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Title: Platonism in English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Author: John Smith Harrison
Release date: February 26, 2024 [eBook #73049]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Columbia university press, 1903
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Aaron Adrignola, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLATONISM IN ENGLISH POETRY OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES ***
=Columbia University=
_STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE_
PLATONISM IN ENGLISH POETRY
OF THE SIXTEENTH AND
SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
[Illustration: [Logo]]
PLATONISM IN ENGLISH POETRY
OF THE SIXTEENTH AND
SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
BY
JOHN SMITH HARRISON
[Illustration: [Logo]]
=New York=
THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, AGENTS
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
1903
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1903,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up, electrotyped, and published September, 1903.
=Norwood Press=
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U. S. A.
TO
=My Father and My Mother=
PREFACE
This essay was presented as a dissertation for the doctorate in Columbia
University. It attempts to explain the nature of the influence of
Platonism upon English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, exclusive of the drama. Its method is purely critical. It has
not attempted to treat the subject from the standpoint of the individual
poet, but has tried to interpret the whole body of English poetry of the
period under survey as an integral output of the spiritual thought and
life of the time.
In its interpretation of this body of poetry the essay has aimed to see
Platonism in its true historical perspective, as it must have been
understood by the poets, either as a system of philosophic thought held
consciously in the mind, or as a more intimate possession of the spirit
in its outlook upon life. The idea of Platonism which these poets had
was that which Ficino had made known to Italy of the fifteenth century,
and from Italy to the rest of Europe. Ficino saw Plato through two more
or less refracting media. To him Plato was the “divine Plato,” the
importance of whose work lay in its subtle affinity for the forms of
Christian thought. He thus Christianized Plato’s philosophy. But this
body of thought was that peculiar product resulting from the study of
Plato’s “Dialogues” in the light of what latter-day criticism has named
Neo-platonism, or that new form of Platonic philosophy which is
expounded in the “Enneads” of Plotinus. But more than this. Ficino
endeavored to reform the practice of love by the application of the
Platonic doctrine of love and beauty to the lover’s passion. From his
“Commentarium in Convivium,” which he translated into Italian, originate
the various discussions of love and beauty from the Platonic standpoint
which were carried on in dialogues and manuals of court etiquette
throughout the sixteenth century. In this essay, consequently, reference
has been made to Ficino’s “Commentarium” on the points involved in the
theory of love and beauty. The translations have been made directly from
the Latin version of the commentary. On the more metaphysical side of
Platonism the “Enneads” of Plotinus have been accepted as
representative. The translation on page 77 is taken from Mr. Bigg’s
“Neo-Platonism,” and those on pages 153, 154, 155 are from Thomas
Taylor’s translation noted in the bibliography. In interpreting the
“Enneads” I have accepted the explanation of his system by Mr. Whittaker
in “The Neo-Platonists.” All the quotations from Plato’s “Dialogues” are
from Jowett’s translation. In quoting from the poets the texts of the
editions noted in the bibliography have been followed in details of
spelling, punctuation, and the like.
In the preparation of the work hardly anything of a critical nature was
found serviceable. In the notes to the works of the individual poets
several detached references are to be gratefully mentioned, but no
general appreciation of the part Platonism played in the work of the
English poets was at hand. Mr. Fletcher’s article on the “Précieuses at
the Court of Charles I,” in the second number of the “Journal of
Comparative Literature,” appeared after this essay had gone to the
printer.
I should like to acknowledge my thanks to Mr. W. H. Heck for his service
of transcription in the British Museum Library and to Miss M. P. Conant
for a similar kindness in research work in the Harvard College Library.
To Professor George Edward Woodberry I am most deeply grateful for
innumerable suggestions and invaluable advice. The work was undertaken
at his suggestion, and throughout the past two years has progressed
under his kindly criticism. But the help and inspiration which I have
received from him antedate the inception of the essay, extending back to
the earlier days of undergraduate life. The work is thus inseparably
connected with the training in the study of literature which he has
given, and his help in its completion is only an episode in a long
series of kindnesses which he has been ever willing to show.
ORANGE, N.J.,
June 1, 1903.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
IDEALS OF CHRISTIAN VIRTUES 1
I. HOLINESS 1
II. TEMPERANCE 12
III. CHASTITY 30
CHAPTER II
THEORY OF LOVE 67
I. HEAVENLY LOVE 67
II. EARTHLY LOVE 104
CHAPTER III
GOD AND THE SOUL 167
I. NATURE OF GOD 167
II. NATURE OF THE SOUL 186
III. ETERNITY OF THE SOUL AND OF MATTER 202
BIBLIOGRAPHY 223
INDEX 229
PLATONISM IN ENGLISH POETRY
CHAPTER I
IDEALS OF CHRISTIAN VIRTUES
I. HOLINESS
The fundamental doctrine of Platonism as it was understood throughout
the period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the reality of
a heavenly beauty known in and by the soul, as contrasted with an
earthly beauty known only to the sense. In this the Christian
philosophic mind found the basis for its conception of holiness.
Christian discipline and Platonic idealism blended in the “Faerie
Queene” in the legend of the Red Cross Knight.
The underlying idea taught by Spenser in the first book is that holiness
is a state of the soul in which wisdom or truth can be seen and loved in
and for its beauty. In the allegorical scheme of his work Una stands for
the Platonic wisdom, σοφία, or ἀρετή, and a sight of her in her native
beauty constitutes the happy ending of the many struggles and
perplexities that the Red Cross Knight experiences in his pursuit of
holiness. The identification of Una with the Platonic idea of truth or
wisdom is not merely a matter of inference left for the reader to draw;
for Spenser himself is careful to inform us of the true nature of the
part she plays in his allegory. Una is presented as teaching the satyrs
truth and “trew sacred lore.” (I. vi. 19; I. vi. 30.) When the lion,
amazed at her sight, forgets his fierceness, Spenser comments:
“O how can beautie maister the most strong,
And simple truth subdue avenging wrong?”
(I. iii. 6.)
When Una summons Arthur to the rescue of the Red Cross Knight from the
Giant and the Dragon, Spenser opens his canto with a reflection on the
guiding power of grace and truth amid the many perils of human life:
“Ay me, how many perils doe enfold
The righteous man, to make him daily fall?
Were not, that heavenly grace doth him uphold,
And stedfast truth acquite him out of all.
Her love is firme, her care continuall,
So oft as he through his owne foolish pride,
Or weaknesse is to sinfull bands made thrall.”
(I. viii. 1.)
Here Arthur is meant by grace and Una by truth. In accordance with the
same conception of Una’s nature Satyrane is made to wonder
“at her wisedome heavenly rare,
Whose like in womens wit he never knew;
· · · · ·
Thenceforth he kept her goodly company,
And learnd her discipline of faith and veritie.”
(I. vi. 31.)
Furthermore, she is represented as guiding the Red Cross Knight to
Fidelia’s school, where he is to taste her “heavenly learning,” to hear
the wisdom of her divine words, and to learn “celestiall discipline.”
(I. x. 18.) In making these comments and in thus directing the course of
the action of his poem Spenser presents in Una the personification of
truth or wisdom.
But he does more than this; he presents her not only as wisdom, but as
true beauty. Spenser is so thoroughly convinced of the truth of that
fundamental idea of Platonic ethics, that truth and beauty are
identical, that he shows their union in the character of Una, in whom,
as her name signifies, they are one. Plato had taught that the highest
beauty which the soul can know is wisdom, which, though invisible to
sight, would inflame the hearts of men in an unwonted degree could there
be a visible image of her. In his “Phædrus” he had stated that “sight is
the most piercing of our bodily senses; though not by that is wisdom
seen; her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a
visible image of her.” (250.) Convinced, as Spenser was, of the
spiritual nature of the beauty of wisdom, he carefully avoids dwelling
upon any detail of Una’s physical beauty. The poetic form of allegory,
through which his ideas were to be conveyed, required the
personification of truth, and the romantic character of chivalry
demanded that his Knight should have a lady to protect. The progress of
the action of the poem, moreover, made necessary some reference to the
details of Una’s form and feature. (Cf. I. iii. 4–6; vi. 9.) But in no
instance where the physical form of Una is brought to notice is there
any trace of the poet’s desire to concentrate attention upon her
physical charms. In this respect Una stands distinctly apart from all
his other heroines, and especially Belphœbe. And yet Spenser has taken
the greatest care to show that the source of Una’s influence over those
that come into her presence lies in the power exerted by her beauty; but
this is the beauty of her whole nature, a penetrating radiance of light
revealing the soul that is truly wise. Indeed, when Spenser has the best
of opportunities to describe Una, after she has laid aside the black
stole that hides her features, he contents himself with a few lines,
testifying only to their radiant brilliancy:
“Her angels face
As the great eye of heaven shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shadie place.”
(I. iii. 4.)
In other instances he directs our attention to the power which the mere
sight of her has upon the beholder. Her beauty can tame the raging lion
and turn a ravenous beast into a strong body-guard who finds his duty in
the light of her fair eyes:
“It fortuned out of the thickest wood
A ramping Lyon rushed suddainly,
Hunting full greedie after salvage blood;
Soone as the toy all virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily,
To have attonce devour’d her tender corse:
But to the pray when as he drew more ny,
His bloudie rage asswaged with remorse,
And with the sight amazd, forgat his furious forse.”
(I. iii. 5.)
“The Lyon would not leave her desolate,
· · · · ·
From her faire eyes he tooke commaundement,
And ever by her lookes conceived her intent.”
(I. iii. 9.)
The wild-wood gods stand astonished at her beauty, and in their wonder
pity her desolate condition. (I. vi. 9–12.) Old Sylvanus is smitten by a
sight of her. In her presence he doubts the purity of his own Dryope’s
fairness; sometimes he thinks her Venus, but then on further reflection
he recalls that Venus never had so sober mood; her image calls to mind—
“His ancient love, and dearest _Cyparisse_,
· · · · ·
How fair he was, and yet not faire to this.”
(I. vi. 17.)
To behold her lovely face the wood nymphs flock about and when they have
seen it, they flee away in envious fear, lest the contrast of its beauty
may disgrace their own. (I. vi. 18.)
By these dramatic touches Spenser very skilfully suggests to his reader
the high nature of Una’s beauty. It has a power to win its way upon the
brute creation, and it has a severity and radiance that set it off from
the beauty of physical form possessed by the wood nymphs and even by the
great goddess of love, Venus.
The most important consideration that bears upon the question of Una’s
beauty is found in the method which Spenser has used to indicate how the
Red Cross Knight attains to a knowledge of it. One reason why the people
of the wood, the nymphs, the fauns, and the satyrs, were permitted to
see the celestial beauty of Una unveiled lay in the fact that through
their experiences a means was provided by the poet to quicken the
imagination into a sense of its pure nature. But the Knight, though he
had journeyed with her throughout a great portion of her “wearie
journey,” had never been able to see her face in its native splendor,
hidden, as it had always been, from his sight by the black veil which
Una wore. The deep conceit which Spenser here uses points in the
direction of Platonism; for there it was taught that wisdom could be
seen only by the soul. This is a fundamental truth, present everywhere
in Plato, in the vision of beauty that rises before the mind at the end
of the dialectic of the “Symposium,” in the species of divine fury that
accompanies the recollection of the ideal world in the presence of a
beautiful object, as analyzed in the “Phædrus,” and in the “Hymn of the
Dialectic” in the “Republic” by which the soul rises to a sight of the
good. (VII. 532.) In the “Phædo” the function of philosophy is explained
to lie in the exercise by the soul of this power of spiritual
contemplation of true existence. (82, 83.) In Spenser this conception is
further illustrated by the part which the schooling, received by the Red
Cross Knight on the Mount of Contemplation, played in the perfection of
his mental vision. Up to the time when the Knight comes to the Mount he
is, as the aged sire says, a “man of earth,” and his spirit needs to be
purified of all the grossness of sense. (I. x. 52.) When this has been
accomplished, the Knight is prepared to
“see the way,
That never yet was seene of Faeries sonne.”
(I. x. 52.)
While on this Mount he is initiated into a knowledge of the glories of
the Heavenly Jerusalem, and through this experience he is made aware of
the relative insignificance of that beauty which he had thought the
greatest to be known on earth. He thus says to the aged man, Heavenly
Contemplation, who has revealed this vision to him:
“Till now, said then the knight, I weened well,
That great _Cleopolis_, where I have beene,
In which that fairest _Faerie Queene_ doth dwell,
The fairest Citie was, that might be seene;
And that bright towre all built of christall cleene,
_Panthea_, seemd the brightest thing, that was:
But now by proofe all otherwise I weene;
For this great Citie that does far surpas,
And this bright Angels towre quite dims that towre of glas.”
(I. x. 58.)
With his soul filled with the radiance of this vision of beauty, his
eyes dazed—
“Through passing brightnesse, which did quite confound
His feeble sence, and too exceeding shyne.
So darke are earthly things compard to things divine—”
(I. x. 67.)
the Red Cross Knight descends from the Mount; and when after the
completion of his labors he sees Una on the day of her betrothal, he
wonders at a beauty in her which he has never before seen. Una has now
laid aside her black veil, and shines upon him in the native undimmed
splendor of truth.
“The blazing brightnesse of her beauties beame,
And glorious light of her sunshyny face
To tell, were as to strive against the streame.
My ragged rimes are all too rude and bace,
Her heavenly lineaments for to enchace.
Ne wonder; for her owne deare loved knight,
All were she dayly with himselfe in place,
Did wonder much at her celestiall sight:
Oft had he seene her faire, but never so faire dight.”
(I. xii. 23.)
The contribution of Platonism to the formation of the ideal of holiness
can now be easily recognized. The discipline of the Red Cross Knight in
the House of Holiness is twofold. In the practice of the Christian
graces—faith, hope, and charity—the Knight is perfected in the way of
the righteous life. He is a penitent seeking to cleanse his soul of the
infection of sin. On the Mount of Heavenly Contemplation he exercises
his soul in the contemplative vision of the eternal world. But the
emphasis laid by Platonism upon the loveliness of that wisdom which is
the object of contemplation results in quickening the imagination and in
stirring the soul to realize the principle in love. This is the exact
nature of the experience of the Red Cross Knight at the end of his
journey. On the Mount of Heavenly Contemplation he has a desire to
remain in the peaceful contemplation of heaven:
“O let me not (quoth he) then turne againe
Backe to the world, whose joyes so fruitlesse are;
But let me here for aye in peace remaine,
Or streight way on that last long voyage fare,
That nothing may my present hope empare.”
(I. x. 63.)
But the aged sire, Heavenly Contemplation, reminds him of his duty to
free Una’s parents from the dragon. (I. x. 63.) Obedient but still
purposing to return to the contemplative life (I. x. 64.), the Knight
descends; and in the performance of his duty he gains the reward that
the contemplative life brings. “But he,” says Plato, “whose initiation
is recent, and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other
world, is amazed when he sees any one having a godlike face or any
bodily form which is the expression of divine beauty.” (“Phædrus,” 251.)
Thus it is that the Red Cross Knight
“Did wonder much at her celestiall sight.”
(I. xii. 23.)
With that sight comes the one joy of his life after the many struggles
experienced in the perfection of his soul in holiness.
“And ever, when his eye did her behold,
His heart did seeme to melt in pleasures manifold.”
(I. xii. 40.)
II. TEMPERANCE
The spiritual welfare of the soul was the prime object of importance to
the Christian. Through the power of its doctrine of heavenly beauty
Platonism had entered into the conception of this life considered in its
heavenward aspect. It remained to show how it could explain the right
manner of conduct for the soul in the presence of those strong passions
which were felt as the disturbing elements of its inner welfare. In the
Platonic system of morality there was a conception of temperance,
σωφροσύνη, based upon an analysis of the soul sufficiently comprehensive
to cover the entire scope of its activities; in fact, temperance was
there conceived as the necessary condition for the presence of any
virtue in the soul. The vitality of this teaching in English poetry is
found in the second book of Spenser’s “Faerie Queene,” celebrating the
exploits of the knight Guyon,
“In whom great rule of Temp’raunce goodly doth appeare.”
(Introd., stz. 5.)
The adventures of Guyon, through the discipline of which he perfects
himself in temperance, fall into two distinct groups. Up to the sixth
book the conflicts in which he is concerned are those calculated to try
his mastery of the angry impulses of his nature. After the sixth book
his struggles record his proficiency in governing the sensual desires of
appetite. This division is made in accordance with the analysis of the
soul on which Plato bases his doctrine of temperance. Within the soul
are three distinct principles,—one rational and two irrational. The
irrational principles are, first, the irascible impulse of spirit
(θυμός) with which a man is angry and, second, the appetitive instinct
the workings of which are manifested in all the sensual gratifications
of the body, and in the love of wealth. The rational principle is that
of reason by which a man learns truth. (“Republic,” IX. 580, 581.)
Against this one rational principle the two irrational impulses are
constantly insurgent, and temperance is that harmony or order resulting
in the soul when the rational principle rules and the two irrational
principles are obedient to its sovereignty. “And would you not say,”
asks Socrates, “that he is temperate who has these same elements in
friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the
two subject ones of spirit and desire are equally agreed that reason
ought to rule, and do not rebel?” (“Republic,” IV. 442.)
The rule of right reason in Guyon over his angry impulses is recorded in
three instances; in each case the anger is aroused under varying
conditions. The opening episode of the book presents Guyon checking the
impetuous fury of his wrath when he learns that it has been aroused by a
false presentation of the facts. Archimago, the deceitful enemy of
truth, related to Guyon how the Red Cross Knight had violated the purity
of a maiden; and the pretended maiden herself became a party to the lie.
(II. i. 10, 11, 17.) When Guyon heard of this outrage he hastened to
avenge the wrong.
“He staid not lenger talke, but with fierce ire
And zealous hast away is quickly gone
To seeke that knight.”
(II. i. 13.)
And yet he wondered how the Red Cross Knight could have done such a
deed. He knew that he was a knight of honor and had won glory in his
defence of Una. (II. i. 19.) He was quick, then, to restrain himself
when about to charge upon the accused Knight, for on his shield he
recognized the cross of his Lord. When he was on the point of clashing
with his enemy, he
“gan abace
His threatned speare, as if some new mishap
Had him betidde, or hidden daunger did entrap.”
(II. i. 26.)
After an apology and an exchange of knightly courtesies with the Red
Cross Knight he was able to
“turne his earnest unto game,
Through goodly handing and wise temperance.”
(II. i. 31.)
The second encounter of Guyon with the forces of wrath is the struggle
with Furor and his mother Occasion. (II. iv. 3–36.) He has now to try
his strength in conquering wrath when it has an occasion to be aroused.
The power with which he strives is described as a fury of great might,
but so ill-governed by reason that in its blind passion its force is
spent to no purpose.
“And sure he was a man of mickle might,
Had he had gouvernance, it well to guide:
But when the franticke fit inflamd his spright,
His force was vaine, and strooke more often wide,
Then at the aymed marke which he had eide:
And oft himselfe he chaunst to hurt unwares,
Whilst reason blent through passion, nought descride,
But as a blindfold Bull at randon fares,
And where he hits, nought knowes, and whom he hurts nought cares.”
(II. iv. 7.)
Guyon struggles with this madman and finally, after he has quieted the
reviling tongue of Occasion, who urges her son, Furor, on to the
conflict, he binds him with iron chains.
“In his strong armes he stiffely him embraste,
Who him gainstriving, nought at all prevaild:
For all his power was utterly defaste,
And furious fits at earst quite weren quaild:
Oft he re’nforst, and oft his forces fayld,
Yet yield he would not, nor his rancour slacke.
Then him to ground he cast, and rudely hayld,
And both his hands fast bound behind his backe,
And both his feet in fetters to an yron racke.”
(II. iv. 14.)
The third trial of Guyon’s reason is by a species of wrath so wilfully
furious that it runs to seek an occasion for a quarrel, and finds no
rest until it has succeeded. This type of irascible impulse is portrayed
in Pyrochles. He delights in deeds of daring might, and in blood and
spoil. (II. iv. 42.) His squire, Atin by name, acts as his forerunner to
seek an occasion for his lord’s furious delight. (II. iv. 43.) But Guyon
masters himself both in his refusal to fight for no good reason, and in
his behavior when forced against his wishes to a conflict with
Pyrochles. Guyon bids Atin tell his master that he, Guyon, has bound
Occasion, and the Palmer, who is the rational element of Guyon
personified, lectures the squire on the folly of wilful anger.
“Madman (said then the Palmer) that does seeke
_Occasion_ to wrath, and cause of strife;
She comes unsought, and shonned followes eke.
Happy, who can abstaine, when Rancour rife
Kindles Revenge, and threats his rusty knife;
Woe never wants, where every cause is caught,
And rash _Occasion_ makes unquiet life.”
(II. iv. 44.)
Even when Guyon is compelled by Pyrochles to the fight, the Knight does
not give way to unrestrained wrath, but ever tempers his passion with
reason. In the conflict Pyrochles thundered blows:
“But _Guyon_, in the heat of all his strife,
Was warie wise, and closely did awayt
Avauntage, whilest his foe did rage most rife.”
(II. v. 9.)
When at last Guyon has his foe at his feet, he spares his life, so
firmly he holds his passion in check.
“Eftsoones his cruell hand Sir _Guyon_ stayd,
Tempring the passion with advisement slow,
And maistring might on enimy dismayd.”
(II. v. 13.)
Thus far Guyon’s life has exemplified the rule of reason over the
irrational element of wrath; the remaining episodes of his life centre
about the struggle of the irrational element of appetite. In this his
soul is tried in three various forms of sensual desire. In Phædria the
first form is typified. She represents the light gaieties of frivolous
mirth and wantonness which the courteous nature of Guyon may suffer to
play until they pass the bounds of modesty. (II. vi. 21.) When, however,
she tried to win his heart from warlike enterprise into dissolute
delights of sense, Guyon
“was wise, and warie of her will,
And ever held his hand upon his hart:
Yet would not seeme so rude, and thewed ill,
As to despise so courteous seeming part,
That gentle Ladie did to him impart,
But fairely tempring fond desire subdewd,
And ever her desired to depart.”
(II. vi. 26.)
The second trial of Guyon’s temperance comes in the House of Mammon,
where he triumphs over sensual desire in the form of covetousness.
Mammon offers him mountains of gold, if he will but serve him (II. vii.
9.); he tries to induce him to accept by saying that money is the one
necessity to supply all the wants of man. (II. vii. 11.) But Guyon
answers:
“Indeede (quoth he) through fowle intemperaunce,
Frayle men are oft captiv’d to covetise.”
(II. vii. 15.)
When Mammon urges him to seat himself on the silver stool in the Garden
of Proserpina, to rest awhile and eat of the golden fruit of the trees,—
“All which he did, to doe him deadly fall
In frayle intemperance through sinful bayt;”
Guyon
“was warie wise in all his way,
And well perceived his deceiptfull sleight,
Ne suffred lust his safetie to betray;
So goodly did beguile the Guyler of the pray.”
(II. vii. 64.)
The culminating trial of the Knight’s temperance is made in Acrasia’s
Bower of Bliss. Acrasia typifies that form of beauty that allures the
senses with pleasure, but ruins the soul with its poisonous delight.
(II. i. 52, 53.) The only fear that she and the inmates of her bower
have is
“wisedomes powre, and temperaunces might,
By which the mightiest things efforced bin.”
(II. xii. 43.)
During the passage to this place of delight, and while he was within its
precincts, Guyon was able to withstand every assault of sensual desire
upon his soul. When the Palmer, speaking as reason dictated, told him
that the piteous cry of a woman in distress was only a deceitful ruse to
win him to harm—
“The knight was ruled, and the Boatman strayt
Held on his course with stayed stedfastnesse.”
(II. xii. 28, 29.)
Again, when Guyon’s senses are “softly tickled” by the rare melody of
the mermaids, as it mingled with the strange harmony of the rolling sea,
he bids the boatman row easily.
“But him the Palmer from that vanity,
With temperate advice discounselled,
That they it past.”
(II. xii. 34.)
Even when Guyon began to lessen his pace at the sight of the fair
maidens sporting in the lake, which kindled signs of lust in his
countenance, his reason was able to resist.
“On which when gazing him the Palmer saw,
He much rebukt those wandring eyes of his,
And counseld well, him forward thence did draw.”
(II. xii. 69.)
He has now become so strong that he can perform the great object of his
adventures, the destruction of the Bower of Bliss and the capture of the
enchantress, Acrasia. (II. xii. 83, 84.)
So powerful is the hold on Spenser’s mind of this Platonic conception of
the nature of the struggle in the soul striving to be temperate that it
colors even the Aristotelean doctrine of the mean which is worked out in
the episode of Medina’s castle. (II. ii. 13 _et seq._) According to
Aristotle temperance is a mean between the excess and defect of
pleasure. (“Nich. Ethics,” III, 10.) In Spenser, Medina is the mean; her
two sisters, Elissa and Perissa, are the defect and excess respectively.
(II. ii. 35, 36.) Yet Spenser has colored the character of each in
accordance with the Platonic division of the soul. The three sisters are
daughters of one sire by three different mothers; that is, they are the
three principles of the soul (the sire); namely, right reason (Medina),
wrath or spirit (Elissa), and sensual desire (Perissa). Thus Spenser
describes Elissa:
“with bent lowring browes, as she would threat,
She scould, and frownd with froward countenaunce;”
(II. ii. 35.)
and Perissa
“Full of disport, still laughing, loosely light,
And quite contrary to her sisters kind;
No measure in her mood, no rule of right,
But poured out in pleasure and delight.”
(II. ii. 36.)
So, too, in the description of the lovers of each, the presence of the
two irrational principles is felt. In Hudibras, the devoted Knight of
Elissa—
“not so good of deedes, as great of name,
Which he by many rash adventures wan,
· · · · ·
More huge in strength, then wise in workes he was,
And reason with foole-hardize over ran,”—
(II. ii. 17.)
the angry impulse of the soul is reflected; while in Sans Loy, the lover
of Perissa, who had attempted to violate the purity of Una,—
“The most unruly, and the boldest boy,
That ever warlike weapons menaged,
And to all lawlesse lust encouraged,”—
(II. ii. 18.)
it is apparent that the appetitive element of the soul is figured.
Temperance, then, according to Spenser, is not the golden mean between
the excess and defect of pleasure, but between two disturbing passions.
“But temperance (said he) with golden squire
Betwixt them both can measure out a meane,
Neither to melt in pleasures whot desire,
Nor fry in hartlesse griefe and dolefull teene.”
(II. i. 57.)
This struggle between the rational principle and the irrational elements
in the soul does not, however, constitute temperance. That virtue, or
rather that condition of all virtue, is the harmony and order resulting
in the soul after reason has quieted the disturbing passions, and is
conceived by Plato as its very health or beauty. “‘Healthy,’ as I
conceive,” says Socrates, “is the name which is given to the regular
order of the body, whence comes health and every other bodily
excellence.... And ‘lawful’ and ‘law’ are the names which are given to
the regular order and action of the soul, and these make men lawful and
orderly:—and so we have temperance and justice.” (“Gorgias,” 504.) The
fruition of this idea in Spenser’s mind is noticeable in his manner of
speaking about temperance throughout his poem. Amavia had been able to
win her husband back to the ways of purity through wise handling and
“faire governaunce.” (II. i. 54.) The Red Cross Knight mentions the
“goodly governaunce” of Guyon’s life. (II. i. 29.) Spenser comments in
an introductory stanza on the Knight’s demeanor in pleasures and pains:
“And _Guyon_ in them all shewes goodly maisteries.”
The Knight and the Palmer move on in their path of progress “in this
faire wize,” that is, in the ways of temperance. (II. i. 34.) When
Archimago meets Guyon, he meets
“Faire marching underneath a shady hill,
A goodly knight,”
· · · · ·
“His carriage was full comely and upright,
His countenaunce demure and temperate.”
(II. i. 5, 6.)
The feeling of order is conveyed through the movements of Guyon’s
charger. The Palmer
“ever with slow pace the knight did lead,
Who taught his trampling steed with equall steps to tread.”
(II. i. 7.)
Medina, when she welcomes Guyon to her castle, meets him
“Faire marching forth in honorable wize.”
(II. ii. 14.)
The clearest explanation, however, of Spenser’s conception of temperance
as the condition of the soul’s excellence in the body is given in his
reflection at the opening of the eleventh book of the second canto,
which records the repulse of the bodily senses from the dwelling-place
of Alma, or the soul. No war is so fierce as that of the passions with
the soul.
“But in a body, which doth freely yeeld
His partes to reasons rule obedient,
And letteth her that ought the scepter weeld,
All happy peace and goodly government
Is setled there in sure establishment;
There _Alma_ like a virgin Queene most bright,
Doth florish in all beautie excellent:
And to her guestes doth bounteous banket dight,
Attempred goodly well for health and for delight.
(II. xi. 2.)
