Ideas and Images of Music in English and Continental Emblem Books 1550–1700 [39] 9783873204393

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ELENA LAURA CALOGERO

IDEAS AND IMAGES OF MUSIC in English and Continental Emblem Books

1550 1700 -

If

A

verlag V alentin K o ern er

SAECVLA SPIRIT ALIA Herausgegeben von Dieter Wuttke

Band 39

2009 VERLAG VALENTIN KOHRNER • BADEN - BADEN

Elena Laura Calogero

IDEAS A N D IMAGES OF MUSIC in English and Continental Emblem Books

2009

VERLAG VALENTIN KOERNER • BADEN - BADEN

Elena Laura Calogero: Ideas and Images of Music in English and Continental Emblem Books. — Baden-Baden : Koerner, 2009 (Saecvla spiritalia ; Bd 39) ISBN 978-3-87320-439-3 ISSN 0343-2009

www.koernerverlag.de

Einbandgestaltung von Klaus D. Christof (Kitzingen). Titelbild nach dem Kupfer Spemitpericula virtus. George Wither, A Collection ofEmblemes, Ancient and Modeme (London: Printed by A.M. for Robert Allot, 1635), 10 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1903]. Gestaltung des Reihensignets von Jurgen Schulze (Gottingen) nach dem Verlegerzeichen des Christoph Plantin in Antwerpen.

Printed in Germany

Contents List of Illustrations

vii

Acknowledgements

xiii

Introduction

1

I The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power 1.1 Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England 1.2 Amphion, Arion and Apollo: The Triumph of the Lyre 1.3 Musical Instruments as Concord, Rhetoric and Virtue

35 65

II Emblems of Love and Music II. 1 Cupid as Musician 11.2 Concord in Love and Friendship 11.3 Sirens

77 90 96

III Music and Spirituality III. 1 Music as Vanity 111.2 David as Emblematic Model 111.3 The Tuning of the Human Soul

123 135 150

Conclusion

169

Illustrations

173

Bibliography

239

Index

267

5

Illustrations Fig. 1. In Orpheum. Pierre Coustau, Pegma, cum narrationibus philosophicis (Lyons: Apud Matthiam Bonhomme, 1555), 315 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 371]. Fig. 2. Eccellenza d'Orfeo nel sonare & lamentarsi. Ovid, La Vita e Metamorfoseo d ’Ovidio (Lyons: Per Giouanni di Tomes, 1559), 135 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1016]. Fig. 3. Orpheus. Thronus Cupidinis, 3rd ed. (Amsterdam: Apud Wilhelmum Iansonium, 1621), 28 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1033]. Fig. 4. Musicae, & Poeticae vis. Nicolaus Reusner, Emblemata (Frankfurt: Per Ioannem Feyerabendt, 1581), 129 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 903]. Fig. 5. Ultro veniunt, quod amore trahantur. Augustin Chesneau, Emblemes Sacrez sur le Tres-Saint et Tres-Adorable Sacrement de VEucharistie (Paris: Chez Florentin Lambert,

1657), 1[Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 354]. Fig. 6. Orphei Musica. Geffrey Whitney, A Choice o f Emblemes, and Other Devises (Leiden: In the house of Christopher Plantyn, by Francis Raphelengius, 1586), 186 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1667]. Fig. 7. Industria naturam corrigit. Geffrey Whitney, A Choice of Emblemes, and Other Devises (Leiden: In the house of Christopher Plantyn, by Francis Raphelengius, 1586), 92 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1667]. Fig. 8. Hibernica Respub: ad Iacobum Regem. Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna or a Garden o f Heroical Deuises (London: Wa. Dight, [1612]), 45 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 829]. Fig. 9. Foedera. Andrea Alciato, Emblemata (Lyons: Apud Mathiam Bonhomme, 1550), 16 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. Add. 265]. Fig. 10. Peragit Tranquilla Potestas. Julius Wilhelm Zincgref, Emblematum Ethico-Politicorum Centuria (Heidelberg: Prostat apud Iohan. Theodo. de Brij, 1619), sig. N3V [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1113].

viii

List of Illustrations

Fig. \\. In Amphionem. Pierre Coustau, Pegma (Lyons: Apud Matthiam Bonhomme, 1555), 312 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 371]. Fig. 12. Amphion. Die Verwandlungen des Ovidii in zw’eyhundert und sechs und zwantzig Kupffern (Augspurg: In Verlegung Johann Ulrich Kraus, [1690]), no.98 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll Mu 45-С.12]. Fig. 13. Musica manes musica dii placantur. The Mirrour o f Maiestie: Or, the Badges o f Honour Conceitedly Emblazoned; with Emblemes Annexed, Poetically Unfolded (London: Printed

by W.I., 1618. Edited by Henry Green and James Croston. Facsimile ed. Manchester: A. Brothers; London: Triibner & Co., 1870), 35 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1340]. Fig. 14. In auaros, uel quibus melior conditio ab extraneis offertur. Andrea Alciato, Emblematum liber (Paris: Excudebat Christianus Wechelus, 1534), 15 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. Add. 53]. Fig. 15. Homo homini lupus. Geffrey Whitney, A Choice o f Emblemes, and Other Devises (Leiden: In the house of Christopher Plantyn, by Francis Raphelengius, 1586), 144 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1667]. Fig. 16. Spernit pericula virtus. George Wither, A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne (London: Printed by A.M. for Robert Allot, 1635), 10 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1903]. Fig. 17. Jan Harmensz. Muller, Arion on the dolphin, engraving, ca. 1590 [Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung]. Fig. 18. Non semper arcum tendit. George Wither, A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne (London: Printed by A.M. for Robert Allot, 1635), 234 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1903]. Fig. 19. Diffusum toto corpore vulnus habet. Jean Mercier, Emblemata ([1592?]), sig. Biiijv [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1401]. Fig. 20. The Contest between Apollo and Marsyas. P. Ouidij Nasonis Metamorphoseon Libri XV (Venice: Apud loan. Gryphium, 1574), 132 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll Hunterian Br.2.19]. Fig. 21. The Contest between Apollo and Pan. P. Ouidij Nasonis Metamorphoseon Libri XV (Venice: Apud loan. Gryphium,

List of Illustrations

IX

1574), 237 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll Hunterian Вг.2.19]. Fig. 22. Peruersa iudicia. Geffrey Whitney, A Choice o f Emblemes, and Other Devises (Leiden: In the house of Christopher Plantyn, by Francis Raphelengius, 1586), 218 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1667]. Fig. 23. Concordia discors. Julius Wilhelm Zincgref, Emblematum Ethico-Politicorum Centuria (Heidelberg: Prostat apud lohan. Theodo. de Brij, 1619), sig. Bbv [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1113]. Fig. 24. Maiora minoribus consonant. Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, The Royal Politician represented in One Hundred Emblems,

Fig. 25.

Fig. 26.

Fig. 27.

Fig. 28.

Fig. 29.

trans. Sir James Astry (London: Printed for Matt. Gylliflower and Luke Meredith, 1700), 2:94 [Glasgow University Library, BG 44 h 17-18]. Vel post mortem formidolosi. Geffrey Whitney, A Choice o f Emblemes, and Other Devises (Leiden: In the house of Christopher Plantyn, by Francis Raphelengius, 1586), 194 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1667]. Parem delinquentis & suasoris culpam esse. Andrea Alciato, Emblematum libellus (Paris: Apud Christianu[m] Wechelum, 1542), 55 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. Add. 347]. Voce juvabo. Julius Wilhelm Zincgref, Emblematum EthicoPoliticorum Centuria (Heidelberg: Prostat apud lohan. Theodo. de Brij, 1619), sig. Bb3v [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1113]. Interclusa respirat. Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, The Royal Politician represented in One Hundred Emblems, trans. Sir James Astry (London: Printed for Matt. Gylliflower and Luke Meredith, 1700), 1:255 [Glasgow University Library, BG 44 h 17-18]. Where Cupid list to play the knaue... Thomas Combe, The Theater o f Fine Devices (London: Printed by Richard Field, 1614), sig. E5r [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 688 ].

Fig. 30. Cupid as musician. Vincenzo Cartari, Le Imagini de i dei de gli antichi (Venice: Appresso Vincentio Valgrisi, 1571), 520 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1271]. Fig. 31. Amor docet musicam. George Wither, A Collection o f Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne (London: Printed by A.M. for Robert

X

List of Illustrations

Allot, 1635), 82 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1903]. Fig. 32. Sanguis. Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna or a Garden o f Heroical Deuises (London: Wa. Dight, [1612]), 127 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 829]. Fig. 33. Pieter de Jode, Sanguineus, engraving, ca. 1595 [Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung]. Fig. 34. Raphael Sadeler, Amor, engraving, ca. 1591 [Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung]. Fig. 35. Quid non sentit amor. Jacob Cats, Proteus ofte Minne-beelden Verandert in Sinnebeelden (Rotterdam: Bij Pieter van Waesberge, 1627), 254 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1280]. Fig. 36. Amor addocet artes. Otto Vaenius, Amorum Emblemata . . . Emblemes o f Love (Antwerp: Venalia apud auctorem typis Henrici Swingenii, 1608), 83 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1050.2]. Fig. 37. Vincit Amor astu. Otto Vaenius, Amorum Emblemata ... Emblemes o f Love (Antwerp: Venalia apud auctorem typis Henrici Swingenii, 1608), 239 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1050.2]. Fig. 38. Tanto dulcius. Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna or a Garden o f Heroical Deuises (London: Wa. Dight, [1612]), 204 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 829]. Fig. 39. Adrian Collaert, Encomium Musices, engraving, 1585-6 [Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung]. Fig. 40. Pieter de Jode, A Family Concert, engraving [Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung]. Fig. 41. Israhel van Meckenem, The Organist and his Wife, engraving, 1495-1503 [Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung]. Fig. 42. Sirenes. Andrea Alciato, Emblemata (Lyons: Apud Mathiam Bonhomme, 1550), 116 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. Add. 265]. Fig. 43. Mortem dabit ipsa voluptas. Joachim Camerarius, Symbolorum & Emblematum ex aquatilibus et reptilibus desumptorum centuria quarta (Nuremberg: Paulus Kaufmann, 1604), fol.

64r [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 260]. Fig. 44. The Sirens. Vincenzo Cartari, Le Imagini de i dei de gli antichi (Venice: Appresso Vincentio Valgrisi, 1571), 245 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1271].

List of Illustrations

xi

Fig. 45. Sirenes. Geffrey Whitney, A Choice o f Emblemes, and Other Devises (Leiden: In the house of Christopher Plantyn, by Francis Raphelengius, 1586), 10 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1667]. Fig. 46. Pulchritudo foeminea. Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna or a Garden o f Heroical Deuises (London: Wa. Dight, [1612]), 58 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 829]. Fig. 47. Des Voluptez, & de leurs allechemens. Jean Baudoin, Recueil d'Emblemes Divers (Paris: Jacques Villery, 1638-9), 1:268 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 147]. Fig. 48. Formosa superne. Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, The Royal Politician represented in One Hundred Emblems, trans. Sir James Astry (London: Printed for Matt. Gylliflower and Luke Meredith, 1700), 2:212 [Glasgow University Library, BG 44 h 17-18]. Fig. 49. Sott'humano sembiante empio veneno. The Mirrour o f Maiestie: Or, the Badges o f Honour Conceitedly Emblazoned; with Emblemes Annexed, Poetically Unfolded (London: Printed

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

by W.I., 1618. Edited by Henry Green and James Croston. Facsimile ed. Manchester: A. Brothers; London: Triibner & Co., 1870), 39 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1340]. 50. Non sceptro sed plectro ducitur. George Wither, A Collection o f Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne (London: Printed by A.M. for Robert Allot, 1635), 7 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1903]. 51. Nescio quo me vertam. George Wither, A Collection o f Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne (London: Printed by A.M. for Robert Allot, 1635), 22 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1903]. 52. Toyes o f toyes, and vanities o f vanities ... John Hall, Emblems with Elegant Figures (London: Printed by Roger Daniel, 1658), 4 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 540]. 53. The sorroues o f hell haue encompassed me ... Francis Quarles, Emblemes (London: Printed by G. M., 1635), 156 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 882]. 54. Musica serva Dei. George Wither, A Collection o f Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne (London: Printed by A.M. for Robert Allot, 1635), 65 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 1903].

xii

List of Illustrations

Fig. 55. Psalmi Davidici. Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna or a Garden o f Heroical Deuises (London: Wa. Dight, [1612]), 9 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 829]. Fig. 56. Cor exulta, quid moraris ... Stephanus Luzvic, Cor Deo devotum lesu pacifici Salomonis thronus regius (Antwerp: Apud Henricum Aertissium, 1628), 144 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. Add. 422]. Fig. 57. Pulsa chordas, sonet chelys ... Stephanus Luzvic, Cor Deo devotum lesu pacifici Salomonis thronus regius (Antwerp: Apud Henricum Aertissium, 1628), 154 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. Add. 422]. Fig. 58. Lucas van Leyden, David playing his harp in front of Saul, engraving, ca. 1508 [Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung]. Fig. 59. Upon a skilful Player on an Instrument. John Bunyan, Divine Emblems: Or the Temporal Things Spiritualiz’d, Fitted for the Use o f Boys and Girls (London: Sold by J. Wilkie,

1770), 71 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 243]. Fig. 60. Attendite vobis. Claude Paradin, Devises heroi’ques (Lyons: Par Ian de Toumes et Guil. Gazeau, 1557), 174 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 816]. Fig. 61. Moderation o f our passions. Jeremias Drechsel, The Christians Zodiake (London: Printed for William Willson, 1647), sig. K2V[Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 407]. Fig. 62. Dum caelum aspicio, solum despicio. Francis Quarles, Emblemes (London: Printed by G. M., 1635), sig. A4V [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. 882]. Fig. 63. Communicantes Christi passionibus, gaudete. Benedictus van Haeften, Regia Via Crucis (Antwerp: Ex Officina Plantiniana Balthasaris Moreti, 1635), 228 [Glasgow University Library, Sp Coll S.M. Add. 101].

Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge my debt to all those who provided help and encouragement while I was pursuing this work. I thank Alison Adams, Michael Bath, Robert Cummings and the Glasgow Emblem Group for their support during my research at the University of Glasgow; Linda Austem, at Northwestern University, and the Newberry Library of Chicago staff for their hospitality while I was with them under a Fulbright grant; and Leofranc Holford-Strevens and Donato Mansueto for their useful suggestions. I would also like to thank Claudia Corti at the University of Florence and Francesco Gozzi at the University of Pisa for their final supervision of my doctoral dissertation (a previous version, in Italian, of the present study). I am grateful to Dieter Wuttke for including this work in the series Saecula Spiritalia, and to Tobias Koemer for his technical support in the preparation of the manuscript and Wendy Toole for her careful copy-editing. Finally, thanks go to the Society for Emblem Studies for generously helping with the cost of illustrations; and to the Department of Special Collections, Glasgow University Library and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich, for providing the images and granting permission to publish them.

Introduction This study investigates the presence and meanings of ideas and images of music in English emblem books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, considering their relationship both with Continental emblematics and with the wider cultural context in which they flourished. The importance of references to music in the literature of the same period has already been pointed out in a few fundamental studies.1 In particular, John Hollander has shown that the recurrence of allusions to music in English literature can be considered a new phenomenon in the Renaissance. In fact, until the middle of the fifteenth century, their presence both in poetry and in prose had been very limited.2 Some concepts deriving from ancient and medieval writings on music (considered in its philosophical, theoretical and practical aspects) as well as descriptions of contemporary musical practice, began to find a place in English literature in didactic and alle­ gorical poems of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, where music was seen as a liberal art. These works stressed the educative role of music and its influence on human feelings, and those motifs that became popular in the literature of the following period now began to take shape.3

1 For the English context, see John Hollander, The Untuning o f the Sky: Ideas o f Music in English Poetry 1500-1700 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961); and Gretchen Ludke Finney, Musical Backgrounds for English Literature: 1580-1650 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1962). For the fundamental concept o f cosmic harmony, see Leo Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas o f World Harmony: Prolegomena to an Interpretation o f the Word ‘Stimmung’, ed. Anna Granville Hatcher (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963); and S.K. Heninger, Jr., Touches o f Sweet Harmony: Pythagorean Cosmol­ ogy and Renaissance Poetics (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1974). 2 On the scanty presence o f musical imagery in old and medieval English poetry, see Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 52-66. 3 Ibid., 71-91.

2

Introduction

The Renaissance rediscovery and reinterpretation of a number of ancient ideas and notions about music was furthered by a more direct contact with the classical works themselves. From the latter, musical theorists of the period took the inspiration for their speculations upon the relationship between music and poetry, on the ethical value of music and on its power of influencing human passions, trying each time to adapt these ideas to the different needs of contemporary musical practice. Traces of this renewed attention towards music can be found in the poetical output of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both in the treatment of music as a subject of poetry, and in more inci­ dental allusions to music. One of the most characteristic literary phenomena of the time, for example, was the so-called encomium musicae. These ‘praises of music’, both in prose and in verse, flourished during the sixteenth century and beyond. They were particularly encouraged by the existence of an opposite tradition of invectives against music descending from the Middle Ages. The latter, with a few exceptions, did not find an appropriate expression in poetry as it did in prose.4 Furthermore, attacks against music, coming especially from the most extreme reformers and aimed against the use of music within the religious service, were given a new impetus in England and created a widespread debate in treatises and pamphlets of the time.5 Even in literary works where music itself is not the main subject, we can find abundant references to musical instruments and to their characteristics, to musical myths or other motifs and images relating to music in one way or another. Many of these 4 See ibid., 104-22; and James Hutton, 'Some English Poems in Praise o f Music’, English Miscellany 2 (1951): 1-63, now in id.. Essays on Renaissance Poetry , ed. Rita Guerlac (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1980), 17-73. 5 On the evolution and consequences o f the debate on liturgical music in particu­ lar, see Percy A. Scholes, The Puritans and Music in England and New England: A Contribution to the Cultural History o f Two Nations (London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934); Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 245-66; and Peter Le Huray, Music and the Reformation in England 1549-1660 (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1967).

Introduction

3

allusions, even those apparently less elaborate, are, in fact, based on and refer to a varied cultural background, and far from being merely decorative, they can sometimes clarify the whole context in which they are set. Similar ideas and images of music can be found in emblem books, a topic that has been little investigated thus far.6 The rapidly developing discipline of emblem studies is proving particularly useful for research in literature and the visual arts. Early modem emblem books can, in fact, be interesting not only as a testimony to a particular sensibility and to a characteristic way of perceiving and interpreting reality, but also for their analogies and contacts with literary and artistic works. Regarding their possible role in literature, it is believed that a knowledge of emblems, considering their popularity among contemporary readers, may also have influenced writers committed to other genres. There is a tendency, in this sense, not only to treat emblem books as sources of imagery in lyrical poetry, drama and prose, but also to find structural analogies between emblems and compositional methods used elsewhere in literature. As some scholars have noted, we should not infer a simple relationship of direct dependence between emblems and poetical images, because both often draw from the same stock of traditional topoi, learned or popular lore, proverbs, etc. Nevertheless, using emblem books as cross-refer­ ences, for example for the meanings of motifs in poetry, or discovering if an emblematic structure has served as a formal model, can in some instances be illuminating.7

6 The only extensive study o f the role o f music in emblematics, Dutch in particular, is Paul Peter Raasveld, Pictura, poesis, musica: een onderzoek naar de rol van de muziek in embleemliteratur (Dordrecht: ICG Printing B.V., 1995). 7 On the relationship between emblems and literature, see especially Rosemary Freeman, English Emblem Books (London: Chatto & Windus, 1948); Mario Praz, Studies in Seventeenth Century Imagery, 2nd ed. (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1964), previously published in Italian as Studi sul Concettismo (Florence: Sansoni, 1946); and Peter M. Daly, Literature in the Light o f the

Emblem: Structural Parallels betw een the Emblem and Literature in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University o f Toronto Press, 1979).

4

Introduction

The work that follows is based on research into English and Continental emblem books and poems, and is thematically arranged. The first section considers the important theme of the ‘effects of music’, particularly within political and civic contexts. The second section is about the union of music and love, an ancient theme alternately imbued with positive or negative connotations. The final section explores the relationship between music and spirituality that is present in particular in seventeenth-century emblem books. The analysis of examples drawn from emblem books is accompanied by a discussion of their origin and of the points of contact or divergence of English examples and their sources. This is a necessary procedure considering the substantial dependence of English emblems on Continental ones, and the frequently transnational nature of the production of emblem books themselves. My analysis also explores how the same ideas were elaborated in some literary and visual works of the time. Reference is made to particular genres, such as pageants and masques, where ‘emblematic’ elements are relevant. I did not intend to solve questions of priority as to whether words influenced images or vice versa, but sought rather to point out their constant and sometimes inextricable relationships.

I The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power There were foure most excellent o f the Harpe, remembred unto us by the ancient Poets, who are likewise the Emblemes o f the foure Elements: Apollo the Son o f Iupiter and Latona, (killing the Dragon Pithon) o f fire. Amphion the Son o f Iupiter and Antiope, figured with a Camelion o f Ayre. Anon the Methimnian riding upon a Dolphin , o f water: and Orpheus the Thracian (thus accomodated) o f the Earth: and these attributes were confer’d on them for their severall Ayres, and straines in Musick. Thomas Heywood, Londini Status Pacatus: or, Londons Peaceable Estate, 1639

1.1 Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modern England Orpheus is one of the most frequently alluded to and interpreted mythological figures in Western culture. The tradition and fortune of the myth throughout the centuries has been furthered by the authority and long-lasting influence of Virgil and Ovid, whose ver­ sions have helped to fix its main episodes.8 However, the same features were treated with sometimes slight and sometimes major variations by a number of classical and post-classical authors. The interpretations of the Orpheus myth since antiquity are the subject of a number of studies, but we are still far from having a complete picture of the uses of such a complex and multifaceted character, for different purposes and in different contexts.9 Nevertheless, of

8 These can be summarised as Orpheus’ marriage to Eurydice, her death and Orpheus’ temporary rescue o f her from the infernal gods, thanks to his extraordinary persuasive power as a musician and singer, his backward glance and second loss o f Eurydice, the charming o f animate and inanimate beings with his song and lyre, his dismemberment by the Bacchants and his final apotheosis by Apollo. 9 For the treatment o f Orpheus by Virgil and Ovid, see W.S. Anderson, ‘The Orpheus o f Virgil and flebile nescio quid ', in Orpheus: The Metamorphosis

6

The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

particular relevance to most readings of the myth is the theme of the effects of Orpheus’ song, a theme that could be variously interpreted or moralised. What follows is an investigation into the presence of the episode of Orpheus and the animals in English emblems and civic and court entertainments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, considering their relationship with the Continental tradition. Certain changes occur in emblematic applications of the motif that can be useful in understanding the meanings of Orpheus in early modem English culture. An emblem with Orpheus appears in the manuscript collection of emblems by Thomas Palmer, the first compiled in England, probably around 1565.10 Palmer derived this emblem from a Continental source, the French Pegma by Pierre Coustau. In the latter, the pictura shows Orpheus as a bearded man walking with a harp; on his left various animals are grouped with two men coming out of a forest and noticing him; an obelisk appears in the background (fig. 1). Compared to the iconographic tradition, which will be discussed later, this picture has a certain originality in showing a figure in motion and other men together with animals. This feature is in line with the moral meaning attributed by the emblematist to the Orpheus myth in the epigram that follows. The motto. In Orpheum. Vis eloquentiae quam Euripides reginam, Ennius flexanimam appellauit, and the pictura are, in fact.

o f a Myth, ed. John Warden (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University o f Toronto Press, 1982), 25-50; and Charles Segal, Orpheus: The Myth o f the Poet (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 36-94. For Orpheus in medieval culture, see the detailed study by John B. Friedman, Orpheus in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970). *0 Regarding the date o f this manuscript, British Library MS Sloane 3794, and for a general assessment o f Palmer’s work, see John Manning’s introduction to Thomas Palmer, The Emblems o f Thomas Palmer: Two Hundred Poosees, Sloane MS 3794 (New York: AMS Press, 1988), ii-lvi; see also Michael Bath, Speaking Pictures: English Emblem Books and Renaissance Culture (London and New York: Longman, 1994), 57-69.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

7

explicated in a verse epigram where Orpheus represents the civilising power of eloquence:11 En ut Treicius numeris & carmine vates Permouet aurata barbara saxa cheli: Utque arbusta tenet cantu, platonosque sequentes, Et ciet insolitis peruia monstra sonis. Circa homines tantum retinet facundia nomen, In Sua ut inuitos vota disertus agat. Condidit hie hominum coetus, & moenia primus Artifici posuit non violata, manu.12

In addition, a lengthy narratio philosophica in prose follows, developing the initial concept that eloquence was among the most useful instruments in founding and governing cities. The prose shifts from historical exempla of eloquent politicians to the final consideration of the necessary relationship between the study of eloquence and the knowledge of law in the author’s time.13 This emblem by Coustau and a preceding one on Amphion, accompanied by the motto In Amphionem. Pax (on the theme of civic peace as musical concord),14 can be traced clearly enough to the Orpheus of Horace and of Horace’s commentators. The following passage from Horace’s Ars Poetica can be considered the locus classicus for this interpretation:

11 To refer to the different parts o f the е т Ы е т , I will use the terminology recurrent in the most recent critical literature on the subject: motto or inscriptio to indicate the text above the picture or pictura , and subscriptio or epigram for the text beneath the picture, see Daly, Literature in the Light o f the Emblem, 6-7. 12 Pierre Coustau, Pegma, cum narrationibus philosophicis (Lyons: Apud Matthiam Bonhomme, 1555), 315. See also the French edition, Le Pegme de Pierre Coustau: Lyons, 1555, facsimile ed. (New York and London: Garland Pub­ lishing, 1979). The woodcuts are attributed to Pierre Vase (or Eskreich), ca. 1530ca. 1590, an artist who worked in Paris, Lyons and Geneva, see the introductory notes by Stephen Orgel, ibid. 13 See Coustau, Pegma , 316-17. 14 See ibid., 312-14.

8

The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

Siluestris homines sacer interpresque deorum caedibus et uictu foedo deterruit Orpheus, dictus ob hoc lenire tigris rabidosque leones, dictus et Amphion, Thebanae conditor urbis, saxa mouere sono testudinis et prece blanda ducere quo vellet. fuit haec sapientia quondam publica privatis secemere, sacra profanis, concubitu prohibere uago, dare iura maritis, oppida moliri, leges incidere ligno. sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus atque carminibus venit.15

It is noteworthy that in this particular instance Horace gives precedence to Orpheus’ power over wild men, reinterpreting his famous and fantastic ability to move rocks, trees and beasts as a metaphoric tale for the civilising power of his mousike,1617Orpheus’ musical skill is taken for granted, and only made clearer through a parallel reference to the myth of Amphion, whose musical achieve­ ment in building the walls of Thebes by the sound of his lyre was more clearly ‘civilising’. After Horace, Quintilian implicitly links Orpheus’ skills with eloquence in a passage of his Institutio Oratorio, before discussing the importance of music in the education of the would-be rhetorician: Nam quis ignorat musicen (ut de hac primum loquar) tantum iam illis antiquis temporibus non studii modo verum etiam venerationis habuisse, ut iidem musici et vates et sapientes iudicarentur (mittam alios) Orpheus et Linus; quorum utrumque dis genitum, alterum vero, quia rudes quoque atque agrestes animos admiratione mulceret, non feras modo sed saxa etiam silvasque duxisse posteritatis memoriae traditum est.17

15 Horace Ars Poetica 391-401. 16 But not elsewhere: the powers o f the Orphic lyre are taken quite literally in Odes 1.12.8-12 and 3.2.13-14: ‘Tu potes tigres comitesque silvas / ducere et rivos celeres morari.’ On the implications o f the expression mousike, see Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 13: ‘the Greek word mousike designated neither a linguistic nor a tonal art but the craft o f composing song, considered as a unified entity’. 17 Quintilian Institutio Oratorio 1.10.9.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

9

Later the generic sapientia of Horace’s Orpheus takes, indeed, the precise meaning of eloquence in some influential works on mythology. In Comes’s handbook, one of the most famous among Renaissance mythographies, we can find the civilising Orpheus explicitly traced back to Horace: Orpheus Apollinis & Calliopes filius fuisse dicitur vel Polymniae, quoniam vir fuit artis dicendi & metro precipue praestantissimus: atque omnes viri boni Deorum filii dicti fiierunt; quod animae insignium virorum ex aliqua sphaerarum & e sole praecipue in haec corpora descendisse putaterentur. Hie idem cum in rudes adhuc mortales incidisset, qui sine vllo morum delectu, & sine legibus viuerent; ferarum que ritu per agros nullis conditis tectis vagarentur, tantum dicendo, & orationis suauitate valuit, vt ad mansuetius vitae genus homines traduxerit, illos in vnum locum conuocarit, ciuitates condere docuerit, legibusque ciuitatum obtemperare, matrimoniorum foedera seruare; quod fuit antiquorum poetarum munus creditum, & est re ipsa, sicut ait Horat[ius] in arte poet[ica].18

Also in Valeriano’s Hieroglyphica, which was very influential for the dissemination of emblem writing, the reference to Orpheus is in similar terms: Orpheus & Proclus in hymnis religionem hominibus commonstrasse dicunt, quemadmodum & Orpheo id attribuunt, vt svaui sonae testudinis concentu, hoc est, placidis & apte compositis verbis fera hominum cord[a] mitigarit, agrestes mores expoliuerit, & dispersos vagosque mortales in coetum vnum congregarit.19

Going back to Palmer, the pictura (cut from his copy of Coustau and pasted into the manuscript) is the same as in the

18 Natalis Comes, Mythologiae, sive explicationum fabularum libri decern (Venice, 1567), fol. 228r. 19 Giovanni Pierio Valeriano, Hieroglyphica Sive De Sacris Aegyptiorum Uteris Commentarii (Basel, 1556), fol. 347r. The quotation is from the voice ‘Bona Disciplina’, accompanied by the figure o f a woman with a stringed instrument.

10

The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

Continental book, and the motto. The Force o f Eloquence, also draws selectively from his source. The first impression is of a sim­ plification; in fact the English emblem writer condenses Coustau’s epigram and prose in fourteen lines: The force o f eloquence The skillfull Orpheus with his harpe, doth make the beastes to playe, The woddes to bowe, the rockes to move, the fleinge foules to staye. Men in olde time were housde like beastes, and fed in feldes withe gras: By mighte they measurd then the right, no vse o f reason was. Vntill the eloquente steppes oute, and with well spoken sowne, Broughte those dispersed soules in one, and walde them in a towne. He tames the wylde, he mekes the fierce, he dectes that no good can: So speche dothe sever vs from beastes, fyne speche from man to man.20

Palmer significantly keeps the Amphion figure implicit, when referring to the act of ‘walling’ men in a town (line 10),21 and apart from Horace and Coustau he may have had in mind the passage from Valeriano that was also used as a source for his emblems.22 But although the English writer seems to keep the general moral meaning attributed to the Orphic figure, we can perhaps read between the lines of this emblem a more personal interest. Palmer was the first lecturer in rhetoric at St John’s College, Oxford, until he lost his position in 1564. Recent critics of his Two H undred Poosees argue that the creation and gift of these emblems was 20 Palmer, Emblems, 86. 2 1 This conceit was already in Coustau’s epigram: ‘Condidit hie hominum coetus, & moenia primus / Artifici posuit non violata, manu’, see above, 7. 22 See Palmer, Emblems, xv.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

11

actually an indirect request for the support of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the dedicatee of the manuscript, who was also Chancellor of the University at the time when Palmer was trying to regain his position.23 Considering the specific context of its writing, the praise of eloquence in this emblem can be read both as a plea for this art by a teacher of it and as an example of a virtue to be practised by the dedicatee of the manuscript, a powerful instrument for a would-be politician and man of state. The personal undertones were kept implicit in accordance not only with principles of decorum but also with Palmer’s understanding of the modes of indirect allusion that characterise the emblem as a genre. An emblematic application of the eloquent Orpheus can be found in early Tudor England. There are records of the royal entry of Philip of Spain and Queen Mary into London in 1554. Royal entries and Lord Mayor’s Shows were forms of entertainment usually organised and paid for by trade guilds and civic authorities in honour of the sovereign or mayor (in the case of London), accessible to the population as they took place in the street. They were emblematic in character insofar as they consisted of the presentation of tableaux vivants, performed on scaffolds or arches located in different parts of the city, drawing their subjects from history, mythology and moral allegory. The contemporary records and the published texts regarding these pageants are interesting in that they give a description of these ‘living emblems’, together with the words (acting as subscriptio) that were inscribed on the stage device or actually pronounced by the actors. In this example related to Queen Mary and Philip of Spain an eye-witness writes that: they passed towardes Chepeside, & at the Easte end th ereof... they made the fourth staye, where the thirde pageante was made. In the eigth wherof, was one playing on a harpe, who signifie the most Excellente musician

23 See Manning’s introduction to Palmer, Emblems, iv; and Bath, Speaking

Pictures, 58-60.

