this way:
. . . downe both sides two wide long eares did
glow,
And raught downe to his waste, when up he stood,
More great then th'eares of elephants by Indus
flood (IV.vii.6).
The next step in the creation of the Ollyphant
episode would have been the selection of an appropriate
sister for him since Spenser wished to show both male

and female sensuality. In the Etymologies Spenser

 

would have found a solution to this problem also. The
full sentence in Isidore reads, "Rostrum . . .

promuscis dicitur, quo ille pabulum.ori admovet, et

 

est angui similis, vallo munitis eburno"181 (His snout

is called promuscis, with which he brings food to his

 

mouth, and it is like a serpent, fortified with an
ivory defence). Once the connection between elephants

and serpents was established, it would have been

natural for Spenser to seek a name meaning serpent.

 

181lbid.

119
This he found in ARGANTE. A’royc‘ls is a species of
serpent, which is of a wild and savage nature.182
Spenser may indeed have thought of this snake-woman
as a lamia. Consider, for example, this sample of her
behavior:

But over all the countrie she did raunge,

To seeks young men, to quench her flaming thrust,

And feed her fancy with delightfull chaunge:

Whom so she fittest findss to serve her lust,

Through her mains strength, in which she most
doth trust,

She with her bringss into a secret ile,

Where in eternall bondage dye he must,

Or be the vassall of her pleasures vile,

And in all shamefull sort him selfe with her
defile (III.vii.50).

Furthermore, Spenser names Argante's father Typhoeus,
with whom he would also have associated snakelike
characteristics.183 The "wild and savage nature" of
Argante is adequately documented in the fact that in
addition to committing incest, she

Did wallow in all other fleshly myre,

And suffred beastes her body to deflowre,

So what she burned in that lustfull fyre:

Yet all that might not slake her sensuall
desyre (III.vii.h9).

 

182Crespin, s.v. a gas, "genus serpentis: 8r.
qui moribus est, fEFinis, & agrestibus. . . ." As far
as I know, no one has suggested this etymology for the
name Argante. Lotspeich, Variorum, III, 266, suggests
that Spenser might have gotten the idea for the name
in Boccaccio's Argente; I should think this unlikely,
however, since such a spelling would have suggested
avarice rather than lust.

183Seznec, p. 252, mentions that in Cartari
there is a picture of "the unspeakable Typhon [Spenser
equates Typhon and Typhoeus], whose scaly body bows
his soft, snakelike legs. . . ."

 

 

 

 

 

120

Spenser compares Ollyphant and Argante in this way:

For as the sister did in feminine

And filthy lust exceeds all woman kinds,

So he surpassed his sex masculine,

In beastly use. . . . (III.xi.h).
His descriptions of the pair, and the etymologies of
their names, bear out the hyperbole.

When Satyrane first meets Argante she is carrying
off the SQUIRE OF DAMES. Spenser must have coined the
phrase using an analogy with a current expression,
"Squire of the 's body".18h Argante throws the
Squire of Dames from her when she is attacked by
Satyrane; Spenser's epic simile for this event is of
particular interest: 6

Like as a goshauke, that in foote doth beare
A trembling culver, having spide on hight
An eagle. . .

The quarrey throwes to ground with fell
despight (IIIeV11e39)O

I am not sure why Spenser compares Argante to a

"goshauke,"185 but I believe he found the image of a

 

18"NED lists Spenser's use of "Squire of Dames"
as the fiFEt. It defines "Squire of the '8
body" as "an officer charged with personaI attendance
upon a sovereign, nobleman, or other high dignitery."
One thinks of Falstaff's "let not us that are squires
of the night's body be called thieves of the day's
beautye" -

, 185Perhaps he was thinking of Pindar's phrase
"I A aVTes Ta” 0', ,n. Which Eatienne, I, 529, do-
fines as "Albicantes tauri" (not only white bull but
also white bird, and therefore a possible source for
the "goshauke" or osprey image). As far as I know, no
one has suggested a literary source for the simile, but
in Nonnos Dionysiaca, trans. W. H. D. Rouse ("Loeb

 

I I O I e e e
- e
1!
' 'l
I
r- .
e
L‘- .--
a
I O .
c Q I e e e I e e o - o O a e 0 e e e g e . u .
C U U
n
v
e
I
,
. e .
O
0
‘ I o I P
‘

 

 

121
"culver" or dove in the squire's real name. To be

sure, one may search the Faerie Queene and not find

 

the name, for as the squire says,

As for my name, it mistreth not to tell;

Call me the Squyre of Dames; that me beseemeth

well (III.vii.51).
The name is indeed appropriate, for at this point in
his career the Squire of Dames is just that, having
been sent out on various chivalric missions by the
woman he loves. Had Spenser finished the Faerie
Queene, however, I am certain the "real" name of the
Squire of Dames would have been revealed. Knowing
Spenser's habitual etymologizing and the close rela-
tionship between etymon and image, I would guess that
the squire's name is "Columphel." He is compared to a
dove; the woman he loves ig_a dove; and with his
fondness for doublets Spenser would undoubtedly have
conceived of these quasi-lovers as Columbel and
Columphel.
COLUMBEL is basically a dove, from the Latin

 

Classical Library"; 3 vols.; Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, l9h0), III, 265, 267, there is the
tale of the rivalry of Dionysus and Poseidon for
Beroe, in the course of which Dionysus sees "a great
portent": "A storm-swift falcon was in chase of a
feeding pigeon; he drOOped his breeze-impregnated
wings, when suddenly an osprey caught up the pigeon
from the ground and flew to the deep. . . ." Perhaps
a vague remembrance of this passage was stimulated by
characters whose names might have suggested two of the
three birds mentioned by Nonnos.

 

0
e e e
e
‘ O
r C
e
I
...
O
- e
. . . - .
e
b
.
I e e I

 

 

122
columba,186 but this impossible woman betrays the
trust and fidelity one generally associates with doves.
Spenser is in one sense etymologizing by contraries,
an irony one would expect in a poet who as C. S. Lewis
maintained dealt the death blow to the allegory of
love. In another sense, however, he might have fanci-
fully hinted at a connection with KU’AU/La , "Impedi-
mentum, Obstaculum."187 Columbel sends the Squire of
Dames on extremely difficult errands, first for a year
to "doe service unto gentle dames" and bring her
their names
And pledges, as the spoiles of [his] victorious
games (III.vii.5h);
and then to find three hundred who
would [him] refuse their pledges to afford,
But . . . abide for ever chaste and
sownd (III.vii.56).
Formidable obstacles indeed, and worthy of a woman
named Columbel.
The same sort of etymologizing enhances the wit
of the Malbecco-Peridell-Hellenore episode. Paridell
is of course the Paris who lures Helen (here Hellenore)

from her husband. MALBECCO is a combination of malus
(ill, wicked) and the Italian becco (he-goat or

 

186Adrian Junius, The Nomenclator, trans. Iohn
Hégins (London: Ralph Newberie and Henrie Denham,
l

3): Po 57e
187Estienne, II, 529e

123
cuckold).188 Both parts of the name are significant
for Spenser is not sympathetic toward this cuckold;
the £31 indicates his censure of the inappropriate
marriage the old and impotent Malbecco makes. Even
before his transformation, Malbecco is approximately
half goat. Just as the eyes of a goat "are transverse
slits because he is so randy," so one of Malbecco's
eyes is "blincked" (III.ix.5), and "halfen [imper-
fectJ" (III.x.5), and "blinds" (III.ix.27).189 That
he is transformed to a goat is of course consistent
with his name, perhaps on two counts. Not only does
23222 mean cuckold, but the word cuckold itself would
have suggested change if Spenser related it to the
Gaelic cogail.190 In a sense Malbecco's change does

 

188Florio, p. hl, s.v. becco.

189Book of Beasts, p. 7h. Nelson, p. 131, calls
Malbecco's EaIf—EIindness "a metaphor for the watchful
blindness of jealousy. . . ." Joseph B. Dallett,
"Ideas of Sight in The Faerie Queene," ELH, XXVII
(1960), 109, refers to III.x.58, where t5; transformed
Malbecco keeps one eye Open in his sleep; the single
eye suggests to Dallett that Malbecco is now beset by
only one emotion, fear, rather than three--lechery,
avarice, and fear. His interpretation, however, ig-
nores the fact that the untransformed.Malbecco also
had the use of only one eye, and at that time was
motivated by all three elements in his personality.
And of course if one must thus interpret this passage
it is only fair to give an eye for an emotion, thus
making Malbecco more of a freak than he already is.

190Mackay, Glosear , p. 11h, denies the generally
accepted etymology of "cuckold,"--to cuckoo--main-
taining that "it comes more probably from the Gaelic

co ail, to change, whence co ailte or caochailte, one
550 Has been changed. This etymoIogy accountSITor the

 

12b
not provide an objective correlative to his personality
(in the way that Circe-charmed filthy men turn into
swine), for he is not libidinous; he is rather "unfit
faire ladies service to supply" (III.ix.5). .This im-
potence is the cause of his jealousy. Thus when Spen-
ser describes Malbecco creeping around on all fours,

And like a gote amongst the gotes did rush,

That through the helpe of his faire hornes on

hight,

And misty dampe of misconceyving night,

And eke through likenesse of his gotish beard,

He did the better counterfeite aright (III.x.h7),
the horns are a direct statement of Malbecco's prob-
1ems, but the beard an ironic statement. He is a
cuckold in fact, but a he-goat in name only. Thus
Hellsnore prefers the satyrs. Malbecco's transforma-
tion into a goat (stanzas 57-59) is the crowning irony.

Spenser's handling of the entire episode is
urbane and witty, but nowhere more than in his comment
on the clever flirtation of Paridell and Hellsnore:

Thus was the ape,
By their faire handling, put into Malbeccoes
cape (III.ix.31).

It has long been recognized that Spenser found the

 

1d in cuckold. . . ."' Although this hypothesis would
Have seemed eccentric to many Elisabethans (Shake-
speare, for example, considered "cuckoo" "a word of
fear, unpleasing to a married ear"), to someone who
generally saw more than accepted etymologies and who
furthermore had resided in Ireland, the resemblance
in sound might very well have signified some such
ancestry for the word "cuckold."

12S

proverb in Chaucer, but in Chaucer's versions the line
reads either

That cursed Canon put in his hode an ape
or

The Monke put in the merchants hode an ape.191
Obviously Spenser needed a rhyme for "ape," and "cape"
would do very nicely. But considering his emphasis on
goat imagery in the Malbecco episode, he was probably
also punning on the Latin £2233, he-goat.

The last major piece of Book III is the House of
BUSYRANE. Apparently Spenser was thinking of Busiris
when he named this character,192 and it has also been
suggested that "abuse" or "abusion" could have influ-
enced his choice through their deception and sadism.193

 

a

191Warton noted the sources, the prologues of the
Doctor of Physic and of the Prioresse. See Variorum,
III, 280. Upton, ibid., explains that since Tools
carried apes on their shoulders, the expression meant
that the Canon and the Monk were making fools of their
victims. Skeet, Variorum, III, 280, adds that Chaucer
uses "ape" in the sense of "dupe."

192Warton, Variorum, III, 287, was the first to
suggest the connection; he points to the "cruelty and
inhospitality" of both Busiris and Busyrane. Thomas
P. Roche, Jr., "The Challenge to Chastity: Britomart
at the House of Busyrane," PMLA LXXVI (1961), 3h2-h3,
agrees; he finds in the Bus r s of Ovid's Art of
Love "the deceit, the sadism, and the destruction
which we associate with Amoret's plight." Tuve, p.
170, adds support from depictions of Busiris in illup
minated manuscripts, which "stress the peculiarly
bloody cruelty and connection with strange gods which
characterize the enchanter Busyrane."

193Roche, "Challenge," p. 3h3o

 

 

 

 

 

126
I should think that he first conceived of Busyrane in
terms of the Busiris legend and then in his usual fash-
ion selected one or two other elements and expanded on
them to meet the demands of his narrative and his alle-
gory.

The slight change in name indicates the direction
of Spenser's thinking at this point, and again quite
characteristically etymology seems to determine the
final form of the name. By changing Busiris to Busy-
rane Spenser suggests a'EL/irjv , a Siren, a conven-
tional symbol of deceitfulness. Busyrane's castle
must be entered through a wall of flame. Although
this has been identified as "the fire-barrier . L .
found in the court of love allegories,"19h Spenser
explicitly places it in a classical context. Brito-
mart asks Scudamour,

What monstrous enmity provoke we heare,

Foolhardy as th' Earthes children, the which made

Batteil against the gods? so we a god

invade (III.xi.22).

And soon Spenser identifies the god as Mulciber (III.
xi.26). His obvious intention is to surround Busyrane
with reminiscences of miraculous craftsmanship and
perhaps even to allude to the god's forge, with the
implicit pun enriching the picture of Busyrane. The

"utmost rowme" of his castle continues the image:

 

19HE, B. Fowler, Variorum, III, 290.

127

For round about, the walls yclothed were

With goodly arras of great majesty,

Woven with gold and silke so close and nere,

That the rich metall lurked privily,

As faining to be hidd from envious eye;

Yet here, and there, and every where unwares

It shewd it selfe, and shone unwillingly;

Like a discolord snake, whose hidden snares

Through the greens gras his long bright burnisht,

back declares (III.xi.28).

The dangerous powers of the Sirens, whose voices dis-
guised their intent, appear in this episode as the dis-
guises of Jove (III.xi.30-3§) and the victories of
Cupid.

Individual elements in the total name also con-
tributed to the imagery. First, the ”bu" would have
suggested an intensification of the "syrane,"195 so
that Spenser saw in this name an extreme form of de-
ception. Furthermore the first syllable would suggest
conspicuous consumption of wine if Spenser related it
to the Middle English bous (intoxicating drink).196
It should be remembered that Busyrane abducts Amoret

Amidst the bridale feast, whilest every man,
Surchard'd with wine, were heedlesse and ill hedded,

 

195Estienne, I, 780, 530» , "particula cum
nominibus multis & verbalibus componitur, vbi non bouem
significat, sed potius significationem eiusmodi
dictionum auget. . . ." (a particle compounded with
many nouns and verbs, where it does not signify cow,
but rather strengthens the meaning of such an ex-
pression).

196Middle English Dictionary, ed. Hans Kurath
and Sherman M. Kuhn (Ann.ArEor: University of Michigan
Press, 1956), g;1.'bous. Dare I suggest that in this
character Spenser shows us a ”boozy reign"?

128

All bent to mirth before the bride was
bedded (IV.i.3).

The latter part of the name may have prompted
further etymologizing: (filo/03$ , a subterranean
passage or underground pit used as a trap for catching
game,197 could have been the inspiration for Busyrane's
placing Amoret in "a dungeon deepe" (III.xi.16) rather
than in some room of his castle. Multiple etymologies
always lead Spenser to a wealth of descriptive detail,
and in a final element of the name he would have found
a suggestion for his frequent references to Busyrane's
method of retaining Amoret against her will. The word
"siren" has been linked with the Greek verb act/001$»,
to draw together a bond or fetter.198 Spenser derived
much of the imagery of the Busyrane episode from this
etymon. Characters throughout the poem are given
punishments appropriate to the etymology of their
names (drowning, hanging, baffling, removal of various
parts of their bodies, and so on); Britomart biggg
Busyrane:

With that great chains, wherewith not long ygoe

He bound that pitteous lady prisoner, now relest,
Himselfe she bound, more worthy to be so,

 

197Crespih, s__._v. (Tiff->55 , "cuniculus, item
fouea subterranea._ . . "

198Lbid” Ts.v. (reign-[e , "vinculum traho."
Robert Graves,T eGreek ths (2 vols.; Baltimore:
Penguin Books, , "Sirens--those who bind
with a cord. . . .’r

129

And captive with her led to wretchedness and
wo (III.xii.h1).

iMuch is made of Busyrane's methods: he binds Amoret's
hands and "her small waste girt rownd with yron bands,/
Unto a brasen pillour" (III.xii.30). Amoret prevents
Britomart from killing Busyrane for only he can unbind
her. He mutters his magic formulae, and

At last that mightie chains, which round about

Her tender waste was wound, adowne gan fall,

And that great brasen pillour broke in peeces

small (III.xii.37).

Nowhere else in the Faerie Queene does Spenser use this

folklore motif; its relationship to the name Busyrane

suggests that he was once again inspired by etymology.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IV: BOOK IV

The House of Busyrane, the scene of the final
action of the third book and the focus for the forces
opposed to the virtue of that book, represents the
neurotic reaction of AMORET to her marriage. Such an
interpretation is consistent with Spenser's obvious
intention when he states that Busyrane

The very selfe same day that she was wedded,
Br6ught in'tfieé fieék'eéieée' ° ' ’ ' ’ ' ' ' °
And there the ladie ill of friends bestedded,
By way of sport, as oft in maskes is knowen,
Conveyed quite away. . . . (IV.i.3)199
Spenser tells us that Venus named the baby entrusted
to her "Amoretta" "in her litle Loves stead, which
was strayd" (III.vi.28), but we should read this as
a little myth created expressly to Justify Spenssr's

choice of name on other counts.

 

199Roche, "Challenge," p. 3&1, interprets this
passage in this way and says that "the House of Busy-
rane--at least on one leve1--is Amoret's mental atti-
tude toward love and marriage." Dowden, Variorum,
III, 38h, is representative of the older school of
interpretation in that he believes that Spenser is
showing through Amoret that virginity "is only for
rare natures elected to it, and that the true ideal of
womanhood, as such, is only attained through love
which leads to wedlock. Amoret . . . presents us with
Spenser's conception in its purest form of the 'ewig
Weibliche. . . ." My reasons for disagreeing with
Dowden’s view are noted in the text.

130

 

 

 

 

131

The English word "amoret" meant sweetheart, amo-
rous girl, or paramour.200 It no doubt entered the
vocabulary from the Italian amoratto, "an amoret, a
little lens, a wanton, a paramour."201 Two ideas
emerge from these definitions, and both play a part
in the imagery Spenser uses to define Amoret's char-
acter. The first is the idea of "a little loue," a
conventional description of Cupid. When Britomart is
in the House of Busyrane, the imagery seems at first
glance more appropriate to the Temple of Venus; but
the scenes of Cupid's wars (III.xi.29ff.) reflect the
presence of Amoret, whom Britomart is seeking. Where
Amoret is, there Cupid perforce must be. Thus it is
fitting that Spenser use the expected imagery of darts,
arrows, wings, and blindfolds (III.xi.hh-h8), and that
the scene should eventuate in the Masque of Cupid
(III.xii). And yet it is not fitting on Just an
etymological level. Allegorically Spenser is showing
that the love which Cupid represents can be akin to
the preoccupation with lust which Busyrane personifies.
Amoret is Cupid, and Cupid is easily captured by
ignoble desires. Joseph Dallett, who has analyzed

Spenser's images of vision, goes so far as to call the

 

2GONED, s.v. amoret. Although the word is now
obsolete, it was current from the fifteenth to the
nineteenth centuries.

201Florio, quoted in ibid.

 

 

 

   

132
dart
a symbol in Spenser's optics for calculated
lust that shoots from any seducer's into any
victim's eyes, and thence unimpeded to its
real target, the heart, which, as a rule, it
fatally ignites.202
Amoret has not approached marriage with that innocence
which would preclude fear: she is too much the Cupid
whose darts wound the understanding.

This development of Amoret's character reflects
also a second etymology of her name, that of sweet-
heart or paramour. Could Spenser be saying that the
innocent commitment of wife to husband is beyond the
powers of his amoret? As we see her in the poem, she
is always a sweetheart but never a wife, never in any
but a nominal way at any rate. She is a young girl
given to licentious thoughts, and the occasion of her
marriage only makes of these thoughts an obsession.
Thus it is that Amoret is captured a second time, sig-
nificantly while Britomart, the knight of chastity, is

asleep.203 (Later, she is able to wear Cestus, but

202Da11ett, "Ideas," pp. 107-108. Although
Dallett's support of this thesis is drawn from other
passages in the fig, it is admirably suited to the
connection between Amoret and Busyrane.

203Maurice Evans, p. 219, claims that it is
typical for Spenser's characters to "fall immediately
after they have resisted [temptation] and because they
have done so. . . . Amoret holds out against all the
temptations of illicit love which Busyrane can force
upon her, only to be seized by lust when under the
protection of Britomart-~in other words, when she is
virtuously married." This is a careless and

133
only because Britomart is with her.) And this time
the captor is Lust. Spenser could not be more explicit
in his delineation of character, yet there are those
who object to this second peril of Amoret, preferring
the original version in which Amoret and Scudamour were
reunited at the end of the third book.20h The revi-
sion, however, seems to me to indicate Spenser's grow-
ing awareness of the possibilities implicit in this
complex character, an awareness very possibly heightened
by etymological suggestion. Thus it is significant
that Spenser describes Amoret's reaction to Lust in
these words:
Feebly she shriekt, but so feebly indeed,
That Britomart heard not the shrilling
sound (IV.vii.h).
She faints in Lust's arms, and when she regains con-
sciousness almost faints again
when she lookt about, and nothing found
But darknesse and dread horrour, where she
dwelt (IV.vii.9).
Had Freud analyzed her behavior, he would have called

this the reaction of a punitive Super Ego which beholds

 

inconsistent reading. First, Amoret is certainly not
"under the protection of Britomart" when Lust captures
her; and second, one cannot interpret one passage
literally and another allegorically when they are
closely related and when both involve the same char-
aCtOre

20hDowden, Variorum, III, 385, is representative:
Amoret's capture 5y Lust "is too gross a wrong to be
allowed to hurt a life so dear."

134

the naked Id. Amoret naturally tries to escape from
her own impulses, for they would frighten anyone who
has been raised as she was, but the attempt only
breaks the tenuous grip she now has on sanity. Spen-
ser likens Amoret at this point to "a ghastly gelt
[lunatic]" (IV.vii.21); in Freudian terms she has be-
come psychotic because of inner conflict. She can no
longer see the world as it really is, but views it as
a paranoid would:' she fears that paragon, Prince
Arthur:

Fears of her safety did her not constrains,

For well she wist now in a mighty hond

Her person, late in perill, did remains,

Who able was all daungers to withstond:

But now in fears of shame she more did stond,

Seeing her selfe all soly succourlesse,

Left in the victors powre, like vassall bond;

Whose will her weakenesse could no way represse,

In case his burning lust should breaks into

excesse (IV.ixslB).20

This of Arthur! The sane and serious Spenser can only
comment,

But cause of fears sure had she none at all

Of him, who goodly learned had of yore

The course of loose affection to forstall,

And lawlesse lust to rule with reasons

lore (IV.ix.19).

Spenser seems to be aware of the phenomenon of

 

205That Amoret also fears the unrecognized
Britomart on the same grounds is curiously Justified
by the fact that Britomart sometime "to her . . e
purpos made / Of love, and otherwhiles of lustful-
nssse" IV.1.7. The behavior is not the least bit
consistent with what we know of the knight of chas-
tity, but quite in keeping with what we know of
Amoret.