After this examination of Spenser’s ideals of holiness and temperance,
it is clear why Platonism as a system of ethics is absent in the
remaining books of the “Faerie Queene.” Spenser’s avowed aim in his poem
was “to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle
discipline.” Since he conceives of life as a constant warfare with
inward and outward foes, his method of presenting his thought is to send
each virtue on a journey during which it is to perfect itself by
overcoming the vices to whose assaults it is especially liable. This
plan is carefully followed in the first two books. The allegorical
scheme is unbroken; the personages encountered by the Knights are
objectified states of their own spiritual consciousness. In the
remaining books, however, the allegorical scheme has well-nigh broken
down; and the poetic method is that of the romantic epic of adventure in
the manner of Ariosto. This change was due very largely to the fact that
after Spenser had completed his first two books he had exhausted the
ethical teachings of Plato; and when he went on to his remaining books,
he passed out of the sphere of virtue as taught by Plato into an
essentially different realm of thought in which the graces of courtly
accomplishment were dignified as virtues. He tried to treat these later
virtues of chastity, friendship, justice, courtesy, and constancy as if
they were coördinate with the virtues of holiness and temperance. But
they fall into a distinct class by themselves. They are the ideals of
conduct to be followed when man is acting in his purely social capacity
as a member of society. They may be dignified as virtues, but can never
be coördinate with the Platonic conception of virtue, which conceives of
it not as an outward act, but as the very health of the soul when
realizing, unhampered by any disturbing influences, its native impulses
toward the good.
The difference between these two conceptions is strikingly illustrated
by a comparison of Spenser’s idea of justice with the Platonic notion.
According to the English poet, justice is purely retributive, a
dispensing of reward and punishment. The education of the Knight of
Justice, Arthegal, by Astræa, is thus described:
“There she him taught to weigh both right and wrong
In equall ballance with due recompence,
And equitie to measure out along,
According to the line of conscience,
When so it needs with rigour to dispence.”
(V. i. 7.)
In Plato, on the other hand, justice is the same thing as temperance, an
inward state of the soul and the condition of any virtue. “But,” says
Socrates, “in reality justice was such as we were describing, being
concerned however not with the outward man, but with the inward, which
is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not
permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or
any of them to do the work of others,—he sets in order his own inner
life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself;
and when he has bound together the three principles within him ... and
is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly
adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act ... always thinking and calling
that which preserves and cöoperates with this harmonious condition, just
and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and
that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust
action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance.” (“Republic,”
IV. 443.) Spenser did not attempt to incorporate this idea into his
notion of justice; he had already exhausted it in his second book, in
his explanation of temperance. Nothing was left for him to do but to
shift his mind from a conception of virtue as one, to an inferior notion
of virtue as a manifold of personal graces. But in thus changing his
idea, he destroyed the unity of his work. In his first two books he had
explained how the soul could perfect itself in the full scope of its
powers; and in doing this he had taught the Platonic doctrines of a
heavenly beauty and of temperance as the condition of virtue in the
soul. Here lay the basic idea of his conception of a gentleman.
“But vertue’s seat is deepe within the mynd,
And not in outward shows, but inward thoughts defynd.”
(VI., Introd., stz. 5.)
This idea, however, is not felt as the informing spirit of his books on
courtesy and on friendship, but appears only in scattered reflections.
In the later books the inferior conception of virtue is the controlling
idea, and Spenser has failed to harmonize it with his earlier and finer
one.
III. CHASTITY
Although Platonism as a system of ethical philosophy determined the
structural unity of the first two books of the “Faerie Queene” and as a
system ceases to be felt in the construction of the later books, the
purity of its ethical teaching is present throughout the entire work.
The truths of Platonism were a strong influence in moulding an ideal of
noble love. The cardinal doctrine of this ethical philosophy was that
true beauty is to be found by the soul only in moral ideas. This
conviction, which was so powerful in ennobling the Christian conception
of holiness, was carried over into the realm of man’s social relations,
and through the genius of Spenser made to dignify the conception of
human love, and to inform with a profound spiritual truth the idea of
chastity in its broadest signification as the purity of the soul.
The influence of the ethical conception of beauty upon the subject of
romantic love is found in the work of Spenser. Although Spenser’s mind
had a strong bent toward philosophy, so that it could interpret the very
spirit of Plato’s conception of wisdom and temperance, it was still a
mind in which the genius of the poet was always uppermost. It thus
resulted that in him the teaching of the beauty of moral ideas came to
fruition in ennobling the conception of human life by an appreciation of
the true beauty of woman’s inner nature, her womanhood, and by a
conception of love that placed its source in the reverent adoration of
this spiritual beauty.
The exposition of the true inward beauty of woman is found in the
“Epithalamion” and in a minor episode of the “Faerie Queene.” In the
account of the dialectic, by which the lover gains a sight of absolute
beauty, Plato has stated that at one stage the lover will see that
beauty of mind surpasses beauty of outward form. Plato says, “In the
next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more
honourable than the beauty of outward form.” (“Symposium,” 210.) This
idea lies at the basis of Spenser’s praise of beauty in the
“Epithalamion.” In his marriage hymn he dwells in exuberant Renaissance
fashion upon the physical perfections of the bride, each detail an
object of delight to the senses. The sight of such beauty amazes the
beholders. But after this is done, Spenser draws attention to the truth
that, although these perfections that are visible to the eye may daze
the mind, there is a higher beauty of soul which no eye can see. His
admiration for the bride’s beauty is then caught up into a more lofty
pitch and blended with his love of her moral qualities.
“Tell me ye merchants daughters did ye see
So fayre a creature in your towne before,
So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she,
Adornd with beautyes grace and vertues store,
Her goodly eyes lyke Saphyres shining bright,
Her forehead yvory white,
Her cheekes lyke apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips lyke cherryes charming men to byte,
Her brest lyke to a bowle of creame uncrudded,
Her paps lyke lyllies budded,
Her snowie necke lyke to a marble towre,
And all her body like a pallace fayre,
Ascending uppe with many a stately stayre,
To honors seat and chastities sweet bowre.
Why stand ye still ye virgins in amaze,
Upon her so to gaze,
Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing,
To which the woods did answer and your eccho ring?”
“But if ye saw that which no eyes can see,
The inward beauty of her lively spright,
Garnisht with heavenly guifts of high degree,
Much more then would ye wonder at that sight,
And stand astonisht lyke to those which red
Medusaes mazefull hed.
There dwels sweet love and constant chastity,
Unspotted fayth and comely womanhood,
Regard of honour and mild modesty,
There vertue raynes as Queene in royal throne,
And giveth lawes alone.
The which the base affections doe obay,
And yeeld theyr services unto her will,
Ne thought of things uncomely ever may
Thereto approch to tempt her mind to ill.
Had ye once seene these her celestial threasures,
And unrevealed pleasures,
Then would ye wonder and her prayses sing,
That al the woods should answer and your echo ring.”
(ll. 167–203.)
In the “Faerie Queene” there is a less elaborate example of this same
appreciation of the inward, unseen beauty of the soul. The contrast is
set up between the lively portrait of the Faerie Queene on Guyon’s
shield and the actual beauty of her person, and then extended to a
comparison of this with the beauty of her mind. Arthur has asked Guyon
who is the original of the portrait he bears on his shield and has
chanced to notice its great liveliness. Guyon does not answer directly,
but breaks out into praise of the Queen’s beauty. If a mere likeness
appeals so strongly to Arthur, what must he think when he beholds the
glorious original; and though this is fair, the beauty of her mind, if
he but knew it, would arouse great wonder and pour infinite desire into
his soul.
“Faire Sir (said he) if in that picture dead
Such life ye read, and vertue in vaine shew,
What mote ye weene, if the trew lively-head
Of that most glorious visage ye did view?
But if the beautie of her mind ye knew,
That is her bountie, and imperiall powre,
Thousand times fairer then her mortall hew,
O how great wonder would your thoughts devoure,
And infinite desire into your spirite poure!”
(II. ix. 3.)
In the vision of this inward world of beauty in woman’s mind, so Spenser
teaches, begins the passion of love. In the “Phædrus” Plato has analyzed
it as a divine fury, and in his account he emphasizes the feeling of
reverence with which the lover gazes upon the beauty of the beloved,
seeing in it the idea of pure beauty which his soul has beheld in its
prenatal existence. “But he,” says Plato, “whose initiation is recent,
and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other world, is
amazed when he sees any one having a godlike face or any bodily form
which is the expression of divine beauty; and at first a shudder runs
through him, and again the old awe steals over him; then looking upon
the face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were
not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to
his beloved as to the image of a god.” (“Phædrus,” 251.) The habit of
contemplating the beauty of the beloved in reverent fear is
characteristic of the love which Arthegal feels for Britomart. So
intimately acquainted was Spenser with Plato that he caught the spirit
of his worship of beauty. Disguised as Britomart, the virgin Knight of
Chastity, was, in her panoply of armor, her beauty was not the object of
constant sight. On three different occasions, however, when by the
removal of some portion of it her features shine forth, the impression
made by her beauty is that of reverent adoration. When Arthegal chances
thus to behold her, the sight is so awful that he hesitates to press his
suit for her love, and only after some time does he venture to win her
affections.
One occasion on which the spectators catch a glimpse of Britomart’s
beauty occurs when she unlaces her helmet. The sight of her golden locks
strikes all with amazement; and though there is a mingled feeling of
surprise and curiosity, due to the preconceived notion of her sex, the
feeling of amazement and adoration of her beauty is expressly stated as
consequent upon this revelation.
“With that, her glistring helmet she unlaced;
Which doft, her golden lockes, that were up bound
Still in a knot, unto her heeles downe traced,
And like a silken veile in compasse round
About her backe and all her bodie wound;
Like as the shining skie in summers night,
What time the dayes with scorching heat abound,
Is creasted all with lines of firie light,
That it prodigious seemes in common peoples sight.
“Such when those Knights and Ladies all about
Beheld her, all were with amazement smit,
And every one gan grow in secret dout
Of this and that, according to each wit:
· · · · ·
“But that young Knight [Scudamour], which through her gentle deed
Was to that goodly fellowship restor’d,
Ten thousand thankes did yeeld her for her meed,
And doubly overcommen, her ador’d.”
(IV. i. 13, 14, 15.)
A second time when her beauty is revealed in greater fulness, the
feeling of terror and amazement inspired is especially emphasized. The
spectators are described as standing in mute astonishment, in worship of
her divine beauty.
“Which whenas they beheld, they smitten were
With great amazement of so wondrous sight,
And each on other, and they all on her
Stood gazing, as if suddein great affright
Had them surprised. At last avizing right,
Her goodly personage and glorious hew,
Which they so much mistooke, they tooke delight
In their first errour, and yet still anew
With wonder of her beauty fed their hungry vew.
“Yet note their hungry vew be satisfide,
But seeing still the more desir’d to see,
And ever firmely fixed did abide
In contemplation of divinitie.”
(III. ix. 23, 24.)
In the fight between Britomart and Arthegal the sword of the latter cuts
away a part of her ventayle, discovering to his view her beautiful face.
As he is about to raise his arm for a second blow, he is benumbed with
fear, and, falling on his knee, he gazes upon her beauty with a true
religious feeling of wonder.
“And as his hand he up againe did reare,
Thinking to worke on her his utmost wracke,
His powrelesse arme benumbd with secret feare
From his revengefull purpose shronke abacke,
And cruell sword out of his fingers slacke
Fell downe to ground, as if the steele had sence,
And felt some ruth, or sence his hand did lacke,
Or both of them did thinke, obedience
To doe to so divine a beauties excellence.
“And he himselfe long gazing thereupon
At last fell humbly downe upon his knee,
And of his wonder made religion,
Weening some heavenly goddesse he did see,
Or else unweeting, what it else might bee;
And pardon her besought his errour frayle,
That had done outrage in so high degree;
Whilest trembling horrour did his sense assayle,
And made ech member quake, and manly hart to quayle.”
(IV. vi. 21, 22.)
With this vision of the resplendent beauty of chastity begins Arthegal’s
love for Britomart. It has been pointed out by critics that the love
episode between Britomart and Arthegal was a suggestion—so far as plot
goes—which Spenser found in Ariosto’s account of the love of Ruggiero
and Bradamante in the “Orlando Furioso.”[1] But the great difference in
the poets appears in the contrast of the passionate love of beauty
revealed in Spenser’s poem with the superficial delights of love as
explained in Ariosto. As has already been seen, Platonism as a system of
ethics disappears from the “Faerie Queene” after the second book; but so
deeply had Spenser been impressed with the worship of beauty
characteristic of Plato’s manner, that when he came to recount the
history of the passion of love, in his Knight of Justice, for his
heroine, Chastity, he centred attention upon the feeling of awe and
reverence inspired by the beauty of chastity, and intimated the sobering
effect of this vision upon the behavior of the lover. He found nothing
like this in the “Orlando Furioso.” The love episode in Ariosto is thus
briefly described:
“Rogero looks on Bradamant, and she
Looks on Rogero in profound surprise
That for so many days that witchery
Had so obscured her altered mind and eyes.
Rejoiced, Rogero clasps his lady free,
Crimsoning with deeper than the rose’s dyes,
And his fair love’s first blossoms, while he clips
The gentle damsel, gathers from her lips.
“A thousand times they their embrace renew,
And closely each is by the other prest;
While so delightful are these lovers two,
Their joys are ill contained within their breast.”
(xxii. 32, 33.)
Here is only the note of delight. In Spenser, however, the dread awe
aroused by Britomart’s beauty restrains the passionate utterance of the
lover, and only after some time has elapsed, during which the two have
rested from the fatigues of their combat, does Arthegal dare to make
suit to Britomart’s affections,—
“Yet durst he not make love so suddenly,
Ne thinke th’ affection of her hart to draw
From one to other so quite contrary.”
(IV. vi. 33.)
The training afforded by the philosophy of Plato in the realization of
the true moral value of beauty has a somewhat different result in the
work of Milton. Owing to his preconceived notion of the moral
inferiority of woman, Milton does not permit his mind to dwell upon the
vision of beauty to be seen in her, as Spenser’s chivalric impulses have
led him to do; but in Milton the flowering of Platonic thought is found
in a certain conception of chastity, which teaches that love begins and
ends only in the soul. And yet the deep sense of beauty which he has,
asserts itself at times even in spite of his prejudices; consequently in
his work there is a wavering of mind between the conviction that woman’s
beauty cannot be the expression of the beauty of a moral order, since
she is the moral inferior of man, and the more chivalric notion that in
her beauty lies the inspiration of the soul to know goodness.
In Milton the love of beauty is the conscious activity of a
contemplative mind rather than the pouring out of the soul’s passion in
reverent adoration. About Spenser beauty lies as a golden splendour
streaming from the hidden world of the moral nature; whenever it shines
upon the lover’s sight, it at once moves him to silent adoration. In
Milton, on the other hand, beauty is an idea to be known in the soul by
him who seeks for it among the beautiful objects of the world of sense;
its pursuit is an intellectual quest of a philosophic mind. Writing to
his friend, Charles Diodati, he says: “What besides God has resolved
concerning me I know not, but this at least: _He has instilled into me,
at all events, a vehement love of the beautiful._ Not with so much
labour as the fables have it, is Ceres said to have sought her daughter
Proserpine, as I am wont day and night to seek for this _idea of the
beautiful_ (hanc τοῦ καλοῦ ἰδέaν) through all the forms and faces of
things (_for many are the shapes of things divine_), and to follow it
leading me on as with certain assured traces.”[2]
The expression of this love of beauty is found in Milton’s Satan.
Abiding beneath the wreck of his moral character, in spite of the
perversion of a malicious will, there remain in Satan a deep sense of
beauty and a contemplative love of it for its moral quality. In a speech
addressed to Christ in “Paradise Regained” Satan himself confesses this
one conviction of his soul. The contemplative love of the beauty of
goodness and virtue is the very condition of his soul’s existence. Thus
he says:
“Though I have lost,
Much lustre of my native brightness, lost
To be beloved of God, I have not lost
To love, at least contemplate and admire,
What I see excellent in good, or fair,
Or virtuous; I should so have lost all sense.”
(I. 377–382.)
The honesty of this confession is not impugned by Christ, although he
exposes the hollow insincerity of the rest of Satan’s speech in which
these lines occur.
And Satan lives up to his confession. The power of moral goodness to
hold his mind’s thought by its beauty is seen in his behavior in the
Garden of Eden. He had reached this place in pursuit of his revenge to
ruin the happy pair. As he gazes upon the beauties of the garden,
“where the Fiend
Saw undelighted all delight, all kind
Of living creatures, new to sight and strange,”—
(IV. 285–287.)
he at last catches sight of Adam and Eve, in whom
“The image of their glorious Maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure.”
(IV. 292–293.)
On these he stands gazing until evening, and at last breaks out into an
expression of the love which this vision of their beauty has aroused in
him:
“the sun,
Declined, was hasting now with prone career
To the Ocean Isles, and in the ascending scale
Of Heaven the stars that usher evening rose:
When Satan, still in gaze, as first he stood,
Scarce thus at length failed speech recovered sad:—
‘O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold?
Into our room of bliss thus high advanced
Creatures of other mould—Earth-born perhaps,
Not spirits, yet to Heavenly Spirits bright
Little inferior—whom my thoughts pursue
With wonder, and could love; so lively shines
In them divine resemblance, and such grace
The hand that formed them on their shape hath poured.’”
(IV. 352–365.)
At another time Satan is occupied in contemplating beauty, but it is the
beauty he sees in Eve alone. Milton’s treatment of the episode is
characteristic of that wavering of his mind between the two impulses—one
to worship beauty, and the other to teach that woman is the inferior of
man. The later conviction is expressed in Adam’s words to Raphael:
“For well I understand in the prime end
Of Nature her the inferior, in the mind
And inward faculties, which most excel;
In outward also her resembling less
His image who made both, and less expressing
The character of that dominion given
O’er other creatures.”
(VIII. 540–546.)
Thus Eve confesses that in Adam’s beauty, and not in the image of her
own soft feminine grace, does she
“see
How beauty is excelled by manly grace
And wisdom, which alone is truly fair.”
(IV. 489–491.)
Yet in the presence of Eve’s beauty Satan stands lost in contemplation,
made for one moment good.
“Such pleasure took the Serpent to behold
This flowery plat, the sweet recess of Eve
Thus early, thus alone. Her heavenly form
Angelic, but more soft and feminine,
Her graceful innocence, her every air
Of gesture or least action, overawed
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved
His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought.
That space the Evil One abstracted stood
From his own evil, and for the time remained
Stupidly good, of enmity disarmed,
Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge.”
(IX. 455–466.)
Even here the idea of the inferiority of Eve’s beauty enters into the
description; but a few lines below it makes itself even more strongly
felt. Because her beauty is without its power to inspire awe and terror,
Satan reasons that she is the proper one to tempt.
“Then let me not let pass
Occasion which now smiles. Behold alone
The Woman, opportune to all attempts—
Her husband, for I view far round, not nigh,
Whose higher intellectual more I shun.
· · · · ·
She fair, divinely fair, fit love for Gods,
Not terrible, though terror be in love
And beauty, not approached by stronger hate,
Hate stronger under show of love well feigned.”
(IX. 479–492.)
In this contemplative love of beauty there is present as a noticeable
element the consciousness in the poet’s mind of the moral significance
of beauty. In Spenser’s description of the first meeting of Calidore
with Pastorella, however, the contemplative love of beauty so absorbs
the power of the soul that the lover and the poet are oblivious to every
other thought and silently gaze upon the beauty of form present to their
eyes. Calidore sees Pastorella on a little hillock surrounded by
maidens, she lovelier than all.
“So stood he still long gazing thereupon,
Ne any will had thence to move away,
Although his quest were farre afore him gon;
But after he had fed, yet did he stay,
And sate there still, untill the flying day
Was farre forth spent.”
(VI. ix. 12.)
So Satan stands before the happy pair in Paradise. His will toward them
is far otherwise than Calidore’s toward Pastorella; but his
contemplative love of their beauty is one in spirit with the youthful
lover’s.
The most characteristic side of Milton’s idealism, however, is revealed
in his teaching of the doctrine of chastity as the purity of the soul.
In the defence of his own life which he made in “An Apology for
Smectymnuus,” he acknowledges an important debt in his education to the
teaching of Platonic philosophy. “Thus, from the laureat fraternity of
poets,” he says, “riper years and the ceaseless round of study and
reading led me to the shady spaces of philosophy; but chiefly to the
divine volumes of Plato, and his equal Xenophon: where, if I should tell
ye what I learnt of chastity and love, I mean that which is truly so,
whose charming cup is only virtue, which she bears in her hand to those
who are worthy ... and how the first and chiefest office of love begins
and ends in the soul, producing those happy twins of her divine
generation, knowledge and virtue: with such abstracted sublimities as
these, it might be worth your listening, readers, as I may one day hope
to have ye in a still time, when there shall be no chiding.”[3] Milton
was the only poet of his time who was able to conceive of chastity as an
“abstracted sublimity,” known in and by the soul. In his treatment of
this theme, there are two phases: one in which the enthusiasm of Milton
asserts itself in a positive way, and the other a conviction of maturer
experience, in which sin is explained negatively in its relation to the
soul’s purity.
The fundamental idea of Plato on which Milton built his doctrine of
chastity is the one taught in the “Phædo,” that every experience of the
soul gained through the medium of the senses tends to degrade the soul’s
pure essence into the grosser, corporeal form of the body. “And were we
not saying long ago,” says Socrates, “that the soul, when using the body
as an instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of
sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving
through the body is perceiving through the senses)—were we not saying
that the soul too is then dragged by the body into the region of the
changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and
she is like a drunkard, when she touches change?” (“Phædo,” 79.) This
appears in the “Comus” in a modified form, and constitutes the basis for
Milton’s conception of sin in “Paradise Lost.” In the masque the idea is
plainly stated by the Elder Brother in his explanation of the doctrine
of chastity; and its workings are seen in the effect of the magic potion
of Comus upon all who drink it.
“But, when lust,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in charnel-vaults, and sepulchres,
Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loath to leave the body that it loved;
And linked itself by carnal sensualty
To a degenerate and degraded state.”[4]
(ll. 463–475.)
This idea, thus stated, is represented symbolically in the disfigurement
which the magic liquor of Comus works in the divine character of the
soul visible in the countenance.
“Soon as the potion works, their human count’nance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf or bear,
Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were.
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.”
(ll. 68–77.)
The opposition indicated in the Platonic doctrine between the senses and
the soul is carried over by Milton in his description of the trial
undergone by the spirit of him who strives to be chaste. In Plato the
fundamental idea is somewhat different from Milton’s; for Plato is
concerned with the problem of the attainment by the soul of pure
knowledge, and he means by sense knowledge not sensuality in the
restricted moral signification of that word, but in the broader
signification of all experience gained through all the senses. Milton,
however, places a narrow interpretation upon the doctrine of Plato. This
is evident in his description of the attempt made by Comus to allure The
Lady to sensual indulgence.
Comus endeavors twice to overpower The Lady. He tries to tempt her to
impurity of conduct, and also seeks to blind her judgment through the
power of sense illusion. In this second trial there may be seen the
influence of the Platonic notion of sense knowledge destroying the
soul’s purity; the first trial contains the more narrow application of
the idea of unchastity. Milton himself calls attention to the greater
similarity of Comus to his mother, Circe, the enchantress of men’s
minds, than to Bacchus, the god of wine. He is
“a son
Much like his father, but his mother more.”
(ll. 56, 57.)
In keeping with his character he tries to entice The Lady to drink his
magic potion. He reminds her that about him are all the pleasures that
fancy can beget; he praises the marvellous efficacy of his elixir in
stirring joy within; and pleads with her not to be cruel to the dainty
limbs that were given for gentle usage.
“See, here be all the pleasures
That fancy can beget on youthful thoughts,
When the fresh blood grows lively, and returns
Brisk as the April buds in primrose season.
And first behold this cordial julep here,
That flames and dances in his crystal bounds,
With spirits of balm and fragrant syrups mixed.
Not that Nepenthes which the wife of Thone
In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena
Is of such power to stir up joy as this,
To life so friendly, or so cool to thirst.
Why should you be so cruel to yourself,
And to those dainty limbs, which Nature lent
For gentle usage, and soft delicacy?
But you invert the covenants of her trust,
And harshly deal, like an ill borrower,
With that which you received on other terms,
Scorning the unexempt condition
By which all mortal frailty must subsist,
Refreshment after toil, ease after pain,
That have been tired all day without repast,
And timely rest have wanted. But, fair virgin,
This will restore all soon.”
(ll. 668–689.)
To this argument The Lady replies simply that no real pleasure can
result from mere physical gratification, but only from the enjoyment of
the moral quality of goodness. Thus she says to Comus:
“I would not taste thy treasonous offer. None
But such as are good men can give good things;
And that which is not good is not delicious
To a well-governed and wise appetite.”
(ll. 702–705.)
But when Comus reveals the more subtle trait of his nature, the response
which The Lady makes rises to the height of the threatening danger. The
Circean strain in his character is his power of deceiving the soul
through sense illusion, and his insidious desire to win his way into the
hearts of men by courteous words and gay rhetoric. Thus, when he first
is conscious of the approach of The Lady, he says:
“Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments.”
(ll. 153–156.)
The effect of this sense witchery is seen in the forebodings of The
Lady’s fancy and in the hallucinations that haunt her mind as she comes
within the range of its spells. She says:
“A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men’s names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.”
(ll. 205–209.)
When Comus, then, begins to practise the more dangerous art of this
witchery, acting in accordance with his confession of his manner,—
“under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,”—
(ll. 160–162.)
she responds to the attack with an account of the great power of
chastity. Only because she sees that he is trying to deceive her
judgment does she deign to answer him.
“I had not thought to have unlocked my lips
In this unhallowed air, but that this juggler
Would think to charm my judgment, as mine eyes,
Obtruding false rules pranked in reason’s garb.”
(ll. 756–759.)
She then intimates the power which the doctrine of chastity has to
overcome Comus, and states that, should she attempt to unfold it, the
enthusiasm of her soul would be such as to overwhelm him and his magic
structures.
“Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,
That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence;
Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinced.
Yet, should I try, the uncontrollèd worth
Of this pure cause would kindle my rapt spirits
To such a flame of sacred vehemence
That dumb things would be moved to sympathize,
And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and shake,
Till all thy magic structures, reared so high,
Were shattered into heaps o’er thy false head.”
(ll. 790–799.)
This vehemence of moral enthusiasm in Milton is due to the conception of
chastity as an “abstracted sublimity.” He learned it, he says, in his
study of Platonic philosophy; but the teaching of it as a positive
doctrine applied to human conduct is his own contribution, and strikes
the characteristic note of his idealism. In Plato he found only the
suggestion of this teaching. It lay in that idea of the “Phædo,” already
explained, of the destruction of the soul’s purity through sense
knowledge. Milton’s imagination, working upon this idea, transformed it
in a way peculiar to himself alone. The pure soul, according to his
belief, has power in itself to change the body to its own pure essence.
The conversion of body to soul, however, is not a tenet of Platonic
philosophy in any phase. It was the working in Milton of that tendency,
visible throughout the poetry of the seventeenth century, to assert the
primacy of the soul in life—an attempt which was made by the
metaphysical poets especially in their treatment of love.
The statement of this theory of chastity is explained in “Comus,” and
its quickening influence is felt in the very manner in which Milton
refers to it. Before the Elder Brother recounts the effect of lust upon
the soul he explains the hidden power of chastity.
“So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity
That, when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear;
Till oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turns it by degrees to the soul’s essence,
Till all be made immortal.”
(ll. 453–463.)
This is the “abstracted sublimity” which The Lady refers to when she
addresses Comus. It is a notion, a mystery, which he, standing for the
purely sensual instincts of man, cannot apprehend. She tells him:
“Thou hast nor ear, nor soul, to apprehend
The sublime notion and high mystery
That must be uttered to unfold the sage
And serious doctrine of Virginity;
And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know
More happiness than this thy present lot.”
(ll. 784–789.)
So powerfully, indeed, has the vision of beauty described in the
“Phædrus” and the “Symposium” affected Milton’s own imagination that he
visualizes chastity much as Plato does an idea; it is an idea not only
known to the mind, but thrilling the imagination with its beauty. When
The Lady is at first conscious of the power of Comus’s magic to disturb
her mind with foreboding fancies, she invokes faith, hope, and chastity.
The first two are seen as personages, but chastity only as a pure,
unblemished form.
“O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,
And thou unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly.”
(ll. 213–216.)
The directness of this vision is like that of the soul in the “Phædrus”
when it sees the flashing beauty of the beloved, “which,” says Plato,
“when the charioteer [the soul] sees, his memory is carried to the true
beauty, whom he beholds in company with Modesty like an image placed
upon a holy pedestal.” (“Phædrus,” 254.)
It is in the vision of this holy beauty as a lost possession of the soul
that the deadly pang of sin lies. In Milton’s later work there is no
reference to the power of the chaste soul to change the body to its own
pure essence; but his mind still holds to the power of sin to dim the
soul’s lustre. This is strikingly exemplified in the character of
Satan’s reflection on his faded glory. The one keen regret that he
feels, in spite of his indomitable will, is occasioned by the thought
that by reason of sinning his form has lost the beauty of its original
goodness. Throughout “Paradise Lost” there is repeated emphasis upon the
faded lustre of Satan’s form. The very first words that fall from
Satan’s lips, in his speech to Beelzebub, as the two lay rolling in the
fiery gulf, draw our attention to the great change in their outward
forms.
