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Spensek and the Mirour de L'omme
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
It has been tacitly assumed that the Mirour de l'Omme lived only in its name (and even in that somewhat equivocally) until the discovery of the single extant manuscript in 1895. To suggest that the poem not only did not die when it was born, but that on the contrary it was well known to Spenser, and that it gave to the Faerie Queene one of its most famous purple patches—such a suggestion, one may readily grant, would occur offhand to no one. Yet there is weighty evidence in support of just this contention, and that evidence it is the object of this paper to present. That the case is one which challenges somewhat sharply our established preconceptions, and that it must rest on firm ground to command assent, I am thoroughly aware.
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References
page 390 note 2 F. Q., i, iv, 17–35.
page 390 note 3 The Complete Works of John Gowér, éd. G. C. Macaulay, Oxford, 1899, Vol. I, pp. 13–14.
page 390 note 4 Dante, Purgatorio; Cursor Mundi (Book of Penance); Kalender of Shepherdes; Chaucer, Parson's Tale; etc. Except that Wrath and Envy are interchanged, this is also the order in Handlyng Synne, as it is likewise (with the interchange of Gluttony and Lechery) in the Ayenbite of Inwyt and Le Mireour du Monde.
page 390 note 5 Professor MacCracken's rejection of the poem as Lydgate's seems to be warranted by the evidence. See The Minor Poems of John Lydgate (E. E. T. S., 1911), pp. xxxv-vi.
page 390 note 6 In Passus ii, 79 ff., Lechery and Avarice are interchanged.
page 390 note 7 In the Cursor Mundi (Castle of Love) the order is Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lechery, Avarice, Wrath, Idleness. In the Lay Folk's Catechism it is Pride, Envy, Wrath, Gluttony, Avarice, Idleness, Lechery; in Mirk's Instructions for Parish Priests, Pride, Idleness, Envy, Wrath, Avarice, Gluttony, Lechery; in the Castle of Perseverance, Avarice, Pride, Wrath, Envy, Lechery, Gluttony (the last two interchanged when the Sins actually appear); in Nature, Pride, Avarice, Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Idleness, Lechery; in Dunbar, Pride, Wrath, Envy, “Sweirnes” (= Idleness), Lechery (with Idleness), Gluttony. See further Professor Tupper's article on “Chaucer and the Seven Deadly Sins” (Publications of the Modem Language Association, xxix, March, 1914), p. 94, especially note 1. Professor Tupper's statement that “in all lists, however, Pride is the first of the sins,” is not quite correct. See the order in the Castle of Perseverance above (where Pride is second), and compare de Deguile-ville, The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man (E. E. T. S., pp. 316 ff.), where the order is [Idleness], Gluttony, Lechery (under the guise of Venus), Sloth, Pride, Envy, Wrath, Avarice.
page 390 note 8 Spenser's picture here is not clear at a glance. The “sis unequall beasts” on which the Sins ride draw the chariot of Pride. Idleness is spoken of as “the first,” and is represented as having “guiding of the way,” while Gluttony rides “by his side.” Lechery rides “next to him,” Avarice, “by him”; Envy, “next to him,” Wrath, “him beside.” The alternation of “next to him” with “by his side,” “by him,” “him beside,” seems to point to a procession two and two.
page 390 note 9 See, in particular, Professor R. E. Neil Dodge's illuminating discussion of “Spenser's Imitations from Ariosto,” in the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Vol. xii (1897), pp. 151–204. Professor Dodge's brief summary may be quoted here, for it is highly pertinent to this discussion: “When he copies Ariosto it is almost always with a change. He may take the facts of a plot one by one as they stand in his original; the peculiar rendering will always be his own. He may adopt a situation—it will be with certain modifications which alter its character. He may imitate a reflective passage—the spirit of the version will be new” (p. 196). Compare p. 197: “Every passage borrowed might be recast, modified, animated with another spirit,” etc. Of all this Professor Dodge's article itself gives ample illustration. Two more recent statements bearing on Spenser's methods of borrowing and adapting may be cited. The first is from an article by Professor E. A. Hall (“Spenser and Two Old French Grail Romances”) in the same Publications, Vol. xxviii (Dec, 1913): “The acceptance of the variations as Spenser's own contribution to the episode … does not require the embarrassing qualification that the poet has in this instance handled source material in a manner differing in any respect from his recognized method. Everywhere in Spenser we find borrowed matter, sometimes from one source, sometimes from two or more sources, combined with the stuff of the poet's own fancy after the fashion of a patchwork quilt, but in a pattern superior to any of his originals,” etc. (pp. 542–43). Compare also Professor Reed Smith's study (Modern Language Notes, Vol. xxviii, March, 1913, pp. 82–85) of “The Metamorphoses in Muiopotmos,” especially the remarks on Spenser's method of borrowing (Note 5, p. 84).
page 390 note 10 The order of the Sins is that in Spenser. The figure in parenthesis represents the place of the Sin in Gower's order.
page 390 note 11 For the references in the case of the maladies see below, p. 408.
page 390 note 12 St. xviii, 1. 7. Hereafter, in giving the references to Spenser, the Roman numeral will indicate the stanza; the Arabic, the line.
page 390 note 13 L. S89. But compare also the “dull asse” in the Assembly of Gods below, p. 398.
page 390 note 14 xix, 5.
page 390 note 15 L. 899.
page 390 note 16 xxii, 6.
page 390 note 17 L. 919. See also below, p. 415.
