I can't say for sure about Irish seals, but if their smell is anything like
California sea lions, Spenser has got them spot on. As a sailor, I
frequently sail past buoys where they congregate, or go into sea caves
where their rookeries are. I'm afraid the smell is not just their fishy
breath; they eat great quantities fish every day and don't seem to mind
what happens to the final processes of their digestion.
No need for emendation here, David!
Michael O'Connell
At 11:44 AM 6/18/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Like most of you, I am hard at work on my paper for next month's
>conference; in the meantime, though, perhaps some of you will be able to
>spare some time for the following, admittedly trivial, query:
>
>In "Colin Clouts Come Home Again," 240-51, Raleigh explains to Colin that
>Cynthia's pastures are the waves of the sea:
>
> These be the hills (quoth he) the surges hie, 240
> On which faire _Cynthia_ her heards doth feed:
> Her heards be thousand fishes with their frie,
> Which in the bosome of the billowes breed.
> Of them the shepheard which hath charge in chief,
> Is _Triton_ blowing loud his wreathed horne:
> At sound whereof, they all for their relief
> Wend too and fro at euening and at morne.
> And _Proteus_ eke with him does driue his heard
> Of stinking Seales and Procpisces together,
> With hoary head and deawy dropping beard, 250
> Compelling them which way he list, and whether.
>
>My question is, why "stinking Seales"? Presumably they do smell a bit
>fishy. But why does Spenser single them out for stinkiness? Was their odor
>actually more offensive than that of the porpoises and the "thousand fishes
>with their frie"? Did Spenser have a bad encounter with a seal? Or did the
>printer misread his text? In which case, would anyone care to propose an
>emendation? "Slinking," in my opinion, does not recommend itself; "winking"
>is probably even worse...
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
>Macalester College Virgil Tradition: discussion, bibliography, &c.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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