“To whom the Arch-Enemy,
And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words
Breaking the horrid silence, thus began:—
‘If thou beest he—but Oh how fallen! how changed
From him!—who, in the happy realms of light,
Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine
Myriads, though bright.’”
(I. 81–87.)
And then, as Satan proceeds, his mind is directed to his own departed
glory.
“Yet not for those [_i.e._ the force of the Almighty’s arms]
Nor what the potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict, do I repent, or change,
Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind,
And high disdain from sense of injured merit.”
(I. 94–98.)
In his address to the Sun Satan expresses his hatred of that bright
light because it brings to remembrance the more glorious state from
which he fell.
“O thou that, with surpassing glory crowned,
Look’st from thy sole dominion like the god
Of this new World—at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads—to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere.”
(IV. 32–39.)
When the moral significance of this change in his form flashes through
his mind, Satan then suffers the deepest regret that could come to him.
The episode in which he learns the true effect of his sin is his
encounter with the angels, Ithuriel and Zephon. These two have found him
“squat like a toad” at the ear of Eve, trying to work upon her mind
while she sleeps. At the touch of Ithuriel’s spear Satan springs up in
his real form. Ithuriel then asks which of the rebel angels he may be.
The lofty pride of Satan is touched to the quick.
“‘Know ye not, then,’ said Satan, filled with scorn,
‘Know ye not me? Ye knew me once no mate
For you, there sitting where ye durst not soar!
Not to know me argues yourselves unknown,
The lowest of your throng.’”
(IV. 827–831.)
Zephon, however, points out that Satan should not think that he may
still be known, as he was in heaven, by the brightness of his form; for
his glory departed when he rebelled, and now resembles his sin and place
of doom.
“Think not, revolted Spirit, thy shape the same,
Or undiminished brightness, to be known
As when thou stood’st in Heaven upright and pure.
That glory then, when thou no more wast good,
Departed from thee; and thou resemblest now
Thy sin and place of doom obscure and foul.”
(IV. 835–840.)
At this thought Satan stands abashed. Lover of the beautiful as he is,
he now experiences the pang of its loss in his own life.
“So spake the Cherub; and his grave rebuke,
Severe in youthful beauty, added grace
Invincible. Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely—saw, and pined
His loss; but chiefly to find here observed
His lustre visibly impaired; yet seemed
Undaunted.”
(IV. 844–851.)
In Milton, then, whether his mind dwells on chastity or on the
consciousness of sin’s effect on the soul, it is to the vision of a
world of moral beauty that at last it mounts.
The relation of these ideals of holiness, temperance, and chastity to
the Christian doctrine of grace, which finds a place in the works of
these English poets, can now be clearly seen. The ideals of conduct are
essentially moral ideals, and in the attainment of them the soul lives
its fullest life. “The being who possesses good always, everywhere, and
in all things,” says Socrates in the “Philebus” (60), “has the most
perfect sufficiency.” According to Plato the soul may realize perfect
sufficiency of itself, it is self-sufficient; but Christian theology
taught the necessity of a heavenly grace for man to work out his own
salvation. The two ideals are thus distinct; and though the English
poets incorporate both in their work, the line of cleavage is distinctly
visible, and the doctrine of grace plays no more than a formal part in
their exposition of the soul’s growth. In the “Faerie Queene” and in
“Comus” Platonic idealism triumphs over Christian theology.
In Spenser the adventures of Arthur, in whom heavenly grace is commonly
recognized, have no moral significance in the progress of the Knight
aided by him toward the realization of virtue. Arthur frees the Red
Cross Knight from Orgoglio and Duessa, but the Red Cross Knight is,
morally speaking, the same man after he is freed as before; the
adventure of Arthur answers to no change significant in the moral order
of his life as this is revealed in holiness. The realization of holiness
as an intimate experience of the soul is achieved only after the
Knight’s training on the Mount of Heavenly Contemplation, which follows
all his preceding discipline in the Christian graces; for this has left
him a “man of earth.” In the legend of temperance the efficacy of grace
is no more vital, and what is more, it is an intrusion upon the moral
order; it makes the soul untrue to itself and all that we know of her.
The logic of Guyon’s inner life did not require that Arthur should come
to his rescue after he had shown his ability to remain temperate under
strong emotion and in the presence of wantonness and covetousness. His
swoon at the end of the seventh canto has no more meaning than mere
bodily fatigue after toil; morally, Guyon should have been only the
stronger for his past victories over his passions. Arthur’s entrance at
the eighth canto, consequently, is not required: Spenser is only
paralleling in his second book Arthur’s advent in the eighth canto of
his first.
Similarly in “Comus.” When the younger brother inquires what that power
which The Lady possesses to keep herself unspotted in the presence of
lust may be, if it is not the strength of heaven, his elder companion
replies:
“I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength,
Which, if Heaven gave it, may be termed her own.
’Tis chastity, my brother, chastity.”
(ll. 418–420.)
So The Lady herself witnesses, when in the great crisis of her life she
appeals to faith, hope, and chastity; _if need were_, she is confident
that heaven would send an angel to her defence.
“O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings,
And thou unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassailed.”
(ll. 212–220.)
And the Guardian Spirit, in whose parting words is found the moral of
the poem, explains the same idea of the self-sufficiency of the virtuous
soul.
“Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free.
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or, if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.”
(ll. 1018–1023.)
The theological doctrine of grace, although maintained as a part of an
intellectual scheme of thought, did not enter into the inward life of
Spenser’s and Milton’s work. So sensitive were they to the power of
beauty that nothing could come between it and the soul. To Milton beauty
wore an invincible grace, before which all must give way. Satan
recognized this when he was confronted by the angel, Zephon.
“So spake the Cherub; and his grave rebuke,
Severe in youthful beauty, added grace
Invincible.”
(IV. 844–846.)
Nothing was more natural, then, than that such a mind feeding upon
Plato’s thought and learning its great lesson of wisdom, that it alone
is truly fair, should conceive virtue panoplied in all the might of
beauty. He thus could teach in his “Comus” “the sun-clad power of
chastity”:
“She that has that is clad in complete steel,
And, like a quivered nymph with arrows keen,
May trace huge forests, and unharboured heaths,
Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds,
Where, through the sacred rays of chastity,
No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer,
Will dare to soil her virgin purity.”
(ll. 421–427.)
In Spenser beauty is not thus militant. When the Red Cross Knight, eager
to enter the Cave of Error (I. i. 12), says to Una, confident in his
power,
“Virtue gives her selfe light, through darkenesse for to wade,”
Una cautions him to stay his step while there yet is time. (I. i. 13.)
But it is just as true in Spenser as in Milton, that beauty is an
unerring guide in life. Spenser responded to it because he felt most
deeply the power of the soul’s affinity for it. Throughout his work the
influence of beauty upon man is constantly present. Even though at times
he seems to be drawn to it by the subtlety of its appeal to the sense
alone, he makes it very evident that true beauty can be found in the
soul only in its habits of virtuous life. Thus the witch Duessa, when
stripped of her alluring beauty, is revolting in her hideousness (I. ii.
40; II. i. 22), and Acrasia’s beauty only poisons the souls of her
lovers. (II. i. 54.) Beauty that is nothing but a mere witchery of the
sense disappears into thin air when confronted by virtue in her beauty.
This is the lesson taught in the vanishing of the false Florimell when
the true is placed beside her. (V. iii. 25.) The power of this affinity
of the soul for beauty, mysterious as it is real, which Spenser’s work
reveals, is conveyed in a question from Sidney’s “Arcadia,” where the
spirit of the “Phædrus” is all present. “Did ever mans eye looke
thorough love upon the majesty of vertue, shining through beauty, but
that he became (as it well became him) a captive?”[5]
CHAPTER II
THEORY OF LOVE
I. HEAVENLY LOVE
Heavenly love, as conceived in the poetry of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, refers to two distinct experiences. By this term
the poets meant either the love known in the soul for the realities of
the unseen world or the love which God had shown to man in his creation
and preservation, and which man could experience through the indwelling
of God’s spirit within him. In the explanation of the nature of these
two experiences the teaching of Platonism played a very important part,
directing the course of that love of man for heavenly things, and
accounting for the presence of love in the Godhead.
To the discussion of the latter of these subjects Platonism was able to
offer two conceptions, in which a rational explanation of God’s love as
revealed in the creation could be found; one presenting the highest
reality as beauty, the other as the good. The first conception was
present in its theory of love. In the “Symposium” Plato had taught that
love was a desire of birth in beauty, and that the highest love was a
desire of birth in beauty absolute, the ultimate principle of all
beauty. (“Symposium,” 206, 211–212.) Christianity, on the other hand,
had taught that God is love. By identifying the absolute beauty of Plato
with God, and by applying the Platonic conception of the birth of love
to this Christian conception of God as love, God Himself was understood
as enjoying his own beauty, thus begetting beings like to it in
fairness. In Spenser’s “Hymne of Heavenly Love,” this idea forms the
first division of the poem which treats of the love of God. (ll.
25–122.) At first God is conceived as living in Himself in love.
“Before this worlds great frame, in which al things
Are now containd, found any being place,
Ere flitting Time could wag his eyas wings
About that mightie bound, which doth embrace
The rolling Spheres, and parts their houres by space,
That high eternall powre, which now doth move
In all these things, mov’d in it selfe by love.”
(ll. 25–31.)
Loving itself, this Power brought forth, first the Son.
“It lov’d it selfe, because it selfe was faire;
(For faire is lov’d;) and of it selfe begot
Like to it selfe his eldest sonne and heire,
Eternall, pure, and voide of sinfull blot.”
(ll. 32–35.)
After the creation of the Son God begets the angels in His beauty.
“Yet being pregnant still with powrefull grace,
And full of fruitfull love, that loves to get
Things like himselfe, and to enlarge his race,
His second brood though not in powre so great,
Yet full of beautie, next he did beget
An infinite increase of Angels bright,
All glistring glorious in their Makers light.”
(ll. 53–59.)
After the fall of the angels God finally creates man.
“Such he him made, that he resemble might
Himselfe, as mortall thing immortall could;
Him to be Lord of every living wight,
He made by love out of his owne like mould,
In whom he might his mightie selfe behould:
For love doth love the thing belov’d to see,
That like it selfe in lovely shape may bee.”
(ll. 116–122.)
The second conception of the highest reality as the good is used in a
more general way to explain the reason of creation. In the “Timæus” the
Maker of the universe is conceived as creating the world in goodness.
“Let me tell you,” says Timæus, “why the creator made this world of
generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of
anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things
should be as like himself as they could be.” (“Timæus,” 29.) In Henry
More the idea is expressed in the closing canto of his “Psychathanasia,”
where he is accounting for the creation. (III. 4.) He has words of
bitter denunciation for those who teach that God created the world
merely as a manifestation of His power, His will. (III. iv. 22.) He
maintains the Platonic teaching.
“When nothing can to Gods own self accrew,
Who’s infinitely happy; sure the end
Of this creation simply was to shew
His flowing goodnesse, which he doth out send
Not for himself; for nought can him amend;
But to his creature doth his good impart,
This infinite _Good_ through all the world doth wend
To fill with heavenly blisse each willing heart.
So the free Sunne doth ’light and ’liven every part.”
(III. iv. 16.)
So closely allied in the English poets are the teachings of Platonism
with the devotional spirit of Christian love that in the same man and
even in the same experience the thought can pass most naturally from a
conception of Christ’s love for God, as absolute beauty, to a subjective
treatment of it as a personal experience. Thus in George Herbert’s
lyric, “Love,” the invocation is to the love of Christ for God springing
from His imperishable beauty; but in the second division of the poem
this love has become a refining fire that can burn all lusts within the
soul and enable it to see Him.
“Immortall Love, author of this great frame,
Sprung from that beauty which can never fade,
How hath man parcel’d out Thy glorious name,
And thrown it in that dust which Thou hast made.
· · · · ·
“Immortall Heat, O let Thy greater flame
Attract the lesser to it; let those fires
Which shall consume the world first make it tame,
And kindle in our hearts such true desires
As may consume our lusts, and make Thee way:
Then shall our hearts pant Thee, then shall our brain
All her invention on Thine altar lay,
And there in hymnes send back Thy fire again.
“Our eies shall see Thee, which before saw dust—
Dust blown by Wit, till that they both were blinde:
Thou shalt recover all Thy goods in kinde,
Who wert disseizèd by usurping lust.”
The earlier conception of heavenly love, as related to absolute beauty,
is not, however, the more important of the two themes of this poetry.
From the very nature of the love itself, although it could be described
in accordance with certain Platonic conceptions, it could not be the
subject of a personal treatment; it gave no sufficient outlet for the
passion of love. This was afforded only by that heavenly love which is
the love of man for the unseen realities of the spiritual world. The
full treatment which this latter subject receives in English poetry
testifies to the strong hold which the teachings of Platonism had upon
religious experience in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Platonism afforded not only the philosophic basis for the object of this
passion, but it also acted as a corrective tendency in checking the
influence of an alien idea, erotic mysticism.
Heavenly love, understood as a love known in the soul for a spiritual,
or as it was then called, heavenly beauty, sprang out of the treatment
to which Plato had subjected love in the “Symposium.” In English it
appears in two separate forms, although in both it consists in gaining a
correct idea of the relation of the beauty known to the senses as
compared with that known by the soul. The only difference in the two
expressions is that the object of the passion is variously described.
In Spenser’s “Hymne of Heavenly Beautie” occurs the first form of this
love. The heavenly beauty celebrated in this “Hymne” is the Platonic
wisdom, Sapience, as Spenser calls it, the same high reality with which
he had identified Una. (l. 186.) The subject of the love in the “Hymne”
is formally presented as God, who is described as
“that Highest farre beyond all telling,
Fairer then all the rest which there appeare,
Though all their beauties joynd together were:
How then can mortall tongue hope to expresse,
The image of such endlesse perfectnesse?”
(ll. 104–108.)
Yet the real subject is the praise of Sapience, to which somewhat more
than one-third of the “Hymne” is devoted. A description of her
transcendent beauty and her power to fill the soul of the beholder with
true insight into the relative beauty of this world of sense and that of
spirit is the climax of the poem. Among all the attributes of God
mentioned, His truth, His love, His grace, His mercy, His might, His
judgment (ll. 113–115), the greatest is Sapience, who is described as
sitting in the very bosom of the Almighty. (l. 187.) The fairness of her
face, he says, none can tell; no painter or poet can adequately describe
her; his own powers are so weak that he can only admire, not presuming
to picture her. (ll. 207–241.) So completely, however, does she occupy
the field of spiritual vision in the happy mortals that behold her, that
“Ne from thenceforth doth any fleshly sense,
Or idle thought of earthly things remaine,
But all that earst seemd sweet, seemes now offense,
And all that pleased earst, now seemes to paine,
Their joy, their comfort, their desire, their gaine,
Is fixed all on that which now they see,
All other sights but fayned shadowes bee.
“And that faire lampe, which useth to enflame
The hearts of men with selfe consuming fyre,
Thenceforth seemes fowle, and full of sinfull blame;
And all that pompe, to which proud minds aspyre
By name of honor, and so much desyre,
Seemes to them basenesse, and all riches drosse,
And all mirth sadnesse, and all lucre losse.
“So full their eyes are of that glorious sight,
And senses fraught with such satietie,
That in nought else on earth they can delight,
But in th’ aspect of that felicitie,
Which they have written in their inward ey;
On which they feed, and in their fastened mynd
All happie joy and full contentment fynd.”
(ll. 270–290.)
According to Spenser, then, heavenly love is the love felt in the soul
when the sight of wisdom in her beauty dawns upon the inner vision. It
is a love gained through speculation; and though the object is conceived
of as yonder in heaven, it is still the beauty which is seen here in the
mind. (l. 17.) Instead of the poetical device of the Mount of Heavenly
Contemplation used in the “Faerie Queene” to signify the refinement of
the spiritual vision necessary to the sight of this heavenly wisdom,
Spenser has been able to explain in detail the way along which the soul
must travel to gain its goal. It is the dialectic of the “Symposium”
(211), the progress through ever ascending gradations of beauty up to
the first absolute beauty changed only in the externals as required by
the Christian conception of the heavenly hierarchy. But throughout the
long series of upward stages through which his mind passes, one may feel
the quickening of his spirit at the thought of the highest beauty, in
which lies the unity of the poem. In the contemplation of this heavenly
beauty the poem begins and ends.
“Rapt with the rage of mine own ravisht thought,
Through contemplation of those goodly sights,
And glorious images in heaven wrought,
Whose wondrous beauty breathing sweet delights,
Do kindle love in high conceipted sprights:
I faine to tell the things that I behold,
But feele my wits to faile, and tongue to fold.”
(ll. 4–10.)
“And looke at last up to that soveraine light,
From whose pure beams al perfect beauty springs,
That kindleth love in every godly spright,
Even the love of God, which loathing brings
Of this vile world, and these gay seeming things;
With whose sweete pleasures being so possest,
Thy straying thoughts henceforth for ever rest.”
(ll. 298–304.)
The second form which the doctrine of heavenly love assumed in English
is found in William Drummond’s “Song II—It autumn was, and on our
hemisphere.” The conception of heavenly beauty is not the ethical notion
of Spenser’s “Hymne,” but a less stimulating idea of the beauty of an
intelligible world of which this world is but a copy. The attraction in
this idea lay in its appeal to Drummond’s peculiar imagination,
delighting, as it did, in the sight of vastness. The poem is an
exhortation to the lover, who is Drummond himself, to cease his mourning
for his dead love, and to raise his mind to a love of heaven and of the
beauty of God there to be seen. The two ideas which Platonism
contributed are the notion of an intelligible world above this world of
sense, and of an absolute beauty of which all beauty on earth is but a
shadow.
The conception of a world above this world was suggested by Plato in his
“Phædo” and explained by Plotinus in his Enneads (VI. vii. 12) as a pure
intelligible world. “For since,” says Plotinus, “we say that this All
[the universe] is framed after the Yonder, as after a pattern, the All
must first exist yonder as a living entity, an animal; and since its
idea is complete, everything must exist yonder. Heaven, therefore, must
exist there as an animal, not without what here we call its stars, and
this is the idea of heaven. Yonder, too, of course, must be the Earth,
not bare, but far more richly furnished with life; in it are all
creatures that move on dry land and plants rooted in life. Sea, too, is
yonder, and all water ebbing and flowing in abiding life; and all
creatures that inhabit the water, and all the tribes of the air are part
of the all yonder, and all aerial beings, for the same reason as Air
itself.” In the “Phædo” (110–111), Plato lends color to his account by
calling attention to the fairness of the place and to the pleasantness
of life there. Drummond has seized upon this idea of an immaterial world
where all is fair and happy, and interprets it as the heaven whither the
young woman who has died is urging him to direct his love. Thus in her
addresses to Drummond she speaks of the character of the world where she
lives.
“Above this vast and admirable frame,
This temple visible, which World we name,
· · · · ·
There is a world, a world of perfect bliss,
Pure, immaterial, bright, ...
· · · · ·
A world, where all is found, that here is found,
But further discrepant than heaven and ground.
It hath an earth, as hath this world of yours,
With creatures peopled, stor’d with trees and flow’rs;
It hath a sea, ...
It hath pure fire, it hath delicious air,
Moon, sun, and stars, heavens wonderfully fair:
But there flowr’s do not fade, trees grow not old,
The creatures do not die through heat nor cold.”
(ll. 111–136.)
It is to this world that she urges him to raise his mind, for all that
earth has to offer is a vain shadow.
“But thou who vulgar footsteps dost not trace,
Learn to raise up thy mind unto this place,
And what earth-creeping mortals most affect,
If not at all to scorn, yet to neglect:
O chase not shadows vain, which when obtain’d,
Were better lost, than with such travail gain’d.”
(ll. 181–186.)
These shadows are worldly honor and fame.
At this point the poem naturally passes on to develop the second
suggestion found in Platonism, that the beauty of earth is but a shadow
or reflexion of the absolute beauty. As was common in that time, this
absolute beauty is identified with God. Accordingly, the young woman
appeals to Drummond to trust in God’s beauty, which alone can fill the
soul with bliss. If the power of earthly beauty—the glance of an eye—can
make him leave all else, what, she asks, must be the love kindled by the
“only Fair”; for though the wonders of earth, of sea, and heaven are
beautiful, they are but shadows of Him.
“O leave that love which reachest but to dust,
And in that love eternal only trust,
And beauty, which, when once it is possest,
Can only fill the soul, and make it blest.
Pale envy, jealous emulations, fears,
Sighs, plaints, remorse, here have no place, nor tears;
False joys, vain hopes, here be not, hate nor wrath;
What ends all love, here most augments it, death.
If such force had the dim glance of an eye,
Which some few days thereafter was to die,
That it could make thee leave all other things,
And like the taper-fly there burn thy wings;
· · · · ·
If once thou on that only Fair couldst gaze,
What flames of love would he within thee raise!
· · · · ·
“Those golden letters which so brightly shine
In heaven’s great volume gorgeously divine;
The wonders all in sea, in earth, in air,
Be but dark pictures of that sovereign Fair;
Be tongues, which still thus cry unto your ear,
(Could ye amidst world’s cataracts them hear,)
From fading things, fond wights, lift your desire,
And in our beauty, his, us made, admire:
If we seem fair, O think how fair is he
Of whose fair fairness shadows, steps, we be.
No shadow can compare it with the face,
No step with that dear foot which did it trace.”
(ll. 197–234.)
This “Song,” then, though drawing on a different phase of Platonism—its
more philosophic and fanciful side,[6] not its deep ethical
truth—follows the same order of thought as Spenser’s “Hymne,” and like
that presents heavenly love as a love known in the soul and growing out
of a correct notion of the relative values of the visible beauty of the
senses and the invisible beauty of mind.
In Drummond heavenly love is a progression out of the romantic love of
woman. It is not explicitly so stated in the “Song,” but in a sonnet,
the subject of which refers to the young woman of the longer poem, he
writes:
“Sith it hath pleas’d that First and only Fair
To take that beauty to himself again,
Which in this world of sense not to remain,
But to amaze, was sent, and home repair;
The love which to that beauty I did bear
(Made pure of mortal spots which did it stain,
And endless, which even death cannot impair),
I place on Him who will it not disdain.”
(Poems, Second Pt. S. xiii.)
This is a note heard in other poets where heavenly love is described as
naturally growing out of earthly love when the right idea of the nature
of the object of that lower passion has been learned. Thus in Milton it
is taught that the love of woman must not be passion, but must be a
scale by which the mind may mount to the heavenly world. The passion
which Adam feels for the loveliness that hedges the presence of Eve—
“when I approach
Her loveliness, so absolute she seems
And in herself complete, so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best:
· · · · ·
and, to consummate all,
Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat
Build in her loveliest, and create an awe
About her, as a guard angelic placed—”
(VIII. 546–559.)
is described by Raphael “with contracted brow” as merely transported
touch, in reality the same feeling shared by the beasts of the field.
(VIII. 582.) Raphael, accordingly, directs Adam to love only the
rational in Eve’s nature, for true love has his seat in the reason.
“What higher in her society thou find’st
Attractive, human, rational, love still:
In loving thou dost well, in passion not,
Wherein true Love consists not. Love refines
The thoughts, and heart enlarges—hath his seat
In Reason, and is judicious, is the scale
By which to Heavenly Love thou may’st ascend,
Not sunk in carnal pleasure.”
(VIII. 586–594.)
In Phineas Fletcher’s sixth “Piscatorie Eclogue,” where there is a long
discussion on the nature of love, human love is shown to be a love
merely of the passing charms of woman: of her form, which will decay; of
her voice, which is but empty wind; and of her color, which can move
only the sense. (Stz. 20–22.) No attempt is made to describe the nature
of the higher love, but a simple exhortation to raise this love of woman
to a love of the “God of fishers” closes the account.
“Then let thy love mount from these baser things,
And to the Highest Love and worth aspire:
Love’s born of fire, fitted with mounting wings;
That at his highest he might winde him higher;
Base love, that to base earth so basely clings!
· · · · ·
“Raise then thy prostrate love with tow’ring thought;
And clog it not in chains and prison here:
The God of fishers, deare thy love hath bought:
Most deare He loves; for shame, love thou as deare.”
(Stz. 24, 25.)
Heavenly love, then, whether springing from the desire within the soul
to see wisdom in her beauty, or from a desire to raise the mind from a
love of earth to the intelligible world, or from the desire to find a
worthy object in the love of the rational in woman, when freed from all
the grossness of physical passion, is a contemplative love of a less
perishing beauty than can be found on earth. And just as the transition
was easy from the love which God himself knows to the soul’s love of
God, so was the change from the love of soul for a higher reality than
earthly beauty to the immortal love of God for the soul. Thus in
Sidney’s sonnet the subtle change is effected.
“Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust,
And thou my mind aspire to higher things:
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.
Draw in thy beames, and humble all thy might,
To that sweet yoke, where lasting freedomes be:
Which breakes the clowdes and opens forth the light,
That doth both shine and give us sight to see.
O take fast hold, let that light be thy guide,
In this small course which birth drawes out to death,
And thinke how evill becommeth him to slide,
Who seeketh heav’n, and comes of heav’nly breath.
Then farewell world, thy uttermost I see,
Eternall Love maintaine thy life in me.”
(S. cx.)
The appeal which Platonism made to the English poets in its doctrine of
a heavenly love was through its power to stir the minds with a deep
sense of that beauty which God was understood to possess. The
application of the principle of beauty to God resulted in a note of joy
and in an exaltation of soul in the religious mind, which, after
forsaking the beauty of this world of sense, could enjoy the great
principle of beauty in the beatific vision of God. Such a strain of joy
may be heard in Drummond, in John Norris, and even in the quiet lyrics
of George Herbert.
The sight of God in His absolute beauty is considered by these poets as
the end of the soul’s endeavor. According to John Norris God is the
divine excellence,
“Which pleases either _mind_ or _sense_,
Tho’ thee by different names we call!
Search Nature through, there still wilt be
The _Sum_ of all that’s good in her _Variety_.”
He thus exhorts the soul to rise to a sight of Him.
“But do not thou, my Soul, fixt here remain,
All streams of Beauty here below
Do from that immense Ocean flow,
And thither they should lead _again_.
Trace then these Streams, till thou shalt be
At length _o’erwhelm’d_ in Beauty’s _boundless Sea_.”
(“Beauty,” stz. 4, 10.)
According to Drummond, the one “choicest bliss” of life is the
possession of God’s beauty as a burning passion within the soul. In “An
Hymn of True Happiness” he teaches that supreme felicity does not
consist in the enjoyment of earth’s treasures, of sensuous beauty, or of
other sensual delights, and not even in knowledge and fame.
“No, but blest life is this,
With chaste and pure desire,
To turn unto the loadstar of all bliss,
On God the mind to rest,
Burnt up with sacred fire,
Possessing him, to be by him possesst.”
(ll. 61–66.)
“A love which, while it burns
The soul with fairest beams,
In that uncreated sun the soul it turns,
And makes such beauty prove,
That, if sense saw her gleams,
All lookers-on would pine and die for love.”
(ll. 97–102.)
The essential nature of this beatific vision is described either as a
sense of eternal rest or of eternal joy. In Norris’s “Prospect,” the
soul is preparing for the great change that will come when it is free
from the body; and its greatest change is described as a sight of “the
only Fair.”
“Now for the greatest Change prepare,
To see the only Great, the only Fair,
Vail now thy feeble eyes, gaze and be blest;
Here all thy Turns and Revolutions cease,
Here’s all Serenity and Peace:
Thou’rt to the _Center_ come, the native seat of _rest_.
Here’s now no further change nor need there be;
When _One_ shall be _Variety_.”
(Stz. 5.)
In Drummond’s “Teares on the Death of Mœliades” the joy of the departed
soul is repeatedly emphasized as a rest in the enjoyment of God’s
beauty. Thus, in closing, the dead is addressed:
“Rest, blessed spright, rest satiate with the sight
Of him whose beams doth dazzle and delight,
Life of all lives, cause of each other cause,
The sphere and centre where the mind doth pause;
Narcissus of himself, himself the well,
Lover, and beauty, that doth all excel.
Rest, happy ghost, and wonder in that glass
Where seen is all that shall be, is, or was,
While shall be, is, or was do pass away,
And nought remain but an eternal day:
For ever rest.”
(ll. 179–188.)
The note of joy in the beatific vision is heard in Drummond and Norris.
In Drummond earthly love is a care, a war within our nature; but love
“Among those sprights above
Which see their Maker’s face,
It a contentment is, a quiet peace,
A pleasure void of grief, a constant rest,
Eternal joy which nothing can molest.”
(“Urania,” Madrigal 2.)
