I ran through by copy of the EEBO with BBedit looking for Mart. It's tough because most of the ~4,000 spellings are forms of 'mart', but it occurs in a poem by Henry Peacham (1615) about Prince Henry
<L>Now while I shall beside this cradle sing,</L>
<L>Leaue <HI>Venus</HI> Queene a time thy siluer spheare,</L>
<L>And to mine aid thy daintie dearling bring,</L>
<L>With <HI>Mart</HI> appeased after death and dreare:</L>
<L>But from thy pure and peerelesse excellence,</L>
<L><HI>Eliza</HI> mother, dreaddest Ladie deere,</L>
<L>Light, life, oh, lend vnto mine eine and sence,</L>
<L>For vigor haue I none but what I draw from hence.</L>
On Jan 23, 2011, at 4:33 PM, James C. Nohrnberg wrote:
It also appears in what I take to be Dryden's translation of the Knight's Tale
From this very casual survey I gather that it lingered beyond Chaucer and Spenser as an Anglicized noun based on the inflected Latin forms of Mars. Quite parallel to 'Jove'.
> See John Gower:
>
> And of this Pallas some ek seide
> That sche was Martes wif;
>
> The god whom that thei clepen Mart
>
> Pallas, which is the goddesse
> And wif to Marte
>
> (Conf. Am. V, 1214-15, 1477, 1649-50)
>
> And as planet:
>
> The mone of Selver hath his part,
> And Iren that stant upon Mart,
> The led after Satorne groweth (Conf. Am. IV, 2469-71)
>
> In using Mart Spenser seems to me to be anticipating, mythograpically, Britomart, the martial maid, and [M]Artegall (with his iron man), insofar as Pallas+Mart = Britomart/Palladine+Artegall
>
> -- Jim N.
>
> On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 16:49:54 -0500
> william oram <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> I'm about to start a discussion of the language of the proem to book I, and
>> I wondered if anyone else has come across a writer who refers to Mars as
>> "Mart." It's easy enough to see how Spenser might have created that form of
>> the name, but is he playfully coining it for himself, or is there a
>> tradition of calling Mars "Mart" that I don't know of? Elsewhere in the
>> poetry he calls Mars "Mars." Bill Oram
>
> [log in to unmask]
> James Nohrnberg
> Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
> Univ. of Virginia
> P.O Box 400121
> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
|