I'd stress how Timeas came by the wounds. He sees Belphoebe as an angel at this point, but he hasn't yet fallen in love with her. But in the ford where he gets his wounds he's attacked by the three forsters, which Hamilton glosses (I think convincingly) as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life from 1 John 2.16. As I read the episode works as a little psychomachia, in which Timias is fighting with impulses in himself--something he's prone to do throughout his self-tormenting career. He subdues these impulses, but only at the cost of leaving himself pretty much unable to move until Belphoebe comes and gives him a new, pure object of worship. Unfortunately worship is all he's allowed to do and so he subsequently torments himself over his lustful desires--that's the "dye, rather dye" speech, which I take as mildly comic.
Thus I'd take the sinful wounds as referring back to the effects of the forsters. I wrote up a chunk of this in in the opening of "Spenserian Paralysis" SEL 41 (2001) and another chunk long ago in "Spenser's Ralegh" SP 87 (1990). Bill Oram
William Oram
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>>> "Lochman, Daniel T" <[log in to unmask]> 02/26/09 7:27 AM >>>
Yes--that Timias is deferential due to his status and his perception of Belphoebe as the bearer of "heauenly" remedies, reminiscent of Guyon's angel, seems plain enough.
But the matter of desire seems more complicated. Britomart, Arthur, Redcrosse, even Una seem to experience desire, sometimes with a sense of guilt and pain but ultimately without finding it inherently sinful. Which leaves the question why Timias feels the "wounds" to be so. Is the feeling of sinfulness the result of his weakness against the fosters? the contrast with the angelic Belphoebe? a reaction against the erotic desires that, to my memory, are here first evident in him? Does the word tell us more about Timias than it does desire? I find it interesting that this stanza appears directly after the one where, awakening, the image of Belphoebe fills his "watry eyes," both because I've been looking at the physiology of sight in Spenser and in that this posture, with Timias prone beneath Belphoebe's healing gaze and hands, hovers somewhere between Verdant with Acrasia at the end of Book II and Adonis with Venus in the canto that follows.
Dan Lochman
Professor, Department of English
Texas State University-San Marcos
San Marcos, TX
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From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask] [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:31 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Why are Timias's wounds "sinfull"?
Kevin,
Hamilton points out that the wounds correlate with Timias' reference to himself as "sinfull wight" in line 2 of this stanza. Since he regards Belphoebe as an angel sent to rescue him, and unlike Guyon in II viii he awakens to greet the angel descended from her bower, he needs a courteous way to address this superior being. Abjection is characteristic of Timias in relation to Belphoebe throughout the episodes in which Spenser follows the ins and outs of their relationship. In sst. 43-48, describing Timias' sense of himself and of his passionate devotion to Belphoebe, there is clearly something sinful in his desire if we accept his own account of it. His wounding by the griesly fosters sets up the circumstances for a deeper wounding by Belphoebe.
Jon Quitslund
-------------- Original message from Kevin Farnham <[log in to unmask]>: --------------
> Today I have reread this passage, from FQ Book III, Canto V, Verse 35:
>
> What service may I do vnto thee meete,
> That hast from darkenesse me returnd to light,
> And with thy heauenly salues and med'cines sweete,
> Hast drest my sinfull wounds?
>
> What is "sinfull" about Timias's wounds?
>
> Kevin
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