12

The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

Orpheus, o f whom, and o f Amphio[n], we reade in the fables o f the old Poetis. ... And not farre ... were men, and children decked up like wilde beastes, as Lions, wolfes, foxes, and beares. ... Under Orpheus in a field o f siluer, with faire romaine letters o f sable, were written in a very faire table these .viii. verses followinge. ... The prince that hath the gift o f eloquence May bend his subiectes to his most behoue Which in old time was shewed by covert sence In Orpheus whose song did wilde beastes moue. In like case now thy grace o f speche so franke Doth comfort vs, whose mindes afore were bleke And therefore England geueth the harty thanke Whose chiefest ioy is to heare thee Philip speke 24

A less sympathetic commentator of this event, John Foxe, called these celebrations ‘vain pageants’ and strained the interpretation of this tableau only a little when he wrote that: ‘In another poetry King Philip was resembled by another image representing Orpheus, and all English people resembled to brute and savage beasts following after Orpheus’s harp, and dancing after Philip’s pipe.’25 It would seem inappropriate to use the eloquent Orpheus as a touchstone for someone who at the time could barely speak a few words of English,26 and possibly offensive to those who were not Catholic sympathisers. Nevertheless, this use of Orpheus to symbolise the monarch was to become even more prominent under the Stuarts. Still in the sixteenth century, a more varied interaction of ideas of music, rhetoric and wisdom linked to the Orphic character is shown in Geffrey Whitney’s A Choice o f Emblemes and Other Devices, published in Leiden in 1586. An earlier manuscript 24 Quoted in Robert Withington, English Pageantry: An Historical Outline (Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, 1918), 1:192-3. 25 Ibid., 193. 26 See Sydney Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry, and Tudor Policy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 333.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

13

collection, containing some of the emblems that were later printed, was presented to the Earl of Leicester just before he left England for the campaign in the Low Countries in 1585, and the later printed edition seems to have been commissioned by Leicester himself.27* Whitney’s emblem of Orpheus has a Continental source, but only as regards the pictura that had been used in the Plantin edition of Sambucus’s Emblemata. The particularity of Whitney’s emblem is already implicit in his selection of this source: the woodcut of Orpheus is not in the section of emblems proper in Sambucus’s book, but in a final section dedicated to the reproduction of antique coins, and there it is not provided with any motto or subscription The English writer then could not be influenced by his source in the independent elaboration of this image for the epigram. The iconographic Continental background for this emblem is worth investigating. This pictura gives a sort of stylised version of what could be termed the ‘standard’ iconography of Orpheus and the animals. A later reference to a medal with Orpheus is also, for example, in Ripa. The latter gives a verbal description of the image (there is no corresponding illustration), and a moralising interpretation of Orpheus as eloquence:

27 John Manning convincingly argues that the manuscript must not be considered just a draft for the later printed collection, but as an independent work with differ­ ent aims and characteristics due to its special status as a gift, ‘a deliberate, even opportunistic, attempt to gain a place in Leicester’s train’ ( ‘Whitney’s Choice o f Emblemes: a reassessment’, Renaissance Studies 4 [1990], 160). For an analysis o f the contents o f the manuscript, MS Typ 14, now in the Houghton Library, Harvard University, see id., ‘Unpublished and unedited emblems by Geffrey Whitney: Further evidence o f the English Adaptation o f Continental Traditions’, in The English Emblem and the Continental Tradition, ed. Peter M. Daly (New York: AMS, 1988), 83-107. 28 See Johannes Sambucus, Emblemata cum aliquot nummis antiqui opens (Antwerp: Ex officina Christophori Plantini, 1564), 234.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

Eloquenza nella Medaglia di Marc Antonio Era dagli antichi Orfeo rappresentato per Peloquenza, & lo dipinsero in habito filosofico, omato dalla tiara Persiana, sonando la lira, & auanti d’esso vi erano Lupi, Leoni, Orsi, Serpenti, & diversi altri animali, che gli leccauano i piedi, & non solo v ’erano anco diuersi uccelli, che volauano, ma ancora monti, & alberi, che se gli inchinauano, & parimente sassi dalla musica commossi, & tirati. Per dichiaratione di questa bella figura ci serviremo di quello, che ha interpretato PAnguillara a questo proposito nelle Metamorfosi d’Ouidio al lib. 10. dicendo, che Orfeo ci mostra quanta forza, & vigore habbia Peloquenza, come quella, che e figliola d’Apollo, che non e altro, che la sapienza. La lira e Parte del fauellare propriamente la quale ha somiglianza della lira, che va movendo gli affetti col suono hor acuto, hor graue della voce, & della pronuntia. Le selue, & i monti, che si muouono, altro non sono, che quegl’huomini fissi, & ostinati nelle loro opinioni, & che con grandissima difficult^ si lassano vincere dalla suauita delle voci, & dalla forza del parlare, perche gli alberi, che hanno le loro radici ferme, & profonde notano g l’huomini, che fissano nel centro delPostinatione le loro opinioni. Ferma ancora Orfeo i fiumi, che altro non sono, che i disonesti, & lasciui huomini, che quando non sono ritenuti dalla forza della lingua dalla loro infame vita, scorrono senza ritegno alcuno fin’al mare, ch’e il pentimento, & Pamarezza, che suole venire subito dietro a i piaceri camali. Rende mansuete, & benigne le fiere, per le quali s ’intendono gPhuomini crudeli, & ingordi del sangue altrui, essere ridotti dal giuditioso fauellatore a piu humana, & lodevole vita.

Eloquenza. Per la figura dell’Eloquenza dipingeremo Anfione, il quale con il suono della Citara, & con il canto, si veda, che tiri a se molti sassi, che saranno sparsi in diuersi luoghi. Cio significa, che la dolce armonia del parlare delPEloquenza persuade, & tira a se gPignoranti, rozzi, & duri huomini, che qua e la sparsi dimorino, & che insieme conuengono, & ciuilmente viuino.29

The most interesting detail of Ripa’s summary is that while keeping Horace as a reference point - this is shown by an altema29 Cesare Ripa, Iconologia overo descrittione di diverse imagini, cauate dalI ’antichita, & di propria inuentione, trouate, & dichiarate (Rome: Appresso Lepido Facij, 1603), 128-9.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

15

tive representation of Eloquence as Amphion - he refers to and borrows heavily from a commentator and translator of Ovid who had imposed the ‘Horatian’ interpretation on Ovid’s Orpheus.30 The other locus classicus for the episode of Orpheus and the animals, a passage in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is not the direct source of this iconography but is nonetheless strongly related: Collis erat collemque super planissima campi area, quam viridem faciebant graminis herbae: Umbra loco deerat; qua postquam parte resedit dis genitus vates et fila sonantia movit, umbra loco venit: non Chaonis afuit arbor, non nemus Heliadum, non frondibus aesculus altis, nec tiliae molles, nec fagus et innuba laurus, et coryli fragiles et fraxinus utilis hastis enodisque abies curvataque glandibus ilex et platanus genialis acerque coloribus inpar amnicolaeque simul salices et aquatica lotos perpetuoque virens buxum tenuesque myricae et bicolor myrtus et bacis caerula tinus. Tale nemus vates attraxerat inque ferarum concilio medius turba volucrumque sedebat. ut satis impulsas temptavit pollice chordas et sensit varios, quamvis diversa sonarent, concordare modos, hoc vocem carmine movit.3 1

In illustrated editions of Ovid, the above descriptive passage on the effects of Orpheus’ playing and singing - a motif only hinted at in Virgil’s Georgies - is linked to the iconographic pattern already mentioned.303132 The catalogue of trees in Ovid is often replaced by a 30 Parts o f Ripa’s commentary are actually verbatim quotations from Ovid, Le Metamorfosi di Ovidio ridotte da Gio[vanni] Andrea Dell'Anguillara in ottava rima (Venice: Presso Bern. Giunti, 1584), 387. The latter work is indebted in its turn to Boccaccio, see Giovanni Boccaccio, Genealogiae deorum gentilium libri, ed. Vincenzo Romano (Bari: Laterza, 1951), 1:244-5. 31 Ovid Metamorphoses 86-98 and 143-7. 32 Apart from its presence in Italian, French and Dutch editions o f Ovid, the fig­ ure o f Orpheus is also in a comprehensive illustration in the English adaptation by

16

The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

catalogue of animals, which could be more easily distinguished in a picture. Since illustrated editions of Ovid were flourishing in France (particularly in Lyons) at the time, we may think of a direct relationship between these works and emblem books, a phenomenon that also perhaps accounts for the presence of Orpheus in Coustau.33 Variations of this basic pattern also find their way into several Continental emblem books that provide examples of different applications of the same motif. At least one example is explicitly Ovidian, the Dutch Thronus Cupidinis, where Orpheus is the paragon of the perfect lover, faithful beyond death (fig. З).34 Other relevant instances include one in Reusner, where Orpheus is the most immediate embodiment of the traditional power of music and poetry (fig. 4),35 and a later religious application in the emblems by the Augustinian father Chesnau, where Orpheus is related to Christ and Orphic music is a metaphor for divine love (fig. 5).36 George Sandys, see Ovid, Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished, Mythologiz'd, And Represented in Figures ... By G[eorge] S[andys] (Oxford: Imprinted by John Lichfield, 1632), 337. Two Continental examples are quoted below, n. 33. 33 See Jean-Marc Chatelain, Livres d'emblemes et de devises une anthologie, 1531-1735 (Paris: Klincksieck, 1993), 66. This work mentions Pierre Eskreich, Coustau’s illustrator, as the author o f the illustrations o f Marot’s translations from Ovid’s Metamorphoses published in Lyons in the same period (see Ctement Marot and Bartlrelemy Aneau, Les Trois Premiers Livres de la ‘Metamorphose' d'Ovide, ed. Jean-Claude Moise with Marie-Claude Malenfant [Paris: Нопогё Champion, 1997]). I have consulted two Lyons illustrated editions o f Ovid, slightly later than Coustau’s Pegma , showing the same image o f the traditional Orpheus among the animals: one with a French text, see Ovid, La Metamorphose d'Ovide Figuree (Lyons: Jan de Toumes, 1557), sig. H6r; the other with an Italian text, see Ovid, La Vita e Metamorfoseo d'Ovidio, Figurato & abbreviato in forma d'Epigrammi da M. Gabriello Symeoni (Lyons: Per Giouanni di Tomes, 1559), 135 (fig. 2). 34 This is a now rare Dutch emblem book from the beginning o f the seventeenth century, with fine engravings by Crispijn de Passe: Thronus Cupidinis, 3rd ed. (Amsterdam: Apud Wilhelmum Iansonium, 1621), 28. On this work, see Praz, Studies, 117-23. 35 See Nicolaus Reusner, Emblemata (Frankfurt: Per Ioannem Feyerabendt, 1581), 129-30, sigs. V 2r v. 36 See Augustin Chesnau, Orpheus Eucharisticus (Paris: Apud Florentinvm

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

17

Apart from emblem books and illustrations of Ovid, a good number of Italian Renaissance works also represent Orpheus surrounded by animals as he plays the lyre or a contemporary equivalent like a lute or the highly symbolic lira da braccio,37 According to Scavizzi, this idealised Orpheus must be taken as a symbol of Music/Poetry set in a pastoral or Arcadian landscape.38 This Continental background must be kept in mind when con­ sidering Whitney’s elaboration (fig. 6). His emblem bears the motto Orphei Musica and the dedication Ad eundem, that is to one St Bull, also dedicatee of the preceding emblem. In his early edition of Whitney’s emblems, Henry Green suggests that this dedication might be a misprinted reference to the famous Elizabethan musician John Bull, whose technical musical skill could well be considered by contemporary readers as the modem equivalent of Orpheus’ ability.39 Fascinating as this suggestion may be, the real dedicatee has since been identified as someone less known to us than the Elizabethan virtuoso, a friend of Whitney’s named Stephen Bull.40 The identity of the other person referred to in the marginal glosses, E.P. Esquire - said to have surpassed Orpheus in the epigram - is not certain,41 but Whitney Lambert, 1657), 61; see also below, 145. 37 On the meanings o f the lira da braccio, see Emanuel Wintemitz, Musical Instruments and Their Symbolism in Western Art, 2nd ed. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979), 86-98. 38 See Giuseppe Scavizzi, ‘The Myth o f Orpheus in Italian Renaissance Art, 1400-1600’, in Orpheus, ed. Warden, 111-62, reproducing many o f the examples discussed. 39 Whitney, Whitney's ‘Choice o f Emblemes', 375-6. Examples o f poetical comparisons o f a contemporary artist to Orpheus are too numerous to be quoted here; a curious case o f an emblem writer compared to Orpheus can be found in an English gratulatory poem by one R.V. prefixed to Vaenius’s love emblems, see Otto Vaenius, Amorum Emblemata ... Emblemes o f Love (Antwerp: Venalia apud auctorem typis Henrici Swingenii, 1608). 40 See John F. Leisher, Geoffrey Whitney’s 'A Choice o f Emblemes' and its Relation to the Emblematic Vogue in Tudor England (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1987), 309-10. 41 Morrison C. Boyd, Elizabethan Music and Musical Criticism, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: University o f Philadelphia Press, 1962), 202-3, identifies ‘E.P.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

makes clear that he possesses actual musical skills among other accomplishments: LO, ORPHEVS with his harpe that sauage kinde did tame: The Lions fierce, and Leopardes wilde, and birdes about him came. For, with his musicke sweete, their natures hee subdu’de: But if wee thinke his playe so wroughte, our selues wee doe delude; For why? besides his skill, hee learned was, and wise: And coulde with sweetenes o f his tonge, all sortes o f men suffice. And those that weare most rude, and knewe no good at all: And weare o f fierce, and cruell mindes, the worlde did brutishe call. Yet with persuasions sounde, hee made their hartes relente, That meeke, and milde they did become, and followed where he wente. Lo these, the Lions fierce, these, Beares, and Tigers weare: The trees, and rockes, that lefte their roomes, his musicke for to heare. But, you are happie most, who in suche place doe staye: You neede not THRAC1A seeke, to heare some impe o f ORPHEVS playe Since, that so neare your home, Apollos darlinge dwelles; Who LINVS, & AMPHION staynes, and ORPHEVS farre excelles. For, hartes like marble harde, his harmonie dothe pierce: And makes them yeelding passions feele, that are by nature fierce. But, if his musicke faile: his curtesie is suche. That none so rude, and base o f minde, but hee reclaimes them muche. Now since you, by deserte, for both, commended are: I choose you, for a Iudge herein, if truthe 1 doe declare. And if you finde I doe, then ofte therefore reioyce: And thinke, I woulde suche neighbour haue, if I might make my choice.42

The starting-point was Horace again, as indicated in the Latin marginalia, two of which quote the passages from Ars Poetica on Orpheus and Amphion. Whitney’s indecision about either taking Orpheus’ music literally or taking it as a metaphor for eloquence is Esquire’ with one Edward Pearce (fl. 1586-1614), who became a Gentleman o f the Chapel Royal in 1588, and organist and Master o f the Choristers at St Paul’s in 1599, taking as additional evidence a possible punning allusion in the word ‘pierce’; on the other hand, Leisher, Geoffrey Whitney's ‘A Choice o f Emblemes', 310, thinks that ‘several Edward Pierces o f Norfolk qualify, but none conclusively’. 42 Geffrey Whitney, A Choice o f Emblemes, and Other Devises (Leiden: In the house o f Christopher Plantyn, by Francis Raphelengius, 1586), 186.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

19

evident: he first asserts the power of Orpheus’ music, and then negates it in favour of the superiority of his wisdom, which is associated with ‘sweetness of tongue’ and ‘persuasion’ in the first part of the subscriptio. The second part (marked by ‘but’ in line 13) shifts to the application of the traditional motif for gratulatory purposes. Because the dedicatee and his friend are at least amateur musicians, as we may infer from the text, it briefly exploits the topos of the superiority of the contemporary musician to Orpheus and other mythical musicians. But it soon turns from this image Orpheus’ music can fail after all - to another necessary accomplishment, courtesy, which is seen as corresponding to the rhetorical ability mentioned in the first part. Even if the ultimate addressee of all of Whitney’s emblems is Leicester, and eloquence here again has political undertones, the praise of music, eloquence and courtesy in this emblem also helps create an ideal of England as ‘an exemplary society, thoroughly admirable in all its achievements, whether military, moral, cultural, or religious’, as pointed out by Manning *445 In fact, the treatment of music as a courtly accomplishment, to be practised by gentlemen with the necessary sprezzatura , can be found in several treatises of English educational writers of the time and represents an English importation of ideas going back to Castiglione’s CortegianoA4 That music is only one among many accomplishments is also shown by the fact that the Orpheus emblem comes after an emblem dedicated to the same person, Scripta non tem ere edenda. A d doctissimum virum D. St. Bullum , where Whitney elaborates on a passage from Ars Poetica again, this time on the necessity of carefully correcting one’s works before publishing them.45 The 45 John Manning, introduction to Geffrey Whitney, A Choice o f Emblemes (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989), 5-6. 44 Castiglione’s II libro del Cortegiano (1528) was translated into English by Sir Tomas Hoby in 1561. For early modem treatises in English recommending music, see, for example. Sir Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Governour (1531); Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster (1570); Richard Mulcaster, The First Part o f the E/ementarie (1582); Henry Peacham, The Compleat Gentleman (1634). 45 Whitney, Choice o f Emblemes, 185.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

original pictura and the text refer to Horace’s friend Quintilius keeping a pupil from submitting his writing to Fame (traditionally represented as a winged woman with a trumpet).46 If we look for a companion for the Orpheus emblem in the first part of the collection, following Manning’s suggestion of seeing Whitney’s emblem book as a ‘glass’ (the second part often repeating or varying themes already present in the first part)47 we can find it in an emblem on the power of art over nature, Industria naturam corrigit (fig. 7). The pictura, drawn from Sambucus,48 shows Mercury in the act of touching a lute lying upon his legs; in the background are two standing figures, a man playing a lute and a woman dancing 49 In the epigram Whitney develops the idea of Mercury’s stringing of a lute, the contemporary equivalent of the ancient kithara. The motif of the tuning of a stringed instrument in particular (usually with no reference to mythological figures as in this case) is treated emblematically elsewhere in a number of instances and is often given a political significance. However, Whitney’s dedication to his father, which sets it within a private rather than public frame of reference, indicates a pedagogical, rather than political or civil, background for this emblem. Here the stress is on industrious art

46 This emblem is among the ‘newly devicecT ones: see Mason Tung, ‘Whitney’s

A Choice o f Emblemes Revisited: a Comparative Study o f the Manuscript and the Printed Versions’, Studies in Bibliography 29 (1976), 65. It is discussed in Ayers Bagley, ‘Geffrey Whitney’s ‘education’ emblems’, in The Emblem in Renaissance and Baroque: Tradition and Variety: Selected Papers o f the Glasgow International Emblem Conference 13-17 August, 1990, ed. Alison Adams and Anthony J. Harper (Leiden, New York and Cologne: E.J. Brill, 1992), 1 18-31. Bagley interprets one o f the figures in the pictura as Quintilianus, but the mar­ ginal note makes clear that Whitney refers to Quintilius, Horace’s friend who is addressed in the passage o f Ars Poetica in question. 47 Manning, introduction to Whitney, Choice o f Emblemes, 9-10. 48 Sambucus, Emblemata, 57. 49 Mercury sitting on a cube opposite Fortuna on a sphere, exemplifying Art that counteracts the effects o f Fortune, can be seen in an emblem by Alciato, bearing the motto Ars Naturam adiuvans, see Andrea Alciato, Emblemata (Lyons: Apud Mathiam Bonhomme, 1550), 107.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

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coming from education and on its effects. The link with the emblem of Orpheus is suggested by an interesting conflation of Orpheus and Mercury, as Whitney attributes to Mercury’s music the specifically Orphic ability of having the trees bend their tops (line 6):

The Lute, whose sounde doth most delighte the eare, Was caste aside, and lack’de bothe stringes, and frettes: Whereby, no worthe within it did appeare, MERCVRIUS came, and it in order settes: Which being tun’de, suche Harmonie did lende. That Poettes write, the trees theire toppes did bende. Euen so, the man on whome dothe Nature froune. Whereby, he hues dispis’d o f euerie wighte, Industrie yet, maie bringe him to renoume. And diligence, maie make the crooked righte: Then haue no doubt, for arte maie nature helpe. Thinke howe the beare doth forme her vglye whelpe.50

The tale of Mercury’s dominion over nature, his invention of the lyre with the shell and guts of a tortoise - which is retold in the corresponding emblem by Sambucus - is also tacitly at work here. In Whitney the same theme is introduced through a word-emblem (a corresponding pictura can be found in many emblem books): that of the female bear that gives shape to her new-born cubs by licking them.51 Incidentally, this image had been adopted by Titian as his impresa with the motto Natura potentior Ars.52 50 Whitney, Choice o f Emblemes, 92. 51 On the different kinds o f the word-emblem, see Daly, Literature in the Light o f the Emblem, 54-102. Several examples o f the emblem o f the female bear licking her cubs, such as the one from La Perriere’s Theatre des bons engins, which was also used by Whitney as a source, can be seen in Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderst, ed. Arthur Henkel and Albrecht Scheme (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1976), cols. 442-3. See also Palmer, Emblems, 154, no. 156, an emblem on the 'Education o f children , where a verbal description substitutes the missing pictura ; and the adaptation o f La Perriere’s emblem by Thomas Combe, The Theater o f Fine

22

The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

Examples of Orpheus were often applied to education in Elizabethan England. The most important treatises on rhetoric and poetry of the time, in fact, use the mythical singer as a touchstone in his role as beginner of civilisation through eloquence. In these instances, the music of Orpheus is a metaphor for rhetoric and/or poetry and the Orpheus of Horace appears repeatedly with slight variations. In Sidney’s Apologie for Poetrie, heavily indebted to classical and contemporary Continental sources, a reference to Orpheus, Amphion and the slightly less familiar Linus gives authority to the praise of the antiquity and nobility of poetry:

Let learned Greece in any o f her manifold Sciences, be able to shew me one booke, before Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiodus, all three nothing els but Poets. Nay, let any histone be brought, that can say any Writers were there before them, if they were not men o f the same skil, as Orpheus, Linus, and some other are named: who hauing beene the first o f that Country, that made pens deliuerers o f their knowledge to their posterity, may iustly challenge to bee called their Fathers in learning: for not only in time they had this priority (although in it self antiquity be venerable) but went before them, as causes to drawe with their charming sweetnes, the wild vntamed wits to an admiration o f knowledge. So as Amphion, was sayde to moue stones with his Poetrie, to build Thebes. And Orpheus to be listened to by beastes, indeed, stony and beastly people.5253

If Sidney kept the political implications of eloquence and learning in these myths unstated, perhaps because of his direct involvement in the public life of his times, other writers are more Devices (London: Richard Field, 1614), 98, sig. G7r, the final couplet o f which echoes Whitney’s rhyme: ‘For man is made againe by reasons helpe, / As is new moulded the mis-shapen whelpe.’ 52 As noted by Praz, pointing out also its occurrence in Vaenius’s Amorum Emblemata and a reference to it in Marston’s The Malcontent, 1.6 (Studies, 106 and 217). Titian’s impresa can be seen in Giovanni Battista Pittoni, Imprese di Diversi Prencipi, Duchi, Signori, e d ’altri Personaggi et Huomini Letterati et lllustri [Venice, 1562], 51. 53 Sir Philip Sidney, Apologie for Poetrie, 1595, ed. Edward Arber, English Re­ prints (London: Constable & Co.; New York: Macmillan Co., 1909), 20-1.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

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explicit in making clear the political status of these ancient civilisers. The title of the chapter in which Puttenham elaborates on this traditional topic, ‘How Poets were the first priests, the first prophets, the first Legislators and politicians in the world’, is itself indicative. The ‘poets’ mentioned are again Orpheus and Amphion: The profession and vse o f Poesie is most ancient from the beginning, and not as manie erronously suppose, after, but before any ciuil society was among men. For it is written, that Poesie was th’originall cause and occasion o f their first assemblies, when before the people remained in the woods and mountains, vagarant and dispersed like the wild beasts, lawlesse and naked, or verie ill clad, o f all good and necessarie prouision for harbour or sustenance vtterly vnfumished: so as they litle diffred for their maner o f life, from the very brute beasts o f the field. Whereupon it is fayned that Amphion and Orpheus, two Poets o f the first ages, one o f them, to wit Amphion, builded vp cities, and reared walles with the stones that came in heapes to the sound o f this harpe, figuring thereby the mollifying o f hard and stonie hearts by his sweete and eloquent perswasion. And Orpheus assembled the wilde beasts to come in heards to harken to his musicke, and by that meanes made them tame, implying thereby, how by his discreete and wholsome lessons vttered in harmonie and with melodious instruments, he brought the rude and sauage people to a more ciuill and orderly life, nothing, as it seemeth, more preualing or fit to redresse and edifie the cruell and sturdie courage o f man than it. ... And for that they were aged and graue men, and o f much wisedome and experience in th’affaires o f the world, they were the first lawmakers to the people, and the first politiciens, deuising all expedient meanes for th’establishment o f Common wealth, to hold and containe the people in order and duety by force and vertue o f good and wholesome lawes, made for the preseruation o f the publique peace and tranquillitie.54

Henry Peacham the Elder, in the ‘Epistle Dedicatorie’ of an­ other work on eloquence, again emphasises the relationship between wisdom, rhetoric and politics; here not only does the musical metaphor return in the definition of the working of wisdom through eloquence ‘as it were by a sweet & musical harmony’,55 54 George Puttenham, The Arte o f English Poesie, 1589 (Menston: Scolar Press, 1968), 3. 55 Henry Peacham, The Garden o f Eloquence, 1593, introduction by William G.

24

The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

but the importance of possessing both is conveyed through another conceit, that of the instrument’s being played with the necessary skill: the precious nature, and wonderful 1 power o f wisdome, is by the commendable Art and vse o f eloquence, produced and brought into open light. So that hereby plainlie appeareth, both the great necessitie & singular vtilitie o f their coniunction before commended, for the one without the other, do finde both great want, and shew great imperfection, for to possesse great knowledge without apt vtterance, is, as to possesse great treasure without vse: contrariwise to affect eloquence without the discretion o f wisdom, is, as to handle a sweete instrument o f musicke without skill. ... But the man which is well furnished with both: I meane with ample knowledge and excellent speech, hath bene iudged able, and esteeemed fit to rule the world with counsell, prouinces with lawes, cities with pollicy, & multitudes with persuasion: such were those men in times past, who by their singular wisdom and eloquence, made sauage nations ciuil, wild people tame, and cruell tyrants not only to become meeke, but likewise mercifull. Hence it was, that in ancient time men did attribute so great opinion o f wisedome to the eloquent Orators o f those daies, that they called them sacred, holy, diuine, & the interpreters o f the goddes, for so doth Horace commending Orpheus, his words be these. ... The Poet here vnder the name o f tigres and lions, meant not beasts but men, & such men as by their sauage nature & cruell manners, might well be compared to fierce tigres and deuoring lions, which notwithstanding by the mightie power o f wisdome, and prudent art o f perswasion were conuerted from that most brutish condition o f life, to the loue o f humanitie, & polliticke government, so mighty is the power o f this happie vnion, (I meane o f wisdom & eloquence) that by the one the Orator forceth, and by the other he allureth, and by both so worketh, that what he commendeth is beloued, what he dispraiseth is abhorred, what he perswadeth is obeied, and what he disswadeth is auoided: so that he is in a maner the emperour o f mens minds & affections, and next to the omnipotent God in the power o f perswasion, by grace, & diuine assistance.56

Crane, facsimile ed. (Gainesville, Fla.: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1954), sig. A.B.iijr. 56 Ibid., sigs. A.B.iijr v, my emphasis.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

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Although the dedicatee of this work is flatteringly recognised as already ‘so richly furnished by nature’57 with the gifts to be improved by the aid of Peacham’s treatise, some of the words used, such as ‘emperour’ and ‘power’, make clear the proper context within which Orphic eloquence can be profitably exercised. As Cochrane has shown, Orpheus appears in a similar role also in school texts, where he embodies the persuasive power that is not only an ideal but also something that can be taught.58 If the political implications of Orpheus and of the well-tuned instrument remained implicit in Palmer and Whitney, or subsumed within ideas of education and cultural achievement, a later English emblem book shows an overtly political turn of the Orphic symbol; the case in point is in an emblem dedicated to King James I by Henry Peacham the Younger, in Minerva Britanna, published in 1612 (fig. 8). Orpheus is absent from the pictura, drawn by Peacham himself, but his role as a touchstone for the eloquent politician and author of civil concord is taken for granted in the epigram, where he is surpassed by his British avatar James. Hibernica Respub: ad Iacobum Regem. While I lay bathed in my natiue blood. And yeelded nought saue harsh, & hellish soundes: And saue from Heauen, I had no hope o f good. Thou pittiedst (Dread Soveraigne) my woundes, Repair’dst my mine, and with Ivorie key. Didst tune my stringes, that slackt or broken lay.

57 Ibid., sig. A.B.ivv. The work is dedicated to Sir John Puckering, Lord Keeper o f the Seal o f England. The same conceit is in Thomas W ilson’s treatise, see Wilson 's Art o f Rhetoric, 1560, ed. G.H. Mair (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909), sig. A.iijv. 58 See Kirsty Cochrane, ‘Orpheus Applied: Some Instances o f his Importance in the Humanist View o f Language’, Review o f English Studies, n.s., 19 (1968), 113. On the figure o f the musician-king, see also Robin Headlam Wells, Eliza­ bethan Mythologies: Studies in Poetry, Drama and Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 2-8.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

Now since I breathed by thy Roiall hand. And found my concord, by so smooth a tuch, I giue the world abroade to vnderstand, N e’re was the musick o f old Orpheus such. As that I make, by meane (Deare Lord) o f thee. From discord drawne, to sweetest vnitie.59

Alan Young defines this as a ‘heraldic emblem’:60 what is in fact original is the exploitation of the double ‘resonance’ of the icon of the harp that is, by a happy coincidence, both a heraldic image of the state of Ireland and a stringed instrument, a symbol of ‘concord’ since the most ancient times. It had been used with this meaning before Peacham in Alciato’s emblem Foedera (fig. 9), where a lute in the pictura - a significant gift to his dedicatee - is a symbol of the hoped-for alliances among the Italian leaders of the time. Alciato also refers to the same concept of wisdom/leaming in the sense of political/musical ability to achieve concord by proper ‘tuning’, but warns against the possible dangers of discord:

Difficile est, nisi docto homini, tot tendere chordas: Vnaque si fuerit bene non tenta fides, Ruptaue (quod facile est) perit omnis gratia conchae, Ilteque praecellens cantus, ineptus erit61

Peacham, on the other hand, by the use of prosopopeia objectifies the sense of an actual achievement of peaceful union, which further serves the gratulatory purpose. The image of James I as an Orphic achiever of political concord fits well into an overall harmonistic view of the world, studied by many scholars, where correlations could be naturally drawn 5° Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna or a Garden o f Heroical Denises (London: Wa. Dight, [1612]), 45. 60 Alan Young, T h e Emblems o f Henry Peacham: Implications for the Index Emblematicus’, in The European Emblem: Towards an Index Emblematicus, ed. Peter M. Daly (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1980), 101. 61 Alciato, Emblemata (Lyons: Apud Mathiam Bonhomme, 1550), 16.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

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between heavenly harmony (the music of the spheres) and earthly harmony, here the metaphorical music of the body politic.62 In a public oration pronounced at a reception of the King in Coventry in 1617, we can find the same idea: ‘Now ... the strings of the Irish harp be all in tune, and make good harmony; that wild and ireful Irishry is subdued indeed, and governed by ordinary laws.’63 Peacham himself, more than twenty years later, under Charles I, would again use the Orphic conceit while commenting in general on the disturbed state of England: Hard is the taske, whosoever shall undertake in these discordant times (like another ORPHEUS) the taming o f so many wild Beasts as are daily bred in this vast wildemesse o f the world ... Every good Prince is another Orpheus, who by the well-tuned harmony o f wholesome Lawes, Mercy, and his owne example, laboureth to draw unto him the whole body o f the people.64

The same system of correspondences could allow for the appli­ cation of the image - on a lower level, so to speak - to the Mayor of London. In fact, Lord Mayor’s Shows of the time provide other relevant examples of emblematic uses of Orpheus under the Stuarts.65 For some of these shows well-known playwrights of the time were employed. For example, for the celebrations of Mayor Sir William Cockayn in 1619, Thomas Middleton was commissioned to devise some pageants. He describes Orpheus as set in a wilderness with beasts and bearing a cock on his head,

62 For the harmonistic view in the political thought o f the time, see especially James Daly, ‘Cosmic Harmony and Political Thinking in Early Stuart England’, Transactions o f the American Philosophical Society 69 (1979), 1-41. 65 John Nichols, The Processes, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities, o f King James the First, his Royal Consort, Family, and Court (London: J.B. Nichols, 1828), 2:425. 64 Quoted by Alan Young, Нету Peacham (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979), 49. 65 For an overview o f Elizabethan and early Stuart Lord Mayor’s Shows, see Bergeron, English Civic Pageantry.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

which must be interpreted both as a punning reference to the name of the Mayor (Cockayn) and as a traditional emblem of alertness, particularly appropriate to his new role.66 The speech pronounced by Orpheus has a strongly didactic character:

Just such a wildem esse is a Commonwealth That is undrest, unpruin’d, wild in her health; And the rude multitude, the beasts o ’ the wood. That know no laws, but onely will and blood; And yet by faire example, musicall grace. Harmonious gouvemment o f the Man in Place, (O f faire integrity and wisdome framde,) They stand as mine do, ravish’d, charmed, and tamde; Every wise Magistrate that governs thus. May well be cal’d a powerful! Orpheus 67

Orpheus in this case presents himself as a ‘mirror for magistrates’ to the mayor, suggesting the virtue of ‘pruning’ the wilderness of the Commonwealth. An earlier Continental example of the image of the kingdom as Orpheus’ garden can be found in the 1515 royal entry into Bruges of Charles V (the father of the Philip/Orpheus we met before). One of the woodcuts accompanying the printed text for this entree depicts Orpheus in contemporary dress playing to the animals in an enclosed garden. Outside the garden we see two wild men with clubs evidently listening to his music. The related commentary draws a specific parallel between the garden and the kingdom, with the Orphic monarch as the wise gardener.68 As Roy Strong has noted, the imagery of Renaissance gardens often alludes to the relationship 66 The Triumphs o f Love and Antiquity. An Honourable Solemnilie performed

through the Citie, at the confirmation and establishment o f the Right Honorable Sir William Cockayn, ... Oct. 29, 1619, in The Works o f Thomas Middleton, ed. A.H. Bullen (London: John C. Nimmo, 1886), 7:318.