135

projection: everyone else seems a paramour because
Amoret cannot tolerate her repressed desires. Spenser
may have been ahead of his time linguistically in look-
ing at Amoret as one who is ”amoral."206

At the conclusion of the last chapter I discussed
Spenser's emphasis on binding in the Busyrane episode.
Now it can be seen that this emphasis is appropriate not
only to the etymology of the name Busyrane but also to
the etymology and related characterization of Amoret.
Finally, I would like to suggest that the entire Busy-
rane-Amoret story is an elaborate myth of initiation..
Edgar Wind has shown that "the torture of the mortal
by the god who inspires him, was a central theme in the
revival of ancient mysteries"; he mentions in this
connection the story of Psyche and Cupid, "in which the
ordeals suffered by Psyche to regain Amor were under-
stood as stages of a mystical initiation."207 The
ordeals of Amoret are Just such stages: she must suf-
fer because of her inability to be married to Scuda—
mour, and her experiences with Busyrane and Lust are
preparations for her eventual reunion with her hue-

band. Busyrane's binding of Amoret symbolizes a stage

 

206NED finds the first use of "amoral" late in
the nineteenth century.

207Edgar Wind, Pa an M steries in the Renais-
sance (New Haven: Yale Universi y ress, ,

57—133.

 

 

 

 

136
in her growth, for it presumably will enable her to be
bound to her husband after she has successfully passed
through another stage in her initiation.208 This
second stage, symbolized in her abduction by Lust, is
necessitated by the still imperfect nature of Amoret.
Having passed through both phases of the initiation,
Amoret will be able to commit herself to marriage.
We might well ask what sort of man Amoret's hus-

' band is that she has so violent a reaction on her wed-
ding day. The answer is that he is SCUDAMOUR (or-
Scudamore), and in saying this Spenser further explains
Amoret's difficulties. On the surface the name, taken
from the Italian.ggggg (shield) d'amore (of love--
French d'amour),209 means simply "the shield of love,"
(IV.x.3) and he appropriately bears a shield

On which the Winged Boy in colours clears

Depeincted was, full easie to be knowne,

And he thereby. . . . (III.xi.7)

The matter seems a simple one, Spenser identifying a

knight by the traditional device of romance. Yet the

 

208Roche, "Challenge," p. 3M2, is quite right in
maintaining that Busyrane does not represent lust, but
he bases his argument that Busyrane represents de-
struction of "the will to love" on a misreading of the
narrative, for Busyrane is not, as Roche claims he is,
"literally trying to kill Amoret." There are better
methods than binding a woman's hand and, apparently
ineffectually, bleeding her. My reading of the pas-
sage shows Busyrane to be an efficient villain.

209Florio, p. 359, s.v. scudo; p. 17, s.v.
amore.

 

 

   

137

choice of the figure on that shield relates Scudamour
to Amoret in her role of Cupid, so that the two are
seen as courtly lovers, the man a shield for his lady.
Moreover, I think that the selection of this name
either involved an additional motive or itself led to
a development of Scudamour's character which in intené
sity goes a bit beyond the attributes of conventional
knights. The verb a'kufé‘v meant to desire the male,
to rouse to violent desire; it referred to the sensual
passion of dogs and she-wolves, and Aristotle mentioned
it in relation to mares.210 What word could have
served as well as O'KUIEV to demonstrate Amoret's de-
sires and fears on the day on which she married Scuda-
mour?

Spenser builds his picture of Scudamour using
the images in the Greek verb. Scudamour tells of his
conquest of Amoret, recounting the praise of Venus he
heard while in her temple: all living creatures when
they see "the Spring breaks forth out of his lusty
bowres," themselves show the characteristics of oestrus
which are part of Scudamour's name; not only do the
birds seek to "cools their kindly rages," but also

Then doe the salvage beasts begin to play

Their pleasant friskes, and loath their wonted
food;

 

21°Crespin, s.v. “May , "est marem appetere,
ad libidinem incitEFT, catulire. . . . de appetitu
venereo canum hoc verbum interpretatur. Idem tamen &
(”rug-av posuit [Aristotle] de equis."

 

 

138
The lyons rore, the tygres loudly bray,
The raging buls rsbellow through the wood,
And breaking forth, dare tempt the deepest flood,
To some where thou [Venus] doest draw them with
desire:
So all thinges else, that nourish vitall blood,
Soone as with fury thou doest them inspire,
In generation seeks to quench their inward
fire (IV.x.h6).
The animals are at heat, Just as Scudamour is "the
heat of love." Such an interpretation of Scudamour
also clarifies the modification in Britomart's feel-
ings after she has encountered Artegall for the first
time. Thomas Roche has pointed out that Britomart's
companion is Amoret before she meets Artegall but
Scudamour after the meeting, the shift symbolizing
"what she has gained from her encounter with Arthegall,
a new and more complete realization of that love which
is the moving spirit of her quest.”211 I would add
that the "more complete realization" includes sexual
attraction, as implied by the presence of Scudamour.
But to return to Scudamour himself. Spenser
not only uses descriptions of animals in oestrous, but
also generally characterizes Scudamour in terms of
animal imagery. He devours the days spent away from
Amoret (IV.ix.39). When Ate tells him that she saw a
knight "have your Amoret at will,"
his heart

Was thrild with inward griefe, as when in chaos
The Parthian strikes a stag with shivering dart,

 

leaoche, Kindl , p- 53-

 

 

 

 

139

The beast astonisht stands in middest of his
smart (IV.i.h9).

The simile is Just, not only because it alludes to
cuckolds (and had this been Spenser's primary inten-
tion he would probably have referred to horns), but
also because it points to the bestiality which is the
source of Scudamour's problems. He is a stag. Spen-
ser draws on the image again when Scudamour is at the
cottage of Care, but this time with more subtlety.
Care beats his hammer so fiercely "that seem'd a rocks
of diamond it could rive" (IV.v.37). An examination
of the supposed qualities of diamonds reveals that
they could be shattered by repeated blows of an iron
instrument only if they were first softened by the
fresh, warm blood of stags.212 The presence of
Scudamour the stag would have suggested the seemingly
hyperbolic statement.

Another use of animal imagery occurs when Brito-
mart tells Scudamour that Amoret has vanished for a
second time: he acts like "a mazed steare" (IV.vi.37),
an image which suggests both bestiality and castration.
The former is the cause of the latter if my interpre-
tation of Amoret is tenable. Through his choice of

names for this couple, and using the images implicit

 

212Isidore, p. 577: "Sed dum sit invictus
ferri, ignisque contemptor, hircino rumpitur sanguine
rscenti et calido maceratus, sicque multis ictibus
ferri perfringitur."

 

 

 

lhO
in both names, Spenser has been able to create a story
which is relevant to the books of chastity and of
friendship. He suggests that marriage must be ap-
proached in a spirit of friendship and innocence rather
than in the spirit of sensuousness properly charac-
teristic of the mating of animals.

Between her two neurotic attacks, Amoret, trav-
elling with Britomart, meets ATE. Spenser draws most
of his descriptive material from classical, medieval,
and Renaissance sources.213 It is Just possible that
he was thinking of the Latin 332;, "as blacke as a
Cole, dark, browns, stinking,"21h when he called her
home "a darksome delve" (IV.i.20) or Ate herself an
"old hag of hellish hew" (V.ix.h7); and etymology
may have advanced his conception of the ruin for which
she was responsible, but generally the sources of the
imagery for Ate would seem to be literary.

The same cannot be said, however, of Spenser's
conception of Ats's mate, BLANDAMOUR. Even the name,
which many have traced to the Blandamour of Chaucer's
Tale of Sir Thopas, could not have been found in
exactly that form in the editions of Chaucer available

 

213Lotspeich, pp. hO-hl; Variorum, IV, 325-26
(particularly relevant is Holinshede account of
Slander with her "double heart, double toong, and
double £800. e e 0...).

 

21’4Veron, sig. E3V.

 

 

 

lhl
to Spenser.215 His adoption of the spelling "Blanda-
mour" can be attributed to his desire to portray a
character who is so allursd by love that he is easily
infatuated; thus he can be a fit mate for the dis-
guised Ate, "fresh and fragrant as the flours deluce"
at this point (IV.i.3l) but to a mature person still
an extremely unattractive woman. Even this reference
to the "flours deluce" may have been suggested by
Spenser's French context. All of this adds up to an
immediate etymology to blandir (allure) plus gmggg
(love),216 to which Spenser seems to be alluding when
he says,

His name was Blandamour, that did descrie
His fickle mind full of inconstancie (IV.i.32).

Blandamour, on the spur of the moment, gives Ate to
Paridell, for suddenly he is infatuated with Brito-
mart, "his new love" (IV.i.36). And a short time
later he is similarly taken with the false Florimell.
Love indeed allures this knight, and the name is
therefore well chosen. But it was to yield two further
etymological possibilities. The first is a combination
of the Latin blandus (merry) and gmgg£.217 Thus it is

 

215See Magoun, Variorum, IV, 170-71 for a full
discussion. Magoun establishes the fact that Spenser
would have known only the form "Blaindamoure."

216Dictionarie French, s.v. blandir, "Blandir a
aucun, to allure one.

 

217COOpsr, s.v. blandus. Draper, p. 100, men-
tions blandus + amor as the only source of the name.

1&2
that Blandamour “tickled with delight . . . Jesting
sayd" (IV.i.33), or "woxe full blithe" (IV.i.SO). The
next etymon Spenser would have seen as he wrote of
this character is perhaps the most interesting of the
three: [niches (half-blind or simply blind)218 and
d'amour. The post, as if translating the name, says
that when Blandamour saw the snowy Florimell his fancy
prickt his wanton mind
With sting of lust, that reasons eye did
blind (IV.ii.5).
And although she never becomes his mistress, "he seemed
brought to bed in Paradise¥"(IV.ii.9)--"So blind is
lust, false colours to descry" (IV.ii.ll). In choosing
Blandamour as one of Duessa's counselors in the Mary
Queen of Scots allegory, Spenser might have been say-
ing that only someone who was blind could plead for
this enemy of Elizabeth. Thus drawing on three lan-
guages Spenser found in the name Blandamour a source
for most of the imagery used in connection with that
character.

Spenser introduces in the second canto the titu-
lar heroes of the fourth book, CAMBELL and TRIAMOND.
Spenser found Camballo and his sister Canace is "Dan
Chaucer, well of English undefyled" (IV.ii.32). The

change from Camballo to Camballo can probably be

 

/ I
218Crespin, s.v. Flames , "11PM“: rquwcfys ."

 

 

 

 

 

 

1u3
attributed to etymologizing: bellg_would have sug-
gested battles, and of course the major action in
which Cambell is involved is Just that. Although
Spenser uses the shortened form of the name--Cambe11--
in much of the episode, he frequently uses the form
Cambello (IV.iii.20, 22, 26, 35), the suggestions of
etymology perhaps as urgent as the demands of the
meter.

In the Squire's Tale Camballo and Algarsyf, the

 

brothers of Canace, fight another Camballo. As narra-
tive this would have been extremely clumsy for Spenser
and he thus needed a new name for Canace's suitor. His
first requirement would have been a name meaning
strength, since if he was to have a battle scene he
would have enjoyed writing a really vivid one. Quite
naturally he would have thought of adamant, a symbol
of hardness and strength,219 and simultaneously of the
diamond. "Diamond" would be the name of only one
antagonist, and for two reasons it would not have
struck Spenser as the total answer to his problem:
first, etymologically it implied duality, and given
his usual way of looking at names he would have felt
compelled to supply a Priamond for etymological com-
pleteness. But still another claim would have to be

 

219Estienne, I, 909, "Adamas, a duritie quasi
indomita ita dictus." Veron, sig. A7V, s.v.
Adamantaeus, "made of a Diamant stone, a§_Hard as a
filament Stone."

mu
met, for the Squire's Tale, with its talking bird,

stead of brass, and magic mirror, ring, and sword,
would have put him in a fairy-tale world, a world in
which events and adventuresome brothers occur in
threes; and for this reason he would create a
Triamond.

Now the stage is set, but what is to transpire
on it? The etymology of the names of the "adamant"
family would have favored invention: the diamond,
so-called from its almost invincible hardness, would
suggest a myth of invincibility; and the numbers one,
two, and three would suggest, by simple arithmetic,
that the qualities of Priamond, added to the qualities
of Diamond, would make up the qualities of Triamond.
Thus the following description of the brothers:

Stout Priamond, but not so strong to strike,

Strong Diamond, but not so stout a knight,

But Triamond was stout and strong alike (IV.ii.h2).
And thus the creation of a myth: one day Agape, the
mother of the three, sought out the Fates and, seeing
that the threads of life of her sons were all short,
asked that the life span of Triamond be lengthened by
the addition of the spans of Priamond and Diamond:

Graunt this, that when ye shred with fatall knife,

His line which is the eldest of the three,

Which is of them the shortest, as I see,

Eftsoones his life may passe into the next;

And when the next shall likewise ended bee,

That both their lives may likewise be annext

Unto the third, that his may so be trebly
wext (IV.ii.52).

1&5
The Fates of course grant the wish and the battle
which follows is the spelling out of the myth (IV.
111.13, 22, 31, 35).

Etymology figured also in the selection of a
suitable name for the mother of the ”adamant" family:
AGAPE is Greek for love or friendship,220 and yet
Spenser could have chosen many names with the same
meaning. His choice of this particular noun was
probably determined by its relation to both the sty-
mology of the "adamants" and the consequent myth of
invincibility. Agapis is "a stone of the colour of
saffron, that cureth the stingynge of serpentss."221
Spenser thus places both mother and sons in a lapidary
context and alludes also in her name to her removal of
the sting from death.

Since narrative and allegory both demanded at
this point that Cambell and Triamond live through the
battle, Spenser needed a character who would bring
peace. His dea ex machina he dubs CAMBINA, probably
referring to cambio, to change.222 Her caduceus and
cup of Nepenthe do indeed effect the desired change

from war to peace (IV.iii.h9). Triamond marries

 

2aoCrespin, s.v. éyafTrp , ”dilectio, ,
beneuolentia"; see also Estienne, I, h, dxavraw ,
"Amo, Diligo."

22ICooper, s.v. agapis.

222Ibid., s.v. cambio.

lh6
Canacee (a Chaucerian name which Spenser uses without
further elaboration) and Cambell marries Cambina.
Cambell and Triamond illustrate the friendship which
is the focus of Book IV. Cambina in her capacity of
changing hostility to friendship performs another feat
in changing the pugnacious Blandamour and Paridell
into mild-mannered gossips (IV.iv.S).

From these errant knights the two couples learn
that there is soon to be a tournament for the "rich
girdle of faire Florimell," CESTUS. Spenser found the
name in the Iliad, although there it was a symbol of
desire and in the Faerie Queene a symbol of chastity.223

 

Possibly he was etymologizing by contraries, or pos-
sibly he was thinking not of Venus' girdle, but of any
marriage girdlezah and thus of his ideal conception of
marriage. At any rate, etymology figured in the de-
scription of the girdle:

A gorgeous girdle, curiously embost
With pearls and precious stone (IV.iv.15).

Keg-10’s , embroidered,225 would have suggested this

much; and the related KeVTe’cJ may have suggested the

 

2‘23Hough, p. 185, calls this "typical of Spen-
ser's way of taking a motif from earlier literature or
mythology and turning it to his own quite different
purpose."

22“Cooper, s.v. castus, "A mariage gyrdle full
of studdes, wherwItH’tEe Husbands gyrded his wyfe at
hir fyrst weddynges"

ZZSCrespin‘,_S.V. K6 O'TO’S, "ecu pictus. 0 ° 0".

 

 

 

 

 

11+?

entire idea of a tournament, for the verb denotes the
spurring on226 for which Cestus is responsible:

That same aloft he hong in open vew,

To be the prize of beautie and of might;

The which eftsoones discovered, to it drew

The eyes of all, allur'd with close delight,

And hearts quite robbed with so glorious sight,

That all men threw out vowes and wishes

vaine (IV.iv.lé).

The knights gladly enter the tournament, for Cestus is
"so worthie of the perill, worthy of the pains" (IV.
iv.16).

Those present for the tournament reflect the
force Spenser felt Kev-re’co to exert. Ate, the god-
dess of mischief, accompanies Blandamour and "provokt
him privily,” (IV.iv.ll). kev're’w , meaning figura-
tively to sting, vex, or annoy,227 would have reminded
Spenser of this most annoying character, and would
probably also have influenced his choice of a name for
the first ”painim knight" to challenge Satyrane at the
tournament: BRUNCHEVAL. "Chsuaux qui brunchent,
stumbling or tripping iades,"228 are surely most vexing
to knights bent on chivalric deeds, as Spenser demon-
strates in the humorous stanza where "Bruncheval the

bold, who fiersly forth did ride" (IV.iv.l7) comes a

cropper:

 

226Estienne, II, 120, Kevre'w, "Stimulo."

227Ibid., II, 120, Kevre’co, "Pungo."

228Dictionarie French, s.v. chauaux.

me
So furiously they both together met,
That neither could the others force sustains:
As two fierce buls, that strive the rule to get
Of all the heard, meets with so hideous mains,
That both, rebutted, tumble on the plains;
So these two champions to the ground were feld,
Where in a maze they both did long remains,
And in their hands their idle troncheons held,

Which neither able were to wag, or once to
weld (IV.iv.lB).

One can almost see Spenser, delighted with his name
for the challenger, abandoning himself to the wit of
a play on the word "rebutted," of the sexual imagery
in the closing, and of the "tumble" in allusion to
"Bruncheval." The tournament, in fact, seems to in-
volve as much tumbling as Jousting: Blandamour falls
so "sorely" "That on an heaps were tumbled horse and
man" (IV.iv.l9); Satyrane tumbles from a blow in-
flicted only because of the pure "skittishness" of his
horse: A
It chaunst Sir Satyrane his steed at last,
Whether through foundring, or through sodein feare,
To stumble, that his rider nigh he cast
and Cambell
forced him to leave his loftie sell,
And rudely tumbling downe under his horse feete
fell (IV.iv.30).
Even Artegall tumbles, and as ignobly as the other
knights; Britomart
smote him on his umbriere
So sore, that bombling backe, he downe did slyde
Over his horses taile above a stryde (IV.iv.hh).

In all of these passages it seems to me that Spenser

is leaving his allegory, for Cestus, the symbol of

1149

chastity, is the spur to unusually inglorious activity.
Such abandonment of allegory is of course not uncommon
in the Faerie Queens, and in this case its cause is to
be sought no further than in the etymology of the word
Cestus. One must expect one of the combatants to lose
in a joust, but it is significant that those who lose
at this tournament are fine knights and that they lose
in precisely the same way-~by tumbling.

The entire tournament is unsatisfactory allegor-
ically. The false Florimell wins the beauty contest
and is thus the first to try on the girdle.

That girdle gave the vertue of chast love

And wivehood true to all that did it bears;

But whosoever contrarie doth prove

Might not the same about her middle wears;

But it would loose, or else a sunder tears (IV.v.3).
Naturally "it loos'd/.And fell away" (IV.v.l6), and
yet at the end of the episode the false Florimell has
regained Cestus "as her dew right" (IV.v.20). Once
again Spenser is thinking etymologically rather than
allegorically.

The tournament concluded on this anomalous note,

the action shifts to the allegorically apposite visit
of the jealous Scudamour to the cottage of CARE.229

 

229Warton, Variorum, I, 367, objected to the
allegory here since a visit to the cottage of Care
should mean that Scudamour had not to that point felt
the miseries of love. I should think, however, that
Spenser is simply pointing to the intensification of
Jealousy with the passage of time, and to the conse-
quent sleepless nights.

 

 

 

 

150
Since "care" is an Anglo-Saxon word, Spenser would
have found in etymology no direct suggestions for the
depiction of the scene. But as John Steadman has ably
demonstrated, the entire scene followed certain Ren-
aissance conceptions which are etymologically related
to "care." Steadman demonstrates that gg£g_is the

equivalent of aemulatio, and that aemulatio is an exact

 

 

translation of "Tubalcain." Tubalcain, in turn, was
considered the Biblical equivalent of Vulcan,23O and
thus, by a route no more circuitous than that taken by
etymolOgizers before him, Spenser would have conceived
of Care as a blacksmith;

Allegory and etymology work together to form a
picture of Care:

With blistred hands amongst the cinders brent,
And fingers filthie, with long nayles unpared,
Right fit to rend the food on which he fared.
His name was Care; a blacksmith by his trade,
That neither day nor night from working spared,
But to small purpose yron wedges made;

Those be unquist thoughts, that carefull minds

invade (IV.v.BS).

Etymology and myth may have also suggested the detailed
images of the following stanza:

In which his works he had sixe servants prest,
About the andvile standing evermore,

With huge great hammers, that did never rest
From heaping stroakes, which thereon soused sore:
All sixe strong groomes, but one then other more:
For by degrees they all were disagreed;

 

23°John.M. Steadman, "The 'Inharmonious Black-
smith': Spenser and the Pythagoras Legend," PMLA,
LXXIX (Dec. l96h), 665.

 

.
C
9 ' o
o
O
\
e
o
e
C
e
e
I . 0
e
. e
V
’ C
. 1
. _
C ' .

 

 

151

So likewise did the hammers which they bore

Like belles 1n greatnesse orderly succeed, '

That he which was the last the first did farre

exceeds (IV.v.36).

Steadman has found parallels to the six servants, the
ordered hammers, and the image of graduated balls, in
a story told of Pythagoras; and he has further demon-
strated that the tale had been Christianized to refer
to Jubal and Tubalcain,231 If he is correct, then
Spenser is once again led by the etymology of "care"
to the imagery of the cottage.

The very same process may have been Operative in
Spenser's descriptions of LUST, the wild man who cap-
tures Amoret. I believe that he would have seen in
Antaeus the prototype of lust, as Boccaccio had before
him.232 Having made Busyrane the first captor of
Amoret, and associating Busiris and Antaeus from their

juxtaposition in the Hercules 1egend,233 Spenser might

have sought an Antaeus-figure to complete an

 

231Steadman, "Inharmonious," pp. 66h—65. The
parallels are in Franchino Gafuri's Theorica Musicae.

232$eznec, p. 223, points out that Boccaccio
"takes from Fulgentius his allegorical interpretation
of Antaeus, image of earthly lust which the virtuous
man can overcome only by chastity." Significantly,
only Belphoebe can destroy Lust.

233The Bibliothsca Histories of Diodorus Siculus,

trans. John—SEEIton, ed. F. M. Salter and H. L. R.
Edwards ("EETS,” No. 233; London: Geoffrey Cumber-
lege, 1956), I, 392: "When tyme was that he vic-
toryously had ouercome Antheus & had slayn hym . . .

he toke hys iourney in-to the contrey of Egipte where
to hym was made relacion how Kynge Busiris, there
regnyngs, had grete delyte in dsdely cruelts. . . .”

 

152
etymological-mythographic picture. Although he does
not use all the details of the Hercules-Antaeus story,
Spenser seems to be alluding to the kinship of Antaeus
and the earth when he speculates that Lust may have
been born of the earth (IV.vii.7).23h In his entire
depiction of Lust Spenser may have been influenced by
late interpretations of the Hercules legend, for Just
as Hercules was conceived of as a wild man in the later
medieval period,235 so Lust is described in standard-
ized wild-man imagery. Wild men occupied an ambiguous
place somewhere between men and animals; they were
covered with fur, carried tree trunks, and wore foliage
around their loins. The wild man was often depicted
"with boar's tusks rising out of the corners of his
mouth. . . ."236 Undoubtedly this is the prototype of
Lust, who
was . . . a wilds and salvage man,
Yet was no man, but onely like in shape,
And eke in stature higher by a span,

All overgrowne with hairs, that could awhape
An hardy hart, and his wide mouth did gape

 

231~‘Roy Harvey Pearce, "Primitivisitic Ideas in
the Faerie Queene, JEGP, XLIV (l9h5), 150, suggests
instead an ultimate source in Isidore, who etymolo-
gized homo to humus.

