Commentary on the Theatre
Drafted by Joe Loewenstein August 2010; marked up by Alexandra Bursak &
Perry Trolard September 2010.
THEATRE
not
an
uncommon title for a sixteenth-century book meant to provide a
critical conspectus on a subject.
Such books share with theatrical auditoria the function of offering
an object of scrutiny rendered circumscribed and made available for
serious reflection to a spectator whose situation allows him or her
an objectifying, but not dispassionate vantage.
voluptuous sensuous,
sensual
In commendationem . . . Brabant ‘Poem in commendation of the work set forth by the most noble and virtuous Lord, John van der Noot, patrician of Antwerp,
by "M. Rabilae", poet of Brabant.’ ‘M. Rabilae’ is probably an anagram of the name of Melchior van Baerle (Barlaeus), Antwerp
author of a number of Latin poems on mythological subjects.
DOCTOR . . . Zoilum ‘Doctor Gerard Goosen, Physician, Scientist, and Poet, Governor of Brabant; an Octastich on Zoilus’. An octastich is an
eight-line poem. Zoilus was a literary scholar of the fourth century B.C., notorious for the harshness of his criticism of
Homer.
GERARDUS
GOOSSENIUS Like van der Noot,
van Goossens was a member of the Dutch refugee community in
England, having left the Netherlands in 1566. Shortly after
the publication of A
Theatre he fell foul of the
authorities of the Dutch Church owing to a dispute with one of the
elders, John Engelram, after which he moved to
Canterbury.
my departure oute
of Brabante Van der Noot fled
Antwerp (in the duchy of Brabant) in the spring of 1567 after a
failed Calvinist attempt to take control of the city
government. Margaret of Parma had put down the revolt, yet
she exercised what would seem, in hindsight, a comparatively
moderate approach to this and prior Calvinist insurgencies in
Antwerp and its environs; when the Duke of Alva replaced her later
in the spring, a number of Antwerp's Protestants sought refuge in
England and Germany. More of the Dutch exiles ended up in
London than in any other individual European
locale.
naturall
native
as well . . . Antechrist
Van der
Noot's special emphasis on visual
hygiene does more than prepare for the carefully
disciplined visionary poems to
come.
The Antwerp
Calvinists had a resolute interest
in the purification of visual culture, having
engaged
in an aggressive program of iconoclasm in the years before the
crackdown that forced him
to flee
to England. The
identification of the Roman church or the pope with the Antichrist
has a number of pre-Reformation antecedents, and figures in the
first of the twenty-five articles of the Lollards
(1388).
Romyshe
Roman
mean
space
meantime
nourice
nurse
other
my my
other
withdrawe
distract
the
rather
instead
gyve
devote
for
as much
insofar
conveniencie
aptness
resembled
likened
blessed and
happie A
pleonasm: happie here means
'fortunate' or 'blessed'.
lineally
descended The assertion is polemical: after all, in 1536, her father had declared Elizabeth illegitimate; he reversed himself by the
Act of Succession of 1543, which Act Edward VI had attempted to overrule in the Device for the Succession of 1553. There
were several claimants at the time of the publication of TVW. Henry Hastings still had a few supporters, and more important, the pretensions of Elizabeth’s second cousin, Mary Queen
of Scots, had been explicit since the death of her half-sister, Mary Tudor, when Henry II of France declared his son, Francis
II, and Mary, his wife, king and queen of England. Even though Mary Queen of Scots had fled to England from Scotland in 1568
and was very much under Elizabeth’s thumb when TVW was published, her claims to the English throne had the abiding support of England’s Catholics: the publication precedes
the Northern Rebellion by only a few months. Van der Noot’s affirmations of Elizabeth’s sovereignty here have a nervous truculence;
they contribute to the general defense against Catholic claims to authority in TVW.
puissant
powerful
stile full legal
title
Phoenix . . .
singular Cf.
Epigram 5
below. In his
account of the mythical phoenix
(Natural History 10.2)
, Pliny mentions that only one of its kind exists at any
time.
Tullie Marcus Tullius
Cicero
given in your own
person I.e., rather than
through an interpreter.
exquisite highly
accomplished
measures This term for
dance 'steps' reminds us that just as ancient and Early Modern musical theory
emphasized the relation between mathematical
proportion and ideal musical
intervals, so did theoretical writing on dancing describe its
gestures and steps as governed by regularities and proportions; see
Elyot (1531: 77v-78r) and
Nevile (2004).
his nine
sisters the
Muses
imagerie Although the term
can denote sculpture, van der Noot almost certainly means
'embroidery' here. Elizabeth was said to have been fond of
embroidery and skilled at it from an early age. Two handsome
embroidered bookbindings survive, customarily attributed to
her.
cunnyng
artfulness
devise
design
alonly
alone
of
hir out of her; as an
exercise of her
enduing
endowing
argument
theme
fained
Emblemes invented images
representing moral fables, pictorial allegories. For more
on emblems see the
Introduction.
glosingspecious praise
flatterie or
glosing The phrase is
pleonastic. Glosing, cognate
with glossing, has a special
association with writing.
inconveniencie
unsuitableness
Asse tuning of a
harp The ancient
proverb 'The ass with the lyre' could be used to evoke the
incomprehension of the crude and ignorant, and the folly of
offering higher things to the debased, as well as a range of simple
incongruities. Because Erasmus discusses the provenance and
the meanings of the proverb at some length in his
Adages
, it had special
currency among humanists.
accompt
account
for these
alonely only for
these
Lamuell . . .
Proverbes Van der Noot here
quotes
Proverbs
31:30
. Proverbs was frequently
understood to consist of three books, since it collects sayings
attributed, first, to Solomon, then, to Agur son of Jakeh, and, in
the final chapter, to Lemuel.
deceivable
deceitful
happiefortunate
peculiarly particularly,
preferentially
al . . .
his all of his other
forenamed
lightened
enlightened
lovablenesse
praiseworthiness
Prince Van der Noot here
insists on the fact that the term could be used indifferently of a
male or female ruler.
in six or seven
languages Important as was
vernacular translation of the Bible to those committed to church
reform, concerned as they were with lay access to scripture, van
der Noot's emphasis here falls on a different matter of linguistic
access. He praises ways in which the religious needs of its
various ethnic communities were accommodated in cosmopolitan
London.
The
Sacraments
. . . Supper Baptism and the
Eucharist are the only two rites recognized as sacraments by the
leading theologians of the Reformation.
Christian
discipline The Protestant
reformers were concerned not only with the correction of doctrine
and the reform of church polity, but with a reform of discipline,
that is, of the methods of doctrinal and moral correction in
pastoral practice, especially at the parish
level.
countrey and
nation
While country denotes a group of
people originating in a particular place,
nation can refer both to an
ethnic group and to a confessional sect.
entertainement
welcome
overthwartly . .
. hair perversely and
completely contrariwise
Pharao . .
Jezabell
Jeroboam, first
king of the breakaway Northern kingdom of Israel, is remembered in
1 Kings for his revival of idolatry
(12:28); his
successors, of whom Ahab (here 'Achab') is said to be the worst
(1 Kings 16:30)
,
are regularly condemned for committing the idolatry:
'and it came to pass,
as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of
Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he [i.e.,
Ahab] took to wife Jezebel
the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served
Baal, and worshipped him.' In their
iconoclasm, then, the Reformers tax Catholics with committing the
sins of Jeroboam; see
Luther's Table-Talk, 175
. The
gloss to 'Jezebel' at this juncture in the Geneva Bible −
'By whose influence
he fell into wicked and strange idolatry and cruel
persecution' −
is relevant as are John
Knox's references to Mary Tudor as 'that cursed Jesabell'
(Against the
Monstruous Regiment of Women 1558: D6)
and his
yoking together of Pharoah and Jezebel in his
Faythfull Admonition of
1554
: 'Remembre
brethren, that Goddes vengeaunce plaged
not Pharao the fyrst yeare of his tyranny. Neyther dyd the dogges
devoure and
consume
bothe the fleshe and bones
of wicked Jezabel when she
first erected and set up her
Idolatrie' (F1v-F2).
kingdome . . .
worlde
In
Works and
Days
109-120, Hesiod
identifies
the reign of Cronos with the Golden Age. In Roman culture,
Cronos was conflated with Saturn, and the pleasures of the Cronian
Golden Age with the indulgence and social leveling of Saturnalia;
Ovid offers classic rendering of the Saturnian Golden Age
in
Met 1.89-112
. In
his fourth eclogue, Virgil hails the return of Saturn and Astraea,
and with them the return of the Golden Age
(Ecl 4.6)
.
Astrea According to
Ovid
(Met 1. 149-50)
this
virgin goddess forsook the earth during the last of the Four Ages,
when injustice and impiety asserted
themselves. Camden reports that Virgil's
celebration of the return of
Astraea in the fourth eclogue, 'Iam redit virgo', was applied to
Elizabeth 'in the beginning of her . . . reign'
(Remains 1605:
Z2-Z2v)
. For more on this mythologization of Elizabeth,
see
Yates 1947.
God of God in exercise
of
these our most
miserable days The clash between
the description, a few lines
earlier, of the English
present as a Golden Age and,
here, of the European
present as miserable suggests the
peculiar psychological situation of the asylum-seeker; it also
evokes a paradox in the self-understanding of the Protestant, who
sees himself as a member of both a persecuted minority and a
triumphant imperial Church.
commodities sources of
sustenance and comfort
If they . . .
other See
Matt 10:23
.
dignities
positions of elevated status
preferments positions
conferring social and financial advantage
Fredericke Under the Elector,
Frederick III, most of the Palatinate, which had been hospitable to
a range of Protestant groups, became a strictly Calvinist enclave
within the Holy Roman Empire, though his efforts to suppress
Lutheran practices in the Upper Palatinate were only partly
successful.
Josias Josiah, the king
of Judah who 'put down the idolatrous priests'
(2 Kings 23:5)
, is
similarly instanced as a model ruler in the epistle prefatory to
the 1570 edition of the Geneva Bible. The comparison of
Frederick to Josiah may be especially pointed, since Josiah
effected a major reformation not only in his own realm of Judah,
but in the kingdom of Israel to the north as well. His fervent
iconoclasm would have been an inspiration to the Antwerp reformers:
at
2 Kings 23:4
, Josiah burns the vessels used in the worship of
Baal and carries the ashes to Bethel, the site where Jeroboam had erected his golden calves; at 23:5, he
destroys the altar at Bethel.
harborough
harbor
French . . .
