The finest of bridal songs ever: Epithalamion
For the bride he had wooed in Amoretti, Spenser celebrates his marriage in Epithalamion as a wedding-gift for Eliza. A bridal song, Epithalamion, describes in detail the events of his wedding day.
BORN IN London in 1552, Edmund Spenser had a short span of life of forty-six years. The most classical of his works was the epic poem Faerie Queene, due to which he was greatly admired by Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, among others. The poem, with its political overtones, found favour with Queen Elizabeth I, who was simply overjoyed when it was read out to her. But her principal secretary, Lord Burghley, threatened by certain allusive references in the poem to his position of power, refused any acknowledgment to the poet, and when it was proposed that he receive 100 pounds for the poem, Burghley remarked, “What, all this for a song!” Edmund, however, in recognition of his work, started getting a small sum as pension from 1552 until his death in 1599.
In late 1592 when he was about forty, he formed an attachment for his neighbour Elizabeth Boyle of the country of Cork in Ireland. The lover’s emotions were recorded in the sonnet sequence Amoretti. In June 1594 the courtship culminated in marriage, Elizabeth thereby becoming the second wife of the middle-aged poet.
For the bride he had wooed in Amoretti, Spenser celebrates his marriage in Epithalamion as a wedding-gift for Eliza. A bridal song, Epithalamion, describes in detail the events of his wedding day. The structure of the poem comprise 365 long lines, corresponding to the days of the year; 68 short lines representing the sum of the 52 weeks, 12 months, and 4 seasons of the annual cycle; and the 24 stanzas are in reference to the diurnal and sidereal hours of a day and night. In this most beautiful of bridal songs, Spenser’s whole nature found expression.
In the traditional mode, Spenser dedicates the opening stanza to an invocation of the Muses and he also introduces classical figures. Like Orpheus, he sings praises for his bride; the Graces, who are handmaidens to Venus, array her; shouts of “Hymen” welcome his appearance; and the presence of Jove images the mystery of love. These classical yet living forms blend naturally with the nymphs of Mulla’s stream. Greek mythology and Irish landscape combine to give reality to the setting.
The series of panel pictures which form the proceedings of the day from before sunrise to the rise of the moon constitutes a professional pageant or masque of Hymen. Such go HYMENÆI; or, the solemnities of Masque and Barriers at a Marriage marriage –
“… Entered Hymen (the god of marriage) in a saffron-color'd robe, his under vestures white, his socks yellow, a yellow veil of silk on his left arm, his head crowned with roses and marjoram, in his right hand a torch of pine-tree.
After him a youth attired in white, bearing another light, of white thorn ; under his arm, a little wicker flasket shut : behind him two others in white, the one bearing a distaff, the other a spindle. Betwixt these a personated bride, supported, her hair flowing, and loose sprinkled with gray ; on her head a garland of roses, like a turret ; her garments white : and on her back a wether’s fleece hanging down : her zone, or girdle about her waist of white wool, fastened with the Herculean knot”.
And the stately pattern and rhythm, the refrain and the tone of the whole are also ritualistic. The love of the two persons is felt as a splendid part of the creative process of a divine world, and all nature shares in the glorious nuptial. The poet-bridegroom is so filled with love and wonder that the world is transfigured; even the “trouts and spikes” are superlative fish. The poem expresses the typical lofty love sentiment Spenser derived from the Petrarchan Tradition.
One single movement surges forward, from sunrise and birdsong through all the ceremonial and festivity of the wedding to nightfall when the acclamations are over and the lovers are left alone. There is perfect order of the sequence: wonder when the bride arrives; mystery and solemnity in the religious service where the choristers sing the joyous anthems; Dionysian jollity in the feast; poignancy in the bridegroom’s longing when he can come unto his love; serenity at the close in “the safety of our joy”; and the final hope of a large posterity.
The interlacing of the poem’s long and short lines, gently pointed by rhyme and bound by a refrain at the end of each long stanza, produces an effect of marvelous rhythmical harmony and resonance. Besides its lyrical virtue, there is also a radiance of feeling glowing through its thought and the intricacies of its art.
In the traditional mode, Spenser dedicates the opening stanza to an invocation of the Muses and he also introduces classical figures. Like Orpheus, he sings praises for his bride; the Graces, who are handmaidens to Venus, array her; shouts of “Hymen” welcome his appearance; and the presence of Jove images the mystery of love. These classical yet living forms blend naturally with the nymphs of Mulla’s stream. Greek mythology and Irish landscape combine to give reality to the setting.
The series of panel pictures which form the proceedings of the day from before sunrise to the rise of the moon constitutes a professional pageant or masque of Hymen. Such go HYMENÆI; or, the solemnities of Masque and Barriers at a Marriage marriage –
“… Entered Hymen (the god of marriage) in a saffron-color'd robe, his under vestures white, his socks yellow, a yellow veil of silk on his left arm, his head crowned with roses and marjoram, in his right hand a torch of pine-tree.
After him a youth attired in white, bearing another light, of white thorn ; under his arm, a little wicker flasket shut : behind him two others in white, the one bearing a distaff, the other a spindle. Betwixt these a personated bride, supported, her hair flowing, and loose sprinkled with gray ; on her head a garland of roses, like a turret ; her garments white : and on her back a wether’s fleece hanging down : her zone, or girdle about her waist of white wool, fastened with the Herculean knot”.
And the stately pattern and rhythm, the refrain and the tone of the whole are also ritualistic. The love of the two persons is felt as a splendid part of the creative process of a divine world, and all nature shares in the glorious nuptial. The poet-bridegroom is so filled with love and wonder that the world is transfigured; even the “trouts and spikes” are superlative fish. The poem expresses the typical lofty love sentiment Spenser derived from the Petrarchan Tradition.
One single movement surges forward, from sunrise and birdsong through all the ceremonial and festivity of the wedding to nightfall when the acclamations are over and the lovers are left alone. There is perfect order of the sequence: wonder when the bride arrives; mystery and solemnity in the religious service where the choristers sing the joyous anthems; Dionysian jollity in the feast; poignancy in the bridegroom’s longing when he can come unto his love; serenity at the close in “the safety of our joy”; and the final hope of a large posterity.
The interlacing of the poem’s long and short lines, gently pointed by rhyme and bound by a refrain at the end of each long stanza, produces an effect of marvelous rhythmical harmony and resonance. Besides its lyrical virtue, there is also a radiance of feeling glowing through its thought and the intricacies of its art.
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