Tải bản đầy đủ - 0 (trang)
girl. Yet, on the other, we cannot fail

girl. Yet, on the other, we cannot fail

Tải bản đầy đủ - 0trang



These lines deserve some extensive comment, as they are the last of The

Faerie Queene published in Spenser’s lifetime. Do they serve as an adequate and deliberate conclusion to the poem, indicating that Spenser is

aware that the project has gone as far as it can go? Or are they just an interim conclusion to the dark and bitter second edition, paving the way

for the next installment that Spenser never wrote because he died prematurely (see Neuse; Stewart)? Or, perhaps, Spenser himself was not entirely sure at this moment. Certainly this stanza concludes the poem on a

desperate note, with the forces of evil overwhelming those of good as the

Blatant Beast’s assault on language itself threatens to make The Faerie

Queene a redundant enterprise, its attempt to civilize its readers nullified

by poor political judgment and a hostility to the work of poets.

The mighty peer is generally assumed to be William Cecil, Lord

Burghley (1520–1598), whom Spenser offended in Mother Hubberds Tale

and The Ruins of Time, each poem included in the volume of Complaints

(1591) (although some have argued that Mother Hubberds Tale circulated in

manuscript somewhat earlier, probably in 1580; Peterson; Greenlaw,

1932). But, as is so often the case in Spenser, the local context of the

episode is simply the starting point, and we swiftly move from the hostility of a powerful statesman to a sense that language itself is under threat.

If the reader has not already realized, the lines refer us back to the definitions of courtesy at the start of the book, reminding us that proper courtesy is right speech. Here the Beast is shown to triumph, an indication of

the impotence of the virtue at a time when civilized values are under

threat. The paradox the poem articulates is that, without the harshness of

justice, civilization cannot be established, so that attempts to further civility only lead to disaster and remind us of the sort of action that is required. The times require brutal and savage government to defeat

powerful and dangerous opponents, and, as this has not been achieved in

Book Five, the Knight of Courtesy has no chance of victory. His quest is

rendered meaningless.

2. Book Seven, “Two Cantos of Mutabilitie”

Mysterious Text

Book Seven of The Faerie Queene, a fragment also published as “Two

Cantos of Mutabilitie,” will probably always remain something of a mystery. It was published a decade after Spenser’s death in 1609, by the publisher Matthew Lownes, who had inherited the rights to Spenser’s works

from William Ponsonby, along with his business (Burrow, 1996, 41). It is

likely that Lownes found the two-plus cantos that make up Book Seven



among Ponsonby’s papers. What is striking about these cantos, published

as Cantos Six and Seven of Book Seven, is that they look very different

from equivalent sections of other books, a contrast that raises a series of

questions. Do they survive exactly as the author intended them? Or has

the publisher assumed that they would have been Cantos Six and Seven

of the unfinished––or lost––book? Why were they not published in

Spenser’s lifetime? Had he simply not finished Book Seven, or was he

afraid of a reaction to them if they were ever published? Were the verses

ever planned to be part of The Faerie Queene, or was it truly finished in

the published form of 1596?

Perhaps the last question may be easiest to answer first. Spenser probably had good reason to fear the reception he would receive. He had already offended Lord Burghley (see above, p. xviii), and then inspired the

wrath of James VI of Scotland through his portrait of James’ mother,

Mary Queen of Scots, as Duessa––represented elsewhere in the poem as

the Whore of Babylon (McCabe, 1987). Spenser was granted a pension

by Elizabeth after the publication of the first edition of The Faerie Queene

(February 25, 1591), but the queen would probably have been less than

amused by the representation of her in “The Two Cantos of Mutabilitie”:

Even you faire Cynthia, whom so much ye make

Joves dearest darling, she was bred and nurst

On Cynthus hill, whence she her name did take:

Then is she mortall borne, how-so ye crake;

Besides, her face and countenance every day

We changed see, and sundry forms partake,

Now hornd, now round, now bright, now brown and gray:

So that as changefull as the Moone men use to say. (vii.50.2–9)

The verse serves two interrelated functions. It stands as a comment on

Elizabeth’s capriciousness and inconstancy in the 1590s, and what many

of her subjects perceived as her inability to rule effectively (Guy). It is also

a memento mori, bluntly informing the aging Elizabeth that she, too, is

subject to the ravages of time and mutability, and that her inability to face

such basic issues of life and death has cost her subjects dearly. The fear of

these sentiments reaching a wider audience may have inspired a rare note

of caution in Spenser––although there are verses in the Epithalamion that

might be construed as equally subversive of the queen’s dignity (Hadfield,

2008). The more obvious answer, however, is that the Book was left unfinished at Spenser’s death.

