Yes, epic simile as sociobiology.  The Topsell quote 
provides the perfect undertext, even if breeding in season 
is itself left out of the mating behavior in the stanza in 
question.  Compare the monologue about lobsters in a 
lobster trap, in the analogous triangle (2 males & 1 
female), in the movie 'In the Bedroom.'

On Sat, 3 Mar 2012 08:20:29 -0800
  Sean Henry <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I agree with Bill and the need to read the episode and 
>the pronouns in
> relation to the simile. If I may quote myself and 
>something I'm revising at
> the moment that happens to glance at this moment in the 
>poem:
> 
> With this simile, Spenser accumulates corresponding 
>details between
> narrative subject and simile subject. The immediate 
>comparison between the
> knights and the rams lies first in the fury of their 
>respective charges,
> and second in the dazed astonishment of the combatants. 
>But the comparison
> is not limited to these attributes. Unlike some other 
>instances when
> Spenser employs an animal simile to describe a 
>battle--dogs and bulls,
> lions and tigers--here, both combatants are likened to 
>the same creature.
> Spenser elides the differences between the human 
>characters in the animal
> image; whatever physical, moral, or spiritual advantages 
>the reader might
> expect the Knight of Holiness to possess over a knight 
>sporting the
> allegorical name “Sansfoy” vanish. The knights simply 
>cancel one another
> out and are left “amazed,” epitomizing the danger 
>Redcrosse finds himself
> in straying from Una.
> 
> 
> Moreover, Spenser reminds his readers of the presence of 
>Duessa watching
> the fight between Redcrosse and Sansfoy through the ram 
>simile: just as
> rams “stird with ambitious pride, / Fight for the rule 
>of the rich fleeced
> flocke,” so by inference do human knights. Sansfoy, 
>“prickte with pride /
> And hope to winne his Ladies hearte that day,” charges 
>Redcrosse, who
> rushes to meet him (1.2.14.6-7). Spenser echoes these 
>terms in the ram
> simile, making the rams fighting a crude version of 
>Renaissance romance
> chivalry, and the spectacle of two knights in combat a 
>sophisticated
> version of brute sexual territoriality. The actions of 
>the knights and the
> rams are made equivalent, and just as the distinctions 
>between Redcrosse
> and Sansfoy are elided in the simile, so the 
>distinctions between a pair of
> rams fighting for breeding supremacy over a flock and 
>two knights engaged
> in combat for a “Ladies hearte” are blurred.
> 
>           Seen as a whole, the episode and simile become 
>a confused mess
> of phallic swords and horns. But early modern natural 
>history affirms this
> association between violence and breeding in rams: 
>Edward Topsell, in his
> 1607 *The Historie of Foure-Footed Beasts*, remarks of 
>rams and “their rage
> in ramming time” that “Great is the rage of these beasts 
>at their
> copulation, for they fight irefuly til one of them haue 
>the victory”
> (Lll5v). The rage of rams is “their true and naturall 
>strength” (Lll5v). In
> explaining why the rams of his simile fight, Spenser 
>also explains why
> Redcrosse and Sansfoy fight: rage, sexual aggression, 
>and a desire for
> dominance in the social hierarchy. But because the 
>distinctions between the
> human social struggle of the narrative and the animal 
>social struggle of
> the simile are so blurred through these corresponding 
>details, the fight
> between Redcrosse and Sansfoy over the favours of Duessa 
>itself becomes a
> simile for the combat between the rams, implying not 
>only the bestial
> nature of the human struggle, but also the presence of a 
>social system and
> hierarchy among rams and ewes equivalent to the 
>chivalric culture of
>Faerieland. Spenser’s animal similes not only describe 
>the human world in
> terms of the animal, but also the animal in terms of the 
>human.
> Sean Henry.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------
> Sean Henry, B.A., M.A., PhD.
> Lecturer, Department of English
> University of Victoria, B.C., Canada
> [log in to unmask]

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James Nohrnberg
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