Dutche Edward VI granted
charters for the founding in London of both Dutch and French
churches in 1550.
dyvers
diverse
How . . .
Jahel Alluding both to
the account of Deborah's advice to Barak on how to defeat the army
of Sisera
(Judges 4:6-16)
and to the story of Jael's subsequent
murder of Sisera
(Judges 4:17-21)
.
he also . . .
daughter See
1 Samuel
19:11-16
.
he delivered . .
Judith as narrated in the
apocryphal book of
Judith, chapts. 8-16
.
the children . .
. Haman See
Esther.
renoumed
renowned
tofore
earlier
affection disposition,
affect
and that maugre . . .
being ‘And all this despite the provocations of your enemies, who, being, etc.’ The phrase maugre the beard of was proverbial, but van der Noot may be playing with beard here, suggesting that Elizabeth is undeterred by the virility of the Catholic princes - the Pope and Philip II of Spain -
who opposed her.
endite
compose
heartie
heartfelt
your Majesties
counsel Van der Noot is
probably referring quite specifically to Elizabeth's Privy
Council.
weal
well-being
estate
state
wold not
be desire not to
be
by your grace by means
of your liberality
in
store laid
up
in
signification as a
sign
vouchsafe be willing,
deign
the
matter the substance of
the argument
the same
i.e., the
matter of the book
contentation
contentment
conscience The term can have
its modern, specifically moral sense, as well as the less specific
senses of 'consciousness' and 'inward thought.'
1.1 One of two of the
epigrams that Spenser has translated in sonnet form, expanding
Marot's twelve lines to fourteen.
1.1-3 Spenser's syntax in
these opening lines supports the general theme of the vain and
transitory character of the world. No visionary 'I' organizes
the lines; the first person leaves only traces − on
my
window and in the two
indirect objects (me) of
hapned and
grieved. Instead, Spenser gives us an absolute construction in the first line, the participle in which (being) can be attached only to an ‘I’ that appears nowhere in the sentence, and is followed by two impersonal constructions, [it] hapned and it grieveth. Indeed, these opening lines are remarkable for a dreamlike ellipsis of specific subjects: if the visionary ‘I’ does not
securely manifest its presence, the things seen are not much more syntactically assertive, at least within this three-line
introduction to the sequence. (Things appears at first to be the subject of hapned, but is, in fact, the object of to see.)
Hinde a female
deer
1.4-8 Van der Noot
glosses this vision as an allegory for the death of
Petrarch's Laura, pursued by the dogs of destiny or
appointed time ('by the
houndes white
and black he understode
the daye and nyght';
000-00).
mought might,
could
the greatest God The adjective can function as a superlative ('the greatest of the Gods’) or as an absolute superlative; the phrase in the
French source,
souverain des Dieux (B1v)
, cannot be understood as absolute.
untimely Possibly influenced by van der Noot’s interpretation of the sonnet as an allegory of the depredations of time, and certainly
responding to his own formulation two lines earlier, in shorte time, I spied, Spenser has introduced this characterization of the death of the hind, which is not to be found in Petrarch’s original or
Marot’s translation.
1.13-14 Spenser here
introduces a temporal idea not present in his sources. Marot
follows Petrarch closely, using a past tense to describe how the
cruelty of death vanquished (vanquit,
B1v) beauty and
how destiny makes the speaker sigh (souspirer me
feit); Spenser's absolute
construction (death
vanquishing) and
his Oft makes me
waile suggests that the
experience of the vision takes place in a grievous, perpetually
renewed present.
Heben
ebony
2.1-6 Again van der Noot
will construe the vulnerable thing at the center of the vision as a
figure for Laura: the ebony of the ship as her black brows, its
ivory, her skin; the ship's gold sails and silk tackle are said to
stand both for her clothing and for her precious virtues; see
[cross-ref].
turmoyle The verb is often
used to describe the effect of storms on the sea. The
slightly unusual transfer to the air evokes an abnormal
turbulence.
riches Probably to be
construed as 'wealth, richesse' rather than as 'valuable things':
with metrical stress falling on the second syllable, it is closely
allied to the abstract term, richesse, in
Marot's
version.
3 Of
the Epigrams, only the first and
this third poem are sonnets. Making this formal shift,
Spenser may simply be succumbing to the difficulty of rendering
Marot's douzaine in twelve English lines; he may also have adopted
the sonnet form as an homage to Petrarch, widely felt to be the
master of the form, for this particular poem takes up one of the
central images of
Petrarch's Rime
sparse
, the laurel
tree. In this poem and elsewhere in Petrarch's collection,
the image of the flourishing laurel effects a congruence between
the apparently divergent objects of Petrarch's longing, the beloved
Laura and the fame that might accrue to poetic achievement, an
achievement that might be recognized by the award of a laurel
crown.
fresh and
lusty Since the phrasing
here is closer to
Petrarch's
giovenetto e
schietto than to Marot's simple jeune
(E2v), one might
conclude that Spenser had consulted Petrarch's original. But the
lines immediately following follow Marot in a firm departure from
his Petrarchan source.
3.3-6 The full stop
after 'melodie' clarifies the syntax of a sentence left uncertain
in
Le
Theatre. Marot's translation had departed from the logic of the Petrarchan original
in which the speaker's sense of the paradisiacal nature of the tree
derives from its freshness and lustiness; in Spenser's poem, this sense of the tree's paradisiacal nature is
traced to the plenitude of birds in its branches. (When Spenser
revised the translation for VP, he worked to
recover the fundamental logic of Petrarch's lines.)
noble Spenser departs
from his sources here, as he will at line 12 below, where he
describes the tree as royal. He may have
been inspired to this diction by Roest's translation of van der
Noot's commentary on the previous poem, where Laura's virtues are
described as 'noble and excellent'
(000-00).
melodie Van der Noot
comments that the birds' song represents Laura's conversation and
song
(F4v).
sprites spirits
welkin
sky
outbrast burst
forth
by the
root Another instance
in which Spenser seems to have looked past Marot to the Petrarchan
original:
Petrarch's
da radice has no equivalent in Marot.
Spenser restores the symmetry whereby the poem opens with
growing branches and
proceeds to an
uprooting.
homely . . .
ruder The adjectives insist on a rusticity not emphasized in Petrarch or Marot. For a similar non-comparative use of ‘ruder’,
see the ‘ruder clowne’ of
FQ VI.x.7.4
, and cf. the ‘viler clowne’ of
Oct 97
.
cloune
peasant
That sweetely . .
. fall.
Spenser's subsequent poetry recurs frequently to this accord of
song and the sound of falling water, which he came to treat as the
sign of a poetry that, while rural, could also claim, perhaps by
virtue of its harmony with the natural order, the right to speak of
higher things. In
April, Colin is said to
have made his song in praise of Elisa, Queene of
shepheardes while lying beside a
spring and to have tuned it unto the
Waters fall (
35-6); and see also the
lament in
June
155-6)
. The laments
of The Teares of the
Muses are
similarly powred forth . .
. Beside the silver Springs of Helicone(4-5)
and there the Muses teach the trembling
streames. . . to beare .
. . A Bases part(25-8). Again,
in FQ,
the Nymphes and
Faeries at the base of Mt.
Acidale are found sitting by the banks of
a gentle flud . . .
And
to the waters fall tuning their accents fit(VI.x.7.1 and 9). Noting the
shift in this line, possibly inadvertent, from the pentameter norm
of the rest of the Epigrams to an alexandrine,
John Hollander remarks
(1988, 173-6) on the important congruence of
this 'scene' of acoustic concord with Spenser's first use of that
metrical attenuation which would be one of the distinguishing
features of the Faerie Queene stanza. For
more on this attunement, see
Cheney 1997, 72-3.
chiefe As in Marot, no
lesser delights are explicitly named, although Spenser's line
suggests that the pleasure of the
sight may exceed the
pleasure of the accorde of voice and
waters. In
Petrarch there is no competition between sight and sound, instead, they collaborate to produce a sweetness that
by its very increase seems to trigger the onset of loss – quando / più dolcezza prendea . . . / . . . aprir vidi uno speco (‘when / I took more sweetness . . . / . . . I saw a chasm open’).
Phoenix In
Epigrams 5.7
, Martial
compares the longevity and resilience of Rome to that of the
phoenix. Petrarch emphasizes the self-destruction of the
phoenix, suppressing its capacity for
self-renewal. On the singularity of the Phoenix, see above
[cross-ref] and n.
anone
immediately
wight
creature
Untill The speaker
relinquishes the thought that the bird is
some
heavenly wight upon witnessing its
arrival at the scenes of prior desolation described in the previous
two Epigrams. This
changing-of-mind is somewhat more explicit in
Marot
(don pensay . . .
jusque à tant / Qu'il vint à; 'wherefore I thought . . . until / it arrivated at') and
Petrarch
(prima pensai, fin
ch' . . . giunse';
at first I thought, until . . . it reached').
we
see The
characterization of the transitory things as
transitory visibilia is Spenser's own
invention, and it throws emphasis on the importance of viewing to
the sensation of loss. The detail is especially fitting
since, in this poem, the Phoenix is at once the object of the
speaker's gaze and, itself, a gazer, looking on
the same
broken tree and
spring late devoured that the speaker
earlier viewed. Whereas the speaker of the prior poems
responds to the vision of loss with grief, the Phoenix responds
with disdaine.
dide In Spenser's sources, the Phoenix disappears.
pitie
and love The Phoenix's death excites emotions not evinced by the prior
visions.
At
last Perhaps suggesting
that the appearance of a Lady in this sixth and final vision has been
elicited by the new depth and generosity of the speaker's response
to the death of the Phoenix in the fifth vision, his
pitie
and love. In both
poems, the speaker is said to respond with
burning.
thinking Whereas
Marot's songeant suggests some
continuity between the vision of the Lady and the ruminative
experience that makes the speaker burne and
quake,
Spenser's thinking recurs to
Petrarch's phrasing − che mai nol penso
ch'i'non arda et treme − which marks a
sharper rift between the vision and the emotional reflection on
that vision. The phrasing here and the choice
of proudely at line 4, which
recovers the force of Petrarch's superba (which Marot has
nearly lost in his contre amour
rebelle), suggest that
Spenser has here consulted Marot's Petrarchan
source.
