7. From Italian and Spanish sources comes an extra character, not vitally connected with the plot, often the author of the romance; usually this man is afflicted with melancholy and is living among shepherds because of his woes. Sidney's Arcadia is often referred to as a pastoral; in reality it is a heroic "poem," according to the standards of Sidney and his circle, in which a pastoral episode is introduced. The action opens, in the midst of the story, with this pastoral, but that the pastoral is not the chief element in the story is evidenced not only by the space given in books I and II to the epic history of Pyrocles and Musidorus but by the fact that throughout book III, the most important of the entire work, the pastoral completely disappears.2 The plot3 of this pastoral portion of Arcadia follows closely the type outlined above: 1. A king, or, in the first version, a duke, lives with his daughters in pastoral seclusion. 2. Two princes come to the place; in order to get access to the maidens one disguises himself as a shepherd, the other as an Amazon. 3. A blundering shepherd, guardian of one of the girls, supplies comic interest; his cowardice is especially dwelt on. 4. Melodramatic incidents are supplied by the advent of a lion and a bear; the heroes save the maidens. 5. Two illustrations of the captivity motif are given: there is an incursion of the rabble by which the lives of the heroines are greatly endangered; the attempt, however, is foiled by the heroes. Later, by a ruse, the girls are abducted and are kept in captivity for a long time; the Amazon is also captured, but the shepherd goes to the aid of his lady. Here the pastoral disappears and a long series of chivalric adventures takes its place. 6. At length the heroines are released and marriages follow. 7. A melancholy shepherd named Philisides (Sidney), who has no part in the main action, is living in this pastoral seclusion because of an unhappy love affair (Stella). The variations in this plot are not significant. There is a quartet of lovers, and the complications are, of course, increased thereby. The boorish shepherd is the guardian, not a suitor. The foundling motif is absent; the heroines are ladies of high rank. But the disguise of the lover as a shepherd; the character contrast supplied by Dametas; the incidents of the wild beasts, the rabble, and the captivity; the melancholy shepherd who is not connected directly with the action,— 2 Except for the fact that the Captivity motif is pastoral; this motif is used, however, merely at the introduction. I have discussed the construction of this romance at some length in "Sidney's Arcadia as an Example of Elizabethan Allegory," in Anniversary Papers by Colleagues and Pupils of George Lyman Kittredge, pp. 327-337. 3 The numbers used in my analysis correspond to the incidents in the typical plot. all these are based directly upon the special type of pastoral plot outlined above.4 We have now to consider two important but apparently overlooked illustrations of the influence of this part of the Arcadia. The first is the Pastorella-Calidore episode in Faerie Queene VI; the second is supplied by As You Like It. The Pastorella-Calidore story is important not only because it is closely parallel to some of Shakespeare's pastorals in plot and in its interpretation of pastoralism, but also because there are indications that it had direct influence on Shakespeare. In view of its importance, I give the plot of this episode in some detail; the numbers prefixed to the sections indicate the relations existing between Spenser and the typical plot already outlined, but I have not altered the sequence of events:5 1. Calidore, in pursuit of the Blatant Beast, comes upon a group of shepherds. Among them is a damsel wearing a crown of flowers and clad in home-made greens that her own hand had dyed; she sits on a hillock, and all around are country lads and lasses. Calidore is fascinated by her beauty, and in the evening gladly goes home with her and the old shepherd who is reputed to be her father. Spenser here explains that this shepherd is not really her father, but had found her in open fields, "as old stories tell." 2. After supper, Calidore and the old shepherd discourse on the charms of pastoral life; love for the fair Pastorella so inflames the knight that he seeks permission to remain. Thus Calidore, forgetting his quest, becomes a shepherd, and passes a long time in this idyllic existence. 3. Pastorella has many lovers, chief among them Coridon, who is in every way unworthy of her. The rivalry between Calidore and this shepherd is stressed, especially in such a way as to bring out the superiority of Calidore in courtesy and prowess. 4. On one occasion a tiger attacks Pastorella. Coridon acts the part of a coward, but Calidore slays the beast with his sheep-hook. By this means he wins the love of the maiden. 