Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature
Page 23
Letters to an American Lady
God in the Dock
Christian Reflections
A Year with C. S. Lewis
"Yours, Jack"
Words to Live By
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Studies in Words
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature
Selected Literary Essays
The Discarded Image
Image and Imagination
The Allegory of Love
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“Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature” originally appeared in the print book Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, published in hardcover by Cambridge University Press in 1966. The text in this edition is taken from the 2000 paperback edition published by Canto.
“Edmund Spencer 1552–99” by C. S. Lewis is reprinted from Major British Writers edited by G. B. Harrison, copyright © 1959, by Harcourt, Brace and World Inc., by permission of the publishers.
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1 Lewis’s Cambridge lecture notes on Spenser are now being freely edited by Dr Alastair Fowler. It is expected that they will be published soon.
1 J. Speirs, Medieval English Poetry: The Non-Chaucerian Tradition (1957), p. 48.
2 A. J. Bliss, Sir Orfeo (1954).
3 Cf. Chaucer, C.T. A 2432–3, ‘a murmuringe Ful lowe and dim’; Gower, C.A. V, 4967, ‘A vois which cride dimme.’
4 Love is the plant of peace and the most precious of powers, for heaven could not contain it, it felt so heavy, until it had poured itself out on the earth. After that, no leaf on a lime-tree was lighter (gayer, more mobile) than it, when it had taken flesh and blood from the clay.
5 Malory IV 18, XX 21.
6 J. Speirs, op. cit. pp. 62–3.
7 Hiltebrantslied, 37–8. You’re very clever, you old Hun.
8 J. Speirs, op. cit. p. 117.
9 I exclude ‘boy’s romances’ because I do not, myself, share Mr Speirs’s view if it is meant to apply to all of them. Neither blind Pugh tapping with his stick in Treasure Island nor the hall of petrified chieftains in King Solomon’s Mines affects me as ‘simply a sport of fancy’. This disagreement is irrelevant to the argument.
10 Lady Flavia Anderson, The Ancient Secret (1953).
11 J. Speirs, op. cit. p. 117.
12 J. Speirs, op. cit. p. 103. The italics are Mr Speirs’s.
1 Ed. F. Madden, 3 vols. 1847. The reader who has no access to this edition can nevertheless learn a good deal about the Brut from the (undated) Everyman volume Arthurian Chronicles by Eugene Mason which contains a close prose translation of Brut 12802–28651 (from the usurpation of Vortigern to the last battle of Arthur) and of the corresponding part of Wace’s Geste. [Since Lewis wrote this, the first volume of a complete new edition of the Brut, edited by G. L. Brook and R. F. Leslie for the E.E.T.S., has been published (1963). At the same time, Selections from Laʒamon’s ‘Brut’, edited by G. L. Brook with an Introduction by C. S. Lewis, appeared in the Clarendon Medieval and Tudor Series.—W.H.]
2 II.
3 Whether only in England or also abroad, his language (29) does not make clear. The delightful passage on muglinges (29593–8) suggests that he had visited the continent and been twitted on coming from an island where men have tails.
4 11–41.
5 Lovingly beheld, 47.
6 Of him shall minstrels sing finely. Of his breast noble poets shall eat; on his blood, heroes be drunk. (N.B. My line-numbering is that of Madden, who prints, and numbers, each half-line as a line.)*
7 Actus ejus cibus erit narrantibus (vii, 3).
8 To be valiant—tough death-warriors—against their enemies.
9 He made such peace, he made such order, many good laws, that thereafter the land was steady.
10 ‘And if you await him he will make you prisoner, kill your people, and hold your land.’ Often had Arthur been in woe; never worse than at that moment.
11 God’s enemy. With point and edge. Sea-weary. World-shame. Lord of men.
12 Lord, master, Christ, prince of glory, protection of middle earth, comfort of men, by thy gracious will, prince of angels. Make thou my dream turn to good.
13 Prayed for his soul that bliss should never come to it.
14 With their evil strength (or cunning).
15 The fated ones fell (14038 et passim).
16 Feather-jacket or swanskin.
17 God granted me that I have caught him.
18 Now thou alone art left of thy noble kindred. But hope not to get counsel from those that lie dead, but take heed to thyself. Good will befall thee. For seldom he fails who takes heed to himself.
19 16371.
20 4161, 4166–7.
21 5185–6.
22 They hewed hardily, helms resounded, fields were discoloured with fated blood, as the souls of heathens set out for hell.
23 Valiant thanes, clad in pall, high battle-warriors, high men with weapons.
24 An old stone work; tough men made it.
25 Was very angry (24951).
26 Good is peace and good is quiet for him who uses them nobly; and God Himself made it through His Deity.
27 Sit down, I tell you, my knights all. Let each, on his life, hear what I shall say. (A literal translation of swiðe is impossible in Modern English.)
28 To the young he was a father, to the
old a comforter.
29 Always every poor man shall find his lot the easier, and I mean to do great God’s will.
30 24115–24.
31 Well-away that every any such man had to go in to Hell! (taking helle from Otho MS).
32 Unchancy things. The water is immensely wide; nikeres (aquatic monsters) bathe therein, there is play of elves in the dreadful pool.
33 And thus they lay in the island and saw the wild weather; saw ships—one—and one—sometimes more—sometimes none—then four—then five.
34 When it came out, what he said was good.
35 Thus said Merlin and then sat still as though he were going out of the world.
36 Sat still for a long time as though he were labouring hard with a dream. Eye-witnesses said that he often turned the way a snake would.
37 Arthur sat very quiet. Now he was pale and very drained of colour; now he grew red and was moved at heart. When it all came out, what he said was good. Thus in that place spoke Arthur the good knight: ‘Lord Christ, Son of God, help us that while I live I may keep God’s laws.’
