Part 9 (1/2)

His ill.u.s.trations of a fable show that he is talking about allegory. For instance, the fable of the centaur was invented to show, by the union of man and horse, the swiftness of human life.

It is very natural, then, that Dante should as the supreme poet of the middle ages furnish the supreme example of allegory. In the _Convivio_ (c.

1306), Dante gives a very full and complete exposition of the proper method of interpreting a text. Any writing, he says, should be expounded in four senses. The first is the literal. The second is called the allegorical, and is the one that hides itself under the mantle of these tales, and is a truth hidden under beauteous fiction.[328] The reason this way of hiding was devised by wise men he promises to explain in the fourteenth treatise, which he never wrote. The third sense, he goes on to say, is the moral, as from the fact that Christ took with him but three disciples when he ascended the mountain for the transfiguration we may understand that in secret things we should have but few companions. The fourth sense is the a.n.a.logical. Here the text may be literally true, but contain a spiritual significance beyond. That to Dante, however, all but the literal sense naturally coalesced as the allegorical is quite clear from the close of the chapter and from the letter to Can Grande, in which he discusses the interpretations of his _Commedia_. ”Although these mystic senses are called by various names, they may all in general be called allegorical.”[329] That the ”beauteous fiction,” the _bella menzogna_, of allegory is rhetorical in origin is clear from a pa.s.sage in the _Vita Nuova_. Dante is defending his personification of Love as one walking, speaking and laughing on the a.s.sumption that as a poet he is licensed to use figures or rhetorical colorings. These colorings, however, must have a true but hidden significance. The rhetorical figures are a garment to clothe the nakedness of truth.[330]

2. Allegory in Mediaeval England

England as well as Italy furnished a congenial soil for allegory in the thirteenth century. In his _Poetria_, John of Garland[331] explains allegorically an ”elegiac, bucolic, ethic, love poem” which he quotes.

”Under the guise of the nymph,” he says, ”is figured forth the flesh; under that of the corrupt youth, the world or the devil; under that of the friend, reason.”[332] In another ill.u.s.trative poem, this time introduced to show the proper use of the six parts of an oration, John inserts between the ”_confirmacio_,” and the ”_confutacio_,” an ”_expositio mistica_” in which the Trojan War is allegorized in this fas.h.i.+on: ”The fury of Eacides is the ire of Satan,” etc.[333]

As late as 1506 Stephen Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_ is as mediaeval as the _Romance of the Rose_.[334] In this allegory of the education and love adventures of Grandamour the young man sits at the feet of Dame Rethoryke to be instructed at great length in her art. To none other of the seven liberal arts, in fact, does Hawes devote so much s.p.a.ce. In the chapter on _inventio_, however, the lady seems to have forgotten all about her traditional past, for instead of discussing the method of finding all possible arguments in favor of a case, she discusses the poets, their purpose, and their fame.

The purpose of poetry is to her what it had been throughout the entire period of the middle ages. The poet presents truth under the guise of allegory.

To make of nought reason sentencious Clokynge a trouthe wyth colour tenebrous.

For often under a fayre fayned fable A trouthe appereth gretely profitable.[335]

This, says Dame Rethoryke, has the sanction of antiquity; for the old poets, who are famous for their wisdom and the imaginative power of their invention, p.r.o.nounced truth under cloudy figures. This fortified the poets against sloth.

The special treasure Of new invencion, of ydleness the foo!

Then she addresses herself directly to the poets to laud their virtues.

Your hole desyre was set Fables to fayne to eschewe ydleness,...

To dysnull vyce and the vycious to blame.

Furthermore she praises them for recording the honorable deeds of great conquerors and for furnis.h.i.+ng the modern poets with such ill.u.s.trious models of the poetic art. This praise of the poets is complementary to a condemnation of the foolish public, whose limited intelligence prevents them from seeing the cloaked truth of the poets. Thus the dull, rude people, when they are unable to understand the moral implications of the poet's allegory, call the poets liars, deceivers, and flatterers. This, she insists, is the fault not of the poets, but of the people. If the people would take the trouble to understand these clouded truths, they would praise and appreciate the moral poets.

The conclusion is not difficult. The mediaeval poets are on the defensive, as their brothers had been through all the past. To justify art, the middle ages had to show its usefulness not only to morals, but to theology. Thus Dame Rethoryke in her talk on _inventio_, is conducting a defense of poetry on the following grounds: it teaches profound truth under the guise of allegory; it blames the vicious and overcomes vice; it is the enemy of sloth; it records the honorable deeds of great men.

The chapter on style only continues the song. It is the art, says Hawes, to cloak the meaning under misty figures of many colors, as the old poets did, who took similitudes from beasts and birds.

And under colour of this beste, pryvely The morall sense they cloake full subtyly.[336]

The poets write, he continues, under a misty cloud of covert likeness. For instance, the poets feign that King Atlas bore the heavens on his shoulders, meaning only that he was unusually versed in high astronomy.

Likewise the story of the centaurs only exemplifies the skill of Mylyzyus in breaking the wildness of the royal steeds. Pluto, Cerberus, and the hydra receive like explanations. The poets feign these fables, of course, to lead the readers out of mischief. A poet to be great must drink of the redolent well of poetry whence flow the four rivers of Understanding, Close-concluding, Novelty, and Carbuncles. These rivers are translatable into: understanding of good and evil, moral purpose, novelty, rhetorical adornment of figures and so forth.

The poets praised--Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate--deserve their fame, he says, for their morality. They cleanse our vices. They kindle our hearts with love of virtue. Lydgate's _Falls of Princes_ is an especially great poem,

A good ensample for us to dispyse This worlde, so ful of mutabilyte.[337]

Other cunning poets are, however, not so praiseworthy. Instead of feigning pleasant and covert fables, they spend their time in vanity, making ballades of fervent love and such like tales and trifles. This, he insists, is an unfruitful manner in which to spend one's efforts.