M Ibid., 320. 68 See La tryumphante Entree de Charles Prince des Espagnes en Bruges, 1515, introduction by Sydney Anglo, facsimile ed. (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum; New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, n.d.), unpaginated.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

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between wild nature and art, and examples of Orpheus taming the animals with harmony can often be found in these settings.69 But Middleton seems concerned with the notion o f ‘harmonious government’ extending beyond the city of London; in fact, towards the end of Orpheus’ speech there are also a few lines of homage to the King with an obligatory reference to ‘The civilly instructed Irishman, And that kind savage, the Virginian’,70 all faithful to the King and celebrating the new Lord Mayor. In another meaningful passage, Orpheus exhorts the mayor to match ‘grave justice with fair clemency’, by using a ‘powerful word’ before using the sword.71 In a Continental collection of emblems by Zincgref published in the same year we find exactly the same concept related to the Orphic monarch. Here the conventional pictura of Orpheus and the animals (fig. 10) is accompanied by the motto Peragit tranquilla potestas and by the unambiguous French epigram: La clemence (Tvn Roy conduit tout aisement Le plus barbare peuple, & doucement le force, Et mene ou bon luy semble; autrement par la force II n’en viendra iamais a son contentement.72

Thomas Heywood, writing a pageant for the Lord Mayor exactly twenty years after Middleton, in 1639 and under Charles I, uses Orpheus again as a touchstone for the mayor. In Londini Status Pacatus, or Londons peaceable estate we find both a de­ scription that is consistent with the emblematic picturae we met 69 Orpheus taming the wild beasts is among the drawings by Salomon de Caus connected with the building o f Prince Henry’s gardens at Richmond, see Roy Strong, The Renaissance Garden in England (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979), 98 and 102. 70 Triumphs o f Love and Antiquity, 321. 71 Ibid., 320. 72 Julius Wilhelm Zincgref, Emhlematum Ethico-Politicorum Centuria (Heidelberg: Prostat apud Iohan. Theodo. de Brij, 1619), sig. N3V. The epigram is also expounded by a long Latin prose, sig. N4r.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

before and a reading of four famous mythological kithara players: Apollo, Amphion, Arion and Orpheus as ‘emblems’ of the four elements, with Orpheus linked to the earth, and particularly to the ‘peaceable estate’ of London.73 In the description of the ‘body’ of this emblematic presentation it is made clear that around Orpheus there must be ‘beasts of all sorts, who notwithstanding being of severall conditions, and opposite natures, yet all imagined to be attentive to his musick’.74 And in the speech Orpheus is given fourteen lines of self-praise in which he tells of his achievements (though of course his failure to rescue Eurydice is totally omitted), proposing himself as a pacifier of the natural elements, that is, not only animals but also rivers and winds. In the second part, where he passes to the congratulation of the mayor, the idea of peace is conveyed through the topoi of the metaphorical music of the mayor’s wise speech, and that of the corresponding music of praise of the citizens:

May it your grave Pretorian wisedome please. You are the Orpheus who can do all these: If any streame beyond its bounds shall swell, You beare the Trident that such rage can quell. When beasts o f Rapine (trusting to their power) Would any o f your harmelesse flocks devoure: Yours is the sword that can such violence stay. To keepe the Rich from rigour, Poore from prey; Neither from any harsh ill-boading beake. Least discord shall be heard, when you but speake; Whilst in Harmonious quire the rest contend. Which in your praise each other shall transcend. Trees rooted in selfe-will, and (which seemes strange)

73 See the introductory epigraph on p. 5. The association o f these classical protomusicians with the four elements was already made in a 1602 series o f engravings by Crispijn de Passe, see Ilja M. Veldman, Crispijn de Passe and His Progeny (1564-1670): A Century o f Print Production, trans. Michael Hoyle (Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Publishers, 2001), 130-1. 74 Londini Status Pacatus: or, Londons Peaceable Estate. Exprest in sundry Tri­ umphs, Pageants, and Shewes ... 1639, in Thomas Hey wood. The Dramatic Works o f Thomas Heywood( London: John Pearson, 1874), 5:365-6.

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

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Even sencelesse stones you into life may change. This Wisedome can; yet there’s a more Devine Concordancy, which farre exceedeth mine: That’s o f unanimous hearts; plenty, increase; With all Terrestrial! blessings waite on peace: Which whilst maintain’d in your Commerce and Trade, Proves sweeter Musicke than e ’re Orpheus made.75

There were at least two other Lord Mayor’s Shows written after the Restoration using emblems of Orpheus in a similar way, which add little to this picture.76 But the explanatory style of the speeches of Orpheus in Middleton and Heywood raises interesting questions as to the popular reception of these emblematic presentations. Ben Jonson, another writer who used this kind of allegorical figure, was well aware of the possible difficulty for the public in understanding his ‘magnificent inventions’. In a description of what he intentionally calls ‘devices’ for a royal entry, avoiding the word ‘pageants’, he inserts a passing comment that is worth quoting; Neither was it becoming, or could it stand with the dignity o f these shows ... to require a truchman, or (with the ignorant painter) one to write, ‘This is a dog;’ or, ‘This is a hare’: but to be presented as upon the view, they might, without cloud or obscurity, declare themselves to the sharp and learned: and for the multitude, no doubt but their grounded judgements gazed, said it was fine, and were satisfied.77

Jonson here refers to the allegorical personifications he had devised for a triumphal arch, but the distinction he draws here and even more clearly later of ‘Court-, Town-, and Country-Reader’ must be applied to the reception of these shows in general. The 75 Ibid., 366-8. 76 In 1656 and 1671 respectively, see Withington, English Pageantry, 2:45-6 and 50-1. 77 The Magnificent Entertainment, in Jacobean Civic Pageants, ed. Richard Dutton (Keele: Keele University Press, 1995), 47.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

long speeches of Orpheus in both Middleton and Heywood must be read in the light of at least a double audience: the authors were both intentionally explicating the myth and meaning of Orpheus to the public in the street, and articulating the expectations of the people to the new mayor listening to the actor’s words. Jonson elsewhere reveals the same preoccupation regarding the reception of his court masques, which had to be based, according to his famous definition, on ‘more removed mysteries’.78 A subtler use of an emblematic Orpheus can indeed be found in a court masque. Masques were again of an emblematic nature, based on a very loose dramatic action involving mythological or allegorical characters that had to lead to the final dance in which the selected audience of courtiers, foreign guests and sometimes the monarchs themselves would take part. The common pattern of every masque was the re-establishment of order and harmony over initial disruptive forces, so the use of the emblematic Orpheus here can be considered particularly appropriate.79 The most relevant example is in Campion’s Lords Masque, commissioned and paid for by James I and staged at court for the marriage of Princess Elizabeth with the Elector Palatine in 1613. The physician, poet and musician Thomas Campion was involved in the production of a few court masques, together with Inigo Jones, another key figure who was responsible for the designs, scenery and more generally the ‘visual part’ of most of the Stuart masques.80 In this case Campion wrote the dialogues and

78 See the Preface to Jonson’s Hymenaei, Or the Solemnities o f masque and Bar­ riers at a Marriage (1606), in Ben Jonson, The Complete Masques, ed. Stephen Orgel (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1969), 75-6. 79 On the court masque, see Enid Welsford, The Court Masque (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1927), and, for more recent criticism. The Court Masque, ed. David Lindley (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984); and The Politics o f the Stuart Court Masque, ed. David Bevington and Peter Holbrook (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 80 On Campion, see especially David Lindley, Thomas Campion (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1986). On Inigo Jones’s participation in the production o f masques, see Stephen Orgel and Roy Strong, Inigo Jones: The Theatre o f the Stuart Court, 2

Emblems of Orpheus in Early Modem England

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part of the music. At the very beginning of the Lords Masque we find an emblem of Orpheus that starts the action of the anti­ masque: On the left hand from the seat was a cave, and on the right a thicket, out o f which came Orpheus, who was attired after the old Greek manner, his hair curled, and long; a laurel wreath on his head; and in his hand he bare a silver bird, about him tamely placed several wild beasts, and upon the ceasing o f the consort Orpheus spake.8 •

A variation from the standard iconography is the ‘silver bird’ in the hand of Orpheus, instead of the usual harp or lyre. This bird can perhaps be interpreted as a swan, a traditional emblem of poetry (as in Alciato, Valeriano and Ripa) that was also connected with music through its legendary song before death.8182 Orpheus, who is in this masque a reflection of the poet-musician Campion, has to release Entheus, or Furor Poeticus, kept prisoner together with lunatics in the cave of Mania, or madness.83 Entheus must be set free in order to help Orpheus devise the entertainment for Jove that follows. And, as Lindley has recently noted,84 Orpheus in two passages stresses that his inspiration comes directly from Jove, symbolically representing King James. This is a link with the preceding uses of Orpheus as a governor or monarch, because in the end the King is always seen as having the overall harmonising function both inside and outside the show.

vols. (London: Sotheby, 1973), including Jones’s complete designs for his masques. 81 The Lords Masque, in Jacobine and Caroline Masques, ed. Richard Dutton (Nottingham: Nottingham University Press, 1987), 2:3 82 Valeriano quotes Plato’s opinion that Orpheus lived again as a swan after his death, see Valeriano, Hieroglyphica, fol. 165v. See also the emblem with the motto Insigna РоёГагит in Alciato ( Emblemata [Lyons: Apud Mathiam Bonhomme, 1550], 197); and the voice Poesia in Ripa (Iconologia, 407). 83 Furor Poeticus is drawn from Ripa’s handbook, see Ripa, Iconologia, 178-9. 84 See David Lindley, ‘The Politics o f Music in the Masque’, in The Politics o f the Stuart Court Masque, 290.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

Campion’s use of Orpheus as his double can also be detected in the words he gives to Orpheus later, reflecting his stance as author of the words and music of stylish ayres or songs for voice and lute.85 In one of the songs Orpheus is not seen as the eloquent civiliser but primarily as the paragon and inspirer of courtly lovers:

Courtship and music, suit with love. They both are works o f passion; Happy is he whose words can move. Yet sweet notes help persuasion. Mix your words with music then. That they the more may enter.86

This passage clearly reveals the gradual growth of an expressive, rhetorical musical aesthetic that by this time had already led to the birth of opera in Italy. To a poet and musician, Orphic persuasive music had necessarily to be treated as more than simply a metaphor.87 In conclusion, a survey of the emblematic uses of Orpheus and the animals in early modem English works reveals a significant diversion from Continental counterparts. In Continental books, variations of the Orpheus image can be found in different types of emblem books - be they amorous, 85 Campion uses references to Orpheus in his poetry only in two gratulatory Latin poems dedicated to the fellow composer John Dowland. See ‘Ad lo. Dolandum’ and an epigram for Dowland’s First Booke o f Songs or Ayres (1597), in Thomas Campion, Campion's Works, ed. Percival Vivian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909), 346-7 and 351. 86 The Lords Masque, 11. 87 On the presence o f Orpheus in early Italian operas, see Timothy J. McGee, ‘Orfeo and Euridice, the First two Operas’, in Orpheus, ed. Warden, 163-81; and Elizabeth A. Newby, ‘Orpheus and the Birth o f Music Drama’, in ead., A Portrait

o f the Artist: The Legends o f Orpheus and Their Use in Medieval and Renais­ sance Aesthetics (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1987), 222-354. On changes in musical aesthetics as reflected in early modem English poetry, see Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky.

Amphion, Arion and Apollo: The Triumph of the Lyre

35

moral, political, or religious. Even a partial overview of French, Dutch and German recurrences, in the examples quoted above, gives an idea of a more varied, polyvalent use of Orpheus, also depending on the choice of either Ovid or Horace as the main auctoritas. On the other hand, the emblematic uses of Orpheus in early modem England seem to reveal a passage from an interpretation of the mythical singer as eloquence (related to Elizabethan writers’ preoccupation with educational and artistic accomplishments) to the reading of this character as an achiever of harmony in a more clearly civic/political perspective under the Stuarts.

1.2 Amphion, Arion and Apollo: The Triumph of the Lyre The treatment of Orpheus as a civiliser, as shown by some of the examples above, is often accompanied by an explicit or implicit reference to the parallel myth of Amphion, builder of the walls of Thebes by the sound of his lyre - an association possibly furthered by the influence of Horace and his reference both to Orpheus and to Amphion in Ars P oetical In two adaptations of the famous Continental mythographic handbook by Pomey, published in England at the turn of the seven­ teenth century, we can find another occurrence of the standard association of Orpheus and Amphion, with the further addition of the mythical Arion, whose story is also summarised. In Tooke’s translation, the iconographic link of the three is thus explained:8 88 See above, 7-8. Comes in the chapter on Amphion insists on the parallel between Amphion and Orpheus by quoting Horace’s lines, see Comes, Mythologiae, fols. 258rv. Apart from Horace, among the classical sources for Amphion are Homer Odyssey 2.260-4; Ovid Metamorphoses 6.146-312; Apollodorus Biblioteca 3.5.5-6; Pausanias Description o f Greece 9.5.6-9; Hyginus Fabulae 7, 8, 9. Among reference works on classical mythology, see The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 130 0 -1900s, ed. Jane Davidson Reid and Chris Rohmann, 2 vols. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); and Pierre Grimal, Encyclopedia dei mitiy ed. Carlo Cordie (Milan: Garzanti, 1990).

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

ORPHEUS and AMPHION. You see these are drawn in the same Frame, and almost in the same Colours; because they both excelled in the same Art, the Harp , with the Musick wherof they moved not only Men, but Beasts and the very Stones themselves. ... The Occasion o f which Fables was this, Orpheus and Amphion were both Men so eloquent, that they persuaded those who lived a wild and savage Life before, to embrace the Rules, and Manners o f Civil Society. Arion is a proper Companion for these two Musicians; and I admire that his image is not in this Place.89

A direct example of Amphion is absent from English emblem books, but he is indeed present as a political achiever of harmony in one of Palmer’s sources - Coustau’s emblem book - and we have noted that Palmer subsumes this character under the emblematic treatment of Orpheus. Coustau’s emblem on Amphion, preceding the one on Orpheus, is even more focused than the latter on a political application of the idea of music as civic concord.90 The pictura (fig. 11), showing the mythical musician playing his harp outside the newly built walls of Thebes, is accompanied in both the Latin and the French versions of this emblem by an epigram describing how the Horatian civiliser of brutish people establishes peace among the citizens with his har­ monious music. As in the case of elaborations of the myth of Orpheus, we can find the image of uncivilised men as stones to be ‘moved’ and gathered into a society. This conceit is further exploited in the prose commentary that follows, where the idea of 89 Andrew Tooke, The Pantheon, London, 1703, facsimile ed. (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1976), 370-1; this work was first published in England in 1698. The frontispiece stresses its being intended ‘for the use o f schools’, and Orgel in his introductory notes defines this as ‘the all-time mythographic best seller in England’. The picture o f Orpheus and Amphion referred to in the text is not among the plates included. An earlier English transla­ tion o f Pomey, containing a similar version o f the Orpheus and Amphion chapter, had been published in 1694, see The Pantheon, London 1694, Antoine Pomey translated by J.A.B., M.A.y facsimile ed. (New York and London: Garland Pub­ lishing, 1976), 387-90. 90 See Coustau, Pegma , 312-13; and Le Pegme, 389-92.

Amphion, Arion and Apollo: The Triumph of the Lyre

37

concord is discussed in connection with that of peaceful government threatened by the possible discord among its constituent citizens. This commentary, ending as it does on a note of doubt on the maintainance of peace under democracy, seems indirectly to imply a preference for monarchic government - a single leader who is able, like an Orpheus or Amphion, to establish and keep ‘harmony’ among his people. It is in this sense that images of Amphion often function outside emblematic literature as well. The figure of Amphion as an emblem of the political pacifier can be found in several early modem English works. References to the mythical musician are used, for example, in some civic pageants, regardless of a specific royal dedicatee. Amphion can represent the stabilising power of Elizabeth’s government, as in an allusion during an entertainment offered to the Queen in one of her progresses around the kingdom,91 and some years later he would embody the hopes of the people for Prince Henry, on whom so many political expectations were laid before his early death: Now the Prince being readie to land, Amphion on his dolphin saluteth him; AMPHION, a grave and judicious prophet-like personage, attyred in his apte habits, every way answerable to his state and profession, with his wreathe o f sea-shelles on his head, and his harpe hanging in fayre twine before him; personating the Genius o f Wales, giveth the Prince this farewell: ... ‘Royall Prince o f Wales, in this figure o f musicall Amphion

91 See The Honorable Entertainment given to her Majestie, in Progresses at

Cowdray in Sussex, by the Right Honorable the Lord Montecute, anno 1591, Au­ gust 15, in The Progresses and Public Processions o f Queen Elizabeth, ed. John Nichols (London: John Nichols and Son, 1823), 3:90: ‘The walles o f Thebes were raised by musicke: by musick these are kept from falling. It was a prophesie since the first stone was layde, that these walles should shake, and the roofe totter, till the wisest, the fairest, and most fortunate o f all creatures, should by her first steppe make the foundation staid, and by the glauncee o f her eyes make the turret steddie. ... And now it is: for the musick is at an end, this house immoveable, your vertue immortall. О miracle o f Time, Nature’s glorie.’

38

The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

upon his dolphin, Principalitie.’9293

we

personate

the

carracter

of

Wales

your

In the latter instance the display of Amphion shows an interest­ ing iconographic variant:93 the musician is represented upon a dolphin, a particular link to the fact that a part of these London entertainments took place on barges on the Thames. But it also suggests a conflation of Amphion and Arion, the other mythical musician who is often associated with Orpheus, and who is also present in emblematic works. This tableau, taking the Prince’s knowledge of Amphion’s main achievement for granted, may seem a simple example of the eulogistic use of mythological subjects in these shows. On the other hand, as Bergeron has noted, ‘these characters help the didactic intent of the pageant, as they help offer “mirrors for magistrates’” .94 Significantly, the image persists under totally different political conditions. In a long passage of a poem in praise of Oliver Cromwell, Andrew Marvell draws on this traditional imagery. The following passage aims to contrast the achievements of Cromwell with the failures of his predecessors: So when Amphion did the lute command. Which the god gave him, with his gentle hand. The rougher stones, unto his measures hewed. 92 London 's Love to the Royal Prince Henrie, Meeting him on the River o f

Thames, at his returne from Richmonde, with a wort hie fleete o f her cittizens, on thursday the last o f May 1610. with a briefe reporte o f the water-fight and fireworkes, in The Processes, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities, o f King James the First, his Royal Consort, Family, and Court, ed. John Nichols (London: J.B. Nichols, 1828), 2:322. 93 The standard iconography o f Amphion should be considered as the one described by Ripa (see above, 14) with the musician moving the stones to build the walls o f Thebes with only the sound o f his instrument. See, for example, one o f the many illustrated editions o f the Metamorphoses: Ovid, Die Verwandlungen des Ovidii in zweyhundert und sechs und zwantzig Kupffern (Augspurg: In Verlegung Johann Ulrich Kraus, [1690]), no.98 (fig. 12). 94 Bergeron, English Civic Pageantry, 285.

Amphion, Arion and Apollo: The Triumph of the Lyre

39

Danced up in order from the quarries rude; This took a lower, that a higher place. As he the treble altered, or the base; No note he struck, but a new story laid. And the great work ascended while he played. The listening structures he with wonder eyed. And still new stops to various time applied; Now through the strings a martial rage he throws. And joining straight the Theban tower arose; Then as he strokes them with a touch more sweet. The flocking marbles in a palace meet; But for the most he graver notes did try, Therefore the temples reared their columns high: Thus, ere he ceased, his sacred lute creates The harmonious city o f the seven gates. Such was that wondrous order and consent. When Cromwell tuned the ruling instrument; While tedious statesmen many years did hack, Framing a liberty that still went back; Whose numerous gorge could swallow in an hour. That island which the sea cannot devour: Then our Amphion issues out and sings, And once he struck and twice the powerful strings. The Commonwealth then first together came. And each one entered in the willing frame. All other matter yields, and may be ruled, But who the minds o f stubborn men can build? No quarry bears a stone so hardly wrought. Nor with such labour from its centre brought: None to be sunk in the foundation bends. Each in the house the highest place contends; And each the hand that lays him will direct. And some fall back upon the architect; Yet all, composed by his attractive song. Into the animated city throng.95

Striking similarities emerge between these lines and Coustau’s emblem on Amphion. Hollander observes that Marvell here characteristically uses traditional ideas on music ‘with the same 95 ‘The First Anniversary o f the Government under O .C .\ lines 4 9 -8 6 (The Poems & Letters o f Andrew Marvell, ed. H.M. Margoliouth, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952], 1:104-5).

40

The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

immediacy as if they were the data of direct sensuous experi­ ence’;96 we might add that he is very close, intentionally or not, to an emblematic mode of expression. This section of the poem is in fact almost perfectly and symmetrically divided into two linked groups of lines, the first dedicated to the presentation of the image of Amphion ‘in action’ (lines 49-66), the second to its comparison with Cromwell (lines 67-86). It is also relevant that Marvell uses the parallel, already noted in Coustau, between the stones and the ‘stubborn men’ who first contend with one another, but then are moved and put into the right place by the musical politician. If Amphion, together with the eloquent Orpheus, seems to be preferred as an emblem for a political leader - the story of the building of Thebes favouring this civic application - he is also used, sometimes only incidentally, as a touchstone in poems in praise of a particular musician, always in connection with the traditional theme of the effectus musices. An English emblem offers an example of these two possible applications: the pictura (fig. 13) presents a traditional icono­ graphy of music personified as a woman playing a stringed instrument, here a lute, and surrounded by a ring of ears representing the sense of hearing. The epigram exploits the traditional topoi of the praise of music, in particular the idea of the participation and responsiveness of animals and natural elements to the music of the microcosm, conceived as an imitation of musica mundana, the music of the macrocosm. A reference to Amphion appears in this context and is finally transmuted into the praise of an influential patron:

96 Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 306. In his comment on this passage (304-9) Hollander also rightly remarks on the reference to the different effects o f musical modes that almost conflates Marvell’s Amphion with another ‘mythical’ musi­ cian, Timotheus, who was believed to have provoked opposite reactions in Alexander the Great by sudden changes o f musical modes (on this story, see a later elaboration by Dryden in his ode ‘Alexander’s Feast; or, the Power o f Musique. An Ode in honour o f St Cecilia’s Day: 1697’).

Amphion, Arion and Apollo: The Triumph of the Lyre

41

Yea, senseless Stones at the old Poets song, Themselues in heapes did so together throng. That to high beauteous structures they did swell Without the helpe o f hand, or vse o f skill: This Harmony in t’humane Fabricke steales: And is the sinewes o f all Common-weales. In you this Concords so diuinely placed: That it by you, not you by it is graced.97

As in previous examples, the use of Amphion here serves to strengthen the idea of a commonwealth to be tuned by the harmo­ nious politician, who is himself, on another level, an expression of musica Humana, the well-balanced man. The fact that the pictura only partially corresponds to the added epigram may be due to the fact that English emblem books, as in this instance, frequently reused woodcuts or engravings taken from pre-existing works.98 In other examples, in seventeenth-century poetry in particular, the use of the story of Amphion moving the stones can be more witty than political, and in this case the conceit is based again on the effects of music. Among the most interesting examples are two madrigals by the Italian poet Marino on the subject of a statue of marble representing Amphion:

97 The Mirrour o f Maiestie: or, The Badges o f Honour conceitedly Emblazoned; with Emblemes Annexed, poetically vnfolded (London: Printed by W.I., 1618), ed. Henry Green and James Croston, facsimile ed. (Manchester: A. Brothers; London: Triibner & Co., 1870), 35. This work is sometimes attributed to Sir Henry Goodyere, an attendant o f King James; the dedicatee o f this emblem, Philip Herbert, Earl o f Montgomery, whose blazon is reproduced on the facing verso, was identified by Green (134-5) as the Lord Chamberlain o f the Household to Charles I and Chancellor o f the University o f Oxford, who was also a ‘patron o f learning’. 98 Freeman devotes a few pages to this book (English Emblem Books, 82-84), but does not mention the probable ‘pirating’ o f the picturae from a projected emblem book, which was never printed, by an Italian refugee in England: on this issue, see Martin R. Smith, ‘The Apologia and emblems o f Ludovico Petrucci’, Bodleian Library>Record 8 (1967), 40-7.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

Anfione di marmo Quel musico tebano, lo cui soave canto ale pietre die vita, or son di pietra imagine scolpita. Ma ЬепсЬё pietra, io vivo, io spiro, e ’ntanto cosi tacendo io canto. Or ceda ogni altra il pregio ala tua mano, fabro il lustre e sovrano, poich’animar la pietra sa meglio il tuo scarpel che la mia cetra.

Nel medesimo suggetto Non e di vita privo, non e di spirto casso quest’Anfion di sasso, anzi si vive e spira che, se’l plettro movesse insu la lira, quand’ei non fusse vivo, la sua stessa armonia avivar lo poria 99

These two short lyrics are interesting from our point of view in that they provide similarities with the emblem genre: in Alciato and in other emblem books a statue of a mythological character, represented in the pictura, is then symbolically expounded. In the first lyric, Marino’s epigrammatic verses apparently aim at praising the sculptor’s art, but an exaltation of the power of music/poetry is also at stake: as a recent commentator has noted, it is the poet who can make the statue speak, animating the stones as Amphion had done.100 The speaking statue of Amphion, with its expressiveness, here becomes a polyvalent emblem not only of the power of music

99 Giovan Battista Marino, Amori, ed. Alessandro Martini (Milan: Rizzoli, 1995), 60-1; these two Madrigali are nos. 146 and 147 o f the second part o f the Rime (Venice, 1602). 1°° See Martini, ibid., 128-31.

Amphion, Arion and Apollo: The Triumph of the Lyre

43

but also of the power of sculpture and, above all, of poetry. The second lyric as well, with its hidden reference to La Lira, which is also the general title of Marino’s collection of poems, seems to imply this self-referential praise. These poems are relevant to the British context because the second madrigal was adapted by the Scottish poet William Drummond of Hawthomden, who surprisingly reverses the final conceit. But even in the petrifying, Gorgon-like effect mentioned in the final verse, the power of music/poetry is not diminished: Amphion o f marble. This Amphion, Phidias frame. Though sencelesse it apeare, Doth liue, and is the same Did Thebes towres vpreare; And if his harpe he tuitche not to your eare. No wonder, his harmonious sounds alone Wauld you amaze, & change him selfe in stone.101

In his ground-breaking essay on emblem literature, Mario Praz stressed the particular link between emblems and epigrammatic, conceitful poetry.102 Neither Marino nor Drummond moralise the image of Amphion, but rather use it as a starting-point for the elaboration of one or more conceits. Yet the parallel with the emblem is perceivable at the structural level. Drummond, who also reminds the reader of Amphion’s achievement, unites Marino’s separate lyrics into a single one. The result is a poem metrically divided into two parts: the first four lines introducing the image, the last three lines building a conceit on it.103 101 William Drummond o f Hawthomden, Poetical Works, ed. L.E. Kastner (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1913), 2:236. 102 See Praz, Studies, 1-54. 103 On Drummond o f Hawthomden’s Anglicising o f the poetic form o f the Italian madrigal, see Robert Cummings, ‘L’anglicizzazione del madrigale: il caso di William Drummond o f Hawthomden', L Asino d'oro 7 (1993), 145-63.

44

The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

We may now pass to a consideration of Arion, the other mythological character often associated with Orpheus and Amphion in Renaissance culture. Arion’s legend was again derived from various classical and post-classical sources,104 but we may also think of a particular interaction with Renaissance mythographic and iconographic traditions. Arion and his story are significantly present in Comes’s handbook105 and in all the editions of Alciato’s collection, the most influential emblem book throughout Europe. The pictura representing Arion as a child playing his harp astride a dolphin in early editions of Alciato (fig. 14)106 was later replaced by a more complex one figuring in simultaneous narrative the main episodes of the myth: in the foreground Arion and his harp are thrown into the sea by the greedy crew of the ship on which he was travelling, and in the background the same is triumphantly playing his harp on the dolphin charmed by his music.107 Alciato, adapting an epigram from the Greek Anthology,108 moralises this story as an example of the ‘humanity’ of animals compared to the savagery of greedy men, as is already suggested by the motto, In auaros, uel quibus melior conditio ab extraneis offertur.109 The power ascribed to Arion’s song in this case is Orphic: although the dolphin is traditionally considered

104 See, for example, Ovid Fasti 2.79-118; Herodotus Histories 1.23-4. 105 For the wide influence o f Comes’s handbook and o f similar works on Renais­ sance art and culture, see in particular Jean Seznec, The Survival o f the Pagan

Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art, trans. B.F. Sessions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 279-323. 106 See the first edition, Andrea Alciato, Emblematum liber (Augsburg: Per Heynricum Steynerum, 1531), sig. A6r; and Andrea Alciato, Emblematum libellus (Paris: Excudebat Christianus Wechelus, 1534), 15 (fig. 14). •°7 See the pictura o f Whitney’s emblem, reusing a woodcut already employed for one o f the Plantin editions o f Alciato, fig. 15. I°8 See ‘On a Statue o f Arion’ by Bianor (The Greek Anthology, trans. W.R. Paton, The Loeb Classical Library [London: William Heinemann; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969], 3:166, no.276). 109 Alciato, Emblematum libellus (Paris: Excudebat Christianus Wechelus, 1534) 15.

Amphion, Arion and Apollo: The Triumph of the Lyre

45

responsive to music, the emblematist’s verses underline the power of music to charm and bridle wild animals, and to impose a control over nature, here specifically alluded to through a reference to the sea waves: Delphini insidens unda caerula sulcat Arion, Hocque aures mulcet, fraenat & ora sono: Quam sit auari hominis, non tam mens dira ferarum est, Quique uiris rapimur, piscibus eripimur.110

Ovid, in a reference to Arion in his Fasti, had equally stressed this feature of music’s Orphic control over nature: Quod mare non novit, quae nescit Ariona tellus? carmine currentes ille tenebat aquas, saepe sequens agnam lupus est a voce retentus, saepe avidum fugiens restitit agna lupum; saepe canes leporesque umbra iacuere sub una, et stetit in saxo proxima cerva leae, et sine lite loquax cum Palladis slite comix sedit, et accipitri iuncta columba fuitJ 11

Whitney (fig. 15), in adapting Alciato, modifies his specific moral lesson on avarice by replacing the original motto with a more general one on human behaviour (Homo homini lupus).112 The first part of his epigram amplifies the theme with references to other tales ‘by diuers aucthors’: his marginalia, quoting both clas­ sical and Christian sources, provide a context for the tale of Arion, suggesting an idea of fraternity between animals and men as opposed to the unchristian behaviour of ‘frendes supposed’.

110 Ibid. 111 Ovid Fasti 2.83-90. 112 This motto was also used by Reusner for one o f his emblems, see Reusner, Emblemata, book 3, no. 30. It is drawn from Plautus As inaria 5.495.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

The second part, referring the reader directly to the pictura, focuses on the episode of Arion that is briefly retold:

ARION lo, who gained store o f goulde. In countries farre: with harpe, and pleasant voice: Did shipping take, and to CORINTHVS woulde. And to his wishe, o f pilottes made his choice: Who rob’d the man, and threwe him to the sea, A Dolphin, lo, did beare him safe aw aie.'' 3

Arion’s musical skill here is not connected with its power over the dolphin, but rather to its achievement of a material prize. Music is seen mainly as a rewarding activity, and Arion as a touchstone of the accomplished professional musician, his almost supernatural ability being, in a sense, reduced by Whitney’s depiction of his rescue by the dolphin as an almost fortuitous event. No hint is made at his specific moral ‘virtuosity’, and even his status as a traditional ‘sacer vate’, close to Orpheus, is only given back to him by a final Latin quotation which concludes the subscription 14 But in English sixteenth-century theoretical treatises and in poetical works concerned with the praise and defence of music, the moral background for the tale of Arion is usually taken for granted. In a long, anonymous treatise published in the same year as Whitney’s collection, for example, the myth of the singer and the dolphin is used to exemplify the ‘natural’ sensibility to music even of animals - as opposed to some ‘unnatural’ human passions:

Wonderful are those thinges, which in good authors are related o f the dolphin: but for our purpose, none so fit, as that o f Arion: whose excellent skill in Musicke, giveth testimony as well against the sauage and barbarous cruelty o f those unnatural shipmen, which sought to take away his life: as to the gentle and kinde nature o f the dolphin, which is both a lover o f men, and an earnest follower o f musicke. Arion seeing no way to134

113 Whitney, A Choice o f Emblemes, 144. 114 Ibid.

Amphion, Arion and Apollo: The Triumph of the Lyre

47

escape the furie o f his cruel enemies, tooke his Citteme in his hand, and to his instrument sang his last song, where-with not only the dolphines flocked in multitudes about the ship readie to receiue him on their backes, but euen the sea that rude and barbarous element, being before roughe and tempestuous, seemed to allay his choler, waring calme on a sodaine, as if it had beene to giue Arion quiet passage through the waues.l I5

This reading clearly shows similarities with Alciato’s emblem and is within the same tradition that emphasised the motif of Arion’s control over nature, a tradition continued in the following century, as in a Latin poem by Richard Crashaw: Carminis hoc placido Tridente Abjurat sua jam murmura, ventusque modestior Auribus ora mutat: Attendit hanc ventus ratem: non trahit, at trahiturJ 16

In poetical praises of music, so well studied by James Hutton,! 17 the reference to Arion charming the dolphin could appear even in a contracted form, as in a poem by Richard Edwards which provides one of the most representative examples of this kind: The Godds by Musick hath their praie. The foule therein doth ioye.546

4 5 The Praise o f Musicke (Oxford: Ioseph Barnes, 1586), 48-9; this treatise is sometimes attributed to the philosopher John Case, who wrote a Latin work on the same subject, see John Case, Apologia Musices tam Vocalis quam Instrumentalis et Mixtae (Oxford: Excudebat Iosephus Bamesius, 1588). 4 6 ‘Arion’, lines 15-17 and 22 (Richard Crashaw, Steps to the Temple, Delights o f the Muses and Other Poems, ed. A.R. Waller [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904], 180). On the idea o f the musician’s control over nature, commenting also on Wither’s emblem on Arion discussed below, see Linda Phyllis Austem, ‘Nature, Culture, Myth, and the Musician in Early Modem England’, Journal o f the American Musicological Society 51 (1998), 1-47. 117 See Hutton, ‘Some English Poems in Praise o f Music’.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

For as the Romaine Poets saie. In seas whom Pirats would destroye, A Dolphin saued from death most sharpe, Arion plaiyng on his harpe. A heauenly gift, that tumes the minde. Like as the steme doth rule the ship, Musick whom the Gods assignde To comfort man, whom cares would nip, Sith thou ma & beast doest moue. What wise man then wil thee reproue?118

The almost inconsequential association of Arion with the Gods who hunt with music (which helps them to capture birds) is again based on the topos of the responsiveness of animals to music and anticipates, in a sense, the emphasis of the following stanza on music as a ‘heavenly gift’. If in this poem, as Hollander has noted, the importance of music is in its psychological effects, in ‘its power to quicken despair into joy or at least well-being’,119 then the conclusion also underlines that the appreciation and the practice of music are a sign of ‘wisdom’ and therefore implicitly become an act of faith. Other poems of the same period leave these moral undertones implied, and yet they often rely on a ‘visual’ presentation of the myth when elaborating the same imagery on the power of music/poetry. The brief allusion to Arion in a stanza of The Faerie Queene represents both the dolphin and the sea as subjected to the singer’s music, as in the emblems mentioned above. Arion appears during a feast in the hall of Proteus, among the personifications of rivers and sea-gods:

118 ‘In commendation o f Musick’, lines 13-24, in Leicester Bradner, The Life and Poems o f Richard Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1927), 127. The beginning o f this poem is also quoted by Peter in Romeo and Juliet 4.4.152-4. 119 Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 117.

