English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Part 12

THE PLAN PROPOSED.--"The beginning of my history," he says, "should be in the twelfth booke, which is the last; where I devise that the Faerie Queene kept her Annual Feaste XII days; uppon which XII severall days the occasions of the XII severall adventures hapned, which being undertaken by XII severall knights, are in these XII books handled and discoursed."

First, a tall, clownish youth falls before the queen and desires a boon, which she might not refuse, viz. the achievement of any adventure which might present itself. Then appears a fair lady, habited in mourning, and riding on an a.s.s, while behind her comes a dwarf, leading a caparisoned war-horse, upon which was the complete armor of a knight. The lady falls before the queen and complains that her father and mother, an ancient king and queen, had, for many years, been shut up by a dragon in a brazen castle, and begs that one of the knights may be allowed to deliver them.

The young clown entreats that he may take this adventure, and notwithstanding the wonder and misgiving of all, the armor is found to fit him well, and when he had put it on, "he seemed the goodliest man in all the company, and was well liked by the lady, and eftsoones taking on him knighthood, and mounting on that strounge courser, he went forth with her on that adventure; where beginneth the First Booke."

In a similar manner, other pet.i.tions are urged, and other adventures undertaken.

ILl.u.s.tRATIONS OF THE HISTORY.--The history in this poem lies directly upon the surface. Elizabeth was the Faery Queen herself--faery in her real person, springing Cinderella-like from durance and danger to the most powerful throne in Europe. Hers was a reign of faery character, popular and august at home, after centuries of misrule and civil war; abroad English influence and power were exerted in a magical manner. It is she who holds a court such as no Englishman had ever seen; who had the power to transform common men into valiant warriors, elegant courtiers, and great statesmen; to send forth her knights upon glorious adventures--Sidney to die at Zutphen, Raleigh to North and South America, Frobisher--with a wave of her hand as he pa.s.ses down the Thames--to try the northwest pa.s.sage to India; Effingham, Drake, and Hawkins to drive off to the tender mercy of northern storms the Invincible Armada, and then to point out to the coming generations the distant fields of English enterprise.

"Chivalry was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of the old world were pa.s.sing away, never to return;"[27] but this virgin queen was the founder of a new chivalry, whose deeds were not less valiant, and far more useful to civilization.

It is not our purpose, for it would be impossible, to interpret all the history contained in this wonderful poem: a few of the more striking presentations will be indicated, and thus suggest to the student how he may continue the investigation for himself.

THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY.--In the First Book we are at once struck with the fine portraiture of the Red Crosse Knight, the Patron of Holinesse, which we find in the opening lines:

A gentle knight was p.r.i.c.king on the plain, Ycladd in mighty arms and silver shield.

As we read we discover, without effort, that he is the St. George of England, or the impersonation of England herself, whose red-cross banner distinguishes her among the nations of the earth. It is a description of Christian England with which the poet thus opens his work:

And on his brest a bloodie cross he bore, The dear remembrance of his dying Lord, For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore, And dead, as living ever, Him adored.

Upon his shield the like was also scored, For sovereign hope which in his help he had.

Then follows his adventure--that of St. George and the Dragon. By slaying this monster, he will give comfort and aid to a peerless lady, the daughter of a glorious king; this fair lady, _Una_, who has come a long distance, and to whom, as a champion, the Faery Queene has presented the red-cross knight. Thus is presented the historic truth that the reformed and suffering Church looked to Queen Elizabeth for succor and support, for the Lady Una is one of several portraitures of the Church in this poem.

As we proceed in the poem, the history becomes more apparent. The Lady Una, riding upon a lowly a.s.s, shrouded by a veil, covered with a black stole, "as one that inly mourned," and leading "a milk-white lamb," is the Church. The a.s.s is the symbol of her Master's lowliness, who made even his triumphant entry into Jerusalem upon "a colt the foal of an a.s.s;" the lamb, the emblem of the innocence and of the helplessness of the "little flock;" the black stole is meant to represent the Church's trials and sorrows in her former history as well as in that naughty age. The dragon is the old serpent, her constant and bitter foe, who, often discomfited, returns again and again to the attack in hope of her overthrow.

THE WOOD OF ERROR.--The adventures of the knight and the lady take them first into the Wood of Error, a n.o.ble and alluring grove, within which, however, lurks a loathsome serpent. The knight rushes upon this female monster with great boldness, but

... Wrapping up her wreathed body round, She leaped upon his shield and her huge train All suddenly about his body wound, That hand and foot he strove to stir in vain.

G.o.d help the man so wrapt in Error's endless chain.

The Lady Una cries out:

... Now, now, sir knight, shew what ye bee, _Add faith unto thy force_, and be not faint.

Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee.

He follows her advice, makes one desperate effort, Error is slain, and the pilgrimage resumed.

Thus it is taught that the Church has waged successful battle with Error in all its forms--paganism, Arianism, Socinianism, infidelity; and in all ages of her history, whether crouching in the lofty groves of the Druids, or in the more insidious forms of later Christian heresy.

THE HERMITAGE.--On leaving the Wood of Error, the knight and Lady Una encounter a venerable hermit, and are led into his hermitage. This is _Archimago_, a vile magician thus disguised, and in his retreat foul spirits personate both knight and lady, and present these false doubles to each. Each sees what seems to be the other's fall from virtue, and, horrified by the sight, the real persons leave the hermitage by separate ways, and wander, in inextricable mazes lost, until fortune and faery bring them together again and disclose the truth.

Here Spenser, who was a zealous Protestant, designs to present the monastic system, the disfavor into which the monasteries had fallen, and the black arts secretly studied among better arts in the cloisters, especially in the period just succeeding the Norman conquest.

