I am pleased to see someone ask this question, since I wrestle with it
regularly with my undergraduates. The sense of the poem implies that the
line should be read as "Do they call ungratefulness virtue there?" since the
rest of the poem suggests that the speaker's beloved is being unfair to him.
It is very difficult, however, to make that reading work with the syntax of
the line. If the syntax is to be trusted, the final line is a critique of
the speaker's own criticism--HE's the one calling virtue ungratefulness.
Since starting to write this, I have read David Miller's post, and I
suppose the line can to be seen as "deliberately reversible," but I don't
know that that answers any of the questions that come up in my classes. It
seems simply to avoid the question.
Derek Alwes
> From: David Wilson-Okamura <[log in to unmask]>
> Organization: East Carolina University
> Reply-To: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:21:40 -0500
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
>
> How gloss ye this line, Sidneians? Is it bawdy and bitter? Or innocent
> and just obscure?
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
> English Department Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
> East Carolina University Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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