And again:
“O blest abode! O happy dwelling-place
Where visibly th’ Invisible doth reign!
Blest people, who do see true beauty’s face,
With whose dark shadows he but earth doth deign,
All joy is but annoy, all concord strife,
Match’d with your endlesse bliss and happy life.”
(“Urania,” S. v.)
In Norris’s “Seraphick Love” a more violent strain is detected. He has
forsaken the beauty of earth because he has seen a fairer beauty in
contemplation, and to this source of all good and beauty he thus
addresses the close of his poem.
“To thee, thou _only Fair_, my Soul aspires
With _Holy Breathings_, _languishing_ Desires
To thee _m’ inamour’d_, panting Heart does move,
By Efforts of _Ecstatic_ Love.
How do thy glorious streams of Light
Refresh my intellectual sight!
Tho broken, and strain’d through a Skreen
Of envious Flesh that stands between!
When shall m’ imprison’d Soul be free,
That she thy Native Uncorrected Light may see,
And gaze upon thy _Beatifick_ Face to all Eternity?”
(Stz. 4.)
The violence of passion in these poets is absent in George Herbert, and
even the presence of the beatific vision, as a conscious experience of
the soul known after the long travail of its search for beauty, is not
in the least discernible. Still, the conviction that there is a higher
beauty than that seen on earth, and that in truth lies this beauty, is
felt beneath the mildness of Herbert’s devotion. In two sonnets, which
he sent to his mother in 1608, he laments the decay of any true love for
God among the poets, and contrasts the beauty of God with the beauties
of the amorists. To him the beauty of God lies in the discovery.
“Such poor invention burns in their [the amorists’] low minde,
Whose fire is wild, and doth not upward go
To praise, and on Thee, Lord, some ink bestow.
Open the bones, and you shall nothing finde
In the best face but filth; when, Lord, in Thee
The beauty lies in the discoverie.”
(S. i.)
He is, accordingly, content to sing the praises of God.
“Let foolish lovers, if they will love dung,
With canvas, not with arras, clothe their shame;
Let Follie speak in her own native tongue:
True Beautie dwells on high; ours in a flame
But borrow’d thence to light us thither;
Beautie and beauteous words should go together.”
(“The Forerunners,” ll. 25–30.)
So intimately has this notion of the spiritual nature of true beauty
blended with the simple experience of his devotional life that he can
ask
“Is there in truth no beautie?
Is all good structure in a winding-stair?
May no lines passe, except they do their dutie
Not to a true, but painted chair?
· · · · ·
Must purling streams refresh a lover’s loves?
Must all be vail’d while he that reades divines,
Catching the sense at two removes?”[7]
As for himself, he says:
“I envie no man’s nightingale or spring;
Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme,
Who plainly say, My God, my King.”
(“Jordan.”)
In that truth he found his beauty.
Platonism, then, came as a direct appeal to the religious mind of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which was so constituted that the
element of philosophic revery was blended most naturally with a strain
of pure devotional love. Although the ultimate postulates of that
philosophy were intellectual principles, they were such as could be
grasped by the soul only in its deep passion of love for spiritual
beauty. The condemnation which Baxter passes upon other philosophies
could not be brought with truth against Platonism. “In short,” he says,
“I am an enemy of their philosophy that vilify sense.... The Scripture
that saith of God that He is life and light, saith also that He is love,
and love is complacence, and complacence is joy; and to say God is
infinite, essential love and joy is a better notion than with Cartesians
and Cocceians to say that God and angels and spirits are but a thought
or an idea. What is Heaven to us if there be no love and joy?”[8] This
desire of life and love, along its upper levels of thought, was
satisfied by Platonism; it enabled the poets to forecast the life of the
soul in heaven, and of its anticipation on earth as a love of beauty.
There was a strong tendency, however, throughout this period of
religious poetry, toward a phase of devotional love which may be called
erotic mysticism, or that love for Christ which is characterized less by
admiration and more by tenderness and mere delight in the pure sensuous
experience of love. Contemplation of Christ’s divine nature as essential
beauty is totally absent from this passion. Christ as the object of this
love is conceived only as the perfection of physical beauty; and the
response within the soul of the lover is that of mere sensuous delight
either in the sight of his personal beauties or in the realization of
the union with him. This strain of religious devotion is heard in
Herbert, in Vaughan, and Crashaw. In Herbert, who confessed that he
entered the service of the church in order to be like Christ, “by making
humility lovely,”—a confession which breathes pure emotion,—there was
joined so sensuous a strain that “he seems to rejoice in the thoughts of
that word Jesus, and say, that the adding these words, my Master, to it,
and often repetition of them, seemed to perfume his mind, and leave an
oriental fragrancy in his very breath.”[9] The spectacle of the
crucified Saviour of man was especially influential in keeping this
strain of mystical devotion alive; and the minds of these poets are
continually dwelling upon the beauty of his mangled hands and feet. In a
nature so eminently intellectual as John Donne’s, this strain of feeling
is still present, and in his explanation of the grounds for such a love
is found an excellent account of its varying phases. In one of his
sermons he says:
“I love my Saviour, as he is _the Lord_, he that studies my salvation:
and as _Christ_, made a person able to work my salvation; but when I see
him in the third notion, _Jesus_, accomplishing my salvation, by an
actual death, I see those hands stretched out, that stretched out the
heavens, and those feet racked, to which they that racked them are
footstools: I hear him, from whom his nearest friends fled, pray for his
enemies, and him, whom his Father forsook, not forsake his brethren: I
see him that clothes this body with his creatures, or else it would
wither, and clothes this soul with his righteousness, or else it would
perish, hang naked upon the cross; ... when I conceit, when I
contemplate my Saviour thus, I love the _Lord_, and there is reverent
adoration in that love, I love _Christ_, and there is a mysterious
adoration in that love, but I love _Jesus_, and there is a tender
compassion in that love....” (Works, II. 181.)
Whenever Platonism enters into this tender passion it always elevates
the emotion into a higher region, where the more intellectual or
spiritual nature of Christ or God is the object of contemplation; and it
does this by affording the poets a conception of the object of the
soul’s highest love, as a philosophical principle, whether of beauty, of
good, or of true being.
The first way by which this elevation of a purely sensuous passion into
a higher region was effected was through the Platonic conception of the
“idea.” Plato had taught that in love the mind should pass from a sight
of the objects of beauty through ever widening circles of abstraction to
the contemplation of absolute beauty in its idea. This can be known only
by the soul, and is the only real beauty. Spenser’s “Hymne of Heavenly
Love” is the best example of the application of this idea to the love of
Christ. In this poem he sings the praise of Christ as the God of Love.
He finds the chief manifestation of Christ’s love in his sacrifice. At
first he treats this as a spectacle to move the eye. He dwells upon the
mangling of Christ’s body (ll. 241–247), and exhorts the beholder to
“bleede in every vaine,
At sight of his most sacred heavenly corse.”
(ll. 251–252.)
But later, instead of calling upon the beholder to lift up his “heavie
clouded eye” to behold such a manifestation of mercy (ll. 226–227), he
directs him to lift up his _mind_ and _meditate_ upon the author of his
salvation (l. 258). Christ’s love then will burn all earthly desire away
by the power of
“that celestiall beauties blaze,”
(l. 280.)
whose glory dazes the eye but illumines the spirit. And then, when this
final stage of refinement is past, the ravished soul of the beholder
shall have a sight not of
“his most sacred heavenly corse”
(l. 252.)
but of the very idea of his pure glory.
“Then shall thy ravisht soule inspired bee
With heavenly thoughts, farre above humane skill,
And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainely see
Th’ Idee of his pure glorie present still,
Before thy face, that all thy spirits shall fill
With sweet enragement of celestiall love,
Kindled through sight of those faire things above.”
(ll. 284–290.)
The “Hymne,” which celebrates the life of Christ on earth as a man among
men, closes, as it had begun, with the mind in the presence of heavenly
beauty.
In Phineas Fletcher the term “idea” is not used, but the habit of
thought is identical with that of Spenser’s. Christ is to be seen by the
soul, not in his bodily form, but in his “first beautie” and “true
majestie.” In the passage where these expressions occur Fletcher is
showing the manner of the love we should bestow upon Christ for that
which he has shown to us. He says that the only adequate return is to
give back to Christ the love he has given to us. He then prays that
Christ will inflame man with his glorious ray in order that he may rise
above a love of earthly things into heaven.
“So we beholding with immortall eye
The glorious picture of Thy heav’nly face,
In His first beautie and true Majestie,
May shake from our dull souls these fetters base;
And mounting up to that bright crystal sphere,
Whence Thou strik’st all the world with shudd’ring fear,
May not be held by earth, nor hold vile earth so deare.”
(“The Purple Island,” VI. 75.)
In Crashaw’s “In the Glorious Epiphanie of Our Lord God,” the elevation
of the subject from a sensuous image into an object of pure
contemplation is effected by conceiving Christ’s nature as that of true
being according to the Platonic notion. The first image brought before
the mind is that of the Christ child’s face.
“Bright Babe! Whose awfull beautyes make
The morn incurr a sweet mistake;
For Whom the officious Heavns devise
To disinheritt the sun’s rise:
Delicately to displace
The day, and plant it fairer in Thy face.”
(ll. 1–5.)
Soon, however, under this image of the face appears the hidden
conception of Christ as true being unchanging and everywhere present.
For Christ is addressed as
“All-circling point! all-centring sphear!
The World’s one, round, aeternall year:
Whose full and all-unwrinkled face
Nor sinks nor swells with time or place;
But every where and every while
Is one consistent, solid smile.”
(ll. 26–31.)
The poem, then, which had begun with a recognition of the beauty of the
Babe’s eyes in whose beauty the East had come to seek itself, ends in a
desire not to know what may be seen with the eyes, but to press on,
upward to a purely intellectual object,—Christ in heaven.
“Thus we, who when with all the noble powres
That (at Thy cost) are call’d not vainly, ours:
We vow to make brave way
Upwards, and presse on for the pure intelligentiall prey.”
(ll. 220–223.)
In those passages in Henry More, where the mystic union of the soul with
Christ or God is symbolized as a sensuous experience, the elevating
power of Platonism is noticeable in the progression of the poet’s mind
out of this lower plane into a higher region of pure thought. Thus in
“Psychathanasia” the advance is made from a treatment of the communion,
which the blest have with Christ in their partaking His body and blood,
to a contemplation of the beauty of God. In this union, which is shared
by those
“whose souls _deiform_ summitie
Is waken’d in this life, and so to God
Are nearly joynd in a firm Unitie,”
(III. i. 30.)
the true believers grow incorporate with Christ.
“Christ is the sunne that by his chearing might
Awakes our higher rayes to joyn with his pure light.
“And when he hath that life elicited,
He gives his own dear body and his bloud
To drink and eat. Thus dayly we are fed
Unto eternall life. Thus do we bud,
True heavenly plants, suck in our lasting food
From the first spring of life, incorporate
Into the higher world (as erst I show’d
Our lower rayes the soul to subjugate
To this low world) we fearlesse sit above all fate,
“Safely that kingdomes glory contemplate,
O’erflow with joy by a full sympathie
With that worlds spright, and blesse our own estate,
Praising the fount of all felicitie,
The lovely light of the blest Deitie.
Vain mortals think on this, and raise your mind
Above the bodies life; strike through the skie
With piercing throbs and sighs, that you may find
His face. Base fleshly fumes your drowsie eyes thus blind.”
(III. i. 31–33.)
In Giles Fletcher’s “Christ’s Triumph after Death” the most elaborate
attempt is made to convey the idea of the blessedness of the union of
the soul with God through the pleasure of mere sense and at the same
time to show how the object with which the soul is joined is in every
respect a super-sensible entity. At first the blessedness of the soul’s
life in heaven is presented both as a pleasurable enjoyment of the sense
of sight, of hearing, and even that of smell, and as a more spiritual
pleasure in the exercise of the faculties of understanding and will.
Speaking of the joy of those souls that ever hold
“Their eyes on Him, whose graces manifold
The more they doe behold, the more they would behold,”
Fletcher says:
“Their sight drinkes lovely fires in at their eyes,
Their braine sweet incense with fine breath accloyes,
That on God’s sweating altar burning lies;
Their hungrie eares feede on the heav’nly noyse,
That angels sing, to tell their untould joyes;
Their understanding, naked truth; their wills
The all, and selfe-sufficient Goodnesse, fills:
That nothing here is wanting, but the want of ills.”
(Stz. 34.)
Here the progression in the scale of pleasures is from those of the
senses to those of the mind.
But Fletcher presents this union as even a more intimate experience of
the soul. His is the most elaborate attempt in English poetry to
describe the nature of the participation of the soul in the beauty of
the ultimate reality, according to the Platonic notion of the
participation of an object in its idea. After three stanzas descriptive
of the state of absolute freedom from cares of life which reigns in
heaven (stz. 35–37), Fletcher passes on to a description of God—the
“Idea Beatificall,” as he names Him—in accordance with the Platonic
notion of the highest principle, The One:
“In midst of this citie cælestiall,
Whear the Eternall Temple should have rose,
Light’ned the Idea Beatificall:
End, and beginning of each thing that growes;
Whose selfe no end, nor yet beginning knowes;
That hath no eyes to see, nor ears to heare;
Yet sees, and heares, and is all-eye, all-eare;
That nowhear is contain’d, and yet is every whear:
“Changer of all things, yet immutable;
Before and after all, the first and last;
That, mooving all, is yet immoveable;
Great without quantitie: in Whose forecast
Things past are present, things to come are past;
Swift without motion; to Whose open eye
The hearts of wicked men unbrested lie;
At once absent and present to them, farre, and nigh.”
(Stz. 39–40.)
He then goes on to explain what the Idea is not. It is nothing that can
be known by sense. It is no flaming lustre, no harmony of sounds, no
ambrosial feast for the appetite, no odor, no soft embrace, nor any
sensual pleasure. And yet within the soul of the beholder it is known as
an inward feast, a harmony, a light, a sound, a sweet perfume, and
entire embrace. Thus he writes:
“It is no flaming lustre, made of light;
No sweet concent, as well-tim’d harmonie;
Ambrosia, for to feast the appetite,
Or flowrie odour, mixt with spicerie;
No soft embrace, or pleasure bodily;
And yet it is a kinde of inward feast,
A harmony, that sounds within the brest,
An odour, light, embrace, in which the soule doth rest.
“A heav’nly feast, no hunger can consume;
A light unseene, yet shines in every place;
A sound, no time can steale; a sweet perfume
No winds can scatter; an intire embrace
That no satietie can ere unlace.”
(Stz. 41–42.)
Such was the powerful hold of the doctrines of Platonism upon the minds
of these religious poets. Strong as were the forces leading them into a
degenerate form of Christian love, these were overcome by the one
fundamental conception of Platonism that the highest love the soul can
know is the love of a purely intellectual principle of beauty and
goodness; and that this love is one in which passion and reason are
wedded into the one supreme desire of the seeker after wisdom and
beauty. Such a conception saved a large body of English poetry from
degenerating into that form of erotic mysticism which Crashaw’s later
poems reveal; and in which there is no elevation of the mind away from
the lower range of sense enjoyment, but only an introversion of the
physical life into the intimacies of spiritual experience.
II. EARTHLY LOVE
The influence of Platonism upon the love poetry of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries in England is felt in two distinct forms. In the
first place, the teachings of that philosophy were used to explain and
dignify the conception of love as a passion having its source in a
desire for the enjoyment of beauty; and in the second place, the
emphasis laid by Platonism upon the function of the soul as opposed to
the senses resulted in a tendency to treat love as a purely spiritual
passion devoid of all sensuous pleasure. In the first phase the
teachings of Platonic theory were made to render service according to
the conventional love theory known as Petrarchism; and in its second
phase Platonism contributed its share in keeping alive the so-called
metaphysical mood of the seventeenth-century lyric.
According to the conventional method of Petrarchism, the object of the
poet’s love was always a lady of great beauty and spotless virtue, and
of a correspondingly great cruelty. Hence the subjects of the
Petrarchian love poem were either the praise of the mistress’s beauty or
an account of the torment of soul caused by her heartless indifference.
By applying the doctrines of Platonism to this conventional manner, a
way was found to explain upon a seemingly philosophic basis the power of
the lover’s passion and of beauty as its exciting cause. The best
example in English of this application of Platonic theory is Spenser’s
two hymns,—“An Hymne in Honour of Love” and “An Hymne in Honour of
Beautie.”
The professed aim of Spenser in these hymns differs in no wise from the
purpose of the Petrarchian lover. Both are written to ease the torments
of an unrequited passion. In the “Hymne in Honour of Love” he addresses
love in his invocation:
“Love, that long since hast to thy mighty powre,
Perforce subdude my poore captived hart,
And raging now therein with restlesse stowre,
Doest tyrannize in everie weaker part;
Faine would I seeke to ease my bitter smart,
By any service I might do to thee,
Or ought that else might to thee pleasing bee.”
(ll. 4–10.)
In his closing stanzas he expresses the wish of coming at last to the
object of his desire. (ll. 298–300.) In the “Hymne in Honour of
Beautie,” he openly confesses a desire that through his hymn
“It may so please that she at length will streame
Some deaw of grace, into my withered hart,
After long sorrow and consuming smart.”
(ll. 29–31.)
The only respect in which these hymns differ from the mass of love
poetry of their time is in the method by which Spenser treated the
common subject of the poetical amorists of the Renaissance. In singing
the praises of love and beauty he drew upon the doctrines of Italian
Platonism, and by the power of his own genius blended the purely
expository and lyrical strains so that at times it is difficult to
separate them. The presence of Platonic doctrine, however, is felt in
the dignified treatment of the passion of love and of beauty.
In the “Hymne in Honour of Love” love is described as no merely cruel
passion inflicted by the tyrannical Cupid of the amorist, but as the
manifestation in man of the great informing power which brought the
universe out of chaos and which now maintains it in order and concord.
According to Ficino, the greatest representative of Italian Platonism
during the Renaissance, one truth established by the speech of
Eryximachus in the “Symposium” is that love is the creator and preserver
of all things. “Through this,” Ficino says in his “Commentarium in
Convivium,” “fire moves air by sharing its heat; the air moves the
water, the water moves the earth; and _vice versa_ the earth draws the
water to itself; water, the air; and the air, the fire. Plants and trees
also beget their like because of a desire of propagating their seed.
Animals, brutes, and men are allured by the same desire to beget
offspring.” (III. 2.) And in summing up his discussion he says,
“Therefore all parts of the universe, since they are the work of one
artificer and are members of the same mechanism like to one another both
in being and in life, are linked together by a certain mutual love, so
that love may be rightly declared the perpetual bond of the universe and
the unmoving support of its parts and the firm basis of the whole
mechanism.” (III. 3.) Holding to this conception of love Spenser comes
to a praise of the
“Great god of might, that reignest in the mynd,
And all the bodie to thy hest doest frame,”
(ll. 46–47.)
with an explanation of His power as the creating and sustaining spirit
of the universe. Before the world was created love moved over the
warring elements of chaos and arranged them in the order they now obey.
“Then through the world his way he gan to take,
The world that was not till he did it make;
Whose sundrie parts he from them selves did sever,
The which before had lyen confused ever,
“The earth, the ayre, the water, and the fyre,
Then gan to raunge them selves in huge array,
And with contrary forces to conspyre
Each against other, by all meanes they may,
Threatning their owne confusion and decay:
Ayre hated earth, and water hated fyre,
Till Love relented their rebellious yre.
“He then them tooke, and tempering goodly well
Their contrary dislikes with loved meanes,
Did place them all in order, and compell
To keepe them selves within their sundrie raines,
Together linkt with Adamantine chaines.”
(ll. 77–92.)
The second subject which was treated in the light of Platonism was that
of beauty. In the “Hymne in Honour of Beautie” the topic is treated from
three points of view. First, the “Hymne” outlines a general theory of
æsthetics to account for the presence of beauty in the universe lying
without us (ll. 32–87); second, it explains the ground of reason for the
beauty to be found in the human body (ll. 88–164); and third, it
accounts for the exaggerated notion which the lover has of his beloved’s
physical perfections. (ll. 214–270.)
Spenser’s general theory of æsthetics is a blending of two suggestions
he found in his study of Platonism. According to Ficino, beauty is a
spiritual thing, the splendor of God’s light shining in all things. (II.
5; V. 4.) This conception is based upon the idea that the universe is an
emanation of God’s spirit, and that beauty is the lively grace of the
divine light of God shining in matter. (V. 6.) But according to another
view, the universe is conceived as the objective work of an artificer,
working according to a pattern. “The work of the creator,” says Plato in
the “Timæus” (28, 29), “whenever he looks to the unchangeable and
fashions the form and the nature of his work after an unchangeable
pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect.... If the world be
indeed fair and the artificer good, it is manifest that he must have
looked to that which is eternal ... for the world is the fairest of
creations and he is the best of causes.” By blending these ideas Spenser
was able to conceive of God as creating the world after a pattern of
ideal beauty, which, by virtue of its infusion into matter, is the
source of that lively grace which the objects called beautiful possess.
At first he presents the view of creation which is more in accordance
with the Mosaic account,
“What time this worlds great workmaister did cast
To make al things, such as we now behold:
It seemes that he before his eyes had plast
A goodly Paterne to whose perfect mould,
He fashioned them as comely as he could,
That now so faire and seemely they appeare,
As nought may be amended any wheare.
“That wondrous Paterne
· · · · ·
Is perfect Beautie, which all men adore,
Whose face and feature doth so much excell
All mortall sence, that none the same may tell.”
(ll. 32–45.)
Spenser now passes on to the theory of the infusion of beauty in matter,
by which its grossness is refined and quickened, as it were, into life.
“Thereof as every earthly thing partakes,
Or more or lesse by influence divine,
So it more faire accordingly it makes,
And the grosse matter of this earthly myne,
Which clotheth it, thereafter doth refyne,
Doing away the drosse which dims the light
Of that faire beame, which therein is empight.
“For through infusion of celestiall powre,
The duller earth it quickneth with delight
And life-full spirits privily doth powre
Through all the parts, that to the looker’s sight
They seeme to please. That is thy soveraine might,
O _Cyprian_ Queene, which flowing from the beame
Of thy bright starre, then into them doest streame.”
(ll. 46–59.)
At this point of his “Hymne” Spenser pauses to refute the idea that
beauty is
“An outward shew of things, that onely seeme”
(l. 94.)
His pausing to overthrow such an idea of beauty is quite in the manner
of the scientific expositor in the Italian treatises and dialogues
written throughout the Renaissance. Ficino, for instance, combats the
idea, which he says some hold, that beauty is nothing but the proportion
of the various parts of an object with a certain sweetness of color. (V.
3.) In like manner Spenser says it is the idle wit that identifies
beauty with proportion and color, both of which pass away.
“How vainely then doe ydle wits invent,
That beautie is nought else, but mixture made
Of colours faire, and goodly temp’rament,
Of pure complexions, that shall quickly fade
And passe away, like to a sommers shade,
Or that it is but comely composition
Of parts well measurd, with meet disposition.”
(ll. 67–73.)
Spenser overthrows this contention by doubting the power of mere color
and superficial proportion to stir the soul of man. (ll. 74–87.) He has
proved the power of beauty only too well to maintain such a theory. He
thus seeks for the source of its power in the soul.
The Platonic theory of beauty teaches that the beauty of the body is a
result of the formative energy of the soul. According to Ficino, the
soul has descended from heaven and has framed a body in which to dwell.
Before its descent it conceives a certain plan for the forming of a
body; and if on earth it finds material favorable for its work and
sufficiently plastic, its earthly body is very similar to its celestial
one, hence it is beautiful. (VI. 6.) In Spenser this conception
underlies his account of the descent of the soul from God to earth.
“For when the soule, the which derived was
At first, out of that great immortall Spright,
By whom all live to love, whilome did pas
Downe from the top of purest heavens hight,
To be embodied here, it then tooke light
And lively spirits from that fayrest starre,
Which lights the world forth from his firie carre.
“Which powre retayning still or more or lesse,
When she in fleshly seede is eft enraced,
Through every part she doth the same impresse,
According as the heavens have her graced,
And frames her house, in which she will be placed,
Fit for her selfe, adorning it with spoyle
Of th’ heavenly riches, which she robd erewhyle.
· · · · ·
“So every spirit, as it is most pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer bodie doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairely dight
With chearefull grace and amiable sight.
For of the soule the bodie forme doth take:
For soul is forme, and doth the bodie make.”
(ll. 109–136.)
The obvious objection which one might make to this theory, that it does
not cover the whole ground inasmuch as it could never account for the
fact of the existence of a good soul in any but a beautiful form, was
answered by the further explanation that when the matter of which the
soul makes its body is unyielding, the soul must content itself with a
less beautiful form. (Ficino, VI. 6.) Thus Spenser adds:
“Yet oft it falles, that many a gentle mynd
Dwels in deformed tabernacle drownd,
Either by chaunce, against the course of kynd,
Or through unaptnesse in the substance sownd,
Which it assumed of some stubborne grownd,
That will not yield unto her formes direction,
But is perform’d with some foule imperfection.”
(ll. 144–150.)
After an exhortation to the “faire Dames” to keep their souls unspotted
(ll. 165–200), Spenser outlines the true manner of love and in the
course of his poem he accounts for that manifestation of power which the
beloved’s beauty has over the mind of the lover. According to Ficino,
true lovers are those whose souls have departed from heaven under the
same astral influences and who, accordingly, are informed with the same
idea in imitation of which they frame their earthly bodies. (VI. 6.)
Thus Spenser writes that love is not a matter of chance, but a union of
souls ordained by heaven.
“For Love is a celestiall harmonie,
Of likely harts composd of starres concent,
Which joyne together in sweet sympathie,
To work ech others joy and true content,
Which they have harbourd since their first descent
Out of their heavenly bowres, where they did see
And know ech other here belov’d to bee.
“Then wrong it were that any other twaine
Should in loves gentle band combyned bee,
But those whom heaven did at first ordaine,
And made out of one mould the more t’ agree:
For all that like the beautie which they see,
Streight do not love: for love is not so light,
As straight to burne at first beholders sight.”
(ll. 200–213.)
He then explains the Platonist’s views of love as a passion. Ficino had
stated that the lover is not satisfied with the mere visual image of the
beloved, but refashions it in accordance with the idea of the beloved
which he has; for the two souls departing from heaven at the same time
were informed with the same idea. The lover, then, when he beholds the
person of the beloved, sees a form which has been made more in
conformity with the idea than his own body has; consequently he loves
it, and by refining the visual image of the beloved from all the
grossness of sense, he beholds in it the idea of his own soul and that
of the beloved; and in the light of this idea he praises the beloved’s
beauty. (VI. 6.) So Spenser:
“But they which love indeede, looke otherwise,
With pure regard and spotlesse true intent,
Drawing out of the object of their eyes,
A more refyned forme, which they present
Unto their mind, voide of all blemishment;
Which it reducing to her first perfection,
Beholdeth free from fleshes frayle infection.”
(ll. 214–220.)
Here there is no distinction of lover and beloved; but soon Spenser
passes on to consider the subject from the lover’s standpoint:
“And then conforming it unto the light,
Which in it selfe it hath remaining still
Of that first Sunne, yet sparckling in his sight,
Thereof he fashions in his higher skill,
An heavenly beautie to his fancies will,
And it embracing in his mind entyre,
The mirrour of his owne thought doth admyre.
“Which seeing now so inly faire to be,
As outward it appeareth to the eye,
And with his spirits proportion to agree,
He thereon fixeth all his fantasie,
And fully setteth his felicitie,
Counting it fairer, then it is indeede,
And yet indeede her fairenesse doth exceede.”
(ll. 221–234.)
With a description of the many beauties the lover sees in the
beloved—the thousands of graces that make delight on her forehead—the
poem ends. (ll. 235–270.)
The feature in this theory of Platonism which appealed to Spenser was
the high nature of the beauty seen in comeliness of form, as explained
by its doctrine of æsthetics. A sense of beauty as a spiritual quality
spreading its divine radiance over the objects of the outward world
envelops the poem in a golden haze of softened feeling characteristic of
Spenser’s poetic manner. The scientific terms of the Platonic theorist
melt away into the gentle flow of his verse. The soul being informed
with its idea, as Ficino had put it, has become in his “Hymne in Honour
of Beautie” that “faire lampe” which has “resemblence of that heavenly
light” of beauty (ll. 102, 124); or the idea of beauty in the soul is
spoken of as
“the light
Which in it selfe it hath remaining still;”
(ll. 221–222.)
or, as the lover’s “spirits proportion.”
In accordance with the same sense of beauty Spenser in the “Hymne in
Honour of Love” stops to explain away the cruelty which love seems to
show in afflicting him, an innocent sufferer, by calling attention to
the fact that such suffering is necessary to try the lover’s sincerity
in his worship of so high a thing as the beauty of his beloved. Love is
not physical desire, but a soaring of the mind to a sight of that high
beauty,
“For love is Lord of truth and loialtie,
Lifting himselfe out of the lowly dust,
On golden plumes up to the purest skie,
Above the reach of loathly sinfull lust,
· · · · ·
“Such is the powre of that sweet passion,
That it all sordid basenesse doth expell,
And the refyned mynd doth newly fashion
Unto a fairer forme which now doth dwell
In his high thought, that would it selfe excell;
Which he beholding still with constant sight,
Admires the mirrour of so heavenly light.”