235R1chard Bernheimer, Wild.Men in the Middle
es (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
p. 02. It is also significant that Bernheimer points
out, p. 1&8, that in the Renaissance lust was con-
sidered one of the traits of wild men.

 

2361bid., pp. 1, 6.

153

With huge great teeth, like to a tusked
bore (IV.vii.5).

Wild.msn traditionally lived far from the madding
crowd, but of all the possible retreats he could have
used Spenser chose a cave, perhaps in allusion to
lustrum (cave).237
Arthur takes Amoret from the cave of Lust only

to arrive at the cottage of SCLAUNDER, although the
visit is harmless enough because of the golden age in
which Arthur lives. Nonetheless, Sclaunder is an ugly
person, and Spenser's depiction of her is obviously
controlled by the allegory. Yet even here etymology
seems to have influenced him. Consider this description:

Her words were not, as common words are ment,

T' expresse the meaning of the inward mind,

But noysome breath, and poysnous spirit sent

From inward parts, with cancred.malice 11nd,

And breathed forth with blast of bitter wind;

Which passing through the eares would pierce the

hart (IV.viii.26).

While much of this is allegorical transcription, the
breath "from inward parts," and the "blast of bitter
wind” with its piercing noise suggest that Spenser is
thinking of Sclaunder etymologically. Esclandre,
which would account for the "c” in Spenser's spelling,

is defined as "a thunder clappe, a slaunder" in a

contemporary dictionary.238 Thunder was viewed as a

 

237V°r°ns 818. BbSV: "a cane, den, or seller,
where resort, remains, and dwell, wilde beastes in
the woods. . . ."

238

Dictionarie French, s.v. esclandre.

 

 

 

 

 

15L»

phenomenon resulting from the forcible expulsion of
contained wind; as Isidore explained,

. . . when a great gust of the most furious

wind suddenly bursts into the clouds, its

circular motion becoming stronger and seeking

an outlet, it tears asunder with great force

the cloud it has hollowed out, and thus comes

to our ears with a horrifying noise.239
Hence all the noise in the Sclaunder episode, and the
description of the night spent as "dampish." In all
probability, when Spenser says the travellers "forward
softly paced" (IV.viii.3h), he is contrasting their
virtue with Sclaunder's vice (Just as he contrasts the
absence of slander in the golden age with its prevalence
in the iron age-~IV.viii.29-33).

Travelling with Amoret and Arthur is another
woman he had freed from Lust. The selection of a name
for this woman was probably made aided by the same
sort of association which led Spenser to the Antaeus
legend after he had treated a Busiris figure. In this
case the link is provided by the Scudamour-Amoret
nexus: in canto five Scudamour is at the House of
Care, and in canto seven his wife is at the cave of

Lust. As we have seen, Spenser associated cure and

aemulatio; given this association and the relationship

 

between Scudamour and Amoret, it was natural for Spen-

ser to seek a related name for the second prisoner of

 

239Brehaut, P. 237.

15S
Lust, and this he found in AEMYLIA. I believe that
this name was the beginning of a chain of associations
which led ultimately to Spenser's highly plotted tale
of Aemylia. Harry Morgan Ayres has pointed out the

resemblance between this tale and Amis and Amiloun;2h0

 

his hypothesis of the evolution of Spenser's tale,
however, does not take into consideration the logical
starting point of Aemylia's name nor does it account
for the fact that Spenser's Amiloun-figure is female.
Let us begin, then,as Spenser began, with the
name Aemylia. The name and his desire to bring in a

tale of friendship lead him naturally to Amis and

 

Amiloun, but he realizes that he will have to adapt
the medieval tale to suit his own purposes. Thus his
Amiloun must be the sweetheart of his Amis. But what
sort of person is Amis? A man who accedes to the
amorous demands of a woman he dislikes is spineless,
and with just a little change in the name Spenser can
indicate this quality: of "Amis" he makes AMYAS,
from fits 2A1 with the alpha privative, without
muscle. And thus he describes Amyas:

He, though affide unto a former love,
To whom his faith he firmely ment to hold,

 

2MOSummarized at length in Variorum, IV, 322-2h.

2li'lEstienne, II, 991, [135 , "Musculus. Est
motus voluntarii instrumentum. . . ." (Muscle. It is
the means of voluntary movement).

156

Yet seeing not how thence he mots remove,

But by that meanes which fortune did unfold,

Her grauntsd love, but with affection cold,

To win her grace his libertie to get.

Yet she him still dstaines in captive

hOId (IVeV11 e53) 0

While it seems perfectly simple for someone else to
get away, Amyas does not manage to escape. This, how-
ever, is the only difference between Amyas and his
friend, for PLACIDAS is so like Amyas that even Spen-
ser confuses them (see IV.ix.arg.). Since classical

friends must be similar, Spenser sought a Latin equiv-

alent of the Greek ’a'yuvos and found it in placidus,

 

"gentill: meeke: paciente: quiet: caulme: stil:
without trouble: tame: tractable."2br2 Generally
Placidas deserves the name: he is captured by a dwarf
and "suffred that same dwarfs me to her dongeon drive"
(IV.viii.56); and while this might be interpreted as
clever maneuvering, Placidas does nothing to justify
his imprisonment and in fact shortly escapes. When
Poeana wooes him, thinking him Amyas, he "did well ac-
cept," as he generally does anything that comes his
way. And finally we see in Placidas the height of
tractability: Arthur asks him

Not to despise that dame, which lov'd him liefe,

Till he had made of her some better prisfe,

But to accept her to his wedded wife.

Thereto he offred for to make him chiefs
Of all her land and lordship during life:

 

2LFZCooper, s.v. placidus.

 

157

He yeelded, and her tooke, so stinted all their
strife (IV.ix.15).

Either Placidas is a cad or an extremely maleable
person; and since Arthur would not encourage dis-
honorable behavior we must conclude that the descrip-
tion of Placidas once again fits the etymology of his
name. Yet Spenser is showing through the etymologies
of the names of the friends that Placidas has a bit
more muscle than Amyas; and when Placidas snatches
up a dwarf and runs away (IV.viii.6l) he demonstrates
the difference.

Placidas is pursued by CORFLAMBO. Could it be
that Spenser was inspired by the muscle image in the
name Amyas to refer to the major muscle of the human
body, the heart?2u3 He is speaking of course of the
power of love and thus the connection may be coinci-
dental, but the tightness of his imagery elsewhere
suggests conscious choice here also. Not to press the
point, however, one still finds abundant evidence of
the influence of etymology in Spenser's treatment of
Corflambo himself. The second element in the name
comes from the French flambsau, "A fier brands: a
crsssst light: a links, or other thing which burning
giueth light. . . ."Zuh Spenser's description is

 

2U3Ibid., s.v. cor, "The hearts. . . ."

158
consistent with this etymology:
For from his fearsfull eyes two fierie beames,
More sharps then points of needles, did proceeds,
Shooting forth farre away two flaming
streames (IV.viii.39).
Spenser mentions frequently "the powre of his infec-
tious sight" (IV.viii.h7)3 Corflambo was able to ruin
women
By casting secret flakes of lustfull fire
From his false eyes, into their harts and parts
entire.

Therefore Corflambo was he cald
aright (IV.viii.h8-h9).

Corflambo's daughter POEANA shows the effects of
her father's power, a

bitter corsive, which did eat
Her tender heart. . . .

Only Arthur's

good thewes and speeches well applyde
Did mollifis, and calms her raging heat (IV.ix.lh).

These two statements make clear Poeana's nature, one
which is basically good but corrupted by her relation-
ship with her father. As if to show this Spenser
spells her name in two ways, Posana and Pasana. Gen-
erally critics regard one of the spellings as incor-
reet,2h5 but I think that Spenser used both inten-
tionally. He calls her Posana before Arthur has cap-
tured her but Paeana thereafter (IV.ix.9, l3).

 

2uSDraper, p. 103, favors Posana, which he re-
lates to oena; Upton, Variorum, IV, 21h, favors
Paeana, wfiich he relatssfito paena.

15 '9

Obviously Arthur effects a change, or rather he allows
the true Paeana to emerge:

And she, whom Nature did so faire create

That she mote match the fairest of her daies,

Yet with lewd loves and lust intemperate

Had it defaste, thenceforth reformd her waies,

That all men much admyrds her change, and spake

her praise (IV.ix.l6).

This stanza shows that Spenser thought of the name
Paeana first. Since her beauty and true nature merit
praise, perhaps he had in mind the Latin fiaean. Most
of his attention, however, is given to the debasement
of an otherwise beautiful nature by contact with
Corflambo, and this necessitated a change in name.
Draper has suggested that Posana is related to poena
(expiation or punishment); certainly the continual
torment of love which she feels would Justify such an
etymology. In addition Spenser may have looked to the
French poelle, "a stue, a hoarehouse,"21+6 as he sought
a significant first syllable for Paeana's new name.
Certainly her house is little better than a brothel;

. . . she given is to vaine delight,

And eke too loose of life, and eke of love too

light (IV.viii.h9).

She allows Amyas to "walks about her gardens of delight"
(IV.viii.5h) and sends her dwarf to bring him to her
bower (IV.viii.59). The spelling Posana is thus pur-

poseful and allegorically apposite, calling attention

 

2M’Dictionarie French, s.v. unapoellge

 

 

 

 

 

160
to the defect of the character's personality, just as
Paeana calls attention to her merits.

The last characters in Book IV of interest in
this study are FLORIMELL and MARINELL. The simple
names and the complex experiences of these two char-
acters have proved a bonanza to Spenser criticism. I
say "simple names" for it is obvious that Florimell
means "flower-honeywzh7 and that Marinell means "of
the sea."2h8 Isabel Rathborne made a rather uncon-
vincing attempt to relate the episode to the histori-
cal allegory. She feels that Marinell's defeat by
Britomart "symbolizes the passage of sea-power from
Spain to England"; and that Florimell represents
"that 'civility' which was native to England and
exiled-to Ireland."2u9 Such an interpretation, using
only a small part of the episodes in which Marinell
figures, cannot be accepted because of Spenser's ob-
vious sympathy for Marinell and the elaborate devel-
cpment of his wedding to Florimell.

 

2h7000per, s.v. florso, "to haue flowers," and
mel, "honie." See Draper, p. 101; Variorum, III, 382.

2haDictionarie French, s.v. marin. Cf. Latin
marinus.

2(49"The Political Allego of the Florimell-
Marinell Story " ELH, XII (19h5), 281, 286. She at-
tributes, p. 282,_tEe chance conception of Marinell to
Spenser's desire to show that "the Spanish maritime
empire [was] . . . due to chance rather than to heav-
enly destiny.m

161

Thomas Roche offers a more reasonable, and at
first glance actually an exciting, interpretation
based on the fact that in the emblem literature of the
Renaissance Cupid is portrayed holding in one hand a
flower and in the other a fish.250 The emblem had
been interpreted contemporaneously as a symbol of the
universal dominion of love. Roche reasons that since
Venus was born of the sea and.Marinell and Florimell
”are born again from the sea through a baptism of
beauty and love," the marriage of the two "asserts a 3
beauty protected by love and its union with fertil-
ity."251 Roche is properly uneasy because Spenser
gave Marinell no fish imagery, but he feels that in
the emblem books the fish had to be used since "the
sea is not easily represented pictorially, particu-
larly as an iconographical attribute held by an alle-
gorical figure."252 Although this is certainly true,
in the light of the evidence I have presented thus
far and will augment in later chapters, the presence
of specific images is indicative of Spenser's concep-
tual thinking, and the total absence of fish in the

Marinell episodes invalidates any such interpretation.

 

2soKindl , p. 190; Roche cites Alciati's
Emblems. The emblem may be seen on the title page of
Roche's book.

'ZSlibid., p. 193.

2521bid., p. 192.

 

 

 

 

162

Before commenting on a more acceptable interpre-
tation it will be necessary to examine more closely
the name and character of Marinell. I have said that
the name is obviously related to mgrig, and in this
connection Spenser assigns Marinell apprOpriats parents:
he is the son of Cymoent or Cymodoce (both names are
used, but they have Keyed. , wave, in common) and of
Dumarin.253 In his insistence on the languishing of
Marinell, however, Spenser may also be aware of a
Greek word which was close enough in sound to be re-
lated to the name. Mafat'vw was used to refer to
the drying up of rivers or the abating of waves; this
would have recommended the verb in connection with the
complex of water imagery Spenser created in Marinell-
Cymoent-Dumarin. It also meant to waste away, decay,
or languish;25h this would have taken Spenser again
from etymon to image. Just as the love-sickness of

253Rathborne, p. 282, suggests that Dumarin is
none other than Columbus, who also "accidentally founds
the empire which brings Spain the wealth of the sea."
She feels that Spenser would have read of Columbus'
discoveries in the same work (Peter Martyr Anghiera's

De Orbo Novo) in which there is a marriage between a
humanbsing and a sea nymph.

 

25“Crespin, s.v. aat'vw , "arefacio," to
make dry. In addi't—I'Sn, Cr spin defines/naysaf/Mo at
as "mar[c]esco, flaccesco . . . tabesco," wither or
pins away, dr00p, or decay; to begin to fade, become
faint, or languish; and to waste away or be gradually
consumed. The connection between Marinell and pa acvu
has been noted by Craig, p. 98, who adds that shape
we are even associating [-nsll] with the English6
'knelle'”

163
Britomart had been described in terms of the drooping
of a bird's plumage, so the love-sickness of Marinell
is described in terms of physical decay. In both
cases Spenser keeps in mind an image inherent in a
name. Marinell "languishss" to such an extent that
in short space his wonted chearefull hsw

Gan fade, and lively spirits deaded quight:

His cheeks bones raw, and sis-pits hollow grew,

And brawney armss had lost their knowen might,

That nothing like himselfe he ssem'd in sight.

Ere long so weeks of limbs, and sicke of love

He woxe, that lenger he note stand upright,

But to his bed was brought, and layd above,

Like ruefull ghost, unable once to stirre or

move (IV.xii.20).

Apollo discovers "that he did languish of some inward
thought," love (IV.xii.25).x Cymoent connects his ill-
ness with a prophecy "that his decay should happen by
a mayd" (IV.xii.28). Etymology thus seems responsible
for the working out of Spenser's conception of Mari-
nell. It was responsible for something larger as well,
but to appreciate the fuller implications of the story
of Marinell let us first look at Spenssr's method of
composition.

Josephine Waters Bennett's careful analysis of
Sponsor's methods shows that the marriage of the Thames
and the Medway which takes up the eleventh canto of the
fourth book is probably a reworking of the "Epithala-

mion Thamesis" about which Spenser spoke in a letter

of 1580.255 She feels that because Spenser wanted to

 

255Evolution, p. 10h. Roche, Kindly, p. 172,

16h
use this earlier poem he invented the episode of
Florimell's imprisonment by Proteus, thus "pav[ing]
the way for the water pageant of the wedding of the
Thames and the Medway. . . ."256 If we for a moment
imagine Spenser as he first considered the problem of
working a beautiful set piece into his narrative, we
appreciate the difficulties he faced, difficulties
which could, however, be solved by some suggestion for
a myth which would provide a suitable framework. The
suggestion, I believe, was made by etymology. His
hero Marinell was first conceived as a relatively sim-
ple figure who would shift the action to the sea and
thus provide the sort of variety found often enough
in romance. The next step, suggested by etymology,
was the conception of Marinell as a wounded and lan-
guishing figure. The final step was a natural one
for an Elizabethan and certainly for Spenser: the
appropriation of the well-known.myth of Adonis as the
best possible frame for all the materials Spenser
wdshed to use.

Northrop Frye reads the Florimell-Marinell story

L

Suggests that etymology may be the source of "river
marriages" in English literature: the Ior and the Den
made up the Jordan; the Dor and the Dan, the Dordan;
and the Tame and the Isis, the Thames. "It may be
that the concept of river marriages would never have
been popular in the Renaissance if the . . . parent
streams [of the Thames] had not been called Tame and

Isis."

256Bennett, p. 155.

 

165
as a Venus—Adonis myth, and he shows that many of the
episodes of the third book are slaborations of this
basic archetype.257 Frye equates Marinell and.Adonis
because of Spenser's stress on "sacrificial imagery,
the laments of the nymphs, [and] the strewing of
flowers on the bier," all of which are usually asso-

ciated‘withAdonis.258 When Cymoent finds the wounded
Marinell

Eftesoones both flowres and girlonds far away

She flong, and her faire deawy locks yrent;

To sorrow huge she turnd her former play,

And gamesome merth to grievous dreriment:

She threw her selfe downe on the continent,

Ne word did speake, but lay as in a swowne,

Whiles a1 her sisters did for her lament,

With yelling outcriss, and with shrieking sowne;

And every one did tears her girlond from her
crowns (III.iv.30).

Neptune quiets the waters (III.iv.32) and Cymoent,
were she mortal, would have died (III.iv-Bh). As
Jessie Weston points out,

the elaborate ceremonial with which the death
of Adonis was mourned . . . leave[s] no doubt
that the personage with whom we are dealing
was . . . one with whose life and well-being
the ordinary processes of Nature, whether

 

257Frye, p. 81. Frye calls Acrasia "a kind of
sinister Venus" and Mordant, Cymochles, and Verdant
versions of "a dead, wasted, or frustrated Adonis. . .
." He points out that in the Castle Joyous there is a
tapestry of the story, and that in the same book
Spenser has the Garden of Adonis itself. Before read-
ing Frye's article I had become convinced that the
Florimell-Marinell episode was based on the Adonis
legend. I will follow his analysis but will add
corroborative evidence of my own.

258Ibid., p. 82.

166

animal or vegetable, were closely and inti-

mately concerned. In fact the central figure

of these rites, by whatever name he may be

called . . . represents in anthropomorphic

form the principle of animate Nature, upon

whose preservation, and unimpaired energies,

the life of man, directly, and indirectly,

depends.2

In the legend of Adonis, Aphrodite attempts to
save Adonis by hiding him with Persephone; in Spenser,
Cymoent tries to protect her son by warning him "the
love of women not to entertains" (III.iv.26). Aphro-
dite's efforts fail because of Adonis' promiscuity and
hence Ares' jealousy; Cymoent similarly fails, for
Marinell tells the knight of chastity that she has no
business being in his territory (III.iv.lh). And per-
haps most significantly both Adonis and Marinell are
wounded in the thigh.260 First Spenser says only that
Marinell is wounded "through his left side" (III.iv.
16), but Cymoent's complaint to Proteus speaks of
Marinell's "so deeps wound through these deare members"
(III.iVQ37).
Thus far in Spenser's handling of the myth,

Cymoent takes on the functions of Aphrodite, and this
is a fair enough reading of the myth, for Aphrodite

made possible the birth of Adonis.261 After Marinell's

 

259Jessie L. Weston, From Ritual to Romance (New
York: Doubleday, 1957), pp.h3-hfl2

260Graves, I, 69-70; Weston, p. h3'

 

261craves, ibid.

 

 

167
ritual death and rebirth, Cymoent keeps him with her
much as Aphrodite unfairly keeps Adonis with her.
Both Cymoent and Aphrodite seek the help of a god in
healing the wounded boy; and
So well that leach did hearke to [Cymoent's]
request,
And did so well employ his carefull pains,
That in short space his hurts he had rsdrest,
And him restor'd to healthfull stats againe:
In which he long time after did remains
There with the nymph his mother, like her thrall;
Who sore against his will did him retains (IV.xi.7).
While all this has been transpiring, Florimell
has been stolen by Proteus and occupying her usual
place in the world is the "snowy" Florimell. A witch
creates the false Florimell of "purest snow in messy
mould congeald" (III.viii.6), remarkably resembling
the true Florimell. The one difference is that
in the stead
0f life, she put a spright to rule the carcas
dead (III.viii.7).
The "spright" is one of the fallen angels; and Spenser
very carefully gives its gender: male (III.viii.8).
All of these details suggest the Adonis legend,262 for
Adonis spends a season in hell, which traditionally
symbolizes the death of vegetation. As Frye wittily

expresses it, "Florimell is imprisoned under the sea

during a kind of symbolic winter in which a 'snowy'

 

262Roche, Kindl , p. 153, sees in them rather
traces of the alternate Helen myth in which Paris
takes to Troy an eidolon of Helen while the real Helen
stays with Proteus.

 

 

 

168
Florimell takes her place."263

The love of Aphrodite for Adonis was compounded
of happiness and.misery, for he had to spend a portion
of the year with Persephone.26h Scudamour knows that
all love must suffer as well as rejoice; or as he
states it metaphorically, "love with gall and hony doth
abound" (IV.x.l). I believe that this is the clue to
Florimell's full name: Spenser wishes to stress the
honey which this flower of love can yield; but when
the flower has been spoiled by snow, it yields the
gall of love.

Marinell realizes that he is responsible for
Florimell's imprisonment (IV.xii.16) when he hears her
lament in the dungeon of Proteus. The location is ob-
viously significant: Miss Weston claims that "the
presence of water, either sea, or river, is an impor-
tant feature in the Adonis cult, the effigy of the
dead god being, not buried in the earth, but thrown

 

263p. 83.

26“Nelson, p. 136, questions Frye's interpreta-
tion bf the Florimell-Marinell episode since "the
duration of Florimell's bondage [is] not six months
but seven." The reader need not be "addled" (as
Nelson says he must be) by this seeming discrepancy.
I suspect that Spenser was thinking of the seven
seeds of the pomegranate, a fruit red with the blood
of Adonis, which Persephone ate before leaving Hades.
Graves, I, 95, sees the seven seeds as possibly sym-
bolic of the "seven phases of the moon during which
farmers wait for the green corn-shoots to appear."

169

into the water."265 It is following this point that
the resurrection of the god is celebrated,266 and his
resurrection symbolizes the rebirth of vegetation.
Thus it is that Cymoent seeks aid of the sun god,
Apollo (IV.xii.25), from whom she learns that her son
is in love. Neptune further aids her so that finally,
using symbols of sun and water, Spenser shows the re-
birth of vegetation in the deliverance of Florimell.
The imagery of the stanza showing the union of Flori-
mell and Marinell is a statement of the meaning of
the Adonis legend:

. . . scene as [Marinell] beheld that angels face,

Adorn'd with all divine perfection,

His cheered heart eftsoones away gen chace

Sad death, revived with her sweet inspection,

And feeble spirit inly felt refection;

As withered weed through cruell winters tins,

That feeles the warmth of sunny beames reflection,

Liftes up his head, that did before decline,

And gins to spread his leafs before the faire

sunshine (IV.xii.3h).

Even the remaining frailty of Marinell suggests the
early days of Spring:

Right so himselfe did.Marinell upreare,

When he in place his dearest love did spy;

And though his limbs could not his bodie bears,

Ne former strength returns so suddenly,

Yet chearefull signes he shewsd

outwardly (IV.xii.35).
It is of course impossible to know with cer-

tainty the exact workings of the creative process.

 

265?. 51.
266Ibid., p. M7.