White seemed hir
robes Whereas in Petrarch, the weaving creates the effect of snow and gold combined, in Spenser's version snow and gold seem to
be the very constituents of the fabric. Spenser's slight invention here is perhaps inspired by the dense verbal texture in
the French version, for Marot describes the fabric as made with such art that gold and snow ensemble / sembloient meslez (‘seem commingled together’;
B6v).
waste
waist
6.8 Recalling the
death of Eurydice, stung by a snake on the occasion of her marriage
(
Virgil, Georgics, 4.457-9
;
Ovid, Met 3.10
).
in
earth Although the Lady
of this douzaine mounts up to joy, in sustains the idea of
Eurydicean entombment, an idea reinforced by the phrasing of
Marot's envoy, which concludes with a longing for a conspicuously
subterranean death (soubz la terre
gesir).
anoy
vex
yelde . . . a
sweete request Spenser seems to
be straining to secure a rhyme for rest; the phrase very
imperfectly renders
Marot'sdonne ung doulx
plaisir ('gives a sweet
pleasure') and
Petrarch'sàn fatto un dolce
. . . desio ('has produced a
sweet desire'). The substantial revision of the envoy
for Bellay may well stem from
Spenser's dissatisfaction with this particular
line.
within the
earth See note to 6.11
above.
The sequence of
sonnets translates Du Bellay's Songe, itself heavily
indebted to Petrarch's Canzone of Visions.
1 Du Bellay's sequence begins with the apparition of a spirit who propounds the
general lesson of the visions that will follow, that since all
things beneath heaven are transitory, those who hope for permanence
must vest that hope in the divine. The spirit's admonition
occupies the entire octave of Du Bellay's poem, whereas, in
Spenser's rendering, the apparition speaks of the world's inconstancy and, in the final three lines, the original speaker
formulates the compensatory principle of confidence in God.
The summary prologue and the demonstration of the speaker's wisdom
give the sequence a somewhat greater spiritual security than is
offered in the preceding sequence. That said, this second
sequence is also more sepulchral than the prior one: Spenser's speaker is addressed by a ghost (un
Demon for Du Bellay) and
the ensuing poems are haunted by the pathetic or monstrous vestiges
of antiquity.
1.1-5 Recalling the
occasion of the appearance of Hector's ghost in
Aen 2.268-97
; the ghost
rouses the sleeping Aeneas, warning him to flee the burning city of
Troy.
that great
rivers The
Tiber's.
Temple The idea that God
dwells in a heavenly temple is a frequent biblical topos (see,
e.g.,
Isa 6:1,
Heb 8:1-6, and
Rev 11:19). The heavens themselves are not directly compared to a temple in the canonical bible and no detailed speculation as
to the architecture (and angelic personnel) of the heavenly temple was made until the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (among
the Dead Sea Scrolls) and the hekhalot literature of early Judaism.
nought . . . vanitieEccles 1:2 and
12:8
.
Sith
since
stay to hold
fixed
The second, third,
and fourth sonnets focus on the destruction of monumental Roman
culture. Van der Noot speaks of Rome as stuffed . . . wyth . . . all maner of riches,
wherupon didde ensue
all kinde of superfluitie and worldely
pompousnesse (
F5v-F6).
His description
suggests an abiding fascination with Roman
sumptuousness:
'They adorned their
Citie with all maner of sumptuous and costely buyldings, wyth all
kindes of curious and cunning workes, as Theaters, Triumphall
Arkes, Pyramedes, Columnes, Spires, and a greate number of graven
Images, Statues, Medalles and Figures, made of divers and sundry
kindes of stuffe, as Marble, Alablaster, Golde, Sylver, Copper,
Pourphere, Emplaster, Brasse and other like mettall, some graven,
and other some cast'
(
F6)
.
frame
structure, building.
cubites
A cubit
is a measure of the distance from the elbow to the tip of the
fingers. With the exception
of the revised translation for Bellay,
Spenser
employs the term on only one other occasion, to measure the
depth
of the fountain in the Bower of Bliss (
FQ
II.xii.62
); see
comments on line 11 below.
Dorike wise Doric manner. Vitruvius
associates the Doric order in architecture with masculine valour
(
De
Architectura 1.2.5
). The
inscription, SPQR, in the tympanum of the temple
in the facing illustration specifies this as a Roman
building: this abbreviation for Senatus Populusque Romanus (‘The Roman Senate and the Roman People’) was inscribed on Roman
public from the time of the Republic forward.
Of bricke, ne
yet neither of brick nor
Christall
crystal
deepe
vaute A crypt. Whereas Spenser is translating
ventre, a term inapplicable to lofty
spaces, vault
(
Fr voûte) can be used for any enclosed space surmounted with an arched
ceiling, so Spenser is somewhat lightening his
source.
parget
ornamental work
(usually in plaster) on walls
sielyng
ceiling
golden
plates Cf. golden
lamminae
that cover the
interior of the 'house' within the Holy of Holies
(
1 Kings 6:21), an ornamental feature not fully captured in the Geneva
rendering.
Jaspis
Jasper. With the exception of the revised translation of
this poem in Bellay, Spenser's only
other references to jasper and emerald are found in his
descriptions of the Bower of Bliss: some of the grapes that hang
over the second gate in the Bower appear like emeralds
(
FQ II.xii.54
) and the
fountain in the Bower is paved with jasper
(
FQ II.xii.62
). Crystal (line 6), jasper, and emerald are
all part of the array of precious materials mentioned in the
descriptions of heaven in
Revelation 4 and
21
.
sodein
sudden
earthquake Cf. the
destruction of the Temple alluded to in
Matt 24:2 and the less
specifically located earthquakes of
24:7.
sharped Pointed.
Spenser will use this again in an analogous architectural
description in Rome,
16, but the term is
also used of Cupid's arrow in
Tottel's Miscellany (1557)
.
3-4 Spenser has some
difficulties rendering
Du Bellay here. The obelisk in
Du Bellay's poem is precisely as high as (justement mesuré,
/ Tant que) an archer - keen-eyed, as a professional necessity - can aim
(prendre
visee), whereas Spenser's translation suggests both that the height of obelisk is somehow
proportioned to its square base and that it is as tall as an archer
can see.
couched In
Du Bellay's original, the ashes repose (reposoit) in the urn.
Spenser has displaced the verb used of the lions,
couchez, in line 9, and
thereby has relinquished phrasing that suggests the heraldic
character of the resting lions.
grief Cf.
Du Bellay'storment.
chapters capitals, the top
portion of a column
frises
friezes
arke
arch
victorie Triumphal arches
are customarily ornamented with images of Victory personified,
carved in relief in the roughly triangular spaces above the curved
portion of the archway, as in the woodcut illustration facing the
poem.
habite
clothing
chaire
chariot
auncient
ancient
his
sire Vulcan's father. Son of Jove and Juno, Vulcan is blacksmith and
armorer to the gods.
Sith
Since
Unrhymed like the
other Sonets, the fifth of
the Sonets offers especially
good examples of Spenser's effort to capture the character of rhyme
in French, which is
relatively unemphatic when
compared to
that of rhyme in
English. The final syllables of lines 1, 3, and 4 are bound
together by assonance, thus helping to mark the first quatrain as
an independent unit. Spenser achieves an effect of mild
closure by means of the internal rhyme of 'disdain' and 'again' in
lines 13 and 14; he would later strengthen this effect in the
revision for Complaints, where the two
words are in terminal position, giving the
Complaints version its final
couplet.
Dodonian
tree An oak (and
not the palms of van der Noot's woodcut). Dodona was a city in
northwest Greece, famous for its sacred oak and its oracle of
Zeus. The reference initiates a pattern in the poem that
represents the eminence of Rome as deriving from transplants of
Eastern − Greek and Trojan − culture.
seven
hilles 'Namely upon
the hill of Palatine, the hill Capitoli[n]e, the mounte
Vimiall, the mount Cely, Esquilin, Vimiel, and Quirinel' (
Noot,
F4v-Fv
).
gladsome
pleasant
bedecked with his
leaves A garland of oak leaves was the traditional symbolic reward of those who had saved a Roman citizen in battle.
Italian
streame The
Tiber. Spenser does not here translate
Du Bellay's Ausonien, though he will
restore the term in Complaints. ('Ausonia'
was an archaic name for central and southern
Italy.)
many goodly
signes
For
Du Bellay'smaint beau
tesmoignage.
'Signes'
fails to capture the
retrospective character of tesmoignage, which might be
rendered 'trace', but which carries a strong juridical cast, as in
'witness' or 'evidence'.
race From
L
radix, root; often used to describe plant and animal species as well as human lineages. The vegetative sense is activated here
by the fact that the Dodonian tree is a metaphor for the Trojan people, transplanted and flourishing as Romans.
erst
originally
Trojan As
with Italian (line
4),
Spenser adopts a more familiar designator of place than that in his
source. Du Bellay's Dardanien identifies Troy with
Dardanus, mythical founder of Troy and son of Zeus and
Elektra.
villaines The term,
originally meaning a person of low birth, had already begun to take
on its modern moral connotations.
Du Bellay'spaisans had no such
connotations.
heape For
Du Bellay's
somewhat more orderly troppe ('troupe').
wedge A possible
translation of
Du Bellay'scongnee (cognee in
Noot's Le
theatre), but an odd one,
since the
plain
sense of
congnee is 'axe'.
Spenser seems to be trying to capture the slow, persistent force of
the wedge, possibly influenced by the connotations of
gemir, accurately
rendered as 'grone'; indeed, the entire sonnet might be said to
recall Virgil's comparison of the final collapse of Troy to the
groan and tumble of a mountain ash felled by rivalrous woodsmen
(
Aen 2.626-31
).
since thereafter
twinne . . .
trees Alluding either to the split between the Eastern and Western
Churches or the split within the western residue of the Roman
Empire between the papacy and the Holy Roman
Empire.
birde . . .
Sunne The eagle, as at
FQ, I.x.47.6
; and see
Isidore, Etymologies 12.7:10-11
.
The
Eagle imperial, as van der Noot describes the
bird of this sonnet
[cross-ref], seems to symbolize Rome in its
ancient glory.
