David's idea about Orpheus's head floating down the Lea has a most insidious
plausibililty, on three counts. First, the poet has compared himself to
Orpheus in the Epithalamion. Second, the idea of a dead body floating
downstream, in malo, is already in Spenser's verse the same year, in FQ
V.ii. about the polled Pollente's head being impaled on a pole for all to
see: but his body/"corpse was carried down along the Lee, / Whose waters
with filthy bloud it stayned" (19). Third, if this poem is among Spenser's
last, it may indeed have some claim to being the swan-song of the
death-divining poet. (There's rather more to say about this last, but I'll
spare us.) Lee, speaking in marine terms, can also mean the left side,
right? Jim N.
On Sun, 18 May 2008 07:51:02 -0400
"MILLER, DAVID" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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
>>
>
> [log in to unmask]
> James Nohrnberg
> Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
> Univ. of Virginia
> P.O Box 400121
> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
|