170
But in his development of the Florimell-Marinell
story, Spenser seems to have been inspired by sty-
mology to make use of a myth which enriches the tex-

ture and deepens the tone of the poem.

CHAPTER V: BOOK V

ARTEGALL, the name of the hero of the fifth
book, is a crux of Spenser scholarship. Long be-
lieved to allude to Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, it
is now thought to point rather to the Dudley family.
Mrs. Bennett notes that Grafton's Chronicle (1569)

 

mentions an illustrious ancestor of the Earls of
Leicester and Warwick:
In this tyme also I finds mencion

made of a noble and valiant man called

Arthgall, and he was the first Erle of

Warwicke, and he was one of the knightes

of the round Table of king Arthurs. . . .267
Another possible source is the King Arthgallo men-
tioned by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the Historia Begum

Britanniae. Although Arthgallo was deposed by the

 

barons because of his injustice, he was later restored
to the throne, and "did so amend him of his former
misdeeds, as that now he did begin to abase the baser
sort and to exalt the gentler, to allow every man to

hold his own, and to do right justice."268 It seems

 

267Bennett, p. 8h. She discusses Malone's and
Upton's suggestions that Artegall represents Lord Grey.

268Geoffre of Monmouth, trans. Sebastien.Evans
("The Temple Classics"; London: J. M. Dent and 00.,

171

172
reasonable to assume, then, that Spenser began with
the name "Arthgall" or "Arthgallo" and then changed it
to the more euphonious "Arthegall." As Mrs. Bennett
points out, Spenser uses this spelling most frequently
in the earlier books of the poem, but prefers the form
"Artegall" in the fifth book. She attributes the
shift to a change in Spenser's conception:
In Book IV, Cantos iv-vi, Arthegall

appears as the "Salvage knight" and fights

against the knights of Maidenhead. His sub-

sequent downfall at the hands of Britomart,

his ambush of her, and the fight and recog-

nition scene were hardly designed to illus-

trate justice. He behaves like a knight of

the romances, but neither his motive nor his

action in the ambushing of Britomart is in

accord with justice. Book V takes a fresh

start. From the first he is the champion of

a definite virtue. . . .269
Mrs. Bennett's point is that with a change in concep-
tion came a change in name, but she does not suggest
why Spenser adOpted the particular spelling Artegall.
I believe that etymology provides the answer. Spenssr’
would have heard in "Artegall" two words which to—
gether make up his conception of justice: a’F-ré u) ,
to weigh, consider, judge;270 and the French.egal,

equal.271 Justice is the fair weighing of contending

 

l90h), pp. 77-79. Spenser alludes to Archigald in
II.x.hh.

269Bennett, pa h3. ’
27001‘68'9111, sOVO gIOTQ’w , "OpondO. e e e"

271Dictionarie French, s.v. egal, "Equall, like,
payre." ‘Nelson, p. 257, traces the name to "art-egall,"

 

 

173
claims.

Spenser's entire treatment of Artegall in Book V
is a visualization of the etymology of his name. The
controversial encounter with the communist giant best
demonstrates the genesis of image in etymology.
Against a knight who truly ”weighs equally" Spenser
pits one who only claims to do so:

There they beheld a mighty gyant stand

Upon a rocke, and holding forth on his

An huge great paire of ballance in his hand,
With which he boasted in his surquedrie,

That all the world he would weigh equallie,

If ought he had the same to counterpoys.

For want whereof he weighed vanity,

And fild his ballaunce full of idle toys:

Yet was admired.much of fooles, women, and boys.

He sayd that he would all the earth uptake,

And all the sea, devided each from either:

So would he of the fire one ballaunce make,

And one of th' ayre, without or wind or wether:
Then would he ballaunce heaven and hell together,
And all that did within them all contains;

Of all whose weight he would not misse a father:
And looke what surplus did of each romaine,

He would to his owne part restore the same againe.

Forwhy, he sayd, they all unequall were
All which he undertooke for to repairs; . O . . .
In sort as they were formed aunciently;
And all things would reduce unto
equality (V.ii.30-32).

Artegall sees the flaw in the giant's reasoning: since

God had created all things "in goodly measure,"

 

but feels that although the French etymology is con-
sistent with.Artegall's allegorical function, "the
primary allusion is to an ancient king of Britain,"
Arthgallo.

17h

And weighed out in ballaunces so nere,
That not a dram was missing of their right (V.ii.35)

it would be wrong to weigh them again without the knowl-
edge of the worth of things, the real "weight," which
only God can have:
. . . if thou now shouldst weigh them new in pound,
We are not sure they would so long remains:
All change is perillous, and all chaunce unsound.
Therefore leave off to weigh them all againe,
Till we may be assur'd they shall their course
retaine (V.ii.36).
In the giant's desire to level all things we see the
abuse of the quality which Artegall represents. Spen-
ser's use of scales in the giant episode is consistent
with both the traditional image of justice and the
image in.Artegall's etymon. Spenser reconciles heav-
enly justice and the justice of man in the person of
Artegall, for he knows instinctively how to judge: he
need not depend on external systems of right and wrong
for he is equal judgment. As Artegall tells the giant,
who attempts to break the scales which seem to have
betrayed him,
Be not upon thy balance wroken;
For they doe nought but right or wrong betoken;
But in the mind the doome of right must bee:
And so likewise of words, the which be spoken,
The eare must be the ballance, to decree
And judge, whether with truth or falshood they
agree (V.ii.u7).
Although Spenser makes Artegall the son of Gorlois
(III.iii.27). he has him raised not by Igerne but
rather by ASTRAEA. The choice of the goddess of justice

is of course apt and needs little comment. Astraea

175
teaches Artegall
to weigh both right and wrong

In equall ballance with due recompence,

And equitie to measure out along,

According to the line of conscience (V.i.7).
Again the image is consistent with both allegory and
etymology. Artegall's sword, CHRYSAOR, taken from the
Astraaa myth, is treated with the standard etymology:
It is

garnisht all with gold upon the blade
In goodly wise, whereof it tooke his
name (V.i.10).272
Both Astraea and Chrysaor are conventional appurte-
nances of justice and would undoubtedly have found
their way into the Faerie Queene regardless of the
name of the hero of Justice.

Just as that name, however, influenced Spenser's
treatment of the leveling giant episode, so it helped
create the details of.Artegall's later encounters.
Perhaps a further connotation of 57014:.) would show
this more clearly. The word also means to tie or
bind,273 and thus the name would be literally ”to tie
equally." This is Artegall's method in proving that
Braggadochio's lady is the false and Marinell's the
true Florimell (and incidentally, although.Marinell

cannot tell the difference, Artegall simply knows):

 

272Estienne, I: ’4839 7 Ufa/«70 [31°]; ”En3.m
aureum gestans" (bearing a go d sword).

273Crespin, s.v. éfrafw , ". . . alligo."

176

Then did he set her by that snowy one,

Like the true saint beside the image set,

Of both their beauties to make paragone,

And triall, whether should the honor get.

Straight way so soone as both together met,

Th' enchauntad damzall vanisht into nought:

Her snowy substance melted as with heat (V.iii.2h).
By joining equally, Artegall has made the true prevail.
The same process resolves the dispute between.Amidas
and Bracidas:

For equall right in equall things doth stand;

For what the mighty sea hath once possest,

And plucked quite from all possessors hand,

Whether by rage of waves, that never rest,

Or else by wracka, that wretches hath distrest,

He may dispose by his imperiall might,

As thing at randon left, to whom he list.

So, Amidas, the land was yours first hight,

And so the threasure yours is, Bracidas, by

right (V.iv.l9).

Nature has joined owner and possessions in equal
measure, and Artegall's allegorical function is to
recognize the justice of the distribution.

In one case which Artegall adjudicates, Spenser
was clearly etymologizing by contraries, a procedure
which he occasionally used with humorous or ironic re-
sults. One can imagine him thinking of a hero who
deals out justice by joining two conflicting claims,
and then jumping to the story of Solomon who accomp
plished the same result by suggesting that a child be
cut in two. In this case a knight and a squire are
involved in a dispute over two ladies, one alive and

one dead. Artegall suggests,

177

Let both the dead and living equally

Devided be betwixt you here in sight,

And each of either take his share aright (V.i.26).
Thus Artegall becomes the arbiter who joins equally by
dividing equally. The episode, one of the happier ones
in the fifth book, can be attributed to Spenser's fond-
ness for etymologizing, which hare stimulated his
latent sense of humor.

Two similes used for Artegall also seem to have
been suggested by etymology. In the first, Spenser
compares him to a seal. In his battle with Pollente,

Ne aver Artegall his griple strong
For any thing would slacks, but still uppon him

bong e , ‘
As when a dolphin and a sale are met
In the wide champian of the ocean
plaine (V.ii.lh-15).
And after unhorsing Pollente, Artegall has the advan-
tage,

For Artegall in swimming skilfull was, '
. And durst the depth of any water sownd (V.ii.l6).

The unusual simile probably came to Spenser as he
thought of a hero whose forte was the combination of
unlike things: the result, an.amphibian. Spenser's
bookish natural history would have suggested the
particular amphibian he chose:

AMPHIVIA are a kind of fish which get this

name because they have the habit of walking

about on dry land or swimming about in the

sea. The point is that in Greek the word
'Amphi' means 'both'; 1.6., they live in

178

the wggfir or on the shore, like seals.

The second simile suggested by etymology con-
trols not only some images which Spenser uses in con-
nection with Artegall himself but also may have con-
firmed him in his choice of the name Artegall and, as
I shall show below, may have suggested the name Talus
for Artegall's groom. The simile is the comparison of
Artegall with an eagle. The similarity in sound be-
tween "egall" and "eagle" must have suggested the de-
scription of Artegall when he rescues Terpin from
Radigund: he is "Like to an eagle in his kingly
pride" (V.iv.h2), and fromthis clue Spenser quite
characteristically goes into his eagle-goshauke-fowle
picture. He again uses the eagle image when.Artegall
embarks to challenge Grantorto, whose supporters flee
from Talus "like doves whom the eagle doth affray't
(V.xii.5). The eagle symbol would have struck Spenser
as particularly appropriate for a knight of justice.
He was aware of the supposed ability of eagles to
"behold the sunne" (1.x.h7). It was this characteristic
which had led medieval writers to use the eagle as a
symbol of divine justice:

For the medieval reader, the first

association with the eagle was . . . his nature
as the one living creature able to look with

 

27hBook of Beasts, p. 196.

 

 

 

179
unshut eye upon the sun. Only Christ can
thus look on the glor of the Supreme Sun
which is God. . . .27;
The eagle furthermore symbolized secular justice,276
so that Spenser would have felt himself on firm ground
in his selection of the name Artegall.

The punitive powers of an eagle are centered in
his talons just as Artegall's are in TALUS. Spenser
undoubtedly knew the etymology of the English "talon,"
whichis traced ultimately to the Latin.£2lus,
ankle.277 Thus etymology may be considered basically
responsible for Spenser's selection of the name.278
In addition, he would have related the name of this
symbol of punitive power to the Latin.tgli2, repara-

tion, "an equall or like payne in recompence of an

275H. Flanders Dunbar, S bolism in Medieval
Thou ht (New Haven: 'Yale University Press, I929},
p. e

2761bid.

 

277EEQ, s.v. talon: "The sense-development shows
the stages: ankle; heel of man . . . heel or hinder
part of the foot of a beast; hinder claw of a bird of
prey. . . . The extension to a bird of prey . . . [isl
peculiar to English." The word "talon" was used as the
"powerful claws of a bird of prey" as early as lhOO.

278There may be a hint, also, of some connection
in Spenser's mind between the scales and weights
imagery of Artegall and a further etymology of the
name Talus: ref/\av-rav , "trutina,'libra, lanx,"
balance or pair of scales (Crespin), as well as the
English "talent,’r (m, _s_._\_r_. talent, "An ancient
weight. . . .w).

 

 

   

180
hurte."2-79 Spenser could have read in Augustine, di-
rectly in Cicero, or in many other sources, the state-
ment that "the laws recognise eight kinds of penalty--
damages, imprisonment, scourging, reparation, disgrace,
exile, death, slavery." And in Augustine he would have
met the question: "Is there any one of these which
may be compressed into a brevity proportioned to the
rapid commission of the offence . . . unless, perhaps,
reparation?"280 In a narrative a poet will seize the
dramatically compact penalty-~for this reason alone
Spenser would give the groom a name related to talig.
The actions of Talus reflect this element in his name,
so much so that Artegall is often shocked at his crude
eye-for-an-eye punishments. Since Munera, for exam-
ple, attempts to capture Artegall by throwing "end-
lesse riches" in his path, Talus punishes her first
by chopping off her golden hands and silver feet (V.
11.26). Similarly he mates out the punishment of
drowning to the communist giant, who cites the in-
equities of the sea as a prime motive for levelling.
We share Artegall's discomfort, as Spenser must have
wanted us to do. I do not think that Spenser wanted

us to admire Talus for his cruel and heartless actions.

 

279Cooper, s.v. talio.

280Saint Augustine, The Cit of God,trans.
Marcgs Dods (New York: Random House, Inc., 1950),
p. 7 l.

181
The iron.means is not the golden mean, nor was it
meant to be. It must exist because, as Spenser says
in another connection, "when the world woxe old, it
woxe warre old" (IV.viii.31).

This conception of Talus is emphasized in the
story Spenser creates to explain the presence of such
a heartless character in a book of justice. When
Astraea returns to heaven because of the corruption
of the times, she leaves her groom, Talus, at the ser-
vice of Artegall. Spenser thus consciously defines
the function of Talus, that justice which is far below
the ideal but which is necessary in debased eras; and
he uses metals in their traditional symbolism to stress
his point. He opens the fifth book with a reference
to the golden age (V.prologue.2) and gives Artegall a
golden sword (V.i.9). Of the present age he says two
things: first that it is "a stonie one” (V.prologue.
2) and second that it is an iron one. The images are
common enough and yet no one as far as I know has
grasped that Spenser used the second here at all. ‘Yet
he can be saying nothing else in his description of
Talus, the gift of the golden-age Astraea:

But when she parted hence, she left her grooms,
An yron man, which did on her attend

Alwayes, to execute her steadfast doome,

And willed him with.Artegall to wend,‘

And doe what ever thing he did intand.‘

His name was Talus, made of yron.mould,
Immoveable, resistlesse, without and;

182
Who in his hand an yron flale did hould,
With which he thresht out falshood, and did
truth unfould (V.i.12).

Much ink has been spilled over Spenser's chang-
ing the mythological Talus from a bronze or brass man
to an iron.man.281 Lotspeich suggests that "consid-
ering Sp[anser]'s habitual use of 'iron' to denote
just such qualities as his Talus possesses, it is not
surprising to find him changing the tradition in this
particular."282 I doubt that Spenser had in mind the
classical Talus. He seems to have created the groom
out of whole cloth, or, to shift the metaphor, out of
new iron ore. If, however, Lotspeich is correct, it
is now possible to extend his suggestion. Not only
Talus possesses "iron qualities" but also the Eliza-
bethan age as Spenser saw it. It was an age of iron
and as such demanded an iron executioner. Furthermore,
Spenser would have associated Talus with iron from his
reading of Caesar,283 and from the Latin.tglgg, "A

tronchion . . . a stake vsed as an enginne in

warre."28h Small wonder, then, that Spenser called

 

281For summaries of mythological treatments see
Variorum, V, 165-67, 298.

282Lotspeich, p. 109.

283The phrase talea ferreag (a bar of iron used
as money in Britain) is used by Caesar.

28hCooper, s.v. talea. John P. Daly, S.J., ‘
"'Talus' in Spenser‘s Faerie Queene," N&Q, VII (1960),
h9, might well have citedfthis etymology in support of

 

 

   

183
Talus an iron man and gave him an iron flail.285 He
would have had to have been a greater slave to con-
vention and a lesser etymologist to have retained
brass imagery for this key figure.

The first adventure of Talus and.Artegall in the
fifth book involves the Solomon-like decision of Arte-
gall discussed above. The guilty knight is named SIR
SANGLIER. To understand Spenser's choice of such a
name (it means "wild boar" in French)286 we must con-
sider the context, a book of justice. Any good
Protestant thinking of justice would have heard as a
constantly recurring theme the Biblical ”Judge not,
that ye be not judged" (Matt.7:l), a statement which
appears immediately after the "lilies of the field"
passage which refers to the fact that "even Solomon in

all his glory was not arrayed like one of these"

 

his contention that the iron flail represents the fire-
arms which the English ware beginning to use for the
first time in Spenser's day. He feels that the iron
flail is "an apt symbol for firearms: the user Talus
(English soldiers) holds the iron handle (the gun) in
his hand while the loose, free-swinging iron section
(the bullets) strike the opposition."

285A1though John Steadman, "S enser and the
Virgilius Legend," m, LXXIII (195 ). 1:13, admits
that‘he can find no parallel in classical literature
for an iron Talus, he does find several iron flails
used by men of copper or brass. In the L f of
Virgilius_a copper man uses an iron flail to clear the
streets of Home of ruffians, and manages to murder
some two hundred.

286Baret, B859.

 

 

18h
(6:29); and which appears immediately before the
injunction "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs,
neither cast ye your pearls before swine. . . ." (7:6).
In short, Spenser's mind, in its usual associative
way, would have coupled the Solomon reference with the
swine reference; the result is a judgment of Solomon
cast before swine. Given the name Sanglier, Spenser
would also have etymologized its component parts. The
French sang, blood,287 is alluded to in Sanglier's
shield which shows "a broken sword within a bloodie
field" (V.i.l9) and in the woman he murdered, "in her
owne blood all wallow'd wofully" (V.i.lh). The second
part of the name, lier (French "to bynda,"288) may
have suggested the image of Sanglier "bound like a
beast appointed to the stall"7 (V.i.22).

Artegall and Talus next encounter POLLENTE and
MUNERA. In the names of these characters Spenser saw
such definite etymological ties that he was in a sense
constrained from seeking further ones. This can be
seen in his bomments on theirnames.

His name is hight Pollente, rightly so,
For that he is so puissanta and strong (V.ii.7).

Thus it is that Pollente wears an iron collar, for iron

is a symbol of strength. And likewise,

 

287Dictionarie French, s.v. sang.
288Ibid., s.v. liar.

 

e . e n e
- O
.
e
e
’ I
C o
e
I I
I I e
.
-
.
O Q I
e
e
V
I
.
C O O
' I
e o o
o I I I

 

185

Then doth he take the spoile of them at will,
And to his daughter brings, that dwels thereby;
Who all that comes doth take, and therewith fill
The coffers of her wicked threasury;

Her name is Munera, agreeing with her deedes.
Thereto she is full faire, and rich attired,
With golden hands and silver feete
beside (V.ii.9-lO).
In both names it is a simple case of direct etymology:

pollente is the Italian for powerful, and.munera the

 

plural of the Latin @2222, gift or reward.289

After killing Pollente, Munera, and the levelling
giant, Artegall and Talus go on to the tournament at
the marriage of Florimell and.Marinell. Here Guyon
reappears to claim his horse BRIGADORE from Bragga-
dochio. As Florio points out, briglia d'oro means "a
golden bridle" and is "also the name of a horse in
Ariosto."29O Thus Spenser mentions Brigadore's "golden
bit," "bright embrodered hedstall," and "golden sad-
dle" (V.1ii.29, 33, 35). He would have been led to
think of Orlando's horse by two characteristics of
Guyon: first, in associating the knight of temper—
anca with the golden.mean, and incidentally in discus-
sing him in a book devoted to the restitution of the
golden age, Spenser would have needed a horse associ-

ated with gold. Second, as Fowler has pointed out,

 

289Florio, p. 283, s.v. pollentia, "might,
puissance, power"; Cooper, s.v. munus.

290Florio, p. h9.

 

 

4%.;an

 

186

the bridle is an "emblem of Temperance." Fowler
rightly notes that

it is Braggadocchio's theft of Brigador

which precipitates Guyon into the pedes-

trian adventures which follow: that is to

say, it is ori inally through pride

(Braggadocchio that the Platonic horse of

man's desires ceases to be bridled by

temperance.
Thus Spenser would have appropriated an etymologically
correct name for Guyon's horse, and in having Artegall
restore the horse to Guyon he demonstrated through
imagery the allegorical connection between temperance
and justice.

The tale of Amidas and Bracidas which follows
the tournament seems to be original with Spenser; as
far as I know there are no known analogues, nor do
the names from the episode allude to earlier litera-
ture. Only MILESIO, the father of Amidas and
Bracidas, has been traced,292 but the Irish legend of
the Milesians did not supply the other names which
Spenser uses. Assuming that Spenser wished to speak
of the settlement of disputes arising from certain
"acts of Godm (and his emphasis on just such acts in
the complaints of the communist giant supports such
an assumption), he would have first sketched in the

outlines of the controversy and than have provided

 

29113'ow1er, "Emblems," pp. lu3-hh.
292Cough, Variorum, V, 19h.

 

 

187
appropriate names for his characters; that is, he
would have proceeded from image to etymon in this
tale. BRACIDAS complains that
this devouring sea, that naught doth spare,

The most part of my land hath washt away,

And throwne it up unto my brothers share (V.iv.8).
Spenser thus would name this brother "little personal
property"-- flflazts and Tones 293‘---or even "soaked
personal property"-- ,3/09’2‘“ (make wet, moisten,
soak).29h In addition, as Padelford suggests, Spenser
may have been thinking of "the root of the verb
le/Oafa’rw --'to throw up,‘ applied to the sea--+
fcfca.."295 Certainly the image is used both in the
passage cited above and in the complaint of the
younger brother that Bracidas has retained a ”threasure
throwne uppon his strandtr (V.iv.1S).

The name for the younger brother had to be a
neat doublet for Bracidas and also a fitting descrip-
tion for a treasureless man. Might Spenser not have
thought of Midas, a name which fits the first crite-

’ rion, and than have added the alpha privative to make
it fit the second? To say that Spenser chose the

name AMIDAS because it means "lover of possessions"296

 

293Estienne, I," 787, Ff) 4'. f :1 s ,, "Breuis, Baruus,
Exiguus"; I, l6hl, ccfcos , "Peculiaris."

29u’Estienne,_I, 789, (spa/nu, "Madefacio. . . ."

295Padelford, Variorum, V, 195.

296Of the names for the two brothers, Osgood,

 

   

188
would not sufficiently differentiate the two brothers.

PHILTERA, on the other hand, is indeed a lover of
possessions, or more specifically, of land, as her
name indicates (tic/A05, lover, + tam, land).297 As
Bracidas says,

. . . when Philtra saw my lands decay,

And former livelod fayle, she left me quight,

And to my brother did allOpe straight way (V.iv.9).
In having Bracidas quickly forsake his former love,
Lucy, for Philtera, however, Spenser seems also to be
alluding to the comparative of dh'kas : the irregular
comparative is pcfire/ao’s (more dear).298 The last
member of the foursome, LUCY, would seem to be named at
random, though of course the etymologizing Spenser
calls her "Lucy bright"'(V.iv.9). _

Having settled the problems of this group,
Artegall goes on to his major adventure with the
Amazons. He saves SIR TURPINE, at least temporarily,
from hanging. Spenser's spelling of the knight's

name varies from edition to edition: generally it is

 

Variorum, V, 195, suggests that "perhaps Amidas hints
at 'fond of possessions (ZwiL¢)' and Bracidas is
'Narrowmeans' (£9 a7u5+1 dle). Hybrids, not to
mention vowels A: consonants, could not embarrass an
etymologizing Elizabethan."

