Thanks to David Lohnes, and Andrew, and Meredith for the URL, and to you
Jim for these lovely thoughts.  

The Variorum excerpts earlier discussion of geographical issues, and
there's always been some disagreement about whether the swans descend
the river Lea (my assumption, and that of Richard McCabe in his edition
of the Shorter Poems) or whether the lee is simply a riverside meadow.
If they do come down the Lea, it is downstream to the Thames, then
upstream from there to Essex House and the Temple.  

But it's a long way upstream.  If Spenser's poet-speaker really has
literally just left the court, then he has walked north out of Greenwich
toward the Thames, opposite the place where the Lea enters from the
north.  I've never covered this territory on the ground, but from the
aerial maps on the internet it looks as if the trip from there eastward
to the brides' destination is a pretty long walk, and a long row upriver
too.

But to be honest, the real reason I asked was less a concern for
real-world geography than a feeling that, somewhere behind the vision of
the swans paddling upstream, there is a recollection of Orpheus' severed
head floating downstream toward the Ocean while it sings its own swan
song.  Such an intimation would belong with your other glimpses, Jim, of
what it means for the swans and the river to be moving in opposite
directions.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of James C. Nohrnberg
Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2008 1:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Upstream/Downstream

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
> 

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James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121