page 390 note 18 L. 929.
page 390 note 19 xxiv, 2, 4.
page 390 note 20 Ll. 910–11.
page 390 note 21 xxvii, 3–4. See also below, p. 424, n. 49.
page 390 note 22 xxxi, 1.
page 390 note 23 L. 869. Envy is also “megre, pale and lene, Dyscolouryd” (“descoloree” in the French text of Le Bornant des trois pelerinaiges) in de Deguileville (E. E. T. S., p. 401, 11. 14867–68). Too much stress, accordingly, may not be laid on this detail.
page 390 note 24 xxxi, 2.
page 390 note 25 Ll. 871–73.
page 390 note 26 xxxi, 3–4.
page 390 note 27 Ll. 874–76. Compare also below, pp. 436, 442, 446.
page 390 note 28 L. 884.
page 390 note 29 See below, p. 433, n. 97.
page 390 note 30 The passage in the Assembly is brief, and I shall quote it in full:
Pryde was the furst bat next him [Vyce] roode, God woote,
On a roryng lyon; next whom came Enuy,
Sytting on a wolfe—he had a scornful ey.
Wrethe bestrode a wylde bore, and next him gan ryde.
In hys hand he bare a blody nakyd swerde.
Next whom came Couetyse, that goth so fer and wyde,
Rydyng on a olyfaunt, as he had ben aferde.
Aftyr whom rood Glotony, with hys fat berde,
Syttyng on a bere, with his gret bely.
And next hym on a goot folowyd Lechery.
Slowthe was so slepy he came all behynde
On a dull asse, a full wery pase.
(The Assembly of Gods, ed. Triggs, E. E. T. S., ll. 621–32). The setting of the procession in the Assembly is that of a troop in battle array. The seven Sins are the “unhappy capteyns of myschyef croppe and roote.”
page 390 note 31 The Sins are mounted—on horseback, however,—and armed (often with symbolic devices on their shields) in Le Tornoiement de l'Antechrist of Huon de Mery (ed. Tarbé, Reims, 1851, pp. 18–37). But there are no parallels with the processions we are considering.
page 390 note 32 It ig at least possible that the author of the Assembly may have known Gower's account. At all events the two passages agree in five out of the seven animals, and in four cases (those of Pride, Idleness, Lechery, and Wrath) the assignment of animals to vices corresponds. It is of course further possible that Spenser may have known the procession in the Assembly. He agrees with it in four of the seven animals, and in three cases (those of Idleness, Lechery, and Envy) the conjunction of animal and vice is identical. But the crucial test of the combination in one account of animals, objects, and maladies—quite apart from verbal agreements—throws the procession in the Assembly decisively out of court, except as a possible subsidiary source.
page 390 note 33 Ll. 849–52.
page 390 note 34 Compare, for instance, the conventional “roring lyon” of the procession in the Assembly.
page 390 note 35 xxxiii, 2.
page 390 note 36 See p. 424.
page 390 note 37 See above, p. 396; below, pp. 415, 424.
page 390 note 38 “In both passages Pride is a woman. And in Gower, as in Spenser, she is set off sharply from the other Sins. Not only is she represented as their leader (”Orguil, des autres capiteine,“ l. 1045)— a distinction which is of course a commonplace of commonplaces— but the pomp and circumstance of the marriage centers about her.
page 390 note 39 x, 6–8. Pride in the Pilgrimage also
Held a large merour in hyr hond,
Hyr owgly ffetuyrs to behold and se (11. 14002–03).
In the Pelerinaige:
Et vug mirouer luy tenoit
Afin que dedans regardast
Et que sa face elle y mirast. (Romant, f. xlviii).
But the fitness of detail is sufficiently obvious in any case.
page 390 note 40 Ll. 860–61.
page 390 note 41 xi, 8–9.
page 390 note 42 ixv, 1–3.
page 390 note 43 Ll. 2257–59, 2262. These lines are from a direrent portion of the Mirour, where Pride is dealt with in detail. The significance of this fact will appear later (see below, sec. ii). Todd properly refers “with loftie eyes” to Prov. xxx, 13. But Gower translates Prov, xxx, 13 a few lines below:
De celle generacioun
Portant les oels d'elacioun
Ove la palpebre en halt assise,
Que ja d'umiliacioun
Ne prent consideracioun (ll. 2293–97).
The Terse reads in the Vulgate: “Generatio cujus excelsi sunt oculi, et palpebrae ejus in alta surrectae.”
page 390 note 44 xvii, 2–3.
page 390 note 45 Ll. 855–58.
page 390 note 46 xi, 1–2. In the very remarkable account of the coronation of Pride in the thirteenth-century Renart-le-Nouvel of Jacquemars Giélée (text in Le Roman du Renart, ed. Méon, Paris, 1826, Vol. iv, pp. 125 ff.; see also Renart-le-Nouvel, ed Houdoy, Paris, 1874) Proserpine is the mistress of Orguel:
K'envoié li ot Proserpine
Del puc d'Infier, c'or d'amor fine
Amoit Orguel et Orgeus li,
Mais à Pluto pas n'abieli,
Car il en fu en jalousie (11. 233–37).