Psalms
103
attributes a
capacity for self-renewal to the eagle, thus eliciting a potential
link to the phoenix. (In the
Natural
History, 10.2-3
, Pliny
the
Elder turns to a discussion of the varieties of eagle immediately
after his discussion of the phoenix, which he dismisses as a merely
legendary creature.) The link to the phoenix is rendered more
complex at the conclusion of the sonnet, when an owl rises from the
ashes of the dead eagle.
th'example . . .
damme Whereas the ancient naturalists from Aristotle forward
emphasize how ruthlessly eagles test their young, Spenser and
Du Bellay shift attention to the fledgling and to the rigorous
imitation by which she rises to heroic, if fatal,
achievement.
tombling
Aside from its associations with tomb, Spenser's rendering of
Du Bellay'srouant (‘coiling’) establishes a link
between the eagle and the ship of
Epigram 2
, which crashes
on hidden rocks when the sea is tombled up.
lompe
The strange
translation of Du Bellay's tourbillon
is possibly
traceable to both Spenser's interest in an echoic relation to 'tombling' and to the traditional English rendering of
Romans
9:21
,
where God's providential creativity likened to that of a potter who
can 'make of the same lompe one vessel to honour, and another unto
dishonour.' In his effort to find a term for the whirlwind of
fire, Spenser may have been influenced by the term for the whirling
mass of clay on the potter's wheel.
foule . . .
light The owl emerging from the eagle's ashes probably stands
either for the Holy Roman Empire or the modern
papacy.
as a
worme This literal translation (of Comme un
vermet) would seem to have the force preserved in the modern French
idiom, nu comme un ver, naked as a worm; for the same idiom in Chaucer, see
Rom. Rose, 454.
astonned stunned,
amazed
this nightly
ghost All versions of van der Noot's Theatre
omit the eighth
sonnet of Songe, in
which
a monstrous seven-headed beast emerges from the foundations of an
ancient ruin; after changing its shape a hundred times, the monster
evaporates in the blast of a Scythian wind. In the ninth sonnet,
Du Bellay again refers to the apparition as a
monstre; that Spenser translates the
term as ghost,
and so captures the ghostly evanescence attributed to the monster
in the omitted sonnet, suggests that he may have had recourse to a
complete edition of Songe. For the omission of the
eighth sonnet, see the Introduction.
2-8
This
description of the
spirit of the Tiber differs strikingly from Virgil's far more
benign description of the river god at
Aeneid
8.26-30
. Van
der Noot refers to the central figure as the great
Statue, though the image as described and as depicted in the woodcut
matches neither the celebrated Roman statue of the Tiber unearthed
near Santa Maria sopra Minerva in 1512-3 nor the statue of the
Tigris from the Quirinal that Michelangelo had refashioned as an
image of the Tiber in the 1560s (after the composition of
Du Bellay's Songe).
side
The word can mean both 'at length' and 'low-hanging'; Spenser is
rendering flottans, 'flowing'.
Saturnelike
Aged, because Saturn, as the father of Jove, was traditionally
associated with an especially ancient divine regime. Saturn
is also associated with melancholy temperament.
a
water Following his
French original, une
eau, quite closely.
creekie
Replete with creeks.
Spenser's use of this word to translate
Du Bellay's,sinueux, 'sinuous' is the first
recorded in
OED. This may be the first
manifestation of Spenser's distinctive interest in tributary
flows.
shoare
The battle between Aeneas (the Troyan
Duke) and Turnus, narrated in
Aeneid
12
, takes place in
fields along the Tiber west of Rome, near
Laurentum.
9-10
In Livy's version of
the late 4th-c legend, Romulus and
Remus, having been cast into the Tiber on orders of the tyrant
Amulius, are left floating in a trough; when the overflowing river
ebbs they are rescued and nursed by a thirsty she-wolf
(
Ab
Urbe Condita, 1.4
). Van der Noot
argues that from the breasts of the wolf the twin founders of
Rome sucked all manner of crueltie and
beastlynesse[cross ref.] A statue of
the Roman wolf nursing Romulus and Remus, famous in Spenser's day
and long thought to have been cast in the fifth century, was housed
on the Capitoline Hill overlooking the Tiber.
11-2
Wreaths of olive, palm, and laurel were awarded to Greek athletes
and military commanders as tokens of victory, but the
olive
had special associations with peace, the palm, with victory, and
the laurel, with poetic achievement. The fates of the three trees may together signify the transitory nature of achievement,
yet insofar as the poem seems slightly to differentiate the fate of olive and palm from that of the laurel, the poem perhaps
implies that a collapse of a regime of post-bellum peace leads to a withering of the arts.
tune
Translating
Du Bellay'saccordoit.
Cf. the rendering of
Marot's accordoient
in
Epigrams 4
as in accorde did
tune.
Rentingrending
this . . . face By thus rendering
Du Bellay'sceste
face (‘this aspect’ or ‘this face’), Spenser lightly suggests that the lost visage is the nymph's own, as if the removal of this whilome honored
face were not an especially lamentable product of some larger
historical decay but were, instead the effect of the nymph's own
grief. This quickened disfigurement is refracted and further heightened in lines 10-12, where the nymph imagines modern Rome
as a hydra each of whose seven heads should be cut off.
whilome erstwhile, once upon a
time
hap
chance
bate
discord
10-12 The new Hydra
recalls the seven-headed Beast from the Sea of
Rev 13, yet
whereas the Beast in Revelation is identifiable as the seven-hilled
Rome (and is so identified in the glosses to the Geneva Bible of
1560), the new Hydra, presumably associated with the papacy or the
Roman church, seems paradoxically a threat to the imperial Roman
nymph herself. The paradox, that one figure of Rome should
threaten another, is central to Du Bellay's Roman
poems.
mete
deserving
Hercules To slaughter the
hydra, said to grow multiple new heads with each decapitation, was
the second of Hercules' twelve
labours.
Neroes and
Caligulaes The two
first-century Roman emperors serving here as types of criminally
violent monarchy. The glosses to
Rev 13.3 of the 1560
Geneva Bible refer to Nero as the emperor 'who moved the first
persecution againste the churche'.
bring
forth In Spenser's source, the new Hydra is said to sire the
Neroes and Caligulaes on the nymph;
Spenser has muted the insinuation of rape.
croked
shore? Recalling the creekie
shoare (10) of the previous
sonnet. The emended punctuation
consolidates the unambiguously interrogative force of
Du Bellay's construction − N'estoit-ce
pas ('was it not?')
− which is slightly effaced by the mispunctuation in the French
version of TVW, which is reproduced in the
English edition.
flame . . with triple
point Perhaps alluding to the triple structure of the papal tiara −
an allusion that would be enhanced by the reference
to incense in 9.3 − and meant to imply the
grandiose aspirations of the Roman church.
3-4
Confusingly, the lines preserve
Du Bellay's word-order.
leames flashes
golden
shoure The story of Jove's impregnation, in the form of a shower of
gold, of the imprisoned Danae was allegorized as an account of the
corrupting power of gold at least as early as the first century
C.E.; see
Horace, Odes, 3.16
.
glystering glittering
The tone and tactics of the opening of the poem and woodcut are conspicuously at odds. The illustration, which captures the
rout of the poem’s final lines, is populous and busy, whereas the sonnet unfolds quietly, at a steady pace. The first quatrain
simply describes the welling spring, the second the harmony that supplements the shining pleasantness of the spring. The
mention of mermaids in 8 is the first hint of animation, and they obtrude only figuratively on the scene; line 9 introduces
seates and benches, the first mark that the spring is meant to accommodate human or humanoid presence. Only at line 10 does the setting accommodate
something of the woodcut’s crowd, and even then the hundred Nymphes are presented in orderly array – side by side about.
3-4
The river Pactolus was famously rich in electrum, a naturally
occurring alloy of gold and silver. Ovid transmits an
etiological myth: when Midas, on Bacchus' instructions, washed
himself in the Pactolus to rid himself of the curse of the golden
touch, the riverbed turned hard and yellow (
Met 11.137-45
).
5-6
The evaluative comparison of Art (i.e., the exercise or products of
human education, design, or craft) and Nature
(i.e. the wild, the given, the non-human, the unwilled) is
traditional; the two principles are usually understood to be in
competition. Spenser makes characteristically distinctive −
albeit not unique − contributions to the tradition, both instanced
here: he especially interests himself in (often competitive)
collaborations between Nature and Art and he often imagines their
encounter as especially productive of pleasure.
accordes
Harmony. Like 'harmony'
or
'concord', accord
can have both
musical and socio-political senses.
Mermaids
Spenser is
translatingd'une
Serene [
sic
, a misprint for
Sirene]. The conflation of
mermaid and siren is ancient and, because the terms could be used
interchangeably, the use of mermaid
here probably should
not be taken as a suppression of the threat associated with the
allure of the siren's song; cf.
FQ, II.xii.17.9
.
assembled
A direct
translation of the French s'assembla,
the usual
connotations of which, like those of its English cognate, entail no
hint of disorder.
1-2
Omitting two poems from Du Bellay’s sequence, van der Noot proceeds to the last of Du Bellay’s visions, set at dawn. The
belief invoked here, that dreams at dawn are true, was sufficiently commonplace in antiquity that Artemidorus goes out of
his way to debunk it in
chapter 7 of Book 1 of his Oneirocritica, the first systematic treatise on dream interpretation.
Morpheus
The god of sleep.
Typhaeus
sister Although Hesiod distinguishes Typhœus and Typhaon, making Typhœus the latter’s father, they were frequently conflated in
antiquity - as Typhoeus, Typhos, Typhaon, or Typhon: all are monstrous and belligerent. Hesiod’s Typhœus is one of the Giants
who revolted against the Olympians (
Theog 820-38
). Neither Typhaon nor Typhœus had a famous sister, but the poem and the woodcut seem to identify the sister as a
personification of Rome as both imperial conqueror (lines 9-10) and warlike foe of heaven (line 6).
In a confusion possibly related to the conflation of Typhœus and Typhaon, the commentary on this poem refers to the central
figure as ‘Typheus daughter’. For Spenser, the figure of Typhœus will continue to invite bizarre genealogical imaginings:
in
FQ III.vii
he will describe how Typhœus raped his own mother Earth and so sired Argante and Ollyphant, twins whose incestuous
relations begin in utero: the belligerent and lecherous Argante is both Typhœus’ sister and his daughter.
bravely splendidly
morian
I.e. morion; a type of visorless brimmed helmet.
harde
by very close at hand
gronde groaned
with . . .
afrayde frightened
by
tho then,
thereupon
striken . . .
thunder Fall, struck by a clap of
thunder.
start
In Spenser's source, the shift in tense is less jarring: unlike the
other poems in the sequence,
Du Bellay's final sonnet is cast in the
present tense, whereas Spenser postpones the shift to the present
until the moment of waking.
1-8
The octave of the twelfth sonnet is based on the first
two-and-a-half verses of
Revelation
13
.