297Crespin, s.v. fic'las .

298Draper, p. 100, feels that Philtera was "named
presumably from the double love-story in which she
plays a part."‘ Osgood, Variorum, V, 195, prefers the
etymology of 99ml 4- terra.

 

s
. - e
0 ~ . ,
. 0 I O
0 O C
v
. . .
n
0
e U I l
.
e . g
o e
I
. e e
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. . .
e . i
.
e . . .
- . e
. . . e .
o

 

189
Terpin, although Turpine is also used.299 Perhaps
editors have preferred the former spelling to dif-
ferentiate this character from another Turpine who
appears in the sixth book, but I feel that, since
Spenser's treatment obviously points to an etymology
using the "u," the name must be amended to Turpine
where it is not so spelled. The Latin £2322, "to de-
file: to make foule or ill fauoured,"300 is clearly
in Spenser's mind, for the verb indicates his feel-
ings toward the "monstrous regiment of women." Arte-
gall sees Turpine in the midst of Amazons,

With both his hands behinde him pinnoed hard,

And round about his necke an halter tight,

As ready for the gallow tree prepard:

His face was covered, and his head was bar'd,

That who he was unaath was to descry (V.iv.22).
This is Spenser's usual image for defilement (he uses
the same one, it will be remembered, for Timias).

Sir Turpine describes the treatment to which he was
subjected by the leader of the Amazons, and again the
entire stanza is consistent with the etymology of his
name:

For all those knights, the which by force or guile

She doth subdue, she fowly doth entreate.

First she doth them of warlike armes despoile,

And cloth in womens weedes: and than with threat
Doth them compell to works, to earne their meat,

 

299See Variorum, V, Textual Appendix, 359;
Dodge's 1908 Edition uses Turpine in V.iv.26, and not
Terpin as the appendix states.

 

3OOBaret, D269.

 

 

190

To spin, to card, to saw, to wash, to wring;

Ne doth she give them other thing to eat,

But bread and water, or like feeble thing,

Them to disable from revenge adventuring (V.iv.31).

From this "defiled" knight Artegall first learns
of RADIGUND, queen of the Amazons. This woman, one of
the most clearly characterized figures in the Faerie
Queene, is a product of Spenser's knowledge of legend,
literature, and.etymology. It is difficult to say
which of these elements controls specific passages in
the fourth canto; in all probability they worked to-
gether to form the composite which is Radigund. One
might nonetheless assume that Spenser first worked with
the idea of that variety of injustice-the unnatural
subjection of men by women--which Amazons would so well
illustrate. It was popularly believed (as, indeed, it
had been by the Greeks) that Amazons were so-called
because "they bourned the right pappe. . . ."301 the
name coming from #4153, "papilla, mamma, mammilla"302
with the alpha privative.
The etymology of the word."Amazon" would have

given Spenser a hint for the name of the queen herself

 

301Cooper, Appendix, s.v. Amazonas. Celeste
Wright, "The Amazons in Elizabethan Literature," SP,
XXXVII (July, l9h0), h52, notes the use of this etyk
mology in Strabo, Justinus, Painter, and others.

302Cres 1 AT‘
p n, s.v. a <95. Mackay, Glossa , p. 5,
in discrediting sucH a etymology, comments tha¥ "it

has, nevertheless, been believed for more than a
thousand years. . . ."

   

191

since she was to be the example par excellence of un-
natural behavior. Sha was to typify those women who
unsexed themselves in order to gain dominion over men
by means of battle. In the name Radigund he saw the
image of unsexing: he joined the Latin rado, "to
shaue, scrape, or make smooth"303 and the Greek yvvb ,
woman.30u The two words, "Amazon" and "Radigund” are
thus synonyms etymologically speaking, for both refer
to the lack or destruction of feminine characteristics.
Spenser seems to be alluding to this double etymology
when he refers to Radigund as "halfe like a man" (V.
iv.36); and he refers specifically to the "scraping"
of breasts in the battle between Radigund and Brito-
mart:

Ne either sought the others strokes to shun,

But through great fury both their skill forgot,

And practicke use in armes: ne spared not

Their dainty parts, which Nature had created

So fair and tender, without staine or spot,

For other uses then they them translated;

Which they now hackt and hewd, as if such use

they hated (V.vii.29).

This passage annoys one critic because of what he terms

a "note of burlesque" in the reference to the "dainty

parts" intended for "other uses."305 Surely Spenser,

 

303000 er, s.v. rado. Draper, p. 103, suggests
instead. ’4 c. , reckless, but while such an etymology
undoubte y fits Spenser's allegorical purpose it
lacks the concreteness which he usually sought.

BOhCrespin, Beve XUV; ! "mulior'"
305Nelson, p. 137.

192
in his glorification of women and particularly of
Britomart is perfectly serious in this passage, and I
see no reason for objecting to any inconsistency of
tone. Furthermore, etymology demands just such an
image; its use provides not disunity but unity, for
etymon and image are interwoven.

Spenser uses moon imagery frequently in his de-
scriptions of Radigund. It seems unlikely that he
could have known that the word "Amazon" is Armenian
for moon-woman,306 but quite likely that he knew that
Amazons used "short shields shaped like a half moon.

. . ."307 As I will show below, Spenser makes use of
the moon-shaped shield suggested by either folk legend
or classical literature, but he also assigns Radigund
a moon-shaped sword. Rosamond Tuve has demonstrated
that Spenser may have been influenced in his descrip-
tions of Radigund by amazons in illuminated.manus
scripts, where he would have found "the same yellow
hair, the same clothing, bows and arrows, processional
train, in text after text, manuscript after manu-
script."308 One detail, however, she does not find in

these manuscripts, and that is Radigund's "cemitare"

 

306Graves, I, 355.

3°7Ibid., II, 125. Wright, p. thn. cites
Virgil and Quintus Smyrnaeus.

308P. 157.

 

 

193
(V.v.3. 9). She views his substitution of scimitar
for the ordinary Amazonian sword as simple "oriental-
izing."309 I would say, however, in light of Spen-
ser's generally tight imagery that he prefers the
scimitar to the sword because the former is crescent-
shaped. Furthermore, if the spelling "cemitare" is
reliable, in light of his habitual etymologizing we
might detect a shift from crescent to half moon.

Such a progression from early to later phase of
the moon may be related to Spenser's etymology of the
name Radigund. His further descriptions liken Radi-
gund to the full moon and to the sun, indicating some-
thing more than the conventional Amazon imagery. Sup-
posing that Spenser chose the spelling "Radigund" be-
cause its euphony would be greater than "Radogund,"
the revised first part of the name could have sug-
gested the verb Eggig, "To cast foorth his beames, and
brightnesse."310 Radigund's shield is likened not to
a half moon but rather to a full moon:

And on her shoulder hung her shield, badeckt
Uppon the hoses with stones, that shined wide
As the faire moons in her most full aspect,
That to the moons it mote be like in each
respect (V.v.3).
And her face, bathed though it is in blood and per-

spiration,

 

3°9Ibid., p. 162.
310Veron, sig. Mm6V.

 

 

19h

Bewrayd the signes of feature excellent:

Like as the moons, in foggie winters night,

Doth seems to be her selfe, though darkned be

her light (V.v.12).
One might attribute the moon imagery to Spenser's
vague recall of Amazonian lore were it not for the
fact that he also associates the sun with Radigund.
Here the force of Eggig is particularly felt. Arte-
gall beats on Radigund

As if she had an yron andvili beens,

That flakes of fire, bright as the sunny ray,

Out of her steely armes were flashing seene,

That all on fire ye would her surely weene (V.v.8).
When he finally has disarmed Radigund, Artegall un-
laces her helmet, "Her sunshynie helmet" (V.v.ll).

While etymology thus plays a major role in the
imagery associated with Radigund, certain images have
not yet been accounted for. If Spenser did indeed
arrive at the name Radigund in the manner which I have
suggested above, he would finally have thought of
other characters bearing similar names. Of the many
suggestions for analogous characters advanced by
Spenser scholars, the most convincing is that of Don
Cameron Allen, who compares Radigund with.Rhodogune,
the daughter of Artaxerxes II. Just as Rhodogune ap-
peared before a battle dressed in a knee-length robe,
so Radigund wears a camis (chemise) "which was short

tucked for light motion / Up to her ham" (V.v.2).

Rhodogune wears embroidered trousers; and although

 

 

   

195
Radigund wears "painted buskins," they are

Basted with bends of gold on every side,
And.mailes between (V.v.3).

Allen notes also that both Radigund and Rhodogune are
dark-eyed blondes.3ll While the similarities between
the two figures may be attributed to Spenser's con-
ceiving of Radigund as a typical Amazon, they are
still suggestive, and along with the sources discussed
above help to account for the imagery Spenser uses in
connection with Radigund.

Two figures associated with Radigund also hear
the marks of Spenser's etymologizing. The cause of
Radigund's enmity to "all the brave knights that hold
of Maidenhead" (V.iv.29) is BELLODANT,

To whom she bore most fervent love of late,

And wooed him by all the waies she could:

But when she saw at last, that he ne would'

For ought or nought be wonne unto her will,

She turn'd her love to hatred manifold,

And for his sake vow'd to doe all the 111

Which she could doe to knights. . . . (V.iv.30).
Using this conventional motive for the unnatural be-
havior of Amazons, Spenser chose a name for this
briefly-mentioned character emphasizing his effect on

Radigund: bello (war) + dant (giving).312

During Radigund's subjection of Artegall she uses

 

311Don Cameron Allen, "Spenser's Radigund," MLN,
LXVII (1952), 121-22.

312Cooper, s.v. bello, "To warre: to make warre";
s.v. do, dare, "To geue. . . ."

 

 

   

196
the services of CLARINDA. Gough has suggested that
Spenser may have been thinking of the Amazon Clorinda
in the Gerusalemme Liberata,313 but the vowel change

 

is surely significant of etymologizing in this name.
Spenser himself gives the clue in his first mention of
this character:

She [Radigund] called forth to her a trusty mayd,

Whom she thought fittest for that businesse,

(Her name was Clarin,) and thus to her sayd:

'Goe, damzall, quickly, doe thy selfe addresse,

To doe the message which I shall expresse

Goe thou unto that stranger Faery knight,

Who yeester day drove us to such distresse;

Tell, that to morrow I with him wil fight,

And try in equall field, whether hath greater
might (V.iv.h8).

The parenthetical remark indicates that Spenser was
thinking of the French claron or English clarion,31h
and significantly Clarinda goes to the town gate

Where sounding loud a trumpet from the wall,
Unto those warlike knights she warning sent.

Talus approaches,
To weeten what that trumpets sounding ment:
Where that same damzall lowdly him bespake,
And shew'd that with his 10rd she would em-
parlaunce make (V.iv.50).
Gough maintains that the abbreviation of the name to

"Clarin" was necessitated by the meter, but it is more

 

313Variorum, V, 199.

3lhThe NED defines "clarion" as "A shrill-sound-
ing trumpet witE'a narrow tube, formerl much used as
a signal in war"; used as early as 138 by Chaucer.
Spenser associates trumpets and clarions in I.xii.l3

and IV.iii.5.

 

 

 

197
likely that by thus shortening the name Spenser was
alluding humorously to his etymology.
When Britomart sets out to free Artegall she

meets along the way DOLON;

Well shot in yeares he seem'd, and rather bent

To peace, than needlesse trouble to constraine;

As well by view of that his vestiment,

As by his modest semblant, that no evill

ment (V.vi.19).

Appearances are of course deceiving, for Dolon at-
tempts to murder Britomart because he mistakes her for
Artegall. The quoted passage and the following de-
scriptions of Dolon's courtesy reflect the aptness of
Spenser's nomenclature, for the verb (role?) means to
cheat or falsify.315 Just as Dolon's deceptive ap-
pearance reflects the etymology of his name, so the
actual form of his treachery takes us to the etymon
Spenser had in mind in naming him. legg.is defined
as "a speare, or staffs, within the which a dagger,
or swoorde is hidden. . . ." or "a whippe hauyng a
dagger inclosed in it."316 One might conclude, as a
modern dictionary does, that the word refers to any

"cunning contrivance for catching." And this is just

what Britomart encounters at Dolon's house:

 

3150regp1n, s.v. o'clo'co , "decipio, vitio,
adultero.” See also Estienne, I, 1039, dhflkos ,
”Fraus (deceit, deception, fraudJ."

316Veron, sig. P2P; Cooper: 24!: 9£l2£~

 

 

 

198

All sodainely the bed, where she should lie,

By a false trap was let adowne to fall

Into a lower roome, and by and by

The loft was raysd againe, that no man could

it spie (V.vi.27).
Spenser analyzes the creator of this clever trap as a
man given to "slie shiftes and wiles," "full of fraud
and guile"’(V.vii.32-33). To give Dolon a motive for
his antagonism to Britomart, Spenser invents a son,
GUIZOR, whom Artegall supposedly had killed.317 The
son's name would have been suggested by the father's.
Dolon misrepresents his character, and thus Spenser
needed another word denoting the same trait. The
French uise, "guyse, maner or fashion," particularly
as it was used in the phrase "Viure a la guise d'autruy"
(to liue after the maner of other”)318 is thus un-
doubtedly the source of Guizor's name.
After Britomart has killed Radigund and thus freed

Artegall from servitude, the pair must again part,
and Spenser picks up the further adventures of Arte-
gall. Since he is involved in the problems of Mercilla
and hence at this point in the historical allegory,
Spenser makes little use of etymology for the creation

of imagery. The name MERCILLA.itself is obviously

 

r

317Bennett, p. l8hn., refutes Gough's contention
that this character had figured in an earlier episode
as a "grooms of evill guize" by pointing out that
Guizor is the son of a knight and hence could not be a
"groome."

318Dictionarie French, s.v. guise.

 

 

199
sheer flattery for the parsimonious Elizabeth, the
"mayden queene of high renowne" who is ngt'known "for
her great bounty" (V.viii.l7). A poet seeking pa-
tronage would naturally want to make his sovereign
aware of the etymological basis for his selection of
one of her names in the poem. The Latin merces,
"wages: the reward of seruice"319 may lack subtlety
but it surely would have been an effective hint. A
second.motive for calling Elizabeth Mercilla would be
the obvious suggestion of mercy in the name. This
Spenser exploits in the trial of Duessa (Mary Stuart)
where he praises her compassion. She weeps over the
just death sentence which Artegall and others advise
(V.ix.h9-50). Spenser devotes several stanzas to a
discussion of the ”heavenly" mercy of Elizabeth, and
has her perform "royall examples of her mercies rare"
(V.x.5).

In an earlier episode Artegall and Arthur learn
that Mercilla is troubled by the efforts of the
Souldan(Philip of Spain) "to subvert her crowne and
dignity" (V.viii.18),

To all which cruell tyranny, they say,

He is provokt, and stird up day and night

By his bad wife, that hight Adicia,

Who counsels him, through confidence of might,
To braake all bonds of law and rules of right.

For she her selfe professeth mortall foe
To Justice, and against her still doth fight,

 

319Cooper, s.v. merces.

200

Working to all that love her deadly woe,

And making all her knights and people to doe
The description of ADICIA is little more than a
transcription of the Aristotelian definition of

é<§‘K54;: injustice, unfairness, wickedness; con-
trary to the rule of law.320 Frequently Spenser
likens Adicia to various wild beasts, such as an Yen-
raged cow," (V.viii.h6), or "a mad bytch" (V.viii.h9),
quite in keeping with the etymology of "wild” seen,
for example, in the following statement:

The word "beasts" should properly be
used about . . . tigers . . . dogs . . . and
others which rage about with tooth and claw.
. . . They are called Beasts because of the
violence with which they rage, and are known
as "wild" (ferus) because they are accustomed
to freedom By nature and are governed
(ferantur) by their own wishes.321

 

The relationship between the etymology of Adicia's
name and the etymology of "wild beast" is apparent.
In describing Adicia's fate, Spenser keeps both ety-

mologies in mind:

As a mad bytch, when as the franticke fit

Her burning tongue with rage inflamed hath,
Doth runne at random, and with furious bit
Snatching at every thing, doth wreaks her wrath
On man and beast that commeth in her path.
There they doe say that she transformed was

 

320Estienne, I, 1006, a’cfcm'a, "Iniustitia,
Iniquitas, Improbitas. . . . contra legis prae-
scriptum."

321Book of Beasts, p. 7.

201

Into a tygre, and that tygres scath

In crueltie and outrage she did pas,

To prove her surname true, that she imposed

_ has (V.viii.h9).

Adicia "build[s] her wicked bowre" among wild beasts,
and "there," says Spenser, "let her ever keeps her
damned den" (V.ix.l-2).

The argument to canto nine reads

Arthur and Artegall catch Guyle,
Whom Talus doth dismay,

and thus discloses the etymology of the name MALENGIN.
Spenser again alludes to this etymology when he men-
tions Malengin's "wylie wit" and the reasons for his
invulnerability:

For he so crafty was to forge and face,

So light of hand, and nymble of his pace,

So smooth of tongue, and subtile in his tale,

That could deceive one looking in his face;

Therefore by name Malengin they him call,

Well knowen by his feates, and famous over

all (V.ix.5).
We find these very characteristics in contemporary
definitions of the French malengin, "fraud, craft,
subtilty, deceit, trecherie"; "deceitfull dealing";
and of engin, "Vnderstanding, witte."322
Malengin's cave may reflect another connotation

of the French noun, "a snare or trappe to beguils"323:

All within, it full of wyndings is,
And hidden wayes, that scarse an hound by small

 

322Dictionarie French.

323Barat, Dl7h, "Deceyte, frauds or guile: a
snare or trappe to beguile. . . . malengin.W

 

 

 

202

Can follow out those false footsteps of his,
Ne none can backs returns that once are gone
amis (V.ix.6).

And again, his weapons are not the conventional sword
or club of the usual antagonists in the poem but are
rather "snares or traps":‘

And in his hand an huge long staffs he held,
Whose top was arm'd with many a yron hooks,
Fit to catch hold of all that he could weld,
Or in the compasse of his clouches tooke;
And aver round about he cast his looks.
Als at his backs a great wyde net he bore,
With which he seldome fished at the brooks,
But usd to fish for fooles on the dry shore,
Of which he in faire weather wont to take
great store (V.ix.ll).

He uses his "Sardonian smyle" as "bayte . . . to ba-
guyle," (V.ix.12), engages in "pleasant trickes"

Like as the fouler on his guilefull pype

Charmes to the birds full many a pleasant lay

That they the whiles may take lesse heedie

keeps, '

How he his nets doth for their ruins lay (V.ix.l3),
and finally catches a victim in his not (V.ix.1h).
Several critics have called attention to the fact that
the physical appearance of Malengin was drawn from

Spenser's experiences with Irish rebels,32h and the

 

32uVariorum, v, 303, 305, 316. By a rather cir-
cuitous route, Burton.Milligan, "Spenser's Malengin and
the Rouguebook Hooker," P , XIX (l9h0), lh8, links the
hooked iron staff as wel with the Irish rebels. He
demonstrates that Greene and Dakker spoke of such im-
plements used by street thieves of their day; and ac-
cepting the identification of Malengin with Grey's
enemies, he assumes that Spenser would thus be able to
remind his readers of "one of the lowest and most
furtiva of English rogue types, the hooker."

203
editors of the Variorum note that "hollow eyes, long
hair, and ragged clothes were usually associated with
villains."325 But for the images Spenser uses to de-
fine the nature of Malsngin's "guile" we must turn to
the etymology of his name.

At the court of Mercilla, Arthur and Artegall
sea a man whose tongue is nailed to a post as punish—
ment for blasphemy against the queen. Naturally his
name, MALFONT, has provoked a scrambling after candi-
dates for an historical enemy of Elizabeth. The most
ingenious suggestion is that of Gough, who thinks
Spenser may be alluding to Ulpian Fulwell in part be-
cause "his enemies may have, in his own punning vein,
called him ‘Foul Well'. . . ."326 Spenser himself
seems to be disclaiming any such pointed reference
when he etymologizes the name:

So now Malfont was plainaly to be red;
Eyther far—€57 evill which he did therein,
Or that he likened was to a welhed

0f evill words, and wicked sclaundars by him
shed (V.ix.26).

 

325Variorum, V, 23h.

 

326Variorum, V, 239. Kerby Neill, Variorum, V,
319-21, considers Gough's theory untenable and sug-
gests, instead, Richard Verstegan, although basically
he believes "that Spenser is referring to all the at-
tacks on his Queen rather than to any specific work
or person." Smith, "Irish Names," pp. 30-31, rather
unconvincingly claims that several persons named '
Malfont in the employ of Spenser's enemy Lord Roche
could have been the source of his bitterness toward
this character.

 

 

20h
Dodge has commented on Spanser's conscious etymolo-
gizing in this passage,327 but fails to mention an-
other instancs of the same practice in the preceding
stanza, where he says that Malfont had earned for him-
self "the bold title of a poet bad" (V.ix.25). Here
Spenser is thinking of the Old French faiseor,
poet,328 and Malfont is thus literally "bad post."

In the remainder of the fifth book Spenser
rarely uses etymology as a source of imagery. The
episodes are all part of the historical allegory and
are thus controlled by Spenser's knowledge of actual
events and persons. The names Belgae, Irenae, Burbon,
and Flourdelis are not in the least darkly veiled;
Grantorto is a rather thinly veiled reference to
Spain; and the mythological Geryoneo is as good a
choice as another for Spain. There are, however, two
exceptions, both of which occur after Artegall has
killed Grantorto and established Irenae "peaceablie"
once again in her palace. As soon as he returns to
his normal environment, and thereby to the moral alle-

gory, he meets "two old ill favour'd hags."

 

327?. 80h.

328Fredaric Godefroy, Lexique de 1'ancien
fran ais (Paris: Librairie Universitaire,:l901), p.
22 : celui qui fait, qui fabrique, ouvrier, artisan,
auteur, chateur; potte."

 

 

 

 

205
The one of them, that elder did appears,
With her dull eyes did seems to looke
askew (V.xii.29).
This is ENVY, and in thus describing her Spenser may
be alluding to the etymology of the word "envy,"
invideo, "to see inwardely. . . ."329 The second hag
is DETRACTION, whose name would be traced to detraho,
which on the literal level means "To draw, plucke, or
put of or away: to take from by violence. . . ."330
This woman,
what ever evill she conceived,

Did spred abroad, and throw in th' open
wynd (V.xii.33).

Detraction weaves lies "to throw amongst the good,
which others had disprad" (V.xii.36). Spenser's in-
sistence on throwing in both of these passages was
probably inspired by etymology. The ally of the two
women is the Blatant Beast, but as Spenser so often
does, I shall ask the reader's patience until I dis-

cuss that character in the next chapter.

 

329Cooper, s.v. inuideo.

 

3301b1de , 3 eVe trahOe

CHAPTER VI: BOOK VI

To understand Spenser's reason for calling the
hero of the sixth book SIR CALIDORE, we must first
consider the relationship he saw between beauty and
God. In the fourth book he speaks of the golden age,
when men "held vertue for it selfe in soveraine awe"
(IV.viii.30) and there still abounded

beautie, which was made to represent
The great Creatours owne resemblance
bright (IV.viii.32).