In this account Pride is masculine, and the other six Sins are “sis Dames” (11. 1173 ff.), who come to meet Pride two by two, but “à pie” (1. 1181), in the order Wrath and Envy, Avarice and Idleness, Luxury and Gluttony. But there are no farther parallels. See 11. 1172–1247. Pluto and Proserpine also appear (together with Jupiter, Saturn, Apollo, Mercury, Neptune, and Mars) in Le Tornoiement de l'Antechrist (p. 18), but in no immediate connection with Pride.
page 390 note 47 “Cornent lez sept files du Pecché furont espousez au Siècle, des quelles la primere ot a noun dame Orguil.”
page 390 note 48 Ll. 961–63.
page 390 note 49 Compare, in the same account, “Del tiel revel, del tiele joye” (1. 999).
page 390 note 50 Ll. 960, 969–72.
page 390 note 51 xliii, 5–6.
page 390 note 52 So far as “courting” is concerned, see further 11. 981–83:
Car mainte delitable geste
Leur dist, dont il les cuers entice
Des jofnes dames au délice.
And compare 11. 1009–20, 1045–56.
page 390 note 53 Ll. 985–87.
page 390 note 54 El. 296–98.
page 390 note 55 xliii, 7–9
page 390 note 56 xxxvi, 1–3.
page 390 note 57 Ll. 949–51.
page 390 note 58 The two lines, moreover, which close the account of the feast in Grower correspond word for word with a line in one of the earlier stanzas in Spenser which likewise describe the House of Pride:
Et pour solempnement tenir
Le feste, a toute gent ovrir
Les portes firont a toute hure (11. 994–96).
Arrived there, they passed in forth right;
For still to all the gates stood open wide (vi, 1–2).
“Still” = a toute hure; “to all” = a toute gent; “the gates” = Les portes; “stood open” = ovrir … firont. The only word in Spenser's line (barring “For”) which does not literally translate a corresponding word or phrase in Gower is the rhyme-word “wide.” But striking as the verbal identity is, it is possible that in this case the two poets are simply expressing a very common idea in the obvious words, and that the correspondence is accidental. It would certainly have no value whatever were it an isolated parallel. Standing as it does, however, in immediate connection with a number of other close parallels too numerous and too remarkable to be safely regarded as coincidences, this line too is very possibly an instance of verbal memory on Spenser's part.
page 390 note 58a See especially below, p. 449.
page 390 note 59 See below, pp. 410–11.
page 390 note 60 Ll. 2525–32.
page 390 note 61 Ll. 6157–68; cf. xx, 5–8.
page 390 note 62 Ll. 8521–32; cf. xxiii, 6–8.
page 390 note 63 Ll. 9637–72; cf. xxvi, 6–8.
page 390 note 64 Ll. 7603–08; cf. xxix, 6–8.
page 390 note 65 Ll. 3817–28; cf. xxxii, 8.
page 390 note 66 Ll. 5093–5100; cf. xxxv, 7–8.
page 390 note 67 Leprosy, with its medieval associations, is appropriate enough to Lechery. The change, however, to the unnamed but easily identified disease—
… that foule evill, which all men reprove, That rotts the marrow, and consumes the braine—
was practically inevitable, after pox, as the accompaniment of lechery, had been defined and differentiated. Gout is a more realistic, more picturesque (if less conventionally symbolic) disease for Avarice than dropsy. On the other hand, the highly symbolic group of diseases—“The swelling Splene, and Frenzy raging rife, The shaking Palsey, and St. Fraunces fire”—form a striking climax to the long catalogue of mischiefs that follow Wrath; Gower's cardiacle (entirely appropriate in fact) would in this case have come in as an anticlimax. Indeed, the plan of this particular stanza (and that, as we have seen, is with Spenser a paramount consideration) excludes the treatment he has accorded the diseases in the other instances, where they prey upon the Sin itself.
page 390 note 68 xxiii, 7–8.
page 390 note 69 Ll. 7603–06.
page 390 note 70 “Signa autem hydropsis … sunt … sitis inextinguibilis (Bernardus Gordonius, Lilium medicinae, Particula vi, cap. v— ed. 1550, p. 543); ”Quartum [signum] est sitis“ (Valescus de Taranta, Philonium, Lib. v, cap. 8—ed. 1526, f. ccliv). The older commentators misunderstood ”dry,“ and Upton's emendation ”dire dropsy“ (see Warton's note in the 1805 Variorum) and Collier's ”hydropsy“ are of course unnecessary.
page 390 note 71 See pp. 436, 428.
With which he swallowed up excessive feast, For want whereof poore people oft did pyne. 1a
… ensi pour maintenir
Sa guele il fait avant venir Ce q'est dedeinz le mesuage
Des povres, dont se fait emplir:
page 411 note 1 It is not (be it said at once) that there are in the portraits only such traits as appear nowhere else. To suggest that Spenser knew the Seven Deadly Sins only through Gower would be a palpa-blc absurdity. That he knew other treatments and remembered them, admits no doubt. On conventions common to both, then, I shall lay but little stress. But even where the traits that are common to the two poems are more or less conventional, it is obvious that they must be interpreted in the light of the massing of correspondences that are not mere conventions of the genre.
page 411 note 1a xxi, 6–7.
page 412 note 2 Ll. 8431–36. So four lines later:
Par tout le paiis enviroun
N'y laist gelline ne capoun, Ainz tolt et pile a sa pitance,
Ove tout celle autre appourtenance; Et si ly povre en fait parlance,
Lors fait sa paie du bastoun …
Ne luy souffist tantsoulement
Ensi piler du povre gent,
Ainçois des riches aprompter
Quiert et leur orr et leur argent,
Pour festoier plus largement;
Car riens luy chalt qui doit paier,
Maisq'il s'en pourra festoier …
Maldit soit tieu festoiement!
