I'd have thought that reference to "the womb that had them bore" in this context is simply a provocation to filial piety, not too different in spirit from 'Swear on your mother's grave!'

And the bare breasts? I thought first of Charissa, but on reflection this seems to be simply an iconographical indication of a woman in distress - that is, she has torn her clothes (in the manner of a professional mourner) to expose her breast, but it's the tearing rather than the breast per se that is important.

Charlie

> Message date : Feb 07 2004, 07:20 PM
> From : "Martin Leigh Harrison" <[log in to unmask]>
> To : [log in to unmask]
> Copy to :
> Subject : Re: How many mothers had Medina and her sisters?
> I'm supposing here that Medina's referring to the knights and so forth when
> she mentions "the womb that had them bore" for various reasons, one of
> which is that, as you say, Medina and her sisters have different mothers!
> But do the knights have the same mother? Well...in a /sense/...they do (and
> so does everybody else). Perhaps?
>
> I'll admit it's a stretch, but FQ III.vi.35-37 gives us another sort of
> womb in its discussion of the Gardin of Adonis:
>
> Infinite shapes of creatures there are bred,
> And vncouth formes, which none yet euer knew,
> And euery sort is in a sundry bed
> Set by it selfe, and ranckt in comely rew:
> Some fit for reasonable soules t'indew,
> Some made for beasts, some made for birds to weare,
> And all the fruitfull spawne of fishes hew
> That seem'd the Ocean could not containe them there.
>
> Daily threy grow, and daily forth are sent
> Into the world, it to replenish more;
> Yet is the stocke not lessened, nor spent,
> But still remaines in euerlasting store,
> As it at first created was of yore.
> For in the wide wombe of the world there lyes,
> In hatefull darkeness and in deepe horrore,
> An huge eternall Chaos, which supplyes
> The substances of natures fruitfull progenyes.
>
> All things from thence doe their first being fetch,
> And borrow matter, whereof they are made,
> Which when as forme and feature it does ketch,
> Becomes a bodie, and doth then inuade
> The state of life, out of the griesly shade. [...]
>
> The characters in question may have had different mothers as we usually
> think of the term, but all--apparently--went through this interesting
> process involving the "wide wombe of the world" and the Gardin before their
> earthly births, "from thence did their /first/ being fetch," and at that
> stage were "fit for reasonable soules t'indew." They have that in common
> as well as their "loues" and "knighthood."
>
> Still, I can't think that Medina would in a state of passion be referring
> to anything half so abstruse. I'd prefer to think of her wracking her brain
> here to find a real commonality between the knights to get them to cease
> fighting. She mentions the womb, but they have different mothers. She goes
> on to mention loves, but they have different lovers. She settles on
> knighthood, which she's sure they have in common; and that solution seems
> to work, because stanza 31 consists almost entirely of images that knights
> would find appealing ("Braue be her warres, &c.") and the final agreement
> they come to (see stanza 32) "in word of knights they did assure."
>
> The only image I can find in Alciato that corresponds to a good woman with
> "naked brest" and "tresses torn" is emblem 48,
> http://www.mun.ca/alciato/images/l048.gif, "On Victory borne of Deceit" (it
> depicts a mourning Virtue). Could that have anything at all to do with
> Medina here? Leigh Harrison
>
> At 01:10 PM 2/7/2004 -0500, you wrote:
> >Warning: this is just silliness; delete at will.
> >
> >At FQ 2.2.13, Spenser says that in Medina's castle there are "three
> >sisters...of sundry sort, / The children of one syre by mothers three."
> >See, however, stanza 27, in which Medina tries to mediate the fight between
> >the two boyfriends, Sans loi and Sir Huddibras:
> >
> > Whilst thus they mingled were in furious armes,
> > The faire Medina with her tresses torne,
> > And naked brest, in pitty of their harmes,
> > Emongst them ran, and falling them beforne,
> > Besought them by the womb, which them had born,
> > And by the loues, which were to them most deare,
> > And by the knighthood, which they sure had sworn,
> > Their deadly cruell discord to forbeare,
> > And to her iust conditions of faire peace to heare. (FQ 2.2.27)
> >
> >Medina is trying to emphasize things that the two knights have in common:
> >they are both in love with sisters and they are both members of the order
> >of knighthood. There is also "the womb, which them had born." Where came
> >that womb in? Sans loi and Huddibras are not, as Forrest Gump might say,
> >"relations." The sisters, though, have different mothers (as we just
> >learned in st. 13), so they didn't come from the same womb, either. What,
> >then, is Medina appealing to: is it the fact that everyone has a mother?
> >This leaves me, I confess, a little cold.
> >
> >Can anyone propose a better solution? Extra points if you can identify an
> >iconographical or literary source for the image of the bare-breasted
> >peace-weaver in line 3. (And no, Janet Jackson is _not_ a peace-weaver.)
> >
> >-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
> >East Carolina University Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
> >-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>