(ll. 179–199.)
And even though the lover may not win the good graces of his lady, he is
happy in the sight of her beauty.
“And though he do not win his wish to end,
Yet thus farre happie he him selfe doth weene,
That heavens such happie grace did to him lend,
No thing on earth so heavenly, to have seene,
His harts enshrined saint, his heavens queene,
Fairer then fairest, in his fayning eye,
Whose sole aspect he counts felicitye.”
(ll. 214–220.)
Because of this love of beauty, Spenser was able to find more material
in the Renaissance criticism of Platonic æsthetics for his “Hymne in
Honour of Beautie” than in the corresponding hymn on love. Besides the
conception of the creative power of love, his “Hymne in Honour of Love”
draws upon a few suggestions which could dignify the power of the
passion. The saying of Diotima to Socrates in the “Symposium,”—“Marvel
not then at the love which all men have of their offspring; for that
universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality” (208)—is
made to do service in differentiating the passion of love in men from
that in beasts. By satisfying physical desire beasts
“all do live, and moved are
To multiply the likenesse of their kynd,
Whilest they seeke onely, without further care,
To quench the flame, which they in burning fynd:
But man, that breathes a more immortal mynd,
Not for lusts sake, but for eternitie,
Seekes to enlarge his lasting progenie.”
(ll. 102–109.)
Further, to add a sense of mystery to the nativity of the god of love,
Spenser refers to the myth of Penia and Poros, and also in the manner of
the Platonist tries to reconcile two contrary assertions about the
mysterious nature of love’s birth. In Diotima’s account of “the lesser
mysteries of love,” she says that love is the offspring of the god Poros
or Plenty, and of Penia or Poverty. (“Symposium,” 203.) In Phædrus’s
oration on love he began by affirming that “Love is a mighty god, and
wonderful among gods and men, but especially wonderful in his birth. For
he is the eldest of the gods.” (“Symposium,” 178.) Agathon, however,
differs from his friend Phædrus in saying that love is the youngest of
the gods. (“Symposium,” 195.) This disagreement was a source of
perplexity to the Platonist of the Renaissance; thus Ficino gives a
division of his commentary to a reconciliation of these statements. (V.
10.) He solves the difficulty by stating that when the Creator conceived
the order of angels, with whom Ficino identifies the gods of ancient
mythology, the love guiding God was before the angels, hence is the most
ancient of the gods; but when the created angelic intelligences turned
in their love to the Creator, the impelling love was the youngest,
coming after the creation of the angels. According to these notions of
the nativity of the god of love, Spenser opens his “Hymne.”
“Great god of might, that reignest in the mynd,
And all the bodie to thy hest doest frame,
Victor of gods, subduer of mankynd,
That doest the Lions and fell Tigers tame,
Making their cruell rage thy scornefull game,
And in their roring taking great delight;
Who can expresse the glorie of thy might?
“Or who alive can perfectly declare,
The wondrous cradle of thine infancie?
When thy great mother _Venus_ first thee bare,
Begot of Plentie and of Penurie,
Though elder then thine owne nativitie:
And yet a chyld, renewing still thy yeares;
And yet the eldest of the heavenly Peares.”
(ll. 46–59.)
Spenser’s “Hymnes” are the most comprehensive exposition of love in the
light of Platonic theory in English. The attempt, however, which he made
to place love upon a basis of philosophic fact is imitated in a much
less prominent way in other poets. Spenser himself refers to the subject
in “Colin Clouts Come Home Againe.” In that poem Colin unfolds to Cuddy
the high nature of love’s perfection. At the court, he says, love is the
all-engrossing topic (ll. 778–786); but it is love so shamefully
licentious that its “mightie mysteries” are profaned. (l. 790.) Love,
however, is a religious thing and should be so conceived. To support
this statement Colin explains the creative power of love manifest
throughout the wide range of nature (ll. 843–868) and points out that in
man it is a love of beauty. (ll. 869–880).
In a few of Jonson’s masques there are slight attempts to dignify the
subject of love in the manner of Spenser’s “Hymnes.” In “The Masque of
Beauty” love is described as the creator of the universe, and beauty is
mentioned as that for which the world was created. In one of the hymns
occurs this stanza:
“When Love at first, did move
From out of Chaos, brightned
So was the world, and lightned
As now.
_1. Echo._ As now!
_2. Echo._ As now!
Yield Night, then to the light,
As Blackness hath to Beauty:
Which is but the same duty.
It was for Beauty that the world was made,
And where she reigns, Love’s lights admit no shade.”
In a second song a reference is made to the mysterious nativity of love.
“So Beauty on the waters stood,
When Love had sever’d earth from flood!
So when he parted air from fire,
He did with concord all inspire!
And then a motion he them taught,
That elder than himself was thought.
Which thought was, yet, the child of earth,
For Love is elder than his birth.”
In “Love’s Triumph Through Callipolis” the same ideas appear. In this
masque, after the band of sensual lovers has been driven from the
suburbs of the City of Beauty (Callipolis), and a lustration of the
place has followed, Euclia, or “a fair glory, appears in the heavens,
singing an applausive Song, or Pæan of the whole.”
“So love emergent out of chaos brought
The world to light!
And gently moving on the waters, wrought
All form to sight!
Love’s appetite
Did beauty first excite:
And left imprinted in the air
These signatures of good and fair,
Which since have flow’d, flow’d forth upon the sense
To wonder first, and then to excellence,
By virtue of divine intelligence!”
In the same masque love is defined in accordance with the myth of Penia
and Poros:
“Love is the right affection of the mind,
The noble appetite of what is best:
Desire of union with the thing design’d,
But in fruition of it cannot rest.
“The father Plenty is, the mother Want,
Plenty the beauty which it wanteth draws;
Want yields itself: affording what is scant:
So both affections are the union’s cause.”
In “Love Freed From Ignorance and Folly” the sustaining power of love in
keeping the parts of the universe in concord is used to combat the
accusation that love is mere cruelty. Love, who is represented as a
captive of the Sphynx, thus replies to the charge:
“Cruel Sphynx, I rather strive
How to keep the world alive,
And uphold it; without me,
All again would chaos be.”
In “The Barriers” where Truth and Opinion—a division of the state of
knowing according to its degree of certainty common in Plato as
knowledge and opinion (“Republic,” V. 476–478)—hold a discussion on
marriage, an angel declares that
“Eternal Unity behind her [i.e. Truth] shines,
That fire and water, earth and air combines.”
Here under the name of Unity the true nature of love is indicated.
In Drayton’s seventh eclogue Batte replies to a charge of cruelty
against love which is made by his fellow-shepherd, Borril, with the
“substancyall ryme
that to thy teeth sufficiently shall proove
there is no power to be compard to love.”
His argument is that love is the great bond of the universe.
“What is Love but the desire
of the thing that fancy pleaseth?
A holy and resistlesse fiere
weake and strong alike that ceaseth,
which not heaven hath power to let
Nor wise nature cannot smother,
whereby Phœbus doth begette
on the universal mother.
that the everlasting chaine
which together al things tied,
and unmooved them retayne
and by which they shall abide;
that concent we cleerely find
all things doth together drawe,
and so strong in every kinde
subjects them to natures law.
whose hie virtue number teaches
in which every thing dooth moove,
from the lowest depth that reaches
to the height of heaven above.”
(ll. 165–184.)
A more common appropriation of the teachings of Platonism was made in
the love lyrics—chiefly the sonnet—written in the Petrarchian manner.
Petrarchism was as much a manner of writing sonnets as it was a method
of making love. On its stylistic side it was characterized by the use of
antitheses, puns, and especially of conceits. In the Platonic theory of
love and beauty a certain amount of material was offered which could be
reworked into a form suited for the compact brevity of the sonnet.
Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare are the three chief sonnet writers of
the last decade of the sixteenth century in whose work this phase of
Platonism is to be found; but its presence, though faint, can be felt in
others.
One way in which this theory was applied is found in the manner in which
these poets speak of the beauty of their beloved. Plato has stated that
wisdom is the most lovely of all ideas, and that, were there a visible
image of her, she would be transporting. (“Phædrus,” 250.) Sidney seizes
upon this suggestion, and by identifying his Stella with wisdom he can
frame a sonnet ending in a couplet that shall have the required
epigrammatic point. He writes:
“The wisest scholler of the wight most wise,
By _Phœbus_ doome, with sugred sentence sayes:
That vertue if it once meete with our eyes,
Strange flames of love it in our soules would rayse.
But for that man with paine this truth discries,
While he each thing in sences ballances wayes,
And so, nor will nor can behold these skyes,
Which inward Sunne to heroicke mindes displaies.
Vertue of late with vertuous care to stir
Love of himselfe, takes _Stellas_ shape, that hee
To mortal eyes might sweetly shine in her.
It is most true, for since I did her see,
Vertues great beautie in her face I prove,
And finde defect; for I doe burne in love.”
(xxv.)
Shakespeare is able to praise the beauty of the subject of his sonnets
by identifying him with the absolute beauty of the Platonic philosophy,
and by describing him in accordance with this notion. Thus he confesses
that his argument is simply the fair, kind, and true, back of which
statement may be inferred the theory upheld by Platonism that the good,
the beautiful, and the true are but different phases of one reality. His
love, he says, cannot be called idolatry because his songs are directed
to this theme, for only in his friend are these three themes united into
one.
“Let not my love be call’d idolatry,
Nor my belovéd as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
‘Fair, kind, and true’ is all my argument,
‘Fair, kind, and true’ varying to other words;
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
‘Fair, kind, and true,’ have often liv’d alone,
Which three, till now, never kept seat in one.”
(cv.)
In another sonnet one phase of this argument is given a detailed
treatment, and the poet’s object is to praise the beauty of his friend
by describing its contrast with the beauty of earth, just as if he were
speaking of absolute beauty. In this sonnet he uses the Platonic
phraseology of the substance and the shadow, by which he means first,
the reality that makes a thing what it is, the substance, not the matter
or stuff of which it is made; and second, the reflection of that reality
in the objective world, the shadow of the substance, not the obscuration
of light.[10] He thus writes of his friend’s beauty as if it were the
substance of beauty, beauty absolute, of which all other beauty is but a
reflection.
“What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe _Adonis_, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On _Helen’s_ cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in _Grecian_ tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring and foison of the year,
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear;
And you in every blesséd shape we know,
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you, for constant heart.”
(liii.)
Spenser, too, praises his beloved by conceiving her as absolute beauty,
of which all other objects are but shadows. In the light of her beauty
all the glory of the world appears but a vain show.
“My hungry eyes through greedy covetize,
still to behold the object of their paine:
with no contentment can themselves suffize.
but having pine and having not complaine.
For lacking it they cannot lyfe sustayne,
and having it they gaze on it the more:
in their amazement lyke _Narcissus_ vaine
whose eyes him starv’d: so plenty makes me poore.
Yet are mine eyes so filled with the store
of that faire sight, that nothing else they brooke,
but lothe the things which they did like before,
and can no more endure on them to looke.
All this worlds glory seemeth vayne to me,
and all their showes but shadowes saving she.”
(xxxv.)
In George Daniel the idea of the substance and shadow again occurs. He
says that it is enough for him if he may behold his mistress’s face,
although others may boast of her favors; for in contemplating her
glories he sees how all other forms are but empty shadows of her
perfection.
“It is Enough to me,
If I her Face may see;
Let others boast her Favours, and pretend
Huge Interests; whilst I
Adore her Modestie;
Which Tongues cannot deprave, nor Swords defend.
· · · · ·
“But while I bring
My verse to Sing
Her Glories, I am strucke with wonder, more;
And all the Formes I see,
But Emptie Shadowes bee,
Of that Perfection which I adore.
“Be silent then,
All Tongues of Men,
To Celebrate the Sex: for if you fall
To other Faces, you
Wander, and but pursue
Inferior objects, weake and partiall.”
(Ode xxiv.)
A second tenet of Platonism which was reworked into English love poetry
was its conception of love. As Spenser had explained in his “Hymne in
Honour of Beautie,” true love has its source in the life of two souls in
heaven. (ll. 200–213.) Drummond uses the idea to explain the purity of
his love.
“That learned Grecian, who did so excel
In knowledge passing sense, that he is nam’d
Of all the after-worlds divine, doth tell,
That at the time when first our souls are fram’d,
Ere in these mansions blind they come to dwell,
They live bright rays of that eternal light,
And others see, know, love, in heaven’s great height,
Not toil’d with aught to reason doth rebel.
Most true it is, for straight at the first sight
My mind me told, that in some other place
It elsewhere saw the idea of that face,
And lov’d a love of heavenly pure delight;
No wonder now I feel so fair a flame,
Sith I her lov’d ere on this earth she came.”
(“Poems.” First Pt., S. vii.)
In Vaughan the same theory of love is again referred to as a proof of
the poet’s lofty passion. In “To Amoret. Walking in a Starry Evening,”
he says that even were her face a distant star shining upon him, he
would be sure of a sympathy between it and himself, because their minds
were united in love by no accident or chance of sight, but were designed
for one another.
“But, Amoret, such is my fate,
That if thy face a star
Had shin’d from far,
I am persuaded in that state,
’Twixt thee and me,
Of some predestin’d sympathy.
“For sure such two conspiring minds,
Which no accident, or sight,
Did thus unite;
Whom no distance can confine
Start, or decline,
One for another were design’d.”
(Stzs. 3, 4.)
In a second lyric, “A Song to Amoret,” he describes his love as superior
to that which a “mighty amorist” could give, because it is a love that
was born with his soul in heaven.
“For all these arts I’d not believe,
—No, though he should be thine—
The mighty amorist could give
So rich a heart as mine.
“Fortune and beauty thou might find,
And greater men than I:
By my true resolvèd mind
They never shall come nigh.
“For I not for an hour did love,
Or for a day desire,
But with my soul had from above
This endless, holy fire.”
(Stzs. 4–6.)
Thus far the tenets of Platonic theory have been used in a more or less
direct way; but in several instances the Platonic idea is present only
in the writer’s mind, and the reader is left to unravel it by his own
ingenuity. Thus Shakespeare urges his friend to marry because in his
death truth and beauty will both end—a possible inference being that his
friend is ideal beauty.
“Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;
And yet methinks I have Astronomy,
But not to tell of good, or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with Princes if it shall go well,
By oft predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;
Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
Thy end is Truth’s and Beauty’s doom and date.”
(xiv.)
In another sonnet Shakespeare plays with words in an attempt to excuse
his truant muse for not praising his friend’s beauty. His muse may say
that since his friend is true beauty he needs no praise.
“O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer, Muse; wilt thou not haply say
‘Truth needs no colour with his colour fix’d;
Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix’d?’”
But so closely identified is the praise of his friend’s beauty with the
immortality conferred by poetry that Shakespeare cannot justly excuse
the silence of his muse
“Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so; for’t lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb,
And to be praised of ages yet to be.”
(ci.)
Again, Shakespeare describes how, when absent from his friend, he is
able to play with the flowers as shadows of his friend’s beauty.
“They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem’d it Winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.”
(xcviii.)
In Spenser the lover is able to make an appeal for pity by reference to
the Platonic conception of the idea of the beloved which the lover is
supposed to behold in his soul.
“Leave lady in your glasse of christall clene,
your goodly selfe for evermore to vew;
and in my selfe, my inward selfe, I meane,
most lively lyke behold your semblant trew.
Within my hart, though hardly it can shew,
thing so divine to vew of earthly eye:
the fayre Idea of your celestiall hew,
and every part remaines immortally:
And were it not that, through your cruelty,
with sorrow dimmed and deformed it were:
the goodly ymage of your visnomy,
clearer than christall would therein appere.
But if your selfe in me ye playne will see,
remove the cause by which your fayre beames darkened be.”
(xlv.)
The end which this conception of making love after the manner of the
Platonist served was thought to be found in a purification of love. By
praising the beauty of the beloved in such lofty terms the poet was able
to set off the purity of his love from any connection with mere sensual
desire. Thus Spenser testifies to the ennobling power of the beauty of
his beloved’s eyes.
“More then most faire, full of the living fire
Kindled above unto the maker neere:
no eies but joyes, in which al powers conspire,
that to the world naught else be counted deare.
Thrugh your bright beams doth not y^e blinded guest,
shoot out his harts to base affections wound;
but Angels come to lead fraile mindes to rest
in chast desires on heavenly beauty bound.
You frame my thoughts and fashion me within,
you stop my toung, and teach my hart to speake,
you calme the storme that passion did begin,
strong thrugh your cause, but by your vertue weak,
Dark is the world, where your light shined never:
well is he borne that may behold you ever.”
(viii.)
In Sidney there is a direct reference to the power of Plato’s thought to
lead the mind from the desire with which he is struggling.
“Your words, my freends me causelesly doe blame,
My young minde marde whom love doth menace so:
· · · · ·
That _Plato_ I have reade for nought, but if he tame
Such coltish yeeres; that to my birth I owe
Nobler desires:”
(xxi.)
The application of the tenets of Platonic theory to the writing of love
lyrics in the Petrarchian manner, however, was never anything more than
a courtly way of making love through exaggerated conceit and fine
writing. Fulke Greville saw clearly the relation between the love of
woman and the love of the idea of her beauty. In the tenth sonnet of his
“Cælica” he asks what can love find in a mind where all is passion;
rather he says go back to
“that heavenly quire
Of Nature’s riches, in her beauties placed,
And there in contemplation feed desire,
Which till it wonder, is not rightly graced;
For those sweet glories, which you do aspire,
Must, as idea’s, only be embraced,
Since excellence in other forme enjoyed,
Is by descending to her saints destroyed.”
The love of the idea of beauty, however, in its absolute nature is
nowhere present in the mass of love lyrics written between 1590 and
1600. The term is used to give title to Drayton’s “Idea,” and to
denominate the object of twelve sonnets addressed by Craig to “Idea”;
and anagrams on the French word for the term L’Idée, Diella and Delia,
are used to name two series of poems by Linche and Samuel Daniel,
respectively. Crashaw’s “Wishes” is addressed to “his (supposed)
mistresse,” as an idea. No better commentary on the whole movement can
be made than these words of Spenser in which it is easily seen how the
method conduced only to feeding the lower desires of the soul in love.
Writing in 1596, in the midst of the period when sonnet writing was most
popular in England, he says, speaking of his two “Hymnes”:
“Having in the greener times of my youth, composed these former two
Hymnes in the praise of Love and beautie, and finding that the same too
much pleased those of like age and disposition, which being too
vehemently caried with that kind of affection, do rather sucke out
poyson to their strong passion, then hony to their honest delight, I was
moved ... to call in the same. But being unable so to doe, by reason
that many copies thereof were formerly scattered abroad, I resolved at
least to amend, and by way of retraction to reforme them, making in
stead of those two Hymnes of earthly or naturall love and beautie, two
others of heavenly and celestiall.”
The great representative of Platonism in English poetry thus condemns
the less vital phase of Platonic thought. The great weakness of the
theory lay in the fact that it had no moral significance; and just here
lay the great strength of Plato’s ethics. Although preaching that beauty
was a spiritual thing, this phase of Platonic æsthetics never blended
with the conception of the beauty of moral goodness. And it failed to do
this because it is a theory not of Plato but of Plotinus, who throughout
the period of the Renaissance was understood to expound the true meaning
of Plato’s thought. But Plato left no system of æsthetics; Plotinus,
however, constructed a theory to account for beauty in its strictest
sense. Now Ficino in his propaganda of Platonic theory throughout the
Renaissance interpreted Plato’s “Symposium” in the light of Plotinus and
thus in his commentary, the source of all Renaissance theorizing on
love, is found the theory reflected in the English poets. This fusion of
Plato’s ethics with the æsthetics of Plotinus was not perfect; and to
the deep moral genius of Spenser’s mind the disparity soon became
evident.
The Platonic theory of love had enabled the English poets to write about
their passion as a desire of enjoying the spiritual quality of beauty in
their beloved. In those poets in whom the Petrarchistic manner is
evident, it is the object of love on which the attention centres; only
in a slight way did they treat of the nature of love as a passion. The
result of the discussion of love, as opened by Platonism, ended,
however, in an attempt to place love upon a purely spiritual basis and
to write about it as if it were a psychological fact that was to be
known by analysis. A consideration of beauty, as the object of love, is
absent; attention is directed to the quality of the passion as one felt
in the soul rather than by the sense; and when the attraction of woman
is present in this love it is carefully differentiated from the
attraction of sex. In the body of love lyrics written in the seventeenth
century the distinctive traits of this passion are clearly explained.
The chief trait of this kind of love is that it concerns only the soul.
The union of the lover and the beloved is simply a union of their souls
which because of the high nature of the soul can triumph over time and
space. The character of this union is described in Donne’s “Ecstacy.”
The two lovers are described as sitting in silence, watching one
another. While thus engaged their souls are so mysteriously mingled that
they are mixed into one greater soul which is not subject to change.
Even when the passion descends from this height to the plane of human
affections there is no essential change in the purity of the love.
“Where, like a pillow on a bed,
A pregnant bank swell’d up, to rest
The violet’s reclining head,
Sat we two, one another’s best.
· · · · ·
“As, ’twixt two equal armies, Fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls—which to advance their state,
Were gone out—hung ’twixt her and me.
· · · · ·
“This ecstacy doth unperplex
(We said), and tell us what we love;
We see by this, it was not sex;
We see, we saw not, what did move:
“But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things they know not what,
Love these mix’d souls doth mix again,
And makes both one, each this, and that.
· · · · ·
“When love with one another so
Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.
“We then, who are this new soul, know,
Of what we are composed, and made,
For th’ atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.
· · · · ·
“And if some lover, such as we
Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
Small change when we’re to bodies gone.”
In a like strain Randolph in “A Platonic Elegy” praises his love as that
founded on reason, not on sense. The true union in love, he says, is the
meeting of essence with essence.
“Thus they, whose reasons love, and not their sense,
The spirits love; thus one intelligence
Reflects upon his like, and by chaste loves
In the same sphere this and that angel moves.
· · · · ·
“When essence meets with essence, and souls join
In mutual knots, that’s the true nuptial twine.
Such, lady, is my love, and such is true:
All other love is to your sex, not you.”
(ll. 31–34, 45–48.)
The great value which this purely spiritual love was supposed to possess
was that it was unaffected either by time or distance. The union, not
being one known to sense, could exist as well in the absence of the
lovers as in the presence of both. This thought is a great comfort and
is emphasized as the peculiarity in the lovers’ passion that sets it
apart from the vulgar kind. Thus Donne in the song, “Soul’s Joy,”
consoles his beloved with the assurance that their souls may meet though
their bodies be absent.
“Soul’s joy, now I am gone,
And you alone,
—Which cannot be,
Since I must leave myself with thee,
And carry thee with me—
Yet when unto our eyes
Absence denies
Each other’s sight,
And makes to us a constant night,
When others change to light;
_O give no way to grief,
But let belief
Of mutual love
This wonder to the vulgar prove,
Our bodies, not we move_.
“Let not thy wit beweep
Words but sense deep;
For when we miss
By distance our hope’s joining bliss
Even then our souls shall kiss;
Fools have no means to meet,
But by their feet;
Why should our clay
Over our spirits so much sway,
To tie us to that way?
_O give no way to grief, etc._”
In his “Valediction Forbidding Mourning,” Donne again recurs to the
subject of separation and explains by the figure of the compass how
their souls will be one. The love in which the mind is bent on the
objects of sense cannot admit of absence; but the love shared by Donne
and his mistress is so refined that their souls suffer only an expansion
and not separation in absence.
“Dull sublunary lover’s love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, ’cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.
“But we by a love so far refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less eyes, lips and hands to miss.
“Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
“If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.
“And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.”
(Stzs. 4–8.)
Even in death this love will still live. Thus Lord Herbert explains that
his love has passed over into that of the soul, and it will be as
immortal as the soul.
“But since I must depart, and that our love
Springing at first but in an earthly mould
Transplanted to our souls, now doth remove
Earthly affects, which time and distance would,
Nothing now can our loves allay,
Though as the better Spirits will,
That both love us and know our ill,
We do not either all the good we may.
Thus when our Souls that must immortal be,
For our loves cannot die, nor we (unless
We die not both together) shall be free
Unto their open and eternal peace.
Sleep, Death’s Embassador, and best
Image, doth yours often so show,
That I thereby must plainly know,
Death unto us must be freedom and rest.”[11]
The second characteristic of this love is that it is purely
contemplative, informing the mind with knowledge rather than satisfying
the senses with pleasure. Habington has left a poem entitled “To the
World. The Perfection of Love,” in which he contrasts this love in which
the soul is engaged with thoughts with the love of sense.
“You who are earth, and cannot rise
Above your sence,
Boasting the envyed wealth which lyes
Bright in your mistris’ lips or eyes,
Betray a pittyed eloquence.
“That, which doth joyne our soules, so light
And quicke doth move,
That, like the eagle in his flight,
It doth transcend all humane sight,
Lost in the element of love.
“You poets reach not this, who sing
The praise of dust
But kneaded, when by theft you bring
The rose and lilly from the spring,
Τ’ adorne the wrinckled face of lust.
“When we speake love, nor art, nor wit
We glosse upon:
Our soules engender, and beget
Ideas which you counterfeit
In your dull propagation.
“While time seven ages shall disperse,
Wee’le talke of love,
And when our tongues hold no commerse,
Our thoughts shall mutually converse;
And yet the blood no rebell prove.
“And though we be of severall kind,
Fit for offence:
Yet are we so by love refin’d,
From impure drosse we are all mind,
Death could not more have conquer’d sence.”
By virtue of this contemplation in love the passion was freed from any
disturbing element due to absence, just as the restriction of love to
the soul had been thought to do. Vaughan boasts to Amoret that he can
dispense with a sight of her face or with a kiss because when absent
from her he can court the mind.
“Just so base, sublunary lovers’ hearts
Fed on loose profane desires,
May for an eye
Or face comply:
But those remov’d, they will as soon depart,
And show their art,
And painted fires.
“Whilst I by pow’rful love, so much refin’d,
That my absent soul the same is,
Careless to miss
A glance or kiss,
Can with these elements of lust and sense
Freely dispense,
And court the mind.”
In the examples thus far given, the character of the passion as shared
by lover and beloved has been merely described. There was an attempt
made in some of this poetry to define love as if it were a something to
be analyzed—a product, as it were, of psychological elaboration. Vaughan
has indicated the two traits in the love lyrist of the seventeenth
century, when he gives the following title to a lyric,—“To Amoret, of
the Difference ’Twixt Him and Other Lovers, and What True Love Is.” In
defining “What True Love Is,” the poets show that it cannot be desire,
but is rather an essence pure in itself, and in one instance it is
described as something unknowable either to sense or to mind.
Donne has left a letter in verse “To the Countess of Huntingdon,” in
which he carefully explains how love cannot be desire. Sighing and
moaning may be love, but it is love made in a weak way; love should
never cast one down, but should elevate.
“I cannot feel the tempest of a frown;
I may be raised by love, but not thrown down;
Though I can pity those sigh twice a day,
I hate that thing whispers itself away.
Yet since all love is fever, who to trees
Doth talk, doth yet in love’s cold ague freeze.
’Tis love, but with such fatal weakness made,
That it destroys itself with its own shade.”
(ll. 27–34.)
At first love was mere desire, ignorant of its object; but now love is a
matter of the soul, and it is profane to call rages of passion love.
“As all things were one nothing, dull and weak,
Until this raw disorder’d heap did break,
And several desires led parts away,
Water declined with earth, the air did stay,
Fire rose, and each from other but untied,
Themselves unprison’d were and purified;
So was love, first in vast confusion hid,
An unripe willingness which nothing did,
A thirst, an appetite which had no ease,
That found a want, but knew not what would please.
What pretty innocence in those days moved!
Man ignorantly walk’d by her he loved;
Both sigh’d and interchanged a speaking eye;
Both trembled and were sick: both knew not why.”
(ll. 37–51.)
This state may well become this early age, but now
“passion is to woman’s love, about,
Nay, farther off, than when we first set out.
It is not love that sueth, or doth contend;
Love either conquers, or but meets a friend;
Man’s better part consists of purer fire,
And finds itself allow’d, ere it desire.”
(ll. 55–60.)
The reason for this lies in the fact that love begins in the soul, and
not in the sight.
“He much profanes whom valiant heats do move
To style his wandering rage of passion, Love.
Love that imparts in everything delight,
Is fancied in the soul, not in the sight.”
(ll. 125–128.)
In Jonson’s “Epode” in “The Forest,” the same differentiation of love
from passion is present, and an attempt is made to define love as an
essence. The love of the present is nothing but raging passion.
“The thing they here call Love, is blind desire,
Arm’d with bow, shafts, and fire;
Inconstant, like the sea, of whence ’tis born,
Rough, swelling, like a storm.”