5. After a long period of happiness, brigands capture Pastorella and Coridon in Calidore's absence. The captain of the thieves loves the shepherdess but she foils him. In the meantime Calidore is searching far and wide. In an attack upon 4 The long story of the Captivity is very similar to the last book of Amadis. In that romance Oriana is captured by Amadis and is taken to his castle, with other ladies. Her father raises a great force and lays siege to the castle. In both Arcadia and Amadis this mustering of forces by the leaders on both sides is stressed and is too characteristic to escape notice; the high chivalry with which the preparations for the battle, and the battle itself, are conducted, contributes to the similarity in atmosphere, while the central situation, a lady held in captivity by her lover while her father attempts her rescue, is precisely the same. In Sidney's romance, Amphialus, son of the wicked Cecropia, is himself a man very similar to Amadis; his love for Philoclea is not returned, but though Oriana stays voluntarily and Philoclea is detained against her will, the debt of Sidney to the most famous chivalric romance of his time is unquestionable. The Captivity in Amadis, like the corresponding portion of Arcadia, is the culmination of the romance; but in Amadis it is chivalric throughout, while in Arcadia it develops from the pastoral, and the lover who had been disguised as a shepherd joins the father in the attempt in the Faerie Queene begins with the ninth canto. at rescue. 5 The passage the brigands by some merchants who have come to buy slaves, Coridon escapes, the old shepherd is killed, and Pastorella is left for dead. Coridon finds Calidore, but is afraid to go back to the place where, he says, Pastorella was slain. He is forced to do so, however, and to the great joy of the knight he finds his lady and rescues her from the thieves. 6. Calidore restores the flocks to Coridon and takes Pastorella to the castle of Belgard where he leaves her with Sir Bellamore and his lady while he takes up once more his quest of the Beast. It soon appears that Pastorella is the long lost daughter of Bellamore and Claribell. The story is left incomplete by Spenser, since the remainder of the book, the last part of the Faerie Queene completed by Spenser, is taken up with the account of Calidore's quest; there is no doubt whatever that Spenser intended later to have Calidore return and claim Pastorella as his bride. 7. A shepherd named Colin (Spenser) has no part in the main action; Pastorella is fond of his music, and on one occasion Calidore comes upon him piping merrily to a bevy of maidens, who however disappear on the approach of a mortal. (That this plot corresponds very closely to the type is instantly apparent. There are variations, of course, but they do not affect the conclusion that Daphnis and Chloe, Arcadia, and the story of Pastorella are closely related. In the Greek pastoral both hero and heroine are ignorant of their parentage, while in Arcadia a king adopts pastoral life in order to keep his daughters from marrying, so that although the hero becomes a shepherd it is in order to deceive the father, not the girl; in the Faerie Queene the girl is a foundling but the lover is a knight like Musidorus. These variants are due to the fact that in both Arcadia and Faerie Queene the pastoral is an episode in a chivalric romance. Again, Spenser's version of the captivity, while similar in many respects to that of Longus, apparently owes something to the story of Isabella in Ariosto, and differs decidedly from the chivalric story of the third book of Sidney's romance, in which the pastoral is dropped. But the three pastorals have exactly the same incidents and the same situations, told in the same order: the story of love between a hero and a heroine who though of high station are living as shepherds; the clown who serves as foil and rival; the rescue of the girl from a wild beast; the captivity; the final recognition. Spenser and Sidney further agree in the important detail of the extra shepherd, taken from Italian and Spanish romances which do not follow the plot structure here considered. 6 Warton, Observations, p. 155, conjectures that the story of Pastorella's captivity is from Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, canto xii and following. Isabella's story, however, is not a pastoral, and is wholly different from that of Spenser's heroine, save in the detail that both are held captive by robbers and are freed by a knight. Orlando, who rescues Isabel, is not her lover. Even if Spenser had in mind Isabella's story, therefore, this is not the source of the Pastorella story as a whole. Two suggestions as to possible sources of the Pastorella-Calidore story have been made. The first of these dates from Upton, who thought that Greene's Dorastus and Fawnia was Spenser's source,8 and this suggestion has been followed by others. This identification is untenable, however, since the two plots differ in almost every respect save that a prince becomes a shepherd to win the love of a maiden thought to be the daughter of an old shepherd. But the shepherd-garb of Dorastus is a mere ruse which does not deceive Fawnia; there is no stress on the shepherd life, since the story consists in the main of descriptions of the struggle between the love of Dorastus and his feeling that it was beneath him to love a shepherdess. The other stock elements of this plot, such as the attack by wild beasts and the captivity, are wanting; there is no extra shepherd, and the elopement