Amphion, Arion and Apollo: The Triumph of the Lyre

49

Then was there heard a most celestial 1 sound. O f dainty musicke, which did next ensew Before the spouse: that was Arion crownd; Who playing on his harpe, vnto him drew The eares and hearts o f all that goodly crew. That euen yet the Dolphin, which him bore Through the Aegaean seas from Pirates vew, Stood still by him astonisht at his lore. And all the raging seas for ioy forgot to rore. So went he playing on the watery plained20

Remembering that the overall theme of the fourth book is friendship, Arion and the dolphin are an appropriate emblem of concord within this context. Dramatic - and emblematic presentations of Arion, equivalent to the one in these lines, took place in several entertainments of the same period: Arion, for ex­ ample, was the main character of one of the intermedi staged for a court festival in Florence in 1589,*121 and in England he often appears in pageants for royal progresses and civic festivities.122 But the same image and the related topos of the power of music could also be used by Spenser as a starting-point for the elaboration of a conceit in a love sonnet.123 In two of his Amoretti

120 The Faerie Queene 4.11.23—4. 121 The common theme o f this important series o f intermedi was in fact that o f the power o f music, and scholars link its presence in that context with the interests in ancient music o f some o f the artists involved; the same interests and theoretical debates on this topic eventually led to the creation o f the first operas. On this event, see Aby Warburg, ‘I Costumi teatrali per gli Intermezzi del 1589. I disegni di Bernardo Buontalenti e il Libro di Conti di Emilio de’ Cavalieri. Saggio storico-artistico (1895)’, in id.. La Rinascita del Paganesimo antico: Contributi alia Storia della cultura, ed. Gertrud Bing (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1966), 59-107; and Roy Strong, Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals, 1450-1650 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1984), 136-41. 122 See Progresses and Public Processions o f Queen Elizabeth, 1:500-1; and Processes, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities, o f King James the First, 2:618 and 3:198. 123 For Elizabethan sonnet imagery, see especially Lisle Cecil John, The Elizabethan Sonnet Sequences: Studies in Conventional Conceits (New York:

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

the poet refers to the successful outcome of Arion’s and Orpheus’ music. He stresses, by contrast, his own inability to obtain similar effects on the beloved woman: Arion, when through tempests cruel wracke. He forth was thrown into the greede seas: through the sweet musick which his harp did make, allur’d a Dolphin him from death to ease. But my rude musick, which was want to please some dainty eares, cannot with any skill, the dreadfull tempest o f her wrath appease, nor moue the Dolphin from her stubborn will. But in her pride she dooth perseuer still, all carelesse how my life for her decayse: yet with one word she can it saue or spill, to spill were pitty, but to saue were prayse. Chose rather to be praysd for dooing good. Then to be blam’d for spilling guiltlesse blood.I24

When those renoumed noble Peres o f Greece, thrugh stubborn pride amongst themselues did iar forgetfull o f the famous golden fleece, then Orpheus with his harp theyr strife did bar. But this continuall cruell ciuill warre, the which my selfe against my selfe doe make: whilest my weak powres o f passions warreid arre, no skill can stint nor reason can aslake. But when in hand my tunelesse harp 1 take, then doe 1 more augment my foes despight: and griefe renew, and passions doe awake to battaile, fresh against my selfe to fight. Mongst whome the more I seeke to settle peace, the more 1 fynd their malice to increase.124125 Columbia University Press, 1938; reprint. New York: Russell & Russell, 1964). Studies on the Elizabethan sonnet usually disregard the use o f musical imagery as basis for conceits; however, a few examples can be found in Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 131-40. 124 Spenser, Amoretti, no.38. This sonnet is probably the direct source o f an imitation in a minor sonnet sequence, Laura (1597) by Robert Tofte (Elizabethan Sonnets, ed. S. Lee [Westminster: Archibal Constable, 1904], 2:360). 125 Spenser, Amoretti, no.44.

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Although a direct influence of emblems with Orpheus and Arion in this case may seem unlikely, it is interesting again to note similarities at the structural level between the method of compos­ ition used by Spenser here and that used later by other poets writing witty verses on a mythological subject, as in the case of the Marino/Drummond epigrams.126 The two sonnets are similar in their structure, as they are built on a clear-cut division between the first four lines - dedicated to the mythical icon and almost corresponding to an emblematic pictura - and the rest of the poem in which the image is applied to the narrator’s stance. The moral tradition in the case of Arion also remained strong until the seventeenth century. In a Continental emblem book by Rollenhagen, the music of Arion is a metaphor for ‘virtue’, and his musical ability is only hinted at in the pictura showing the musician, holding a stringed instrument, with a dolphin at his feet. Both the Latin motto and the epigram refer to the triumph of virtue even in danger.127 This trend of interpretation had been anticipated by Comes, who, even if questioning the literal truth of the tale of Arion, had already shifted the emphasis to divine intervention: the animals were interpreted, in a sense, as instruments by which the Gods punish wicked men and rescue the innocent and virtuous.128 126 For structura1 analogies between emblems and poems o f the same period, see the chapter ‘Emblematic Poetry’ in Daly, Literature in the Light o f the Emblem, 103-33. The author remarks on the particular aptness o f the sonnet to emblematic applications: T h e sonnet form, with its strict division into quatrains and tercets, not only allows, but also encourages, a division into pictorial and interpretational sections’ (122). 127 The pictura is the same as Wither’s, see fig. 16. The inscribed motto reads Spernit pericula virtfus], the epigram Non aduersa timet SPERNITQUE PER1CVLA VIRTUS, / Ilia vel in medio, nescit obhire, mar'u see Gabriel Rollenhagen, Nucleus Emblematum selectissimorum (Cologne: E Musaeo caelatorio Crispini Passaei, 1611), no. 10. A similar engraving with Arion by De Passe is reproduced in Veldman, Crispijn de Passe and His Progeny, 131, see above, 30 n. 73. A later Continental example o f Arion is in the German emblem book by Jacob de Zetter, Speculum Virtutum & Vitiorum (Frankfurt: Apud Lucam Jennis, 1619), 64. 128 See Comes, Mythologiae, fol. 257v: ‘quippe cum animalia quoque rationis expertia & vocis, soleant aliquando Diis ita volentibus esse sceleratorum

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In England an emblem by Wither follows the same tradition. The author, in adapting Rollenhagen’s emblem, made Arion a paragon of Christian virtue by freely amplifying the concise motto of his source (fig. 16). Critics have already remarked upon Wither’s apparently cavalier attitude towards Rollenhagen’s emblem book, which the English writer criticises openly in the preface to his work; in fact, he appreciated it only insofar as its picturae provided a good starting-point for his independent ‘meditations’.129 In the emblem of Arion, Wither sticks to Rollenhagen’s interpretation of the hero as an embodiment of virtue, expanding it in a specifically religious sense. The story of Arion becomes a parable of human life, and the musician an example of the perfect Christian victoriously struggling against evil forces by not des­ pairing and by relying on divine help. In Wither’s epigram this notion of virtue is also rendered through the traditional concept of musica humana, the metaphorical music in the life of a wellbalanced man (line 20): When some did seeke Arion to have drown’d. He, with a dreadlesse heart his Temples crown’d; And, when to drench him in the Seas they meant, He playd on his melodious Instrument; To shew, that Innocence disdayned Feare, Though to be sw allow ’d in the Deeps it were. Nor did it perish: For, upon her Васке A Dolphin tooke him, for his Musick’s sake: To intimate, that Vertue shall prevaile

accusatores, & innocentibus hominibus opem ferre; omneque beneficium diis gratum contingere, quod in virum bonum confertur.’ 129 See the pages addressed T o the Reader’ in George Wither, A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne (London: Printed by A.M. for Robert Allot, 1635), sigs. Ar-A 3 r; it is interesting to note here that Wither makes a negative remark on the unusual iconography o f the standing Arion in the pictura , which he interprets as a mistake on the part o f the engraver: T here be no doubt, some faults committed by the Printer, both Literall and Materiall, and some Errors o f the Gravers in the Figures, ... as ... in the Figure o f Arion\ ibid., sig. A 2r.

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With Bruitish Creatures, if with Men it faile. Most vaine is then their Hope, who dreame they can Make wretched, or undoe, an Honest-Man: For, he whom Vertuous Innocence adomes. Insults o ’re Cruelties; and, Perill scomes. Yea, that, by which. Men purpose to undoe him, (In their despight) shall bring great Honours to him. Arion-like, the Malice o f the World, Hath into Seas o f Troubles often hurl’d Deserving Men, although no Cause they had. But that their Words and Workes sweet Musicke made. O f all their outward Helps it hath bereft them; Nor meanes, nor hopes o f Comfort have beene left them; But such, as in the House o f Mourning are. And, what Good-Conscience can afford them there. Yet, Dolphin-like, their Innnocence hath rear’d Their Heads above those Dangers that appear’d. God hath vouchsaf d their harmelesse Cause to heed, And, ev ’n in Thraldome, so their Hearts hath freed. That, w hil’st they seem ’d oppressed and forlome; They Ioyd , and Sung, and Laugh’d the World to scorne.130

Hints at this possible religious interpretation were also present in Continental art of the same period. In a beautiful engraving by the Dutch Jan Harmensz. Muller, from a drawing by Comelis Comelisz. van Haarlem (fig. 17), dated around 1600, Arion’s moral standing is strengthened by a detail in the iconography of the hero: the artist depicts him on the dolphin with his gaze directed towards the sky, as if trusting in the help of Heaven. The accompanying motto, ‘Dueghd Verhueght’ (‘virtue pleases’), and the quotation from Horace’s Sermones further clarify the meaning of Arion who, as a critic remarks, becomes ‘an image of the self-*

Ibid., 10. On Wither’s emblems, see Freeman, English Emblem Books, 140-7; Bath, Speaking Pictures, 111-29; and Daly, T h e Arbitrariness o f George Wither’s Emblems: A Reconsideration’, in The Art o f the Emblem: Essays in honor o f Karl Josef Holtgen, ed. Michael Bath, John Manning and Alan R. Young (New York: AMS Press, 1993), 201-34.

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sufficient Stoic sage, whose attitude approaches that of the Christian-Stoic Humanist ideal of the sixteenth century’.131 The figures of Orpheus, Amphion and Arion were often tradition­ ally linked to the god Apollo, because they were, like him, players of a stringed instrument and, in one way or another, achievers of ‘concord’. Apollo, the protector of poetry and music, continues to be a reference point for these two arts in the Renaissance. English works include a number of allusions to the god as the embodiment of the union of music and poetry, which was one of the most pursued ideals of the period, as testified by both theoretical discussions and practical experiments in the field.132 A sonnet by Richard Bamfield, for example, uses Apollo as the trait d ’union for a praise of music and poetry, as well as of the dedicatee, and in doing so refers to two great English representatives of the arts of the period, Dowland and Spenser:

131 Horace Sermones 2.7.83-6; Thea Vignau-Wilberg, О Musica du Edle Kunst: Music und Tanz im 16. Jahrhundert (Munich: Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Miinchen, 1999), 146. There is also an earlier drawing by Diirer showing a similar iconography, see Walter L. Strauss, The Complete Drawings o f Albrecht Diirer (New York: Abans Books, 1974), 3:1458. 132 On the union o f music and poetry in the Renaissance, see Daniel P. Walker, ‘Musical Humanism in the 16th and Early 17th Centuries’; and ‘The Aims o f BaiTs Academie de Poesie et de Musique’, now in id., Music, Spirit and Lan­ guage in the Renaissance, ed. Penelope Gouk (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), unpaginated; see also Musique et Poesie au XVIе siecle , Colloques Intemationaux du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1954); and Frances Yates, The French Academies o f the Sixteenth Century, Studies o f the Warburg Institute, vol. 15 (London: The Warburg Institute, 1947); for the English context, see Bruce Pattison, Music and Poetry o f the English Renaissance (London: Methuen & Co., 1948); and Joseph Kerman, The Elizabethan Madrigal (New York: American Musicological Society, 1962), 5-37.

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To his friend Maister R.L. In praise o f Musique and Poetrie IF Musique and sweet Poetrie agree. As they must needes (the Sister and the Brother) Then must the Loue be great, twixt thee and mee. Because thou lou’st the one, and I the other. Dowland to thee is deare; whose heauenly tuch Vpon the Lute, doeth rauish humaine sense: Spenser to mee; whose deepe Conceit is such. As passing all Conceit, needs no defence. Thou lou’st to heare the sweete melodious sound. That Phoebus Lute (the Queene o f Musique) makes; And I in deepe Delight am chiefly drownd, When as himselfe to singing he betakes. One God is God o f Both (as Poets faigne) One Knight loues Both, and Both in thee remaine.133

A similar use of Apollo as a touchstone for a contemporary musician finds its way also into a manuscript emblem by Whitney, in which the English emblematist copies the pictura representing a lute from Alciato’s emblem Foedera 134 but adds an epigram eulogising a ‘Johnsonne’ whose identity remains in dispute: Musicae modemae, laus. When that Apollo harde the musicque o f theise daies. And knewe howe manie for theire skill, deserved iustlie praise, He left his chaire o f state, and laide his lute away. As one abash’d, in English courte, his auncient stuffe to plaie. And hyed vnto the skies some finer pointes to frame: And in the meane, for cunning stoppes, gaue Johnsonne all the fame. 1351345

133 Richard Bamfield, Poems: in diuers humors (1598), in Some Longer Eliza­ bethan Poems, ed. A.H. Bullen (Westminster: Archibal Constable & Co., 1903), 264. This poem was also sometimes attributed to Shakespeare for its presence in the pseudo-Shakespearean collection The Passionate Pilgrim. 134 On the political meaning o f Alciato’s emblem, see above, 26. Whitney’s manuscript emblem is reproduced in Austem, ‘Nature, Culture, Myth’, 45. 135 Quoted in John Manning, ‘Unpublished and unedited emblems’, 100-1. Manning does not question the identification o f the musician with Robert Johnson, who ‘supplied the music for the lavish entertainment for the Queen

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The iconographic tradition of Apollo playing the lyre, some­ times accompanied by the Muses, has an emblematic application later, as may be seen in Wither’s collection. Considering that the picturae of his source had to be the basis for moral teachings, regardless of their treatment in his Continental source, the picture of Apollo as a musician gives the author the chance for some observations on the appropriateness of music in the social life of the time, which was influenced, as is known, by Puritan issues.136 The pictura of Rollenhagen’s emblem, representing Apollo playing the lyre (with one of his other attributes, the bow, at his feet), symbolises the necessary balance between work and leisure in the life of man. This meaning is confirmed by other background details: on the left Apollo slays the dragon Python, and on the right he plays a wind instrument surrounded by animals in a pastoral setting.137 Valeriano had already given the same interpretation to a statue of Apollo, belonging to a similar iconographic tradition: Apollo Fidicen ... laeuam enim manum admouet ad lyrae iugum: ea Cygni dorso sustinetur: Cygnus ipse collo suauiter reflexo, rostroq[ue] ad chordas uerso, parem cum lyra uidetur harmoniam emodulari. Dextera dei dextro innititur genu, eaq[ue] plectru[m] continet; adiacet ibidem humi pharetra, utpote signum, deum ipsum non semper arcum tendere, sed aliquando tacentem Musam cithara suscitare. Et haec quoq[ue] faciunt ad Musicae significatum.138

which Leicester gave at Kenilworth’. He notes that ‘His inclusion in the manu­ script would have particular relevance for Leicester and would recall his musical, as well as his literary patronage’, ibid., 106 n. 44. Nevertheless, other critics sug­ gest alternative Christian names and identities for him, see Boyd, Elizabethan Music, 115; and Leisher, Geoffrey Whitney’s A Choice o f Emblemes, 310-16; the link with the Kenilworth entertainment is kept by both. 136 For criticism on this topic, see above, 2 n. 5. 137 See Rollenhagen, Nucleus Emblematum selectissimorum , no.76; and Wither, A Collection o f Emblemes, 234 (Fig. 18). 138 Valeriano, Hieroglyphica , fol. 165v.

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In the already mentioned treatise The Praise o f Musicke, an ancient image of the god finds the same explanation:

Music must be considered the gift and invention o f the Gods. Proof the image o f Apollo at Delos, bearing in one hand his bow and arrows as being the god o f the archers, in the other the three graces with severall instruments as having soveraintie over the musitians.139

And Roger Ascham, whose writings testify to an ambivalence towards music, had used the same idea in his educational work The Scholemaster. ‘the Muses, besides learning, were also Ladies of dauncinge, mirthe and minstrelsie: Apollo, was the god of shooting, and Author of cunning playing upon Instruments’.140 Wither adapts both the motto, Non semper arcum tendit, and the Latin epigram in an English couplet acting as an additional motto for his emblem: Apollo shoots not e v ’ry day, / But, sometime on his Harpe doth play (fig. 18). While the lawfulness of music is confirmed through the reference to the mythological example, the long epigram that follows must be read as an answer to the local objections against recreational activities that also involved music. In the same period, music in England had, in fact, been the target of different attacks not only regarding its use during the religious service, but also for its allegedly corrupting influence:141

139 ‘The Antiquitie and original o f musick: first generally, then more particularlie set downe’, The Praise o f Musicke, 1. 140 Roger Ascham, English Works, ed. William A. Wright (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904), 216. Ascham includes in the list o f gentle­ manly pastimes ‘to sing, and playe o f instrumentes cunningly’, and quotes Castiglione as an authority on the subject. However, in a previous treatise, Toxophilus, The Schole ofShootinge (1545), only a defence o f singing is opposed to the objections against some allegedly ‘effeminating’ types o f music; see also below, 87. 141 On these issues, see, for example, Boyd, Elizabethan Music; and Le Huray,

Music and the Reformation.

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The Power of Music and the ‘Music’ of Power

There are a sort o f people so severe, That .foolish, and injurious too, they are; And, if the world were to bee rul’d by these. Nor Soule, nor Bodie, ever should have ease. The Sixe dayes , (as their wisdomes understand) Are to bee spent in Labour, by command. With such a strictnesse, that they quite condemne All Recreations which are us’d in them. That, which is call’d the Sabbath , they confine To Prayers , and all Offices-divine, So wholly, that a little Recreation , That Day , is made a marke o f Reprobation .I42

The topical defence of music echoes through the reference to divine harmony encompassing the microcosmic sphere: Нее, gave the Woods, the Fields, and Meddowes, here, A time to rest, as well as times to beare. The Forrest Beasts, and Heards, have howres for p/ay, As well as time to graze, and hunt their prey: And, ev ’ry Bird some leasure hath to sing. Or, in the Aire, to sport it on her wing. And, sure, to him, for whom all these were made, Lesse kindnesse was not meant, than these have had. The Flesh will faint, if pleasure none it knowes; The Man growes madd, that alway muzing goes. The Wisest men, will sometimes merry bee: And, that is that, this Emblem teacheth m e.142143

If this double role of Apollo allowed for its moralisation in de­ fence of music, another aspect of the myth that acquired particular relevance in Renaissance culture was its agonistic side, in the musical contests between Apollo and the satyr Marsyas or the god Pan respectively. The two episodes, mediated again mainly through Ovid’s Metamorphoses and later commentaries, ended in punishment: the bloodier one of the bold Marsyas, who had 142 Wither, A Collection o f Emblemes, 234. 143 Ibid.

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thought to defy Apollo’s lyre with his inferior aulos, and had been flayed by the same god, and that of the incompetent Midas, who had been given ass ears for judging the pastoral music of Pan’s syrinx superior to the music of the Apollonian lyre.144 The two stories are sometimes blurred or conflated by Renais­ sance artists and commentators. In the visual arts, the first certainly had more relevance, as is testified by its wide presence in the works of the most important artists of the Italian Renaissance.145 Continental mythographers and emblem writers show how Marsyas’ hybris could be easily turned into a negative exemplum of ‘excess’, both with a specifically artistic and with a more general moral application. The German humanist Sabinus interprets the Ovidian tale with a special emphasis on the difference between ‘light’ and learned poetry, elaborating on the traditional opposition between stringed and wind instruments.146 On the other hand, in Comes’s influential treatise, as well as in some emblem books, the moral application seems to prevail, considering that Marsyas is not interpreted as a bad musician but as an example either of pride and temerity or of a man who, not content with what he has been allotted, falls into disgrace.147

144 Ovid Metamorphoses 6.382-400 and 11.146-79. Two woodcuts on these epi­ sodes from an illustrated edition o f Ovid are reproduced in figs.20-1. 145 This motif is treated in works by, among others, Raphael, Giulio Romano, Tintoretto and Titian, see Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology\ 1:638-41. Some examples o f this iconographic tradition are discussed by Wintemitz in ‘The Curse o f Pallas Athena’, chap, in Musical Instruments and their Symbolism, 150-65. See also Edith Wyss, The Myth o f Apollo and Marsyas in the Art o f the Italian Renais­ sance: An Inquiry into the Meaning o f Images (Newark: University o f Delaware Press; London: Associated University Press, 1996). 146 Ovid, Fabularum Ovidii interpretatio, Ethica, Physica, et Historica, tradita in Academia Regiomontana a Georgio Sabino (Cambridge: Ex officina Thomae Thomae, 1584), 230-1: this English edition gives further evidence o f the diffusion o f Continental mythographic works in England. 147 See Comes, Mythologiae, fol. 186v; Jean Mercier, Emblemata [1592?], sig. Biiijv-C lr (fig. 19); and Reusner, Emblemata, book 3, no.27.

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Sandys’s commentary on Ovid shows the typical blend of artistic and moral issues of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century interpretations of the tale: Marsyas: a Musician excelling in wind instruments, and called a Satyre, for his rude and lascivious composures: who finding the flute, which Minerua cast away, when she beheld in the riuer how the blowing therof distorted her visage, was the first o f mortalls that played thereon: and so cunningly, that he presumed to challenge Apollo with his Harpe: by whom overcome, he had his skinne stript ouer his eares by the victor. It is said that Minerua threw the flute away, not only for deforming her face, but that such musique conferreth nothing to the knowledge o f the Mind; presented by that Goddesse, the patronesse o f wit and learning. The fiction o f the Satyres punishment was invented not only to deterre from such selfe-exaltation: but to dehort the Athenians from the practise o f an art so illiberall, whereunto the Thebans were generally addicted. ... Marsyas, the inventor o f wind instruments, may resemble ambition and vaine-glory, which delight in loud shouts and applauses: but virtue and wisdome haue a sweeter touch, though they make not so great a noyse in popular opinion. 148

The other episode, the contest between Apollo and Pan, was equally subjected to interpretations in the moral vein. In this case the major focus of attention is not Pan, who, unlike Marsyas, is not punished, but the artless King Midas, whose error of judgement could be variously interpreted. A possible application regards man’s evaluation of earthly and heavenly things, as in an Italian commentator of Ovid:

CHE Mida giudicasse migliore il canto di Pane, che quello di Apolline, non e da maravigliarsi, perche gli huomini, che hanno corrotto il giudicio, stimeranno sempre piu le cose terrene di Pane, che le celesti di Apolline, e pero mertano di essere scoperti di havere forecchie d ’Asini, che non e altro, che essere conosciuti havere piu delle bestie, che de gli huomini; e quanto piu pensano coprire la loro bestialita, con oro, dignita, grandezze, tanto piu i loro propri costumi, che sono ancora i loro loquaci servitori, li148

148 Ovid, O vid’s Metamorphosis Englished, 224-5.

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vanno palesando per tutto il mondo, figurato per la terra, il quale poi ne produce le canne, che sono le trombe de i Scrittori, e Poeti, che vanno scoprendo in ogni parte i vitij bestiali loro. 149

In England, Francis Bacon is clearly in the same line in making the story of Pan’s contest a parable of the limits of human know­ ledge: The quarrell he made with Apollo about Musicke, and the euent therof conteines a wholsome instruction, which may serue to restraine mens reasons and iudgements with the reines o f sobriety from boasting and glorying in their gifts. For there seemes to be a twofold Harmonie, or Musicke; the one o f diuine providence, and the other o f humane reason. Now to the eares o f mortals that is to humane judgement, the administration o f the world and the creatures therin, and the more secret iudgements o f God, sound very hard and harsh; which folly albeit it bee well set out with Asses eares, yet notwithstanding these eares are secret, and doe not openly appeare, neither is it perceiued or noted as a deformity by the vulgar. •50

Campion, who treats this musical myth in a charming text for music for one of his ayres, shows a similar metaphorical interpret­ ation of the two kinds of music when he mentions Apollo’s cosmographical song in opposition to the pastoral music of Pan. This lyric, by the figurative expressiveness of its three stanzas, provides a sequence of verbal illustrations, with the curious addition of an angry Apollo who has recourse to his bow to confirm his primacy: To his sweet Lute Apollo sung the motions o f the Spheares; The wondrous order o f the Stars, whose course diuides the yeares. And all the Mysteries aboue:14950

149 Ovid, Le Metamorfosi di Ovidio ridotte, 418. 150 ‘Pan, or Nature’, in Francis Bacon, De Sapientia Veterum, London, 1609 and The Wisedome o f the Ancients (translated by Sir Arthur Gorges), London, 1619, facsimile ed. (New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1976), 34-5.

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But none o f this could Midas moue. Which purchast him his Asses eares. Then Pan with his rude Pipe began the Country-wealth t'aduance; To boast o f Cattle, flocks o f Sheepe, and Goates, on hils that dance. With much more o f this churlish kinde, That quite transported Midas minde. And held him rapt as in a trance. This wrong the God o f Musicke scorned from such a sottish Iudge, And bent his angry bow at Pan , which made the Piper trudge: Then Midas head he so did trim That eu’ry age yet talkes o f him And Phoebus right reuenged grudge. *5 1

The contest of Apollo and Pan finds its way into emblem litera­ ture through the influence of illustrated and annotated editions of Ovid. An example in a Continental book, Picta Poesis by the French AneauJ52 was included by Whitney in his collection for the benefit of an English reading public. The pictura (fig. 22) shows Midas already endowed with ass ears in front of the two musicians. Pan is playing a bagpipe, Apollo a stringed instrument similar to a violin but played as if it were a guitar. If the picture is rather unusual from the point of view of iconographic conventions (in other illustrations of the same period Pan is usually attributed a syrinx, Apollo a lira da braccio), nevertheless the traditional opposition between stringed and wind instrument, rooted in the old philosophical interpretation of the two types of instruments, remains.1512153 151 The Fourth Booke o f Ayres [1617?], no.8, in Campion, Campion’s Works, 178-9. 152 Barthelemy Aneau, Picta Poesis (Lyons: Apud Mathiam Bonhomme, 1552), 91. According to Chatelain (Livres d ’emblemes, 79) both the French and the Latin editions use pictures already employed for an illustrated Ovid, the Traductions des Metamorphoses d ’Ovide by Ctement Marot published in Lyons in 1550 by Guillaume Rouilte (see also above, 16, n.33). 153 For traditional attitudes towards stringed and wind instruments, based on the authority o f several ancient writers, see Wintemitz, Musical Instruments and their Symbolism , 152-3.

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The moral application of the image is condensed by Whitney in an epigram shorter than the original Latin one, but the motto Peruersa iudicia is kept. Even the marginalia to the epigram are extremely scanty, being reduced to a single reference to the usual Ovid. Again, the attention shifts from Pan, rightly marked as ‘pre­ sumptuous’ by Whitney, to the punishment of Midas. A line of interpretation of Midas’ judgement tended to stress his kingly status, so that the story could be turned into a criticism of the incompetence of kings and princes, specifically on artistic matters, as in the case of Sabinus: Quoniam plerique regum ac principum sunt aut prorsus illiterati aut indoctiores, quam vt de musica, hoc est, de literis & honestis artibus recte iudicare possint (nam in aulis, vt videmus plerumque semiliterati doctissimis praeferuntur) ideo Poetae finxerunt Midam quoque admirari agrestiorem musicam: nec fauere Apollini. ... Ergo non dubium est hanc fabulam esse confictam in principes auaros & indoctos, quibus pluris est aurum, quam sapientia.154

Sandys also hints at this aspect of the topic in his typically multilayered commentary: Pan presents illiterate rusticity; Apollo a mind imbued with the divine endowments o f art and nature. Midas an ignorant Prince, unable to distinguish betweene that which is vile and excellent; and therefore preferrs the one before the other; for which he is iustly branded by the learned with the ensignes o f folly.155

154 Ovid, Fabularum Ovidii interpretation 429-30. 155 Ovid, Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished, 390. The author is also evidently indebted to Bacon, as is shown by the passage that follows, ibid.: ‘But to sore more high: the contention betweene these musitians, and the euent thereof, ex­ hibits a healthfull doctrine, which may restraine our vaineglory and iudgements with sobriety. For there is a twofold harmony or musick; the one o f diuine provi­ dence, and the other o f humane reason. To humane iudgement (which is as it were to mortall eares) the administration o f the World, o f the creature, and more secret decrees o f the highest, sound harsh and disconsonant; which ignorance, though it be deseruedly markt with the eares o f an asse, yet is it not apparant, or noted for a deformity by the vulgar.’

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In Whitney, then, the choice of this episode can be read as an­ other ‘mirror for magistrates’ (perhaps for the dedicatee of the collection, the Earl of Leicester), as is shown by the explicit didac­ tic intent of the emblem ‘which doth all Iudges teache, / To iudge with knowledge, and aduise, in matters paste their reach’.156 The above excursus on the uses of Amphion, Arion and Apollo in early modem English and Continental works leads to the conclu­ sion that, as in the case of Orpheus, there must have been an inter­ action between literary works, emblem books and iconographic traditions. In fact, even writers who lack a visual correlative for the musical myth often elaborate a verbal image in the form of a detailed or concise description of the musician and his achievements, and then apply it to the different purposes of their works. As regards the functions of allusions to Amphion and Arion, some points of contact, as well as of divergence, can be distin­ guished. These mythical musicians can be used alternatively or together in verse or prose in praise of music or of a specific musician. In the case of Amphion the motif of the moving stones can provide an apt foundation for the elaboration of a conceit in a eulogistic or epigrammatic poem, while Arion’s music has further implications when it is seen as an instrument through which he, and man in general, can exercise control over the natural world. But Amphion’s main function, as the builder of a city, seems primarily connected with ideas of civic harmony and political concord, and his use is in this sense similar to, if less recurrent than, that of Orpheus. On the other hand, the myth of Arion can more often be subject to an elaboration in a spiritual and sometimes specifically religious sense, on the basis of the tradition presenting him as a victim and later a victor in his confrontation with evil men. The effects of his music then, apart from being a

156 Whitney, A Choice o f Emblemes, 218. Aneau’s Latin epigram takes vain elo­ quence ('eloquentia vana’) as a target, see Aneau, Picta Poesis, 91.

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proof of his virtuoso skill, become primarily a sign of the intervention of superior forces for the rescue of a virtuous man. Apollo, the god superintending the arts of music and poetry, perhaps remains the supreme touchstone in the standard praise of poets and/or musicians, above Orpheus, Amphion and Arion. But the Renaissance tendency towards moralisation and symbolic inter­ pretation of mythology, of musical myths in our case, is visible in the particular favour attributed to the treatment of his two musical contests, in which the primacy of Apollonian music is clearly only a starting-point leading to a consideration of the dangers of pride, excessive trust in one’s knowledge or art as embodied in Marsyas, or of ignorance and misjudgement, as in the case of Midas.

1.3 Musical Instruments as Concord, Rhetoric and Virtue The power of the music of Orpheus, Amphion, Arion and Apollo is linked to their being players of a stringed instrument. Musical instruments sometimes appear as the main feature in the picturae of Continental and English emblem books and, as a conclusion to this section, I would like to deal with a few examples in which the instruments are connected with some of the ideas about music discussed above. Several critics have remarked on how ideas of harmony depending on ancient traditions were applied both to the cosmo­ logical and to the political thought of the early modem period.157 O f particular interest here is their elaboration in emblem books through the figures of the harp and lute, considered as the contem­ porary equivalents of ancient stringed instruments. The harp, in Peacham’s emblem about the union of the British kingdom, was explicitly linked to the Orphic conceit and to the idea of the mon­ arch as a new Orpheus. That was, in fact, an adaptation of Alciato’s emblem where a lute had expressed the idea of political 157 See Heninger, Touches o f Sweet Harmony, Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas o f World Harmony, and Daly, ‘Cosmic Harmony and Political Thinking in Early Stuart England’.

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concord as equivalent to the harmony produced by the different strings of a properly tuned instrument.158 One possible source by which the figure of the stringed instrument as political concord found its way into Renaissance iconography, even before Alciato’s example, is one of the most influential works for early modem symbol theory, Horapollo’s Hieroglyphics. Here it is stated that the Egyptians used the lyre ‘when they wished to indicate a man who binds together and unites his fellows ... For the lyre preserves the unity of its sounds.’159 In a similar way, Valeriano relates that the ancient Romans used the lyre as a symbol of concord.160 In Horapollo the emphasis is on the intrinsic quality of the instrument in keeping proper tuning regardless of the player. All later political applications of the emblematic stringed instrument can, in fact, exploit two alternative concepts, either using the harmony between the strings of the harp or lute as a metaphor for concord, or underlining the necessary presence, as in the case of Alciato and Peacham, of a player or tuner of the same. In Zincgref s collection of political emblems, for example, we find again a picture of a lute, as in Alciato, with a city in the back­ ground (fig. 23). But while Alciato’s emblem focused on political alliances, the French subscriptio of this emblem applies the idea of concordia discors both to musical sounds and to civic life:

158 See above, 26. 159 The Hieroglyphics o f Horapollo, trans. George Boas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 97, no. 116. Boas rightly remarks that this one, like other references, seems to belong to a Greek or Graeco-Roman rather than to an Egyptian tradition (16). The Hieroglyphics circulated widely in the sixteenth cen­ tury and were also illustrated in emblematic fashion, see, for example, Ori Apollinis Niliace, de Sacris notis & sculpturis libri duo ( Paris: Apud Iacobum Kerver, 1551), 213, accompanying the voice in question with the picture o f a harp on a bed. 160 Valeriano, Hieroglyphica, fol. 346v: ‘Igitvr, ut palam est, Romani veteres per Lyrae hieroglyphicum concordia[m] figurarunt.’