True love, however, is an essence, a calmness, a peace.
“Now, true love
No such effects doth prove;
That is an essence far more gentle, fine,
Pure, perfect, nay divine;
· · · · ·
this bears no brands, nor darts,
To murder different hearts,
But in a calm, and godlike unity,
Preserves community.”
In Donne in his “Love’s Growth,” there is an expression of doubt whether
his love can be as pure as he thought it was, because it seems to suffer
an increase in the spring, and is not a thing without component
elements. But if love is no quintessence, he says, it must be mixed with
alien passions and thus not be pure. He silences his doubts, however, by
explaining after the analogy of concentric rings of waves of water about
the centre of disturbance how his love is one and unelemented.
“I scarce believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make it more.
“But if this medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence,
But mix’d of all stuffs, vexing soul, or sense,
And of the sun his active vigour borrow,
“Love’s not so pure, and abstract as they use
To say, which have no mistress but their Muse;
But as all else, being elemented too,
Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.
· · · · ·
“If, as in water stirr’d more circles be
Produced by one, love such additions take,
Those like so many spheres but one heaven make,
For they are all concentric unto thee.”
(I. 34, 35.)
Again, in “The Dream,” he fears the strength of his beloved’s affection
if it is mingled with a sense of fear, or shame, or honor.
“That love is weak where fear’s as strong as he;
T’is not all spirit, pure and brave,
If mixture it of fear, shame, honour have;”
(I. 39.)
This refinement of the subject of love is carried to an even greater
excess. Love is such a passion that it can be defined only by negatives.
It is above apprehension, because sense and soul both can know the
object of their love. In the poem of Donne’s “Negative Love,” in which
this idea is expressed, it is probable that the poet has in mind the
description of The One which Plotinus outlines in the “Enneads.” Summing
up his discussion of The One, or The Good, in which he has pointed out
how it is above intellect, Plotinus says: “If, however, anything is
present with _the good_, it is present with it in a way transcending
knowledge and intelligence and a cosensation of itself, since it has not
anything different from itself.... On this account says Plato [in the
“Parmenides,” speaking of _the one_] that neither language can describe,
nor sense nor science apprehend it, because nothing can be predicated of
it as present with it.” (“Enneads,” VI. vii. 41.) Transferring this idea
of the transcendency of The One to his love, Donne had the form of
thought for his lyric.
“I never stoop’d so low, as they
Which on an eye, cheek, lip, can prey;
Seldom to them which soar no higher
Than virtue, or the mind to admire.
For sense and understanding may
Know what gives fuel to their fire;
My love, though silly, is more brave;
For may I miss whene’er I crave,
If I know yet what I would have.
“If that be simply perfectest,
Which can by no way be express’d
But negatives, my love is so.
To all, which all love, I say no.
If any who deciphers best,
What we know not—ourselves—can know,
Let him teach me that nothing. This
As yet my ease and comfort is,
Though I speed not, I cannot miss.”
This reference to the knowledge of self also occurs in Plotinus in the
preceding sentence to the passage already extracted. “For the mandate,”
he says, “‘know thyself,’ was delivered to those, _who, on account of
the multitude which they possess_, find it requisite to enumerate
themselves, and in order that by knowing the number and quality of the
things contained in their essence, they may perceive that they have not
a knowledge of all things, or, indeed, of anything [which they ought to
know], and who are ignorant over what they ought to rule, and what is
the characteristic of their nature.” (VI. vii. 41.)
This highly metaphysical conception of love, the character of which has
been shown in a few selected examples, became in the course of time
known as “Platonic Love.” Scattered throughout the lyric poetry of the
seventeenth century may be found certain poems labelled “Platonic Love.”
Their presence among the author’s work is no testimony whatsoever that
it is colored by any strain of Platonism, but merely signifies that at
one time in his career the poet wrote love lyrics according to the
prevailing manner of the time. For about 1634 Platonic love was a court
fad. Howell, writing under date of June 3, 1634, says: “The Court
affords little News at present, but that there is a Love call’d
Platonick Love which much sways there of late: it is a Love abstracted
from all corporeal gross Impressions and sensual Appetite, but consists
in Contemplations and Ideas of the Mind, not in any carnal Fruition.
This Love sets the Wits of the Town on work; and they say there will be
a Mask shortly of it, whereof Her Majesty and her Maids of Honour will
be part.”[12]
The masque referred to is D’Avenant’s “The Temple of Love” (1634). In
Thomas Heywood’s “Love’s Mistress or the Queen’s Masque” (1640) the myth
of Cupid and Psyche is interpreted in accordance with the notion of
Platonic love; and in D’Avenant’s “Platonick Lovers” (1636) the subject
of Platonic love is ridiculed. It is probable that the rise of this
custom at the court was due to the presence of Henrietta Maria, the
queen of Charles I. Margaret of Valois had made Platonic love known in
France; and had shown how licentiousness of conduct was compatible with
its practice. “She had a high harmonious soul,” writes Howell,[13] “much
addicted to music and the sweets of love, and oftentimes in a Platonic
way; She would have this Motto often in her mouth; _Voulez vous cesser
d’aymer? possedez la chose aymée._... She had strains of humors and
transcendencies beyond the vulgar, and delighted to be call’d _Venus
Urania_.” It is probable that the young queen wished to follow such an
example and made known to the English court this new way of love
gallantry. The practice of making love in the Platonic way grew so
popular at any rate as to become a question of serious discussion. John
Norris says, “_Platonic Love_ is a thing in every Bodies Mouth,” and
after comparing it with the love described by Plato in the “Symposium,”
he concludes, “But why this should be call’d by the name of _Platonic_
Love, the best reason that I know of, is because People will have it
so.”[14] Algernon Sidney has left an account of love as a desire of
enjoying beauty. He concludes that since man is midway between angels
and beasts, his love will share in the peculiarities of both the
celestial and the sensual passion.[15] Walter Charleton ridicules the
subject and unmasks its immorality, although his purpose is not in any
way to purify the morals of his readers.[16] Robert Boyle wrote, but did
not publish, a series of letters, “wherein [among other subjects]
Platonic love was explicated, celebrated, and wherein the cure of love
was proposed and prosecuted.”[17]
The ideas expressed in these poems on Platonic love are not essentially
different from those in the lyrics which have been already discussed. At
times, as in Stanley’s “Love’s Innocence,” the Platonic manner is
understood as one devoid of all danger. It was in this way that Vaughan
looked upon his love for Amoret. “You have here,” he says, “a flame,
bright only in its own innocence, that kindles nothing but a generous
thought, which though it may warm the blood, the fire at highest is but
Platonic; and the commotion, within these limits, excludes danger.”[18]
On the other hand, Carew’s “Song to a Lady, not yet Enjoyed by her
Husband,” shows how the stock ideas was used to cloak the immorality of
the poet’s thought. George Daniel has left a series of poems revealing
the several phases of this love ranging between the two extremes. He
writes one “To Cinthia, coying it,” in which its innocence is preached.
“To Cinthia Converted” describes the union of the two souls. “To the
Platonicke Pretender” warns the ladies from listening to this love when
taught by a libertine. “Pure Platonicke” explains the spiritual nature
of the passion by contrast with sensual love. “Court-Platonicke” shows
how at court it was used merely as a means to an improper end.
“Anti-Platonicke” recites the feelings of the sensual lover.[19] In Lord
Herbert are found two other phases of this love. The first and second of
his poems named “Platonick Love” are complimentary poems addressed to a
lady; the first, telling her how the love inspired by her refines his
soul, and the second celebrating Platonic love in general application.
“For as you can unto that height refine
All Loves delights, as while they do incline
Unto no vice, they so become divine,
We may as well attain your excellence,
As, without help of any outward sense
Would make us grow a pure Intelligence.”
(Stz. 2.)
In the third “Platonicke Love” the lover is represented as wavering
between despair and hope with a slight balance in favor of the latter.
He is disconsolate because he finds no hope
“when my matchless Mistress were inclin’d
To pity me, ’twould scarcely make me glad,
The discomposing of so fair a mind
Being that which would to my Affections add.”
(Stz. 1.)
He finds hope, however, in the thought that
“though due merit I cannot express,
Yet she shall know none ever lov’d for less
Or easier reward. Let her remain
Still great and good, and from her Happiness
My chief contentment I will entertain.”
(Stz. 7.)
He ends with hope still living:
“Then, hope, sustain thy self: though thou art hid
Thou livest still, and must till she forbid;
For when she would my vows and love reject,
They would a Being in themselves project,
Since infinites as they yet never did,
Nor could conclude without some good effect.”
(Stz. 16.)
Platonic love, as such an example proves, was but synonymous with
hopeless love.
Platonic love, then, meant either a love devoid of all sensual desire,
an innocent or hopeless passion, or it was a form of gallantry used to
cloak immorality. Its one characteristic notion was that true love
consisted in a union of soul with soul, mind with mind, or essence with
essence. This idea of restricting love to the experience of soul as
opposed to the enjoyment of sense is the one notion which runs beneath
many of the love lyrics written in the seventeenth century; and it is
the point attacked by opponents. In John Cleveland, “To Cloris, a
Rapture,” and in Campion’s “Song”[20] the poets exhort their beloved to
enjoy this high union of soul. In Carew’s “To My Mistress in Absence,”
in Lovelace’s “To Lucasta. Going beyond the Seas,” and in Cowley’s
“Friendship in Absence,” the triumph of love over time and space is
explained by the mingling of souls in true love. In Sedley’s “The
Platonick” and in Ayres’s “Platonic Love” are found examples of the
hopelessness of the passion. In Aytoun’s “Platonic Love” which was taken
by Suckling to form a poem—the “Song,” beginning, “If you refuse me
once”—the lover modestly confesses that he cannot rise to the heights of
such a pure passion, and requests a more easy way. In Cleveland’s “The
Anti-Platonick” and “Platonick Love,” in Brome’s “Epithalamy,” in
Cowley’s “Platonick Love” and “Answer to the Platonicks,” and in
Cartwright’s “No Platonique Love,” the claims of the opponents are
expressed in all the grossness of Restoration immorality.
The atmosphere in which the metaphysical treatment of love flourished
was intensely intellectual. The poets in whom the strain is clearest
were trying to accomplish two thing: they wished to oppose the idea of
passion in love, and they endeavored to account for the attraction of
sex in the love which they themselves experienced. However much these
poets wished to exclude the notion of sex, their minds were constantly
busied in trying to solve the source of its power. In Donne, the
greatest representative of the metaphysical manner, this purpose is very
evident. He wrote his longest poem, “An Anatomy of the World,” to show
how, by reason of the death of a certain young woman, “the frailty and
the decay of this whole world is represented.” In reply to Jonson’s
criticism, that this poem was “full of blasphemies,” Donne remarked that
“he described the Idea of a Woman, and not as she was.”[21] Here lies
the secret of Donne’s treatment of woman; he was interested in her, not
as a personality, but as an idea. In solving the nature of this idea he
recurred to certain Platonic conceptions by which he thought to explain
the source of her power.
These Platonic conceptions are two. Woman is identified with virtue; she
is the source of all virtue in the world, others being virtuous only by
participating in her virtue. Thus in a letter “To the Countess of
Huntingdon” he shows how virtue has been raised from her fallen state on
earth by appearing in woman. She was once scattered among men, but now
summed up in one woman.
“If the world’s age and death be argued well
By the sun’s fall, which now towards earth doth bend,
Then we might fear that virtue, since she fell
So low as woman, should be near her end.
“But she’s not stoop’d, but raised; exiled by men
She fled to heaven, that’s heavenly things, that’s you;
She was in all men thinly scatter’d then,
But now a mass contracted in a few.
“She gilded us, but you are gold; and she
Informed us, but transubstantiates you.
Soft dispositions, which ductile be,
Elixirlike, she makes not clean, but new.
“Though you a wife’s and mother’s name retain,
’Tis not as woman, for all are not so;
But virtue, having made you virtue, is fain
To adhere in these names, her and you to show.
“Else, being alike pure, we should neither see;
As, water being into air rarefied,
Neither appear, till in one cloud they be,
So, for our sakes, you do low names abide.”
Beneath this torture of conceits may be seen the idea that woman is that
very virtue of which Plato has spoken in his “Phædrus.” Sidney has used
the idea to compliment Stella; but Donne’s purpose is to show how woman,
as woman, is to be identified with it, and that the differentiation in
the concept resulting from the fact that she may be a wife or a mother
is due to the necessity that this virtue become visible on earth.
The second Platonic conception through which Donne conveys his idea of
woman’s nature is the universal soul. In his lyric, “A Fever,” he says,
speaking of the object of his love:
“But yet thou canst not die, I know;
To leave this world behind, is death;
But when thou from this world wilt go,
The whole world vapours with thy breath.
“Or if, when thou, the world’s soul, go’st
It stay, ’tis but thy carcase then.”
And in “An Anatomy of the World” this idea of the death of the world in
the death of a woman is explained at length.
Holding thus to this idea of woman, and striving to differentiate love
from passion, Donne was able to confine his notion of love to the soul;
and through the metaphysical manner of his poetic art he was able to
express this notion in the most perplexing intricacies of thought. As
Dryden has said, “he affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires,
but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign: and perplexes
the minds of the fair sex with the speculations of philosophy, where he
should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softness of
love.”[22] By imitating his style the other lyric poets of the
seventeenth century produced the species of love poems which have
already been analyzed. His skill and his sincerity of aim are lacking in
their verse; and the result was either a weak dilution of his thought or
a striving for his manner in praising a lower conception of love.
CHAPTER III
GOD AND THE SOUL
I. NATURE OF GOD
Platonism affected Christian theology as it appears in English poetry in
a twofold way. It provided a body of intellectual principles which were
identified with the persons of the Christian Trinity and it also trained
the minds of the poets in conceiving God rather as the object of the
mind’s speculative quest than as the dread judge of the sinful soul.
Platonism in this form is no longer the body of ethical principles
appearing in the Platonic dialogues; but is that metaphysical
after-growth of Platonism that has its source in the philosophy of
Plotinus. According to this form of speculative mysticism there were
three ultimate principles, or hypostases,—The Good, Intellect (υοῦς),
and Soul. Owing to the affinity of Platonism for Christian forms of
thought, these three hypostases were conceived as the philosophic basis
underlying the Christian teaching of the three Persons of the Trinity.
Such an interpretation is seen plainly in the work of Henry More and
William Drummond; and the speculative attitude of conceiving God and
Christ in the light of the hypostases of Plotinus is also discernible in
Spenser and Milton.
The boldest attempt to identify the three Plotinian principles with the
Christian Trinity is made in Henry More’s “Psychozoia,” the first poem
of his “Psychodia Platonica.” This poetical treatise reveals the aim of
More’s spiritual life as it was formulated on the basis of Platonic
philosophy blended with the teaching of the “Theologia Germanica.” The
strain of self-abnegation which More learned in “that _Golden little
Book_,”[23] as he names the German treatise, may be easily separated
from the Platonism, being confined to the last two books of his poem; it
may thus be dismissed. In the first book, however, the current of
thought is almost purely Platonic. There, under the figure of the
marriage rite, the first principle of Plotinus, the Good, is represented
as joining his two children—Intellect and Soul—in holy union; and under
the poetic device of a veil with several films or tissues, More
describes Soul in minute detail.
In keeping with the teachings of Platonism More defines each person of
the Trinity in the terms used by Plotinus. According to this philosopher
the highest reality is The One or The Good which is infinite and above
all comprehension, not because it is impossible to measure or count it
(since it has no magnitude and no multitude), but simply because it is
impossible to conceive its power. (“Enneads,” VI. ix. 6.) In the
beatific vision, in which The Good is known in the Soul, it is
invisible, hidden in its own rays of light. (“Enneads,” VI. vii. 35.)
More thus speaks of God, naming him Hattove:
“Th’ Ancient of dayes, sire of _Æternitie_,
Sprung of himself, or rather nowise sprong.
Father of lights, and everlasting glee
Who puts to silence every daring tongue
And flies mans sight, shrouding himself among
His glorious rayes, good _Hattove_, from whom came
All good that _Penia_ [_i.e._ want] spies in thickest throng
Of most desired things, all’s from that same.”
(I. 5.)
“But first of all
Was mighty _Hattove_, deeply covered o’re
With unseen light. No might Imaginall
May reach that vast profunditie.”
(I. 16.)
The Son is identified with the second hypostasis,—universal intellect.
In this all realities are present not as created things in time or
space, but embraced as essential forms with no spatial or temporal
relation. This character of universal intellect is thus named αἰών, or
eternity. (“Enneads,” III. vii. 4.) More thus writes of Christ—
“The youthfull _Æon_, whose fair face doth shine
While he his Fathers glory doth espy,
Which waters his fine flowring forms with light from high.
“Not that his forms increase, or that they die.
For _Æοn Land_, which men _Idea_ call,
Is nought but life in full serenitie,
Vigour of life is root, stock, branch, and all;
Nought here increaseth, nought here hath its fall;
For _Æons_ kingdomes alwaies perfect stand,
Birds, beasts, fields, springs, plants, men and minerall,
To perfectnesse nought added be there can.”
(I. 13. 14.)
Psyche, or Uranore, as she is named at times, is the third person of the
Trinity. She is the soul of the universe, present in every “atom ball,”
in the creatures of earth, sea, air, the divine stars in heaven.
(“Enneads,” V. i. 2.) In her true essence she is invisible; but More
pictures her as enveloped in a fourfold garment. The outer garment is
called Physis, in which all natural objects appear as spots which grow
each according to its idea. This robe is stirred with every impulse of
life from the central power of God.
“The first of these fair films, we _Physis_ name.
Nothing in nature did you ever spy
But there’s pourtraid:
· · · · ·
“And all besprinkeled with centrall spots,
Dark little spots, is this hid inward veil.
· · · · ·
“When they dispread themselves, then gins to swell
Dame _Psyches_ outward vest, as th’ inward wind
Softly gives forth, full softly doth it well
Forth from the centrall spot;
· · · · ·
according to the imprest Art
(That Arts impression’s from _Idea Land_)
So drives it forth before it every part
According to true symmetry.”
(I. 41–44.)
The second and third folds of Psyche’s vest are very closely identified.
They are called Arachnea and Haphe, by which the life of sensation is
meant. Haphe, or touch, sits in the finely spun web of Arachnea, and is
aware of every manifestation of life resulting from the soul’s contact
with the outward world. In this life of sensation Psyche sees as in a
mirror all the stirring life within the universe. (I. 48, 49, 50.)
The fourth fold of Psyche’s garment is called Semele, by which
imagination is meant. This is the loosest of the four veils, having the
fullest play in its movements. It is universal imagination, and from it
arises the inspiration of the poet and the prophet. (I. 57.) The
individual powers of imagination are conceived as daughters of the one
great Semele.
“She is the mother of each _Semele_:
The daughters be divided one from one;
But she grasps all. How can she then but see
Each _Semels_ shadows by this union?
She sees and swayes imagination
As she thinks good: and it that she think good
She lets it play by ’t self, yet looketh on,
While she keeps in that large strong-beating flood
That gars the Poet write, and rave as he were wood.”
(I. 59.)
These three persons—Ahad, another name given by More to God (I. 34),
Æon, and Psyche—form, says More, “the famous Platonicall Triad; which
though they that slight the Christian Trinity do take for a figment; yet
I think it is no contemptible argument, that the Platonists, the best
and divinest of Philosophers, and the Christians, the best of all that
do professe religion, do both concur that there is a Trinity. In what
they differ, I leave to be found out, according to the safe direction of
that infallible Rule of Faith, the holy Word.”[24] To signify the union
of these persons More represents Ahad joining Æon, his son, in marriage
to Psyche, and by holding their hands in his, maintaining a perpetual
unity.
“My first born Sonne, and thou my daughter dear,
Look on your aged Sire, the deep abysse,
In which and out of which you first appear;
I _Ahad_ hight, and _Ahad_ onenesse is:
Therefore be one; (his words do never misse)
They one became.
“They straight accord: then he put on the ring,
The ring of lasting gold on _Uranure_;
Then gan the youthful Lads aloud to sing,
Hymen! O Hymen! O the Virgin pure!
O holy Bride! long may this joy indure.
· · · · ·
(I. 34, 35.)
And all this time he held their hands in one;
Then they with chearfull look one thing desired,
That he nould break this happy union.
I happy union break? quoth he anon:
I _Ahad_? Father of Community?
Then they: That you nould let your hand be gone
Off from our hands. He grants with smiling glee.”
(I. 38.)
In this way More has expressed his conception of the Christian Trinity.
Inasmuch as his purpose in the “Psychozoia” is to relate the experiences
of the human soul from the time of its departure from God to its return
thither, he has laid especial emphasis upon the third hypostasis of
Plotinus,—Soul.
In William Drummond’s “An Hymn of the Fairest Fair” attention is centred
upon the first person of the Trinity. Drummond is more of a poet and
less of a philosopher than More; but the philosophic conceptions which
are woven into his poetical description of the nature, attributes, and
works of God are drawn from the same system of metaphysics. In
Drummond’s “Hymn” there is a mingling of two conceptions of God. He is
described, according to the Hebraic idea, as a mighty king, the creator
of the universe, dwelling in heaven, and possessing such attributes of
personality as justice, mercy, might. Running in and out of this
description is a strain of Platonic speculation, in which the conception
of God as an essence is very prominent. Thus by means of a poetic device
picturing youth standing before God and pouring immortal nectar into His
cup, Drummond expresses the Platonic idea of absolute oneness. And this
idea is the attribute of God first set forth.
“If so we may well say (and what we say,
Here wrapt in flesh, led by dim reason’s ray,
To show by earthly beauties which we see,
That spiritual excellence that shines in thee,
Good Lord, forgive), not far from thy right side,
With curled locks Youth ever doth abide;
Rose-cheeked Youth, who, garlanded with flowers
Still blooming, ceaselessly unto thee pours
Immortal nectar in a cup of gold,
That by no darts of ages thou grow old,
And, as ends and beginnings thee not claim,
Successionless that thou be still the same.”
(ll. 31–42.)
After a description of God’s might, Drummond passes on to consider His
truth, conceived as the Platonists conceived intellect, embracing all
reality as essential form. This attribute is pictured as a mirror in
which God beholds all things.
“With locks in waves of gold that ebb and flow
On ivory neck, in robes more white than snow,
Truth steadfastly before thee holds a glass,
Indent with gems, where shineth all that was,
That is, or shall be. Here, ere aught was wrought,
Thou knew all that thy pow’r with time forth brought,
And more, things numberless which thou couldst make,
That actually shall never being take:
Here, thou behold’st thyself, and, strange, dost prove
At once the beauty, lover, and the love.”
(ll. 56–66.)
Platonic metaphysics are also present in Drummond’s account of the
essential unity persisting throughout the triplicity of Persons.
Plotinus had held that The One caused the mind or intellect, and that in
turn caused universal soul. The order, however, is not one of time
sequence, but merely a logical order of causation. In this series of
causation there is no idea of a production as an act going out of itself
and forming another; each producing cause remains in its own centre;
throughout the series runs one cause or manifestation of life. His
favorite figures by which he explains this idea are, first, that of an
overflowing spring which gives rise to a second and this to a third;
and, second, that of a sun with a central source of light with its
spreading rays. (“Enneads,” V. ii. 1, 2.) Thus intellect is an
irradiation of The One and soul is an irradiation of intellect.
(“Enneads,” V. i. 6.) Drummond, holding to the idea of the
self-sufficiency of God as expressed in Plotinus, a state in which God
is alone by Himself and not in want of the things that proceed from Him
(“Enneads,” VI. vii. 40), is thus able to unfold the mystery of the One
in Three:
“Ineffable, all-powrfull God, all free,
Thou only liv’st, and each thing lives by thee;
No joy, no, nor perfection to thee came
By the contriving of this world’s great frame;
· · · · ·
world nought to thee supplied,
All in thyself thyself thou satisfied.
Of good no slender shadow doth appear,
No age-worn track, in thee which shin’d not clear;
Perfections sum, prime cause of every cause,
Midst, end, beginning, where all good doth pause.
Hence of thy substance, differing in nought,
Thou in eternity, thy Son forth brought,
The only birth of thy unchanging mind,
Thine image, pattern-like that ever shin’d,
Light out of light, begotton not by will,
But nature, all and that same essence still
Which thou thyself....
· · · · ·
Of this light,
Eternal, double, kindled was thy spright
Eternally, who is with thee the same,
All-holy gift, ambassador, knot, flame.
Most sacred Triad! O most holy One!
Unprocreate Father, ever procreate Son,
Ghost breath’d from both, you were, are, aye shall be,
Most blessed, three in one, and one in three,
Incomprehensible by reachless height,
And unperceived by excessive light.
· · · · ·
So, though unlike, the planet of the days,
So soon as he was made, begat his rays,
Which are his offspring, and from both was hurl’d
The rosy light which comfort doth the world,
And none forewent another; so the spring
The well-head, and the stream which they forth bring,
Are but one selfsame essence, nor in aught
Do differ, save in order, and our thought
No chime of time discerns in them to fall,
But three distinctly bide one essence all.”
(ll. 99–142.)
From this point on to the close, the “Hymn” celebrates the glory of God
in his works. Drummond possessed an imagination that delighted as
Milton’s did in the contemplation of the universe as a vast mechanical
scheme of sun and planets. (ll. 180–232.) His philosophic mind, however,
led him to conceive of nature in the manner of the Platonists. God, or
true being, according to Plotinus is a unity, everywhere present
(“Enneads,” VI. v. 4); and matter, the other extreme of his philosophy,
is an empty show, a shadow in a mirror. (“Enneads,” III. vi. 7.) In
closing the account of the works of God, Drummond thus writes:
“Whole and entire, all in thyself thou art,
All-where diffus’d, yet of this All no part;
For infinite, in making this fair frame,
Great without quantity, in all thou came,
And filling all, how can thy state admit
Or place or substance to be said of it?
· · · · ·
Were but one hour this world disjoin’d from thee,
It in one hour to nought reduc’d should be,
For it thy shadow is; and can they last,
If sever’d from the substances them cast?”
(ll. 285–298.)
Drummond’s “Hymn” is the work of a mind in which poetical sensuousness
and philosophic abstraction are well-nigh equally balanced. In More the
philosopher had outweighed the poet. In Milton the poet asserts his full
power. To him the Plotinian scheme of the hypostases is valuable only as
they enable his love of beauty to be satisfied in conformity with his
intellectual apprehension of the relation between God and the Son in the
Trinal Godhead. Plotinus had outlined the relation between The Good and
Intellect as that of a principle of beauty by which the intellect is
invested and possesses beauty and light. (“Enneads,” VI. vii. 31.) The
Good itself is the principle of beauty, hidden in its own rays of light.
In Milton the conception of God as hidden in inaccessible light, and of
the Son as the express image of the invisible beauty of God, is
explained in conformity with the Platonic scheme, and also with those
Scriptural texts, one of which mentions God as a King of kings, who only
hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto
(1 Tim. vi. 16); and the other proclaims that in Christ “dwelleth all
the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. ii. 9). Thus in heaven the
angels hymn their praises:
“Thee, Father, first they sung, Omnipotent,
Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,
Eternal King; thee, Author of all being,
Fountain of light, thyself invisible
Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sitt’st
Throned inaccessible, but when thou shad’st
The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud
Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine
Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear,
Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest Seraphim
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.
Thee next they sang, of all creation first,
Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,
In whose conspicuous countenance, without cloud
Made visible, the Almighty Father shines,
Whom else no creature can behold: on thee
Impressed the effulgence of his glory abides.
Transfused on thee his ample Spirit rests.”
(P. L., III. 372–389.)
And the Almighty addresses the Son:
“‘Effulgence of my glory, Son beloved,
Son in whose face invisible is beheld
Visibly, what by Deity I am.’”
(VI. 680–682.)
This relation of Christ to God which in the Scripture was indicated only
as in an outline sketch has been filled in with the substance of the
Plotinian æsthetics, in which The One and The Good is beauty itself
(καλλονή) and intellect is the beautiful (τὸ καλόν). (“Enneads,” I. vi.
6.)
The attraction which this philosophical explanation had for those whose
work reveals its presence is twofold. To the religious mind in which the
metaphysical cast of thought was prominent, the idea of the transcendent
immanence of God in all things as their life, yet apart from all things
as objects in time and space came home with its wealth of suggestion of
the nearness of God to man. In Henry More this feeling is uppermost in
his “Psychozoia.” In the midst of his description of Psyche’s robe he
breaks out into a passage on the constant care which God shows toward
the world. In Psyche’s mirror of Arachnea and Haphe God is aware of all
on earth that falls under sense. The roaring of the hungry lion, the
burning thirst of the weary traveller and every movement of the little
sparrow are all known to him.
“Do not I see? I slumber not nor sleep,
Do not I heare? each noise by shady night
My miroir represents: when mortals steep
Their languid limbs in Morpheus dull delight,
I hear such sounds as Adams brood would fright.
The dolefull echoes from the hollow hill
Mock houling wolves: the woods with black bedight.