We will probably never know whether these were left in manuscript as

Cantos Six, Seven, and Eight of Book Seven. It is unlikely that a printer



would have inserted such numbers into the text without any authorization, as it would surely have been more natural to suggest that they were

meant to be Cantos One, Two, and Three. But if they were as the poet

left them, then they seem oddly out of place in the scheme of the longer

poem, bearing very little resemblance to the equivalent cantos in earlier

books and indicating a radical and sudden change of narrative direction.

Reading them another way, we might assume that the cantos were a

work in progress when Spenser died, as most scholars generally conclude

that they are a late work, postdating the published version of The Faerie



The cantos stand as an etiological myth (a myth of origins) that underlies

the poem and that explain the meaning, location, and purpose of

Spenser’s Faerie Land. Mutabilitie challenges Cynthia, the goddess chosen by Jove to rule the universe he has conquered. She claims that she has

the real right to be queen, as things change endlessly according to her desire. It is agreed that Jove and Mutabilitie will present their cases before

Nature on Arlo Hill, the small mountain nearest to Spenser’s house in

Ireland. Before the judgment––an event that looks back to the debate of

the birds in Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls––takes place, Spenser narrates

the mythological story of Ireland’s history. Ireland used to be the fairest

of the British Isles, which attracted the attention of Diana. She spent a

great deal of her time there, bathing and hunting with her nymphs and

satyrs. The foolish god Faunus had an uncontrollable desire to see the

goddess naked and so persuaded her nymph, Molanna, to let him know

where Diana bathed. Hiding in the bushes, he was so overwhelmed with

emotion that he burst out laughing, inspiring the wrath of the goddess,

who cursed the island and never returned, thereby condemning it to its

current, miserable state. In Canto Seven, the protagonists meet on Arlo

Hill and make their respective cases. Jove argues that he has conquered

the universe and established order, so he rules by right; Mutabilitie counters that she should rule, as her powers actually control the universe,

whatever Jove might claim. Nature decides in little time to award victory

to Jove, then vanishes. The fragment concludes with two stanzas of the

“unperfite” eighth canto, which seem to suggest that constancy is the

principle underlying the universe––not perpetual change.

These debates are important, as our answers to the questions posed will

determine how we read the verse. Some readers, placing greater emphasis on the concluding stanzas that form a fragment of Canto Eight, see

them as a metaphysical affirmation of order in the universe, after the



efforts of Mutabilitie to argue an alternative case have been exposed as

false by Nature. Others, tending to place more emphasis on the Irish location of the poem, read the cantos as the desperate work of a besieged

man, who feels that the universe is rapidly descending into chaos (A.

Fowler; Coughlan; Lethbridge; Zitner; Teskey, 1993). Most are in agreement that the “Two Cantos of Mutabilitie” are among the finest poetic

achievements of The Faerie Queene.

As in Book Six, Spenser makes it hard for the reader to separate political and aesthetic judgments. The ostensible meaning of the cantos, that

constancy triumphs over change, would appear to be undercut in a variety of ways. On a simple narrative level, we witness Jove ruling as a conqueror, a detail that undermines a calm sense of certainty and order. If

we apply our knowledge of the myth of Jove, we remember that Jove

ruled because he overthrew his father, Saturn, before being unsuccessfully challenged by the Titans––again, a message that undermines the apparent confidence of the closing lines of the cantos. The myth of Jove

appears at key points in The Faerie Queene, most importantly, perhaps, at

the start of Book Five: after we are told of Jove’s victory over Saturn, his

sword, Chrysaor––used to defeat the Titans––is passed on to Artegall, the

Knight of Justice (V.i.9). Jove is explicitly associated with rebellion and

the problematic nature of establishing order over chaos. Furthermore,

Jove is associated with the failures of Artegall’s quest and the vacillations

of the Faerie Queen, who recalls Artegall before his quest has been successfully completed, hardly a sign of untroubled rule.


