Not surprisingly, therefore, the application of Thenot’s fable of the oak and the briar is more problematical than the teller himself realizes. Hence the attribution of the story to Tityrus, or Chaucer (92), the master of narrative irony, and hence too the repetition within the fable of so much of the vocabulary of the preceding debate. Lacking Tityrus’ subtlety, Thenot draws a simplistic, self-comforting moral from the demise of the ‘ambitious brere’, but ignores the clear implication (emphasized by E. K.’s gloss) that the oak is at least partially responsible for its own downfall in rendering itself vulnerable to the briar’s complaints (207–12). The re-teller is inadequate to the tale. Its political and religious imagery is largely irrelevant to the personal circumstances of Thenot and Cuddie but serve to widen its application to the public domain. Spenser’s audience is not Thenot’s audience. Despite the assertion in the ‘Argument’ that the eclogue is ‘rather morall and generall, then bent to any secrete or particular purpose’ the choice of vocabulary suggests otherwise. The briar’s flowers are ‘meete to clothe a mayden Queene’ (132), the oak is one of the husbandman’s ‘trees of state’ (146), the husbandman himself is addressed as ‘my soueraigne’ (163), and the decay of the ‘auncient tree’ is associated with the ‘foolerie’ of ‘popishe’ superstition (209–11). In this manner the fable is made to reflect obliquely on the politics of court faction, the perils of ‘root and branch’ reformation, the relentless dynamics of social change, and the rising xenophobia engendered by Elizabeth’s proposed marriage to d’Alençon. Such reflections are seasonally appropriate because wood-cutting was traditionally associated with February [cf. Luborsky (1981)].
As William Webbe observed in 1586, the style and metre are characteristic of Spenser’s ‘satyricall reprehensions’ (cf. ECE, 1.270). The coarse, archaic and dialectical diction and the rough tetrameter couplets (with line lengths varying from eight to ten syllables and frequent substitution of anapaestic for iambic feet) preserve the decorum of ‘clownish’ discourse while anticipating the concerns of the ecclesiastical eclogues and evoking reminiscences of Langland’s Piers Plowman. Various attempts have been made to identify specific allusions in the fable, but the style would suggest a preference for studied ambiguity over consistent reference, for issues over personalities. Thenot speaks bluntly ad hominem, but his creator is considerably more discreet. Cf. Bond (1981); Friedland (1954); Greco (1982); King (1990); McCabe (1995); McLane (1961); Marx (1985); Watson (1993).
Argument
vnlustinesse: lack of strength or vigour, but sexual innuendo informs all such usages throughout the eclogue.
some Picture: for the association of poetry and painting cf. Horace, Ars Poetica, 361–5.
Februarie
7 wrigle: wriggling.
8 Perke: brisk, pert, self-satisfied.
auales: droops, falls.
11–13 ‘World’ and ‘worse’ were held to be etymologically connected: ‘when the world woxe old, it woxe warre old, / (Whereof it hight)’ (FQ, 4. 8. 31).
14 former fall: first fall of Adam and Eve.
17 threttie: thirty.
27 accord full nie: precisely correspond.
28 wrye: bent, twisted.
35 loytring: idling.
35–50 Cf. Mantuan, Eclogues, 6. 19–25.
36 broomes: yellow shrub common on heath and pasture.
40 pypes… corne: cf. Chaucer, The House of Fame, 1224.
41 Lords… yeare: like lords of misrule.
42 eft: afterwards (an archaic usage).
47 corage: boldness, mettle, desire. Cf. line 80 below.
52 youngth: youth (an archaic form).
57 lopp: small branches and twigs, faggot wood. ‘Lop and top’ was a common phrase.
65 gyrdle of gelt: gilded belt or waistband (often used as an emblem of chastity, cf. FQ, 4. 5. 3–6).
66 buegle: tube-shaped glass beads usually coloured black.
71 brag: briskly, haughtily.
72 smirke: neat, trim.
74 dewelap: fold of loose skin about the throat.
77 can: have ‘conned’ or learned.
78 lustlesse: listless. Cf. FQ, 1. 4. 20.
81 blowen bags: swollen udders.
85 wote… kenst: I know you know.
86 headlesse hood: empty hood, hence empty-headedness.
88 wage is death: ‘For the wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6: 23).
90 stoopegallaunt: that humbles gallants. OED notes that the term was originally used of the sweating sickness.
95 nouells: short tales.
101 hearken… end: listen to the outcome.
102–14 For the image of the oak cf. Lucan, Pharsalia, 1. 136–43; RR, 379–92.
109 mochell mast: much forest fruit, here many acorns.
