More re "proud" Briana's (VI.i.13) and Brianor's (Book IV tournament) Irish
connections.
Roland Smith says very little on the issue, but Virginia Baumgartner says a
little more in her dissertation *Irish Elements in the Faerie Queene*
(Columbia 1972), pp. 137-8.
1) "Brianna," she notes, is the Irish word for "little bits" and
"fragments," appropriate for the type of tribute (beards and hair) she
takes (137n20).
Under "Brianna," the Dictionary of Irish Language (covering old and middle
Irish) gives similar (but uncertain) evidence for "brianna," and cites the
related "brianda" and "bronnaid." O'Reilly in his *Irish-English
Dictionary* (c. 1817) gives 3 uses of "brianna," "a warrant," "an author,
composer," and "parts or divisions." See also O'Reilly "breanadh" (the "h"
aspirates) = "a stinking"; "breantag" = "a stinking slut" (!); "brion" =
"inquietude, dissatisfaction"; "brionn" = "a fiction, lie"; "briannoch" =
(s.) "a liar," and (adj.) "flattering; fair, pretty"; "brinneach" = "a
wife, a matron, mother of children, dame, an old woman, a hag." "Bri" =
"wrath"; "brianach" = "full of fair speeches" ("brian" = "a word"). This
is a pejorative, not exhaustive, list.
Spenser's Briana as implying "wrath" ("bri") and a "warrant" ("brianna") as
well as smithereens ("brianna") sounds good to me, especially in light of
the standard Irish word in his time for "judge" = "brehon." "Brehon law"
is excoriated in the *View*, particularly since it allows a "man-price"
(eric, or in the *View*, "iriach") to be paid for murder. Briana (as a
parody of Mercilla) could be seen as the abusive legal arm of Crudor, the
typical tyrant (cf. Irish "cru" = "blood, gore" --akin to Latin "crudus"--
and "cruadh" = "hard, firm, difficult" in O'Reilly). As surrogate brehon,
Briana sends her deputy seneschall to take a bizarre tribute (beards and
hair), found also in Malory, instead of a normal money-toll. Life and
human bodies in Crudor's universe are equated with money (was Malory
himself making a statement on celtic legal mores?). The eric may be
figured more clearly in VI.i.42.3-6, when Calidore tells the vanquished
Crudor,
To pay each with his owne is right and dew.
Yet since ye mercie now doe need to craue,
I will it graunt, your hopeless life to saue.
Calidore privileges life (mercy and Mercilla's prerogative) over vengeance,
cast in terms of money or "pay"/"dew" (the brehon-Briana way). In Brehon
law, when a killer's kin-group can't (or won't) pay the eric, the kin-group
of the victim has the right to enslave or put the offender to death (Fergus
Kelly, *A Guide to Early Irish Law*, p. 324). As an enforcer of English
law Calidore courteously chooses neither option, money or life, stepping
outside of Irish law, as it were, in favor of "reformation."
(Old Irish "cro", gen. sg. "crui", dat. sg. "cru," meant "violent death" as
well as "body-fine" or "compensation for death." Kelly 307. Cf. Gk.
"doron," Lat. "don-" and Eng. "donor," re "Calidore" and "Corydon."
Cru-dor, the "giver of body-fine"?)
Unfortunately for this interpretation, anglicizations of "brehon" can come
close to "brehowne" and the alternative spellings of "brehon" in the
Variorum *View* resemble "brehoon," which doesn't sound much like Briana to
the modern ear (but see also the anglicisations "brethan, braghan,
breighon, breawan, brieve," in Kelly 324).
2) Following the suggestion made by Joel Belson in his dissertation, *The
Names in the Faerie Queene* (Columbia 1964), pp. 88-90, Baumgartner
connects Brianor with fabled Irish king Brian Boru, renowned for his
justice (and cattle raiding), and notes (like Belson) that Boru (Irish
"boiu" or "borimh") "means 'tribute of cattle,' and that the story of
Briana's toll-collecting thus has a parallel in Irish legend."
--Tom Herron
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