(Ll. 8440–45, 8449–55, 8460).
Cf. also 11. 8407–08.
page 412 note 3 xxi, 3, 8–9.
page 412 note 4 Ll. 8347–52. Cf. 11. 8333–34:
Car de son ventre le forsfait
Est de vomite en grant danger.
See, indeed, the whole section.
page 412 note 5 Luxury, too, is directly associated with Gluttony at least twice in the pertinent passages in Gower. See 11. 8605–06; 985, 989. Upton's parallel for “His belly was upblowne with luxury”—“Inflatum hesterno venas, ut semper, Iaccho” (Vergil, Ed., vi, 15)—is not verbal (except in “inflatum”), and it is not accompanied (as in the case of “ventre … enflé”) by further parallels for almost every word of its immediate context.
page 413 note 6 Somewhat earlier in the description of the five daughters of Gluttony, Gower has also laid emphasis on the Glutton's belly:
So large pance au plein garnie,
Sicome le grange est du frument (11. 7737–38).
And he at once proceeds to compare it to the tautness of a tennis ball (11. 7741–45). Vomit is also associated with Gluttony in Le Pelerinaige. Gluttony says she is properly called “Gastrimargie,” and that is “vne plongerie et submersion de morceaulx.” Then (she continues),
Puis quen mon sac les ay plungiez
Et si te dy bien quen sachez
Jen ay que renomir et rendre
Ma conuenu et hors respandre (f. xliiiivo).
See the Pilgrimage, 11. 12839–49. But the other details are wholly wanting.
page 413 note 7 xxii, 8–9.
page 413 note 8 Ll. 8187–89, 8193–96.
page 413 note 9 The corresponding passage in the Confessio Amantis (vi, 44–47) is as follows:
And for the time he knoweth no wyht,
That he ne wot so moche as this,
What maner thing himselven is,
Or he be man, or he be beste.
I shall take up below the part played by the Confessio in Spenser's rather startling procedure. It is sufficient to note here that it is clearly the Mirour and not the Confessio on which, in this instance, he has drawn. None of the passages from the Mirour thus far cited have been taken over by Gower into the Confessio. He explicitly confines (vi, 11–14) his treatment of Gluttony to two branches— “Dronkeschipe” and “Delicacie.”
page 414 note 10 xxiii, 4.
page 414 note 11 Ll. 8122–24. The phrase “plonge et noie” perhaps represents a commonplace. Gluttony (as “Gastrimargie”) in the Pelerinaige remarks: “Trestous lopins ie plunge et noye” (f. xliiiivo). But the turn given to the phrase in de Deguileville (where the morsels which Gluttony swallows are drowned in her “sac”) is very different from that in Gower and Spenser, where it is the mind or the members controlled by the mind that are drowned in meat and drink—or (as in Gower) in drink alone.
page 414 note 12 xxiii, 6.
page 414 note 13 Ll. 8593–8604.
page 415 note 14 Ecl. vi, 17: “Et gravis attrita pendebat cantharus ansa” (Upton).
page 415 note 15 The line “And eke with fatness swollen were his eyne ” (xxi, 4) has been properly referred to the Prayer Book version of the Psalms (Psa. lxxiii, 7; “Their eyes swell with fatness”). But Gower writes:
C'est ly pecchés dont Job disoit
Qe tout covert du crasse avoit
La face (11. 7777–79)—
and this may have suggested to Spenser the happier phrase.
page 415 note 16 Met. iv, 27: “Et pando non fortiter haeret asello.”
page 415 note 17 iii, 13.
page 415 note 18 Cf. the Pilgrimage:
By that golet, large and strong,
Off mesour nat.iij. Enche long;
I wolde, ffor delectacioun,
That yt were (off his ffacoun)
Long as ys a kranys nekke [col de grue]
(11. 12899–903).
See also Ayenbite of Inwyt (E. E. T. S.), p. 56, and compare Professor Dodge's note in the Cambridge Spenser. Alciati may be best consulted in the edition of 1546. To his lines under Gula add those under Invidia and Avaritia.
page 416 note 19 xxvii, 7–8.
page 416 note 20 LI. 7303–08.
page 416 note 2l xxviii, 3–7.
page 416 note 22 Ll. 7528–36.
page 417 note 23 The form manant occurs in 1. 5807 of the Mirour: “Et d'estre riches et manant”; 1. 17260: “Si tu n'es riche et bien manant.” It is in the combination “riche et manant [menant]” that the word commonly occurs, and it would have offered no difficulty to Spenser.
page 417 note 24 The idea of wasting no money on clothes (which is obvious enough) appears in connection with Avarice in the Pilgrimage:
And that I am thus evele arrayed,
I do yt only off entent
That my gold be not spent,
On clothys wastyd, nor my good (11. 17462–65).
But its context is entirely different from that in Gower and Spenser, where it is the common order of common details that is significant.
page 418 note 25 Macaulay, in I, p. xxxvi.
page 418 note 26 v, 125–138.
page 419 note 27 xxviii, 7–9.
page 419 note 28 v. 417–28.
page 419 note 29 The Faerie Queene, Book I (1902), p. 233.
page 420 note 30 “In want” (Macaulay).
page 420 note 31 Possessed of property.
page 420 note 32 “Needy” (Macaulay).
page 420 note 33 Ll. 7636–38.
page 420 note 34 This is not inconsistent with Upton's assumption that the last phrase of Spenser's line is suggested by Ovid's “inopem me copia fecit” (Met. iii, 466)—which is not, however, said of Avarice. The two lines of Gower, from a passage which deals with “Avarice par especial,” account for all the balanced words in Spenser's line. That the particular turn of his phrase may be due to his recollection of Ovid is both possible and in keeping with his general procedure.