111 rine: rind, bark.
115 brere: briar, here a wild rose bush.
116 Thelement: the air.
119 wonned: used, was accustomed (wont). E. K.’s gloss is incorrect.
128 stocke: trunk.
130 white… redde: colours associated with the queen, cf. Aprill, [68].
134 dirks: darkens.
141 adawed: subdued, daunted. Cf. FQ, 3. 7. 13.
149 stirring… strife: cf. Proverbs 10: 12; 15: 18.
160 painted: feigned, plausible.
162 crime: charge, accusation.
179 cancker wormes: caterpillars and other insect larvae.
182 defast: defaced.
187 sufferance: indulgence.
192 noulde… leasure: would not wait or delay.
207–12 Deftly fusing pagan and Roman Catholic rituals to the detriment of the latter. Cf. Luke 3: 9 for the necessary destruction of decayed trees.
217 In fine: in the end.
236 brouzed: bruised or cropped (from browsed).
242 graffed: grafted.
breche: breeches or buttocks.
243 frorne: frozen (an archaism).
248–9 Iddio… essempio: ‘Because he is old, God makes his own to his own pattern’, or ‘Because God is old, take him for an example’.
251–2 Niuno… Iddio: ‘No old man fears God’.
Gloss
[4] Gride: OED cites a variant of Lydgate’s Troy Book, 2. 4209, taking gryde as a form of the verb gird. The Middle English Dictionary lists the forms ‘girds’ and ‘grides’ as interchangeable.
[25] Thenot: cf. Marot, Eglogue sur le Trépas de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye (1531), imitated in November.
[33] Mimus Publianus: Publilius Syrus, Latin mime writer of the first century BC, best known through the popular anthology, Publilii Syri Mimi Sententiae, of which Erasmus published an edition in 1514.
Improbè… facit: ‘It is an outrage for a man who is twice shipwrecked to blame Neptune’ (Publilius Syrus, Sententiae, 331).
[35] Chaucers verse: cf. The House of Fame, 1225–6.
[63] Phyllis: the name does not occur in Theocritus, but is found in Virgil (Eclogues, 3. 78) and Mantuan (Eclogues, 4. 176).
[83] Rather: early, born early in the year.
[92] Tityrus: for Chaucer as Tityrus cf. June, 81–96, [81].
[96] Well thewed: replete with good morals. Cf. FQ, 2. 6. 26; HB, 137.
[102] Æsopes: cf. the reed and the olive tree, Fables, no. 143.
Hypotyposis: sketch, pattern, type.
[149] Sterne strife: cf. the pseudo-Chaucerian Plowman’s Tale, 55.
[176] χατ’ είχασμóν: as a comparison.
[215] Saxa… grauido: ‘The rocks groaned under the heavy blow’. Not found in Virgil.
[244] startuppe: a rustic boot.
Emblem
counterbuff: rebuff.
tydes: times.
Ape… fables: Aesop has a fox rather than an ape. Cf. Fables, no. 42.
Erasmus: Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536), Dutch humanist, friend of Sir Thomas More, author of The Praise of Folly (1509), translator and textual editor of the New Testament (1516). His Adages (1500), an edited compilation of Latin and Greek prove
rbs, were highly popular.
Nemo… Iouem: ‘No old man fears Jove.’ Not found in Erasmus.
March
This is the first of four ‘recreatiue’ eclogues ‘which conceiue matter of loue, or commendation of special personages’. The choice is appropriate because ‘the yeare beginneth in March’, according to the old calendar, ‘for then the sonne reneweth his finished course, and the seasonable spring refresheth the earth’. As the woodcut illustrates, the two speakers are also in the springtime of life, and the ram of Aries, under which they stand, traditionally signified lust or desire [cf. FQ, 7. 7. 32]. Their tentative accommodation to the imperatives, and dangers, of sexual awakening is mediated through their excited reports of encounters with Cupid (either direct or indirect) and the natural imagery is replete with erotic innuendo (14–17) [cf. Spitzer (1950)]. In Bion’s fourth idyll, upon which the central episode is based (61–102), a ‘fowler-lad’ discovers Cupid’s identity from an elder ‘fowler’, but here the boys are left to their own uncertain devices with only Willye’s report of his father’s experiences to serve by way of a guide (104–14). In Februarie Cuddie’s enthusiasm for spring and love is countered by Thenot’s cautious experience, but now it falls to E. K. to decode the iconography of Cupid [79], explain the sexual significance of Thomalin’s wound [97], and warn of the psychological changes wrought by age when ‘we fynde our bodyes and wits aunswere not to such vayne iollitie and lustful pleasaunce’ [cf. Berger (1983b)]. In this respect March constitutes a sort of ‘gloss’ on the preceding eclogue, just as Februarie does on Januarye.
