Tradition and Subversion in Renaissance Literature: Studies in Shakespeare, Spenser, Jonson, and Donne

THREE Spenser and the Pagan Gods

87 THREE Spenser and the Pagan Gods It has become a commonplace of criticism to speak of Edmund Spenser’s syncretism, his skillful merger of classical and scriptural elements in The Faerie Queene, where he is seen as drawing “with equal freedom” on the Bible and the classical poets.1 But that view needs to be considerably modified. The allegory on which the entire work is based is indeed scriptural in source, drawing its authority—as did the chivalric tradition at large—from the Pauline image: “Stand therefore, and your loynes girded about with veritie , and hauing on the brest plate of righteousnesse, And your feete shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. Aboue all, take the shielde of faith, wherewith ye may quench all the fierie dartes of the wicked, And take the helmet of saluation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the worde of God” (Eph. 6:14–17). That biblical injunction functions throughout as the shadowy background to the battles of Spenser’s knights, lending the stories a religious, allegorical significance surpassing that of Arthurian legend. It defines not only the Redcrosse Knight in the opening book but courageous defenders of the Christian virtues appearing in later books, such as Britomart, the symbol of chastity (a virtue more distinctly Christian than classical). Yet despite this obvious indebtedness to the Scriptures, a study of the literary form of his epic reveals a remarkable dearth both of images and of evocations of biblical characters, such references being dwarfed both in number and in prominence by the abundance of classical citations. The reason for that dearth was clearly not a dislike of the Bible on Spenser’s part. His personal fondness for the Scriptures is evidenced by his verse translations of biblical works which, although they have not survived, were known to the publisher of his Complaints who, in his “Preface to the Gentle Reader” added the comment, “I vnderstand that he besides wrote sundrie others, namelie Ecclesiastes, and Canticum Canticorum translated. . . . Besides some other pamphlets looselie scattered abroad: as . . . the Seven Psalmes &c.”2 The Faerie Queene suggests little of that fondness. The enemies of Una and the Redcrosse Knight are, indeed, the whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelations, envisioned there as arrayed in purple and scarlet, and her companion the seven-headed dragon, both of whom must be defeated before the coming of the New Jerusalem. But, apart from those patent allusions, the biblical references are meager. Here and there one may find a brief evocation of David calming Saul, a somewhat obscure hint of the serpent in Saint John’s goblet, a reference to Debora sandwiched between a reminder of Homer’s Penthelesee and Camilla’s slaying of Orsilochus (4.2.2, 1.10.13, 3.4.2). Yet even such intimations , when they do occur, are in most instances only loosely connected to the scriptural source. The dwelling-place of Una’s parents is, we learn, the land “which Phison and Euphrates floweth by, / And Gehons golden waues doe wash continually” (1.7.43); but, so far from being identical with the biblical Eden as specified by those rivers, this land is terrorized by a monstrous dragon absent from the scene 88 Tradition and Subversion in Renaissance Literature of paradise. When Eden is mentioned, it is to relate a story never hinted at in Scripture: Spenser informs us that the rose was transported from there in order to adorn chaste virgins (3.5.52). The alert reader may perceive in the killing of the dragon and the release of the king and queen from its tyranny a foreshadowing of the harrowing of hell as described in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 and Revelation 12, 17, and 19, but the haziness of the allusion is in marked contrast to the overt specificity and patent delight with which Spenser adduces his classical sources, recounting, for example, in loving detail the properties of the Palmer’s staff: Of that same wood it fram’d was cunningly, Of which Caduceus whilome was made, Caduceus the rod of Mercury, With which he wonts the Stygian realmes inuade, Through ghastly horrour, and eternall shade; Th’ infernall feends with it he can asswage, And Orcus tame, whom nothing can perswade, And rule the Furyes, when they most do rage: Such vertue in his staffe had eke this Palmer sage. (2.12.41) For...