I certainly had no idea what was the factual truth of this matter, but I
think David's question is certainly very canny, and my first reaction was,
indeed, upstream. -- Glad to know the notion has a specific geographic
basis in the facts about the poem's references to two landmarks on the
river. My answer was a mere desire claiming to be an intuition. That is,
one feels the poem's artificiality, and thus a certain labored quality about
its perhaps far-from-effortless production, and an apposite use of the word
'against': as, climactically, in the final couplet, where "Against their
Brydale day, which is not long" might almost suggest "[rowing] against the
tide, namely the tide of time, which carries all things away." (And
remembering that the Epithalamion is written on the longest day, but
shortest night.) I.e., maybe one wants the swanboats to be paddled
forward/upstream by artful oarsmen rowing in a disciplined unison akin to
the art and technique of the poet producing, stroke by stroke, his
co-ordinated stanzas, rather than to have them carried downstream by a
current merely created by water seeking its own level at sea-level.
Nonetheless, there are things in the verses that might seem to pull us the
other way: the Thames itself, running softly but also river-running down
and away, and bearing most anything not self-motored in-or-on it down and
along with it, such as the flowers thrown on the water -- strewn on the
waves -- in stanza 5. Note then, a possible connection with the word "long"
(as in "not long") and "along" (the word river as flow seemingly suggesting
its opposite in the stationary shore (= Fr. rivage). The conclusion is that
the river is a two-way street, and that traffic on it upstream, that of the
"Fowles so louely," is in defiance of traffic on it the other way, the way
likely taken by billows, "foule" (l. 48) garbage (and therefore compare
possible pun in "all the foule which in his flood did dwell" [at l. 119]) ,
and the floral tribute considered as debris or flotsam. The Bride-Birds
"did passe along, / Adowne [see adona in Ophelia's song] the Lee, that to
them murmurde low ... Making his streame run slow": this seems to find both
directions the movement (murmurde can mean murmured rebelliously), along
discovering with the Thames' pathetic-fallacious effort to ease the upstream
rowing (or sailing) of the bridal flotilla-cortege by slowing or countering
its own downstream tide. Is the same attempt to go against the tide felt in
the poet's celebration of Essex as indeed the man to repair the fortunes of
the poet who has lost his former patron in Leicester (who has gone the way
of all flesh), in return for an epic celebration of things like the new
favorite's startling success at Cadiz? The weddling takes place "at
th'appointed tyde," these are glad tidings, and the stuff of the poem; but
tide means time, and time runs in only one direction, no one gets any
younger -- in three years after the poem's stated date of publication, the
poet will be dead, not paying Essex tribute. Rather, Essex will not be
furthering Spenser's career, but paying (in the London celebrated here as
the poet's nurse) the costs of the poet's burial. -- Jim N.
> Sender: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
><[log in to unmask]>
> Poster: andrew zurcher <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: up or down
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>> As the swan brides of the "Prothalamion" approach the former Leicester
>> House, now occupied by Essex, are they proceeding upstream, or
>> downstream?
>
> Hi David,
>
> I think: Essex House was located directly upstream from Temple stairs on
> the north bank of the Thames. So, given that those birds passed the Temple
> first (st. 8: 'those bricky towres'), and only then reached the 'stately
> place', it looks as if they were travelling upstream.
>
> (If you're looking at the Agas map, Essex House was Leicester House was
> Paget Place.)
>
> andrew
>
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
|