Despite the evident lightness of tone and metre (a variety of ‘tail-rhyme’, jauntily alternating pairs of tetrameter lines with single trimeters in a rhyme scheme of aabccb), the attitude towards love is somewhat sour. Even the goddess Flora is lent an unflattering gloss [16]. The abrupt allusion to a lady called ‘Lettice’ (20), glossed merely as ‘the name of some country lasse’, may glance at the Earl of Leicester’s clandestine and potentially ruinous marriage to Lettice Knollys, while the bitter pun in Thomalin’s emblem (assisted by an orthography which substitutes ‘Gaule’ for ‘gall’) contrives to offer an oblique insult to Elizabeth’s much reviled French suitor. In the spring of 1579 love was indeed the Achilles’ heel of Elizabethan policy (95–102). To be politically ‘wise and eke to loue’ would appear to be an impossibility [cf. McCabe (1995)]. Cf. Allen (1968); Hoffman (1977); Luborsky (1981); Mounts (1952); Nelson (1963).
Argument
make purpose: broach the subject of, discourse of.
March
13–15 Note the reminiscences of the briar of Februarie, 115–26.
13 studde: stem.
14 bragly: ostentatiously, boastfully.
15 vtter: put or thrust forth.
25 assott: muddled, confused.
28 How kenst thou: how do you know.
35 preuie: peculiar, particular.
38–9 A common pastoral motif, cf. Virgil, Eclogues, 5. 12.
39 Ylike: alike (an archaic form).
41 whott: hot, choleric. But cf. note to 106–14 below.
43 seeing: supervision, overseeing.
46 sithens… morowe: it is but three days since.
50 clouted: wrapped in clouts, bandaged in rags.
52 unioynted: dislocated, disjointed.
53 ioynted: disjointed, broken. Cf. FQ, 5. 11. 29.
55 Thelf: The elf.
56 But… good: but now I hope she knows better.
58–60 These three lines, delicately poised between past and future, serve as the structural centre of the eclogue, dividing 57 lines of dialogue from
57 lines of mythological anecdote.
59 forecast: anticipated, considered in advance.
62 groomes: lackeys, servants.
65 bolts: arrows.
66 tooting: searching.
67 Yuie: with erotic associations. In Bion, Idylls, 4 it is a box-tree.
73 thicke: thicket.
74 quicke: living creature.
81 lope: leapt.
85 leuelde: aimed.
89 pumie: pumice stones.
91 wimble: nimble.
wight: agile, brisk.
95 earst: at first (an archaism).
105 token: sign, mark.
106–14 Possibly intended to recall Vulcan’s entrapment of the adulterous Venus and Mars (March is the month of Mars) – and raising some questions about Willye’s family. Cf. D. Cheney (1989).
111 Peeretree: possibly recalling the adulterous liaison of Chaucer’s Merchant’s Tale, 2207–11.
115 thicks: darkens. Cf. ‘light thickens’, Macbeth, 3. 2. 50.
116 steepes: bathes.
118 Willyes Embleme: cf. Publilius Syrus, Sententiae, 22.
121 Thomalins Embleme: from Plautus, Cistellaria, 1. 69–70.
Both emblems are found in Georg Major, Sententiae Veterum Poetarum (1551), 82, 85.
Gloss
Theocritus: actually Bion, Idylls, 4, possibly through Ronsard’s version, L’Amour Oyseau (1560), or Politian’s Latin translation (1512). Cf. note to
[79] below.
[16] Tacitus: not in Tacitus. Cf. Lactantius, Institutiones Divinae, 1. 20. 6 cited in Boccaccio, Genealogia, 4. 61.
Andronica: not identified.
[17] Macrobius: cf. Saturnalia, 1. 12. 19. For Maia cf. Epith, 307–10 and notes.
[20] Lettice: possibly an oblique allusion to Lettice Knollys (mother by her first husband of the second Earl of Essex) who married the Earl of Leicester in 1578 to the Queen’s great displeasure. D’Alençon disclosed the marriage to Elizabeth in 1579. Cf. headnote.
[23] Lethe: the gloss is confused. Lethe was the river of oblivion from which the souls were required to drink. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, 6. 703–51.
[33] Poetes: cf. ‘purpureas pueri… alas’ at Ovid, Remedia Amoris, 701.
[40] Virgils verse: ‘I have a father at home, and a harsh stepmother’ (Eclogues, 3. 33).