Dame Avarice est dite auci
Semblable au paine Tantali,
Q'est deinz un flum d'enfern estant
Jusq'au menton tout assorbi,
Et pardessur le chief de luy
Jusq'as narils le vait pendant
Le fruit des pommes suef flairant;
Mais d'un ou d'autre n'est gustant,
Dont soit du faym ou soif gary,
Les queux tous jours vait endurant.
Dont m'est avis en covoitant
Del averous il est ensi (11. 7621–32).
page 421 note 36 v, 363–97.
page 421 note 37 v, 391–96. This passage (it may also be noted) is on the same page with the lines about the “nyhtes drede” quoted above, p. 419.
page 421 note 38 There is a very similar line—“Ainz comme plus ad, plus enfamine” (1. 6768)—in the Mirour, but it lacks the verbal identity which marks the passage in the Confessio.
page 421 note 39 Church's note: “A vile disease of the mind this, viz. Covetousness; and, besides that a grievous gout etc.”—with its protest against a comma after “disease”—is, of course, sound. It is to be noted that Gower a number of times definitely calls the vice itself (as Spenser does here) a disease. See, for example, Mirour, 11. 5365, 5715, etc.
page 421 note 40 See above, p. 409. It may be noted in passing that the association of specific maladies with the various Sins is not followed out in the Confessio.
page 422 note 41 Ll. 7603–08. With the last line, which has the same antithetical quality as lines 2–5 in Spenser's stanza, compare also 11. 7669–70:
L'omme averous ensi se riche,
Tant comme plus ad, plus en est chiche.
page 422 note 42 v, 247–62.
page 422 note 43 The words “in greatest store” seem to hark back to the picture of Tantalus—or, perhaps, to the account of Midas's feast of gold, which immediately follows in the Confessio (11. 279–89).
page 423 note 44 Ll. 7597, 7602.
page 423 note 45 v, 347–50.
page 423 note 46 See below, p. 450.
page 423 note 47 It should be observed that the borrowings from the Confessio are chiefly in the portrait of Avarice that we have just discussed. Their association there with the two very striking passages in the Mirour that deal with Tantalus and “l'idropsie” would be particularly apt to recall the parallel treatment in the other poem. For other evidence of slighter influence of the Confessio, see below, pp. 424, n. 49; 429; 430, n. 82.
page 424 note 48 Ed. Michel, 11. 210 ff. Spenser probably knew it in the Chaucerian translation. See Fragment A, 11. 219 ff. The first line of the stanza—“His life was nigh unto death's dore yplaste”—seems to come from the same account (1. 215): “She was lyk thing for hungre deed” (“Chose sembloit morte de fain”).
page 424 note 49 See above, p. 397. The substitution of the “two coffers” for “des bources … plus que dis” of the Mirour may have been due to a reminiscence of the second tale which Gower tells in the Confessio (v, 2273 ff.) to illustrate Coveitise, in which the story centers about “two cofres” (see especially 11. 2295, 2332). Professor Macaulay's heading, in his edition, is “The Tale of the Two Coffers.”
page 424 note 50 See, at least, the description in de Deguileville of Avarice's “Mawmet” (Pilgrimage, 11. 18370–18442; cf. Pelerinaige, lxiivo: “Mon ydole est mon mahommet,” etc.). Compare especially: “This is the god whiche, by depos, Loueth to be schütte in hucches clos” (11. 18377–78): “Gold is ther god, gold is ther good; I worschipe gold and my tresour As ffor my god and savyour; Saue gold, noon other god I haue” (11. 18396–99); “Gold is my god and my Mawmet” (1. 18411). The first lines quoted are in the French (“Cest ung dieu qui emmaillote Veult estre souuent,” etc.); the rest are Lydgate's elaborations.
page 424 note 51 See above, p. 405.
page 424 note 52 Ll. 253–54. The references to Gluttony and Sloth (11. 295–98) are on the same folio of the Mirour.
page 425 note 53 The camel's power of hoarding water (so to speak) might also have been suggested as a reason for the choice.
page 425 note 54 Pilgrimage, 1. 18294.
page 425 note 55 F. lxii. Compare the Pilgrimage:
Ryght so, ryches and gret plente
ar cawse that a ryche man,
as the gospell rehers[e] can,
May in-to heven have none entre,
But euen lyke as ye may se,
A camell may hym-silffe applye
To passen through a nedelyes eye,
Whiche is a thyng not credible,
But a maner impossible,
Thys beste is so encomerous
Off bak corbyd and tortuous,
And so to passe, no thyng able (11. 18310–21).
page 426 note 56 Ll. 6750–53.
page 426 note 57 Once more I wish to say that I am omitting, in the case of each Sin, parallels which, though less definite than those which are given, may still have weight when considered in the light of what the more explicit correspondences seem to disclose. But space is wanting for them all, and I am anxious besides, in a case necessarily so intricate, to avoid all possible complications of the issue.
page 426 note 58 LI. 5125–5376, especially 11. 5135–5268.