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Comme de sons confus s ’entonne l’harmonie D ’vn accordant discord, de mesme vne скё Quoy que d’hommes diuers maintiendra requite. Si par des bonnes loix sagement se manie.161

The Latin text that follows stresses how a society must be based on proportion rather than equality between its different parts, warning citizens not to turn polyphonic music into homophony. In the British context the harp played by an Orphic musician was linked to King James I, but both this figure and its association with the British monarch had a long life even later, as testified by several uses during the rest of the seventeenth century. An interesting recurrence is in emblematic flag devices of the civil wars of 1642-60. Among the examples collected by Alan Young, four represent the Irish harp: of these, three had bearers belonging to the King’s party, and only one to the Parliament party. The mottoes inscribed on these flags are based on the by now familiar notions of peace as harmony and of monarchic ‘music’. In one instance the idea of broken alliances as jarring music alluded to in Alciato’s emblem is exactly rendered by the picture of a Celtic harp with all its seven strings broken in the middle.162

161 Zincgref, Emblematum Ethico-Politicorum Centuria, sig. Bbv. This emblem book was dedicated to the Elector Friedrich V o f the Palatinate, who had married Princess Elizabeth Stuart, daughter o f James I, in 1613. For an assessment o f this work in connection with the particular political situation o f the time, see Anthony J. Harper, ‘Julius Wilhelm Z incgrefs Emblem Book in the European Context o f 1619’, in France and Germany in Scotland: Studies in Language and Culture, ed. R. Wakely and P.E. Bennett (Edinburgh: Department o f French, University o f Edinburgh, 1996), 81-90; and id., ‘Zincgref s Emblem Book o f 1619: Local and European Significance’, in The German-Language Emblem in its European Con­ text: Exchange and Transmission, ed. Anthony J. Harper and Ingrid Hopei, Glasgow Emblem Studies, vol.5 (Glasgow: Department o f French, University o f Glasgow, 2000), 79-95. 162 See Emblematic Flag Devices o f the English Civil Wars, 1642-1660 , ed. Alan R. Young, with the assistance o f Beert Verstraete, The English Emblem Tradition, no.3 (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University o f Toronto Press, 1995), 23, 66, 117 and 175.

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The last example of this kind comes from a later emblem book from the very beginning of the eighteenth century, but which again adapts an earlier Continental source. In 1700 James Astry gave English readers a translation of a famous collection by the Spaniard Saavedra Fajardo. The latter’s general political moralisations could well be applied to different national contexts, as is shown by the international diffusion of the work.163164 In one of these emblems, beneath the picture of a crowned harp, with the inscribed motto Maiora minoribus consonant (fig. 24), we find a long elaboration of the stringed instrument/state motif to legitimise the maintenance of the status quo\ An Harp Forms a compleat Aristocracy, com pos’d o f Monarchy and Democracy; understanding Presides, several Fingers govern, and many Strings obey, not with a particular, but general and common Harmony, so that the Disproportion between the great and the little ones don’t spoil the Tune. One may justly compare to a Harp every Republick, in which long Practice and Experience, have appointed who shall command, and who obey; in which they have establish’d Laws, elected Magistrates, distinguished Offices, prescribed set Rules and Methods o f Government, and instituted in each part o f the Republick such Customs and Laws as are most conformable and consentaneous to its Nature. ... A prudent Prince tunes the strings in the same Order they stand in, not changing them, that they can’t perform the Office they were first design’d for, wherefore a Prince should perfectly understand this Harp o f his Empire, and the Grace and Majesty that attends it, and be throughly vers’d in the Nature, Qualities, and Genius’s o f the Nobility and Commons, which are its main Strings. I64

163 Saavedra Fajardo’s emblem book, first published in 1640 as Idea de un Principe Politico Christiano representada en cien Empresas (Munich: En la emprenta de Nicolao Enrico, 1640), was a very influential work: apart from the English translation, it had many editions in Latin, Italian, French, German and Dutch, see Praz, Studies, 191-3. 164 Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, The Royal Politician represented in One Hundred Emblems, trans. Sir James Astry (London: Printed for Matt. Gylliflower and Luke Meredith, 1700), 2:94-5.

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In the allusion to the Prince we can still see the conceit of the Orphic governor at work, even if it is not made explicit. By this time the parallel between the stringed instrument and the state must have been perceived as so commonplace that the author even thinks of varying and embellishing it with a final ‘baroque’ conceit exploiting both musical imagery and the typically shifting notion of a king’s literal and metaphorical knowledge of music: one Kingdom is like a Harp, which not only requires the softness o f the Fingers ends, but also the hardness o f the Nails too. Another is more like an Organ, which requires both Hands to express the Harmony o f the Pipes. The third is so delicate, like a Guitarre, that it won’t bear the Fingers, but must be touch’d with a fine Quill, to make it exert its Harmony. A Prince ought therefore to be well vers’d in the knowledge o f these Instruments, and their Strings, to keep them always in tune, and to take Care not to strain too hard upon the Notes o f Severity or Avarice (as St. Chrysostom observ’d in God H im self)... for even the best String when too much strain’d, if it does not break, at least spoils the Sweetness o f the Consort. I65

Opposed to this idea of political concord expressed by the stringed instrument we can find political discord exemplified by instrumental music in one of Alciato’s emblems, which was later adapted by Whitney (fig. 25). The basis for this emblem is the no­ tion that two drums made with the skins of a sheep and a wolf respectively cannot sound together for the traditional enmity between the two animals. Alciato gives the idea a contemporary application by referring to the Bohemian military leader Zisca, whose skin was made into a drum after his death so that his enemies might be frightened and put to flight by its sound.166 Whitney actualises this notion with a dedication to the ‘Colonell Generali of the English Infanterie, in the lowe countries’ and by the final reference to another military leader of his times. His long 165 Saavedra Fajardo, Royal Politician , 2:99. *66 See Vel post mortem formidolosi, in Alciato, Emblemata (Lyons: Apud Mathiam Bonhomme, 1550), 184.

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epigram further enriches the musical parallel with a reference based on Mignault’s commentary on Alciato - to dissonant strings made from the same animals: A Secret cause, that none can comprehende, In natures workes is often to bee seene; As, deathe can not the ancient discorde ende. That raigneth still, the wolfe, and sheepe betweene: The like, beside in many thinges are knowne. The cause reueal’d, to none, but GOD alone. For, as the wolfe, the sillye sheepe did feare, And made him still to tremble, at his barker So beinge dead, which is moste straunge to heare. This feare remaynes, as learned men did marke; For with their skinnes, if that two drommes bee bounde. That, clad with sheepe, doth iarre: and hathe no sounde. And, if that stringes bee o f their intrailes wroughte. And ioyned both, to make a siluer sounde: No cunninge eare can tune them as they oughte, But one is harde, the other still is droun’de: Or discordes foule, the harmonie doe marre; And nothinge can appease this inward warred67

The ‘tale’ of the discord between drums made from sheep and wolf interestingly recurs much later in Descartes’s Musicae Compendium as evidence of the particular affective influence of vocal music on men’s feelings:

This only thing seems to render the voice o f Man the most gracefull o f all other sounds; that it holds the greatest conformity to our spirits. Thus also is the voice o f a Friend more grateful 1 then o f an enemy, from a sympathy and dispathy o f Affections: by the same reason, perhaps, that a Drum167*

167 Whitney, A Choice o f Emblemes, 194-5. For Mignault’s commentary, see Andrea Alciato, Emblemata (Lyons: Apud Haeredes Gulielmi Rouillij, 1614), 583-6.

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headed with a Sheeps skin yields no sound, though strucken, if another Drum headed with a Wolfs skin bee beaten upon in the same room.'68

Descartes’s passage, reporting what Hollander defines as ‘an old wives’ tale of the most suspicious variety’,169 further testifies to a possible interaction of emblematic literature with early modem thinking about music. Although the story alluded to could perhaps be read in other sources, it probably comes from a reading of Alciato, whose famous collection had so many editions in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France.170 Echoes of this type of emblematic idea can be found in the lit­ erature of the same period. Among the passages most often quoted from Shakespeare’s works to demonstrate the playwright’s dependence on harmonistic theories is the one from Ulysses’ speech in Troilus and Cressida. These lines are so well-known that they need not be quoted in full here. Although their focus is on cosmic order and disorder in general, the concise lines marking the shift from the description of the first to that of the second is sig­ nificantly reminiscent of Alciato’s warning against the breaking of the strings of the political lute: ‘Take but degree away, untune that string, / And hark what discord follows.’171 Other references to strings or to music with specifically political connotations also ap­ pear in passages of Richard II and Julius C aesar, 17 - while in Henry V the emblematic stringed instrument of the state is fully, if briefly, expounded: For government, though high and low and lower. Put into parts, doth keep in one consent.

*68 Rene Descartes, Renatus Des-Cartes Excellent Compendium o f Mustek (London: Printed by Thomas Harper for Humphrey Moseley, 1653), 1. *69 Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 178. •70 See Daniel S. Russell, The Emblem and Device in France (Lexington, Ky.: French Forum Publishers, 1985). 171 Troilus and Cressida 1.3.109-10. 177 See Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 148-50.

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Congreeing in a full and natural close, like Music.173

Further examples of musical instruments in emblem books pres­ ent ideas which were treated earlier in connection with mythical musicians. The rhetorical power of military music can be found in an emblem of Palmer’s collection, again adapting Alciato. Here a trumpeter is taken prisoner and accused by his enemies of being as guilty as regular soldiers because with his trumpet he encourages his comrades to fight.*174 Palmer not only moralises the image in the same sense as his source, so that ‘He that giveth yll counsell is as muche in faulte as he that dothe the yll deede', but varies the epigram with an additional passage on rhetoricians. If the emblem on Orpheus was a defence of the good, ‘civilising’ effects of rhet­ oric, then this one could be considered as its correlative, showing the possible dangers of the use of the same art for intentions opposite to the pacifying music/rhetoric of Orpheus:

The Orators with blody tonges do she we a greater mighte. Then warriers with their bilbowblades, that slaye or kill in fighte.175

On the contrary, in Zincgref s emblems the sound of the trum­ pet in war keeps its rhetorical, but this time positive, connotations (fig. 27). Here it serves to symbolise the voice and advice of the

™ Henry К 1.2.181-3. 174 The pictura is identical to that in Alciato, Emblematum libellus (Paris: Apud Christianu[m] Wechelum, 1542), 55 (fig. 26), but Palmer used a Wechel edition with a German translation. Alciato’s emblem (Parent delinquentis & suasoris culpam esse) was also adapted by Whitney, see Agentes, & consentientes, pari poena puniendi, in Whitney, A Choice o f Emblemes, 54. 175 Palmer, Emblems, 47. For Palmer’s emblem on Orpheus and eloquence and its possible links with the author’s interests as a teacher o f rhetoric, see above, 9-11.

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people in governing a state, as the words attributed to the trumpet in the subscripts show:

Quoy que d’vn fer aigu les rangs rompre ie n’aille, I’anime de mon son au combat le soudard. D ’vn citoyen la voix, le conseil, le regard Est auitant en Pestat que moy en la battaille.176

The use of ideas of music as a metaphor for virtue and merit, which we found linked to the character of Arion above, can also be expressed through the simple icon of a musical instrument, as in the case of another emblem from Astry’s translation of Saavedra Fajardo: here the image of the trumpet is not used to indicate the music of the battlefield but to remark on the production of sound inside a wind instrument (fig. 28). The picture representing a trumpet held by a disembodied hand coming out of a cloud reinforces the sense of what was sometimes seen as the super­ natural essence of music itself. The passing of a column of air through the instrument is the starting-point for a lesson on the overcoming of difficulties, with a particular application to the life of princes: The closer the Breath is pressed in a Trumpet, with the greater Harmony and Variety it goes out o f it; thus 4is with Virtue, which is never more clear and harmonious than when suppressed by Malice ... The Flame o f Valour is apt to die, if the Wind o f Adversity don’t revive it; that awakens the Mind, and makes it look about for means to amend it. Happiness, like the Rose, grows out o f Thoms and Miseries. ... There is no Virtue, but will shine in Adversity, as no Star but sparkles with greatest Lustre in the darkest Night. Then the weight shews the Palm’s Strength when this is

I?6 Zincgref, Emblematum Ethico-Politicorum Centuria, sig. Bb3v. For another instance o f the trumpet as an emblem o f war, see Claude Paradin, Devises heroiques (Lyons: Par Ian de Toumes et Guil. Gazeau, 1557), 209; also in the English version. The Heroicall Devises o f M. Claudius Paradin, 1591, introduc­ tion by John Doebler, facsimile ed. (Delmar, New York: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1984), 267.

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raised higher under it. The Rose preserves its Leaves longer fresh among Nettles than Flowers. Did not Virtue exert it self in Adversity too; it would not deserve Victories and Triumphs. ... The just sings amidst Misfortunes, and the wicked Man weeps in his Impiety. 177

In the sequence of emblematic images expressing the triumph of virtue (the rose, the star and the palm), the musical equivalent is not only the first one of the trumpet, but also that of a just man who faces adversities by singing, like Arion, although he is not ex­ plicitly mentioned. All the examples above show that, apart from their associations with mythological musicians, musical instruments themselves could be used as repositories of symbolic meanings. These meanings, with a few exceptions, still remain dependent on the different abilities and aims of the instruments’ players, whether specified or implied. A relevant feature from the perspective of musical iconography is that the negative connotations of wind instruments, rooted in ancient culture, are not always retained. The trumpet, for example, sometimes symbolises positive values.17178 With regard to other instruments, the lute and harp often refer to the semantic field of civic peace or ‘harmony’ (even in the use of the heraldic harp on actual war-flag devices). Drums, according to their more characteristic practical application in those times, often belong to the realm of war and the battlefield. This section has explored examples in which real or metaphorical music is considered within primarily civic or political 177 Saavedra Fajardo, Royal Politician , 1:255-7. 178 Another instance in which the trumpet has positive connotations is when it appears as an attribute or symbol o f Fame; some examples in emblem books are Hadrianus Junius, Emblemata (Lyons: Ex officina Christophori Plantini, 1585), 66, imitated by Whitney (Choice o f Emblemes, 196-7; see also ibid., 185); Rollenhagen, Nucleus Emblematum selectissimorum , no. 12, elaborated by Wither (Choice o f Emblemes, 146); Georgette de Montenay, Monumenta emblematum (Frankfurt: Cura et impensis loannis-Caroli Vnckelii, 1614), 162.

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contexts. But emblem books often brought together ideas and images drawn from disparate fields and elaborated them in different ways, depending on the particular purposes of the books in question. This is also true for images drawn from the realm of music: the pages that follow will show how some of the motifs discussed above, in particular the figure of Orpheus and the theme of tuning or playing a stringed instrument, could also take on amorous and religious meanings.

II Emblems of Love and Music II.l Cupid as Musician One of the subjects most often present in sixteenth- and seven­ teenth-century emblem books is the power of love. The elaboration of this theme reveals links with the tradition of theoretical debates on love, expounded in a number of treatises as well as in the lit­ erature of the time. The idea of the effects of music intertwines, in this case, with that of the effects of love, traditionally represented as Cupid; a series of scenes illustrating his powers appears in the picturae of many of the most widespread Continental emblem collections.179 In the first French emblem book, by La Perriere, a woodcut represents Cupid as a lute player charming an ass and inducing it to raise its forelegs. The epigram, in fact, elaborates on the theme of the transformative power of love, exemplifying some of its possible effects, and finally quoting a literary example in Boccaccio:180 Amour apprend les Asnes a dancer, Et les Lourdaux faict deuenir Muguetz: Pigner les faict, farder, & agencer. Par le moyen de ses subtilz aguetz. Aux endormiz, il faict faire les guetz. R u stic^ transmue en Gentillesse: Car sans cela, que de son traict les blesse, Leur vilanie il conuertit en grace.

179 For the theme o f sacred and profane love in emblem books, see Praz, Studies, 83-168. *80 Boccaccio’s exemplum comes from Decameron and tells o f the transformation operated by love on Cimone, turned from a rude, animal-like young man into a refined lover who ‘non solamente la rozza voce e rustica in convenevole e cittadina ridusse, ma di canto divenne maestro e di suono’ (Decameron 5.1).

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Cymon iadis en receut telle adresse, Comme Ion lit aux escriptz de B occaceJ8 !

The adaptation made by Combe a few years later (fig. 29), copying the pictura , popularises its contents for the English reading public, and more concisely translates the theme of the ennobling power of love, while rendering the variety of its effects with a specific reference to the power of music:

When Cupids stroke tickles the inward vaines, Oh what a power he hath to change the mind! He makes the niggard carelesse o f his gaines, The clowne a Courtier, and the currish kind. Briefly, his wondrous graces where he raignes. In Cymon out o f Boccas you may find; The little lad, his Lute can finger so. Would make an Asse to tume vpon the toe. 182

The change in emphasis in this case seems to be a further testimony to the increasingly rhetorical conception of music, a dis­ tinctive feature in the passage from Renaissance to Baroque musical aesthetics. In the pictura a lute is added to the bow and arrows, the trad­ itional attributes of personified Love. This representation can be traced to an iconographic tradition that is also found in Cartari’s popular handbook, where among the possible ways of representing Cupid we find the following:182

181 Guillaume de la Perriere, Le Theatre des bons engins (Lyons: Par lean de Toumes, 1545), sig. E4r, emblem 62. 182 Combe, Theater, sig. E5r. On the characteristics o f Combe’s translation, see Thomas Combe, Theater o f Fine Devices , introduction by Магу V. Silcox, fac­ simile ed. (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1990), 1-36; this edition reproduces the two surviving copies o f the work, one imperfect, kept at Glasgow University Library, the other, dated 1614, at the Huntington Library.

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Trouo Cupido alle uolte anchora fatto in altra guisa che con Гагсо, come e appresso di Pausania: il quale scriuendo di Corinto dice che quiui sopra il tempio di Esculapio in certa cappelletta tonda di bianco marmo era Cupido, fatto da Pausia dipintore che haueua gettato Гагсо, e le saette, e teneua una lira in mano.183

The corresponding illustration represents three Cupids with dif­ ferent attributes, one of them holding a lira da braccio and a bow (fig. 30) - but the text does not explain the meaning of this figure. Cartari’s handbook, as well as the emblems by La Perriere and Combe, suggests a link between music and love that is variously present in Renaissance treatises on love, and that goes back to Plato’s philosophy as it was re-elaborated by Renaissance Platonists. Within this tradition love is the cohesive force at the basis of the order of the world and of cosmic music. According to the system of correspondences between microcosm and macrocosm, it also becomes a founding element for the human arts. Ficino, for example, illustrates this aspect in his commentary on Plato’s Symposium, a chapter of which is entitled ‘How love is the master of all the arts’.183184 This concept recurs in a Neoplatonic treatise by Guido Casoni that explains ‘How Love is a musician’, not only interpreting love as the foundation of musical harmony, but also music as a ‘minister’ of Love, that is, as a functional element in the process of falling in love: Sono molto discosti dal vero coloro, ch’attribuiscono 1’inuentione della Musica a Mercurio, & quelli, ch’ad Aristosseno l’assegnano; poi che non da loro ma da Amore ella riconosce Torigine, essendo che l’armonia e concento, il concento e concordia del suono graue e de l’acuto, & la

183 Vincenzo Cartari, Le Imagini de i dei de gli antichi (Venice: Appresso Vincentio Valgrisi, 1571), 517-18; the illustration is on p. 520. For Cartari’s reference, see Pausanias Description o f Greece 2.17.3; and Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC) (Zurich and Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1986-97), 3.1, 908, s.v. 665. 184 See ‘Come Гатоге e maestro di tutte le arti', in Marsilio Ficino, Sopra lo Amore ovvero Convito di Platone, ed. Giuseppe Rensi (Milan: SE, 1998), 50-2.

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concordia e istituita da Amore; Onde a l’hora hebbe principio la Musica, ch’egli insegno al suono graue, & a l’acuto, tra se con reciproca beneuolentia insieme unirsi, senza laquale non puo seguire PefTetto della Musica, ch’e il diletto, e pero ben disse il Ficino, che tra loro e necessaria Tunione amorosa, della quale poi tanto ei si persuase, che con ragione fu detta sua ingeniosa ministra; potendo egli c o ’l mezzo suo rendere maggiori, e piu ardenti le fiamme nel petto de Famante.185

This idea of musical harmony as love can easily become a metaphor for human love, a conceit that can be found in Renais­ sance emblem books, literature and visual arts. In the already mentioned collection of emblems by Wither, the English writer reinterprets in this sense and then re-elaborates an extended epigram for Rollenhagen’s pictura of a Cupid with a lute (fig. 31). The motto reads ‘Amor docet musicam\ and the background details in the picture clarify its application: two musicians play a lute and a flute respectively while a woman sings from a music book. Wither’s epigram can be considered a real ‘lesson’ to his female readers on how to recognise true love. To this aim the emblem writer expounds on the usual features (such as nudity, youth and wings) provided by the conventional figurations of Cupid: If to his thoughts my Comments have assented. By whom the following Emblem was invented, Tie hereby teach you (Ladies) to discover A true-bred Cupid , from a fained Lover ; And, shew (if you have Wooers) which be they. That worth’est are to beare your Hearts away. As is the Boy, which, here, you pictured see. Let them be young , or let them, rather, be O f suiting yeares (which is instead o f youth) And, wooe you in the nakednesse, o f Truth; Not in the common and disguised Clothes,

185 ‘Come Amor sia M usico’, in Guido Casoni, Della Magia d ’A more (Venice: Appresso Fabio & Agostin Zoppini Fratelli, 1592), fol. ЗГ .

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O f Mimick-gestures, Complements, and Oathes. Let them be winged with a swift Desire ; And, not with slow-affections, that will tyre.186

This section seems indebted to the tradition of the ‘ragionamenti d ’amore’, often including an explanation of Cupid’s iconography. A typical example is in Leone Ebreo: РегсЬё il vero Cupidine, che e passione amorosa e integra concupiscienza, si fa de la lascivia di Venere e del fervore di Marte, e percio il dipingono fanciullino, nudo, cieco, con Tale e saettante. Lo dipingono fanciullino, perche Гашоге sempre cresce ed e sfrenato, come sono i fanciulli; il dipingono nudo, регсЬё non si puo coprire пё dissimulare; cieco, регсЬё non puo vedere ragione nissuna in contrario, сЬё la passione accieca; lo dipingono alato, регсЬё egli e velocissimo, сЬё l’amante vola col pensiero e sta sempre con la persona amata e vive in quella; le saette son quelle con le quali egli trapassa il cuore degli amanti, le quali saette fanno piaghe strette, profonde e incurabili, le quali il piu de le volte vengono da li corrispondenti raggi degli occhi degli amanti, che sono a modo de saette.187

The second part of Wither’s epigram then shifts to a specific comment on the motif of Cupid the musician: But, looke to this, as to the principal^ That, Love doe make them truly Musicall. For, Love's a good Musician; and, will show How, every faithfull Lover may be so. Each word he speakes, will presently appeare To be melodious Raptures in your eare: Each gesture o f his body, when he moves. Will seeme to play , or sing , a Song o f Loves : And, if the Name o f him, be but exprest, T ’will cause a thousand quaverings in your breast. Nay, ev ’n those Discords, which occasion’d are.*136

186 Wither, Collection o f Emblemes, 82. 187 Leone Ebreo, Dialoghi d ’Amore, ed. Santino Caramella (Bari: Laterza, 1929), 136.

Will make your Musicke, much the sweeter, farre. And, such a mooving Diapason strike. As none but Love , can ever play the like.188

Wither gradually takes the concept of music to the metaphorical level: Love makes the true lover ‘musical’ by transforming his words and gestures into music, and he harmonises the interaction between lovers. In this sense love is a further expression of cosmic harmony reflected in concordia discors, a concept often employed and applied to the most diverse contexts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and here inspiring the epigrammatic final lines. The reference to the beloved’s voice capturing the female lover’s ear (lines 19-20) has a background in another widespread theme within the Neoplatonic theories of love: the beauty of the beloved (usually a woman) is mainly communicated and enjoyed through the senses of sight and hearing. In this literature, sight usu­ ally holds the first place in the hierarchy of the five senses, and in the transmission and reception of love in particular. Nevertheless, as Gretchen Finney has noted,189 some theorists also popularise the notion that sounds, and musical sounds in particular, penetrate the body through the ears and contribute to the diffusion of love. Pietro Bembo, as a speaker in Castiglione’s Courtier, explains this con­ cept in the following terms:

And as a man heareth not with his mouth, nor smelleth with his eares: no more can he also in any manner wise enjoy beautie, nor satisfie the desire that she stirreth up in our mindes, with feeling, but with the sense, unto whom beautie is the very butte to level at: namely, the vertue o f seeing. Let him lay aside therefore the blinde judgement o f the sense, and enjoy with his eyes ye brightenesse, the comelinesse, the loving sparkels, laughters, gestures, and all the other pleasant furnitures o f beautie: especially with hearing the sweetnesse o f her voice, the tunablenesse of her wordes, the melody o f her singing and playing on instruments (in case

188 Wither, Collection o f Emblemes, 82. 189 ‘Music and Neoplatonic Love’, in Finney, Musical Backgrounds, 76-101.

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the woman beloved bee a musitian) and so shall he with most daintie foode feede the soule through the meanes o f these two senses, which have litle bodily substance in them, and be the ministers o f reason, without entring farther towarde the bodie, with coveting unto any longing otherwise than honest. 190

A poetical version of this interaction of love, sight, hearing and music, exploiting the conceit of the transformation of the beloved into music, in a way similar to Wither’s text, is found in a sonnet by Michael Drayton. Here Cupid appears as a capricious dancer within the beloved lady’s eyes, and as such provides himself with music by turning the poet into a lute or viol. If in Wither love makes the lover ‘truly MusicalV, in this case the literal metamorphosis is described in technical terms through precise links between the different parts of the human body and the parts of a stringed musical instrument: LOVE once would daunce within my Mistres eye, And wanting musique fitting for the place, Swore that I should the Instrument supply. And sodainly presents me with her face: Straightwayes my pulse playes lively in my vaines.190 190 Baldassar Castiglione, The Book o f the Courtier, trans. Sir Thomas Hoby (London: J.M. Dent & Sons; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1928), 313. This pas­ sage in the original Italian reads: ‘E cosi come udir non si po col palato, ne odorar con forecchie, non si po ancor in modo alcuno fruir della bellezza пё satisfar al desiderio ch’ella eccita negli animi nostri col tatto, ma con quel senso del quale essa bellezza e vero obietto, che e la virtu visiva. Rimovasi adunque dal cieco giudicio del senso e godasi con gli occhi quel splendore, quella grazia, quelle faville amorose, i risi, i modi e tutti gli altri piacevoli omamenti della bellezza; medesimamente con 1’audito la suavita della voce, il concento delle parole, farmonia della musica (se musica e la donna amata); e cosi pascera di dolcissimo cibo Tanima per la via di questi dui sensi, i quali tengon poco del corporeo e son ministri della ragione, senza passar col desiderio verso il corpo ad appetito alcuno men che onesto’ (Baldassar Castiglione, 11 libro del Cortegicmo, introduction by Amedeo Quondam [Milan: Garzanti, 1981], 440). This speech is intentionally attributed to Bembo because the theme is extensively elaborated in his treatise on love: see Gli Asolani, 2 [25] (Pietro Bembo, Prose e Rime, ed. C. Dionisotti [Turin: UTET, 1960], 432).

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My panting breath doth keepe a meaner time. My quay’ring artiers be the Tenours straynes, My trembling sinewes serve the Counterchime, My hollow sighs the deepest base doe beare. True diapazon in distincted sound: My panting hart the treble makes the ayre. And descants finely on the musiques ground; Thus like a Lute or Violl did I lye, Whilst he proud slave daunc’d galliards in her e y e .,9 l

In this sonnet we can note how the consequences for the lover are not necessarily positive, as in Wither’s lines. Drayton’s choice of adjectives (‘panting’, ‘quav’ring’, ‘trembling’) highlights love as a physical passion, rather than its ‘harmonising’ qualities. As a matter of fact, the association of music with love does not lack negative connotations when music is not seen as an emblem of abstract concord. In contemporary references to physiology, in particular to the four temperaments of man (melancholic, choleric, sanguine and phlegmatic), the inclination to music is associated with the sanguine temper and is accompanied by other ‘excesses’, among which is sensuality. In Minerva Britanna, for example, Peacham elaborates four em­ blems on the different human types by copying the corresponding illustrations from Ripa’s Iconologia. 192 In Peacham’s pictura (fig.192 191 Michael Drayton, Works, ed. J. William Hebei (Oxford: Shakespeare Head Press, 1961), 1:485. This sonnet appeared for the first time in the 1599 edition of Ideas Mirrour, together with Englands Heroicall Epistles. Regarding the termin­ ology, we can note the use o f technical musical words current at that time, for example ‘tenour’, ‘base’, ‘treble’, indicating the fifth, sixth and first strings o f the lute or viol; ‘strain’, an Elizabethan word for a musical phrase; ‘diapason’, a word used for the interval o f the octave, here referring to the bass playing an octave lower than the ‘descant’ executed by the ‘treble’; finally ‘galliard’, designating a particular musical piece for dancing to and its corresponding dance. 192 Cf. Ripa, Iconologia , 74-80, the figure o f the Sanguigno per I ’aria is on p. 77. On Peacham’s debt towards Ripa, see Mason Tung, ‘From Personifications to Emblems: A Study o f Peacham’s use o f Ripa’s Iconologia in Minerva Britanna\ in English Emblem and the Continental Tradition, ed. P.M. Daly, 109-50. Tung rightly notes that the four emblems ‘despite their pictorial variations, are not genuine emblems but poetic renderings o f personifications in Ripa’ (117).

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32) the sanguine character is shown as a young man playing a lute - a symbol of his inclination to music - and is accompanied by a goat eating a bunch of grapes, a symbol of lechery. The epigram, in fact, explains this triple link of sensual love, music and youth: The Aierie Sanguine, in whose youthfull cheeke, The Pestane Rose, and Lilly doe contend: By nature is benigne, and gentlie meeke, To Musick, and all merriment a frend; As seemeth by his flowers, and girlondes gay. Wherewith he dightes him, all the merry May. And by him browzing, o f the climbing vine, The lustfull Goate is seene, which may import. His pronenes both to women, and to wine. Bold, bounteous, frend vnto the learned sort; For studies fit, best louing, and belou’d, Faire-spoken, bashfull, seld in anger moou’d .193

Although the immediate model is unequivocally Ripa in this case, Peacham’s illustration is also connected with a Continental iconographic tradition that finds expression in a number of similar examples. In an engraving by Pieter de Jode (fig. 33), part of a series on the four temperaments,194 the sanguine humour is a gentleman playing a lute beside a singing woman, and, according to an inscribed text, he is inclined to ‘mad love’. Another English emblem book, by Robert Farley, similarly associates music with youth, the spring of life.195*This use again echoes a Continental tradition: in another Flemish engraving, by Sadeler (fig. 34), part of a series on the four seasons/four ages of man,196 youth/spring is symbolised by a young man playing the lute, hovered over by a little Cupid with a bow, while in the 193 Peacham, Minerva Britanna, 127. 194 See Vignau-Wilberg, О Musica du Edle Kunst, 39—43. 195 See Robert Farley, Kalendarium humanae vitae: The kalender o f mans life (London: Printed for William Hope, 1638), sig. C3r. 19^ See Vignau-Wilberg, О Musica du Edle Kunst, 43—4.

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background a traditional garden of love is visible. Here, too, music, not explicitly mentioned in the moralising epigram, is part of the fleeting activities of youth: music books and musical instruments lie at the young man’s feet together with other symbols of vanitas. Considering this background, it is not by chance that we find persuasive music, defined as ‘winding’ and inducing to a ‘wanton’ fruition, in the list of pleasures exalted by the narrative persona in Milton’s L ’A llegro:

And ever against eating cares Lap me in soft Lydian airs Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce In notes with many a winding bout O f linked sweeetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning The melting voice through mazes running. Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul o f harmony. 197

The reference to ‘Lydian airs’ is particularly meaningful: Milton refers here to ancient Greek theories, revived in the Renaissance, according to which some musical scales were associated with particular effects on the listener. In this tradition, the Lydian mode had the effect of inducing men to relaxation and to voluptuous­ ness.197198 These ideas also provided detractors of music with another ob­ jection: music could make men effeminate. Even in Castiglione’s treatise, which contains a well-known passage in defence of music

197 John Milton, L 'Allegro, 135-44; in II Penseroso there is a corresponding pas­ sage praising sacred music (161-6). 198 See also Praise o f Musicke, 55: ‘Modus Lydius used in comedies, in former times, being more lighter and wanton than Dorius, answereth to that which 1 termed amarous and delightsome.’ A concise explanation o f the notion o f musical ethos is in Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 31 -6 .