2-5
The beast combines attributes of the four creatures from the sea
that appear to Daniel in
Dan 7.2-7. In his discussion
of the sonnet, van der Noot will follow the 1560
Geneva glosses
to Rev 2
, which associates the leopard,
bear, and lion with the Macedonians, the Persians, and the
Chaldeans; see below
[van der Noot G5-6v]. Van der Noot
variously describes as signifying the congregation of the
wicked and proude hypocrites and as
'meaning the
odible, fals, & damnable errors & pestiferous inspirations
of the divel'
[cross-ref to G2v]. (In
his ensuing discussion, he takes pains to distinguish the beast
of
Rev 13, which he associates with
the priestly hierarchy of the Roman Church, from the dragon
of
Rev 12, which he associates with
Satan himself.)
the vile blaspheming
name
'What is it I pray you else, than a great
abhomination
& blasphemy that the Pope claimeth to him selfe to be the most
holy father, to be the Vicare of Christ, God on earth, supreame
head of the Church, the only steward of the gifts, graces, and
misteries of God? What meaneth it that Priests and Bishops do
arrogantly ascribe to thẽ selves to be Bridegromes,
to stand in Gods stead, to have power to pardon sinne, and to be
our Ladies clean and undefiled knights? What be these else than
names of blasphemie?'
(
van der Noot:
G4-G4v
).
Dragon
Of the dragon of
Rev 12 and 13, the Geneva
glossator comments (at
13.2) 'that is, the
devil.'
8
'The infallible word of God
(which be the Scriptures) hath given him this
wound' (
van der Noot: H3). In
Rev 13.3 although one of the
heads of the beast is said to have sustained an apparently mortal
wound, the wound is then said to have healed, a detail captured in
the Dutch − maer is weet om
genesen (‘but it has been healed’)
− but dropped in the French and
English versions.
One
cride At
Rev
13.4
, a multitude of
worshippers offers up this reverent question.
11-14
The last four lines of the sonnet are based loosely
on
Rev 13.11-14, which narrates the
appearance of a second beast which sets up an idolatrous cult of
the first. ‘All those that worshyp the
Dragon, worship the beast also: for as those whiche honour Christ,
honor hys father also, in lyke maner all those whiche adore
Antechrist, that is to say, consent and holde of his traditions,
masses, and ordinaunces, all those (I saye) worship the divel, of
whom they have
receyved all his
wickednesses’ (
van der Noot,
H3
).
from the
sea At Rev 13.11, a second beast arises,
this time from the land. Although the woodcut plainly
distinguishes the origins of the two beasts, Spenser departs from
the biblical source here by faithfully translating his French
original (de
Mer ‘from the sea’), which mistranslates its Dutch original
(wt de
eerde; ‘out of the earth’).
setting . . .
up 1) erecting, 2) exalting. The phrase operates with
similar ambiguity in van der Noot's commentary where he comments on
the cultishness of the prelates and bishops of the Roman
Church:
'they
proceed further to the forbidding of
mariage, meate, egges, butter: in lyke manner images, and
crucifixes were sette vp up, woorkyng thereby false
miracles'
[
ref to G1v]
hir
I.e., her, the first beast's.
1-10
The first ten lines of the sonnet are based on
Rev 17.3-6. 'The beast
signifieth the ancient Rome: the Woman that sitteth thereon, the
newe Rome whiche is the Papistrie, whose crueltie & blood
sheding is declared by skarlat' (
1560 Geneva gloss to
Rev 17.3
).
Orenge
Spenser has
mistranslatedmigrainne, the term for a cloth dyed to a
not-very-intense scarlet.
fell cruel
12-14
Based on
Rev
18.1-2
.
The third of the apocalyptic sonnets is based on
Rev 19.11-20. Van der
Noot offers a sustained gloss on the poem at
M5v-O3v.
embrued soaked,
stained
puissant powerful
8-9
The apparent padding − as me
thought and descending
downe − actually reproduces similar features in the French
source.
slea
slay
Although Spenser would revise the translations from Du Bellay
and Petrarch for Complaints, he never reworked the
apocalyptic sonnets; yet he would adapt this rendering of John's final vision in Revelation
for Red Crosse's vision at the Mount of Holy Contemplation,
FQ I.x.55-7
. As the New Jerusalem of these sonnets is
meant to displace vainglorious Babylon and Rome in the esteem of
men, so Red Crosse will recognize the milder error of his
over-estimation of Cleopolis, the dwelling place of the Faerie
Queene herself (
FQ I.x.58
).
1-7
Based on
Rev 21.1-4.
new
At
[O4v] Van der Noot draws attention to the figurative force of
the term even as he insists that the new Jerusalem is the
Church.
garnisht adorned
spouse
In a marginal gloss at
O4v, as part of his discussion of the newness of the New
Jerusalem, van der Noot draws attention in a marginal gloss to his
source in
Ephesians 5 for the analogy of the Church as a bride; he
indicates that the newness of the Jerusalem-Church is like the
figurative renewal of a betrothed woman as she is
'trimmed for hir husbande, for she is purified and made newe
againe.'
8-14
The last half of the sonnet derives its matter from several verses
from
Rev 21 and
22
:
the divine radiance from 21.11; the square city plan of
the New Jerusalem, 21.16; its gates of pearl, 21.21; and the
crystalline river of life, 22.1-2.
Square
See
van der Noot, O7.
twelve
gates For the twelve gates as the twelve apostles, see van der
Noot's commentary at
P1.
unto the Churches
good Whereas in the biblical original, the leaves of the tree of
life are said to heal the nations, Noot's sonnets suggest that
the fruit of the tree is instead meant to improve the state of
the church.
_______________
Declaration
explanation
unquiet
restless
mislike
of begrudge,
disapprove of
estate status,
situation
calling
vocation
go
aboutundertake
enter
into take
up
lyvings vocations,
positions in life
the fewest numbre
of very
few
for
all that despite the fact
that
inconveniences
misfortunes
men of the
countrey translating
'Le Paisan ou
laboreur'
(
Le
Theatre,
D7
)
travaile
strive
yet
still
studieth exerts himself in
planning
carnall
worldly
careful
anxious
moyle
drudge
gapeth
for longs
for
graunted
of granted
by
proceede
of
derive
from
for
this . . . us that is given to
us for this purpose
unquietness
discontent
christian
libertie The phrase has
distinctive, technical force in the writings of
Calvin's Institutes 3.19
(and less
technical force in Luther), but van der Noot's use of this
important Reformation slogan to designate a freedom from worldly
desires is incongruous with Calvin's usage, which denotes that
freedom from the Old Law expounded in Galatians.
put
case propose by way of
example
Although van der
Noot doesn't offer the reader a formal partition or outline of the
next few pages, he does suggest, at F2, that he has offered an
account of the three principal temptations from which all and every kinde of evyll proceedeth
(
F2): the love of
riches (
E1v-E7v), ambition (
E7v-F1), and lust
(
F1-F2)
[convert references]. We here offer the beginning of the discussion
of the temptation of riches, the longest of these three informal
sections.
the
rather the more
easily
covete after long
for
more a greate
deale
a great deal
more
thorough through, by means
of
in it
is no suche default
in the right use
of worldly good there is no moral defect
onely I
meane
I only
mean
propre
legitimate
possessed
of
possessed
by
Gallio . . . unto
them
Van der
Noot here paraphrases the
concluding line of chapter 22
of De Vita
Beata, which the younger
Seneca dedicated to his older brother Gallio:
ad
postremum divitiae meae sunt, tu divitiarum
es (‘in fine, I own my riches; yours own you’).
confidence impudence
chasyng chasing away,
expulsion
thraldome captivity
set
by esteem
When riches . . .
themPs 62.10.
Consideryng . . .
ydle
The sentence would
be a bit less difficult if it were
less compressed. Van der Noot not
only asserts the worthlessness of worldly things, but also sets up
an opposition between the intrinsic worthlessness of
things −
of
them selves most miserable −
and the vanity and
idleness that we confer on things, insisting,
as he does so, that things
receive nothing else from us
other than this vain and idle aspect.
as Plato
sayth
The Laws, 5.727E-728A. For the
idea that the essence of poverty is not lack and that the only true
poverty is covetousness, see Laws, 5.736E.
unsaciable insatiable
contentation contentment
He is . . . at
all
Moral Epistles, 20.10, 20.8.
Chrysostom
Hom. 21 super
Matt. (6.24)
inconveniences improprieties
come to great
estate come into great wealth (or achieve eminent
status)
endued endowed
them
referring to the divers and sundry kindes of
wantonnesse and other inconveniences
wil not
be wish not to be
of
other for others.
those
three Greed, lust,
ambition.
as witnesseth
. . . Epistles1 John 2.15-17.
For all . . . of
the eyes Both the
immediate French source and the verse from
1
John that it renders
strongly support the emendation here. The compositor has
plainly compressed his copy, reducing the first two of the three
vices to a single one − the luste of the
eyes − in a
straightforward instance of eye-skip. It may be that the
compositor fumbled the line further, misreading 'as the luste'
(which would translate 'asçavoir la concupiscence') and setting 'is
the luste', yet because 'is' corresponds to the syntax of the
phrase as the passage is rendered in the Vulgate, we have let the
word stand.
rehearse
recount
incorporated For
the incorporation of
believers into the body of Christ, see
Eph 5.30
and
Rom 12.5; for
the identity
of the Church with that
body, see
Col 1.24.
crossesmisfortunes, impediments
commodities useful things,
goods
turned . . .
mire Both proverbs are
marshalled at
2
Pet 2.22
.
the
livelier more
vividly
to
the ende so
that
Omne . . .
dulciArs
Poetica, 343
.
honestly honourably,
chastely
.xxi.
yeares The
211th poem in
Petrarch's Rime
sparse establishes the year
of Petrarch's enamourment as 1327; the
336th
poem
establishes the year of Laura's death as 1348. Petrarch gives
both dates again in an obituary he inscribes in his manuscript of
Virgil.
ten
yeares In the
364th of the 366 poems of
the
Rime
sparse, Petrarch recalls
the twenty-one years during which he loved Laura prior to her death
and marks the occasion of the poem as the tenth anniversary of her
death.
Brabants
speache In effect, Dutch:
in the middle of the sixteenth century the central region of the
Netherlands, the region straddling the Rhine, was more influential
politically than the Frisian region to the north, and the dialect
spoken in Brabant seemed on the verge of becoming a more widely
accepted trans-regional standard. As is observed in the
introduction above,
Roest here misrepresents the genesis of the
translations of the poems: the poems were translated from Marot's French version as printed the previous year, probably with
occasional reference to the Italian original.
understodemeant
Holly Neither Petrarch's poem, nor van der Noot's French commentary warrants the suggestion
that a holly has bloomed from a laurel. Holly seems to be a
compositorial error based on the compositors misreading of his
copy, but the original wording of the copy is difficult to
determine. Roest may have
consulted
Marot's translation of Petrarch and construed 'divins
rameaux' (line 1) as 'holy bowes' or, perhaps, he has
translated the
phrase in the French commentary, belles branchettes,
as 'jolly bowes'.
are . . .
one share a single
approach
stay
hym selfe
rely
fansie
fantasy
passed over
spent
what
with . . . what in in consequence of
. . . and in consequence of
hir departure (as
it is sayde)
I.e.