In his own time, however, beauty, or "her glorious
flowre" courtesy,

is so utterly dscayd,
That any bud thereof doth scarse remains,
But if few plants, preserv'd through heavenly ayd,
In princes court doe hap to sprout againe,
Dew'd with her drops of bountie soveraine,
Which from that goodly glorious flowre proceed,
Sprung of the auncient stocks of princes strains,
Now th' onely remnant of that royall bread,
Whose noble kind at first was sure of heavenly
seed (IV.viii.33).

Thus he considered beauty a gift of God. And in gen-
eral, as he says in the proem to the sixth book, all
virtues were
at first . . . by the gods with pains
Planted in earth, being deriv'd at furst
From heavenly seedes of bounty soveraine.

Of these the fairest flower "is the bloosme of comely
206

207

Courtesie" (3,h). Both beauty and courtesy are
granted men by God, and thus it is that Spenser calls
the hero of the book of courtesy Calidore, gift of
beauty (miss , beautiful; deft; , gift).331

So much for the derivation of the name itself.
The images used for Calidore are a product of this
name, but a product achieved by Spenser's usual prac-
tice of seeing in a name multiple etymologies. The
most obvious word related to the name is the Latin
calidus, hot,332 and this was surely in Spenser's mind
when he twice likens Calidore to animals plagued by
flies in the summer's heat:

How many flyes in whottest sommers day

Do seize upon some beast, whose flesh is bare,

That all the place with swarmes do overlay,

And with their litle stings right felly fare;

So many theeves about him swarming are (VI.xi.h8).
Here Spenser is speaking of Calidore beset by brigands;
again, when he is holding off Briana's men, who
flocked about him, *

he them all from him full lightly swept,
As doth a steare, in heat of sommers day,
With his long taile the bryzes brush
away (V1.1.2h).
The comparison of a hero with a cow is indecorous only

if we forget the etymology of his name. Spenser never

forgets. A single instance, such as the calming of

 

331Estienne, II, 32, kwalts . "PUthOr"3
Crespin, s.v. decreed. "donum. . . ."

332Veron, sig. F7".

208

Calidore's "wrathfull heat" (V1.1.h0), could be at-
tributed to convention rather than etymology, but
Spenser repeatedly alludes to heat when presenting
Calidore. When Calidore first sees the shepherds, he
is "sweating" (VI.ix.5); his condition is so marked
that others notice it:

Then one of them him seeing so to sweat,

After his rusticke wise, that well he weend,

Offred him drinks, to quench his thirstie

heat (VI.ix.6).

Calidore cannot "quench his fire" of love for Pastorella
(VI.ix.3h), and while this too may simply be a conven-
tional metaphor, there is no doubt that Spenser is ety-
mologizing when he describes the comfort Pastorella
feels at the arrival of Calidore: "Like lyfull heat
to nummed senses brought" (VI.xi.h5).

In the name Calidore Spenser would have heard
yet another language and have consequently thought of
another etymon, the Gaelic calaidh, "safe in her-
bour."333 Whether or not such an etymology helped de-
termine the choice of name, it seems to have contributed
significantly to the Calidore imagery. Calidore ex-
presses his desire to live with Meliboe in terms of
this image:

Give leave awhyla, good father, in this shore
To rest my barcke, which hath bane beaten late

 

333Mackay, Gaelic Etymology, p. 70-

 

 

 

209

With stormes of fortune and tempestuous fate,
In seas of troubles and of toylesome
pains (VI.ix.31).

Calidore must return to his love "Like as the wounded
whale to shore flies from the mains" (VI.x.3l); and
when Pastorella hears Calidore's voice as he attempts
to rescue her, she feels joy,

Like him that being long in tempest tost,

Looking each hours into daathes mouth to fall,

At length espyes at hand the happie cost,

On which he safety hopes, that earst feard to be

lost (VI.xi.hh).
She literally sees safe harbor when she sees Calidore.
The etymology and imagery of a harbor do not

exist merely as a separate tightly-knit entity like
so many other such relationships within the poem, but
they may also be an integral part of a larger picture,

one which includes the poet himself. Throughout the

Faerie Queene Spenser's metaphor for the completion of

 

his work, either of a book or of the entire poem, is
the sailing of his craft into safe harbor. Clearly he
was the skillful mariner who each time achieved harbor.
It is just possible that the image shared by Calidore
and Spenser betrays an identity of the two. Not
Sidney, not Essex,33u but Spenser himself would thus

be the prototype of the knight of courtesy. This

iconoclastic idea does not of course redound to

 

33hFor a full discussion of the support given
both men by Spenser scholars, see Variorum, VI, 3h9-6u.

 

 

 

210

Spenser's credit, but the egocentricity of the man
would have bolstered the authority of the poet.
Calidore's love for a woman whose "real" name is Rose
may simply be Spenser's love for Rosalynd.335

Calidore's task is the capture of the BLATANT
BEAST. Spenser probably coined the adjective336 from
the Greek (e/la’Tr-rw (harm, damage, hurt). Leslie
Hotson, who suggests this etymology, very convincingly
cites an early derivation and shows that #36va was
frequently used in the sense which Spenser adopted.337
Hotson emphasizes the seriousness of the Blatant
Beast's offenses, claiming that Spenser coined the
word "blatant" to stress "the hurt, the harm, the
injury his bit. inflicts. . . ."338 No one, I am
sure, would quarrel_with Hotson's thesis, but it
strikes me as rather limited. Assuming that Spenser

coined the word "blatant" from (alarms, one must

 

335Pastorella's initial preference for Colin
(VI.ix.35). another Spenser figure, may reflect Rosa-
lynd's attraction to Spenser's poetry rather than to
his gallantry.

336NEQ: "Apparently coined by Spenser. . . . It
has been suggested that he intended it as an archaic
form of bloating (of which the 16th 0. So. was
blaitand),‘bfitthis seems rather remote from the
sense in which he used it. The L. blatire to babble,
may also be compared."

 

 

337Leslie Hotson, "The Blatant Beast," in
Studies in Honorlof T. W. Baldwin, ed. Don Cameron
Allen (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958),

p. 36.
338Ibid., p. 35.

 

 

 

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211
recognize further etymologizing in Sponsor's treat-
ment of this character. Spenser frequently uses
multiple etymologies to expand characterizations;
and while in the Greek verb he would have seen the
effect of the Beast's activities, in the Latin
blatero he would have seen the method: irresponsible
talk. That is the major antagonist to courtesy, and
blatero suggests it: to babble, or "a Babler, a
Pratler, a Chatterer, a Jangler."339 Such babblers
were said to be "full of woordes and tungue," or
loquacious.3l+O The expression "a long tongue: one
that telleth whatsoeuer he heareth" was the contem-
porary equivalent of blatero.3l+1 Obviously anyone
thinking of slander might see a wagging tongue, but
the emphasis on tongues in the dictionaries probably
accounts for Sponsor's frequent use of tongue imagery
for the Blatant Beast. Calidore says of the beast,
. . . with vile tongue and venomous intent
He sore doth wound, and bite, and cruelly
torment (VI.i.8).
This reminds Artegall of his encounter with that beast;
and although at that point the beast had a hundred

tongues (V.xii.hl), in his memory the number swells:

 

339Cooper, s.v. blatero; Pelegromius, p. 16.
3MOVeron, sig. F3r; Pelegromius, p. 16.
31+J'Junius, p. 523.

 

 

 

212
Sayd Artegall, 'I such a beast did see,
The which did seome a thousand tongues to
have.‘ (VI.i.9).
With Artegall Spenser too allows the number to grow in
his own mind, so that by the time of the final encounter
of the Blatant Beast and Calidore, there is no doubt
that we are dealing with a thousand tongued monster:
in his mouth
were a thousand tongs empight,
Of sundry kindes, and sundry quality:
Some were of dogs, that barked day and night,
And some of cats, that wrawling still did cry,
And some of beares, that groynd continually,
And some of tygres, that did seems to gren
And snar at all that ever passed by:
But most of them were tongues of mortall men,
Which spake reprochfully, not caring where nor
when. ‘
And them amongst were mingled here and there
The tongues of serpents with three forked
Leslie Hotson overlooks this decided emphasis on the
noise of the Blatant Beast, although he may be a1-
luding to it when he refers to "the clamor he may . . .
incidentally produce. . . ."BHZ Surely Spenser meant
to convey more than background dissonance in his empha-
sis on tongues. It seems to me that he was attacking
calumny by showing its sources as well as its ef-

fects.3h3 The source, as Spenser's images abundantly

 

3h2Hotson, p. 35.

3h3Hotson, p. 37. in ruling out the noisiness of
the Blatant Beast, suggests that the modern denotation
of "blatant" can not be traced to Spenser's use of the
word. I do not know that the problem is as great as

 

   

213
demonstrate, is the long tongue of babblers.

The multiple-tongue imagery, which I have only
sampled above, begets in turn some images drawn from
classical mythology. The logical step from many
tongues to many heads leads Spenser to the comparison
of the Blatant Beast and

the hall-borne Hydra, which they faine
That great Alcides whilome overthrew,
After that he had labourd long in vaino
To crop his thousand heads, the which still new
Forth budded, and in greater number grew (VI.xii.32).
When Calidore finally captures the beast he takes a
muzzle and
Therewith he mured up hismouth along,
And therein shut up his blasphomous tong
For never more defaming gentle knight,
0r unto lovely lady doing wrong:
And thereunto a great long chains he tight,
With which he drew him forth, even in his own
despight.

Like as whylome that strong Tirynthian swaine
Brought forth with him the droadfull dog of
hell (v1.xii.3u-35).
In these stanzas Spenser was directly inspired to use
the Hercules legend by his association of a many-

tongued animal with many-headed ones.

 

Mr. Hotson would have us believe. It is a commonplace
of linguistics that words change in shades of meaning.
If "blatant" primarily meant "harmful" (and even if
one does not accept my hypothesis that it also meant
"noisy"), the shift to our current meaning of "offen-
sively noisy" is certainly no greater than the shift
from "soon," which once meant "immediately," to its
present meaning. Indeed, a shift from "harmful" to
offensive" may mirror our present tolerance of

gossip as the fairly harmless pursuit of brainless

women e

 

   

 

21h

The bound Blatant Beast resembles "a fearefull
dog" (VI.xii.36) because at this point in the narra-
tive he ig'Cerberus. Earlier Spenser had given the
boast a genealogy which also reflects the many-tongued-
many-headed imagery. First, Calidore names Cerberus
and Chimaera as the parents (VI.i.8); then the hermit
names Echidna and Typhaon (VI.vi.9, 11). Since the
latter pair are the traditional parents of the former
pair, Sponser's slip is relatively unimportant,for in
either case he placed the Blatant Beast in a context
of many-headedness.

In the course of the innumerable stanzas devoted
to the Blatant Beast, Spenser draws his imagery from
a further extension of the babbling tongue hmage imp
plicit in the name itself. He refers to the "wide
great mouth" of the beast (VI.iii.2h), and this image
takes him.once again to Greek myth when he compares it
to the mouth of Orcus (VI.xii.26). He also describes
the teeth of the beast (VI.v.l6; VI.vi.9; VI.xii.28)
and his jaws (VI.xii.29). Both allegory and etymology
demend.no less, and we can credit etymology as the
primary force leading Spenser to the use of myth.
References to Cerberus or other mythological figures
serve a double purpose: they provide the reader with
Spenser's allegorical interpretation of myth (Hercules
may be said to defeat slander when he conquers Hydra

or Cerberus) and, more importantly for his own purposes,

 

 

 

 

 

215

they make the allegory of the sixth book less topical
and more universal.

As Calidore sets out on his quest of the Blatant
Beast he meets a squire who tells him.of the cruel
custom of BRIANA, who collects "boards of knights and
locks of ladies" (VI.i.lS). Calidore criticizes
Briana and her ilk who

breaks bands of civilitie,
And "1.3de Guatomea make. e e e (VIe1e26)

and in so doing is probably alluding to the source of
Brianais name, /%p‘é}y, to break out.3hh Brianais re-
luctant lover, CRUDOR, has demanded of her a mantle
lined with hair. Perhaps Spenser was simply using the
Latin crudus, crue1,3h5 although he may have etymolo-
gized crudus to the related k/oé’as, dressed meat,314-6
thus making of the name Crudus a rather interesting
pun, considering the practice Crudor advocates of re-
moving the hair of Briena's victims. In addition
Spenser may have continued the associative process,
going next to another Greek word related to the Latin
one, KIM/’05, £1523, stiffness er rigidity.3’47 The

 

3(W'Crespin, s.v. {a cafe), "tumesco." The name
Brian is common in the B itish Isles and is generally
traced to an early Breton surname.

3"*5Cooper, s.v. crudus.

3"6Crespin, s.v. quéas, "caro."

3h7Eatienne, II, 1161, Klaus: .

216
description of the fight between Crudor and Calidore
includes two statements which maybe an allusion to
such an etymology:
Ne once for ruth their rigour they releast (VI.i.36)

That at the last like to a purple lake
Of bloudy gore congeal'd about them stood (VI.i.37).

Briana's saneschall is MALEFFORT. Spenser was
thinking of the French effort, which means not only
endeavor but also good w111;3’48 by tacking on the 551
Spenser created a name which in one sense means "great
endeavor" (Greek flak) and in another "wicked will"
(French.mgl). Hence the initial description of
Maleffort,

a man of mickle might,
Who executes her wicked will, with worse des-
pight (VI.i.lS).
Once Calidore has killed.Maleffort, vanquished Crudor,
and united Crudor and Briana, he is free to go on to
his next adventure.

Of Calidore's meeting with TRISTRAM little can
be said of relevance to this study. Hall has ede-
quately documented Sponsor's indebtedness to two
French versions of the Grail 1egend.3h9 He further

notes that in the Morte Darthur the "book of venery

 

3"BDictionarie French, "L'Effort qu'on met a
faire quelque chose, the endeuour, or good will that
one hath to doe a thing."

3(49Variorum, VI. 365-71.

217
is called the book of Sir Tristram."35O Spenser empha-
sizes this particular trait of Tristram throughout the
second canto. Initially Tristram is described as a
hunter:
All in a woodmans jacket he was clad
Of Lincolne greens, belayd with silver lace;

And on his head an hood with aglets sprad,
And by his side his hunters horns he hanging had.

In his right hand he held a trembling dart, °

Whose fellow he before had sent apart;

And in his left he held a sharps borespeare,

With which he wont to launch the salvage hart

or many a lyon and of many a beare,

That first unto his hand in chase did happen

nears (VIeii 05.6) e

Tristram tells Calidore,

[I] have trayned bone with many noble fares

In gentle thewes, and such like seemsly leres,

Mongst which.my most delight hath alwaies been,

To hunt the salvage chaos. . . . (VI.ii.31).
In Malory Tristramls hunting is onlyaa part of his
accomplishments; jousting and La Beale Isoud consume
a major part of his thme. ‘Yet Spenser pointedly
chooses a younger Tristram, who has not yet "tested"
knightly combat and becomes a squire only after meet-
ing Calidore. I believe that etymology is the key to
this emphasis. A student of folk etymology has has-
arded the guess that in the old romances Tristram may
have been associated with hunting through "an.imagined

connexion with trist, an old term of the chase for e

 

35°Ibid., p. 368.

...................

 

218
station in hunting."351 In the light of Spenser's
habitual etymologizing we might reasonably assume that
his depiction of Tristram grew out of his recognition
of this element in the name.

The lovers whom Calidore next meets, SERENA.and
Calepine, are "much abasht" at being discovered "in
covert shade" (VI.iii.20-21), but Calidore himself is
even more disturbed for his intrusion is an offence
against courtesy. Spenser structures the episode in
this way in order to demonstrate his views on two
forms of courtesy: the courtesy of the chivalric
tradition (in Calepine and Serena) and the enlightened
courtesy whose source is God (Calidore). The Blatant
Beast attacks the former, as indeed.in Spenser's view
it must. Spenser deliberately chooses the name Serena
for the woman attacked because he wishes to criticize
the irresponsibility of courtly love. The name comes
from the Latin serenus, "Fayer: cleere: without
cloudes or rayne."352 Just as Milton was later to
find Eve culpable for leaving Adam to wander off in the
garden, so Spenser criticizes Serena, and to do so he
ties name and image in his description of her Just
before the Blatant Beast attacks: while Calepine and

351AIbram] Smythe Palmer, Folk Et 010 (New
York: Henry Holt and Company, 1885), pp. 55g-6h.

3SaCooper, s.v. serenus. Draper, p. 10h,
established the etymology.

 

 

   

219
Calidore
discoursed.both together,
The fairs Serena (so his lady hight)
Allur'd with myldnesse of the gentle wether,
And pleasaunce of the place, the which was dight
With divers flowres distinct with rare delight,
Wandred about the fields, as liking led
Her wavering lust after her wandring sight,
To make a garland to adorne her hed,
Without suspect of ill or daungers hidden
dred (VI.iii.23).
Her name, then, both provides an image and exposes her
vulnerability. Spenser particularizss the image
through a further etymology of the name, serum, eve-
ning.353 The cannibals
towards evening wandring every way,
To seeke for booty, came by fortune blynde
Whereas this lady, like a sheepe astray,
Now drowned in the depth of sleeps all fearelesse
lay (VI.viii.36),
and Calepine's earlier difficulty in transporting
Serena occurs at evening (VI.iii.29). Just before he
finally discovers her, at evening, naked and about to
be sacrificed, he is

all weetlssse of the wretched stormes,
In which his love was lost. . . . (VI.viii.h7).

There has been a change in the fair weather of
Serena's name, and the ”wretched stormes” which
Serena meets in Blatant Beast and cannibals may be

construed as the logical fate of the irresponsible,

 

353Cooper, s.v. serum, "The laste parte of the
day: the euening37" PaIfier, p. 50h, attributes
various romance words for evening and evening song to
"a confusion between Lat. serenus and serus, late.

 

 

 

220

fair-weather type. Harry Berger feels that the romance
name is "as deliberate an irony as her anti-romantic
encounter with the cannibals. . . ."35h I might add
that the etymology of that name shows the same irony.
I cannot agree with Berger, however, that Serena's
shame over her nakedness when Calepine rescues her or
Spenser's "sudden shift from the problems of murder to
those of modesty is characteristic of the disequilib-
rium" of the sixth book.355 Spenser has not shifted
his focus at all. He holds Serena responsible on two
counts for the attack of the Blatant Beast: she has
been dallying with Calepins,and she has wandered away
from him.lured on by the pleasant weather. Her shame
in the later episode is simply an echo of the shame
she earlier felt at being discovered by Calidore. She
is the sort of woman, as was Amoret, to whom.things
like this happen; and Spenser alludes to this pro-
pensity in his choice of name for her.

The same ironic tension informs the name
CALEPINE. As Berger has pointed out, this is a "good

humanist [nameI,"356 and Spenser's known use of

 

35hHarry Berger, Jr., "A Secret Discipline: The
Eaerie Queens, Book VI,“ in Form and Convention in the

Poet ef’fidfiund S enser, ed. WIIIIam.NeIson (new
York: CqumEIa Unfversity Press, 1961), p. 50.
3551b1d., p. l71n.
3561b1d.

 

221

 

Calepine's Dictionarium357 would suggest that Berger's
point is well taken. Spenser would have recognized ‘
the paradox contained in this well-known name, for

it binds together beauty (Kn/lbs) and filth (m’vas),358
I suspect, however, that he was using the name not so
much to comment on the limitations of humanism.as to
question the morality of the courtly love tradition
which his character Calepine so clearly belongs to.
Certainly Spenser's use of medieval romance shows that
he recognized the beauty of that tradition, but his
treatment of Calepine shows the ambivalence of his at-
titude.

Calepine's reactions to Serena and Turpine are
illustrative. He treats Serena with courtly gallantry
one moment (VI.iii.27-29) and with total discourtesy
the next: when he fights with Turpine

his best succour and refuge was still
Behinde his ladies backs. . . . (VI.iii.h9).

Serena is badly wounded before he uses her as a
shield, and although Calepine seems to recognize her

need for shelter he refuses Turpine's earlier challenge,

 

3S7Starnes and Talbert, pp. 77-80.

358Estienne, III, 299, rt’vos, "Sordes [dirt;
the dregs of people], Squalor & illuuies." Draper, p.
100, maintains that "The - ins was doubtless added to
make the name an appropriate oublst for his adver-
sary Turpine.” Since, however, Spenser would have
found the name ready-made, Draper's conclusion.must
be questioned. -

O
D
r
.
I
e
e
l
.
—
e o
‘ o a e e e e
0
e
-—.
o . e
e ‘2 0
o - a e
.—
e
e

 

   

 

222
even though by fighting he stands a good chance of
obtaining that shelter for her. He is "full loth"
to fight and suggests a later date if there must in-
deed be an encounter (VI.iii.39: hl). He feels
pitty of his dearest dame,
Whom now in deadly daunger he did see;
‘Yet had no meanes to comfort, nor procure her
8195 (VIeiiieu3)e
Because of his cowardice Serena must sleep beneath a
bush,
Cover'd with cold, and wrapt in wretchednesse,
Whiles he him selfe all night did nought but
weeps (VI.iiiehh).
Osgood says of these events,
Editors refrain from comment on the lame and
impotent conclusion of this canto. Why did not
Calepine fight? He was armed (h6.l). And why
in courtesy's name did he hide behind his lady?
The Savage Mag's entrance required no such .
ignoble cue.3 9
A closer look at Calepine's name and indeed Spenser's
attitude toward courtly love would have given Osgood
the answers to his questions. Another critic has
etymologized Calepine's name to «all: 4- We’ve: ,
"drinker of beauty.” She feels that he finally be-
comes courteous by drinking up "the boldness and
bravery [of the Salvage Man] needed to complement
his overcourtly form of courtesy."360 Although I

would question the etymology, particularly since

 

359Variorum, VI, 201.
36001.318, p. 61 e

 

223
Spenser does not use a drinking metaphor, the general
interpretation of Calepine's character is reasonable.
It certainly is consistent with the meaning Spenser
intended in naming the quasi-hero Calepine or "beau-
tiful dregs."

Calepine's adversary TURPINE is a further debase-
ment of the courtly image. Spenser had used the name
earlier in the poem, but chose it again in the sixth
book because etymologically it suggested an even
lower step on the ladder of discourtesy than that oc-
cupied by Ealepine. 13322, ”to defile: to make fouls
or ill-fauoured,"361 defines the unmitigated offenses
against courtesy of which Turpine is guilty. Calepine,
himself a questionable knight, can Justly call Turpine

.Unknightly knight, the blemish of that name,

And blot of all that armes uppon them

take (v1.111.35).

Spenser is stating here not only that Turpine is the
blemish of the name "knight," but he is also punning,
for in the name "Turpine" is the "blemish” of which
he speaks. Although Calepine should certainly have ac-
cepted Turpine's challenge, the challenge should never
have been offered. Arthur is later to accuse Turpine
of shaming all knights "with this knightlesse part'r
(VI.vi.33). Turpine's offense against courtesy isv

carefully documented in both encounters, and finally

__—

3613eret, D269.

22h

Arthur prohibits his bearing arms or being a knight.

