The common allusions to Nilus in I.i and III.vi have long been noted, and
pondered; it has always seemed to me that they form part of the
self-reflexive irony, even comedy of the work -- kin to the impulse that
made Spenser choose the low-comic 'fairy' canvas on which to work, or to
the taste for irreverent classicism that sees the False Florimell pick
Braggadocchio out of the circle of suitors, spawning a
Trojan-War-in-the-Box. His knights are knights-errant, and so Errour is
their game; his forms are Venereal, and so go out the way they came.
But I still think (I am the dog in this) that the point in III.vi is that
the twins do NOT suck the vital blood. They ate no common food. Where
Errour's den is dark, these twins by contrast (!) are nursed on light. The
allusions seem to me to reinforce the opposition.
andrew
Andrew Zurcher
Tutor and Director of Studies in English
Queens' College
Cambridge CB3 9ET
United Kingdom
+44 1223 335 572
hast hast post hast for lyfe
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