, her so-called
'departure'.
so long a
time The French source
is less vague, stipulating that, having loved Laura for forty
years, Petrarch mourned her for seven.
considering with
him self reconsidering, reflecting
to
Godwarde toward
God
described of described
by
Arke
triumphant triumphal
arch
Dodonian
tree An
oak; see above
n. to 5.1.
Vimiall . . . VimielThere is considerable transmissional muddle here. The French source reads Viminel and Viniel for the third and sixth hills in its list (
Le Theatre: E8
). Viniel seems simply to be a distorted repetition of Viminel - the learned reader would expect to see the Aventine hill listed here - and Viminel is a misspelling of Viminall. The misspelling may have been marked for correction in Roest’s copy, but ‘Vimiall’ in the English Theatre fails to make an accurate correcton; and ‘Vimiel’ is no improvement on Viniel.
the shee wolfe .
. . Romains The symbol ('Armes') was
widely circulated on Roman coins from as early as the third century
B.C.E. Cicero mentions that a statue of the she-wolf suckling Romulus
and Remus was damaged by a lightning strike in 65
B.C.E. (
In Catilinem: 3.19
).
whereout
. . .
flushing out from which a
bird abruptly flying upwards
hundreth
hundred
drave
drove
Typheus
daughter
The poem refers, in
fact, to ‘Typhæus sister’, for which see
note 11.4 above. Different authors attribute various daughters to Typhaon/Typhoeus:
the Chimera, the Sphinx, the Harpies, and the Lerna Hydra, none of whom have attributes that correspond securely to those
of the central figure in Du Bellay’s poem.
and
that I.e. and that
destruction.
had
to had for
followingderiving from
Lupa
The name is simply the Latin word for 'she-wolf'.
Oute . . . beastlynesse In
The Boke Named the
Governour (1537, B7v)
Sir Thomas Elyot remarks
on the antiquity of the idea that character could be transmitted by
breast-milk; in
The Boke of
Children (1546),
Jean Goeurot
adduces
a number of classical authors from Plato to Pliny on this point,
particularly citing
Aeneid
4.365-7
, where
Virgil's Dido attributes Aeneas' cruelty 'unto the gyver of the
mylke' (
S1v-S2v).
cast . . .
teeth The famous anti-Roman remark of Mithridates VI is recorded in Justin’s
Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, 38.6.8
.
bloud
An outlier in the series, the term has no equivalent in the French
commentary that Roest is translating.
Figures images
Pourphere porphyry
Emplaster plaster of
Paris
graven carved
other
some some others
privienarrowly self-interested
particular narrowly
self-interested
from time to
timefrom age to age
president appointed governor,
viceroy
Nero . . . Maxence The inclusion of Trajan in
this list is anomalous, since both Aquinas and Dante include him
among the virtuous pagans, but van der Noot seems to be drawing on
Augustine's list of the ten persecutions of the early Church that
stand as preliminary to the eleventh and final persecution under
the aegis of the Antichrist (
City of
God: 18.52
): Augustine lists Trajan's as the third of these
ten. He gives Nero's and Domitian's as the first two,
Aurelian's as the ninth and Diocletian's (and Maximian's) as
the tenth. Van der Noot may have meant to include Maximian in
this list and not his son, Maxentius − Maxence. Maxentius had, in fact,
practiced a policy of toleration towards Christians, although
because of his rivalry with the Christian Constantine, he earned an
undeserved post-antique reputation for hostility to
Chirstians.
theirs
The gods of the
Romans.
enorme enormous
have been . . . are . . .
rysen The shift to the present tense captures the typological
historical sense at the core of the Theatre: the punishment of ancient
anti-Christian Rome is imagined as meted out in the
present, so that the early persecutors merge with the pope and his
bishops and the early Christian martyrs dissolve into modern
Protestants.
Eastgothes . . . Westgothes Ostrogoths and
Visigoths
rased razed
For the fervent . . . purposeBale 1570, p. 74-75 on the
events following upon the opening of the third
seal.
After this sort . . .
abolishedBale 1570, p.
78
.
Sunne. . . Moone Language of the sixth
seal, possibly borrowed from
Bale
1570,
p.85
.
For they dayly . . . have
saydeBale 1570, pp. 78-9.
John . . .
Patriarkes Even before the accession of
John IV to the office of Archbishop of Constantinople in 582, the
Council of Constantinople (381) had declared that the Bishop of
Constantinople should have primacy of honour after the Bishop of
Rome and the Council of Chalcedon (451) had established
Constantinople as a patriarchate. But it was only when John
IV, also known as John the Faster, began styling himself Ecumenical
Patriarch and, it was alleged, claimed that it was a title to be
restricted to his own see, that he provoked protests from Pope
Pelagius II and his successor, Gregory the Great. Calvin
treats Gregory as the hero of this struggle, ascribing to him a
general resistance to episcopal primacy (Institutes
4.7.21)
Boniface the
third The future Boniface III was appointed by Gregory the Great to
serve as papal legate to Constantinople in 603, and he served in
that capacity until the end of Gregory's papacy and on through the
papacy of Gregory's successor, Sabinian, after which time he was
himself elected to the papacy. During his brief service as
pope, he reasserted papal primacy, claiming the title of Universal
Bishop.
lieuetenant The term is used here in its
technical sense, i.e.
place-holder, or
vice-regent.
Mahomet. . .
afterward Chronology is crucial to the
logic of this discussion of John, Boniface, and Mohammed: John the
Faster served as Archbishop of Constantinople from 582 to 595,
Boniface's brief papacy took place in 606, and Mohammed experienced
his first revelation in 610 and took up the public work of prophecy
in 613.
[drops Christ's coat from Bale 1570, p. 79]
Sarazens their
Alcorane This distorts the
Qur'anic principle of taḥrīf, the idea that the Hebrew Bible and the New
Testament corrupt the revelation that the Qur'an embodies.
This particular distortion was given its most influential
articulation in the work of Ricoldo da Monte di Croce, whose major
thirteenth-century treatise on the Qur'an Luther translated and who
claimed that Moslems believed that the Gospel, in its uncorrupted
original form, contained a prophecy of the coming of
Muhammed.
Decretals
The term denotes the papal letters that formulate decisions in
canon law. The pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, part of a large
Frankish collection of spurious documents, was woven into a larger
collection of authentic canons, the so-called
Hispana sometime in the middle of the
ninth century. Nicholas of Cusa subjected these documents to
critical scrutiny in the middle of the fifteenth century, and
Erasmus and du Moulin elaborated Cusanus' criticism in the century
that followed.
[drops Prester John from Bale]
traditions
Because the term can be used to designate authoritative convention
passed down orally, it can connote dubitable legends and rules, as
it does here.
Wherunto To which end
the
rather the more easily
brought
in introduced
traditions of
men What follows is a condensed summary of the aspects of
Catholic doctrine and worship to which the Reformers were most
vehemently opposed, characterized as traditions of
men (with the same disapproving connotations of the
word, traditions, as are intended two sentences
earlier) to distinguish them from those aspects of doctrine of
worship that, the Reformers contended, could be securely founded on
Scripture. Van der Noot continues to follow
Bale's Image, but slightly abridging his
list of the sensuous and spectacular of worship (the use
of bells, incense, candles, instrumental music), the
doctrine of purgatorie
and the practices
intended to intercede on behalf of those abiding there
(masses for al soules, diriges, obsequies, indulgences), an array of related practices
aimed to secure the intercession of saints
(Pilgrimages, the veneration
of relikes), and several practices of
self-deprivation thought to substitute for faith itself and a
dependence of divine grace (Lenten abstentions and, for the clergy,
celibacy).
as such as
bells
The use of bells in Catholic worship was a frequent object of
Reformation attack. Various uses of bells − to announce imminent
death, to call the faithful to worship, and to accompany the
elevation of the host at Mass − were subjected to criticism, but
the practice of dedicating new bells by prayers, washing, and
unction was considered especially egregious.
diriges, obsequiesfuneral or commemorative rites
church holy
days Like most of the criticism in this passage, the attack on the
multitude of Catholic holidays might have come from any of the
Reformers, but Calvinists like van der Noot were especially fervent
in their sabbatarianism and in their strict abridgement in the
number of holidays celebrated: many mid-century Calvinist churches
celebrated only the Sabbath, Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday, and
there was a brief period in Geneva when even the celebration of
Christmas was proscribed.
The item marks a
departure from Bale, who here speaks of 'hallowing of churche's
instead of the proliferation of holidays'.
Bale's Image continues to inspire the next
few sentences, but van der Noot improvises by providing more
piquantly specific enormities than Bale offers.
Rogation
dayes Though the Catholic Church formally recognized a Major
Rogation on 25 April and three Minor Rogations, on the Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Day, the Sunday before
Ascension Day also came to be known as Rogation Sunday. All
Rogation days were associated with penance and fasting, but the
Minor Rogations − and, by association, Rogation Sunday − were
especially distinguished by outdoor processions and prayers for
agricultural prosperity.
coales . . . broyled These relics were among the
treasures of Rome's church of San Lorenzo in
Panisperna.
Josephs
hosen Since the ninth century relics said to be Jesus' swaddling
clothes were housed at Aachen; the legend that St. Joseph had
fashioned these swaddling clothes from his stockings is of a later
date.
S.
Cornelis Relics of St. Cornelius,
patron saint of cattle, were widely distributed across northern
Europe, and especially in the Low countries: an important
collection of relics were housed at an abbey in Ninove, 40 miles SW
of Antwerp. But van der Noot may have been thinking of
another collection of relics near Aachen: St. Cornelius' head was
preserved at Kornelimünster a few miles SE of
Aachen.
images
While the veneration of images is a central object of Protestant
criticism, ven der Noot's iconoclastic engagements are hardly
abstract. Van der Noot had fled to England because of the
punitive repression that followed the sacking of Antwerp churches
and defacing of their images in the summer of
1566.
foreseing . . . Maosin The text, which has no
equivalent in Bale's Image, may be corrupt here.