[54] Chaucer: misquoted from Sir Thopas, 893.
[79] Propertius: cf. Elegies, 2. 12.
Moschus… Politianus: Moschus, Idylls, 1 as translated in the Epigrammata (1512) of Angelo Poliziano (1454–94), known in England as Politian, and renowned as a scholar, poet and textual critic.
thys Poets: Spenser’s translation is not extant but the material may be reworked at FQ, 3. 6. 11–26.
[91] deliuer: nimble, agile.
[97] Homer: not in Homer. Cf. Fulgentius, Mythologia, 3. 7 cited in Boccaccio, Genealogia, 12. 52.
Eustathius: Eustathius of Constantinople, a twelfth-century commentator upon the Homeric Hymns. But E. K.’s source is again Boccaccio, Genealogia, 12. 52.
Hipocrates: famous Greek physician of the fifth century BC. Cf. Hippocrates, Of Airs, Waters, Places, 22.
[116] Periphrasis: circumlocution.
Aprill
Although Aprill is a ‘recreatiue’ eclogue written ‘to the honor and prayse of our most gracious souereigne, Queene Elizabeth’, Colin Clout is too ‘alienate and with drawen’ to take part in the seasonal celebrations. His intricately wrought ‘laye / Of fayre Elisa’ (33–4) is therefore sung in his absence by his disconsolate friend Hobbinol, and the joy of times past is considerably qualified by the despondency of the present. Colin has abandoned poetry and the pastoral world is accordingly diminished. The stark contrast between the rough quatrains of the opening dialogue (1–36) and the complex patterning of the ‘laye’ (37–153), with its subtle interplay of long and short lines (rhyming ababccddc) and delicate variations of mood and tone, serves to illustrate the magnitude of the loss. Far from inspiring poetry, love now impedes it. Viewed in this context, Elisa seems fortunate in her virginal independence. As the daughter of Pan and Syrinx she is the living embodiment of pastoral poetry, being herself a poet and the inspiration of poets (50–51, 91–4). The messianic interpretation of Virgil’s fourth eclogue, Spenser’s closest classical model, reinforces such impressions: ‘so sprong her grace / Of heauenly race, / No mortal
l blemishe may her blotte’ (52–4). Yet at the time of publication Elizabeth was thought to favour the abandonment of her virginal status for marriage to d’Alençon. In the popular imagination she, no less than Colin Clout, was thought to have ‘so little skill to brydle loue’ (20) – as the sly pun on ‘brydle’ may well be intended to suggest. The imagery of the lay resembles that of an epithalamion or wedding hymn – ‘The pretie Pawnce, / And the Cheuisaunce, / Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice’ (142–4) – yet marriage with the French ‘fleur-de-lis’ was precisely what Protestant England feared [cf. McLane (1961), 13–26].
Read in historical context the lay may be seen to express as much anxiety as admiration. It reminds the Queen of the importance of her public image at a time when her proposed marriage to an ‘alien’ was threatening to alienate the people from the crown [cf. McCabe (1995)]. The timeless icon of the virgin queen is located squarely within the cyclical mutability of the year under the sign of Taurus, often identified by Spenser with the ‘bull from the sea’ which carried off the virgin Europa [cf. FQ, 7. 7. 33; Richardson (1989), 269–70]. Recounting that myth in the Metamorphoses, Ovid remarks that ‘majesty and love do not go well together, nor tarry long in the same dwelling place’ (2. 846–7). Spenser’s message would appear to be similar: by insisting for so long upon her virginity the Queen has rendered it integral to her sovereignty. Her ‘modest eye’ guarantees ‘Her Maiestie’ (70–71) and the public icon must now be maintained by personal sacrifice. One detects similar tensions throughout the lay: Elisa seems strangely oblivious to Colin’s, and possibly to the country’s, sufferings (99), and although he terms her his ‘goddesse’ (97) he warns of the dangers inherent in attributing divinity to any mortal (86–90). The ‘Redde rose medled with the White yfere’ (68) in Elisa’s countenance recalls the turbulent history that the mythology of Pan and Syrinx elides.
As the Introduction to the present edition notes, the witty choice of emblems functions in a similar fashion. When dressed like a nymph of Diana, Venus cuts an intensely ambivalent figure, fusing, and even confounding, the personae of virgin and mistress, mother and whore [cf. Di Matteo (1989)]. By means such as these, the enigmatic quality of the verse is rendered politically resonant. The ‘pastoral of power’ interrogates its own mythology. Cf. Cain (1978); Cullen (1970); Luborsky (1981); McCoy (1997); Micros (1993); Montrose (1980), (1983); Watkins (1995).
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