In addition to such working out of the meaning
of Turpine's actions in the allegory, Spenser also
derives several images from the etymology of the name.
The reference to Turpine's "vile donghill mind” (VI.
vii.l) alludes to the element of defilement in his
name. In addition, Turpine's laughter over Calepine's
swimming and subsequent abuse (VI.iii.3u, 36) was i
probably suggested by the similarity between $2522 and
Te’lovrco, to make merry. But in his selection of an
appropriate punishment for Turpine Spenser shows the
extent of his etymologizing.

He [Arthur] by the heeles him hung upon a tree,

And baffuld so, that all which passed by

The picture of his punishment might see,

And by the like ensample warned bee (VI.vii.27).
Such a punishment occurs only one other time in the
Faerie Queene (V.iii.37) and its recipient, Bragga-
dochio, has also offended against chivalry. In the
case of Turpine it is particularly apt, not simply
because hanging by the heels is a vivid punishment,
but also because Spenser's word choice is etymologi-

cally appropriate to his subject. The word "baffuld"

is related to the French bafouer, to besmears.362

 

36§E§2, 5&1. baffle. Although the NED states
that the exact etymology of the word is not-known, it
suggests bafouer, "to hoodwink; to deceive; to be-
smeare. . . .' If Spenser was aware of the connection,
as he seems to have been, then the fact that Bragga-
dochio, the inept deceiver, is also "baffuld" can 2
also be attributed to etymolOgy.

225
Thus the name Turpine and the etymology of "baffling"
are synonymous; no other punishment would have so
fit Turpine's crime.

I referred above to Turpine's unmitigated of-
fenses, and it is true that in his own person he never
varies from discourtesy. His wife BLANDINA, however,
does, at least verbally. As Draper has pointed out,
her name is a diminutive of the Latin blandus,
”courtuous [gig], gentle in speaking."363 She does
possess a little courtesy, or to be more exact she
typifies the gentility of the chivalric tradition.

In creating a wife for Turpine Spenser was able to wed
the two qualities which he demonstrated in milder form
in the name "Calepine." Thus whenever Turpine acts
cruelly, Blandina smoothes over the offence with the
language of a courtisr or the gentility of a heroine
of romance. She reproves Turpine for treating Calepine
as he does (VI.iii.32, h2); she pleases Arthur
"through tempering of her words . . . by wondrous
skill” (VI.vi.hl).

‘Yet were her words and lookes but false and fayned,

To some hid end to make more easie way,

Or to allure such fondlings, whom she trayned
Into her trap unto their owne decay:

 

363Baret, 6139; Cooper, 331. blandus,
"Flatteryng . . . allurynge. . . ."; Draper, p. 100.
Draper's limited purpose in this article precluded
discussion of the significance of this etymology.

226
Thereto, when needed, she could weepe and pray,
And when her listed, she could fawne and
flatter (VI.vi.h2).
"Her pleasing tongue" calms Arthur's wrath and gains
for Turpine some respite. The images Spenser uses to
define Blandina, and the carefully chosen name, both
show the pleasant but suspect side of the chivalric
tradition. Obviously Spenser had to divide the two
aspects of chivalry when they took on really extreme
forms, for no single character could have convincingly
shown both. I believe that it is significant that
Calepine rather than Calidore was given this adventure,
for Spenser is not simply interested in pitting virtue
against vice, but in this case revealing the nature of
vice by confronting a lesser form of it with a greater.
Calepine is first rescued from Turpine by a
SALVAGE MAN. Following his age, Spenser retained the
"1" in savage because of the supposed connection be-
tween the words "salvage" and alive, which means bas-
ically "a woodde," although the word is also ”sometime
spoken of vynes, sometime of hearbes. . . .”36h Spen-
ser alludes to the etymology of salvage in his first
description, "A salvage man, which in those woods did
wonne" (VI.iv.2). Since the allegory demanded a repre-
sentative of uncorrupted nature in contrast to the

deficiencies of the courtly tradition, Spenser selected

 

B6hCooper,‘g:1. sylua.

227
a "salvage" man. In its connection with‘gilzg as de-
fined above was the hint for the Salvage Man's use of
"a certaine herbs" to stop Calepine's bleeding (VI.iv.
12) and of herbs to dress the wounds of Calepine and
Serena.

The word gilzg, in turn, was thought to go back
to 50’on .365 Spenser would have known the many de-
notations of the Greek word, which included not only
wood in general but also specifically any stick or
staff.366 Although uprooted trees were generally the
weapons of wild men,367 etymologizing could have been
the source of the Salvage Man's weapon,

That was an oaken plant, which lately hes
Rent by the root; which he so sternely shooke,
That like an hazell wand it quivered and
quooke (VI.vii.2h).
The "l" in salvage is probably also the inspiration
for the little myth about the history of the Salvage
Man:

. . . from his mothers wombe, which him did beare,
He was invulnerable made by magicke leare (VI.iv.h).

In the word "salvage"T Spenser must have seen salvus,

”Saife: wholle: sounds: without harms or

 

365Isidore, p. 606, who comments, "Multa enim
Latina nomina Graecam plerumque etymologiam
recipiunt."

3660r68p1n, QOVO 6!;on , "118nm e e e e 1170!!
baculus. . . ."

367Bernheimer, p. 26.

 

 

 

228

daunger."368

Nothing prevented Spenser from.conceiving of the
Salvage Man as a savage man as well. The French
sauvage, wild, untamed,369 not to mention the English
word itself, are in back of the many wild animal simi-
les: the Salvage Man is at one time or another likened
to a tiger, buck, hound, and.linn; and he creeps,
crouches, gnashes his teeth, scratches, bites, and so
on.

When the herbs of the Salvage Man have cured
him, Calepine wanders into the woods and rescues a
baby from the jaws of a bear. Spenser could have
found such an episode in a medieval romance about the
adventures of Valentine and Orson.37o For the full
elaboration of Calepine's adventure, he turned else-
where. As far as I know no one has suggested a source
or analogue for Spenssr's story, which involves a
childless couple, MATILDE and SIR BRUIN, who have re-
cently wrested land from a giant named CORMORAUNT.
Matilde tells Calepine of a prediction:

 

368Cooper, s.v. saluus; see also Veron, sig.
006';

369Dictionarie French, s.v. sauna e. See also
Baret, W207, "Wilde; cruEIl: terrIBIe: fierse.
Ferus. . . . Farouche: Sauuage."

370Bennett, p. 208. Bennett refers also to the
parallel Todd cites to Palladine of England.

 

 

 

229

'Yet was it sayd, there should to him a sonne

Be gotten, not begotten, which should drinks

1537??? up all the watfir which doth ronne

In the next brooks, by whmm that fesnd shold be
fordonne (VI.iv.32).

 

An Australian folktale is markedly analogous, and while
it cannot be regarded as a source could very well have
been derived from some English tale which is now lost
and which Spenser might have known. In the folktale
an orphan who was to become a bear was left by his
foster-parents without water. One day he gathered
"all their water-vessels and hung them in a tree; and
he also gathered the waters of the streams, and put-
ting them into other vessels, he carried them to a
tree. . . ." When his parents returned they discov-
ered that their stream was dry. The child was thrown
from the tree and on landing turned into a bear.371
Assuming that Spenser did know such a myth, we
can see in it the origin of many of the elements in
his own tale. The orphaned bear would have suggested
both the infant's captor and the name for his foster-
father, Bruin. [The gathering of the waters and cone
sequent dryness of the stream would have suggested the
prediction.372 And finally, by a rather longer route,

 

371Roland B Dixon, Oceanic Vol IX of Eythologz
e D 0

of All Races, ed. Louis HerBert Gray (13 vols.;

Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1916), pp. 297-98.

372Merritt Hughes, Variorum, VI, 377-78, unaware
of this possible analogue, feels that Spenser uses
the prediction "merely for the sake of providing a

 

 

230

the second element of the folktale would have led
Spenser to his choice of the name Cormoraunt. The
word "cormorant" is derived from corvus marinus, raven
of the sea. Folk etymology alone would have suggested
that the cormorant is ravenous of the sea, and this
takes one back to the prediction that the infant would
conquer Cormoraunt by drinking up all the water of the
brook. In addition, two Greek legends show the asso-
ciation between the cormorant or the raven and water.
A raven does not bring water to Apollo quickly enough
and therefore "the raven, alone of birds, does not
bring water to its young." Furthermore, the "punish-
ment of everlasting thirst"2 is related to the proverb
Ko’loaé' udfleuet .373

Spenser's reasons for naming the woman to whom
Calepine gives the child.Matilde are obscure, but
certain details in his episode lead me to believe
that he may have been influenced by Dante's depiction

ready way for Sir Calepine to dispose of a foundling
baby. The detail about drinking up all the water in

a neighboring brook is forgotten by the post as soon
asswritten, but it may have a remote structural in-
tention. Had the twelfth book of The Faerie Queene
been written, we should probably have the adven ure of
the brook." The analogue, however, shows that the
drinking of the water is integral to the tale and.not
a mere "cletail.’r Indeed, even without the analogue
one could not ignore such an unusual element.

373Dimrcy Wentworth Thompson, A Glossa of
Greek Birds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895], p. 93.

 

 

 

231

of Matilda in the Purgatorio. In Dante the poet
wanders through a dense forest until he comes to a
clearing by a river where he meets Matilda. He asks
her to come near,

. . . so far that I may hear

What you are singing in so sweet a strain.

For you remind.ms of Proserpine,

When her mother lost her, and when she

Forever lost enjoyment of the sprlng.37h
In Spenser the hero meets Matilde when he too comes
out of a forest (VI.iv.26); he hears a voice which
seems to be lamenting, and like Dante desires to know
the reason for the woman's behavior (VI.iv.27). I do
not mean to imply that the episodes are identical, for
Dante's heroine is not sad and Spenser's is; but the
image of childlessness is the same in both cases.
The resolutions of the two tales are similar although
roles are reversed: in Dante Matilda shows the post
the fruitfulness of the Terrestrial Paradise. The set-
ting in both cases is reminiscent of Eden: Matilda
says that this was once "the cradle of the human
race," although

Through his default, man did not long remain here;

Through his default, his joy was changed to grief,

His gentle pastimes changed to lamentations.

Spenser's Matilde says that her husband won their land

 

37hDante, The Divine Comsd , translated from the
Italian b Lawrence Grant White New'York: Pantheon
Books, 19 8), p. 115. All quotations from Dante are
from this edition and this page.

 

 

232

after a three-day battle, but that their peace and
happiness is marred by the lack of an heir to defeat
"that fouls fesnd" Cormoraunt,

who dayly doth attend

To leaps into the same after our lives

end (VI.iv.36).
The solution in both cases is the same; Matilda, who
symbolizes Mary,375 shows Dante the fruitfulness of
the earth and explains why “it should notseem a

marvel"

if, at some time,
A plant takes root without apparent seed.

In the Faerie Queene Matilde takes as her own a child

 

not "begotten" of her marriage. If Spenser did choose
the name Matilde because of the association between
Dante's Matilda and symbolism of fruitfulness and a
redeemer, we see in this episode an effective blend-
ing of folk and religious motifs. Neither element
completely "explains" the myth and the names Spenser
used, but the two together account for every element

in an unusual and hitherto unexplained episode.376

 

375Dunbar, pp. 236: 315-

376Harold H. Blanchard, "Imitations from Tasso
in the Faerie Queene," SP, XXII (1925), 220, suggests
as a source or e name Matilde, Rinaldo's nurse in
the Gerusalemme Liberate, and he claims that "the
paraITEIextends—beyondthe mere name itself." He
does not give any evidence for his claim, and I see
nothing to substantiate it in Tasso beyond the fact
that there is also a prophecy (although a very dif-
ferent one) concerning Rinaldo.

 

:-

‘1‘..-

 

 

233
In the sixth canto Arthur and the Salvage Man
meet MIRABELLA, whose story is told in the next canto.
Fayre Mirabella was her name, whereby
Of all those crymes she there indited
was (VI.vii.35).
Berger points out that the name means "Beauty-look,
beautiful-looking, or perhaps Beauty-mirror: not the
true beauty but a physical image . . . a reflection
of the beholder's passion."377 This woman, "of’meane
parentage and kindred base" (VI.vii.28), disdains all
those who admire her beauty and is thus "unworthy . .
to be belov'd so dere" (VI.vii.29). Spenser uses the
image of a mirror in various ways: "the beames" of
her lovely face affect all beholders (VI.vii.28);
Mirabella "love[s] her owne delight" (VI.vii.30), re-
gardless of the fact that

beautie is more glorious bright and clere,
The more it is admir'd of many a wight (VI.vii.29).

Mirabella's fault is thus the confusion of the dim-
tortsd and hence more beautiful mirror image with her
rather less beautiful person. In all the above-
mentioned.images Spenser is also drawing on the mean-
ing of 922333.! ”To meruayle: to wonder at: to like:

to be in loue: to esteeme greatly,"373 and the

 

_‘__

3771:. 52.

378COOper, s.v. miror.

 

—'
[1 ~
11 .

 

   

23h
related.mira, "wonders, or meruayles."379
Berger's suggestions do not include one which

seems to me to be Spenser's starting point. Basically
Mirabella is a woman who were against those who admire
her. Her name, according to Spenser, should be an
indictment of this fault. It would be redundant for
the second element in her name to allude to beauty
since the first element does that. The inescapable
conclusion is that this second element alludes to
belle, to make war;380 "wars against admiration” is
a fitting name for this character. Spenser shows the
court of Cupid at which Mirabella is judged, for which
he uses images drawn from not only the law court but
also the battlefield:

It fortun'd then, that when the roules were red,

In which the names of all Loves folks were fyled,

That many there were missing, which were ded,

Or kept in bands, or from their loves exyled,

Or by some other violence despoyled.

Which when as Cupid heard, he wexed wroth,

And doubting to be wronged, or beguyled,

He bad his eyes to be unblindfold both,

That he might see his men, and.muster them by

oth (VI.v11.33).
Infamie and Despight testify
that they were all betrayd,

And murdred cruelly by a rebellious
mayd (VI.vii.3h);

 

379Veron, sig. CcBr.

380cosper, s.v. bello, "To warre: to make warre."
s.v. bellatrix, "SEe that warreth or perteineth to

warre." Spenser uses the same element in the name
Bellodant (V.iv.30).

235
Mirabella recognizes the justice of her ultimate
"penaunce of my proud and hard rebellious hart" (VI.
viii.l9). Directly following the phrase "rebellious
mayd," Spenser says, "Fayre Mirabella was her name"
(VI.vii.35), thus calling attention to the etymology
of her name.

Spenser calls the bailiff of the court of Cupid
PORTAMORE, apparently in recognition of the etymology
of the word "bailiff," Latin bajulus, ”A porter, or
cariar of bourdens. . . ."381 The men who accompany
Mirabella on her penitential journey are SCORN and
DISDAINE. (Spenser was probably etymologizing when he
named Scorn. Mirabella's victims are all suffering
from unrequited love, and it is therefore appropriate
that she be punished by a character whose name would
have been related in Spenser's mind to the Italian

Scornare, to deprive of horns.382 Spenser actually

 

gives Scorn horns in the following simile:

Like as a mastiffe [Timias], having at a bay

A salvage bull [Scorn], whose cruell hornes doe
threat

Desperate daunger, if he them assay (VI.vii.h7).

 

3811b1d., s.v. baiulus.

382N§D,'ggg. scorn. The form "scorn," says the
NED, rather than "scarn" may show Italian influence.
The editors trace the form to the Italian.§cornare,
”lit. to deprive of the horns (:--popular L. sexy
cornare, f. L. cornu horn), hence to disgrace,
slander, deride. . . . In the 16th and 17th c. the It.
word may perh. have influenced the Eng. literary use."

 

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236
As in so many of Spenser's battle similes, the choice
of animal is determined by etymology.

Mirabella's second attendant, Disdaine, reminds
us of another character of that name who appeared in
Book II. Padelford feels that the character in the
sixth book is a deliberate reshaping of the earlier
figure, a reshaping that "reveals the way in which
Spenser's imagination matured a picture."383 In my
discussion of the Disdaine of the second book, I noted
Spenser's allusion to two etymons, (rel vo’s, terrible;
and Jecva’w, to raise or elevate. Spenser's use of
both was, however, limited:. the earlier Disdaine is
simply likened to a Titan and called "terrible," so
that we must regard Spenser's earlier treatment as
only the germ of the idea. Now he develops both ideas
fully and at length:

For he was sterne and terrible by nature,

And seke of person huge and hideous,

Exceeding much the measure of mans stature,
And rather like a gyant monstrous.

For sooth he was descended of the hous

Of those old gyants, which did warres darraine
Against the heaven in order battailous,

And sib to great Orgoglio. . . .

His lockes were dreadfull, and his fiery eies,
Like two great beacons, glared bright and wyde,
Glauncing askew, as if his enemies

He scorned in his overweening pryde;

And stalking stately like a crane, did stryde

At every step uppon the tiptoes hie;
And all the way he went, on every syde

 

383Variorum, VI; 22h-25o

 

   

237
He gaz'd about, and stared horriblie,
As if he with his lockes would all men
terrifis (VI.vii.hl-h2).
In the battle with Arthur, Disdaine stands again "on
his tiptoes, to seems tall" (VI.viii.26), and his de-
feat comss through a blow to the leg, "when he assayd
to rise, but could not for his hurt" (VI.viii.16), a
fit punishment for standing too tall. If etymology
was the source of the original description of Disdaine,
one can imagine Spenser dwelling on the images thereby
suggested and arriving finally at a completed visual-
ization in his creation of the second character by
that name.38h All the emphasis on terrible aspect
and exaggerated height does indeed show Spenser's
imagination at work. ‘
Spenser resumes the story of Sir Calidore in the

ninth canto, where the hero meets PASTORELLA. The
name is the Italian word for shepherdess,385 and thus

a fitting one for the young shepherdess with whom

 

38h'Tuve, p. 167n, emphasizes the importance of
visual images in Spenser's thinking. She disagrees
with Lotspeich, who contends that Spenser's giants
spring from his conception of pride; instead, Tuvs
maintains, Spenser began with "the visual image of the
proud figure of Disdain, familiar in picture and
poem . . . then came its magnification and its con-
nection with the more comprehensive abstraction Pride."
I agree entirely with Tuve, and add only that the
"magnification" was suggested by the further image
found in the etymon.

385Florio, p. 261, "Pastorella, a shepheardesse,
a yong prettie countrie wench keeping sheepe."

 

 

238
Calidore falls in love. Spenser's reasons for choosing
such a name are not, however, as transparent as they
seem. But before discussing them it will be necessary
to give a brief summary of the plot. Pastorslla lives
with her foster-parents in an idyllic setting, where
Calidore meets and falls in love with her. One day a
tiger attacks her, but when Calidore saves her she
responds with love. And finally the shepherds are
attacked by brigands, Pastorslla is captured and taken
away to their underground retreat, and eventually rem-
cued by Calidore. Although the fact that this is a
highly plotted narrative can be attributed to the ro-
mancs framework of the poem, the exact nature of the
events seems to me to indicate an archetypal myth,
specifically the myth of Persephone.
The initial description of Pastorslla portrays a
typical vegetation figure: she is
a fairs damzell, which did wears a crowne
Of sundry flowres, with silken ribbands tyde,
Yclad in home-made greens that her owne hands
had dyde (VI.ix.7).

Not only the flowers here, but also the pointed refer-
ence to Pastorslla's ability to make things green,
would suggest Persephone. There is an air of the god-
dess about the girl whom the shepherds worship:

Upon a litle hillocke she was placed

Higher then all the rest, and round about

Environ'd.with a girland, goodly graced,

Of lovely leases, and them all without
The lustie shepheard swaynes sets in a rout,

239
The which did pype and sing her prayses dew,
And oft rejoyce, and oft for wonder shout,
As if some miracle of heavenly hew
Were downe to them descended in that earthly
vew (VIeiXeB) e
The shepherds admire her, Spenser repeats, "as some
heavenly wight" and "did for their soveraine god-
desse her esteeme" (VI.ix.9).
The wooing of Pastorslla is expressed in terms
of fruitfulness. Calidore's courtesy
in her mynde the seeds
Of perfect love did sow, that last forth brought
The fruits of joy and blisse, though long time
dearsly bought (VI.ix.hS).
And finally, when Pastorslla returns his love, he
reaps "the timely frute" (VI.x.38). It is just at
this point that Pastorslla is abducted (VI.x.39). Let
us now consider the nature of the place from which she
is abducted before discussing the nature of the place
to which she is taken. In the pastoral country which
is Pastorslla's home there is perpetual revelry; the
shepherds "make their sports and merrie glee," dance,
listen to music, and even have "wrestling gams[s]” (VI.
ix.hl-h3). Although the comparison cannot be pressed
too far, this nonetheless sounds very like Elysium,386
and like it is removed from the "real" or living world.

If, however, Spenser did not intend to suggest such a

comparison, and if he was simply using conventional

 

386Graves, I, 121.

 

 

2&0
pastoral imagery, he nonetheless establishes the fruit-
fulness of the region from which Pastorslla is taken.
Hades steals Persephone from just such a place
and takes her to the underworld. The Brigants take
Pastorslla to their hideout:
. . . underneath the ground their way was made,
Through hollow caves, that no man mote discover
For the thicke shrubs, which did them alwaies shade
From view of living wight, and covered over:
But darkenesse dred and daily night did hover
Through all the inner parts, wherein they dwelt;
Ne lightnsd was with window, nor with lover,
But with continuall candlelight, which delt
A doubtfull sense of things, not so well seene as
felt (VI.x.h2).
Small wonder that Pastorslla
thought her self in hell,
Where with such damned fiends she should in dark-
nesse dwell (VI.x.h3).
Clearly this is the darkness of Hell. Spenser uses
darkness imagery throughout, and refers again to the
"hellish dens" of the Brigants.
Hades himself is just as clearly the prototype
of the captain of the Brigants. One day
with lustfull eyes [he] beheld that lovely
guest,
Fairs Pastorslla (VI.xi.3),
and "sought her love by all the meanes he mote" (VI.xi.
h). It should be recalled that Calidore had earlier
considered Pastorslla worthy "to be a princes paragons"
(VI.ix.ll). Persephone was likewise a worthy mate for
the king of the underworld. Like Persephone,

Pastorslla

2hl
thought it best, for shadow, to pretend

Some shew of favour, by him gracing small,

That she thereby mote either freely wend,

Or at more ease continue there his thrall (VI.xi.6).
Even Spenser's motive for making the abductors and
their captain thieves may be found in the myth of
Hades, who possessed precious metals and gems. Spen-
ser emphasizes the slave trade of the Brigants, but
it becomes clear that their dens are also full of
"spoyles and threasures” (VI.xi.Sl). Even Spenser's
use of the word "brigant" suggests not only "thief"
but also "devil,"387 and hence connects the captain of
the Brigants once again with Hades.

The Persephone myth has long been recognized as
a myth of the death and rebirth of vegetation. Spen-
ser's handling of the Pastorslla episode follows the
death-rebirth archetype. Taken from a fruitfull land,
Pastorslla enters the underworld of the Brigants,
where her fortunes are ”chang'd from pleasaunt hew”
(VI.xi.2). May this not be a pun based on PastorsllA's
former greenness? When she realizes that the captain
insists on a relationship between them, she "faineIdJ/
A.sodaine sickenesse" (VI.xi.7). The sickness soon

becomes real, however, and her face is "decayd and

mard” (VI.xi.13). And finally because of her

 

387Florio, p. h9, bri ante ”a pirate, a rouer
or robber by sea or land. . . . ; the modern Italian
bri ante, and this may date back to the Renaissance,
also connotes devil.