Answer rough Pan, his pipe and eke his skill,
And all the Satyr-routs rude whoops and shoutings shrill.”
(I. 54.)
In his second canto, where he repeats the idea of the universal life of
Psyche, he dwells on the fact of God’s immanence in the world. He is the
inmost centre of creation, from whom as rays from the sun the individual
souls are born.
“Dependence of this All hence doth appear
And severall degrees subordinate.
But phansie’s so unfit such things to clear,
That oft it makes them seem more intricate;
And now Gods work it doth disterminate
Too far from his own reach: But he withall
More inward is, and far more intimate
Then things are with themselves. His ideall
And centrall presence is in every atom-ball.”
(II. 10.)
In those minds less metaphysical in nature, the high speculations of
Platonic philosophy opened a way by which they could conceive God as a
principle grasped by the mind rather than as a personal judge and
punisher of sin. In Drummond this contrast in the two conceptions of
God—one feeding itself on philosophy, and the other on the imagery of
the Scripture—is strikingly brought out by a comparison of the opening
and the ending of “An Hymn of the Fairest Fair” with those of “A Prayer
for Mankind.” The “Hymn” begins with a confession of the elevating power
of his subject:
“I feel my bosom glow with wontless fires
Rais’d from the vulgar press my mind aspires,
Wing’d with high thoughts, unto his praise to climb,
From deep eternity who called forth time;
That essence which not mov’d makes each thing move,
Uncreate beauty, all creating love:
But by so great an object, radiant light,
My heart appall’d, enfeebled rests my sight,
Thick clouds benight my labouring engine,
And at my high attempts my wits repine.
If thou in me this sacred rapture wrought,
My knowledge sharpen, sarcels [_i.e._ pinions] lend my thought;
Grant me, time’s Father, world-containing King
A pow’r, of thee in pow’rful lays to sing,
That as thy beauty in earth lives, heaven shines,
So it may dawn or shadow in my lines.”
(ll. 1–16.)
At the close he prays:
“What wit cannot conceive, words say of thee,
Here, where, as in a mirror, we but see
Shadows of shadows, atoms of thy might,
Still owly-eyed when staring on thy light,
Grant that, released from this earthly jail,
And freed of clouds which here our knowledge veil,
In heaven’s high temples, where thy praises ring,
I may in sweeter notes hear angels sing.”
(ll. 329–335.)
“A Prayer for Mankind,” however, opens with the note of humble adoration
and a sense of sin.
“Great God, whom we with humble thoughts adore,
Eternal, infinite, almighty King,
· · · · ·
At whose command clouds dreadful thunders sound!
Ah! spare us worms; weigh not how we, alas
Evil to ourselves, against thy laws rebel;
Wash off those spots which still in mind’s clear glass,
Though we be loath to look, we see too well;
Deserv’d revenge O do not, do not take!”
(ll. 1–13.)
It closes similarly:
“Grant, when at last our souls these bodies leave,
Their loathsome shops of sin, and mansions blind,
And doom before thy royal seat receive,
They may a Saviour, not a judge thee find.”
(ll. 65–68.)
In Spenser’s “Hymne of Heavenly Beautie” in the first portion of which
he sings the ascent of the mind through ever rising stages of perfection
to
“that Highest farre beyond all telling,”
the mingling of these two ways of approach to God is very apparent.
Spenser is first a Platonist and then a Christian. How, he asks, if
God’s glory is such that the sun is dimmed by comparison, can we behold
Him?
“The meanes therefore which unto us is lent,
Him to behold, is on his workes to looke,
Which he hath made in beauty excellent,
And in the same, as in a brasen booke,
To reade enregistred in every nooke
His goodnesse, which his beautie doth declare,
For all thats good, is beautifull and faire.
“Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation,
To impe the wings of thy high flying mynd,
Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation,
From this darke world, whose damps the soule do blynd,
And like the native brood of Eagles kynd,
On that bright Sunne of glorie fixe thine eyes,
Clear’d from grosse mists of fraile infirmities.”
Then comes in the sense of sin, and he approaches God in a different
spirit. He continues:
“Humbled with feare and awful reverence,
Before the footestoole of his Maiestie,
Throw thy selfe downe with trembling innocence,
Ne dare looke up with corruptible eye,
On the dred face of that great _Deity_,
For feare, lest if he chaunce to looke on thee,
Thou turne to nought, and quite confounded be.
“But lowly fall before his mercie seate,
Close covered with the Lambes integrity,
From the just wrath of his avengefull threate,
That sits upon the righteous throne on hy.”
(ll. 130–152.)
II. NATURE OF THE SOUL
The nature of the soul from the standpoint of Plotinian metaphysics was
treated by Henry More in his two poetical treatises, “Pyschathanasia”
and “Anti-psychopannychia.” In the former he follows the course of the
argument set forth in the seventh book of the fourth “Ennead” of
Plotinus. In the Plotinian defence two propositions are established;
namely, that the soul is not body, and that it is not a function of
body. By demonstrating these, it followed that the soul is an immaterial
thing, a real being, and consequently eternal. This is the drift of
More’s argument in “Psychathanasia.” The first and second books are
devoted to the establishment of the definition of the soul as an
incorporeal substance, and the proof of its incorporeality is deduced
from considerations of its functions.
The soul, More holds, is an incorporeal thing because it is a
self-moving substance present in all forms of life. Plotinus had taught
that soul was everywhere. “First, then,” he says, “let every soul
consider this: how by breathing life into them soul made all animals,
the creatures of earth, sea, air, the divine stars in heaven; made the
sun, made the great firmament above us, and not only made but ordered
it, so that it swings round in due course. Yet is this soul a different
nature from what it orders, and moves, and vivifies. It must needs then
be more precious than its creations. For they are born, and when the
soul which ministers their life abandons them, they die; but the soul
ever is because it never abandons itself.” (“Enneads,” V. i. 2.) More
finds this soul present in the growth of all forms of vegetation, the
sphere spermatic (I. ii. 30), in the life of animals, sensation, and
self-directed motion; and in the intellectual life of man. (I. ii.
17–22.)
“Thus have I trac’d the soul in all its works,
And severall conditions have displaid,
And show’d all places where so e’r she lurks,
Even her own lurkings of her self bewray’d,
In plants, in beasts, in men, while here she staid.”
(I. ii. 23.)
He next demonstrates that this soul is a self-moving substance. It is
self-moving in plants, as the quickening power of the sun on vegetation
shows. Through the heat of the sun the hidden centre, or soul, is called
into the life of blossoming and growth.
“Thus called out by friendly sympathie
Their souls move of themselves on their _Centreitie_.”
(I. ii. 31.)
In animals the self-moving soul is manifested in motion and the life of
sensation.
“Then be the souls of beasts self-moving forms,
Bearing their bodies as themselves think meet,
Invited or provok’d, so they transform
At first themselves within, then straight in sight
Those motions come, which suddenly do light
Upon the bodies visible, which move
According to the will of th’ inward spright.”
(I. ii. 36.)
In man the self-motion of the soul is present in the activity of reason,
whether as the presiding power in all of the operations of the
image-making faculty, or as the contemplative and speculative power. (I.
ii. 41–44.)
After this account of the nature of the soul as a self-moving substance,
More addresses himself to the task of showing that all life is immortal.
In a time of despondency a Nymph once came and declared to him,
“_All life’s immortall_: though the outward trunk
May changed be, yet life to nothing never shrunk.”
(I. iii. 17.)
According to the theory unfolded by the Nymph there is an ever present
unity in all things which is the true source of their life. This is God.
From Him are six descending degrees of existence, called intellectual,
psychical, imaginative, sensitive, plantal, or spermatic. (I. iii. 23.)
Below all of these is matter, which is nothing but mere potentiality, or
the possibility of all created things. (I. iv. 9.) Though these various
degrees of life are distinct, they are manifestations of the one
pervading unity. (I. iii. 25.) Matter thus cannot be the prop and stay
of life. (I. iii. 26.)
The second proof of the incorporeal nature of the soul is found in the
character of its functions. After a hasty attack on the doctrine of
materialism in the form of a _reductio ad absurdum_ (II. ii. 13–25; cf.
Plotinus, IV. vii. 3), More shows, first, that the faculty within us by
which we are aware of the outward world of sense is one and individual,
yet everywhere present in the body. (II. ii. 32.) This faculty, called
“the common sense” (II. ii. 26), sits as judge over all the data of
sense knowledge (cf. Plotinus, IV. vii. 6); it decides in case of
disagreement between two senses, and distinguishes clearly between the
objects present to each sense. (II. ii. 28.) The common sense must be
one, else, being divided, it would breed confusion in consciousness (II.
ii. 31); and it must be everywhere present in the body because it shows
no partiality to any sense, but has intelligence of all equally. (II.
ii. 32.)
The rational powers of the soul are a further proof of the soul’s
incorporeal nature. The first consideration draws attention to the vast
scope of man’s will and soul. In the virtuous the soul can be so
universalized and begotten into the life of God that the will embraces
all with a tender love and is ever striving to seek God as the good.
(II. iii. 6.) If this is so, More asks whether the soul thus
universalized can ever die. (II. iii. 7.) Man’s understanding, too, can
become so broadened that it can apprehend God’s true being, not knowing
it, to be sure, in its true essence, but having such a true insight that
it can reject all narrow conceptions of His nature and welcome other
more comprehensive ideas as closer approximations to the truth. The
understanding is in a state that More calls parturient; God under
certain conditions can be born within the soul. (II. iii. 9–12.) For the
reason, then, of the vastness of the power of will and understanding
More holds that the soul cannot be a body. (II. iii. 4.)
The next argument in regard to the rational powers of the soul centres
about her power of pure abstraction. (Cf. “Enneads,” IV. vii. 8.) In
herself the soul divests matter of all time and place relations and
views the naked, simple essence of things. (II. iii. 18.) She thus
frames within herself an idea, which is indivisible and unextended; and
by this she judges outward objects. (II. iii. 18–20; cf. “Enneads,” IV.
vii. 12.) This property is not a property of body. (II. iii. 26.)
At this point More closes the first division of his argument. By
establishing the definition of the soul as a self-moving substance, and
by an account of the nature of its functions, he has defended his first
proposition, that the soul is an incorporeal thing. He then passes on to
the second part of his argument, that the soul is an incorporeal thing
because it is independent of the body.
This portion of his defence falls into four main divisions. In the first
he explains the nature of the body’s dependence upon the soul. Through
the power that the soul has by virtue of its lowest centre of life,
called the plantal, the soul frames the body in order to exercise
through it the functions of life. (III. i. 17.) The more perfect this
body is the more awake the soul is. (III. i. 17.) But after the work of
framing the body is finished, the soul dismisses it as an old thought
and begins its life of contemplation. (III. i. 16.) The main desire is
to see God. (III. ii. 11.) Next More shows how the soul can direct her
own thoughts within herself without in any way considering the body. Her
intellectual part dives within her nature in its quest for
self-knowledge and her will affects herself after this knowledge has
been gained. All this is accomplished free from any bodily assistance.
(III. ii. 25, 26.) The third division shows how the soul is so
independent of the body that she can resist its desires. Often the
sensual impulse of our nature would lead us to be content with mere
satisfaction of our bodily desires; but the soul desirous of truth and
gifted with an insight into God’s true nature enables us to resist all
such impulses. (III. ii. 38, 39.) The fourth division contrasts the
vitality of the soul with that of sense, fancy, and memory. These three
faculties are weakened by age and by disease, and also by excessive
stimulation; but the soul never fades, but grows stronger with each
contemplative act. (III. ii. 48, 49, 56.)
The attraction which the philosophy of Plotinus had for More’s mind
lay in its scheme of speculative mysticism. The metaphysical system of
Plotinus had taught that The One, which is the truly existing being,
is everywhere present and yet nowhere wholly present. (“Enneads,” VI.
iv.) It had explained also that the only way in which the individual
soul could apprehend this truly existing being was by a mystical union
with it, in which state the soul did not know in the sense of
energizing intellectually, but was one with The One. (“Enneads,” VI.
ix. 10.) These two ideas lie at the basis of More’s theosophic
mysticism. Their presence can be felt throughout his “Psychathanasia”
as its controlling idea and also in his two less important treatises,
“Anti-psychopannychia” and “Anti-monopsychia.”
The argument of the “Anti-psychopannychia” and of the “Anti-monopsychia”
centres about the doctrine of the mystic union with God. The argument in
the “Psychathanasia” is a critique of materialism rather than a positive
plea for the existence of the soul after death. It was the purpose of
More in his two pendants to his longer poem to treat of the state of the
soul after death. That it is not enveloped in eternal night he proves in
his “Anti-psychopannychia.” His argument is briefly this: Since God is a
unity everywhere present, he is infinite freedom. (II. 2.) Since the
soul’s activities of will and intellect are free from dependence upon
the body, death will be but the ushering of the soul into the life of
God’s large liberty.
“Wherefore the soul cut off from lowly sense
By harmlesse fate, far greater libertie
Must gain: for when it hath departed hence
(As all things else) should it not backward hie
From whence it came? but such divinitie
Is in our souls that nothing lesse than God
Could send them forth (as Plato’s schools descrie)
Wherefore when they retreat a free abode
They’ll find, unlesse kept off by _Nemesis_ just rod.”
(II. 14.)
In this life of union the soul will realize the deep fecundity of her
own nature; for in her are innate ideas. To establish this theory of
innate ideas into which Plato’s theory of reminiscence has been
transformed in Plotinus (cf. “Enneads,” IV. iii. 25), More educes four
considerations. They must exist because (1) like is known only by like
(II. 31); (2) no object or number of objects can give the soul a
universal concept (II. 36); (3) the apprehension of incorporeal things
cannot be made by sense, therefore the soul must have the measure of
such within her own nature (II. 38, 39); and (4) the process of learning
shows that it is education, or the drawing out of the mind what was in
it potentially (II. 42). Inasmuch, then, as innate ideas exist within
the mind, called out by experience in life, how much more will they be
evoked in that high union with God!
“But sith our soul with God himself may meet,
Inacted by his life, I cannot see
What scruple then remains that moven might
Least doubt but that she wakes with open eye,
When fate her from this body doth untie.
Wherefore her choisest forms do then arise,
Rowz’d up by union and large sympathy
With Gods own spright: she plainly then descries
Such plentitude of life, as she could nere devise.”
(III. 2.)
But this union of the soul with The One may be thought to obliterate
self-identity after death and teach only a universal absorption of all
souls into The One. To combat this idea More contends in his
“Anti-monopsychia” that by virtue of the “Deiformity” of the soul, by
which he means its ability to be joined with God, the soul in death is
so
“quickned with near Union
With God, that now wish’d for vitalitie
Is so encreas’d, that infinitely sh’ has fun
Herself, her deep’st desire unspeakably hath wonne.
“And deep desire is the deepest act,
The most profound and centrall energie,
The very selfnesse of the soul, which backt
With piercing might, she breaks out, forth doth flie
From dark contracting death, and doth descrie
Herself unto herself; so thus unfold
That actual life she straightwayes saith, is I.”
(Stz. 35, 36.)
In the “Psychathanasia” the Plotinian doctrines of the immanent unity of
The One and of the mystical union of the soul with it are not so much
present as positive arguments incorporated in the sequence of thought,
but are felt as controlling ideas in the mind of the writer. The reason
for this lies in the fact that in the argument of Plotinus (IV. vii)
these two truths of his philosophy are not specifically elaborated. To
More, however, as indeed to all students of Plotinian metaphysics, these
are the significant ideas of his system. More thus brings them in at
opportune times throughout his argument in “Psychathanasia.”
The conception of the ever present unity of The One in all things is the
fundamental idea in the first division of his thought. The tenacity with
which he clings to this doctrine is remarkable. His argument had brought
him to the point where he had shown that all life—of plants and animals,
as well as of men—was immortal. What, then, is the state of the plantal
and animal soul after death? (I. ii. 49–53.) More does not answer
directly, but replies that although men cannot know this, it is not
permitted to reason it down.
“But it’s already clear that ’tis not right
To reason down the firm subsistencie
Of things from ignorance of their propertie.”
(I. ii. 59.)
Consequently when he comes to consider man’s immortality, he says that
all the preceding argument—the general reflection on the “self-motion
and centrall stabilitie” of the soul—may be dismissed as needless.
“Onely that vitalitie,
That doth extend this great Universall,
And move th’ inert Materialitie
Of great and little worlds, that keep in memorie.”
(II. i. 7.)
It is because of the firm conviction with which he holds to the
conception of the pervading unity of The One that he expands the idea at
length in the third and fourth cantos of the first book.
The second idea, that of the mystical union of the individual soul with
The One, is an incentive to More’s thought and feelings throughout the
course of his entire argument. From the fact that the soul can dive as
deep as matter, and rise to the height of a blissful union with God, he
derives the necessary inspiration for his “mighty task.”
“This is the state of th’ ever-moving soul,
Whirling about upon its circling wheel;
Certes to sight it variously doth roll,
And as men deem full dangerously doth reel,
But oft when men fear most, itself doth feel
In happiest plight conjoin’d with that great Sun
Of lasting blisse, that doth himself reveal
More fully then, by that close union,
Though men, that misse her here, do think her quite undone.”
(I. ii. 8.)
When in the course of his argument he arrives at a discussion of the
rational power of the soul, he launches out into a treatment of the vast
scope of man’s will and mind which
“should bring forth that live Divinity
Within ourselves, if once God would consent
To shew his specious form and nature eminent:
“For here it lies like colours in the night
Unseen and unregarded, but the sunne
Displayes the beauty and the gladsome plight
Of the adorned earth, while he doth runne
His upper stage. But this high prize is wonne
By curbing sense and the self seeking life
(True Christian mortification)
Thus God will his own self in us revive,
If we to mortifie our straightened selves do strive.”
(II. iii. 12, 13.)
Again, when his argument brings him to the point at which the
independence of soul from body is to be proved, he breaks out with an
exclamation of the bliss of that union of soul with God, when
“reason shines out bright,
And holy love with mild serenity
Doth hug her harmlesse self in this her purity;”
(III. ii. 28.)
and passes on to a description of The One as seen in the vision
“Unplac’d, unparted, one close Unity,
Yet omnipresent; all things, yet but one;
Not streak’d with gaudy multiplicity,
Pure light without discolouration,
Stable without circumvolution,
Eternal rest, joy without passing sound.”
(III. ii. 36.)
Finally in the last canto of his third book he testifies to the vanity
of that knowledge of the reasons for the soul’s immortality, even as he
had given them (III. ii. 11), and confesses that the only sure stay in
the storm of life is a faith in “the first Good.”
“But yet, my Muse, still take an higher flight,
Sing of Platonick Faith in the first Good,
That Faith that doth our souls to God unite
So strongly, tightly, that the rapid floud
Of this swift flux of things, nor with foul mud
Can stain, nor strike us off from th’ unity,
Wherein we steadfast stand, unshak’d, unmov’d,
Engrafted by a deep vitality
The prop and stay of things is Gods benignity.”
(III. iv. 14.)
As in his “Psychozoia” it was noted how the omnipresence of Psyche
appealed to More’s religious sense of the nearness of God to His
children, so in his other treatises, especially his “Psychathanasia,”
the mystical union of the soul with The One is for More another name for
the love of God as known in the soul of the Christian. The Christian
religion had taught that God is love, a conception far removed from
Platonism, whether of the dialogues or of the “Enneads” of Plotinus. But
the tendency to find in Platonism a rational sanction for religious
truth was so strong in the theology of the Cambridge school, to which
More belonged, that this conception of God as love—which, indeed, is
held by the Christian not as an idea but as a fact of his inmost
religious experience—was interpreted in the light of the speculative
mysticism of Plotinus; and thus the formless One, the ultra-metaphysical
principle above all being, became the Christian God of love.
III. ETERNITY OF THE SOUL AND OF MATTER
In the work of Vaughan and Spenser two distinct phases of another form
of Platonic idealism are presented: one in which the poet looks back
upon eternity as a fact of the soul’s past experience, and the other in
which he directs a forward glance to the future when the soul shall find
its eternal rest.
In the expression of his sense of eternity, Vaughan recurs to the
doctrine of the preëxistence of the soul as it is expounded in Plato. In
Vaughan this idea is felt as an influence either affording the substance
of his thought or determining the nature of his imagery. The idea which
Vaughan carries over into his own poetry is found in Plato’s account in
the “Phædrus” of the preëxistence of the soul in a world of pure ideas
before its descent into the body. “There was a time,” says Plato, “when
with the rest of the happy band they [_i.e._ the human souls] saw beauty
shining in brightness: we philosophers following in the train of Zeus,
others in company with other gods; and then we beheld the beatific
vision and were initiated into a mystery which may be truly called most
blessed, celebrated by us in our state of innocence, before we had any
experience of evils to come, when we were admitted to the sight of
apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy, which we held
shining in pure light, pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that
living tomb which we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the
body, like an oyster in his shell.” (“Phædrus,” 250.)
This idea occurs in two forms in Vaughan. In “The Retreat” the
reminiscence of a past is described as a fact of Vaughan’s religious
experience. He longs to travel back to the time when, in his purity, he
was nearer to God than he is now in his sinful state.
“Happy those early days, when I
Shin’d in my angel-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy ought
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walk’d above
A mile or two from my first love,
And looking back—at that short space—
Could see a glimpse of His bright face;
When on some gilded cloud, or flow’r,
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispence
A sev’ral sin to ev’ry sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
O how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain,
Where first I left my glorious train:
From whence th’ enlighten’d spirit sees
That shady City of palm-trees.
But ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move;
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return.”
The second form of this idea appears in Vaughan’s poem called
“Corruption.” Man is represented as enjoying the happiness of innocence
in the garden of Eden, where he was in close touch with the beauties of
heaven. Here he had a glimpse of his heavenly birth; but when, by reason
of sin, he was forced to leave that place, he found earth and heaven no
longer friendly.
“Sure, it was so. Man in those early days
Was not all stone and earth;
He shin’d a little, and by those weak rays
Had some glimpse of his birth.
He saw heaven o’er his head, and knew from whence
He came, condemnèd, hither;
And, as first love draws strongest, so from hence
His mind sure progress’d thither.
Things here were strange unto him; sweat and till;
All was a thorn or weed.
· · · · ·
This made him long for home, as loth to stay
With murmurers and foes;
He sigh’d for Eden, and would often say
‘Ah! what bright days were those!’
Nor was heav’n cold unto him: for each day
The valley or the mountain
Afforded visits, and still Paradise lay
In some green shade or fountain.
Angels lay leiger here: each bush, and cell,
Each oak, and highway knew them;
Walk but the fields, or sit down at some well,
And he was sure to view them.”
In this poem, although there is no such parallelism with the account of
a preëxistent state as it is given in Plato, the fundamental idea is the
same as that of “The Retreat.” Vaughan describes man’s life in Eden as
one of closer intimacy with his celestial home than his lot on earth
affords him, just as he had described the experience of his own
“angel-infancy” and its contrast to his earthly life. In both poems is
present the conviction that the human soul once lived in a state of pure
innocence; and in both is heard the note of regret at the loss of this
through sin.
In Vaughan’s poem, “The World,” the influence of Plato’s account of the
preëxistent life of the soul is felt only in affording the character of
the imagery which Vaughan has used to express his idea. In the “Phædrus”
Plato describes the progress of the soul in its sight of the eternal
ideas in the heaven of heavens. Each soul, represented as a charioteer
guiding a pair of winged horses, is carried about by the revolution of
the spheres, and during the progress it beholds the ideas. The souls of
the gods have no difficulty in seeing these realities; “but of the other
souls,” says Plato, “that which follows God best and is likest to him
lifts the head of the charioteer into the outer world, and is carried
round in the revolution, troubled indeed by the steeds, and with
difficulty beholding true being; while another only rises and falls, and
sees, and again fails to see by reason of the unruliness of the steeds.
The rest of the souls are also longing after the upper world, and they
all follow, but not being strong enough they are carried round below the
surface, plunging, treading on one another, each striving to be first;
and there is confusion and perspiration and the extremity of effort; and
many of them are lamed, or have their wings broken, through the
ill-driving of the charioteers.” (“Phædrus,” 248.)
In this account of the revolution of the soul about the eternal
realities of true being, Vaughan found the suggestion for his poem, “The
World.” Instead of the revolution of the soul about true being, he
describes the revolution of time about eternity. The figure of the
charioteer is absent, too, but it is by the use of the “wing” that those
who make the revolution about eternity mount up into the circle, just as
in Plato. Time in the poem also is represented as being “driven about by
the spheres.” Such coincidences of imagery show that Vaughan found in
Plato’s fanciful account of the soul’s preëxistent life in heaven the
medium through which he expressed his view of the relation of the life
of the present day world to that of eternity. At first he pictures the
revolution of the world about the great ring of light which he calls
eternity:
“I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv’n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov’d: in which the world
And all her train were hurl’d.”
He then describes the lover busied in his trifles,—his lute, his
fancies, and his delights. Next moves the statesman, pursued by the
shouts of multitudes. The next to follow are the miser and the epicure.
“The doting lover in his quaintest strain
Did there complain;
Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,
Wit’s sour delights;
With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure
Yet his dear treasure,
All scatter’d lay, while he his eyes did pour
Upon a flow’r.
“The darksome statesman, hung with weights and woe,
Like a thick midnight fog, mov’d there so slow,
He did nor stay, nor go;
Condemning thoughts—like sad eclipses—scowl
Upon his soul,
And clouds of crying witnesses without
Pursued him with one shout.
· · · · ·
“The fearful miser on a heap of rust
Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust
His own hands with the dust,
Yet would not place one piece above, but lives
In fear of thieves.
Thousands there were as frantic as himself,
And hugg’d each one his pelf;
The downright epicure plac’d heav’n in sense,
And scorn’d pretence;
While others, slipp’d into a wide excess,
Said little less;
The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave,
Who think them brave;
And poor, despisèd Truth sate counting by
Their victory.”
At this point Vaughan ends his catalogue of human types and comments
upon the unwillingness of the many to soar up into the ring by the aid
of the wing.
“Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing, and weep, soar’d up into the ring;
But most would use no wing.
O fools—said I—thus to prefer dark night
Before true light!
To live in grots and caves, and hate the day
Because it shows the way;
The way, which from this dead and dark abode
Leads up to God.”
Spenser finds his suggestion of the eternal in life, not in a
consciousness of a past existence, but in a conception of the world of
matter built up in accordance with the Platonic doctrine of stability of
the substance amid the flux of changing forms. This conception of the
world is explained by him in his description of the “Garden of Adonis”
in the “Faerie Queene” and in his “Two Cantos of Mutabilitie.”
The conception of matter which Spenser teaches is the doctrine of
Plotinus expressed in accordance with the account of flux and stability
of natural phenomena explained by Plato in the “Timæus.” According to
Plotinus matter is an indestructible “subject” of forms which endures
through all the various changes which it is constantly undergoing, and
this unchanging something is never destroyed. (“Enneads,” II. iv. 6.) In
the “Timæus” Plato had outlined a theory of flux with which this
doctrine of the indestructibility of matter could be easily harmonized.
In his discussion of the world of natural phenomena he distinguishes
three natures, as he calls them, and likens them to a father, a child,
and a mother. “For the present,” he says in the “Timæus” (50), “we have
only to conceive of three natures: first, that which is in process of
generation; secondly, that in which the generation takes place; and
thirdly, that of which the thing generated is a resemblance. And we may
liken the receiving principle to a mother, and the source or spring to a
father, and the intermediate nature to a child.” According to this piece
of poetic imagery he describes the various manifestations of matter in
the outward world. The elements are constantly changing in and out of
one another and have in them nothing permanent. They cannot be called
“this” or “that,” but only “such.” Only the receiving principle, the
universal nature, “that must be always called the same; for while
receiving all things, she never departs at all from her own nature, and
never in any way or at any time assumes a form like that of any of the
things which enter into her; she is the natural recipient of all
impressions, and is stirred and informed by them, and appears different
from time to time by reason of them.” (“Timæus,” 50.)
The explanation of the myriad changes of matter of the outward world of
sense after the manner of this account by Plato is found in Spenser’s
description of the “Garden of Adonis.” The term “garden of Adonis” is
found in Plato’s “Phædrus” (276), where is meant an earthen vessel in
which plants are nourished to quick growth only to decay as rapidly. On
this term Spenser’s imagination built its superstructure of fancy by
which the garden of Adonis became symbolic of the world of natural
phenomena described after the manner of Plato in the “Timæus” and
Plotinus in the “Enneads.” The garden is described at first as a
seminary of all living things, conceived first as flowers:
“In that same Gardin all the goodly flowres,
Wherewith dame Nature doth her beautifie,
And decks the girlonds of her paramoures,
Are fetcht: there is the first seminarie
Of all things, that are borne to live and die,
According to their kindes. Long worke it were,
Here to account the endlesse progenie
Of all the weedes, that bud and blossome there;
But so much as doth need, must needs be counted here.”
(III. vi. 30.)