THE CRUSADES.--As another specimen of the historic interpretation, we may trace the adventures of England in the Crusades, as presented in the encounter of St. George with _Sansfoy_, (without faith,) or the Infidel.

From the hermitage of Archimago,

The true St. George had wandered far away, Still flying from his thoughts and jealous fear, Will was his guide, and grief led him astray; At last him chanced to meet upon the way A faithless Saracen all armed to point, In whose great shield was writ with letters gay SANSFOY: full large of limb, and every joint He was, and cared not for G.o.d or man a point.

Well might the poet speak of Mohammedanism as large of limb, for it had stretched itself like a Colossus to India, and through Northern Africa into Spain, where it threatened Christendom, beyond the Pyrenees. It was then that the unity of the Church, the concurrence of Europe in one form of Christianity, made available the enthusiasm which succeeded in stemming the torrent of Islam, and setting bounds to its conquests.

It is not our purpose to pursue the adventures of the Church, but to indicate the meaning of the allegory and the general interpretation; it will give greater zest to the student to make the investigation for himself, with the all-sufficient aids of modern criticism.

a.s.sailed in turn by error in doctrine, superst.i.tion, hypocrisy, enchantments, lawlessness, pride, and despair, the red-cross knight overcomes them all, and is led at last by the Lady Una into the House of Holiness, a happy and glorious house. There, anew equipped with the shield of Faith, the helmet of Salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, he goes forth to greater conquests; the dragon is slain, the Lady Una triumphant, the Church delivered, and Holiness to the Lord established as the law of his all-subduing kingdom on earth.

BRITOMARTIS.--In the third book the further adventures of the red-cross knight are related, but a heroine divides our attention with him.

_Britomartis_, or Chast.i.ty, finds him attacked by six lawless knights, who try to compel him to give up his lady and serve another. Here Britomartis represents Elizabeth, and the historic fact is the conflict of English Protestantism carried on upon land and sea, in the Netherlands, in France, and against the Invincible Armada of Philip. The new mistress offered him in the place of Una is the Papal Church, and the six knights are the nations fighting for the claims of Rome.

The valiant deeds of Britomartis represent also the power of chast.i.ty, to which Scott alludes when he says,

She charmed at once and tamed the heart, Incomparable Britomarte.[28]

And here the poet pays his most acceptable tribute to the Virgin Queen.

She is in love with Sir Artegal--abstract justice. She has encountered him in fierce battle, and he has conquered her. It was the fond boast of Elizabeth that she lived for her people, and for their sake refused to marry. The following portraiture will be at once recognized:

And round about her face her yellow hair Having, thro' stirring, loosed its wonted band, Like to a golden border did appear, Framed in goldsmith's forge with cunning hand; Yet goldsmith's cunning could not understand To frame such subtle wire, so shiny clear, For it did glisten like the glowing sand, The which Pactolus with his waters sheer, Throws forth upon the rivage, round about him near.

This encomium upon Elizabeth's hair recalls the description of another courtier, that it was like the last rays of the declining sun. Ill-natured persons called it red.

SIR ARTEGAL, OR JUSTICE.--As has been already said, Artegal, or Justice, makes conquest of Britomartis or Elizabeth. It is no earthly love that follows, but the declaration of the queen that in her continued maidenhood justice to her people shall be her only spouse. Such, whatever the honest historian may think, was the poet's conceit of what would best please his royal mistress.

It has been already stated that by Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, the poet intended the person of Elizabeth in her regnant grandeur: Britomartis represents her chast.i.ty. Not content with these impersonations, Spenser introduces a third: it is Belphbe, the abstraction of virginity; a character for which, however, he designs a dual interpretation. Belphbe is also another representation of the Church; in describing her he rises to great splendor of language:

... her birth was of the morning dew, And her conception of the glorious prime.

We recur, as we read, to the grandeur of the Psalmist's words, as he speaks of the coming of her Lord: "In the day of thy power shall the people offer thee free-will offerings with a holy worship; the dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning."

ELIZABETH.--In the fifth book a great number of the statistics of contemporary history are found. A cruel sultan, urged on by an abandoned sultana, is Philip with the Spanish Church. Mercilla, a queen pursued by the sultan and his wife, is another name for Elizabeth, for he tells us she was

... a maiden queen of high renown; For her great bounty knowen over all.

Artegal, a.s.suming the armor of a pagan knight, represents justice in the person of Solyman the Magnificent, making war against Philip of Spain. In the ninth canto of the sixth book, the court of Elizabeth is portrayed; in the tenth and eleventh, the war in Flanders--so brilliantly described in Mr. Motley's history. The Lady Belge is the United Netherlands; Gerioneo, the oppressor, is the Duke of Alva; the Inquisition appears as a horrid but nameless monster, and minor personages occur to complete the historic pictures.

The adventure of Sir Artegal in succor of the Lady Irena, (Erin,) represents the proceedings of Elizabeth in Ireland, in enforcing the Reformation, abrogating the establishments of her sister Mary, and thus inducing Tyrone's rebellion, with the consequent humiliation of Ess.e.x.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.--With one more interpretation we close. In the fifth book, Spenser is the apologist of Elizabeth for her conduct to her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, and he has been very delicate in his distinctions. It is not her high abstraction of justice, Sir Artegal, who does the murderous deed, but his man _Talus_, retributive justice, who, like a limehound, finds her hidden under a heap of gold, and drags her forth by her fair locks, in such rueful plight that even Artegal pities her:

Yet for no pity would he change the course Of justice which in Talus hand did lie, Who rudely haled her forth without remorse, Still holding up her suppliant hands on high, And kneeling at his feet submissively; But he her suppliant hands, those _hands of gold_, And eke her feet, those feet of _silver try_, Which sought unrighteousness and justice sold, Chopped off and nailed on high that all might them behold.