At a political level, as politics were of immediate concern to Spenser in

1598 when his estate was overrun and he was forced to flee to London,

the message of the cantos is equally bleak. Cynthia, as “The Letter to

Raleigh” appended to the first edition of the poem makes clear, is Elizabeth. Given the challenge to her dominions, that may establish Mutabilitie as a figure of Mary Queen of Scots, taking over the mantle of Duessa

(Hadfield, 2004). Mary was, of course, dead by this point, having been

executed in 1587. Her son, James VI, was likely to inherit the English

throne, which suggests that Spenser was thinking in terms of the Stuart

succession and an unholy alliance, as he saw it, between the Scots and the

Irish against the English. Cynthia’s decision to abandon Ireland and allow

it to become the worst, rather than the best, of the British Isles must reflect badly on Elizabeth. The implication is that, disgusted by what she

found in Ireland and the hostility of the population to her rule, she retreated to London and left Ireland to its own devices. This reinforces the



conclusion to Book Five, renewing the sense that the queen has failed her

people by not realizing that Ireland must be conquered and rendered

docile if the British Isles are to prosper.

Read against such topical and allegorical narratives, the conclusion that

Mutabilitie is defeated by Nature’s words seems extremely doubtful. Furthermore, the sense of peaceful order in the last lines of Canto Eight is


Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd,

Of that same time when no more Change shall be,

But stedfast rest of all things firmely stayd

Upon the pillours of Eternity,

That is contrayr to Mutabilitie:

For, all that moveth, doth in Change delight:

But thence-forth all shall rest eternally

With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight:

O! thou great Sabbaoth God, grant me that Sabaoths sight.


Can we really believe that these are the final words of the poem? There

is an apocalyptic sense that time will eventually end, but perhaps not

now; or, if the end of the world is nigh, then a great deal of pain

will come before the postapocalyptic peace. The cantos can be read as a

battle between what Spenser and the reader might want––order and

stability––and what might really be the case: that chaos and disorder

actually might triumph. Writing in 1598—assuming that this dating is

correct—Spenser would have been terrified of the imminent threat from

the Catholic forces, which looked as though they would overrun Ireland

and ally with the son of the executed, traitorous Catholic queen from

Scotland. Soon after his death the following year, the Irish and Spanish

were defeated at the Battle of Kinsale (1601) and the forces of order ascended. After Elizabeth’s death (1603), James proved to be far less dangerous than many had anticipated, and he signed a peace treaty with

Spain in 1604. Had Spenser lived another five years––after all, he would

only have been about fifty––he might well have revised The Faerie Queene


Title page to the 1596 edition of The Faerie Queene (STC 23082)



























The waies, through which my weary steps I guyde,

In this delightfull land of Faery,

Are so exceeding spacious and wyde,

And sprinckled with such sweet variety,

Of all that pleasant is to eare or eye,

That I nigh ravisht1 with rare thoughts delight,

My tedious travell2 doe forget thereby;

And when I gin to feele decay of might,

It strength to me supplies, and chears my dulled spright.3


Such secret comfort, and such heavenly pleasures,

Ye sacred imps, that on Parnasso4 dwell,

And there the keeping have of learnings threasures,5

Which doe all worldly riches farre excell,

Into the mindes of mortall men doe well,6

And goodly fury7 into them infuse;

Guyde ye my footing,8 and conduct me well

In these strange waies, where never foote did use,9

Ne none can find, but who was taught them by the Muse.


Revele to me the sacred noursery10

Of vertue, which with you doth there remaine,

Where it in silver bowre11 does hidden ly



ravisht: implies that the narrator is overwhelmed by sensations and is not in control

of his thoughts.

2 travell: work, as well as journey.

3 spright: spirit.

4 imps: the Muses; Parnasso: Parnassus

Hill, where the Muses were reputed to live.

5 threasures: treasures.

well: surge.

fury: poetic inspiration.

8 footing: a pun on treading and writing


9 use: habitually go.

10 noursery: nursery garden.

11 silver bowre: where the angels live.

Cynthia also lives in a silver bower (VII.vi.





The Faerie Queene: Book Six

From view of men, and wicked worlds disdaine.

Since it at first was by the Gods with paine

Planted in earth, being deriv’d at furst

From heavenly seedes of bounty soveraine,1

And by them long with carefull labour nurst,

Till it to ripenesse grew, and forth to honour burst.


Amongst them all growes not a fayrer flowre,

Then is the bloosme of comely courtesie,2

Which though it on a lowly stalke doe bowre,3

Yet brancheth forth in brave4 nobilitie,

And spreds it selfe through all civilitie:5

Of which though present age doe plenteous seeme,6

Yet being matcht with plaine Antiquitie,

Ye will them all but fayned showes esteeme,

Which carry colours faire, that feeble eies misdeeme.7


But in the triall8 of true curtesie,

Its now so farre from that, which then it was,9

That it indeed is nought but forgerie,

Fashion’d to please the eies of them, that pas,10

Which see not perfect things but in a glas:11

Yet is that glasse so gay,12 that it can blynd

The wisest sight, to thinke gold that is bras.13

But vertues seat is deepe within the mynd,

And not in outward shows, but inward thoughts defynd.


bounty soveraine: ruling virtue.

comely courtesie: the first definition of

courtesy in the poem, possibly derived from

1 Pet. 3.8, which also suggests that courtesy

is a lowly but important virtue: “Finally, be

ye all of one mind: one suffer with another:

love as brethren: be pitiful: be courteous.”