Roest is translating Ils bastirent & edifierent en tous
endroictz leurs Maosins ('In every place they build and set up
their Maosins';
F4), but even if foresee
is being used to
mean 'provide for', it seems an imperfect way to render van der
Noot's two verbs for building. Because of the oddly spelled word, Maosins, in his
source, Roest may not have recognized van der
Noot's reference to the notoriously difficult verse,
Daniel 11.38, 'But in hys place' − that
is, instead of 'the God of his fathers' (
11.37) − 'shal he honour
the God Mauzzim', where 'he' is 'the King' of
11.36, usually
understood as the Antichrist. Modern translations render
'Mauzzim' as 'forces' or 'fortresses' and Luther identifies Mauzzim
with the mass, but the gloss to the Geneva version is closer to the
spirit of van der Noot's allusion, for it characterizes the Mauzzim
as 'the god of riches and power.' On
Maosin, see also
N7v.
Of these . . . seduced
by them.Bale, 1570, p.
80
.
seventh
seale An error. The French source is correct: van der Noot is
describing the vision of the opening of the fourth seal
(
Rev 6.7-8).
copper
faces An unusual locution, possibly comparable to
brazen-faced. But because
Roest is translating la face
enflée (enflamed face) he may mean the phrase to
name acne rosacea, sometimes referred to as
'copper-nose'.
Rom. 2. . . . Math. 6. [marginal glosses] The reference
to Romans is miscopied from the French:
the relevant passage from Romans, on the extension of Christ's offer of a spiritual life even to those dead in the body, is
8.10. The chapters from Luke
and
Matthew contain the two versions of the
Sermon on the Mount, both concerned with life conferred by
Christ. But each of the Gospel chapters takes up different
themes of concern to van der Noot:
Luke
12.4-5
focuses on
the eternal death to which van der Noot imagines his papist
adversaries as condemned; several verses in
Matt 6 concentrate
on the empty devotional shows of hypocrisy.
Esay. 5.
[marginal gloss]Isa
5.14
.
seduced by them
Although the seductress of
Prov
5.3-6
is less potent
than the Whore of Rev, 'her steppes take holde on
hel.' Still, the reference may be a misprint: the gloss in
the French
Theatre
gives
'Pro. 2', possibly a reference to a comparable seductress at
2.16-19, whereas the source in Bale offers
'Prove. 1', presumably 1.12, which,
like Isa 5.14, features a ravenous
Sheol.
Daniel and Paule It was customary among
the Reformers to associate the fourth beast in Dan 7 with Rome
(7.7, explicated at 7.19-23) and to understand the little horn of
the beast (7.8, explicated at 7.24-6) not only as the Antichrist,
the man of sin of 2 Thess 2.3-8, but also as the
pope. Tertullian is the first to have argued that the
lawlessness of the Antichrist (2 Thess 2.3) would be unleashed only
when the Roman Empire fell (De Resurrectione
Carnis 24).
holy ghost by S.
John Cf.
Bale's Image, 1545, F4
. But the
language here may also reflect the influence of the headnote
in the Geneva Bible,
which, like Bale's Image, describes the book as the Holy
Ghost's own compendium of apocalyptic prophecies, emphasizes the
theme of punishment of hypocrisy, and focuses on
enargeia: 'Herein therefore is lively
set forth the Divinitie of Christ' and 'the livelie description of
Antichrist is set forth'.
I saw . . . and corporally This long passage
on
Rev 13.1-2 is all but lifted from
Bale's Image, 1545,
F4v-G2
.
congregation . . . hypocritesJob
15.34
; versions of
this formulation make up a steady refrain in Bale's Image
.
Ceder . . .
Libanus Cf.
Image, F5
. For the cedars of Lebanon as a
figure for a punishable pride, see
Isa
2.12-13
and
Ps 37.35.
ElmasActs 13.6-12.
Apoc. 6. [marginal gloss] I.e.,
Rev 6.7-8.
Apoc.
9. [marginal gloss] I.e.,
Rev 9.3 and
9.17. The gloss
in the Geneva Bible to the locusts (van der Noot's Grashoppers) that vex the earth
in Rev 9 is pertinent: 'Locustes are
false teachers, heretikes, and worldlie suttil Prelates, with
Monkes, Freres Cardinals Patriarkes, Archebishops, Bishops, Doctors
Bachelors & masters which forsake Christ to mainteine false
doctrine.'
odible odious
their heads . . . and their
hornesRev 13.1.
but . . .
congregationOur copy text reads ‘but in this point differ the dragon and the beast, from the divell and his membres, Sathan and his carnal
and beastly congregation’ which misrepresents the French source, which unfolds as a series of slightly irregular contrastive
pairs: en ce seul point different le Dragon et la beste: le diable et ses membres: Satan de sa congregation charnelle (‘in this particular way differ the Dragon and the Beast, the Devil and his members, Satan from his carnal congregation’ [emphases mine];
F4). We conjecture that, in preparing his translation, Roest first levelled the
irregularity of et-et-de by rendering it ‘and . . . and . . . and’, but later changed his mind, crossing out the last ‘and’ and writing ‘from’ above
it. Confused by his copy, the compositor set ‘from’ in the wrong place in the sentence and failed to cancel the third ‘and’.
It is worth noting that van der Noot equates the congregation of Satan (
Rev 2.9 and
3.9) with the congregation of the hypocrites
(
Job 15.34) mentioned a few lines earlier.
their ten
heads In fact, the beast of
Rev
13.1
, to which the
dragon of
12.3 defers, has only seven heads, although it wears a
crown on each of its ten horns.
blowe . . .
eares whisper to them concerning, secretly
propose
found
out invented
purgatorie . . .
service Although van der Noot offers
this as a list of erroneous doctrines that the bestial congregation
enforces as dogma, he follows Bale in augmenting the list of
erroneous beliefs (purgatorie, transubstantiation) with several corrupt
practices.
auricular
confession Compulsory
confession 'into the ear of' a priestly-confessor. Calvin
offers a sustained critique of the practice in
Institutes, 3.4
.
transubstantiation
Mentioned neither in Bale nor in the French
Theatre at this
juncture.
father of all
liesJohn 8.44.
written
In both the French commentary and here, van der Noot departs from
Bale, whose use of the phrase 'unwritten
veryte' (
G5v) stipulates the unauthorized character of these dogmatic
impositions.
Hereout . . .
like From these and similar instances
ghostly
spiritual
more
wickednesse It is worth observing the
culminative force here. Van der Noot has steadily
distinguished Satan and his ministers, making Satan the figure of
lesser wickedness: whereas Satan instigates, they achieve and
violently maintain; whereas he plays, they seriously compel; what
he invents, they institute as dogma. This will culminate in
the assertion that follows, that Satan is impotent without his
popish ministers.
Judas . . .
entredLuke 22.3,
John
13.27
.
bishops and
Scribes Van der Noot's formulation has
polemical force: it adapts the gospel pairing, 'chief Priests and
Scribes' from
Matt
2.4
(and see
also
Luke 23.10 and the more frequent
pairing of scribes and Pharisees, which is employed throughout the
gospels and serves as the anaphoric matrix of Jesus' address to the
multitude in
Matt
23
). By
referring to Jerusalem's chief priests as
bishops, van der Noot sharpens the
typological relationship between the modern Roman clerics and the
priestly enemies of Jesus himself and so prepares for the double
assertion in the next sentence: first, that
the Apostles, tru
ministers and other witnesses of Christ
were persecuted and
are again persecuted at this
present and, second, that, by
persecuting the present witnesses of Christ,
these popish
prelates . . . fulfil the mesure of their
fathers. Bale's typology is even
more emphatic; in the comparable passage, he speaks of 'Bysshoppes
and lawers' (sic,
F6).
Math. 23
[marginal glossMatt
23.34
.
And upon . . . ChristRev 13.1.
wher
with by means of which
suborneadorn
estimation reputation
patriarks the titles afforded to the
highest-ranking of Catholic bishops.
chief
heads Roest is
translating 'Principaux,
chefz'.
protonotary
high-ranking Monsignors of the Catholic church
officialls
bishops' representatives to diocesan ecclesiastical
courts
commissaries
papal appointees with judicial or executive responsibilities
specified to particular causes
prebendaries
cathedral administrators
Vicare
representative
Bridegromes
I.e.
, bridegrooms of the
Church. In
Mark
2.19-20
, Jesus was
understood to have referred to himself as a bridegroom;
in
Eph 5.25, Paul likens Christ's love for the Church to a man's love for his spouse. Insofar
as ordination was understood as conforming the priest to Christ,
priests could also be understood as bridegrooms of the
Church.
as Zacharie termeth
themZech 10.17.
il favored of
fashion ugly in shape
stoutnesse stubbornness
a
Lion . . . ChaldeesDan
7.4
. The
apparatus of the Geneva Bible illustrates a long-standing
interpretive confusion over the first of the four kingdoms to which
the prophetic
chapters 2 and 8 of Daniel
refer: the Geneva
headnote sensibly refers to the first kingdom as Daniel's Babylon,
but the gloss to 7.4 associates the Lion with the Assyrians and
Chaldeans, despite the fact that the Assyrian empire predates
Daniel and his prophecy.
[glosses]
As elsewhere TVW
reproduces the
glosses in the French Theatre, with some errors. As
printed, TVW
misrepresents the
reference to
1 Maccabees
as a reference
to
2 Maccabees (a book that Luther regarded
with contempt and which many Protestants kept at arms' length), but
even the gloss in the French source seems only approximate, for
although 1 Macc
2 is relevant to the
discussion at hand, the oppressions of Antiochus are most vividly
narrated in the first chapter of 1
Macc. Other glosses are even more
problematic.
Hab 1 marvels over the conquests of the Chaldeans, but the curse on them is withheld until
2.8 and
2.15-17.
The gloss ‘Esay.
22’ may be a reference to the captivity of Shebna at
Isa 22.17, but context strongly suggests that this, like the rest of
Isa 22, concerns an Assyrian conquest, not one of Persians or Medes. (The Geneva glosses construe Isa 22 as a prophecy of
Babylonian conquest – again, not Persian or Medean.) The other references may be specified to
Isa 13.17-22 and
2 Chron 36.17-23.
Paralipomenon
I.e.
, Chronicles.
But this beast . . . to the
Lion Not in Bale.
as much, and
more The Geneva gloss emphasizes that the beast symbolically
combines the peoples 'whom the Romaines overcame'; Bale and van der
Noot emphasize the ways in which the Beast
exceeds the corruption of its
predecessors. See the
note to 'vii. times double' below.