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and of its usefulness for gaining love,199 there are traces of the medieval tendency to conceive of music as a morally dangerous activity, a distraction from more important masculine com­ mitments. In the Courtier this opinion is expressed by the most clearly misogynist speaker in the whole book, Gasparo Pallavicino. He objects to the praise of music by saying that it is a ‘vanity’ and that it can make man ‘womanish’: Then the L. Gasper, I believe musick (quoth he) together with many other vanities is meet for women, and peradventure for some also that have the likenesse o f men, but not for them that be men in deede: who ought not with such delicacies to womanish their mindes, and bring themselves in that sort to dread death.200

In a similar way in England, Ascham polemically underlines how musical practice is more appropriate in a courtly rather than an academic milieu: the minstrelsie o f lutes, pipes, harpes, and all other that standeth by suche nice, fine, minikin fingering (such as the mooste parte o f scholers whom I knowe vse, if they vse any) is farre more fitte for the womannishnesse o f it to dwell in the courte among ladies, than any great thing in it, whiche shoulde help good and sad studie, to abide in the vniversitie amonges scholers.201 199 See below, 125. 200 Castiglione, Book o f the Courtier, 75, my emphasis. In Italian: ‘Allora il signor Gaspar, “La musica penso”, disse, “che insieme con molte altre vanita sia alle donne conveniente si, e forse ancor ad alcuni che hanno similitudine d’omini, ma non a quelli che veramente sono; i quali non deono con delicie effeminare gli animi ed indurgli in tal modo a temer la morte’” (Castiglione, II libro del Cortegiano, 99). 201 Ascham, English Works, 14, my emphasis; this passage is contained in Toxophilus, The Schole o f Shootinge. To this evidently widespread opinion o f music an answer was given in Praise o f Musicke, 58: ‘Those, which are glad to take any occasion to speake against musicke ... affirme that it maketh men effeminate, and too much subiect unto pleasure. But whome I praie you, doth it make effeminate? Surely none but such as without it would be wanton: ... the same musicke which mollifieth some men, moueth some other nothing at all: so

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Emblem books again present these ideas in their own way: an emblem similarly showing the emasculating power of Love, represented as a music master, appears in Vaenius’s popular Dutch collection. The motto, Loue is the schoolmaster o f the artes, is close to the one by Wither and to the title of Ficino’s chapter, while the English epigram is the following: Cupid doth teach by note the louer well to sing, As somtyme Hercules hee learned for to spinne. All artes almoste that bee did first from loue beginne, Loue makes the louer apt to euerie kynd o f thing.202

This emblem seems ambivalently poised between two opposed interpretations: while the epigram repeats the themes of the en­ nobling qualities of love and of its being at the origin of the arts, the pictura (fig. 36) figuratively presents the link of love, music and femininity. It shows Hercules - in love with Omphales dressed as a woman and holding a spindle, and a little Cupid who beats time with one hand while teaching him to sing.203 that the fault is not in musicke, which o f it selfe is good: but in the corrupt nature, & evil disposition o f light persons, which o f themselves are prone to wantonnesse.’ 202 Otto Vaenius, Amorum Emblemata (Antwerp: Venalia apud auctorem typis Henrici Swingenii, 1608), 82. This book had several multilingual editions and a wide popularity in Europe, see Praz, Studies, 99-117. Other examples o f Hercules made effeminate by love, without musical references, are in Guillaume Gueroult, Le Premier livre des emblemes (Lyons: Chez Balthazar Amoullet, 1550), sigs. A3v-A4r; and Peacham, Minerva Britanna, 95. On Hercules in emblems, see Ayers Bagley, ‘Hercules in Emblem Books and Schools’, in The Telling Image: Explorations in the Emblem, ed. Ayers L. Bagley, Edward M. Griffin and Austin J. McLean (New York: AMS Press, 1996), 69-95. 203 On this emblem and its tradition, see Peggy Mufloz Simonds, ‘The Herculean Lover in the Emblems o f Cranach and Vaenius’, in Acta Conventus Neo-Latini

Torontensis: Proceedings o f the Seventh International Congress o f Neo-Latin Studies, ed. Alexander Dalzell, Charles Fantazzi and Richard J. Schoeck (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1991), 697-710. This emblem is related to the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century vision o f music as an ‘effeminating’ practice by Linda Phyllis Austem, ‘The Siren, The Muse, and

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In the same collection. Love is also associated both with music and with treachery in an emblem presenting a variation of another mythological tale, narrated by, among others, Ovid.204 According to the story, Zeus orders Mercury to rescue Io from Argus, who watches her as commanded by Juno. To do this Mercury charms the hundred-eyed monster with the music of his syrinx, induces him to fall asleep and then kills him. The pictura (fig. 37) shows a Cupid, now armed with a little trumpet, beside a sleeping Argus, while the epigram elaborates on the theme of the dangerous sagacity of the god of love: Loue exceeds in subtiltie. Though Argus do not want an hundreth eyes to see. Yet Cupid by his pype can bring them closse a-sleep. But who а-sleep can ought from Cupid safely keep? When watchfulnes it self deceau’d by him may bee.205

We can conclude that the representation of personified love as Cupid the musician in English and Continental emblem books re­ veals a double attitude towards the link between music and love. On the one hand, love can be conceived as ‘harmony’, and music, in its turn, provides a useful analogue for human feelings. On the other hand, music, under the guise of song, euphonious words or attractive sounds, is recognised as a powerful instrument: it can provoke or strengthen love, induce its hearers to sensuality, cheat or distract from virile activities and lead to perdition. These contrasting features are shown in the emblematic examples that

The God o f Love: Music and Gender in Seventeenth-Century English Emblem Books’, Journal o f Musicological Research 18 (1999), 128-30. 2^4 See Ovid Metamorphoses 1.624-747. As Praz has noted (Studies, 102), the pictura in Vaenius seems indebted to the Mercury emblem in Sambucus’s collec­ tion, see Emblemata , sigs. D5v-D6r; in the latter the motto reads Dolus

ineuitabilis. 205 Vaenius, Amorum Emblemata, 238.

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follow, where music can represent either concord or dangerous seduction.

II.2 Concord in Love and Friendship In the previous section I pointed out several examples of the em­ blematic use of a musical instrument to symbolise ideas of civic or specifically political concord. The idea of love as harmony, as well, is often emblematically expressed by musical instruments, musical notation or scenes of familial music. Contrary to Continental emblematics, Dutch and German in particular, English emblem books do not contain examples of complete musical scores.206 A case that is, in a sense, unique is the musical notation used in one of Henry Peacham’s emblems although this does not play on a complex interaction between music, text and image as in Continental examples, but rather presents a musical metaphor applied to the theme of friendship. The pictura (fig. 38) shows two staves with some notes, perhaps a fragment of a longer musical score for two voices or parts. The emblem is based on an analogy between musical concord and discord and the corresponding human feelings. The notes represented exemplify dissonant musical intervals resolving into consonant ones, as explained in a marginal note. The subscripts expounds on the lesson provided by the music in the picture: the harmony between brothers and friends will be Tanto dulcius, ‘so much sweeter’, the more it is preceded by disagreement:

The mortall strifes that often doe befall, Twixt louing Bretheren, or the private frend. Doe proue (we say) the deadliest o f all:

206 for the Continental milieu, see, in particular, Raasveld, Pictura, poesis, musica. Some examples are treated in id., ‘Musical Notation in Emblems’, Emblematica 5 (1991), 31-56; this article also contains a detailed musical analysis o f Peacham’s emblem discussed below.

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Yet if com pos’d by concord, in the end They relish sweeter, by how much the more, The Iarres were harsh, and discordant before. How oft hereof the Image I admire. In thee sweete MUSICK, Natures chast delight. The Banquets frend, and Ladie o f the Quire; Phisition to the melancholly spright: Mild Nurse o f Pitie, ill vices foe; Our Passions Queene, and Soule o f ALL below.207

The starting-point for the first stanza is the idea of music as a concrete manifestation of love. This idea is exemplified in theoretical works with a similar reference to musical intervals, for example in a passage of Ficino’s treatise:

Questo medesimo si osserva nella Musica, gli Artefici della quale ricercano che numeri quali numeri piii о meno amino. Costoro tra uno e due, tra uno e sette, quasi nessuno amore ritruovano. Ma tra uno e tre, quattro, cinque, sei e otto piu veemente amore hanno trovato. Costoro le voci acute e gravi per natura diverse, con certi intervalli e modi, tra loro amiche fanno: onde deriva la composizione e suavita della Armonia. Eziandio i moti veloci e tardi insieme in modo temperano, che tra loro amici diventano, e dimostrano concordia grata.208

The idea mentioned by Peacham is also theorised by Bacon: 4he Falling from a Discord to a Concord, which maketh great Sweetness in Musick hath an agreement with the Affections, which are reintegrated to the better, after some dislikes’.209 But the second stanza of the emblem also adds to the epigram some contemporary topoi in praise of music: the figuration of musical notation, in fact, would sometimes serve this purpose in the visual arts. We may compare this emblem with a Flemish en207 Peacham, Minerva Britanna, 204. 208 Ficino, Sopra lo Amore, 50-1. 209 Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum or, a Naturall History in Ten Centuries (London: W. Rawley, 1669), 31.

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graving that is part of a series entitled Encomium Musices. 210 This work by Adriaen Collaert, from a drawing by Stradanus, represents the score of a motet together with musical instruments and allegor­ ical figures. The inscribed Latin text of the motet praises music by repeating the usual themes of its divine origin and of its effects on man, while a quotation from Psalm 150 adds the idea of music as praise of God (fig. 39). The musical notation in Peacham’s emblem, then, is polyvalent, because while the motto and the first stanza make clear its em­ blematic application to the theme of love and friendship, the sec­ ond stanza expands its meaning to the wider context of the praises of this art.211 Going back to the theme of music and love, another feature of mu­ sical practice takes on a symbolic value and can be exploited to exemplify the link between the two: the acoustic phenomenon of sympathetic vibration. A typical case in that time was provided by two lutes tuned at the same pitch: when one was touched, the other, untouched, vibrated as well. An interpretation of this natural ‘miracle’ in the light of ideas of Platonic love can be found, for example, in a famous treatise by Bembo:

Dicono i sonatori che, quando sono due liuti bene e in una medesima voce accordati, chi l’un tocca, dove l’altro gli sia vicino e a fronte, amendue rispondono ad un modo, a quel suono che fa il tocco, quello stesso fa l’altro non tocco e non percosso da persona. О Amore, e qua’ liuti e qua’ lire piii concordemente si rispondono, che due anime che s ’amino delle tue? Le quali, non pur quando vicine sono e alcuno accidente l’una muove, amendue rendono un medesimo concento, ma ancor lontane e non piii mosse l’una che l’altra, fanno dolcissima e conformissima armonia.212

210 See Vignau-Wilberg, О Musica du Edle Kunst, 172-4. 2 *1 Peacham would repeat some o f the ideas expounded in this emblem in the chapter ‘O f Musicke’ o f his courtesy book, see Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman, 1634, introduction by G.S. Gordon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), 96-104. 2 **2 Bembo, Gli Asolani 3 [33] (Prose e Rime, 450). See also Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman, 104.

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The pictura of one of Cats’s emblems (fig. 35) shows a man tuning a lute while another lies untouched, and presumably resonates, on a table. At the man’s feet, in the foreground, is a dog, symbol of fidelity, a detail that connects this emblem with the theme of love, as does the motto Quid non sentit amor,213 The English text provided in the appendix elaborates the paral­ lel between sympathetic vibration and the ‘consonance’ between two lovers:

This wonder lately I out sought. That lovers alike, haue alike thought. With Rosamond I lately went abroad to walke i’th’fielde, Wee tooke two lutes for our delighte, which might us solace yeelde: I tunde the one iuste to the other, and layde a strawe o ’th’one: So soone as both these tunes agreed the strawe lept thence anone. Looke Rosamonde, so you, (quoth I) doe moue mee without touch. And without handes can drawe: for loues conditions are such That whosoever Venus bringes, within her power, to lye. She makes them feele and see what they before coulde not descrye 214

This same phenomenon is scientifically described by Bacon: There is a common observation, that if a Lute or Vial be laid upon the back with a small straw upon one side o f the Strings, and another Lute or Vial be laid by it; and in the other Lute or Vial the Unison to that String be strucken, it will make the String move; which will appear both to the Eye, and by the Straws falling off. The like will be if the Diapason or Eight to*2

213 Jacob Cats, Proteus ofte Minne-beelden Verandert in Sinnebeelden (Rotterdam: Bij Pieter van Waesberge, 1627), 254. The same pictura is given an amorous, a moral and a religious application in the texts that follow, see ibid., 255-9. On other collections o f emblems by the same writer, see Praz, Studies, 8 6 7 and 125-7; see also Svetlana Alpers, The Art o f Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century (London: John Murray, 1983), 230-3. 2 *4 Cats, Proteus, sig. c4r; this is a translation o f the Dutch poem following the

pictura.

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that siring be strucken, either in the same Lute or Vial, or in others lying by.215

The most representative literary example of the use of ideas of musical concord and of sympathetic vibration as love is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 8, which exploits a musical performance as a pretext to exhort the dedicatee of the poem to marry: Mvsick to heare, why hears’t thou musick sadly. Sweets with sweets warre not, ioy delights in ioy: Why lou’st thou that which thou receaust not gladly. Or else receau’st with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord o f well tuned sounds, By vnions married do offend thine eare. They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds In singlenesse the parts that thou should’st beare: Marke how one string sweet husband to an other. Strikes each in each by mutuall ordering; Resembling sier, and child, and happy mother. Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing: Whose speechlesse song being many, seeming one. Sings this to thee thou single wilt proue none.2 *6

The line ‘Strikes each in each by mutuall ordering’ has been variously interpreted: according to some critics it presupposes the knowledge of the above-mentioned phenomenon.2!7 The image that follows, evoking by analogy the picture of a family performance of polyphonic music, serves as yet another emblem *2167 2 15 Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, 61. 216 Sonnets 8. 217 Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 137-8: ‘The reference to the phenomenon o f sympathetic vibration ... appears in the third quatrain as a concrete image o f concord, or abstract harmony ... there can be no doubt that the “married” strings resonate because o f their “mutuall ordering”, each setting the other in motion.’ For a slightly different interpretation, presupposing an allusion to the same musical phenomenon, see Edward W. Naylor, The Poets and Music (London and Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1928; reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1980), 109-11.

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for the same concept of concord in love, applied to conjugal and familial love in this case, and a parallel can be easily found in the visual arts. In contemporary paintings, Dutch in particular, the fig­ uration of family scenes alludes to this ideal.218 One example is an engraving by Pieter de Jode representing a domestic musical scene (fig. 40). We can notice in the foreground a trio formed by a family group, as in the Shakespearean reference: a woman plays a keyboard instrument while a man plays a lute, a child sings from a book, and two other figures in the background listen or perhaps sing, too.219 Once again, conjugal harmony is represented as a private musical performance by husband and wife in an engraving by Israhel van Meckenem, where the two characters in the foreground - one playing, the other blowing air into an organ - are accompanied again by the faithful dog (fig. 41). Nevertheless, Shakespeare’s sonnet provides an unusual example in English poetry of a reference to music as a specific emblem of conjugal concord. As is known, Elizabethan love lyrics develop along the lines traced by Italian and French Petrarchism, from which they usually borrow themes and motifs. Within the canzonieri, or sonnet sequences, inspired by a love relationship traditionally outside of marriage, references to music usually happen in the context of praise, sometimes ambivalent, as we will see, of a female singer. The pleasures as well as the hidden dangers connected with women’s song often find a visual correlative in the emblematic image of the Sirens.*2

2,8 On music in Flemish art, see Pieter Fischer, Music in Paintings o f the Low Countries in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1975); and Richard D. Leppert, The Theme o f Music in Flemish Paintings o f the Seven­ teenth Century, 2 vols. (Munich and Salzburg: Musikverlag Emil Katzbichler, 1977). 2 '9 This engraving, lacking an accompanying text, has been variously interpreted. Some critics suggest that it could have originally been an allegory o f hearing, but it was copied by Theodor de Bry for his Emblemata Secularia where an epigram in praise o f music is added; another artist interpreted music in this scene as a vanitas: see Vignau-Wilberg, О Musica du Edle Kunst, 91-2.

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II.3 Sirens II.3.1 Alluring Songs In Castiglione’s Courtier musical practice is conceived as a ‘tool’ in the game of courtly love for its power to penetrate and please the listener’s soul and thus arouse love. The praise of the usefulness of music for men is parallel to Bembo’s assertion later in the same work that the female musician too can exercise a positive influence through ‘the melody of her singing and playing on instruments’.220 Similar ideas are also expressed in some poems of the period, although opinions on the effects of female song may vary. In fact, within the tradition of Italian love poetry, references to the song of the beloved lady follow two different directions. On the one hand, the effects of song are seen as ennobling, elevating the lover/listener to spiritual contemplation, and in these instances the woman’s skills are connoted as angelic or heavenly; on the other hand, song achieves the result of further inflaming love’s passion and proves to be an ambiguous instrument for seduction. A representative, even archetypal, example of the first case is in a sonnet by Petrarch in praise of Laura’s song:

Quando Amor i belli occhi a terra inclina, e i vaghi spirti in un sospiro accoglie со le sue mani, et poi in voce gli scioglie, chiara, soave, angelica, divina, sento far del mio cor dolce rapina,2 220 Castiglione, Book o f the Courtier, 313; in Italian: 4a suavita della voce, il concento delle parole, l’armonia della musica’ (Castiglione, II libro del Cortegiano, 440). On references to music in this work, see Walter H. Kemp, ‘Some notes on music in Castiglione’s II Libro del Cortegiano\ in Cultural Aspects o f the Italian Renaissance: Essays in Honour o f Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. Cecil H. Clough (Manchester: University Press; New York: Alfred F. Zambelli, 1976), 354-69; and James Haar, ‘The Courtier as Musician: Castiglione’s View o f the Science and Art o f Music’, in Castiglione: the Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, ed. Robert W. Hanning and David Rosand (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983), 165-89.

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et si sento cangiar pensieri e voglie, ch’io dico: ‘Or fien di me 1’ultime spoglie, se’l ciel si honesta morte mi destina’. Ma’l suon, che di dolcezza i sensi lega col gran desir d’udendo esser beata, 1’anima al dipartir presta raffrena. Cosi mi vivo, et cosi avolge et spiega lo stame de la vita che m’e data, questa sola fra noi del ciel sirena.22!

We can see that the image of Laura as an angelic Siren here comes from an ancient authority: the poet is elaborating on Plato’s treatment of heavenly music. A passage of the Republic in fact depicts the Sirens singing in unison with the Fates as they sit on the eight spheres that revolve around the spindle of Necessity.221222 For Petrarch the effects of the song are achieved mainly through a sound ‘binding the senses’, while Laura, who is both a Siren and one of the Fates, spinning the thread of the poet’s life, modestly averts her eyes from the audience. The latter picture is in line with some contemporary prescriptions for female musical practice; Francesco da Barberino, for example, giving advice on the proper behaviour for a young woman, remarks that when requested to sing, she must perform without moving and with her eyes cast towards the ground: E se avien talora le convegna cantare per detto del signore о della madre о dalle sue compagne pregata un poco prima, d’una maniera bassa soavemente canti, ferma, cortese e cogli occhi chinati, e stando volta a chi magior vi siede. E questo canto basso, chiamato camerale, e quel che piace e che passa ne’ cuori.223 221 Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta 167. 222 Plato Republic 10.617. The Platonic Sirens appear in ‘The Harmony o f the Spheres’, the first o f the intermedi staged in Florence in 1589, see Roy S tro n g er/ and Power, plate 88. 22-* Francesco da Barberino, Reggimento e costumi di donna, ed. G.E. Sansone (Rome: Zauli Editore, 1995), 11. See also a passage in Castiglione: ‘Therefore when she commeth to daunce, or to shew any kind o f musicke, she ought to be brought to it with suffring her selfe somewhat to be prayed, and with a certain

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Bembo in one of his poems alludes to the song of these Platonic Sirens as a paragon for the lady’s musical ability:

La mia leggiadra e Candida angioletta, cantando a par de le Sirene antiche, con altre d’onestade e pregio amiche sedersi a l’ombra in grembo de ferbetta vid’io pien di spavento: perch’esser mi parea pur su nel cielo, tal di dolcezza velo avolto avea quel punto agli occhi miei 224

The theme of the soul’s rapture and the influence of the Neo­ platonic tradition can also be found in English poetry concerning female music. In George Chapman’s Ovids Banquet o f Sence, Ovid, as the main character of the episode, responds rapturously to his beloved as she plays the lute. The verses quoted below retrace the progress of the sounds from the listener’s ears to his soul:

Never was any sense so sette on fire With an imortall ardor, as myne eares; Her fingers to the strings doth speeche inspire And numberd laughter; that the deskant beares To her sweete voice; whose species through my sence My spirits to theyr highest function reares; To which imprest with ceaseles confluence It useth them, as propper to her powre marries my soule, and makes it selfe her dowre; Me thinks her tunes flye guilt, like Attick Bees To my eares hives, with hony tryed to ayre; My braine is but the combe; the wax, the lees;

bashfulnesse, that may declare the noble shamefastnesse that is contrarie to headinesse’ (Book o f the Courtier, 194). Another Renaissance treatise by Federico Luigini da Udine quotes Petrarch as an authority on female music, see II libro della bella donna, in Trattati del Cinquecento sulla donna, ed. Giuseppe Zonta (Bari: Laterza, 1913), 296. 224 Bembo, Prose e Rime, 518, no. 16, lines 1-8.

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My soule the Drone, that lives by their affayre. О so it sweets, refines, and ravisheth. And with what sport they sting in theyr repayre: Rise then in swams, and sting me thus to death Or tume me into swounde; possesse me whole, Soule to my life, and essence to my soule.225

Other references to music played or sung by women ignore this philosophical background, but the theme of the affective power of words and song remains, with shifts of meaning that are not always positive. The text of one of Thomas Campion’s ayres echoes, perhaps intentionally, the scene described by Chapman, but concentrates on the idea of music moving the passions, rather than inspiring specifically spiritual love. It is based on a simile between the musical instrument and the lover’s heart-strings that is certainly not new in the poetry of this period:

When to her lute Corrina sings. Her voice reuiues the leaden stringes. And doth in highest noates appeare. As any challeng’d eccho cleere; But when she doth o f mourning speake, Eu’n with her sighes the strings do breake. And as her lute doth liue or die, Led by her passion, so must 1, For when o f pleasure she doth sing, My thoughts enjoy a sodaine spring, But if she doth o f sorrow speake, Eu’n from my hart the strings doe breake 226*2

225 George Chapman, Ovids Banquet o f Sence (1595), in Elizabethan Minor Epics, ed. Elizabeth Story Donno (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), 213. For a reading o f the poem in the light o f emblematics, see Rhoda M. Ribner, ‘The Compasse o f This Curious Frame: Chapman’s Ovids Banquet o f Sense and the Emblematic Tradition’, Renaissance Studies 17 (1970), 233-58. 22^ A Booke o f Ayres , no.6, in Campion, Campion s Works, 9. On this lyric, see Hollander, Untuning o f the Skyy 204-5.

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Similarly, in another of Shakespeare’s sonnets, this time for his female dedicatee, making music is not associated with the idea of love as concord, as in the case of the other sonnet quoted above where a musical performance was used to recall ideas of conjugal and familial ‘harmony’ - but with sensual love. The scene evoked is that of a musical performance on the virginals in the presence of a spectator who is stirred by the vision, and with whom the poetical voice identifies:22*227 How oft when thou my musike musike playst, Vpon that blessed wood whose motion sounds With thy sweet fingers when thou gently swayst. The wiry concord that mine eare confounds. Do I enuie those Iackes that nimble leape. To kisse the tender inward o f thy hand. Whilst my poore lips which should that haruest reape. At the woods bouldnes by thee blushing stand. To be so tikled they would change their state. And situation with those dancing chips. Ore whome their fingers walke with gentle gate. Making dead wood more blest then liuing lips. Since sausie Iackes so happy are in this, Giue them their fingers, me thy lips to kisse.228

The pretext for this conceitful elaboration is the contact between the female player’s fingers and the instrument. According to Hollander, the musical instrument here could be substituted by any other object without much changing the substance of the poem. Nevertheless, the image is more meaningful if considered within 222 Edward W. Naylor interprets the woman’s action as one o f repairing and tuning o f the virginals before playing (Shakespeare and Music [New York: Da Capo Press & Benjamin Bloom, 1965, reprint o f the 1931 edition], 91-3); Hollander conjectures: ‘It is still possible that Shakespeare refers, either by mistake or by a kind o f metonymy, to the wooden keys them selves’ (136). For other comments on this sonnet, see William Shakespeare, The Sonnets: A New Variorum Edition, ed. H.E. Rollins (Philadelphia & London: J.B.Lippincott Co., 1944), 1:326-8. 228 Sonnets 128.

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the context of those theories which state that music can help to provoke or strengthen love. Love here is stimulated by sight and hearing in particular, as in the Neoplatonic tradition that remains unvaried. It is not only the ‘wiry concord’ of the musical instrument that ‘confounds’ the ear, but equally the visual perception of the musical performance, based on a physical interplay between player and instrument, sometimes acquiring sexual connotations in the literature of the same period.229 These poems seem to belong, at least partially, to another frame of reference for music by women. The hyperbolic praise of music, and of female song in particular, is often even more ambiguously expressed in the widespread use of the parallel between female musicians and the legendary Sirens, not of Platonic but of Homeric origin. The evolution of this myth from antiquity to modem times is particularly varied.230 But for the Renaissance and for references to female musical practice we can postulate again the influence of Ovid as a writer, who, unlike his namesake in Chapman’s poem, had clearly interpreted music not as a means for spiritual elevation but as an instrument for seduction in the hands of women. In fact, the Ars Amatoria contains an extended simile between women skilled in music and the Sirens, who are, in turn, jokingly compared to mythical musicians-magicians such as Orpheus, Arion and Amphion:

329 The lady’s eyes and voice are similarly responsible for arousing love in Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Fair Singer’; for the tradition o f English poems in praise o f amateur or professional female musicians, developing increasingly stereotyped images at least until the eighteenth century, see Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 332-79. 230 For the evolution o f the Siren type from the antiquity to the Middle Ages, see Edmond Fatal, ‘La Queue de Poisson des Sirenes’, Romania 74 (1953), 433-506; Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, La Sirene dans la pense et dans I art de I Antiquite el du Moyen Age: Du mythepaien au symbol chretien (Bruxelles: Academie Royale de Belgique, 1997); and Leoffanc Holford-Strevens, ‘Sirens in Antiquity and the Middle A ges’, in Music o f the Sirens, ed. Linda P. Austem and Inna Naroditskaya (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 16-51.

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Monstra mans Sirenes erant, quae voce сапога Quamlibet admissas detinuere rates; His sua Sisyphides auditis paene resolvit Corpora; nam sociis inlita cera fuit. Res est blanda сапог; discant cantare puellae (Pro facie multis vox sua lena fuit), Et modo marmoreis referant audita theatris Et modo Niliacis carmina lusa modis. Nec plectrum dextra, citharam tenuisse sinistra Nesciat arbitrio femina docta meo. Saxa ferasque lyra movit Rhodopeius Orpheus Tartareosque lacus tergeminumque canem; Saxa tuo cantu, vindex iustissime matris, Fecerunt muros officiosa novos; Quamvis mutus erat, voci favisse putatur Piscis, Arioniae fabula nota lyrae. Disce etiam duplici genialia nablia palma Verrere; conveniunt dulcibus ilia iocis.231

The latter Sirens, even more than the Platonic ones, are in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries favourite symbols for female musicians, seducing by the beauty of their song as well as by their physical charms.232 Poliziano, in a short lyric, exemplifies the ambiguous attraction of female song that is at the same time healing and deadly, forcing the male lover to listen endlessly:

Solevon gia col canto le sirene fare annegar nel mare e navicanti, ma Ipolita mia cantando tiene sempre nel fuoco e miserelli amanti. Sol un rimedio truovo alle mie репе, ch’un’altra volta Ipolita recanti:

231 Ovid Ars Amatoria 3.311-28. 232 See Elena Laura Calogero, “‘Sweet Aluring Harmony”: Heavenly and Earthly Sirens in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Literary and Visual Culture’, in Music o f the Sirens, ed. Austem and Naroditskaya, 140-75.

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col canto m ’ha ferito e poi sanato, col canto morto e poi risuscitato.233

In English love poetry this motif is present since Thomas Watson, a pioneer in this field, who dedicates a group of short poems to the praise of a lady’s musical ability and to the theme of the effects of her song. One of these poems contains a reference to the Sirens together with the idea that music increases love’s passion:

О bitter sweete, or hunny mixt with gall. My hart is hurt with ouermuch delight. Mine eares wel pleas’d with tunes, yet deafe with all: Through musicks helpe loue hath increast his might; I stoppe mine eares as wise Vlisses bad. But all to late, now loue hath made me mad.*234

And even more conventionally, a minor Elizabethan sonneteer dedicates a whole sonnet to the theme:

Oft haue I heard hony-tong’d Ladies speake, Striuing their amerous courtiers to inchant. And from their nectar lips such sweet words breake. As neither art nor heauenly skill did wane. But when Emaricdulf gins to discourse. Her words are more then wel-tun’d harmonie. And euery sentence o f a greater force Then Mermaids song, or Syrens sorcerie: And if to heare her speake, Laertes heire The wise Vlisses liu’d vs now among. From her sweet words he could not stop his eare. As from the Syrens and the Mermaids song:

222 Angelo Poliziano, Rime, ed. Daniela Delcomo Branca (Florence: Accademia della Crusca, 1986), 287 (Rispetti, 13). 234 ‘Е катортаЭ /а, no. 12, in Thomas Watson, Poems, ed. Edward Arber (London: Constable & Co., 1870), 48.

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And had she in the Syrens place but stood, Her heauenly voyce had drown’d him in the flood.235

The use of the comparison between woman and Siren is ambivalent. If, on the one hand, the parallel serves to underline the affective power of words or song, it also refers to the idea of dangerous deception already implied, even if without explicitly erotic connotations, in the Homeric version of the myth. Giambattista Marino clearly uses the reference in a polyvalent way: О voi che lieti ove vi spinge e mena in mal secura nave aura seconda, l’infido mar, che tanti legni affonda, ite solcando d’una in altra arena, di questa bella e micidial sirena fuggite il canto inver la destra sponda: canto, cui par non ha la terra о l’onda dala riva d’Eurota ala tirrena. Pur, se’l ciel mai vi guida al dolce loco, con greco ingegno, ove lusinga amore, chiudete il varco al’armonia di foco. Ma di fral cera a si possente ardore l'orecchio armar che val, s ’anco val poco armar di smalto adamantino il core?*236

This warning lyric - ending with the idea of unavoidable perdi­ tion - cannot be read only as hyperbolical praise. The theme must 2^5 E.C., Emaricdulfe, 24, in English and Scottish Sonnet Sequences o f the Renaissance, ed. Holger M. Klein (Hildesheim, Zurich and New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1984), 1:252. For references to Sirens in other sonnets, see also William Alexander, Aurora , 43; Thomas Watson, ‘Е к а т о р я а 9 /а , 94; Michael Drayton, Ideas Mirrour, 30; Samuel Daniel, no.12 o f the sonnets in the 1591 edition o f Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella. 236 ‘Canto’, in Marino, Amori, 97.

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have borne subtler and less eulogistic overtones for contemporary readers. In fact, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, apart from Neoplatonic theories on love, female musical practice was often regarded with suspicion, and, in moralising treatises on female conduct, it was sometimes disapproved of as a dangerous display of physical accomplishments. Prescriptions were given regarding both the kinds of music to perform and the musical instruments to play.237 Musical performance had to be a solitary recreational activity for noble or upper-class women - in the priv­ acy of their homes or in the presence of a restricted audience - so as not to be misinterpreted as an allurement for prospective suitors.238 In an Italian prose work of the beginning of the seventeenth century, the dialogue La Lucerna by Francesco Pona, a courtesan refers to the Sirens’ myth when she boasts of her musical skills as a precious instrument for her job:

Ma, per tomarmene alia cortigiana che gia informal, fra 1’altre reti ch’io tesi agli uomini fu questa delle piu forti: la musica. Gia la forza di questa manifestan le favole degli Arioni, che trassero i pesci a fare del proprio dorso nelle liquide piagge sostegno al peso; degli Anfioni, che chiamarono le pietre a formar le mura a Tebe; degli Orfei, che seppero raddolcir Dite e ricondurre da que’ neri alberghi la dolce sposa; ma sovra ogn’altra, delle Sirene, che seppero i naviganti col soavissimo canto addormentare per ucciderli e divorarseli. Canto dunque di sirena era il mio, регсЬё con si fatta vivezza e spirito mi faceva udire toccando un’arpa, un leuto о una chitariglia e cantando, che avrei fatto languir d’amore un Senocrate, anzi il Disamore. Non toccava corda che i cuori non si sentissero intenerire, non

237 See, for example, Castiglione: ‘Imagin with your selfe what an unsightly mat­ ter it were to see a woman play upon a tabour or drum, or blow in a flute or trumpet, or any like instrument: and this because the boistrousnesse o f them doth both cover and take away that sweete mildnesse which setteth so forth everie deede that a woman doth’ (Book o f the Courtier, 194). 238 See Ruth Kelso, Doctrine for the Lady o f the Renaissance (Urbana, Chicago and London: University o f Illinois Press, 1956), 52-3. On the dualistic vision o f female musicians in England, see Linda Phyllis Austem, “‘Sing Againe Syren”: The Female Musician and Sexual Enchantment in Elizabethan Life and Litera­ ture’, Renaissance Quarterly 42 (1989), 420-48.

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scioglieva accento che l’aure non si fermassero per udirlo. I sospiri degli uditori, uscendo dall’intimo delle viscere, portavano le mie voci dietro alle anime che svaniscono. Non ti narro iperboli, Eurota. Fu piu d’una volta che si scordarono gli ascoltanti di respirare e di dar il naturale rinfrescamento all’arterie, tanto teneva la dolcezza delle mie voci ogni sentimento loro occupato229

In this instance, as well, the simile, although presented by the female character in the literary fiction, derives from male authorial visions of female music. Apart from the playful quotation of the comparison with Arion, Amphion and Orpheus, probably an Ovidian recollection, this passage is based on the widespread moralisation of the Sirens’ myth in countless allegorical elaborations of the early modem period. In emblem books, a useful stock of the most common topoi, the treatment of the Sirens is often intertwined with the interpretation of Ulysses as a stoic hero who can resist the temptations of the senses. This theme is present since Alciato’s collection (fig. 42): the emblem writer reuses an interpretation of the Sirens that is certainly not original (it goes back to late antiquity and the Middle Ages), but that is to become almost standard in the Renaissance. Sirens are the symbol of lechery, charming with ‘aspectu, uerbis, animi candore’, literally prostitutes with whom wise men like Ulysses must not mix. It can be added that, in some editions that rearrange the emblems of this celebrated collection by subject, this emblem still falls under the heading Amor, to be interpreted of course as sensual love as opposed to Platonic.*240

220 Francesco Pona, La Lucerna, ed. Giorgio Fulco (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1973), 108. 240 See Alciato, Emblemata (Lyons: Apud Mathiam Bonhomme, 1550), 116. A similar emblem with Sirens in the pictura is in Joachim Camerarius, Symbolorum

& Emblematum ex aquatilibus et reptilibus desumptorum centuria quarta (Nuremberg: Paulus Kaufmann, 1604), fol. 64r; the motto is Mortem dabit Ipsa Volvptas (fig. 43). This and other symbolic meanings o f the Sirens are collected in Valeriano, Hieroglyphica, fol. 150v; and particularly in Filippo Picinelli, Mondo simbolico (Milan: Per lo Stampatore Archiepiscopale, 1653), 81-2. For other

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The iconography of Alciato’s emblem is later codified visually and verbally in Cartari’s manual. Cartari also explains the double version of Sirens as bird-like (according to the classical tradition) or fish-like (following medieval iconographic and literary conventions):

di loro raccontano le fauole, che hanno parimente il uiso di donna, et il resto del corpo anchora, se non che dal mezo in giu diuentano pesce, e le fanno alcuni con le ali, e ui aggiungono gli piedi di gallo. E dicono, che furono tre figliuole di Acheloo, e di Calliope Musa: delle quali Tuna cantaua; l’altra sonaua di piua, о di flauto, come uogliam dire; la terza di lira, e tutte insieme faceuano un cosi soaue concento, che facilmente tirauano i miseri nauiganti a rompere in certi scogli della Sicilia, oue elle habitauano. Ma, che uedendosi sprezzate da Ulisse, il quale passando per la fece legare se alPalbero della naue, et a i compagni suoi fece chiudere le orecchie con cira, accioche non le udissero, si gittarono in mare disperate, e fu allhora forse, che diuentarono pesce dal mezo in giu. Seruio non pesce, ma uccello le fa in quella parte, che non e di donna, come fa Ouidio pur anche quando racconta, che queste erano compagne di Proserpina, le quali, dopo ch’ella fu rapita da Plutone, si mutarono in cosi fatti animali, che haueuano il uiso, et il petto di donna, & era uccello poi il rimanente.241

The image (fig. 44) renders the idea of an unusual concert combining song with a wind and a stringed instrument: a hybrid trio, already fixed in ancient texts, which seems to repeat in music the attractive diversity of the physical appearance of these beings. The main moralisation elaborated by Cartari continues in the misogynist spirit of Alciato and of countless others: Ma о pesci, come dissi, о uccelli che fossero le Sirene, basta, che sono cosa in tutto finta: onde uogliono alcuni, che per loro sia intesa la bellezza, la lasciuia, e gli allettamenti delle meretrici, et che fosse finto, che cantando addormentassero i nauiganti, & che accostatesi alle naui, gli

Continental emblems on Sirens, see Emblemata, ed. Henkel and Schone, cols. 1697-9. 241 Cartari, Le Imagini de i dei, 244-6. The illustration is on p. 245.

