I guess that much turns on where we place the "there." "There, in that
place, do they calle ungratefulness( a) virtue?" So I take the line NOT to
mean: "Up there in the skies, do they falsely denominate and denounce as
ungratefulness (i.e., the ungraciousness of the mistress towards the lover)
what is, down here, called a virtue?" I think the line rather means: "Up
there, do they call that a (severe but apparent) virtue (and appraise it as
such)--that which down here we'd call, frankly and accurately speaking,
plain ungratefulness?" So I think the other possibility, that up there they
slander the virtue of chastity as being a vice--that of heartless lack of
fellow feeling and a failure to appreciate and reward the devotion of the
lover--is not really a very strong one, even if, initially, we are meant to
be confused. In passing: Ungratefulness was taken as a truly serious
defect, a threat to the social order (as ungratefulness to parents in King
Lear, or to God in the Father's first words in Par.Lost III). Thus Sidney
later in the sequence, warning his narrower audience: "Ungrateful who is
called, the worst of evils is spoken" (A&S, 5th Song, line 42, following
from ll. 40f., "But of they soul, so fraught with such ungratefulness / As
where thou soon mightst help, most faith doth most oppress."). Citations:
"Is not the same vice of unthankfulness that soweth dissentious & quarrerls
between the children and the father, between brethre, kinsfolk & friends,
and all for wnat of acknowledging one towards another , that bond of nature
wherewith we ought to be tied, and that secondary supply of good turns which
knit us inseparably, & make us daily beholding unto them, if we consider
exactly the natre of our estate, which cannot stand without the succor and
aid of many, how great soever we be But what? We see by experience, that
which one of the Ancients said, that all human things grow to old, and come
to the end of their time, except Ingratitude." -- Pierre de la Primaudaye.
"But the worst of all is he that for good repays evil, and this land is
full of such also; yea they who have done them most good, they will meet
them with an evil turn. All these are ungrateful men, and when thou has
called a man an ungrateful man, the thou hast called him all the evil in the
world, for such a one is unworthy to live." -- R. Rollock. "Consider, that
the corruption of man's nature is not so much declared in any thing, as in
ingratitude, whereby a man is made worse, than dyvers brute beasts." -- Sir
Thomas Elyot. Of course, re the reversals inherent in the line's grammar,
the moon tends to be the site of a mirror world, where things can also get
reversed. On Ariosto's moon are found the wits or brains or minds of those
who have lost them in love. For there is found the valley of lost things,
"everything that is lost on earth," which includes "The tears and sighs of
lovers, the useless time time lost in gaming, ... the empty plans which know
no rest, the vain desires ... in such numbers that they clutter almost the
whole place. ... Love affairs pursued to little purpose had the shape of
gilded bonds, jewel-studded shackles. ... Some lose their wits in loving..."
(OF 34.73ff). The poem opens with the saddened appearance of the moon, who
may have itself suffered the melancholy of rejected or unreciprocated love,
and be distressed to have experienced that "constant love is deemed THERE
but want of wit." I.e., the lover is crazy, the beloved is cold and
self-focused, and is ungracious to her devoted suitor, in the name of being
virtuous. -- Jim N.
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 14:01:05 -0500
"David L. Miller" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I don't think it avoids the question at all, but don't have time amid my
>grading to pursue this in the way it deserves. All I can muster briefly
>are two remarks:
>
> 1. To see the line as reversible is to take it, much as you (Derek)
>already do, as the crux on which competing readings of the poem turn. This
>is not a bad thing.
>
> 2. Answering questions is only one possible way of responding to them.
>
> DM
>
>
>>>> [log in to unmask] 11/28/2005 1:55:22 PM >>>
> I am pleased to see someone ask this question, since I wrestle with it
> regularly with my undergraduates. The sense of the poem implies that the
> line should be read as "Do they call ungratefulness virtue there?" since
>the
> rest of the poem suggests that the speaker's beloved is being unfair to
>him.
> It is very difficult, however, to make that reading work with the syntax
>of
> the line. If the syntax is to be trusted, the final line is a critique of
> the speaker's own criticism--HE's the one calling virtue ungratefulness.
> Since starting to write this, I have read David Miller's post, and I
> suppose the line can to be seen as "deliberately reversible," but I don't
> know that that answers any of the questions that come up in my classes.
> It
> seems simply to avoid the question.
>
> Derek Alwes
>
>> From: David Wilson-Okamura <[log in to unmask]>
>> Organization: East Carolina University
>> Reply-To: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:21:40 -0500
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
>>
>> How gloss ye this line, Sidneians? Is it bawdy and bitter? Or innocent
>> and just obscure?
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Dr. David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
>> English Department Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
>> East Carolina University Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
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