As at this
day This abridges the version in the French
Theatre, which adduces
Paul's 'prediction'
of this realm of surpassing corruption. The gloss in the
French version incorrectly refers the reader to
Rom 7, whereas the language of the
source of the passage in Bale's Image
makes a clear
reference to Paul's description of an ancient 'mystery of iniquity'
that would eventually lose its mysteriousness
(
2
Thess, 2.7-8
). As Bale's commentary in Part II
of Image makes clear, the workings of the
mystery of iniquity are responsible for the embodiment of the
Antichrist in the worldly papacy.
Sodometriesodomy
Gods holy
Temple The Church; as the gloss indicates, Paul describes the
Church in these terms at
1
Cor 3.16
.
vessels of his
gloryRom 9.23, part of Paul's discussion
of election.
Pharao . . . Caiphas To the formulaic list of the
notorious oppressors of the righteous, Pharaoh, Antiochus, and
Caiaphas, a fourth, Herod, is sometimes added.
in the comparison
of I.e., compared to.
securitie
In the sixteenth century, the term could be used to denote a
culpable confidence or lack of compunction.
[glosses]
The relevant passages are
Esth
3.4
and
1 Macc
1.41-51
.
to the
ordinauncesin comparison to the
ordinaunces
After this
sort Accordingly
Popedom
This play on 'kingdom' is not original with Roest; the Reformers
used both this and 'papisty' to refer to the
papacy.
vii. times double Roest here translates 'sept fois le
double' probably a derivation from septemgeminus (L) and, hence, meaning
'sevenfold', as opposed to 'fourteenfold'.
[glosses] Psalm 9 . . . Rom.
1. There are no corresponding glosses in the
French Theatre,
although their textual locations
correspond to places in the French Theatre
where, in several
copies, the margins are distinguished by a great deal of
bleed-through. It may be that Roest, construing this
bleed-through as poorly printed glosses, felt obliged to 'repair'
the illegible glosses. If so, he did his job poorly: since
neither
Ps
9
nor
Rom 3 are pertinent to the passages
they ostensibly underpin, they seem little better than
place-holders. It may be that the list of the various forms
of wickedness that fill those who do not honor God
(
Rom 1.29) is a gloss relevant to
the Popedom's 'headlong' rush 'toevery kinde of
mischiefe'.
covetousnesse
Translating 'convoitise'; van der Noot's source in Bale
reads 'affeccyons' (
Image, F8
).
sheade shed
observings observances
[gloss] 2. Thess.
2. This is the first of three consecutive glosses all of which
refer the reader to
2
Thess 2
: this passage draws on verses 10-11, but as van der Noot's glosses imply, Bale's commentary here, and for the next page,
dwells on the identification of the Lawless One of
2
Thess 2.9-12 and the Antichrist-Beast of
Rev 13. Bale and van der
Noot interest themselves especially on the dynamics of apocalyptic
justice: to those who, refusing truth, secure authority by means of
illusion, God responds by inflicting delusion, the deceivers sunk
in deception. Both Bale and Calvin regard the Antichrist as
being made fully manifest in the papacy by the progressive workings
of the mystery of iniquity of 2
Thess 2.7; see
Firth, Apocalyptic
Tradition, 53
.
Therfore God . . . . pleasure
in unrighteousnesse Not in Bale.
[The portion of TVW extracted
for print ends here. (The editors earlier approved an extract
that ended a two-and-a-half sentences earlier. I've decided
to extend it to reach to the end of the commentary on the first two
sentences of Rev 13 Neater that way.) What follows henceforth is simply an account of the debts to Bale.]
the Pope . . . I
mean Not in Bale.
For it is evident . . .
made whole? Bale,
Image, 1545, G3-I1. The
appropriation of Bale is freer in this next, long section. Van der
Noot abridges the Image
at a few junctures
at which Bale is especially prolix, sketchily updates Bale's survey
of the European anti-Catholic movement, and he gives a slightly
more penetrating account of those temporizers who reject the
authority of the contemporary Roman church, but cling to earlier
traditions of doctrine and practice that he judges to be without
scriptural warrant. Here, as elsewhere, van der Noot mutes
anti-semitic notes in Bale and − because the first version of this
commentary was prepared for a French audience − removes many
specific references to the struggles of English
protestants.
Other some . . . serve hym
arighte. Not in Bale.
to consume their
adversaries. Bale asserts, at this
juncture, "Neverthelesse to the christiane is persecucion
necessarye" (H4v), and elaborates the principle of necessary
martyrdom before turning to Rev 13.11.
upon the Mount . . . Jesus
)
Not in Bale.
Brabant . . .
countrey Bale's focus is on
England.
friendshyp . . .
children Not in Bale.
And it was permitted . . .
ordinaunces Bale,
Image, I4v-I5v. Van der Noot
skips a long section in Bale devoted to the suppression of
scriptural reading and the censorship of reformed commentary in
England. He also skips Bale's gloss on
Rev 13.13-14
(Image, I1-I4v) and instead turns
directly to Bale's gloss on Rev
13.15, the first few
sentences of which he abridges here.
This number . . .
agaynst him Bale,
Image, K1v.
Some expositors . . . father
the pope Bale,
Image, K2
I saw (sayth . . . or
whatsoever Bale,
Image Q5v. Van der Noot breaks
in on Bale to reflect on his own service as an alderman in
Antwerp.
This beaste is whole . .
. doings are.
Image, Q5v-Q7. As part of his
general program of updating Bale and muting the local English
concerns of the Image, van der Noot excises Bale's obscene account of the Tunstall's panting service to the Whore of
Babylon.
And in hir forhead . .
. horrible impietie.
Image,
Q7v-Q8v.
It is no mervaile . . .
confidence in it.
Image, Q3v-Q4v.
The .x. horns . . .
abhomination of that Antechrist.
Image, S3-S4v.
John Wicliffe, . . .
Regius,]The list of Reformation champions adapts Bale’s, adding Wycliff, Hus, Beza, Viret, Peter Martyr, Alasco, and Regius and dropping
Reuchlin, Erasmus, Pomeran, Grineus, and a variety of English reformers.
For the Foules, . . . hir
flesh. Not in Bale.
After all these
manifold . . . with the cloud Bale, Image, L2.
and in the .xiii. Chapter . .
. downeward Bale,
Image, L4
After all these manifold . .
. bonde of peace Bale,
Image, 1570, U8v [sig.
no?]-Aaa3.
riggish and lecherous
prelates. The French
Theatre inserts an adapted version of sonnet decrying contemporary Roman debauchery. The sonnet appears later in an adapted form
in George Thomson’s La chasse de la beste romaine (1611), addressed to Du Bellay.
and shed very . . . any
more
Image Aaa3-Bbb3v. Van der Noot imitates Bale freely here,
sometimes expanding and sometimes condensing.
But they have their rewarde .
. . gnashing of teeth. Not in Bale.
Bertrandus
Herebaldus An almost comical instance of
unfaithful transmission: 'Bertrandus, Herebaldus' in
Le
Theatre, a corruption of 'Bertramus,
Herebaldus' in Bale's Image. A treatise on the
Eucharist arguing against the doctrine of transubstantiation was
printed in 1531 and attributed to Bertramus, although the treatise is
actually the work of a ninth-century theologian by the name of
Ratramnus. Similar errors of transmission appear elsewhere in
this list.
against God and hys saincts .
. . on this maner: Although van der Noot
continues to follow Bale here, he condenses and rearranges freely
in this section when adapting it for Le
Theatre; TVW
is even more fully
reworked.
And every Shippe . . . she is
fallen.
Image, Ccc2v-Ccc4.
The apples . . .
dangerous wayes.
Image,
Bbb8-Ccc1.
These
grosse . . . one
houre. Picking up detail of the
merchants' corpulence from Image
Ccc1v, van der Noot
proceeds to conclude this section by appropriating the conclusion
of the lament of the shipmen at Image, Ccc4.
I Saw the heavens
open . . . everlasting fire
Image, Eee2-Eee6.
holds
strongholds
savior
i.e. savour
For he it
is . . . things are set.
Image, Eee6v.
And I saw an Angell . . .
leude Prelats
Image, Eee8-Fff3v.
They seeke . . . against
Christ Not in Bale.
The conspectus of contemporary persecutions departs from Bale's Image.
the Lambe is strong . . . of
those virgins These lines draw variously
from Bale, Image, K5-K5v, K7, and K8.
for they judge . . . unchast
chastitie Van der Noot here departs from his dependence on Bale
here. Bale concentrates on the spiritual virginity of ideal
marriage, whereas van der Noot's address to marriage is somewhat
less mystical. Even as he sustains a vigorous attack on the
corrupt sexuality of the Roman clergy's, he propounds a defense of
right marriage as a moral and devotional
practice.
For what I pray you . . . S.
Paule testifieth
Image, K8-K8v.
The Lambe
whyche . . . strong mounte Syon.
Image, K5.
the Dragon and . . . of the
divel
Image, F3v.
For it
followeth . . . and false Prophetes.
Image, Fff4-Fff4v, deleting the
discussion of Caiaphas.
And the
remnant . . . bloud of the wicked:
Image, Fff5v-Fff6v.
I sawe (sayeth S. John . .
. perfection.
Image, Kkk1v-Kkk2v.
And there was no more sea . .
. farre from them.
Image, Kkk3-Kkk7, lightly
abridged.
The building of the
frame . . . accepted of God.
Image, Lll8.
This holy Jerusalem . . .
moste finest golde.
Image, Mmm2-Mmm2v.
This Citie
hath . . . shall be
saved.
Image, Mmm3v.
And on every gate . . .
kingdom of Christ.
Image, Ooo2v.
And at these
gates . . . of the promise.
Image, Mmm3v-Mmm4.
The walles of the Citie . .
. principallest.
Image, Mmm5-Mmm6v.
The buildings of the wall . .
. pretious stones,
Image, Nnn5-Nnn6.
The first foundation . . .
chyldren of God.
Image, Nnn6v-Ooo2.
And the
Angell . . . never shall perishe
Image, Ppp2-Ppp3v and
Ppp4v-Ppp6v. Van der Noot abridges and simplifies Bale
slightly in this section.
This word then . . . heavenly
Jerusalem. based loosely on Bale, Image,
PPP6v-Ppp7
It must be of necessitie . .
. are unperfect
Image,
1545,
H4v-H5
[1] Sir Thomas
Elyot, The Boke Named
the Governour (1531),
77v-78r
[2] Jennifer
Nevile, The Eloquent
Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fifteenth-Century
Italy (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2004) and