Part 6 (1/2)
But the most remarkable of these pieces is a satirical fable, _Mother Hubberd's Tale of the Ape and Fox_, which s of Chaucer and Dryden for keenness of touch, for breadth of treatth of sarcasm By his visit to the Court, Spenser had increased his knowledge of the realities of life That brilliant Court, with a Goddess at its head, and full of char swains and divine nymphs, had also another side It was still his poetical heaven But with that odd insensibility to ano contrasts, which is seen in his time, and perhaps exists at all tilories of Cynthia's Court, into a fierce vein of invective against its treacheries, its vain shows, its unceasing and e jealousies, its fatal rivalries, the scramble there for preferreat persons ht easily and naturally have been identified at the time with the _Ape and the Fox_, the confederate i swindlers, who had stolen the lion's skin, and by it h places of the State, it seems to be a proof of the indifference of the Court to the power of mere literature, that it should have been safe to write and publish so freely, and so cleverly
Dull Catholic lampoons and Puritan scurrilities did not pass thus unnoticed They were viewed as dangerous to the State, and dealt with accordingly The fable contains e can scarcely doubt to be some of that wisdom which Spenser learnt by his experience of the Court
So pitifull a thing is Suters state!
Most ht to Court, to sue for _had-ywist_, That few have found, and manie one hath mist!
Full little knowest thou, that hast not tride, What hell it is in suing long to bide: To loose good dayes, that hts in pensive discontent; To speed to day, to be put back to morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; To have thy Princes grace, yet want her Peeres; To have thy asking, yet waite manie yeeres; To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires; To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne, To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne
Unhappie wight, borne to disastrous end, That doth his life in so long tendance spend!
Who ever leaves sweete home, where meane estate In safe assurance, without strife or hate, Findes all things needfull for contentment meeke, And will to Court for shadowes vaine to seeke, Or hope to gaine, himselfe will a daw trie: That curse God send unto mine enemie!
Spenser probably did notpersons That erous But it is difficult to believe that he had not distinctly in his eye a very great personage, the greatest in England next to the Queen, in the following picture of the doings of the Fox installed at Court
But the false Foxe most kindly plaid his part; For whatsoever mother-wit or arte Could worke, he put in proofe: no practise slie, No counterpoint of cunning policie, No reach, no breach, that , But he the saht suffered he the Ape to give or graunt, But through his hand must passe the Fiaunt
He chaffred Chayres in which Churchmen were set, And breach of lawes to privie ferht bee, Nor ordinaunce so needfull, but that hee Would violate, though not with violence, Yet under colour of the confidence The which the Ape repos'd in hido to pas, His long experience the platfor would put by The cloke was care of thrift, and husbandry, For to encrease the common treasures store; But his owne treasure he encreased an to threat the neighbour sky; The whiles the Princes pallaces fell fast To ruine (for what thing can ever last?) And whilest the other Peeres, for povertie, Were forst their auncient houses to let lie, And their olde Castles to the ground to fall, Which their forefathers, fado moniment: But he no count lorifie, The Realirlond of the crowne
All these through fained crirace; For none, but whoht coard, But kept the little he estee deemed
As for the rascall Commons, least he cared, For not so common was his bountie shared
Let God, (said he) if please, care for the manie, I for ood to none, to dome rob and pill; Yet none durst speake, ne none durst of hiaine
Ne would he anie let to have accesse Unto the Prince, but by his owne addresse, For all that els did come were sure to faile
Even at Court, however, the poet finds a contrast to all this: he had known Philip Sidney, and Ralegh was his friend
Yet the brave Courtier, in whose beauteous thought Regard of honour harbours ht, Doth loath such base condition, to backbite Anies good name for envie or despite: He stands on tearmes of honourable minde, Ne will be carried with the common winde Of Courts inconstantfable flie; But heares and sees the follies of the rest, And thereof gathers for himselfe the best
He will not creepe, nor crouche with fained face, But walkes upright with comely stedfast pace, And unto all doth yeeld due curtesie; But not with kissed hand belowe the knee, As that same Apish crue is wont to doo: For he disdaines his, and vile flatterie, Two filthie blots in noble gentrie; And lothefull idlenes he doth detest, The canker worentle brest
Or lastly, when the bodie list to pause, His minde unto the Muses he withdrawes: Sweete Ladie Muses, Ladies of delight, Delights of life, and ornaht!
With whom he close confers ise discourse, Of Natures workes, of heavens continuall course, Of forreine lands, of people different, Of kingdoouvernhts; With which he kindleth his ahts To like desire and praise of noble fame, The onely upshot whereto he doth ayme: For all his minde on honour fixed is, To which he levels all his purposis, And in his Princes service spends his dayes, Not so ree, as for his grace, And in his liking to winne worthie place, Through due deserts and coht on the way in which Spenser regarded the religious parties, whose strife was beco
Spenser is often spoken of as a Puritan He certainly had the Puritan hatred of Roland he saw norance, laziness, and corruption; and he agreed with the Puritans in denouncing them His pictures of the ”for, his new-fashi+oned and ithy ancient service, and his general ideas of self-complacent comfort, has in it an odd mixture of Roh Spenser hated with an Englishman's hatred all that he considered Roman superstition and tyranny, he had a sense of the poetical i to it, its poestiveness, very far removed from the iconoclastic temper of the Puritans In his _View of the State of Ireland_, he notes as a sign of its evil condition the state of the churches, ”round,” and the rest ”so unhandsomely patched and thatched, that men do even shun the places, for the uncomeliness thereof” ”The outward forreatly draw the rude people to the reverencing and frequenting thereof, _whatever so in the seemly form and comely order of the church”
”Ah! but (said th' Ape) the charge is wondrous great, To feede mens soules, and hath an heavie threat”
”To feed mens soules (quoth he) is not in man; For they ed to lay the meate before: Eate they that list, we need to doo no race, The bread of life powr'd downe from heavenly place
Therefore said he, that with the budding rod Did rule the Jewes, _All shalbe taught of God_
That saht, By whoht: He is the Shepheard, and the Priest is hee; We but his shepheard swaines ordain'd to bee
Therefore herewith doo not your selfe disreat, as it ont of yore, It's now a dayes, ne halfe so streight and sore