(All biblical citations are from the 1568

Geneva Bible.)


bowre: live, exist.


brave: magnificent, splendid.


civilitie: civilization, civilized behavior.


seeme: a key word in Spenser. All appears well, but things may not be quite

what they seem, as the subsequent lines




eies: eyes; misdeeme: confuse, mistake.

triall: the use of a legal word looks forward to the trial of Mutabilitie and Jove in

Book Seven. Note also the use of “defynd”

(line 9).


I.e., courtesy now means something that

is very different from what it once meant.


pas: look carelessly, skate over important



glas: mirror. Perhaps another biblical

reference to the famous line in 1 Cor.

13.12: “For now we see as through a glasse



gay: bright, brilliant, disguising and confusing the darkness of our sight.

13 bras: brass.




But where shall I in all Antiquity

So faire a patterne finde, where may be seene

The goodly praise of Princely curtesie,

As in your selfe, O soveraine Lady Queene,1

In whose pure minde, as in a mirrour sheene,2

It showes, and with her brightnesse doth inflame

The eyes of all, which thereon fixed beene;3

But meriteth indeede an higher name:

Yet so from low to high uplifted is your name.4


Then pardon me, most dreaded Soveraine,

That from your selfe I doe this vertue bring,

And to your selfe doe it returne againe:

So from the Ocean all rivers spring,

And tribute backe repay as to their King.

Right so from you all goodly vertues well5

Into the rest, which round about you ring,6

Faire Lords and Ladies, which about you dwell,

And doe adorne your Court, where courtesies excell.7


Queene: the reference to “Antiquity”

makes the verse ambiguous. Spenser may be

praising Elizabeth’s court as equal to the

best of antiquity, or he may be undermining her by praising Gloriana as representative of the virtues that the modern world



sheene: bright, clear; a pointed contrast

to the mirror in the previous stanza.


Suggesting a dazzling display that obscures

as much as it illuminates (see the use of

“ravisht” in stanza 1).



name: in line 8, “name” means “title” or

“calling”; in line 9, it refers to the name of



well: flow.


ring: perhaps looking forward to the

Graces, who dance in a ring in Canto Ten.


The poet now implies that courtesy derives from the court, countering what is

stated in stanza 4 and demonstrating how

complex and contradictory the concept of

courtesy is.

Canto One

Calidore saves from Maleffort,

A Damzell used vylde:1

Doth vanquish Crudor, and doth make

Briana wexe2 more mylde.


Of Court it seemes, men Courtesie doe call,3

For that it there most useth4 to abound;

And well beseemeth that in Princes hall

That vertue should be plentifully found,

Which of all goodly manners is the ground,5

And roote of civill conversation.6

Right so in Faery court it did redound,7

Where curteous Knights and Ladies most did won8

Of all on earth, and made a matchlesse paragon.


But mongst them all was none more courteous Knight,

Then Calidore,9 beloved over all,

In whom it seemes, that gentlenesse of spright

And manners mylde were planted naturall;10

To which he adding comely guize11 withall,

And gracious speach, did steale mens hearts away.12



used vylde: abused.

wexe: grow.


Courtesie doe call: a definition that follows from the comments in the last stanza

of the Proem, suggesting that definitions of

the virtue––and, by implication, of other

key words––may not be fixed.


most useth: i.e., most commonly.


ground: foundation.


civill conversation: civilized behavior

and proper discussion.


redound: flourish.

most did won: displayed the most courteous behavior.


Calidore: from two Greek words meaning

“good” and “gift.”


It is significant that Calidore’s virtue is

said to be natural, given the debate over nature and culture throughout Book Six.


comely guize: attractive appearance.


This suggests great oratorical skill, but may

also hint that Calidore’s arguments often

seem better than they really are––perhaps a

criticism of the court and courtiers.



Tài liệu bạn tìm kiếm đã sẵn sàng tải về

girl. Yet, on the other, we cannot fail

Tải bản đầy đủ ngay(0 tr)