page 426 note 59 Compare Professor Tupper's discussion of Sloth and Undevotion (printed after this paper was written) in Publications of the Modern Language Association, xxix, pp. 106–07 (March, 1914).
page 426 note 60 “The passage is one which has been much discussed, on account of its supposed bearing on the date of Chaucer's Troilus. See Tatlock, Development and Chronology of Chaucer's Works, pp. 26 ff.; Kittredge, The Date of Chaucer's Troilus, pp. 26–27.
page 427 note 61 xix, 3–4.
page 427 note 62 Ll. 5145–48. Cf. 11. 255–56: “La quinte Accide demy morte, Q'au dieu n'au monde fait service.”
page 427 note 63 xix, 5–6.
page 427 note 64 Ll. 5428–51. See also above, p. 397.
page 427 note 65 They are in the same column in Macaulay's edition.
page 427 note 66 xx, 1–2.
page 427 note 67 Ll. 5815–16. Compare especially “himself he did esloyne” and “loign se desmette.” The two second lines are identical in substance, though without the verbal correspondence of the other two.
page 428 note 68 xx, 3.
page 428 note 69 L. 5842.
page 428 note 70 xx, 4–6.
page 428 note 71 Ll. 5827–28, 5830, 5832. See also note 73 below.
page 428 note 72 xx, 7–8.
page 428 note 73 Ll. 5845–49, 5851–52. The phrase “grew to grievous malady” of Spenser's preceding line corresponds to “languir” (1. 5832) in the passage already quoted. But “les griefs mals” seems to have suggested the wording. “Du fole enprise” (especially in its context) is equivalent to “through evill guise”; “la char q'est frele et tendre” is in substance “lustlesse limbs”—“lustlesse” here meaning, of course, “languid” (Todd), “without vigor or energy” (N. E. D.); “sanz arest” and “continually” need no comment; and the striking word “raignd” is paralleled by “vencue et prise.”
page 429 note 74 The striking parallel in connection with Wrath's lion has already been discussed (p. 399 above). His “burning brand” is not in the Mirour; the familiar comparisons between wrath and fire are frequent. See especially 11. 3938–41, 3971–72, and 5101–06, with its comparison of “cruele Ire” (cf. xxxv, 1) to Greek fire. With the “sparcles” of xxxiii, 5, cf. 11. 3987–88: “Car d'ire dont son cuer esprent Tiele estencelle vole entour,” and with “hasty rage” (xxxiii, 9) cf. 11. 3866, 3965. But these are commonplaces.
page 429 note 75 xxxiv, 3.
page 429 note 76 Ll. 4741–43—and compare the entire stanza.
page 429 note 77 iii, 1095–99, 1106–07.
page 429 note 78 xxxiv, 4–5.
page 430 note 79 Ll. 4778–80, 4805–06. With Spenser's next line—“But, when the furious fitt was overpast”—compare: “Car pour le temps que l'ire dure” (l. 3891); “Que pour le temps que l'ire endure” (1. 4014), and add 1. 4677.
page 430 note 80 xxxiv, 7.
page 430 note 81 Ll. 4873–74.
page 430 note 82 Ll. 5065–66. The idea of repenting, which is not in the Mirour, may possibly have been suggested by the following lines in the Confessio (under Homicide) about the strange bird with a man's face, which, when it sees the man it has slain,
. … anon he thenketh
Of his misdede, and it forthenketh
So gretly, that for pure sorwe
He liveth noght til on the morwe
(iii, 2613–16).
page 431 note 83 Ll. 4861–65, 4868–69.
page 431 note 84 xxxv, 4.
page 431 note 85 L. 4575. Compare l. 4640: “Dont son coutell mältalentive.”
page 431 note 86 See above, p. 397.
page 431 note 87 Met. ii, 778–81.
page 431 note 88 See the very incomplete list in Percival, p. 223.
page 432 note 89 xxx, 6.
page 432 note 90 “Ll. 3697, 3700–01. ”Welth“ is, of course, here ”prosperity.“ ”Sorrow for another man's joy“ is treated in the Confessio only in connection with love.
page 432 note 91 Met. ii, 796. But compare also Mirour, 1. 3106: “Ainz plourt, quant autri voit rier.”
page 432 note 92 xxx, 9.
page 432 note 93 Ll. 3202–03. The corresponding passage in the Confessio reads:
Which envious takth his gladnesse
Of that he seth the hevinesse
Of othre men (ii, 223–25).
It is obvious that in this case the suggestion does not come from the Confessio.
page 432 note 94 See above, p, 397.
page 432 note 95 See especially the Ancren Riwle, the Ayenbite of Inwyt, and the Pilgrimage.
page 433 note 96 L. 2687. Compare l. 2988: “Dont ly bien sont en mal torné.” The only line in the Confessio which at all corresponds is ii, 407: “He torneth preisinge into blame ”—and this is taken over from another passage in the Mirour: “ Sique du pris le finement Ert a Warner” (11. 2718–19).
page 433 note 97 Although it is not on correspondences of this sort that the ease rests, it must still be remembered that even commonplaces may be borrowed from definite sources. Where they occur in conjunction with common details that are not conventional—in other words, where there is independent evidence that the work in which they appear is known to the second writer—such similarities in phrase;ology as are noted above must be granted a certain weight. Independent value, of course, they have none.
page 433 note 98 Including the kirtle, really three. See p. 397.
page 433 note 99 xxx, 2–4.
