This is not precisely what you are looking, David, for in terms of FQ species (elf and human), but since the episode of Marinel, Cymoent, Proteus et al. occupies and defines the border at this place in FQ, might not the cross-species one-night stand of Cymoent (nymph, the complying wave that bends to the shore), and Dumarin (the rapacious human sailor-knight who is taken with her love and takes her by beating that same shore with violent waves) mark miscegenation, with Spenser's consequent emphasis on both naming Marinel as a "knight" and revealing the story of his nymphatic orgin, whatever a nymph is while making this mama's boy bear only papa's name?
His mother was the blacke-browd Cymoent,
The daughter of great Nereus, which did beare
This warlike sonne vnto an earthly peare,
The famous Dumarin; who on a day
Finding the Nymph a sleepe in secret wheare,
As he by chaunce did wander that same way,
Was taken with her loue, and by her closely lay.
There he this knight of her begot, whom borne
She of his father Marinell did name,
And in a rocky caue as wight forlorne,
Long time she fostred vp, till he became
A mightie man at armes, and mickle fame
Did get through great aduentures by him donne...
Hints of a rocky cave to come? Secret "wheare"? where? weir? So do his nymphatic orgins make him a warrior or merely war-like? What is a "wight" in ethnographic terms besides forlorne. How does a birth mother also foster her own child. And how does this half-breed become a man, or does he?
-----Original Message-----
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List on behalf of David L. Miller
Sent: Fri 5/11/2007 1:29 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: miscegenation
I'm wondering if anyone on the list can recall any point in the FQ that
would confirm, or even suggest, a consummated cross-species union
between Elf or Fay and human.
The question occurs to me in connection with Arthur's quest,
especiallly is it is "mirrored," so to speak, in Britomart's. Britomart
is devastated in part because she fears she has fallen in love with
nothing but an image; and isn't that just Arthur's predicament? In
III.iiii, when Merlin identifies Arthegall to Britomart and Glauce, he
gives a lot of emphasis to the fact that although the kinight "wonneth
in land of Fayeree," he "ios no Fary borne, ne sib at all / To Elfes,
but sprong of seed terrestriall."
It sounds to me as if part of what Merlin is saying, here, is that
Arthegall is a possible sexual partner for Britomart after all. Hence
the question about cross-species liaisons.
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