The Ren. use of the example from Ovid (silent 
communication between Paris and Helen), or Paridell's 
stratagem, is also found in Boccaccio, Filocolo IV.42, 
among instances of love's driving fearful lovers to 
subterfuges:  "Paris ... dared venture with neither eyes 
nor tongue, but rather before his lady first wrote in the 
spilled wine her name, and then wrote, 'I love you!''' 
 (Trans. Donald Cheney, p. 272.)

  

On Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:44:09 -0400
  "Drew J. Scheler" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello all:
> 
> Sorry to come late to this thread, but there's another 
>classical example of
> (presumably) silent reading that's relevant to Spenser 
>FQ III that can be
> found in Ovid's Heroides, Helen to Paris. Helen recalls 
>her worry about
> Paris sending her "secret signals" (tecta ... signa) of 
>love that he
> doesn't hide very well from her husband. One of these 
>secret signs is, of
> course, the word "I love" (amo) written on their area of 
>the dinner
> table—something that, presumably, Helen did not read out 
>loud with Menelaus
> around:
> 
> Orbe quoque in mensae legi sub nomine nostro,
>     Quod deducta mero littera fecit, amo. (87-8)
> 
> Also I have read on our area of the dinner table, under 
>my name,
>     what letters drawn out in wine have written: "I 
>love."
> 
> I bring this up because this kind of thing also occurs 
>in a good, teachable
> episode of FQ III: the dinner at Malbecco's house, with 
>Britomart
> Hellinore, and Paridell (III.ix-x).
> 
> Thenceforth to her he [Paridell] sought to intimate
>  His inward griefe, by meanes to him well knowne,
>  Now *Bacchus* fruit out of the siluer plate
>  He on the table dasht, as ouerthrowne,
>  Or of the fruitfull liquor ouerflowne,
>  And by the dauncing bubbles did diuine,
>  Or therein write to let his loue be showne;
>  Which well she red out of the learned line,
> A sacrament prophane in mistery of wine.
> 
> And when so of his hand the pledge she raught,
>  The guilty cup she fained to mistake,
>  And in her lap did shed her idle draught,
>  Shewing desire her inward flame to slake:
>  By such close signes they secret way did make
>  Vnto their wils, and one eyes watch escape;
>  Two eyes him needeth, for to watch and wake,
>  Who louers will deceiue. Thus was the ape,
> By their faire handling, put into *Malbeccoes* cape.
> If Paridell's "close signs" are words and not (naughty) 
>pictograms, then
> presumably Hellinore has "red out the learned line" in 
>silence, as well.
> Anyways, this is perhaps not the best to episode to 
>teach Spenser's
> Petrarchsim, but it certainly links up S's erotic 
>concerns with silent
> reading—not to mention his interest in national history 
>and, by the end of
> canto x, allegory itself.
> 
> Best,
> Drew J. Scheler
> University of Virginia
> 
> On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 8:11 AM, Hannibal Hamlin
> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> 
>> Wonderful and useful responses from everyone. Thank you. 
>>Clearly, silent
>> reading was known and practiced long before the 18th c., 
>>though, as some of
>> you point out, many of these anecdotes indicate the 
>>exceptionality of the
>> practice. Probably one can't go much further in 
>>determining the general
>> practice, given the anecdotal nature of the evidence. I 
>>wonder about the
>> arguments based on the nature of early mss. It's 
>>difficult to say
>> conclusively how certain textual phenomena were 
>>perceived by those who were
>> used only to them, rather than to our own conventions 
>>(caps, spaces, etc.).
>> I think of arguments about Roman versus Black Letter 
>>type, for instance.
>> There used to be an assumption that the Roman type 
>>Geneva Bibles were an
>> advanced in terms of accessibility, since that font was 
>>so much easier to
>> read. But this is only our own bias. It seems, in fact, 
>>that in
>> sixteenth-century England it was actually the Black 
>>Letter that was
>> familiar and more accessible.
>>
>> As for Julia's suggestions, I'm not sure about the 
>>argument re. devotional
>> reading. In the Book of Common Prayer, any prayers, 
>>responses, and such to
>> be read by the congregation would have been read aloud, 
>>and boldly (or at
>> least not muttered). There were prayers and other 
>>liturgical bits read by
>> the priest, and anyone with a copy of the BCP could 
>>follow along, and
>> perhaps mutter to him- or herself, but did they? I'm 
>>guessing not, based on
>> practice today. Back then, too, many (most?) in the 
>>congregation would not
>> have had a copy to follow, since churches did not 
>>provide service books for
>> congregants to the extent they do today. For many, the 
>>liturgy must have
>> been a purely oral/aural experience.
>>
>> I love Jim's suggestion of double-reading. Food for 
>>thought.
>>
>> Perhaps the better question than, "when did silent 
>>reading begin?", is
>> when did reading aloud stop? Never, of course. I have a 
>>friend, a senior
>> scholar, who regularly reads novels of an evening 
>>together with his wife,
>> aloud. I remember a friend from earlier years telling me 
>>of his family
>> reading Dickens together, a practice that must have been 
>>a hangover from
>> the nineteenth century. But these are once again 
>>anecdotes of exceptional
>> behaviour. Modern reading rooms are, as you say, silent 
>>(except for the
>> clacking of laptop keyboards, the contemporary version 
>>of Jim's
>> typewriters). Does anyone read aloud from a computer 
>>screen?
>>
>> Thanks again.
>>
>> Hannibal
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 6:17 AM, Julia Staykova 
>><[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>>
>>> In *The House of Fame*, the eagle describes Chaucer as a 
>>>silent reader:
>>>
>>> Thou goost home to thy house anoon,
>>> And, also dombe as any stoon,
>>> Thou sittest at another booke (II: 655-7)
>>>
>>> The caricature spirit of the larger passage implies that 
>>>'sitting dumb as
>>> a stone' at a book was unusual. When Augustine describes 
>>>in the Confessions
>>> VI, 3 that Ambrose was reading without moving his lips, 
>>>he views it as
>>> highly peculiar. He conjectures that Amrbose was trying 
>>>to avoid intrusions
>>> from students, always hovering around his room, asking 
>>>him to interpret
>>> what he was reading. He was the imperial rhetorician of 
>>>Milan at the time
>>> (384 AD), and himself a practiced reader.
>>>
>>> Another anecdote from Plutarch is about Alexander, who 
>>>read a letter from
>>> his mother silently, to the bewilderment of his 
>>>soldiers. However, this,
>>> like Caesar reading a letter from Cato's sister, are in 
>>>the context of
>>> exception. Perhaps those few who could read silently did 
>>>it to avoid being
>>> overheard?
>>>
>>> In the Middle Ages, for as long as the practice of 
>>>*scriptura continua *lasted,
>>> silent reading must have been unusual: imagine reading 
>>>aloud when all the
>>> words are collapsed into one... In early modernity, the 
>>>statistical
>>> majority of reading must have been devotional. Intoning 
>>>the words from the
>>> page, or at least muttering to oneself, makes better 
>>>sense than reading
>>> psalms and prayers in complete silence as a gesture of 
>>>devotion.
>>>
>>> Julia
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Hannibal Hamlin
>> Associate Professor of English
>> Editor, *Reformation*
>> Co-curator, *Manifold Greatness: The Creation and 
>>Afterlife of the King
>> James Bible*
>> http://www.manifoldgreatness.org/
>> The Ohio State University
>> 164 West 17th Ave., 421 Denney Hall
>> Columbus, OH 43210-1340
>> [log in to unmask]
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>>

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