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uccidessero poi: perche cosi intrauiene a quelli miseri, li quali uinti dalle piaceuolezze delle rapaci donne, chiudono gli occhi dell’intelleto si, che elle poi ne fanno ricca preda, & quasi se gli diuorano.242

In Italian paintings of the same period, the representation of the Sirens together with Ulysses constitutes an allegorical treatment of virtues and vices, with the Sirens as the usual symbol of seduction, and Ulysses alternately standing for Temperance, Intelligence or other qualities permanently associated with his character throughout centuries of allegorical readings of the myth.243 This interpretative trend also finds its way into English emblem books: Whitney takes the Sirens directly from Alciato (fig. 45). While the latter insists on the monstrosity of the dual aspect of the Sirens, identifying their unnatural shape with the excesses of lechery, Whitney stresses the contrast between appearance and reality, illusory pleasure and hidden danger:

WITHE pleasaunte tunes, the SYRENES did allure Vlisses wise, to listen theire songe: But nothinge could his manlie harte procure. Нее sailde awaie, and scap’d their charming stronge. The face, he lik’de: the nether parte, did loathe: For womans shape, and fishes had they bothe. Which shewes to vs, when Bewtie seekes to snare.

242 Ibid., 246. 243 Two representative examples are in Italian Renaissance frescoes, see John Rupert Martin, ‘Immagini della virtu: The Paintings o f the Camerino F am ese\/fr/ Bulletin 38 (1956), 91-112; and Jennifer Montagu, ‘Exhortatio ad Virtutem: A series o f paintings in the Barberini Palace’, Journal o f the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 34 (1971), 366-72. The painter o f the frescoes o f the camerino in Palazzo Famese, Rome, executed around 1595, is Annibale Carracci, while the fresco with Ulysses in the Barberini Palace, Rome, was painted by Giacinto Camassei around 1670. In both cases the choice o f the subject o f Ulysses and the Sirens, showing the continuity o f this tradition throughout two centuries, is used both as an exemplum and as an encomiastic allusion to the virtues o f the two dedicatees o f these paintings. Cardinal Odoardo Famese and Cardinal Francesco Barberini respectively.

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The carelesse man, whoe dothe no daunger dreede. That he shoulde flie, and shoulde in time beware. And not on lookes, his fickle fancie feede: Suche Mairemaides Hue, that promise onelie ioyes: But hee that yeldes, at lengthe him selffe distroies.244

In a similar way female beauty is ambiguously depicted by Henry Peacham, reusing a personification in Ripa’s Iconologia {Bellezza Feminile). The English emblematist, inspired by the Italian handbook, devises a figure which is similar to that of a Siren, in particular in her holding a mirror (often recurrent in Siren iconography as a symbol of vanity). Also, she seems almost to merge with the dragon upon which she is sitting (fig. 46). The apparent praise contains elements that are clearly a warning for women, as in the final reference to the transience of female beauty:

Her nakednes vs tells, she needes no art: Her glasse, how we by sight are mooud to loue. The woundes vnfelt, that’s giuen by the Dart At first, (though deadly we it after prooue) The Dragon notes loues poison and the flowers. The frailtie (Ladies) o f that pride o f yours.245

Michael Drayton, in a love sonnet of the collection Ideas Mirrour, exploits a similar ambiguity, by using images that are per­ haps dependent on or at least linked to the emblematic tradition, in his reference to the Siren, the basilisk and the crocodile as a triple ‘emblem’ of the dedicatee of the sonnet. The comparison, as in other instances, is first presented through a verbal image and then expounded:

244 Whitney, Choice o f Emblemes, 10; cf. Alciato, Emblemata (Lyons: Apud Mathiam Bonhomme, 1550), 116 (fig. 42). 245 Peacham, Minerva Britanna, 58. See also Ripa, Iconologia, 42-3.

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Three sorts o f Serpents doe resemble thee. That daungerous eye-killing Cockatrice, Th’inchaunting Syren, which doth so entice. The weeping Crocodile: these vile pernicious three. The Basiliske his nature takes from thee. Who for my life in secrete waite do'st lye. And to my hart send’st poyson from thine eye. Thus do I feele the paine, the cause, yet cannot see. Faire-mayd no more, but Mayr-maid be thy name, Who with thy sweet aluring harmony Hast played the thiefe, and stolne my hart from me, And like a Tyrant mak’st my griefe thy game. Thou Crocodile, who when thou hast me slaine, Lament’st my death, with teares o f thy disdaine 246

The two symbols of the basilisk and the Siren, chosen to indicate the two channels of love, sight and hearing, curiously retrace the Neoplatonic itinerary of love we met above, but in the negative. If love poetry then reveals at least traces of the emblematic treatment of the Sirens’ myth, some English allegorical poems of the sixteenth century show a stronger dependence on the Con­ tinental tradition. A little-known work by the Elizabethan writer Bamabe Googe, The Shippe o f safeguarde, is based on the theme of the sea voyage as an allegory of man’s spiritual life. Among the seven obstacles that the ship must pass to arrive safely at its destination (representing eternal salvation) is the allure of the ‘Isle of fleshy pleasures’. This is, of course, the symbol of lechery, and the Sirens, here defined as ‘mermaids’, are a principal attraction:

246 Drayton, Works, 1:113. For the basilisk in emblems, see an example in Camerarius, Symbolomm & Emblematum ... centuria quarta , 79, also in Emblemata, ed. Henkel and Schbne, col. 627.

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And round in everie place they meete. With shalls o f Mermayds swimming here and there. Whose beautie great and pleasant singing sweete. So daunts the eyes and eares o f them that heare. That marvaile is it they hold their feete. From flying over to that lustie cheare. Their beautie is such, their voyce doth so delight. That with their tongues they conquer everie wight. Which sound when as Ulysses streight did heare. Could not restraine the affections o f his minde. But lowde he calles with griefe and troubled cheare, And willes his men with haste him to unbinde. Thus calling out and crying never the neare. He wrests and wries all meanes he may to Finde To unlose himselfe, and striving all in vayne. He beates his head against the Mast amayne. His wisdome great, could not his fancie guide, Ne rule his minde, nor bridle his delight. But if at libertie he had bene then untied, He would have lept amid that pleasant sight. And felt the fruites o f pleasure at that tide. Though it had cost him the losing o f his sprite, But being fast bound he could not have his minde. Till sayling past it was to farre behinde.247

We may note how the poet lingers at length on the description of the effects of the dual enticement, visual and aural, that bring Ulysses close to perdition. In this instance, too, the contrast is between impulsive desire and rational control, ‘wisdome’ and ‘fancie’. The reader is carefully led from the illustration to the explicit explanation or moralisation, as in emblem books, with which this poem shares the usual interpretation:

247 Bamabe Googe, A newe Booke, called the Shippe o f safeguarde (London: W. Seres, 1569), sigs. C6r v. I thank Simon McKeown for drawing my attention to this text.

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And as Ulysses passing by this place. Where mermayds flocke wherof we spake before. Whose sugred songs with sweete and lovely face. Did seeke to traine him to that deadly shore. Did give himselfe with wise and heavenly grace. For to withstand this lewd and flattring lore, Compellde his men to binde him to the Mast, Wherby with speede this daunger great he past. So in these seas o f pleasures least we quaile. We ought to binde our wills to reason strong, As to the Mast that beares our chiefest saile. That guides us best thorowout this journey long. So shall not all these flattring showes prevaile, So shall we scape this poysned deadly song. That hath bewitched so many vertuous eares, And brought them unto torments and to teares 248

In this long passage there are indications of further comple­ mentary readings of the Sirens. In fact, the poet does not specify the content of the Sirens’ song, even if he describes it as ‘pleasant singing sweet’ and ‘sugred song’. Considering the Protestant inspiration of the poem, we may perhaps read in the alternating descriptions of the Sirens - either as ‘lewd and flattring lore’, or as ‘flattring showes’ - an echo of the opposition to the formal and superficial rites associated with Catholicism. A later emblem book, for example, contains an interesting reference to the attractions of the Catholic cult as ‘the rapting straines Romes Syren sings’.249 Furthermore, the Sirens had been used as a metaphor for heretical thinking at least since Patristic writings.250 A passage from Spenser’s Faerie Queene shows how this material could be elaborated in poetry with more originality. The 248 Ibid., sigs. D lr'v. 249 Mirrour o f Maieslie, 23. Ascham as well, in The Scholemaster, seems to imply this meaning when, in a comparison between U lysses as an exemplar traveller and Englishmen travelling to Italy, he mentions the wise gentlemen that ‘all the Siren songes o f Italie, could never untwyne from the maste o f Gods word’ (English Works, 226). 250 See Leclercq-Marx, La Sirene, 58.

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lines that follow are from the second book, which treats temperance within the context of an allegorical voyage through different temptations culminating with the Bower of Bliss: And now they nigh approched to the sted. Where as those Mermayds dwelt: it was a still And calmy bay, on th’one side sheltered With the brode shadow o f an hoarie hill, On th’other side an high rocke toured still, That twixt them both a pleasaunt port they made. And did like an halfe Theatre fulfill: There those fiue sisters had continuall trade. And vsd to bath themselues in that deceiptfull shade. They were faire Ladies, till they fondly striu’d With th 'Heliconian maides for maistery; O f whom they ouer-comen, were depriu’d O f their proud beautie, and th’one moyity Transform’d to fish, for their bold surquedry, But th’vpper halfe their hew retained still. And their sweet skill in wonted melody; Which euer after they abusd to ill, T’allure weake trauellers, whom gotten they did kill. So now to Guyon, as he passed by. Their pleasaunt tunes they sweetly thus applide; О thou faire sonne o f gentle Faery, That art in mighty armes most magnifide Aboue all knights, that euer battell tride, О tume thy rudder hither-ward a while: Here may thy storme-bet vessell safely ride; This is the Port o f rest from troublous toyle. The worlds sweet In, from paine and wearisome turmoyle. With that the rolling sea resounding soft, In his big base them fitly answered. And on the rocke the waues breaking aloft, A solemne Meane vnto them measured. The whiles sweet Zephirus lowd whisteled, His treble, a straunge kinde o f harmony; Which Guyons senses softly tickeled. That he the boateman bad row easily, And let him heare some part o f their rare melody.

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But him the Palmer from that vanity. With temperate aduice discounselled, That they it past, and shortly gan descry The land, to which their course they leueled 251

In this passage the allegory of Sirens as sensual pleasure and the associated dangers are implied by the poetic imagery and conveyed through some subtle indications in the language. In the first stanza the method of presentation is strongly visual, intended to describe the scene as ‘an halfe Theatre’ to the Sirens’ performance (the detail of the rock, for example, symbolises danger for those approaching the Sirens, and this is often present in contemporary iconography). The number of five, rather than the usual three, has sometimes been interpreted as a reference to the five senses, but in the iconographic and mythographic traditions the Sirens are present in varying numbers.252 Especially noteworthy is the way in which Spenser renders the persuasiveness of the Sirens’ song through verbal and aural devices, such as alliteration. Nevertheless, for the content of the Sirens’ song, he follows, at least partially, the tradition of Renaissance handbooks. Comes, for example, attributes to Sirens the ability to allure men by adapting the subject of their song so as to render it more attractive to the different individuals addressed. Their song could be about the achievements of the

251 The Faerie Queene 2.12.30-4. 252 A possible reference to the five senses is suggested by C.W. Lemmi, see Edmund Spenser, Works: A Variorum Edition , ed. Edwin Greenlaw and others (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1932-57), 2:366; for other critical interpret­ ations o f the same passage, see ibid., 364-9. An interesting figurative parallel to Spenser’s five Sirens can be found later in Antonio Tempesta’s illustrations to Ovid’s Metamorphoses o f 1606; in this case the Sirens, without musical instru­ ments, are represented as simultaneously human, bird-like and fish-like: see Ovid,

Metamorphoseon sive transformationum Ovidianarum libri quindicem aeneis formis ab Antonio Tempesta florentino incisi ... Amsterodami [1606], facsimile ed. (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1976), 50. The iconography of this engraving was imitated in a French emblem book, where the pictura (fig. 47) is accompanied by a moralisation drawn from Bacon, see Jean Baudoin, Recueil d ’Emblemes Divers (Paris: Jacques Villery, 1638-9), 1:268-77.

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ambitious, or refer to sensual subjects to allure those inclined to pleasure.253 Spenser’s mermaids first flatter Guyon by singing the praises of his ability in battle and then invite him to enjoy inactivity as the legitimate reward of a warrior. In the latter case the memory of another model is also at work. In Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata, the knights Carlo and Ubaldo, before arriving at Armida’s garden and rescuing Rinaldo, meet two nymphs bathing in a spring who are defined, even before their physical description, as ‘false Sirens of pleasure’. The girls try to charm first by their beauty, and then by the same musical/poetical offer of otiose pleasure: Mosse la voce poi si dolce e pia che fora ciascun altro indi conquiso: — Oh fortunati peregrin, cui lice giungere in questa sede alma e felice! Questo e il porto del mondo; e qui e il ristoro de le sue noie, e quel piacer si sente che gia senti ne’ secoli de Того l’antica e senza fren libera gente. L’arme, che sin a qui d’uopo vi foro, potete omai depor securamente e sacrarle in quest’ombra a la qui'ete: cite guerrier qui solo d’Amor sarete; e dolce campo di battaglia il letto fiavi e l’erbetta morbida de’ prati. L’una disse cosi, l’altra concorde Г invito accompagno d’atti e di sguardi. Si come al suon de le сапоге corde s ’accompagnano i passi or presti or tardi.254

253 Comes, Mythologiae, fol. 225r: ‘Erat ilia Sirenum astutia, vt quibus rebus maxime quisque audiendis delectaretur, eas praecipue canerent; utpote ad captandos ambitiosos, & gloriae cupidos, res eorum gestas. Ad demulcendos libidinosos, res amatorias canebant; erantque mirifice omnium praeteritorum negotiorum memores.’ 254 Gerusalemme Liberata 15.62-5.

Spenser’s passage introduces as a further element the compli­ city of the sea and the wind. Here too, we may note his original elaboration: according to Cartari, quoting other authorities, Sirens were nothing but ‘Certi scogli tra gli quali le onde del mare facevano un cosi soaue mormorio, che i naviganti tratti dalla dolcezza del suono volontieri passavano per la, ove miseramente perivano poi’.255 Only the Palmer in Spenser’s text remains insens­ ible to these multiple attractions, and, implicitly taking on the role of Ulysses, he draws Guyon away from danger.256

II.3.2 False Sirens Other English examples of the time diverge somewhat from the interpretation of Sirens as explicitly erotic pleasure, but they usu­ ally maintain an emblematic treatment of the image and always show negative connotations. An emblem of the political Ulysses and the Sirens takes phys­ ical shape in a performance belonging to the genre of Lord Mayor’s Shows, typically exploiting the allegorical tradition for didactic and spectacular ends. In 1631 Thomas Heywood devised a show in which the application of the mythological episode takes on an overtly civic tone:

Vpon the water. Are two craggy Rockes, p la c ’d directly opposit, o f that distance that the Barges may passe betwixt them: these are full o f monsters, as

255 Cartari, Le Imagini de i dei, 246. 256 In the same vein, Samuel Daniel, some years later, would build a short poem on the opposition between a Siren’s call to ‘natural’ pleasure and U lysses’ sense o f duty, conceived as civil, military and political action, see ‘U lysses and the Syren’, in The Complete Works in Verse and Prose o f Samuel Daniel, ed. Alexander B. Grosart (New York: Russell & Russell, 1965), 1:270-2. See also the similar role played by the Sirens as assistants o f Circe and ‘baits’ for Ulysses in William Browne’s The Inner Temple Masque (1614), in The Whole Works of William Browne, o f Tavistock, and o f the Inner Temple, ed. W. Carew Hazlitt (n.p.: Roxburghe Library, 1868), 2:243-59.

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Serpents, Snakes, Dragons, &c. ... Vpon these Rocks are placed the Syrens, excellent both in voyce and Instrument: They are three in number, Telsipio, Iligi, Aglaosi; or as others will have them called, Parthenope, skilfull in musicke; Leucosia, upon the winde Instrument; Ligni, upon the Harpe. The morall intended by the Poets, that whosoever shall lend an attentive eare to their musicke, is in great danger to perish; but he that can warily avoyd it by stopping his eares against their inchantment, shall not onely secure themselves, but bee their mine: this was made good in Vlysses the speaker, who by his wisedome and policy not onely preserved himselfe and his people, but was the cause that they from the rockes cast themselves headlong into the Sea. In him is personated a wise and discreete Magistrate.

Vlisses his speeche. Keepe the even Channell, and be neither swayde, To the right hand or left, and so evade Malicious envie (never out o f action,) Smooth visadgd flattery, and blacke mouthd detraction, Sedition, whisprings, murmuring, private hate. All ambushing, the godlike Magistrate. About these rockes and quicksands Syrens haunt. One singes connivence, th’other would inchaunt With partiall sentence; and a third ascribes, In pleasing tunes, a right to gifts and bribes; Sweetning the eare, and every other sence, That place, and office, may with these dispence. But though their tones be sweete, and shrill their notes. They come from foule brests, and impostum’d throats, Sea monsters they be stiled, but much (nay more, ’Tis to be doubted,) they frequent the shoare. Yet like Vlisses, doe but stop your eare To their inchantments, with an heart sincere; They fayling to indanger your estate. Will from the rocks themselves precipitate. Proceede then in your blest Inauguration, And celebrate this Annual Ovation; Whilst you nor this way, nor to that way leane, But shunne th’extreames, to keepe the golden meane.257

257 Londons Ius Honorarium , in Thomas Heywood, The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood (New York: Russell & Russell, 1964), 4:270-2.

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Adulation, inequality of judgement and political corruption take the place of inducements to sensual pleasures in this allegory intended for the future governor. Nevertheless, the treatment preserves, at least at the visual level, the standard form of the trio fixed in the most recurrent iconographic pattern of the Sirens. Even more clearly, in a later English emblem, adapted from a famous Spanish collection of political emblems, the Siren becomes a mirror for the bad prince, as Ulysses is a mirror for the virtuous one. In Astry’s elaboration, as in Saavedra Fajardo’s original, the image of a Siren playing a violin (fig. 48) is applied to the dissimulation of courtiers and then to that of the governor pursuing his own aims rather than communal happiness: What we see o f the Mermaid , is Beautiful; what we hear. Melodious; that which the Intention conceals. Pernicious; and that which is hidden under Water, Monstrous. Who could imagine so great an Inequality in so fair an Appearance? Such Beauty as to charm the Mind, and such Harmony as to intice Ships upon Rocks? Antiquity admir’d this Monster as an extraordinary Prodigy: yet is nothing more frequent; Courts and Palaces are full o f them. How often is a fair, smooth Tongue, the Snare to entrap a Friend? How often does a Friendly, Smiling Look, conceal a Heart full of Rancour and Malice? ... We see much o f the Syren in the pretexts o f some Princes: How full of Religion and Concern for the Publick Good? How Obliging, Kind, and Promising? And what Cheats do they impose upon each other, under these Feints and Appearances? They have the Face o f Angels, but end in Serpents; and Embrace, only to Sting and Poison: The Wounds o f a Wellmeaning Sincerity are more wholsom than the Kisses o f such Lips. The Words o f those are smooth and balmy, but o f these sharp-pointed

Arrows.258

The wisdom almost always associated with Ulysses can also be seen as knowledge (considered as a specifically male quality, as the ‘manly harte’ in Whitney clarifies). The metaphor of the Sirens in this case touches cultural issues, as it applies to negative eloquence or to superficial and corrupting knowledge.258 258 Saavedra Fajardo, Royal Politician , 2:212-13.

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One of the most elaborate Continental treatments of this type is in a work by Georg Sabinus, in which the myth is offered almost as a parable of the degeneration of culture. According to this German humanist, the tale of the Sirens’ song was originally linked with the study of eloquence and literature, but it soon became associated with the immoral behaviour of students. This gave rise to the interpretation of the Sirens as voluptuousness and of their song as alluring eloquence which can even corrupt religious doctrine.259 English Emblem books also reveal the presence of the theme of Sirens as ‘deceitfull Sophistrie’. This idea is encapsulated in an emblem by Francis Thynne, belonging to the subgenre of emblemata nuda, where the pictura is not an engraving or woodcut but a corresponding verbal description. After a few lines summarising the traditional genealogy of the Sirens and their iconography, the text concentrates on the allegory of another episode of the myth, the one of the contest between Muses and Sirens, as told by Pausanias:260 Parthenos virginn, with sweete Ligia, and the most daintie white Leucosia, who doth in false bewitching tunes excell, wherby they sacred muses did compell with them to singe, victorious crowne to gayne; which learned muses did at first disdayne, all though at length they yealded full consent, and to their witlesse challeng did relent; when with their shrill and most celestiall sound, those prowde Syrens they easilie did confound, by iustice lawe; for whoe maye well compare the muses musick natural 1 and rare, to the deceitfull Captious Syrens skill, with which they all lascivious eares do fill? The muses then, full victors in the feilde, vnplum’d those Syrens whome they forct to yeald, and from them all their glorious fethers take, wherof triumphant crownes they dulie make; 259 See Ovid, Fabularum Ovidii interpretation 201. 260 Pausanias Description o f Greece 9.34.3.

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wA/'ch mithologians thus doe moralize: the muses, note the doctrine o f the wise, and perfect wisdome, which victoriouslie triumphes on crag’d deceitfull Sophistrie, wA/ch by false Syrens we doe signifie for what ells doe their fethers notifie, but foolishe words, wanting true reasons ground, wA/ch light, like fethers toste in wynde, are founde? these doth true wisdome overthrowe in Scome, and with faire crowne therof, her hedd adome.26!

The wisdom alluded to by Thynne also occurs in Bacon’s work on mythology. The English philosopher, a few years later, makes his moralisation shift from the usual ethical context to a cultural one. If Sirens are still seen as ‘sensual pleasures’ (or ‘voluptas’ in the original Latin version), Bacon also insists on the contrast between Muses and Sirens, that is between real knowledge and pleasant but superficial learning:

But learning and education brings it so to passe, as that it restraines and bridles mans mind, making it so to consider the ends and euents o f things, as that it clippes the wings o f pleasure. And this was greatly to the honour and renowne o f the Muses: for after that by some examples it was made manifest that by the power o f philosophy vaine pleasures might growe contemptible; it presently grew to great esteeme, as a thing that could raise and eleuate the mind aloft that seemed to be base and fixed to the earth; and make the cogitations o f men (which doe euer recide in the head) to be aethereall, and as it were winged. But that the Mother o f the Sirenes was left to her feet and without wings; that no doubt is otherwise meant, then o f light and superficiall learning, appropriated and defined onely to pleasures.2 61262

O f the three possible ‘antidotes’ to pleasures offered by Bacon, ‘two from Philosophy, and one from Religion’, the exemplum offered by Orpheus finally prevails - rather than that by Ulysses or 261 Francis Thynne, Emblemes and Epigrammes (1600), ed. F.J. Furnivall (London: N. Triibner & Co., 1876), 44. 262 Bacon, De Sapientia Veterum, 169-70.

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the mariners. According to the version of Apollonius Rodius and of the Orphic Argonautica, repeated by Bacon, the mythical singer drowns out the Sirens’ song with his song and thus saves the Argonauts.263 He is then exalted again, not as an embodiment of philosophy, as in the chapter dedicated to him, but of religion: The first meanes to shunne these inordinate pleasures is, to withstand and resist them in their beginnings, and seriously to shunne all occasion that are offered to debauch & entice the mind, which is signified in the stopping o f the Eares; & that remedie is properly vsed by the meaner and baser sorte o f people, as it were, Ulisses followers or Marrineres; whereas more heroique and noble Spirits, may boldly conuerse euen in the midst o f these seducing pleasures, if with a resolued constancie they stand vpon their guard, and fortifie their minds; And so take greater contentment in the triall and experience o f this their approued vertue; learning rather throughly to vnderstand the follies and vanities o f those pleasures by contemplation, then by submission. ... But o f all other remedies in this case, that o f Orpheus is most predominant: For they that chaunt and resound the praises o f the Gods, confounde and dissipate the voices and incantations o f the Sirenes\ for diuine meditations doe not onely in power subdue all sensual pleasure; but also farre exceed them in sweetnesse and delight.264

In this passage, closing The Wisedome o f the Ancients, Bacon seems to want to stress, as elsewhere in the same work, the merits as well as the limits of philosophy, the distinction between science and faith. A survey of the presence of the Sirens in English literary and visual culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries reveals that various influences and preoccupations of the time come together in the treatment of this myth. In love poetry references to women as Sirens do not vary greatly from those found in Italian poetry from the Middle Ages to the Baroque. The comparison is applied to apparently eulogistic purposes, but it does not lack ambiguous ^62 Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica 4.891-919; Orphei Argonautica 1264-90. 264 Bacon, De Sapientia Veterum, 173-4.

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implications if linked to the controversial status of musical practice for women in this period. The common interpretation of Sirens as symbolising voluptuousness remains prevalent in the wake of the strong influence of Continental works. Traces of the mythographic tradition, as popularised in emblem books, are often evident. This tradition has a particular relevance in works of a moralising character, inspired or at least influenced by the Protestant milieu. A less recurrent instance is the political application of the mythical episode by Thomas Heywood, where the dangers embodied by the Sirens intertwine with the interpretation of Ulysses as a perfect ‘magistrate’. In the English context the Sirens may also have more or less overt implications as symbols of corrupting knowledge or rhetoric. In this case the moralisation touches again on a theme already met in association with Orpheus and other mythical male musicians, that of eloquence and culture. Here it is conceived not as ‘civilising’ but rather as ‘alienating’, to be read also in the light of England’s controversial, shifting relationship with Continental culture and religion.

Ill Music and Spirituality III.l Music as Vanity The association of music and love, treated in the previous section, highlighted not only the positive aspect of music as a metaphor for harmony and concord for man and the macrocosm, but also its negative one as an ambiguous instrument of persuasion or of erotic seduction. Apart from the treatment of the Sirens’ music - the motif that was most often used as an exemplum for the latter subject - the combination of music and love associated with the theme of youth or of human temperaments had shown perhaps less explicit negative overtones rooted in the already medieval attitude of suspicion towards music. The objections to certain kinds of music, reputed in antiquity by Plato and other writers to be responsible for moral weakening,265 had been adapted in the Patristic and medieval traditions to spiritual aims, and were again quoted in the sixteenth-century debate on elaborate musical performances during religious rites. Furthermore, outside religious contexts themselves, music did not enjoy, at least in public opinion, a general approbation, being often associated with the activities of street musicians and minstrels. Regardless of the progressive re-evaluation of music in Hu­ manist and Renaissance thought, which also gave rise to a literary tradition of praises of this art, a suspicion towards practical music remained alive in some circles.266 Within the Reformation milieu, music, polyphonic in particular, was the target of a number of at^65 For musical thought in the ancient world, see Giovanni Comotti, Music in Greek and Roman culture, trans. Rosaria V. Munson (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989); and Enrico Fubini, Estetica della musica, Lessico dell’Estetica, no. 3 (Bologna: II Mulino, 1995), 45-59. ^66 See especially Hollander, Untuning of the Sky, 104-22; and Hutton, ‘Some English Poems in Praise o f Music’.

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tacks, being considered a possible distraction from worship in the church, and a merely frivolous and impermanent activity outside it. In the visual arts as well, the negative connotations of music are present, for example in the inclusion of musical instruments as the main or secondary subject in the genre of still lifes and in the representation of musical performances. Mirimonde has shown links between some of the motifs in which music is present as a negative symbol in the visual arts: the Danse macabre, the ‘Triumph of Death’, and the vanitas, in the form of both still life and real or fictional characters associated with musical instruments.267 It is interesting to explore here the less investigated association of music with these themes in emblem books, English in particular, and to consider their possible implications of gender and the meanings they take on within the cultural climate of the time. An emblem serving as a transition from the idea of music as a deceptive lie (met in the previous section in relation to the Sirens) to that of music as a sinful and vain activity - two concepts that are somehow related - can be found in the collection The Mirrour of Maiestie. The pictura of the emblem in question (fig. 49), encircled by the Italian motto Sott ’humano sembiante empio veneno, represents a man playing a lute and accompanied by an animal, a dog or more probably a goat. This common attribute shows a link with Peacham’s emblem on the young sanguine, mediated from Ripa,268 in the representation of a figure that is meant to be symbolic rather than realistic. The deceptiveness of the human figure indicated by the motto is also suggested by the substitution of the lower part of the human body with a chain of rings, by which the author gives visual shape to the compelling attraction exercised by the sounds. Although it is impossible to reconstruct the original author’s intended meaning of this emblem,269 the English writer develops it in some 267 See Albert P. de Mirimonde, ‘Les Vanites & Personnages et a Instruments de Musique’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 92 (1978), 115-30.

268 See fig. 46. 269 On the derivation o f these emblems from an unpublished work, see Martin R-

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lines that apply the idea of music as a metaphor for deception both to the ‘mundane’ and properly political context and to the spiritual one, establishing an equivalence between music and sin: THus playes the Courtly Sycophant, and thus Selfe-pleasing Sinne, which poysons all o f vs: Thus playd the whore whome the wise king describes Thus he who rayles at, and yet pockets bribes: Thus playes the Politician , who will smile. Yet like this Serpent sting your heart the while. Bung vp thyne eares then, or suspect the harme, When sweete Cyllenian words begin to charme.

But you, can these unmask by knowing best How to keepe such from lurking neere your breast.270

The theme of music as vanitas, often associated with female characters within this tradition, is better developed in Wither’s col­ lection. In the first of the two emblems considered here, the picture represents an elegant woman balanced on a sphere, while holding in one hand a sceptre offered by a man in kingly dress, and grasp­ ing with the other the bow of a fiddler, towards whom she seems to be leaning, even with her glance. The inscribed motto. Non sceptro sed plectro ducitur, explains the figure with allusion to the proverbial inclination of women to music (fig. 50). We can recall here the words pronounced by Count Ludovico in the Courtier, where, while praising music at court, he underlines that: (beside the refreshing o f vexations that musike bringeth unto eche man) many things are taken in hand to please women withall, whose tender and soft brests are soone pierced with melodie, and filled with sweetnesse. Therefore no marvell, that in olde times and now adayes they have alwaies beene inclined to Musitions, and counted this a most acceptable food o f the minde.270271 Smith, ‘The Apologia and emblems o f Ludovico Petrucci’. 270 Mirrour o f Maiestie, 39. 271 Castiglione, Book o f the Courtier, 75. In the Italian original: ‘oltre al refrigerio de’ fastidi che ad ognuno la musica presta, molte cose si fanno per satis far alle

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The short Latin epigram in the original emblem by Rollenhagen, on the contrary, moralised its meaning with reference to the instability of love, already indicated in the picture by the uncertain support of the sphere that is often an attribute of personi­ fications of Fortune.272 Wither’s text brings these implicit premises to extreme conse­ quences. In fact, he takes the figure as a starting-point for a long lesson to his reader on the unreliability of women attracted by wealth and mundane pleasures, such as music. He also tries to guide, as in the case of the emblem of Cupid the musician, his reader’s choices in love: Foole! Dost thou hope, thine Honours, or thy Gold , Shall gaine thee Love? Or, that thou hast her heart Whose hand upon thy tempting Bayt layes hold? Alas! fond Lover , thou deceived art. She that with Wealth, and Titles, can be wonne. Or w oo’d with Vanities, will w av’ring bee; And, when her Love, thou most dependest on, A Fiddle-sticke shall winne her heart from thee. To Youth and Musicke, Venus leaneth most; And (though her hand she on the Scepter lay) Let Greatnesse, o f her Favours never boast: For, Heart and Eye, are bent another way. And lo, no glorious Purchase that Man gets, Who hath with such poore Trifles, w oo’d, and wonne: Her footing, on a Ball, his Mistresse sets. Which in a moment slips, and she is gone. A Woman, meerely with an Outside caught, Or tempted with a Galliard , or a Song, Will him forsake (whom she most lovely thought) For Players and for Tumblers, ere 4 be long. You, then, that wish your Love should ever last, (And would enjoy Affection, without changing)

donne, gli animi delle quali, teneri e molli, facilmente sono dall’armonia penetrati e di dolcezza ripieni. Pero non e maraviglia se nei tempi antichi e nei presenti sempre esse state sono a’ musici inclinate ed hanno avuto questo per gratissimo cibo d’animo’ (Castiglione, II libro del Cortegiano , 99). 272 See Rollenhagen, Nucleus Emblematum selectissimorum , no.7.