38 Arthur hitched up his shield before his breast and began to rush like the howling (?) wolf when it comes, all hung with snow, out of the wood, and means to get its teeth into any beast that pleases it.
39 As the tall wood when the mad wind tosses it with its strength.
40 When I was, long since, fifteen years old, then I lived in my bower, in my chamber of delight, my maidens with me, wonderfully fair. When I was in bed, plunged in my soft sleep, then there came before me the loveliest thing ever born—like a tall knight all decked with gold. This I saw in dream each night in my sleep. This thing moved before me and glimmered in gold. Often it kissed me, often embraced me.
41 How steel fishes lie in the stream, girt with sword; their swimming is spoiled, their scales float like gold-bright shields, their fins drift there as if it were spears.
42 My references are to the lines in the excellent edn. of Sawles Warde by R. M. Wilson, Leeds School of English Language Texts and Monographs, 1938.*
43 J. Speirs, Medieval English Poetry: the Non-Chaucerian Tradition (1957), pp. 217–18.
1 De Planctu Naturae, P.L. CCX, Prosa III, col. 444 A, B.
1 Purg. XXI, 91.
2 Ibid. 94 seq.
3 Ibid. XXII, 34 seq.
4 Ibid. 64 seq.
5 Ibid. 88 seq.
6 Ibid. 107.
7 Theb. XII, 816 seq.
8 Juvenal, VI, 634.
9 Inf. XXXII, 127 seq.
10 Theb. XI, 87.
11 Inf. XXVI, 52 seq.
12 Theb. XII, 431.
13 IV, xxv.
14 Theb. XI, 466.
15 Ibid. XII, 561.
16 Ibid. 645.
17 Ibid. III, 99 seq.
18 Ibid. XI, 665–9, 755.
19 Ibid. 686.
20 Theb. 469.
21 Ibid. IV, 484.
22 Ibid. I, 214–15.
23 Ibid. III, 4.
24 Ibid. VII, 114.
25 Ibid. III, 551–65.
26 Ibid. 460–98.
27 Ibid. IV, 406 seq.
28 Ibid. 463, 518.
29 Par. XX, 45, 68.
30 Purg. I.
31 Inf. I, 116.
32 Theb. V, 156–7.
33 Ibid. XI, 616.
34 Ibid. VIII, 23.
35 Theb. XII, 184.
36 Ibid. V, 610.
37 Ibid. 650.
38 Ibid. I, 230–1.
39 Ibid. VIII, 30.
40 Ibid. XI, 465–6.
41 Ibid. I, 596.
42 Ibid. 643–65.
43 Ibid. X, 632 seq.
44 Ibid. XI, 457 seq.
45 Ibid. XII, 481 seq.
46 Purg. VI, 118.
47 Theb. III, 218.
48 Ibid. I, 212–13.
49 Ibid. VII, 197–8.
50 Theb. III, 246.
51 Metam. IX, 251–3.
52 Ibid. 265–6.
53 Of course very imperfect.
54 Chanson de Roland, 2397.
55 Theb. X, 781–2.
56 Aen. IX, 184–5.
57 Conv. IV, xxv.
58 Theb. I, 536 seq.
59 Ibid. VIII, 626 seq.
60 Ibid. 645.
61 Purg. XXII, 67–9.
1 The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, edited by Eugene Vinaver, in three volumes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1947).
1 Unity was to be secured by the overriding rôle of Arthur, who appears in every Book and helps minor champions out of difficulties. Unfortunately his own story remains unfinished in the fragment we have. On his quest for Gloriana, see below.
2 It is, for example, worth considering why the ludicrous and disgusting figure of Malbecco (Jealousy) comes in the Book on Chastity. If Hellenore’s wantonness sets a man in a rage, he must not assume that his rage results from a disinterested love of virtue.
1 Robert Ellrodt, Neoplatonism in the Poetry of Spenser (Genève: Librairie E. Droz, 1960).
2 E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (London, 1958).
1 Although Lewis mentions only the 1531 edition of the Emblematum Liber, there are many subsequent editions of this book which Spenser could have used.—W.H.
2 This is the true likeness of unwedded Pallas. Hers is this dragon, standing at its mistress’s feet. Why is this animal the goddess’s companion? Its allotted task is to guard things. Thus it cares for groves and sacred temples. Sleepless care is needed to keep girls safe before marriage; love spreads his snares everywhere.
1 Is Genius the unnamed ‘writer’ in Claudian’s De Consolatu Stilichonis, II, 424 et seq.? I owe this suggestion to E. C. Knowlton’s ‘The Allegorical Figure Genius’ (Classical Philology, XV, 1920) which, along with the same author’s ‘Genius as an Allegorical Figure’ (Modern Language Notes, XXXIX), is the only treatment of the subject I have come across. Mr Knowlton, however, approaches the subject from another angle than mine and does not distinguish Genius A from Genius B.
2 On Education, Prose Works, ed. Bohn, III, 468.
3 Those interested in the ‘hooks and eyes of memory’ will be pleased to notice that Acrasia also appears in the Cebetis Tabula.
1 I work from Aldis Wright’s facsimile. Possibly in the original the old reading may be more easily deciphered; but it must differ considerably from most of the erasures. It is not a mere ‘crossing-out’, but an attempt at real obliteration.
2 Prose Works, ed. St John, vol. III, p. 117, ‘Let rude ears be absent’.
3 It is an interesting question how far Milton regarded them with something more than poetic faith. Certainly his Attendant Spirit, who appears as a Daemon in Trinity, has several features in common with the ‘aerial demons’ in Milton’s fellow collegiate, Henry More.*