Spenser’s imagination now changes, and he conceives of the objects in
this garden as naked babes, in accordance with the suggestion of the
intermediate nature which Plato conceived as a child. Genius as the
porter of the place is thus described:
“He letteth in, he letteth out to wend,
All that to come into the world desire;
A thousand thousand naked babes attend
About him day and night, which doe require,
That he with fleshly weedes would them attire:
Such as him list, such as eternal fate
Ordained hath, he clothes with sinfull mire,
And sendeth forth to live in mortall state,
Till they againe returne backe by the hinder gate.”
(III. vi. 32.)
Again there is a change, and the objects issuing from this garden are
forms which borrow their substance from the matter of chaos.
“Infinite shapes of creatures there are bred,
And uncouth formes, which none yet ever knew,
And every 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
In endlesse rancks along enraunged were,
That seem’d the _Ocean_ could not containe them there.”
(III. vi. 35.)
When these forms are sent forth from the garden they take for their
substance the matter found in chaos which is ever eternal.
“Daily they 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 everlasting store,
As it at first created was of yore.
For in the wide wombe of the world there lyes,
In hateful darkenesse 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 matters whereof they are made,
Which when as forme and feature it doth ketch,
Becomes a bodie, and doth then invade
The state of life, out of the griesly shade.
That substance is eterne, and bideth so,
Ne when the life decayes, and forme does fade,
Doth it consume, and into nothing go,
But chaunged is, and often altred to and fro.”
(III. vi. 36–37.)
Spenser now stops the play of fancy and becomes the philosopher,
explaining the doctrine of matter as taught by Plotinus. The substance
of things is eternal and abides in potency of further change.
“The substance is not changed, nor altered,
But th’ only forme and outward fashion;
For every substance is conditioned
To change her hew, and sundry formes to don,
Meet for her temper and complexion:
For formes are variable and decay,
By course of kind, and by occasion;
And that faire flower of beautie fades away,
As doth the lilly fresh before the sunny ray.”
(II. vi. 38.)
Finally, Spenser closes his account of the garden with a mingling of
fancy and philosophy. He adopts the suggestion of Plato that the source
of the many changes in natural phenomena is a father, and blends the
conception with the myth of Venus and Adonis. In the garden Venus is
represented as enjoying the pleasure of the presence of Adonis
perpetually, for he is described as the father of the various forms who
abides eternal in all change.
“There wont faire _Venus_ often to enjoy
Her deare _Adonis_ joyous company,
And reape sweet pleasure of the wanton boy;
There yet, some say, in secret he does ly,
Lapped in flowers and pretious spycery,
By her hid from the world, and from the skill
Of _Stygian_ Gods, which doe her love envy;
But she her selfe, when ever that she will,
Possesseth him, and of his sweetnesse takes her fill.
“And sooth it seemes they say: for he may not
For ever die, and ever buried bee
In balefull night, where all things are forgot;
All be he subject to mortalitie,
Yet is eterne in mutabilitie,
And by succession made perpetuall,
Transformed oft, and chaunged diverslie:
For him the Father of all formes they call;
Therefore needs mote he live, that living gives to all.”
(III. vi. 46, 47.)
The attraction which this doctrine of the indestructibility of matter
had for Spenser lay in the comforting assurance which it brought him of
an eternity when things should be at rest. Throughout Spenser is heard a
note of world weariness.
“Nothing is sure, that growes on earthly ground.”
These words placed in the mouth of Arthur (I. ix. 11) are essentially
characteristic of Spenser’s outlook on the things of this world: they
are his _lacrimæ rerum_. The “Cantos of Mutabilitie” is the best
instance in point. These two cantos celebrate the overthrow of
Mutability by Nature. To the claim of preëminence among the gods which
Mutability lays before Nature, and which she bases upon the fact that
everything in the wide universe is subject to constant change, Dame
Nature replies that though they be subject to change, they change only
their outward state, each change working their perfection; and she
further remarks that the time will come when there shall be no more
change. At the end of Mutability’s plea Dame Nature thus answers the
charge:
“I well consider all that ye have sayd,
And find that all things stedfastnes doe hate
And changed be: yet being rightly wayd
They are not changed from their first estate;
But by their change their being doe dilate:
And turning to themselves at length againe,
Doe worke their owne perfection so by fate:
Then over them Change doth not rule and raigne;
But they raigne over change, and doe their states maintaine.
“Cease therefore daughter further to aspire,
And thee content thus to be rul’d by me:
For thy decay thou seekst by thy desire;
But time shall come that all shall changed bee,
And from thenceforth, none no more change shall see.”
(VII. vii. 58, 59.)
On this decision of Nature Spenser bases his assurance of a time when
the soul shall have its final rest. With a prayer to the great God of
Sabaoth that he may see the time when all things shall rest in Him,
Spenser closes his work on his great unfinished poem—the “Faerie
Queene.”
“Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd,
Of that same time when no more _Change_ shall be,
But stedfast rest of all things firmely stayd
Upon the pillours of Eternity,
That is contrayr to _Mutabilitie_:
For, all that moveth, doth in _Change_ delight:
But thenceforth all shall rest eternally.
With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight:
O Thou great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight.”
(VII. viii. 2.)
In the theory of the preëxistence of the soul and in the conception of
the indestructibility of matter Vaughan and Spenser were able to find
teachings which were akin to the most intimate experiences of their
lives. Although the phase of Platonic idealism which taught in these two
distinct ways the eternity of human life and of the world about us did
not have so vital an influence upon English poetry as did the opening of
a world of moral beauty, its presence is nevertheless indicative of the
strong hold which Platonism had upon some of the finest poetic minds of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England. Even when these
poets were writing from the fulness of their own personal experience, it
was in the moulds of Platonic philosophy that their thought was cast.
The elements of Platonism, then, that enter into the English poetry of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have their source in the
dialogues of Plato and the “Enneads” of Plotinus. The body of this
teaching—its æsthetics, its metaphysics, and its ethics—was seen by the
poets in its relation to Christian doctrine and to the passion of
romantic love. The more permanent results for good are found in the
fusion of Platonism with the ideals of Christian living and with its
longing for perfection. If one passage in Plato may adequately sum up
the teaching of Platonism most influential in English poetry, it is the
passage in “Phædrus” in which the beauty of wisdom is taught (“Phædrus,”
250).
But beauty in its stricter import is a thing known to the sense, and is
carried over into the moral world only to indicate the value of moral
ideas. Plato recognized this; and in this connection it is significant
that in the part of “Phædrus,” where he speaks of the loveliness of
wisdom, he is aware of the power of pure beauty. “But of beauty,” he
says, “I repeat again that we saw her there [in the ideal world] shining
in company with the celestial forms; and coming to earth we find her
here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense.
For sight is the most piercing of our bodily senses; though not by that
is wisdom seen; her loveliness would have been transporting if there had
been a visible image of her, and the other ideas, if they had visible
counterparts, would be equally lovely. But this is the privilege of
beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight”
(250).
Spenser was the poet who caught the spirit of this teaching.
Pastorella’s beauty is presented not as Una’s, the beauty of wisdom, nor
as Britomart’s, the beauty of the inward purity of womanhood; but it is
a beauty of pure form.
“And soothly sure she was full fayre of face,
And perfectly well shapt in every lim,
Which she did more augment with modest grace,
And comely carriage of her count’nance trim,
That all the rest like lesser lamps did dim.”
(VI. ix. 9.)
And yet as she stands on the little hillock she is encompassed with a
cloud of glory.
“Upon a litle hillocke she was placed
Higher then all the rest, and round about
Environ’d with a girland, goodly graced,
Of lovely lasses, and them all without
The lustie shepheard swaynes sate in a rout;
The which did pype and sing her prayses dew,
And oft rejoyce, and oft for wonder shout,
As if some miracle of heavenly hew
Were downe to them descended in that earthly vew.”
(VI. ix. 8.)
They saw in the object before their eyes the idea of beauty in earthly
form. The miracle is no more and no less than this; it is “the privilege
of beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to
sight.”
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SPENSER, EDMUND. “Complete Works,” edited by A. B. Grosart. 10 vols.
1882–1884.
“Faerie Queene.” Book I, edited by H. M. Percival. London, 1894.
“Faerie Queene.” Book II, edited by G. W. Kitchin. London, 1868.
STANLEY, THOMAS. “Poems.” London, 1814.
SUCKLING, JOHN. “Poems, Plays, and Other Remains,” edited by W. Carew
Hazlitt. 2 vols. London, 1892.
TULLOCH, JOHN. “Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England
in the Seventeenth Century.” Second edition. 2 vols. Edinburgh,
1874.
VAUGHAN, HENRY. “Poems,” edited by E. K. Chambers, with an
introduction by H. C. Beeching. 2 vols. London and New York, 1896.
WALTON, IZAAK. “Complete Angler and the Lives of Donne, Wotton,
Hooker, Herbert, and Sanderson.” London, 1901.
WARD, HENRY. “Life of Henry More.” London, 1710.
WHITTAKER, THOMAS. “The Neo-Platonists: a Study in the History of
Hellenism.” Cambridge, 1901.
INDEX
Absence, effect of, in love, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148.
Acrasia, a type of sensual beauty, 20;
captured by Guyon, 21.
Adam, 43, 44, 83.
Amavia, 24.
“Anatomy of the World, An,” 162, 165.
“Answer to the Platonicks,” 162.
“Anti-monopsychia,” 194, 196.
“Anti-Platonick” (Cleveland’s), 162.
“Anti-Platonick” (Daniel’s), 159.
“Anti-psychopannychia,” 194, 195.
“Apology for Smectymnuus, An,” 47.
“Arcadia,” 66.
Archimago, 14.
ἀρετή, identification of Una with, 2.
Ariosto, 26, 39.
Arthegal, his reverence for Britomart, 35, 37, 38, 40;
his training in justice, 28.
Arthur, as heavenly grace, 3, 62;
his relation to the Red Cross Knight, 62;
his function in scheme of “Faerie Queene,” 62.
Astræa, 27.
“Barriers, The,” 125.
Baxter, 92.
Beauty, in Ficino, 109, 112, 113, 114;
in Plato, 34, 35, 220;
in Milton, 41;
in Spenser, 35,38, 41, 109, 111, 112, 113, 220, 221.
of beloved, its relation to absolute beauty, in George Daniel, 131;
in Ficino, 115;
in Shakespeare, 128, 134, 135;
in Spenser, 32–34, 115, 130, 136.
earthly, 79, 80.
heavenly, a fundamental doctrine of Platonism, 1, 103;
identified as wisdom, 73;
as beauty of intelligible world, 76.
“Beauty,” 86.
Beelzebub, 58.
Being, true, 98.
Belphœbe, 5.
Bower of Bliss, 21.
Boyle, Robert, 158.
Bradamante, 39.
Britomart, 35, 36–38.
“Cælica,” 138.
Calidore, 46.
“Cantos of Mutabilitie,” 217.
Carew, Thomas, 158.
Cartwright, William, 162.
Charles I, 156.
Charleton, Walter, 157.
Chastity, Milton’s idea of, 47, 48, 54, 55, 56.
Christ, mystical love of, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99;
as true being, 98;
Milton’s idea of, 180, 181.
“Christ’s Triumph after Death,” 100–103.
Cleveland, John, 161, 162.
“Colin Clouts Come Home Againe,” 122.
“Commentarium in Convivium,” on love, 107, 108, 115, 116, 121;
on beauty, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114;
its interpretation of Plato, 140.
“Comus,” effect of sensuality on soul taught in, 49;
chastity in, 48, 49, 56;
doctrine of grace in, 63, 64;
parallelism with “Phædo,” 49, _n._ 1.
Comus, his attempts on The Lady, 51–54;
his character, 53.
“Corruption,” 205, 206.
“Court-Platonicke,” 159.
Cowley, Abraham, 161, 162.
Craig, Alexander, 138.
Crashaw, Richard, 97, 99, 138.
Daniel, George, 131, 158.
Daniel, Samuel, 138.
D’Avenant, William, 156.
Diodati, Charles, 41.
Donne, John, mysticism in, 94;
love in, 141, 144, 145, 149, 51, 152, 153, 154;
his idea of woman, 163, 164, 165.
Drayton, Michael, 125, 138.
“Dream, The,” 153.
Drummond, William, his idea of God, 174, 175, 176, 183;
his idea of love, 82, 88, 132;
his idea of heavenly love, 76, 81;
appeal of Platonism to, 76;
his idea of happiness, 86;
his idea of rest, 87.
Dryden, John, 165.
Duessa, 66.
“Ecstacy, The,” 141.
Elissa, 22.
“Enneads,” see under Plotinus.
“Epithalamion,” 31, 32, 33.
“Epithalamy,” 162.
“Epode,” 151.
Eve, 44, 45.
“Faerie Queene,” Christianity and Platonic idealism in, 1;
its teaching on holiness, 1;
its teaching on temperance, see under Guyon;
Platonic ethics in, 26, 39;
its allegorical scheme, 26;
its unity, 29, 30;
beauty of mind in, 33;
function of grace in, 62, 63.
“Fever, A,” 164.
Ficino, see under “Commentarium in Convivium.”
Fidelia, 3.
Fletcher, Giles, 100, 101, 102, 103.
Fletcher, Phineas, 83, 97.
Florimell, 66.
“Forerunners, The,” 90.
“Friendship in Absence,” 161.
Furor, 16.
“Garden of Adonis,” 213–216.
God, as lover of His own beauty, 68, 69;
as The Good, 70, 86;
union of soul with, 100–103;
as “Idea Beatificall,” 102;
as source of beauty, 109, 180;
as Creator, 110;
and the three Platonian hypostases, 172;
as king, 174, 175, 176;
as philosophical principle, 176–178.
Good, The, 169.
“Gorgias,” on temperance, 24.
Grace, doctrine of, its connection with ideal of holiness, 61–63;
its connection with ideal of chastity, 63, 64;
its connection with ideal of temperance, 62, 63;
represented by Arthur, 62.
Greville, Fulke, 138.
Guyon, his adventures, 13;
his struggles with wrath, 14–18;
his struggles with sensual desire, 18–21;
character of his life, 24;
his praise of beauty of mind, 34;
his relation to Arthur, 62.
Habington, William, 147.
Heaven, 92.
Henrietta, Maria, 156, 157.
Herbert, Edward, Lord Herbert, 146, 159.
Herbert, George, 71, 89, 90, 93.
Heywood, Thomas, 156.
Holiness, Platonism and, 10;
its connection with the doctrine of grace, 62.
Holy Spirit, identified with Psyche, 170.
Howell, James, 155, 156, 157.
Hudibras, 22.
“Hymn of Fairest Fair, An,” 174–179, 183, 184.
“Hymne in Honour of Beautie, An,” 106, 109–117, 118.
“Hymne in Honour of Love, An,” 105, 107, 108, 118, 121.
“Hymne of Heavenly Love,” 68, 69, 73, 74, 75, 76, 95, 96.
“Hymne of Heavenly Beautie,” 185, 186.
“Hymne of True Happiness, An,” 86.
Hypostases, the Plotinian, 167, 176, 177.
Idea, Platonic notion of, 95;
connection with mysticism, 95, 101;
term used as title, 138.
“Idea Beatificall,” 102.
Intellect, The, identified with God, 175;
defined, 170, 180;
identified with Christ, 170.
Intelligible world, 77, 78, 81.
“In the Glorious Epiphanie of Our Lord God,” 97–99.
Ithuriel, 59.
Jonson, 122, 123, 151.
“Jordan,” 91.
Joy, in religious experience, 85;
and the beatific vision, 88.
Justice, Spenser’s conception of, 27, 28;
Plato’s conception, 28;
identical with temperance, 28.
Lady, The, in “Comus,” effect of spells of Comus on, 53;
her response to Comus, 54;
her conception of chastity, 54, 56.
Linche, Richard, 138.
Love, nativity of the god of, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124;
treatment of, in Donne, 149–151, 152–155;
in Drayton, 125, 126;
in Ficino, 107, 108, 115, 116;
in Habington, 147;
in Jonson, 123, 124, 125, 151;
in Milton, 41, 47, 82, 83;
in Plato, 34, 35, 120;
in Spenser, 34, 107–109, 115–118, 120, 122;
in Vaughan, 132, 133.
earthly, 83, 88.
heavenly, defined, 67, 72, 73, 84;
in Spenser, 75;
in Drummond, 81.
Platonic, its rise at court, 155, 156;
defined, 155, 156, 160;
ridiculed, 156, 157;
described Lord Herbert, 159, 160;
in Stanley, 158;
in Vaughan, 158;
its immorality, 158.
“Love,” 71.
“Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly,” 124, 125.
Lovelace, Richard, 161.
“Love’s Growth,” 152.
“Love’s Innocence,” 158.
“Love’s Mistress or the Queen’s Masque,” 156.
“Love’s Triumph through Callipolis,” 123, 124.
Mammon, 19.
Margaret of Valois, 156, 157.
“Masque of Beauty, The,” 122, 123.
Matter, in Plato, 211, 215;
in Plotinus, 210, 211, 215;
in Spenser, 212.
Mean, the Aristotelean doctrine of the, described, 21, 22;
in Spenser, 22, 23.
Milton, John, his notion of woman, 40, 41, 44;
his treatment of Eve, 44, 45;
his love of beauty, 41, 44, 64, 65;
his debt to Platonic philosophy, 47;
his idealism, 47, 48, 55, 57, 61;
his conception of sin, 49, 57, 58;
hold of Platonism on, 40, 47, 55, 56, 57, 61, 64, 65;
his idea of chastity, 47, 48, 54, 55;
doctrine of grace in, 63, 64;
his idea of beauty, 64;
his idea of love, 82, 83;
his idea of God, 180;
his idea of Christ, 180.
More, Henry, mysticism in, 99, 196, 199;
his idea of the Trinity, 168, 173;
his idea of soul, 187–193;
his idea of Christ, 170;
his idea of the Holy Spirit, 170–174;
religious feeling in, 182, 201;
his argument for immortality, 187–193;
hold of Platonism on, 193, 202;
on innate ideas, 195.
Mysticism, erotic, defined, 92, 93;
in George Herbert, 93;
in Donne, 94;
its connection with Platonism, 95;
relation of love of Christ to, 95–103.
“Negative Love,” 153–155.
“Nicomachean Ethics,” 22.
“No Platonique Love,” 162.
Norris, John, 86, 87, 89, 157.
One, The, 153, 169, 179.
“Orlando Furioso,” 38, 39.
Palmer, The, 17, 20, 21, 25.
“Paradise Lost,” 49, 58.
“Paradise Regained,” 42.
Pastorella, 46.
Petrarchism, defined, 105, 126;
influence of Platonism on, 105, 127.
Perissa, 22.
“Phædo,” on the function of philosophy, 8;
on effect of sense knowledge on soul, 48, 49 _n._ 1, 50, 55;
on the super-sensible world, 77, 78, 81 _n._ 1.
Phædria, 18.
“Phædrus,” on the beauty of wisdom, 4, 127;
on love, 8, 34, 35;
on beauty of virtue, 4, 127, 220;
on reminiscence, 11, 57, 203, 206, 207;
on sight of true beauty, 57;
on beauty, 220.
“Philebus,” on goodness, 61.
“Piscatorie Eclogues,” 83.
“Platonick, The,” 161.
“Platonic Elegy, A,” 143.
“Platonic Love” (Ayres’s), 161;
(Aytoun’s) 161.
“Platonick Love (Cowley’s), 162;
(Cleveland’s), 162;
(Lord Herbert’s), 159, 160.
“Platonic Lovers,” 156.
Platonism, fundamental principle of, 1, 3, 30;
its relation to ideal of holiness, 10;
its part in religious experience, 12, 71, 72, 85, 91, 92, 181, 183;
its relation to ethics of “Faerie Queene,” 26, 30;
its connection with doctrine of grace, 61;
its relation to doctrine of heavenly love, 67, 68;
its appeal to sense of beauty, 85;
its influence on erotic mysticism, 95–104;
its influence on love poetry, 104;
its relation to morality of love, 136, 137, 138;
its influence on discussion of love, 140, 141;
its three hypostases, 167;
its effect on theology, 167;
its attraction for the religious mind, 183, 193, 194, 201, 202, 216,
218, 219.
Italian, appeal of, to Spenser, 117, 118;
its æsthetic theory, 139;
its debt to Plotinus, 140;
its relation to Plato, 140;
its debt to Ficino, 140.
Plotinus, “Enneads” of, on the intelligible world, 77;
on The Good, 153, 154, 169, 181;
on the hypostases, 167;
on soul, 170, 171;
on intellect, 170;
on The One, 176, 177, 181, 194;
on inter-relation of the hypostases, 177, 180;
on matter, 179, 211;
on immortality, 187.
“Prayer for Mankind,” 184.
“Prospect,” 87.
“Psychathanasia,” idea of creation in, 70;
mysticism in, 99, 194;
immortality in, 187–193;
The One in, 197, 198, 199.
Psyche, 170, 171, 172.
“Psychozoia,” idea of the Trinity in, 168;
religious feeling in, 183.
“Pure Platonicke,” 159.
“Purple Island,” 97.
Pyrochles, 17, 18.
Randolph, Thomas, 143.
Red Cross Knight, his sight of Una’s beauty, 7, 9, 10, 11;
on Mount of Contemplation, 8, 9, 10, 11, 62;
training in House of Holiness, 10;
slandered, 14;
character of, 15;
Arthur’s relation to, 62.
“Republic,” on the good, 8;
on temperance, 13, 14, 28;
on principles within soul, 13;
on justice, 28;
on imitative art, 91 _n._ 1;
on truth and opinion, 125.
Reminiscence, theory of, in Vaughan, 203, 204–206, 207, 208;
in Plato, 203, 206.
“Retreat, The,” 203, 204, 206.
Ruggiero, 39.
Sans Loy, 23.
Satan, his love of beauty, 42, 43–46;
his sight of Eden, 43;
contemplating Adam and Eve, 43, 44, 46;
his regret for lost beauty, 58, 59, 60.
Satyrane, 3.
Sedley, Charles, 161.
“Seraphick Love,” 89.
Shakespeare, 128, 129, 134, 135.
Sidney, Algernon, 157.
Sidney, Philip, on beauty of virtue, 66;
on heavenly love, 84, 85;
on Stella and virtue, 127;
on Plato, 137.
Song—“If you refuse me once,” 161.
Song II—“It Autumn was, and on our hemisphere,” 76, 77, 79–81, 81 _n._
1.
Song, “To a Lady,” 158.
Song, “To Amoret,” 133.
σοφια, Una identified with, 2.
σωφροσύνη, Plato’s idea of, 12.
Soul, three principles in the, 13;
effect of sensuous experience on the, 48, 50, 51;
its self-sufficiency, 61;
its union with God, 89, 100–103;
its formative energy, 113, 114;
union of, in love, 141, 143;
defined, 187, 192, 193;
where found, 188;
a self-moving substance, 188;
immortality of, 189, 190, 191, 192;
its identity after death, 195,196;
universal, identified with woman, 164;
defined, 170, 171.
“Soul’s Joy,” 144.
Spenser, Edmund, Platonism in, 3, 5, 7, 21, 22, 31, 35, 39, 117, 218,
220;
his idea of beauty, 4, 32, 33, 65, 66;
his idea of justice, 27;
his idea of temperance, 23, 24, 25;
his idea of virtue, 27, 29;
his idea of a gentleman, 29;
his idea of love, 31, 108;
his idea of heavenly love, 75;
his æsthetics, 109–117;
identifies beloved with idea of beauty, 130, 136;
on his hymns, 139;
his idea of matter, 212;
his world weariness, 216.
Stanley, Thomas, 158.
Suckling, John, 161.
Sylvanus, 6.
“Symposium,” on wisdom, 8;
its dialectic 8, 75;
on beauty of mind, 31;
on nativity of love, 68, 120;
interpreted by Ficino, 107, 140;
on generation and immortality, 119, 120.
“Teares on the Death of Mœliades,” 87, 88.
Temperance, Plato’s idea of, 12, 13, 14, 23;
Spenser’s idea of, 23, 24, 25;
and justice, 28;
connection with heavenly grace, 62.
“Temple of Love,” 156.
“Theologia Germanica,” 168.
θνμός, 13.
“Timæus,” on creation, 70;
on Creator, 110;
on flux, 211, 212.
“To Amoret. Walking in a Starry Evening,” 132.
“To Cinthia, Converted,” 159.
“To Cinthia, coying it,” 159.
“To Cloris, a Rapture,” 161.
“To Lucasta, Going beyond the Seas,” 161.
“To my Mistress in Absence,” 161.
“To the Countess of Huntingdon,” 149, 151, 163.
“To the Platonicke Pretender,” 159.
“To the World. The Perfection of Love,” 147.
Trinity, The, identified with Plotinian hypostases, 168–174;
its unity, 176.
Una, identified with σοφία, and ἀρετή, 2;
identified with truth, 2, 3;
guides Red Cross Knight to Fidelia’s school, 3;
presented as true beauty, 3–10.
“Urania,” 88.
“Valediction Forbidding Mourning,” 145.
Vaughan, Henry, his idea of love, 132, 133, 148;
his idea of Platonic love, 158;
his idea of preëxistence, 203.
Virtue, Plato’s idea of, 27;
a manifold of graces, 27;
its beauty, 127;
identified with woman, 163.
Vision, beatific, described as rest, 87;
as joy, 88.
Wisdom, the highest beauty, 4;
beauty of, 4, 10;
seen only by soul, 8;
sight of, quickening imagination, 10, 11;
identified with heavenly beauty, 73;
subject of “Hymne of Heavenly Beautie,” 73, 74.
“Wishes, The,” 138.
“World, The,” 206, 207, 208, 210.
Woman, her inward beauty, 31;
attraction of, 162;
identified as virtue, 163;
as universal soul, 164.
Zephon, 59, 60.
-----
Footnote 1:
Cf. Pub. of Mod. Lang. Ass. of Amer., 1897, p. 177, “Spenser’s
Imitations from Ariosto.”
Footnote 2:
Masson, Life of Milton, I. 600.
Footnote 3:
Milton, Prose Works, I. 225.
Footnote 4:
ll. 470–475 are taken from “Phædo,” 81: “And this corporeal element,
my friend, is heavy and weighty and earthy, and is that element of
sight by which a soul is depressed and dragged down again into the
visible world, because she is afraid of the invisible and of the world
below—prowling about tombs and sepulchres, near which, as they tell
us, are seen certain ghostly apparitions of souls which have not
departed pure, but are cloyed with sight, and therefore visible.”
Footnote 5:
Lib. 3. fol. 313 recto.
Footnote 6:
Besides paraphrasing “Phædo,” 110–111 in ll. 111–136, Drummond repeats
the argument given in that dialogue to prove the probable existence of
such a world. Cf. ll. 141–170 with “Phædo,” 109.—“But we who live in
these hollows [of earth] are deceived into the notion that we are
dwelling on the surface of the earth; which is just as if a creature
who was at the bottom of the sea were to fancy that he was on the
surface of the water and that the sea was the heaven through which he
saw the sun and the other stars, he having never come to the surface
by reason of his feebleness and sluggishness, and having never lifted
up his head and seen, nor ever heard from one who had seen, how much
purer and fairer the world above is than his own.... [But] if any man
could arrive at the exterior limit [of the atmosphere], or take the
wings of a bird and come to the top, then like a fish who puts his
head out of water and sees this world, he would see a world beyond.”
Footnote 7:
This idea of catching the truth of a thing at two removes and the
reference to a true and painted chair are reminiscences of Plato’s
discussion of imitative art, and his figure of the three beds.
(“Republic” X, 597–599.)
Footnote 8:
“Puritan and Anglican Studies,” Edward Dowden, pp. 29–30.
Footnote 9:
Walton, “Life of Herbert,” pp. 386, 396.
Footnote 10:
Poems of Shakespeare. Ed. George Wyndham, p. cxxii.
Footnote 11:
“Poems of Lord Herbert of Cherbury,” ed. John Churton Collins, p. 24.
Footnote 12:
Howell’s “Letters,” Bk. I, sect. 6, let. XV.
Footnote 13:
“Lustra Ludovicii,” p. 26. London, 1646.
Footnote 14:
“An Account of Plato’s Ideas, and of Platonic Love.” “Miscellanies,”
pp. 355–364.
Footnote 15:
“An Essay on Love,” p. 275.
Footnote 16:
“The Ephesian and Cimmerian Matrons,” 1668.
Footnote 17:
“A Treatise of Seraphic Love.” Advertisements to the Reader, p. 12.
Footnote 18:
“Poems, with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished, 1646.” Preface.
Footnote 19:
Works, ed. Grosart, I. 112–123.
Footnote 20:
Works, ed. A. H. Bullen, p. 124.
Footnote 21:
“Ben Jonson’s Conversations with William Drummond,” p. 3.
Shakespeare’s Soc. Pub. v. 8.
Footnote 22:
Works, ed. Saintsbury, xi. 124, note.
Footnote 23:
“Life of Henry More,” Richard Ward, p. 12.
Footnote 24:
“Psychozoia.” To the Reader.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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