page 433 note 100 Observations on the Faerie Queene (1754), p. 47: “Ovid tells us, that Envy was found eating the flesh of vipers, which is not much unlike Spenser's picture. But our author has heighten'd this circumstance to a most disgusting degree; for he adds, that the poyson ran about his jaw. This is, perhaps, one of the most loathsome ideas that Spenser has given us.” The line to which Warton refers is Met. ii, 768–69: “videt intus [Invidiam] edentem Vipereas carnes.”
page 434 note 101 The portrayal of Invidia in the second book of the Metamorphoses was enormously influential in the development of the stock conception of Envy as one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
page 434 note 102 See, for instance, in the Pilgrimage, the account of Detraction gnawing a bone (1. 14806), and the amplification of its symbolism in 11. 15288–15316 (in the Pelerinaige, folios liii-iv). The idea is also elaborated in the Mirour:
Semblance a la hyène porte,
Que char mangut de la gent morte;
Car Malebouche rounge et mort
Ensi le vif sicomme le mort …
He, quelle bouche horrible et fort,
Que tout mangut et Tiens desporte!
(11. 2884–87, 2891–92).
The third line above appears in substance (in an otherwise mildly phrased account of the lover's detraction of his rivals) in the Confessio:
For ever on hem I rounge and gknawe (ii, 520).
Compare Pilgrimage, 11. 15007–10, where Detraction is taught to eat men's flesh, and “ gnawe and Rounge hem to the boonys ” (Pelerinaige, f. liii: “et iusques aux os les ronger”).
page 434 note 103 See the passage quoted in the preceding note.
Le chief des serpens suchera,
Sicomme fait enfes la mammelle (11. 8081–82),
See the whole stanza.
page 435 note 105 Ll. 8073–76. The toad appears in two other passages in the account of the Sins in Gower—once not as eaten, but as the eater (11. 8567–68); once as the punitive pillow of Sompnolence (11. 5335–37).
page 435 note 106 That the fable of the toad swelling with Envy, to which Upton refers (with the citation of Horace, Sat., ii, iii, 314), may have contributed its quota is of course possible.
page 435 note 107 Epigr. v, 10 (Percival).
page 435 note 108 xxxii, 7–8.
page 436 note 108 Ll. 2749–57.
page 436 note 110 Ll. 2780–84. See also below, pp. 442, 446.
page 436 note 111 Ll. 3817–18.
page 436 note 112 Ll. 3769–72.
page 437 note 113 Ll. 2653–59.
page 438 note 114 After this article had been announced (as a paper read by title at the meeting of the Modern Language Association of America, Harvard University, Dec. 20–31, 1913), Professor Tatlock kindly called my attention to an article of his own on “Milton's Sin and Death” (Modern Language Notes, xxi, No. 8—Dec., 1906—pp. 241–42), in a footnote to which he refers to the procession of the Sins in the Mirour. He there suggests, however, correspondences between the passage in Gower and Spenser's Mask of Cupid in F. Q., iii, xii, and makes no mention of the procession in i, iv. I doubt whether the Mask of Cupid is influenced by Gower. But Spenser's use of the Mirour at least leaves the way open for the suggestion that Milton may have used it too.
page 439 note 1 xxiii, 4–9.
page 439 note 2 See above, p. 431.
page 439 note 3 See below, p. 444.
page 439 note 4 xxv, i. The remaining lines of the stanza follow in order.
page 439 note 5 Ll. 2680–82.
page 440 note 6 Ll. 2690–91, 2698–2700.
page 440 note 7 Ll. 2701–07.
page 440 note 8 L. 2685.
page 440 note 9 With these same lines and those which immediately follow in Gower—
Sams nul déserte esclandre vole,
Que rougist dames le mare (11. 2709–10)—
compare Spenser's thirty-fifth stanza, in which the Squire and the two ladies became the “homme ove femme” of Grower's lines, even to the specific calling of names (“Vei ci la fole!”, “Vei cy comme se rigole!”), the absence of intention “de mesfaire,” and the ladies' shame (“Que rougist dames le viare”):
That shamefull Hag, the Slaunder of her sexe,
Them followed fast, and them reviled sore,
Him calling thefe, them whores; that much did vexe
His noble hart; thereto she did annexe
False crimes and facts, such as they never ment,
That those two ladies much asham'd did wexe (xxxv, 2–7).
page 441 note 10 As Macaulay points out, there is something wrong here. His suggestion that “perhaps we ought to read ‘primerement’ for ‘darreinement‘” is probably correct. See Confessio, ii, 394 ff.
page 441 note 11 Ll. 2713–19. Compare especially (together with the general parallel in sense) “male teche … blomer,” and “with blame would blot,” in their connection with “pris ” and “praise.” See also below, pp. 445–46.
page 441 note 12 xxvi, 1–5.
page 441 note 13 The reference in “tout ensi” will be found in the passage next quoted (11. 2833–37). Spenser has simply reversed the order of statement.
page 441 note 14 Ll. 2838–39, 2852–58, 2863. With 11. 2854–56 cf. “And steale away the crowne of their good name” above (xxv, 4).
page 442 note 15 Ll. 2833–35, 2838–39. See above, p. 441, n. 13.
page 442 note 16 Ll. 2975–76.
page 442 note 17 Ll. 2780–81.