2&2
association with the captain of the Brigants, when he

is wounded,

Fayre Pastorsll, who with the selfe same wound
Launcht through the arms, fell down with him in
drerie swound (VI.xi.19).

The Brigants find Pastorslla in the dead captain's
arms,

Like a sweet angell twixt two clouds uphild:
Her lovely light was dimmed and decayd,
With cloud of death upon her eyes displayd;

But when they mov'd the caracases aside,
They found that life did yet in her remains:
Then all their helpes they busily applyde,
To call the souls backs to her home

againe (VI.xi.21, 22).

This ritual death is reported as actual death by
Coridon, and Calidore's reaction recalls Demeter's:

When Calidore these ruefull newes had raught,

His hart quite deaded was with anguish great,

And all his wits with doole were nigh distraught,

That he his face, his head, his brest did best,

And death it selfe unto himselfe did threat;

0ft cursing th' heavens, that so cruell were

To her, whose name he often did repeat;

And wishing oft, that he were present there,

When she was slaine, or had bene to her succour
neree

But after grief awhile had had his course,

And spent itselfe in mourning, he at last

Began to mitigate his swelling sourse,

And in his mind with better reason cast,

How he might save her life, if life did last;

Or if that dead, how he her death.might
wreak. (VI .11 933-3’4) e

Like Demeter, Calidore must persuade someone to tell
him where the stolen girl is, and finally it is
Calidore who like Demeter effects a rescue.

Spenser portrays the rescue using symbols of

2&3
rebirth. Pastorslla is "revived" (VI.xi.hh) and
Began some smacks of comfort new to test,
Like lyfull heat to nummed senses brought,
And life to feels, that long for death had
sought (VI.xi.h5).
Calidore kills the brigants, symbols of death, and re-
turns to Pastorslla;
And forth her bringing to the joyous light,
Whereof she long had lackt the wishfull sight,
Deviz'd all goodly meanes, from her to drive
The sad remembrance of her wretched plight.
So her uneath at last he did revive,
That long had lyen dead, and.made againe
alive (VI.xi.SO).
Calidore also brings back life to the countryside:
the brigants had stolen the sheep of the pastoral comp
munity, and Calidore's last act at the den of the
Brigants is to restore them to Coridon.

Two other incidents in the story of Pastorslla
show the power of the Persephone tale in Spenser's
mind. At the first sign of the love which Pastorslla
feels for Calidore, at the first hint of fruitful
union, Spenser introduces an otherwise unmotivated
attack by a tiger on Pastorslla. It takes place when
she, Calidore, and Coridon enter a "greens wood, to

gather strawberies"; the tiger with

greedy mouth, wide gaping like hell gate,
Did runne at Pastorell her to surprise (VI.x.3h).

Here again is the Hades motif, though Spenser does not
choose to develOp it at this time beyond the hell gate

reference. But a second incident clearly demonstrates

am
the full force of the death-rebirth.myth in Spenser's
thinking. Calidore takes Pastorslla to the Castle of
Belgard; Sir Bellamoure and Claribell turn out to be
Pastorslla's long-lost parents. The tale at this
point is the standard one of parents having sent a
child to be reared elsewhere, and the names represent
historical allusions,388 or were intended to suggest
that Pastorslla's virtues were born of beauty. The
exact details of the case point once again to the
Persephone myth. Pastorslla's real mother, Claribell,
is convinced that the shepherdess is her daughter be-
cause of the rose on her breast,
The litle purple rose which thereon grew,
Whereof her name ye then to her did
give (VI.xii.18).
Just as Persephone is the name of Core when she is
separated from Demeter, so Pastorslla is the name of
Rose under similar circumstances. Spenser's choice of
a flower as the name and mark of recognition would
thus seem to be an allusion to the rebirth theme.339
I have suggested above that Spenser chose this par-

ticular flower for personal reasons. Whether or not

this is so, however, the use of a flower is

388366 Variorum, VI, 262-6h for a full dis-
cussion.

 

389Nelson, p. 281, believes instead that Spenser
uses the metaphor of an "unfolding" flower for the
revelation of anything which has existed unrecognized
until a certain moment.

 

 

2&5
significant. Claribell in this third working out of
the death-rebirth archetype asks Pastorslla-Rose,
"And livest thou, my daughter, now againe?
And art thou yet alive, whom dead I long did
faine?" (VI.xii.l9).

Claribell‘s handmaid, MELISSA, had originally
been the one to take the infant Rose to an open field
where a shepherd found her. It is her discovery of
the rose birthmark which leads to the recognition of
Pastorslla. Why did Spenser name the handmaid of
Claribell Melissa? Upton, in his usual thorough.man-
ner, many years ago noted several uses of the name in
classical mythology and in romance; although he did
not relate any of his suggestions to the tale of
Pastorslla as a Persephone myth, he did point out that
"The necessary-women which attended the temple of
Ceres were from their industry named /u.e Ac’a'o-at,
bees."39° Claribell-Demeter-Ceres, if I have read
Spenser correctly, would indeed need an attendant
named.Mslissa.

Influenced by the Persephone myth Spenser may
also have chosen two other names, CORIDON and.MELIBOEE.
Let us imagine the poet facing the problem of naming
two shepherds. His first recourse would obviously be

 

39°Variorum, v1, 265. Draper, ibid., says that
Sponsor's—Melissa "has little in common with her
namesakes in the classics and in the Orl. Fur."

 

 

2H6

to pastoral tradition; but in the literature of the
pastoral he would have found innumerable names, all
traditionally associated with shepherds. How.was the
choice to be made? Immersed as he was in the Per-
sephone myth, unconsciously he would have been led to
names which sounded like those used in the myth. I do
not mean to imply that Spenser's two characters take
on the traits of their namesakes, for surely they do
not. But his imagination would have led him from.Core
to Coridon, and from Melissa to Meliboee. Moreover,
he would have been particularly attracted to the name
”Meliboee” and to "Melissa"_as well by the first syl-
lable of both names, the Greek and Latin for honey.391
Perhaps it is not too unreasonable to think that ety-
mology and the sequence of events led to the choice of
the name Meliboee: the bee's (Melissa's) relationship
with the flower (PastorsllaQRose) gives honey (Meliboee).

The names and the incidents, then, of the
Pastorslla story show that Spenser was thinking of the
Persephone myth; it controlled the structure of his
tale, particularly the pattern of death and rebirth.
One might well ask why Spenser was interested in this
myth and this pattern, and how it relates to the virtue
of courtesy. In.my discussion of Talus in the fifth

 

39lEstienne, II, 866, equates the Greek luau
and the Latin msl, both meaning honey.

 

 

 

m?

2147
chapter I alluded to Spenser's belief that the golden
age had long since passed and that his own time was an
iron age. In the prologue to the sixth book he speaks
of the degeneration of courtesy to the point that in
the sixteenth century ”it indeed is nought but
forgerie" (VI.Proem.S). Aware, however, that such a
statement might be construed as an insult to Queen
Elizabeth, he hastens to compliment his queen as a
better "patterns" of courtesy than any "in all antiq-
uity" (VI.Prosm.6). He praises her "court, where
courtesies excell" (VI.Proem.7) and begins the first
canto with a little piece of etymologizing:

Of Court, it seemes, men Courtssie doe call,

For that it there most useth to abound

Right so in Faery court it did redound,

Where curteous knights and ladies most did won

Of all on earth, and.made a matchlssse para-
gon (VI.i.l).

Nonetheless, Spenser realistically shows again and
again that the courtesy of the court is debased;
Calidore envies Meliboee's pastoral existence: they
are happier who live far from.the court,
Where warres, and wreckes, and wicked enmitie
Doe them afflict, which no man can ap-
pease! (VI.ix.l9).

As C. S. Lewis says, "Courtesy, for the poet, has very

little connexion with court.”92

 

39ZVariorum, VI, 3h6-h7. J. W. Saunders, "The
Facade of Morality," in That Soueraine Li ht, ed.
William R. Mueller and Don Cameron Allen EBaltimore:

 

 

 

2h8

Although Spenser is aware of the usually ac-‘
cepted etymology of the word courtesy, he seems to be
alluding to a very different one when he has the
knight of courtesy enter the realm of the pastoral.
We know that in Spenssr's time men had, in fact, sug-
gested other terms which might define more accurately
the virtue which Spenser calls "courtssy,"393 and can
assume that he himself, aware of the controversy,
scrutinized the word to determine its adequacy. Per-
haps this scrutiny led him to see in the word "courtesy”
a suggestion of ioF-ros , grass, or an enclosure; and

)Lopra'fw , to feed or nourish.39’+ Etymologically

 

Johns Hopkins Press, 1952), p. 2h, denies that it has
any connection with pastoral either. He censures the
"social and.moral ineptitude and futility of the lazy
shepherds," only admitting that "this golden world is
a source of repose and refreshment. . . ." Saunders
is paying much too much attention to Coridon (who is
obviously introduced only as a foil to Calidore) and
much too little to Meliboss. The pastoral world in
Spenser is overwhelmingly honest, sincere, and
courteous.

393Virgil B. Heltzel, "Haly Heron: Elizabethan
Essayist and Euphuist,’m Huntington Librar Quarterly,
XVI (1952), 1h, calls attention to sron s discussion
of comitas; Heron said that the virtue had also been
called "Humanitie, and since by the friendlye cor-
ruption of the common sorts (as I gasss) from the
Courts, it now taketh the name of courtesie: but was
wyll not stand so much uppon the name, as the perfects
use hsereof, although in deeds of late, amongst cure
Englishe Poets, hathe risen a doubtsfull controversis,
as touchyng the true christening of thys Vertus. . . ."

39hCrespin, s.v. ze'vts: "gramen, hOPbB:
faenum. . . . Item septum. . . .; s.v. go/o‘ra’rw a
"peace, cibo. . . o”

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21:9

speaking courtesy and pastoral would then be synony-
mous: }o{o1’a’£w means 23322, a source for the word
"pastoral." Not only does Spenser show the epitome
of courtesy in the pastoral life of the sixth book,
but he also explicitly states that in his time virtue
lies hidden "in silver bowre . . . From view of men,
and wicked worlds disdaine" (VI.Proem.3). This de-
scription of Parnassus exactly corresponds to Spen-
ser's depiction of the pastoral world.

Spenser's attitudes are a bit ambivalent but a
basic idea emerges nonetheless. If the present world,
in all its corruption, exhibits courtesy only in its
pastoral life; and if Sir Calidore exemplifies the
ultimate in the courtesy of the court; then clearly
a union of Calidore and the pastoral world may be ex-
pected to bring a general rebirth of courtesy. The
reader is led to believe that such a union will take ‘
place between Pastorslla and Calidore. Thus the death-
rebirth motif serves the larger purpose of predicting

the eventual return of the golden age.

 

   

CONCLUSION

The Faerie Queene should be read closely. Al-

 

though the canvas is large, Spenser pays careful at-
tention to detail. True, the poem does not always
require as close a reading as we give a Donne lyric,
but to take a book at a gulp is to miss the artful
complexity of its composition. In its tightly-woven
texture, name and.image are integrally related, as are
in consequence allegory and style. Each episode con-
tains an etymological nexus which gives it unity, and
the episodes in each book work together to explore the
problem of that book.

I have discussed the implications of these re-
lationships, but some further general statements can
be made. The first has to do with the style of the
poem. I compared the reading of the Faerie Queene to
the reading of a Donne lyric, fully aware of the ob-
vious objections to the parallel. Nonetheless the
comparison is suggestive, for there is ample evidence
in the pages of this study of Spenser's wit. The basis
of his wit is etymology. He will play one etymon

against another as in the use of "brag" in Braggadochio:

250

 

 

251

"dapper fellow" in one sense, "mud" in another. He
will play a name against its etymon, as in his treat-
ment of "Una" and.”one," or "Guyon" and his "living
hands" and "braunching armes," or "Turpine" and "the
blemish of that name." There are saphisticated puns
such as the name Columbel for a woman who places ob-
stacles in her lover's path, or the reference to
Malbecco's cape. And there are the downright funny
names such as Bruncheval for the owner of a stumbling
horse, or Crudor for a collector of human hair, or
Clarinda for a trumpeter. The rapid reader must oc-
casionally wonder at Spenser's apparently compulsive
name-giving; the careful reader discovers his wit.

He does drop a lot of names in the course of
the poem, and to compound the problem he uses more
than one etymon for most of them. In medieval prac-
tice, as typified by the Golden Legend, multiple ety-
mologies were considered revelations of many-faceted
truths, and I believe that Spenser followed this
practice. In a sense he is saying that one name is as
good as another, not committing himself to a single
view of an abstraction as an author does who calls e
character Good Deeds or Fellowship. In other words
his method is not that of the medieval dramatist so
much as the medieval theologian or encyclopedist. The

difference is significant and can be extended to an

252
opposition to dramatic method in general. In Eliza-
bethan drama character is expanded by examining mo-
tive; personality is the focus mnd depth is the goal.
In Spenser abstractions are the focus, breadth the
goal. Multiple etymologizing is the means Spenser
uses to gain breadth. Artegall is at once the sym-
bolic bird of Justice and the method of Justice;
Talus is the power of the bird of Justice, the prin-
ciple of reparation, and the scales and weights of
Justice; Calidore is the heavenly gift of beauty, the
harbor which a weary world seeks, and the warmth of
that goal; Amoret is a Cupid-figure, an immature
girl, and e wanton; Lucifera is a Christian symbol,
a focus of man's unthinking attention, and a usurpsr.
Each etymon broadens character until the finished
portrait has a complexity of breadth which could be
compared to e cubist portrait by Picasso. Spenser's
use of etymology leads him to the circulating view-
point: colors and planes are flattened and Juxta-
posed. The portrait startles and ultimately con-
vinces, not because of photographic realism but be-
cause of aesthetic and intellectual rightness. As
Spenser moves from representationalism, like Picasso
he moves toward dehumanization. I shall have more to
say about the dehumanization of Spenser's art after

examining some of the problems basic to the writing of

allegory.

 

253-

It is difficult to write about very good and
very bad characters. The very good manage their lives
with such wisdom and equanimity that author and reader
alike may be bored. Inner conflict is by definition
impossible; yet conflict is the raw material of a
great deal of our literature. The very bad, on the
other hand, are sensational; and given their human
nature, readers and writers become fascinated with
evil. Thus it is that God is static, Satan dynamic.
For the writer of allegory, a mode which must empha-
size the goodness of the good and the evil of the bad,
this difficulty is not Just a problem, as it would.be
to the writer of drama or epic; it is Egg problem.
The greatness of the Faerie Queene lies largely in
Spenser's solutions to this problem.

Let us first consider the "good“ characters. A
host of minor characters define the nature of the pro-
tagonists, with etymology, as I have shown, playing a
maJcr role. If we understand Turpine as “defilement"
and Blandina as "soft-spoken," we understand them as
exaggerations of the traits of Calepine; and having
thus understood the three minor characters, we appre-
ciate the force of the particular virtue of Calidore,
whose courtesy is a gift of beauty from.God. 'While
Spenser is busily etymologizing and creating the rich
imagery of the Calepine-Turpine-Blandina incident,

25h

Calidore is somewhere off-stage, taking form in the
reader's mind not as a directly experienced person
whose goodness is wearying, but as a vital concept
which cannot fail to interest the intellect.

Etymology particularizes the allegory throughout
the poem. If Spenser were saying only that holiness
is not unholiness, temperance not intemperance, chas-

tity not unchastity, and so on, the Faerie Queens

.11; . .JD.-AVx|3&Iq
_ A. 1

would be the most elaborate redundancy in the history
of literature. He is saying much more. Ollyphant
and Argante are not simply unchastity; aware of their
etymons we see them as warnings of the effects of un-
chastity on the human soul. In the story of Amoret
we recognize a myth of the progress of the human soul
from the bondage of unchastity to the freedom of
chastity. Thus the story of Britomart is not the tau-
tological lesson that chastity is not unchastity, but
is rather a complex allegory of all we need know of
chastity. At the heart of this allegory is the etymo-
logical mode of thought which led Spenser to broaden
his conception of chastity and its antithesis. In so
doing Spenser makes the good genuinely attractive.
Evil characters, as I have stated above, possess
a potential attractiveness which is sheer nuisance to
the writer of allegory. He of course can make them

physically unattractive, and Spenser does this time

255
and time again. Such a device, however, could well be
insufficient since the same force which attracts us to
evil makes us at least fascinated by ugliness. At
fairs the freak-shows are always crowded. Spenser's
mob flocking to see the dead dragon shows his aware-
ness of this phenomenon. Basing his characterization
of Braggadochio on the ultimate brag, Spenser shows
him.as a eunuch; Acrasia, through multiple etymolo-
gizing, becomes not impotence, but rathers the horrors
of incontinence; Mammon similarly is not simply riches
but any misdirection of resources. Certain abstrac-
tions through etymologizing take on the connotations
of frightening forces of nature: pride (Orgoglio) is
an earthquake, slander (Sclaunder) thunder. We are
never allowed to feel attracted to any of these char-
acters.

Thus in the creation of all of the characters
discussed here and throughout this study, etymology
played an essential role, particularizing the alle-
gory, expanding characterization, and influencing
style. These functions point to an even more signifi-
cant one, one which I feel is basic to the writing of
allegory. Such writing, unlike the creation of other
genres, demands authorial distance. The writer cannot
allow himself to become interested in his characters

as people; if he does think of them as human beings,

 

 

256
he recognizes in them a complexity of intellectual and
emotional responses which destroys their allegorical
reality. There are some readers who would obJect to
the word "reality," since for them allegory is the
most unrealistic mode. They are unwilling to place

themselves on the moving body whose very movement de-

mands a system of measurements alien to the one they

.._‘_M
-i‘f

generally use. Allegory moves the reader into an alien

l”

dimension. The writer of allegory presupposes the
validity of this dimension.

Spenser seems particularly at home in this alien
dimension, making the relativistic leap with ease and
maintaining his position with quite remarkable con-
sistency. My discussions of his handling of his
characters suggest that etymology may have made that
leap possible. Clearly the new dimension is attainp
able only if one sufficiently distances himself from
accustomed dimensions; only then can he feel the ir-
relevance of the conventional approach to character.
To treat character as etymon is to sever oneself from
one's everyday categories of thought. The figure be-
comes word. This austere approach.demands fidelity,
and no one excuses an author's lapses. I have never
heard anyone say, with that curious mixture of liter-
ary hero-worship and self-approval generally heard in

similar remarks about writers in other genres, "Here

 

257
Spenser nods." Such critical sternness is probably
the reason that there are comparatively few success-
ful allegories in the history of literature.' A slip
or two and the author is consigned to oblivion, for
the prevailing attitude is that a writer of allegory
can §t_lgggt maintain the allegory. Such emphasis is
short-sighted. Maintaining allegory and at the same
time writing a work of continued interest and variety
is difficult. Spenser met the challenge, as I have
shown throughout this study, by thinking of his char-
acters as names. There is almost no slipping from
allegory and there is untold variety largely because
Spenser etymologized consistently.

All of the episodes mentioned in this study are
illustrative of authorial distancing via etymology.
Marinell and Florimell, on the level of ordinary dis-
course, are simply characters who are "meant for each
other"; yet their story is not in any but the broad-
est sense boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-regains-
girl. Their story is worked out in terms of a complex
myth, its imagery drawn directly from.that myth. In
the etymon of the name Marinell, Spenser found a sug-
gestion for the use of the Adonis myth. And again, in
the episode which I discussed at the end of the sixth
chapter, the story of Calidore and Pastorslla conforms

to the general pattern of the Persephone myth, its

 

   

258
imagery once again drawn directly from etymology and
rslated.myth. Indeed, it could be maintained that
Spenser's use of myth, stimulated as it often was by
etymology, distances him from his characters, thereby
emphasizing that frame of mind which is most conducive
to the writing of allegory.

Not only in the use of myth, but also in a rather
less obvious but equally important way, etymology dis-
tances Spenser from his subJscts. Let us take Guyon
as an example. Here we have a knight whose virtue in
in fairly good shape. He meets Amavia, Furor and Oc-
casion, Cymochles and Pyrochles, Atin, Phaedria, Mam-
mon, and Acrasia, and except for a little help from
Arthur manages to acquit himself nobly in each case.
'Yet there is nothing static about the second book.
This is partly because the temptations to Temperance
are handled with a most pleasant variety} as I have
demonstrated in.my discussion of the book; and it is
partly because the hero is himself a collocation of
extremely concrete images. I think that this is basic
to the triumph of Spenser's approach: he does not
think of Guyon as a man from our conventional dimen-
sion (except, perhaps, in the Phaedria episode, which
could be considered an artistic failure) but rather as
a name in a new dimension. The images of hands and

feet stem from etymology. They hold Spenser to the

 

 

259
new dimension. When one is treating a hero as "hands"
one cannot think of him as the boy next door or even
next castle. The boy next door learns temperance by
sowing wild oats. Had Spenser thought of Guyon as a
real person, he would have encouraged his own and his
reader's sympathies for an erring hero. The result
would have been antithetical to his allegorical inten-
tion. Spenser simply does not risk such moral confu-
sion in his characterization of Guyon.

Interestingly, Redcross does elicit the "wrong"
responses from Spenser and the reader, for he is the
most humanized protagonist in the Faerie Queene.
Viewing him as a real person, and.knowing full well
that people rarely learn from experience, Spenser
subjects Redcross to two forms of pride (Lucifera and
Orgoglio) and to two forms of despair (Sans Joy and
Despayre). Both the common reader and the specialist
have found this redundancy annoying in an allegory.
While one can easily justify the repetition on psycho-
logical grounds, one must admit that these episodes
detract from the immediacy of allegorical impact.

And it is only in Bock I that Spenser almost never
etymologizes the name of the hero. Etymologizing, by
dehumanizing the subject, would have distanced the
author.

Spenser achieved the necessary distance in his

 

 

260
creation of Britomart. Just as he might return to our
dimension by characterizing Britomart as a love-sick
girl (and he comes dangerously close to doing so), he
thinks of her as a name. The bird imagery keeps Spen-
ser at a distance, and the allegory is maintained.
The same process obtains in Spenser's treatment of
minor characters, as I have abundantly demonstrated.
Spenser is regally unconcerned with.Ma1ecasta's mo-
tives: we do not know anything about the etiology of
her condition, nor are we led to wonder. To think of
Malecasta as a human being would have been not only
irrelevant to but actually destructive of the defini-
tion of Britomart's virtue. Once again, we are in
the dimension of allegory; the name of the character
holds Spenser to it at a time when it would have been
easier to discuss a problem.in the parlance of convene
tional discourse. Throughout the entire poem Spenser
conceives of characters as names and not as persons.
He develops character by multiplying names, and he
develops allegory by multiplying characters. By ety-
mologizing names he distances himself from his char-
acters, dehumanizes them, and thus.maintains the alle-
gory. He could certainly have written an allegorical
poem without the inspiration'of etymology, but it

would not have been the poem as we know it, a carefully

sustained allegory, "sprinckled with such sweet variety.”

rrr-ffi

 

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r9.».». 4 1: A1 . .