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xivi INTRODUCTION.
brydle of reason restrayne the yll disposition of sense' [The interaction
of Platonic theory and personal experience is responsible for much of
the portraiture of woman in Elizabethan literature S Thus the Arcadia
differs from earlier romances both in the prominence and the variety of
its heroines And Spenser, the friend of Sidney, had long been an ardent
Platonist His early hymns to Love and Beauty, are the completest
expression in our literature of the doctrines of Bembo and Ficino, and in
the Sbepheardes Calender he had voiced the same conviction. Like all
lovers of beauty he was keenly susceptible to the influence of women, and
if we may judge by the dedications of his poems he had found in their
company both friendship and understanding The virtue of Chastity,
therefore, appears to him in a widely different form from that in which
it was celebrated either by the mediaeval saint, or in the knightly conventions
of the Courts of Love 3
Chastity to Spenser is no monastic virtue, the mere escape from all the
temptations of the flesh This aspect of the matter had already been
treated in the triumph of Sir Guyon over the wiles of Acrasia, and could
easily have been elaborated by a rigid adherence to the original scheme of
the poem To Spenser it has a far wider significance, it is the key to the
intercourse of man and woman in all the relationships of life It is, in
fact, inseparable from some aspects of friendship , and the alteration of
the close of Book III, so as to hold m suspense the fates of Scudamour and
Amoret, was designed to bring out more clearly the close kinship of these
two virtues, based as they both are on physical instinct, and potent alike
either for good or evil, according to the spiritual quality of the character
in which they worked
Wonder it is to see, in diuerse minds,
How diuersly loue doth his pageants play,
And shewes his powre in variable kind*, (m v i )
This diversity, wherein lies at once the interest and the ethical significance
of the study, could not be shown by dwelhng exclusively upon the fortunes
of one hero and heroine It calls for a fuller canvas, in which the ideal
may be presented in different types of character, and may be seen in relation
with characters who illustrate its variable kinds. Bntomart, Amoret,
Belphoebe, Flonmel, are all typesjsf 'Chastity', but are essentially different
Anajib student of life can doubt*that Spenser is right in giving prominence
fo a heroine rather than a hero He has been blamed because the adventure
assigned to Scudamour is in reality achieved by Britomart, who thus
becomes the dominant figure in the legend of Chastity But he had seen
enough of life to realize where man, for all his heroism and nobility, was
likely to be found the weakest, and where he must turn for aid, not to
other men, but to the noblest type of womanhood And so he conceives
of Scudamour as a man of high courage, in many respects a noble knight,
and certainly a sincere lover, yet unable, without the help of Britomart,