The oblique cases in Latin have a -t, mart-, it's declined mars, martis,
marte martem, marte. The final -mart on Britomart's name also has a t
and is derived from mars. So it's a latinism.
On 1/23/2011 4:49 PM, william oram wrote:
> I'm about to start a discussion of the language of the proem to book I,
> and I wondered if anyone else has come across a writer who refers to
> Mars as "Mart." It's easy enough to see how Spenser might have created
> that form of the name, but is he playfully coining it for himself, or is
> there a tradition of calling Mars "Mart" that I don't know of?
> Elsewhere in the poetry he calls Mars "Mars." Bill Oram
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