Perseus is the original knight in shining armor, according to AnFQ 136,
194f, with citations of Ren. allegorizations of that hero that go back to
Boccaccio GDG. Perseus' shining mirror-shield is behind Ruggiero's near the
end Orlando Furioso X where the ugly Orc is to be conquered Gorgonically by
bedazzling him with said shield (st. 72 in Harrington trans.). Tasso's
allegory for Michael's diamond shield (so gems do count!) in Ger. Lib. makes
it "the special safeguard of the Lord God." Arthur's shield is diamond and
also makes a dazzling light in battle with Orgoglio etc. Also said,
proverbially, of virtue (i.e., its being its own light), by Elder Brother in
Comus 373-75 and RC to Una at FQ I.i.12. (Gorgon in Comus converted to uses
of the shield at 447ff.). "Corrival" Harry Percy and Harry Monmouth compete
for the image of chivalric Perseus--Perseus on Pegasus--at 1 Henry IV, I.iii
(Hotspur's project, "to pluck drowned honor up by the locks") and IV.i (Hal
arisen with those up in arms "Glittering in golden coats"). Swords/brands
that glow seem a part of romance--cp. light-swords (that also hum) in Star
Wars. The glow is magical-sacral, like the bleeding of the lance in Grail
legends. Also cp. swords that flame, as Britomart's does in FQ III.i.66;
cp. with "her bright arms about her body dight" in next stanza. "The armour
of a Christian man" (Letter to Raleigh) is, of course, rightly glossed with
Romans 13, apart from Ephesians' "whole armour of God," where, at 6:17, "the
sword of the spirit," gets at the idea, a spiritual sword. A sword that
glows in an epic might be a thunderbolt or a solar shaft or solar ray in a
myth, the RC vs. Error episode translated into Apollo vs. Python.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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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James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
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