page 442 note 18 F. Q., V, xii, 28–36. The especially hideous appearance of Envy in particular as described in stanzas 29 and 30 bears a strong resemblance to the portrayal of the seven hags in the Pilgrimage. See especially the accounts of Gluttony (Pilgrimage, ed. E. E. T. S., p. 346), Lechery—as “olde Venus” (pp. 355–56), Sloth (p. 371), Envy (pp. 398–99), and Avarice (pp. 459–61), and compare the corresponding passages in the Pelerinaige. Into the question of Spenser's knowledge and possible use (here and there) of the Pelerinaige (or of Lydgate's translation) I may not take space to enter here. I have given in the course of the discussion such parallels as I have observed. It is not impossible that Spenser may have been acquainted with the poem either in French or English.
page 443 note 19 xxx. 5. See above, pp. 433–34.
page 443 note 20 xxx, 8–9.
page 443 note 21 xxxi, 6–9.
page 443 note 22 xxxii, 5–9.
page 443 note 23 Ll. 3211–14.
page 443 note 24 xxxiii, 1–3.
page 443 note 25 xxxiii, 4–5.
page 444 note 26 Ll. 3157–60.
page 444 note 27 Compare iv, viii, 36, 11. 1–5, and 35, 1. 4. See above, p. 440.
page 444 note 28 See above, pp. 439–40.
page 444 note 29 Compare iv, viii, 25, 1. 2, with its parallels. See above, p. 439.
page 445 note 30 Ll. 2701–07.
page 445 note 31 Ll. 2708–10.
page 445 note 32 See above, p. 440.
page 446 note 33 Ll. 2719–24.
page 446 note 34 Ll. 2692–94.
page 446 note 35 Ll. 2690–91.
page 446 note 36 xxxvi, 2–4.
page 446 note 37 Ll. 2780–83.
page 447 note 38 With the exception of half a dozen lines from the next section but one.
page 447 note 39 It is very possible that a thorough examination of the Faerie Queene would disclose other borrowings from Gower, but I have not had time to make the search. I shall only suggest, in passing,. that Spenser may have drawn at least the name Alma from the Alme of the Mirour. Not only is Alme (naturally enough) the central figure in the contest of the Vices and the Virtues, but her castle is again and again described in terms which Spenser's account in Book II, cantos ix and xi (both of the House of Alma and of the attack on it) recalls. See especially 11. 11281 ff., 11797 ff., 14125 ff., 14712 ff., 16309 ff., 16375 ff.
page 447 note 40 Une source française des poèmes de Gower (Thèse pour le doctorat de l'Université de Paris, 1905). Compare Macaulay, Vol. i, p. liii.
page 448 note 41 Ayenbite (p. 17); Mir. du Monde, MS. 14939 (f. 11 rb).
page 448 note 42 Fowler, pp. 57–58.
page 449 note 43 Fowler, p. 80.
page 449 note 44 See above, p. 407.
page 450 note 45 Leland, for example, writing at some time before 1552, states explicitly that Gower's works“ vel hoc nostro florentissimo tempore a doctis studiose leguntur” (Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britanniois, Oxford, 1709, p. 415; see Bale's repetition of the statement in the Catalogus, Cent. vii, No. xxiii). The facts given by Professor Macaulay (The Works of John Gower, Vol. ii, pp. vii-x) in exemplification of Gower's “great literary reputation” in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are conclusive, and as he remarks (p. x): “Gower's early popularity and reputation are facts to be reckoned with.” Dr. H. Spies's collectanea of allusions to Gower (Englische Studien, xxviii, 161 ff.; xxxiv, 169 ff.; xxxv, 105 n.) afford still further evidence. Even more striking is the indication of interest in Gower's French poems in Yorkshire afforded by one Quixley's translation of the Traité pour essampler les amanz marietz, recently printed from a fifteenth-century MS. by Professor H. N. MacCracken (Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. xx,—1909—pp. 33–50). The significance of the fifteenth-century Spanish translation of the Confessio (now published: Confision del Amante por Joan Goer, ed. Birch-Hirschfeld, Leipzig, 1909), and of the lost Portuguese version cannot be overlooked. None of these facts, of course, prove sixteenth-century acquaintance with the Mirour, but they do show the danger of dogmatizing about its improbability.
page 451 note 46 E. K. (whose words have just been quoted) was well enough read in the Confessio to point out in the Glosse to the July Eclogue in the Shepheardes Calendar, that glitterand is “a particle used sometimes in Chaucer but altogether in I. Gower.” Gabriel Harvey, too, not only knew but read Gower. See Letter-Book of Gabriel Harvey, A. D. 1573–1580, Ed. Scott (Camden Soc), p. 134; cf. p. 37.
page 451 note 47 That Spenser, with his antiquarian and archaizing tastes, must have been familiar with manuscripts, both at Cambridge and later, there is every reason, a priori, to believe. On the general question of his use of manuscripts, see Miss C. A. Harper, The Sources of British Chronicle History in Spenser's Faerie Queene (Bryn Mawr College Monographs, 1910), pp. 24–26. As indicating the way in which mss. were actually distributed in the sixteenth century among private owners (often in just such country houses as Spenser knew) see, for instance, the notes on the sixteenth century ownership of mss. of the Confessio, in Macaulay, Vol. ii, pp. cxxxix-xl, cxlii, cxlvii-viii, cl, clvii, clx-xi, and compare Karl Meyer, John Gower's Beziehungen zu Chaucer, etc., pp. 49–50, 58, 63.
Gower's French would certainly have offered to Spenser, who knew the Trench romances well, no greater obstacle than Chaucer's English.