is a radical departure from the type. Such apparent resemblances as the discussion between the lovers as to the relative advantages of shepherd and city life are merely fortuitous. The second possible source, which has also been frequently cited, is the story of Erminia in Tasso.10 Escaping in the armor of Clorinda, Erminia is pursued by enemies and at length comes upon a shepherd and his three sons. They are terrified at the appearance of the warrior, but she soon reassures them, and marvels at their peaceful employments so near the dreadful conflicts of the war. The old shepherd tells her that they are safe because they are inoffensive and possess nothing that tempts the cupidity of others; he knows all about the great world, for much of his life was spent as a gardener in the city; he is glad to be back in a place where life is sound and sweet. Erminia is so impressed by this praise of country life that she remains with the shepherds. The story leaves her and returns to the scenes of battle; after a long time we learn that she ran away from the shepherds, desiring to seek her lover, but she was captured by outlaws and was given as a present to their captain, who took pity on her and set her free. She comes upon Tancred apparently dead, but her tears revive him and she cures him. In one important detail, Spenser is beyond question indebted to this story. Old Melibee tells Calidore that he had spent most of his life in the city as a gardener, and he makes this experience the basis for his comparison between country and town. Calidore is impressed, as Erminia had been, by this testimony, and desires to live among the 7 I give space to a consideration of these suggested sources because both Pandosto and the story of Erminia in Tasso have important relations to Shakespeare's pastorals, as will appear later. 8 Spenser ed. Todd, VII, 69 n. But Upton immediately suggests a parallel with Daphnis and Chloe. Greg (Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, pp. 100-101) says that Dorastus and Fawnia "has points of resemblance" to Spenser's story, and he also refers to Ariosto and Tassso as possible sources. 9 He changes his rich dress for shepherd's weeds each day when he pays his visit to his lady, returning to the grove which he used as a dressing room at the end of the call. 10 Gerusalemme Liberata VII and XIX. Jusserand (Literary History of the English People, II, 503 and note) cites this passage as the source of the Pastorella story, and others have also noticed a resemblance. shepherds. But the Erminia story has only two elements of the typical plot: the sojourn among shepherds, and the captivity. Even these vary widely from type, for she is not with her lover, and thus the most important of all the incidents, the fundamental situation itself, is wanting. Such details as the attack by wild beasts, the rival shepherd, the melancholy shepherd, and the pastoral group that gives atmosphere to such a story are all lacking in Tasso. Erminia decorates trees with love plaints, like Orlando, and she soon runs away, going to meet captivity instead of waiting for captivity to come to her according to the rules of the pastoral game. For all these reasons the Erminia story, like the story of Fawnia, is not Spenser's main source. One detail he got from it, just as he was probably influenced by the story of Isabel in the incident of the captivity, but the true source of the Pastorella-Calidore episode is Sidney's Arcadia. This conclusion finds additional support in the fact that Sidney's influence on the Faerie Queene was much greater than has been supposed. That Spenser intended Calidore to represent Sidney has long been recognized." Moreover, Sidney was early regarded as the one who inspired Spenser to write his great epic. For example, the prefatory lines by "W. L." point out that the theme of the Faerie Queene seemed too great, therefore To seeme a shepeheard then he made his choice; He is excus'd, sith Sidney thought it fitt. And Spenser himself, in his sonnet to Sidney's sister, speaks of That most heroicke spirit. . . Who first my Muse did lift out of the floor. That all this is not mere idle compliment is proved by the fact that the structure of the Faerie Queene, its combination of Ethice and Politice,12 and the conception of the function and nature of poetry illustrated by it conform at once to the theory set forth in Sidney's Defense and the practical application of that theory in Arcadia. More specific points of evidence are not wanting. That Spenser was familiar with Sidney's introduction of himself as Philisides is indicated by the lines in Astrophel, which apparently refer to the "pastorals" at the end of the books in Arcadia: 11 Upton thought that "the name κaλλódwpos leads us to consider the many graceful and goodly endowments that heaven peculiarly gave him [sic. Sidney]" (Spenser, ed. Todd, VII, 169 n.). He might also have pointed out the resembance between the Greek form of this name and the name Musidorus, the shepherd hero of Arcadia. The identification of Calidore with Sidney has been generally accepted by editors since Upton's time. 12 Cf. Spenser's letter to Raleigh, and also Sidney's use of these terms in Defense ed. Cook, p. 12. |