RC's armor, we are told in FQ 1.1.14, "made / A litle glooming light,
much like a shade, / By which he saw" the ladylike features of the
monster Error. Where came that light in?
I've been working through a new anthology, The Virgilian Tradition: The
First Fifteen Hundred Years (Yale, 2008), and I notice there that in two
twelfth-century romances, the Old French Roman d'Eneas and the Middle
High German Eneit, Aeneas is instructed by the sibyl to use his sword
for light in the underworld (pp. 574, 601). This is interesting: in
Virgil's Latin, Aeneas is instructed to whip out his sword -- and also
told that swords have no effect on ghosts. So what does he need a sword
for? The romancers give an explanation.
I like source hunting! But I don't believe Spenser had direct access to
either of these poems. (I started looking for evidence about ten years
ago, but the trail peters out s. XIV.) What's more likely is that all
three poems have a common source. Any ideas? Where else in biblical,
classical, or romance lit do we find weapons that glow or armor that
gives off light? (I know that some gemstones were thought to have this
property, but no jewels are mentioned here.)
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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
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