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Love where your Loves may worthily be plac’t; And keepe your owne Affection, still from ranging. Vse noble Meanes, your Longings to attaine; Seeke equall Mindes, and well-beseeming Yeares: They are (at best) vaine Fooles, whom Follie gaine; But, there is Blisse, where, Vertue most endeares: And, whersoe’re. Affection, shee procures. In spight o f all Temptations, it endures.273

Wither seems to express a definite opposition towards the game of love as it developed at court, as witnessed by Castiglione. The reference to profane music, in particular to two fashionable genres such as song (or ayre, gaining popularity in this period in the new monodic style) and galliard (a form of typically ‘courtesan’ music for dancing to), serves to characterise this opposition by better defining its target. The author contrasts to the superficial, impermanent love of this milieu not an abstract Neoplatonic ideal, but a solid and concrete feeling made of ‘equall Mindes, and wellbeseeming Yeares’. This feeling is characteristically described as ‘Affection’, almost taking the place of, or at least redefining, the concept of ‘Love’ at the end of the epigram. The treatment of vanitas that is the basis for this emblem is in some way renewed. The virtue of affection, presumably domestic and well distin­ guished from ‘courtly’, or better, ‘courtesan’ love (considering its negative implications), is opposed to the theme of the madness of those who prefer worldly goods, here wealth and music.274

273 Wither, Collection o f Emblemes, 1. 274 Music is associated with the foolishness o f those singing at night in the street in the famous Das Narrenschiff by Sebastian Brant, accompanied in the various editions by numerous woodcuts; see, for example, the title-page and its verso and also chapters 54, 62, 89, 108 in Sebastian Brant, Das Narrenschiff. Faksimile der

Erstausgabe Basel 1494 mit dem Nachwort von Franz Schultz. (Strasbourg 1913), ed Dieter Wuttke. Saecvla Spiritalia vol. 6 (Baden-Baden: Valentin Koemer, 1994). See also the Latin version, Stultifera Nauis, trans. lacobus Locher (Basel: Opera Iohannis Bergman de Olpe, 1498), fols. 70rv. This poem was also adapted in England by Barclay in 1509, see Alexander Barclay, The Ship o f Fools, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: William Paterson; London: Henry Sotheran & Co., 1874).

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A related emblem in the same collection using music again figuratively, with a similar but not exactly identical function, is the one re-elaborating the famous motif of Hercules at the crossroads (fig. 5 1).275 The hero’s choice between vice and virtue is overtly related by Wither to his personal experience. According to Barbara Lewalski, this particular application to the self is a feature of the Protestant meditative practice, to which this collection of emblems, like much religious poetry of the period, is indebted, and the section of final prayer further stresses the individual dimension of the text in question.276 Wither makes Hercules almost a type of his young self, poised between salvation and perdition when facing the court (clearly suggested in the expression ‘Englands greatest Rendevouz'). Therefore, this emblem too shows an opposition to vice that is actualised with a specific reference to the context of the court that is par excellence mundane:

My hopefull Friends at thrice five yeares and three, Without a Guide (into the World alone)

2^5 The standard study o f this motif is the 1930 essay by Panofsky, now reprinted as Erwin Panofsky, Hercules am Scheidewege und andere antike bildstoffe in der neueren Kunst Mit einem Nachwort zur Neuauflage von Dieter Wuttke (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1997). For Hercules in emblem books, see Bagley, ‘Hercules in Emblem Books and Schools’. In the English context the theme is also present, without musical implications, in Whitney’s Choice o f Emblemes, 40, the pictura o f which is drawn again from a Continental book, cf. Junius, Emblemata , 50, em­ blem 44. A similar contrast between personified Virtue and Voluptuousness, with music as an attribute o f the latter, again associated with the choice o f Hercules, is also in Brant, see Stultifera Nauis, fols. 130v-1 3 3 v; in one o f the illustrations, Voluptuousness, represented as a naked woman, is accompanied by two players, o f harp and lute respectively (fol. 13 Г). 276 On this issue, see Barbara Kiefer Lewalski, Protestant Poetics and the Seven­ teenth Century Lyric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 148-51; and Michael Bath, introduction to George Wither, A Collection o f Emblemes (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989), 5. For the link between different kinds o f medita­ tive practices and English religious poetry, see Louis L. Martz, The Poetry of Meditation: A Study in English Religious Literature o f the Seventeenth Century, rev. ed. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1962).

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To seeke my Fortune, did adventure mee; And, many hazards, I alighted on. First, Englands greatest Rendevouz I sought. Where VICE and VERTVE at the highest sit; And, thither, both a Minde and Bodie brought. For neither o f their Services unfit. Both, w oo’d my Youth: And, both perswaded so, That (like the Young man in our Emblem here) I stood, and cry’d. Ah! which way shall I goe? To me so pleasing both their Offers were. VICE, Pleasures best Contentments promist mee, And what the wanton Flesh desires to have: Quoth VERTVE, I will Wisdome give to thee.

And those brave things, which noblest Mindes doe crave. Serve me said VICE, and thou shalt soone acquire All those Atchievements which my Service brings: Serve me said VERTVE, and lie raise thee higher. Then VICES can, and teach thee better things. W hil’st thus they strove to gaine mee, I espyde Grim Death attending VICE; and, that her Face Was but a painted Vizard, which did hide The foul’st Deformity that ever was. LORD, grant me grace for evermore to view

Her Vglinesse: And, that I viewing it, Her Falsehoods and allurements may eschew; And on faire VERTVE my Affection set; Her beauties contemplate, her Love embrace, And by her safe Direction, runne my Race. 277

Music is present in this emblem only at the iconic level, but the relationship of both adherence and distance from its iconographic tradition is particularly meaningful. In the representation of Vice and Virtue associated with the choice of Hercules in the visual arts, musical instruments are usually attributes of Vice (as in a cele­ brated painting by Annibale Carracci),278 on the basis of the already quoted interpretation of musical instruments as symbols of

277 Wither, A Collection ofEmblemes, 22. 278 Ercole al bivio , oil on canvas, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples; this was originally executed for the camerino o f Palazzo Famese, Rome, see above, 108 n. 243.

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vanitas. The engraving by De Passe presents an interesting di­ vergence in this instance. Although some commentators interpret the lute in this emblem as an attribute of the female character representing Vice,279 its central position seems to provide a meaningful variation not only in the iconography, but also in the symbolism of this feature. If we look closely at the correspondence of the various attributes of Vice and Virtue in this figure - where in particular cut lilies, indication of transience and corruption, correspond to the sunflower, symbol of the man always turning towards God; and the book, alluding to the immortality of wisdom, corresponds to the skull and the whip, symbols of death and of in­ fernal chastisement - the musical instrument remains in an ambivalent position. In fact the lute is in the middle, equidistant from Vice and Virtue. It is close on one side to the caduceus, an instrument alluding to Mercurial wisdom and here an attribute of Virtue, and on the other side to a scorpion, an attribute of death. The engraver then seems to have interpreted the iconographic tradition with particular reference to the ambiguous, dualistic role of music, which can be an important element of worship or, in its mundane associations, a symbol of frivolity and perdition. Wither’s epigram, like Rollenhagen’s, suspends, perhaps intentionally, the author’s opinion on music in this context. The lines, in fact, allude only to some of the attributes, and generically to the attractions, of Vice and Virtue (the latter is interpreted as fe­ male, in evident contrast with the pictura ), but they do not specifically cite music among ‘Falsehoods and allurements’ to avoid. In a less explicit and subtler way, this emblem summarises within Wither’s collection the polyvalent status of music: it can be alternately condemned as a vanitas, exalted as a right recreational activity, or used as a metaphor for true love or, as a later example will show, as an important instrument of prayer.

279 See, for example, Austem, ‘The Siren, the Muse, and the God o f Love’, 11518. On the other hand, the ambiguous meaning o f the lute in this emblem is under­ lined in Wells, Elizabethan Mythologies, 52-3.

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In another English collection of spiritual and religious emblems. Emblems with Elegant Figures (or, according to the originally in­ tended title, Sparkles o f Divine Love), by John Hall, published in 1658, we can find again the connection between music as vanity and a female character. The source of this emblem is again Contin­ ental, since the figures are copied from the emblem collection Flammulae Amoris by the Augustinian Michael Hoyer.280 But, as in other instances, the English texts are developed more or less in­ dependently from their sources. The pictura of one of the emblems (fig. 52) joins some of the possible figures pointed out by Mirimonde in the vanitas in the visual arts, placing a putto and a young woman beside musical in­ struments.281 In the centre a woman, here crowned and in elegant clothes, seems to hand a sceptre to a small figure close by, while a little putto carelessly blows soap bubbles on the opposite side. In the foreground, on a table, are several musical instruments of the profane tradition, among which are lutes and flutes. If the two small figures must be considered Love and the Soul, the constant protagonists in sacred emblematics, in this case Love is undoubt­ edly not Divine Love (the halo usually characterising him is absent), but his profane parallel, Cupid, here busy with an ir­ relevant activity. The woman is a personification of Vanity, the subject of the emblem, trying to attract the Soul to herself with her sceptre and to take it into her sphere of sensual love, music and games. Critics of John Hall, the author of several prose works and of a volume of poems, have underlined his poetical ambitions and his taste for intellectual conceits, taking his work far from the tradition of meditative emblematics that was the starting-point for this book.282 Their observations on the loose correspondence between 280 First published in Antwerp in 1629; I have consulted a later edition: Michael Hoyer, Flammulae amoris (Antwerp: Apud Henricium & Cornel Verdussen, 1708). 28* See Mirimonde, ‘Les Vanites a Personnages et a Instruments de Musique’. 282 See Freeman, English Emblem Books, 137-8; John Horden, introduction to

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the poetical texts and the related images can also apply, at least partially, to this emblem. Its lines seem to expound independently, and autonomously - in fact they were already contained in his collection of poems - on the theme of the vanitas of the various human activities, starting from a quotation by Saint Augustine, evidently indebted in its turn to the famous passage from Ecclesiastes.283 A subtle link with the pictura is in the poetical image of the child blowing bubbles, traditionally interpreted as a symbol of the vain activities that are taken in earnest by men:

We laugh at children that can when they please A bubble raise, And when their fond Ambition sated is Again dismisse Thee fleeting Toy into its former aire: What do we here But act such tricks? yet thus we differ, they Destroy, so do not we: we sweat, they play.2**4

The leading idea, the elusiveness of human ambitions, expressed through the metaphor of soap bubbles dissolving into air, is also reused in the fourth stanza, where Hall reverses a traditional emblem of human glory - here revealing his witty game - that of Fame personified as a woman playing a trumpet.285 On the contrary, in this instance the sound o f the trumpet itself becomes an emblem of transience because it is short-lived, and even more so, because it is a wind instrument, an idea that is also the reason for the inclusion of musical instruments in vanitas paintings:286

John Hall, Emblems with Elegant Figures (Menston: Scolar Press, 1970); and Bath, Speaking Pictures, 186-90. 283 Eccles. 1.2; in the King James Version: ‘Vanity o f vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity o f vanities; all is vanity.’ 284 John Hall, Emblems with Elegant Figures (London: Printed by R. Daniel, [1658]), 5. 285 For some examples in emblem books, see above, 74, n. 178. 286 For this genre in Flemish seventeenth-century paintings, see Fischer, Music in

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Another, whose conceptions onely dream Monsters o f fame: The vaine applause o f other mad-men buyes With his own sighes Yet his enlarged Name shall never craul Over this ball: But soone consume, thus doth a trumpet’s sound Rush bravely on a little, then’s not found.28728

In the pictura the position of the bubbles symmetrically above the musical instruments seems to be almost an equivalent to their sound that cannot be figuratively represented. The musical instrument is also present as an embodiment of vanitas in two other English books of spiritual emblems, reusing picturae drawn from Continental collections. I refer to Arwaker’s Pia Desideria: or Divine Addresses, a translation of Hermann Hugo’s Pia Desideria, and to Francis Quarles’s renowned Emblemes, the last three books of which are also based on the same Continental collection. In Quarles’s book (and almost identically in Arw aker’s version), we can find the pictura (fig. 53), copied from Hugo,288 having as a background a group of devils and personified temptations chasing human souls in an effort to capture them, while in the foreground the Soul, represented as a child, is finally taken into the net of Death. Beside it are the baits used to perform this capture, and among them is a lute. Inscribed below the pictura is a quotation from Psalm 18 - ‘The sorroues of hell haue encompassed me the snares of death haue ouertaken me’289 which serves as a starting-point for the elaboration of the theme of Paintings, 45-72. ^82 Hall, Emblems with Elegant Figures, 6 . 288 Francis Quarles, Emblemes (London: Printed by G. M., 1635), 156; Herman Hugo, Pia Desideria: Or, Divine Addresses, in Three Books, trans. Edmund Arwaker (London: Printed by J.L. for Henry Bonwicke, 1690), 42; Herman Hugo,

Pia Desideria (Antwerp: Apud Henricum Aertssens, 1632), 72. 289 Quarles, Emblemes, 157.

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ensnaring that is further developed in a long anaphoric passage based on the word ‘snares’ in the corresponding epigram. In the beginning, by commenting on the realistic precision of the engraving, Quarles also underlines the exact rendering of the sound of hunting horns in the image: ‘Didst ever heare the sounds, / The musicke, and the lip-divided breaths / O f the strong-winded Home, Recheats, and deaths / Done more exact?’290 The implied consent of the reader to this paradoxical question is, as Bath has noted, part of the game of collaboration between the author and the reader, who is explicitly addressed by this epigram.291 Both the music evoked in this passage, and the lute abandoned ‘On th’unsuspected earth, baited with treasure, / Ambitious honour, and selfe-wasting pleasure’,292 belong to a purely worldly sphere, exploited by the devil. In a similar way, in the more literal translation of the same em­ blem by Arwaker, the image is elaborated with reference to the false values offered by Death to attract her victims:

[...] as a Fowler, with his hidden Snare, Contrives t’entrap the Racers o f the Air; While to conceal and further the deceit. He straws the ground with his destructive meat; And fastens Birds o f the same kind, to sing. And weakly flutter on their captive wing: So Death the Wretch into his Snare decoys. And with pretended happiness destroys: Above the Nets we think a leap to take. But head-long drop into th’infernal Lake.293

Music, profane in particular, in these interpretations is connoted in a wholly negative way. The following pages will show how the

290 29 i 292 293

Ibid. Bath, Speaking Pictures, 203. Quarles, Emblemes, 158. Hugo, Pia Desideria: Or, Divine Addresses, 45.

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same music, if referring to prayer and to the praise of God or inter­ preted as a direct expression of the divine, can take on a positive value even within the same or similar works, as well as in religious poetry of the same period.

Ш.2 David as Emblematic Model The figure of David is particularly relevant in religious literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. References to the biblical character can be found not only in works linked to his name - such as in the countless versions, translations, or paraphrases of the Psalms, a phenomenon that is meaningful in itself - but also in poetical works, emblem books, treatises on various subjects, and in the visual arts. David often takes on the role of touchstone or prototype of the poet-musician directly inspired by God. The prevalence of this aspect of the character within the English context is due to the central role that the Psalms play both in the Reformation rites, and as inspiration for some of the poetry of the time. This latter aspect has been investigated by Barbara Lewalski, who has shown how the most important English poets writing betw een the second half of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth have, in one way or another, elaborated a Protestant poetics coherent with the new spiritual climate, referring more or less explicitly to models of biblical poetry.294 But the special meaning of the Psalms in England is also con­ nected with their central role in the practice of sacred music. In the debate on the lawfulness of music in church, particularly lively in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, Puritans expressed their opinion against any kind of music but the simple singing of Psalms in antiphonal form. This was due to their fear that elaborate polyphonic music would impede a full comprehension and assimilation of the sacred texts.295 294 See Lewalski, Protestant Poetics. 295 For a detailed picture o f the impact o f the Reformation on English musical life, see, for example, Le Huray, Music and the Reformation', Boyd, Elizabethan

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References to David’s music/poetry are not simply a variation of the classical metaphor in which poetry is indicated by reference to music. The ideal union of music and poetry pursued in the Renaissance is really achieved in the Psalms that could be sung in church or in private. Nevertheless, it should be emphasised that the priority of the text rather than the music necessarily remained a postulate of the union in this case. David appears in Wither’s emblem collection in an example that adds to our knowledge of his attitude towards music. As we saw earlier in other emblems by the same author - those on Arion, Apollo and Cupid - his opinion on music was generally positive, with the exception of the emblems in which Wither, taking the Continental picturae as a starting-point, commented with some ambiguities on the association between music and superficial love or ‘vice’. The emblem with David in the pictura makes Wither’s position explicit with regard to religious music. In the emblem on Apollo as an archer and kithara player Wither justified the use of music as a legitimate recreational activity, defining specifically its objectors not only as excessively severe, but also as ‘foolish’ and ‘injurious’.296 In that instance the praise of music was somehow indirect, at least in the epigram praising the right of men to have some time for recreation. In this emblem the lines on the use of music in church make clear Wither’s position in the contemporary debate on the topic. De Passe’s pictura represents in the foreground a harpist on his knees, his face turned towards the divine light, while in the back­ ground a figure in prayer in front of a burning house is hovered over by an angel (fig. 54). The musician is certainly David, while the detail in the background, unexplained in Rollenhagen’s original Music; and Walter L. Woodfill, Musicians in English Society from Elizabeth to Charles I (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1953). For an alternative to the belief that Puritans objected to music in general, see Scholes, Puritans and Music. 296 See above, 57-8.

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epigram, seems to refer to the necessity of faith and prayer in moments of difficulty for men, but it is also connected with the iconography of David. A recurrent representation in book illuminations of the Penitential Psalms is in fact that of David devoid of his attributes of harp and crown - kneeling in prayer, while David playing the harp or the psaltery appears, for example, in medieval illuminations, or in the letterheads, of books of Psalms.297 In the pictura of this emblem, the harp that, rather than lying on the ground, is played by the praying David, becomes an actual instrument of prayer.298 The application of the figure to this idea is also indicated by the motto inscribed around the picture, Musica serva Dei. Wither expands on it by adding an English motto that refers to the enemies of music: ‘Though Musicke be o f some abhor ’d , / She, is the Handmaid o f the Lord.’299 The epigram first refers to the opinions of detractors of music in general and of church music, then to Wither’s view of the same: TO Musicke, and the Muses, many beare Much hatred; and, to whatsoever ends Their Soule-delighting-Raptures tuned are. Such peevish dispositions, it offends. Some others, in a Morall way, affect

297 See, for example, Margaret Boyer Owens, ‘The Image o f David in Prayer in Fifteenth-Century Books o f Hours’, Imago Musicae 6 (1989), 23-38; and Cinzia Procacci, ‘Re David: Simbolismo e Realta strumentale. Uno sguardo all’iconografia perugina dal XIII al XVI secolo’, in Musica e immagine: Tra iconografia e mondo dell'opera. Studi in onore di Massimo Bogianckino, ed. Biancamaria Brumana and Galliano Ciliberti (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1993), 53-70. 298 Cf. the emblematic title page o f Wither’s A Preparation to the Psalter ( 1619), engraved by Francis Delaram, where a cartouche includes a central kneeling fig­ ure playing the harp, probably David, with a large group o f people singing and playing various instruments; it is reproduced and discussed in Alan R. Young, ‘George Wither’s Other Emblems’, in Emblematic Perceptions: Essays in Honor o f William S. Hekscher on the Occasion o f His Ninetieth Birthday, ed. Peter M. Daly and Daniel S. Russell, Saecvla Spiritalia vol. 6 (Baden-Baden: Valentin Koemer, 1997), 207-10. 299 Wither, A Collection o f Emblemes, 65.

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Their pleasing Straines (or, for a sensuall use) But, in Gods Worship, they the same suspect; (Or, taxe it rather) as a great abuse. The First o f these, are full o f Melancholy; And, Pitty need, or Comfort, more then blame; And, soone, may fall into some dangerous folly , Vnlesse they labour, to prevent the same. The Last, are giddie-things , that have befool’d Their Iudgements, with beguiling-Fantasies, Which (if they be not, by discretion, school’d) Will plunge them into greater Vanities,300

Wither on the one hand condemns as melancholic those object­ ing to music and the arts; on the other hand, in judging negatively those who only approve of profane music, he associates nonreligious music with the ‘vanity’ he alluded to in another emblem.30* From this premise the epigram proceeds to expound the advantages of sacred music, conceived as an act of devotion, touching again, as in the emblem of Cupid, on ideas of musica Humana, the harmony between the different parts of man. Finally the text goes back to music as an actual manifestation of faith:

For, Musicke, is the Handmaid o f the LORD, And, for his Worship, was at first ordayned: Yea, therewithal 1 she fitly doth accord; And, where Devotion thriveth, is reteyned. Shee, by a nat’rall power, doth helpe to raise, The mind to God, when joyfull Notes are sounded: And, Passions fierce Distemperatures, alaies; When, by grave Tones, the Mellody is bounded. It, also may in Mysticke-sense, imply What Musicke, in our-selves, ought still to be; And, that our jarring-lives to certifie. Wee should in Voice, in Hand, and Heart, agree: And, sing out. Faiths new-songs, with full concent, Vnto the Laxves, ten-stringed Instrument,302

300 Ibid. 301 See above, 126-7. 302 Wither, A Collection o f Emblemes, 65. See also ‘Hymn XXXVIII. For

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The final section of the epigram, in particular, establishes a link with David through a paraphrase, easily recognisable by contem­ porary readers, of the first verses of Psalm 33, which may be considered one of the most important reference points for allusions to music in praise of God:

REJOICE in the Lord, О ye righteous: for praise is comely for the upright. Praise the Lord with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument o f ten strings. Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.303

In apologetic works of the preceding period too, as in the one already quoted, the praise of musical practice in church emphasised in a similar way the presence of references to song within the Psalms themselves: wee do amis in iudging o f the sacrifie o f their praise which they offer in the Church o f God, singing: especially seeing we finde both commandement for it in the law o f God, and the example o f Dauid. For commandement it is said. Praise him with Virginals & organs, praise him with cimbals, praise him with high sounding cimbals, let euerie thing that hath breath praise the Lord Iesus Christ. ... But for conclusion o f this point, my last proofe shall be out o f Isidore which speaketh most plainely to this effect ... The Psalter o f Dauid is therefore accustomed to be song in the church with the melodie o f pleasant songs, that men may the more easily thereby be brought to a remorse o f conscience and sorrowe for their sinnes.304

The role of the Psalms is fundamental not only for poetry and music in praise of God, but also because these express, in their

Musician’, in Wither’s Haleluiah, or Britans second Remembrancer (London: Printed by I.L. for Andrew Hebb, 1641), 430-2, in which he employs both the reference to the psalmist and the concept o f ‘self-tuning’ that will be treated later. 303 Psalm 33: 1- 3. 304 Praise o f Musieke, 115-16.

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variety of ‘voice’ and inspiration, the different emotions of man. An emblem by Henry Peacham (fig. 55) makes this clear: he inter­ prets Psalms figuratively, on the basis of some Patristic passages, as different ‘keys’ for access to the relationship with the divine:

TO sundry keies doth HILARIE compare The holy Psalmes o f that prophetique King, Cause in their Natures so dispos’d they are, That as it were, by sundry dores they bring. The soule o f man, opprest with deadly sinne, Vnto the Throne, where he may mercy winne. For wouldst thou in thy Saviour still reioyce, Or for thy sinnes, with teares lament and pray. Or sing his praises with thy heart and voice. Or for his mercies giue him thankes alway? Set DAVIDS Psalmes, a mirrour to thy mind. But with his Zeale, and heavenly spirit ioin’d.305

David then becomes, under this aspect, the tutelary deity for the religious poet, an obliged reference point as Orpheus had been for ‘profane’ poetry. He is taken as a guide not only for his ‘song’ in praise of God, but also for his ability to express the different moods of man. By imitating him the poet can transform his pain and laments into ‘music’, producing sounds equally appreciated by God, as in a poem of the early seventeenth century by a minor poet, James Day:305

305 Peacham, Minerva Britanna, 9. For some manuscript versions o f this emblem, see Henry Peacham's Manuscript Emblem Books, ed. Alan R. Young, with the assistance o f Beert Verstraete, The English Emblem Tradition, no. 5 (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University o f Toronto Press, 1998), 10, 67, 133 and 136. These emblems are based on a passage o f James l ’s Basilicon D own indicating the Psalms to his son as the most appropriate example o f prayer. For the importance o f David as a ‘mirror’ o f faith and prayer in Calvinist thought, see Barbara Pitkin, ‘Imitation o f David: David as a Paradigm for Faith in Calvin s Exegesis o f the Psalms’, Sixteenth Century Journal 24 (1993), 843-63.

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О that I had a sweete melodious voice! 0 that I could obtaine the chiefest choice O f sweetest musicke! pre-thee David lend Thy well-resounding harpe, that I may send Some praises to my God: I know not how To pay by songs my heart-resolved vow: How shall 1 sing good God? thou dost afford Ten thousand mercies, trebled songs О Lord Cannot requite thee! О that I could pay With lifetime songs the mercies o f one day! 1 oft beginne to sing, and then before My songs halfe finisht, God gives sense for more.

Alas poore soule art puzzeld? const not bring Thy God some honour though thou strive to sing? The Cause is this, thou art become his debter Heele make thee play on musicke that is better. I Cannot play, my sobs doe stop my course, My grones doe make my musicke sound the worse.

What nought but grones? ah shall th Almighties eares Be ft Id with sighes all vsherd in with teares? I this is musicke: such a tune prolongs Gods love, and makes him listen to thy songs: Tis this that makes his ravisht soule draw nigher, Tis this outstrips the Thracian with his Lyre, Tis this inchants thy God, tis this alone That drags thy spouse from heaven to heare thy tone: No better Musicke then thy sobs and cries,

If not a Davids harpe, get Peters e y e s .^

The act of tuning David’s stringed instrument serves as an emblematic image to indicate the choice of the sacred subject in poetry. This may be seen in Joshua Sylvester’s English version of Du Bartas’s poem L 'Urante, translated and imitated many times in England: Then take Mee (Bartas) to conduct thy Pen, Soar up to Heav’n; Sing me th’Almightie’s praise: And tuning now the Jessean Harp again.

306 The Melancholicke Soules Comfort’, in James Day, A New Spring o f Divine Poetrie (London: Printed by T.C. for Humphry Blunden, 1637), 24-5, lines 1-28.

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Gaine thee the Garland o f etemall B a y e s .^

Henry King uses a similar image in a poem in praise of Sandys’s paraphrases of the Psalms:

Here are choice Hymnes and Carolls for the glad. With melancholy Dirges for the sad: And David (as he could his skill transfer) Speaks like him self by an interpreter. Your Muse rekindled hath the Prophets fire, And tun’d the strings o f his neglected Lyre; Making the Note and Ditty so agree. They now become a perfect harmonic.30**

Furthermore, still in Sylvester’s Urania, David and other biblical singers are assimilated to the mythical ones - reinterpreted in their turn as early exponents of divine wisdom - in a syncretic vision of the origins of poetical inspiration: Tunes, Notes, and Numbers (whence they doe transfer Th’harmonious powr that makes our Verse so pleasing) The sternest Catoes are o f force to stir, Man’s noblest spirits with gentle Fury seazing. For, Verse's vertue, sliding secretly (By secret Pipes) through th’intellectual Notions; O f all that’s pourtraid artificially Imprinteth there both good and evil motions. So did my David in trembling strings O f his divine Harp onely sound his God: So milde-soul’d Moses to Jehovah sings Jacob ’s deliv’rance from th 'Egyptian ’s rod.*308

Urania, Or, The Heavenly Muse, in The Complete Works o f Joshuah Sylvester, ed. Alexander B. Grosart (Printed for Private Circulation, 1880), 2:4. Sylvester also translated Du Bartas’s La Creation du Monde. 308 ‘70 my honoured Friend Mr. George Sandys’, in The English Poems o f Henry King, ed. Lawrence Mason (New Haven: Yale University Press; London Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1914), 99.

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So Orpheus, Linus, and Hesiodus (Whereof the first charm’d stocks and stones, they say) In sacred Numbers dar’d (to profit us) Their divine secrets o f deep skill convay.309

The correspondence between Orpheus and David - implicit or explicit in references to the psalmist in religious literature - is also based on a specific affinity, or at least it was perceived as such, between the two ‘legendary’ musicians. The power of Orpheus’ song has been embodied, since antiquity, in the parable, variously interpreted as real or as a metaphor, of its effects on the beasts and on the infernal gods. Similarly an episode in the Bible hands down the idea of the equally strong powers of David’s ‘harp’: David, in fact, cures King Saul who was afflicted by fits of melancholy or folly (manifestations of the devil) through the thaumaturgic sound of his instrument. The episode, as it was rendered in the King James Version, reads: But the Spirit o f the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on an harp: and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well . . . . And David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him greatly; and he became his armourbearer. And Saul sent to Jesse, saying. Let David I pray thee, stand before me; for he hath found favour in my sight. And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.310

This theme is also widely present in the visual arts, both in il­ lustrations of the Old Testament, and, independently from these, in

3^9 Complete Works o f Joshuah Sylvester, 2:5. 310 Sam. 16.14-23.

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works of important artists of the period.311 In the David and Saul episode, music is not meaningful as prayer, but as an action with cathartic and harmonising effects. References to the healing of Saul through David’s music become a fixed feature in works of different kinds where the usefulness of music is debated. Burton, to mention one example, typically inserts the story of David and Saul when considering music as a remedy for melancholy.312 This feature is at the root of another important elaboration of the image of David. In literature of Christian inspiration, the prototype of Orpheus-David in some instances merges with the figure of Christ, summarising in himself the characteristics of the ideal musician, both classical and biblical. The parallel between Orpheus, David and Christ does not originate in the sixteenth cen­ tury, but has its roots at least in Patristic literature. The most important elaboration of this motif is in Clement of Alexandria’s Exhortation to the Greeks, a work of the beginning of the third century A D, aimed at the conversion of pagan people. In a few passages, the action of the Word, author of a New Song, is opposed to the beguiling art of the pagan singers, Amphion, Arion and especially Orpheus. Clement contrasts the effects of the Orphic song on animals with the action of the new singer - the Word - on the hearts of the Gentiles, and its harmonising function on the whole creation. In another instance, the author also mentions David as the direct precursor of the divine singer for the thaumaturgic powers of his song for Saul. The divine 311 The episode o f David and Saul is the subject o f two paintings by Rembrandt, while David the harper appears in works by Domenichino and Rubens. Several examples are included in Hans Joachim Zingel, Konig Davids Harfe in der

abendlandischen Kunst: King David's Harp as Represented in European Art (Cologne: Musikverlage Hans Gerig, 1968). See also the engraving by Lucas van Leyden, fig. 58. 312 Burton, The Anatomy o f Melancholy, 2:115. Cowley, in his long epic poem on David, uses the episode o f David and Saul as a starting-point for a digression on the power o f music: see Davideis, book 1, accompanied by ‘encyclopedic annotations by the author him self (Abraham Cowley, Poems, ed. A.R. Waller [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905], 1:253-5 and 275); on this passage, see Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 238-44.

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singer identifies, of course, with Christ, who is at the same time author and subject, as the Word, of the song in question.313314 Parallels between Orpheus and Christ and David and Christ can be found again in emblem books, seventeenth-century ones in par­ ticular, and testify to a renewed interest in their poetical and figurative applications. On the Continent an explicit instance of the reinterpretation of Orpheus for religious purposes is in a collection by the Augustinian Chesnau, who builds a whole book of emblems round this figure. This work, which had a Latin and a French version, begins with an image of Orpheus and the animals, the emblematic meaning of which is later elaborated in the remaining part of the collection (fig. 5). While Clement of Alexandria contrasted Orpheus with Christ, the emblem writer uses the classical figure of Orpheus and the animals as a metaphor for Christ ‘the musician’ and pacifier of the whole creation. In this emblem the civilising Orpheus of Horace, explicitly quoted as a source, undergoes a Christian reading, as is also shown in the prose commentary: Orphee est done dans le sentiment de ce Pere de 1’Eglise, la plus belle figure que nous ayons du Fils de Dieu, fait homme, qui par les puissans charmes de sa tres-aimable humanite, attire a soy toutes les creatures, les appriuoise & les accorde parfaitement ensemble, les entretenant dans vne paix inuiolable. II fait ces prodiges sur le Caluaire & dans 1’Eucharistie, la Croix estant le chemin qu’il nous a ouuert pour arriuer a la vie etemelle, & l’Eucharistie estant le gage de cette vie: ce sont le deux routes qu’il a tenu pour I’etem te.3 !4

313 See Clement o f Alexandria, trans. G.W. Butters, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1979), 3 27. On Clement’s elaboration o f the Orphic figure, see also Robert A. Skeris,

XPQMA 0EOY: On the Origins and Theological Interpretation o f the Musical Imagery Used by the Ecclesiastical Writers o f the First Three Centuries, with Special Reference to the Image o f Orpheus (Altdtting: Verlag Alfred Coppenrath, 1976), 56-65 and 130-3; and Eleanor Irwin, ‘The Song o f Orpheus and the New Song o f Christ’, in Orpheus, ed. Warden, 52-62. 314 Augustin Chesnau, Emblemes Sacrez sur le Tres-Saint et Tres-Adorable Sacrement de lEucharistie (Paris: Chez Florentin Lambert, 1667), 2-3. This edi-

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In England the image of Jesus as a musician is present in the Jesuit Henry Hawkins’s adaptation of the French Jesuit Stephanus Luzvic’s Le coeur devot.i]5 The book belongs to the representative genre of heart emblematics, having as a subject the human heart that now becomes a ‘theatre’, now the object itself of actions of purification. The link of this kind of emblem books with the Jesuit meditative tradition has often been underlined for this and for similar collections, where the images become the starting-point for meditation. The picturae in the Continental source are imitations of the en­ gravings in Anton Wierix’s celebrated series Cor Iesu amanti sacrum, showing scenes in which the heart is prepared to house the divine guest. In two of them Jesus, represented as the Holy Child, both sings, beating time and reading from a music book, and plays a harp within a dissected heart. In both instances he is accompanied by four angels taking part in the metaphorical concert, playing, or, in the second instance, singing around the heart itself (figs.56 and 57).3i6 A rare copy of Hawkins’s The Devout Heart in its turn uses picturae similar to those described above.*31*317 The English writer’s tion simplifies and translates the longer and more elaborate Latin edition, cf. id.,

Orpheus Evcharisticus. 313 This work was originally published in French in 1626, but Hawkins based his version on the Jesuit Charles Musart’s Latin translation, first published in Douai in 1627; I have consulted a later edition, Stephanus Luzvic, Cor Deo devotum Iesu pacifici Salomonis thronus regius (Antwerp: Apud Henricum Aertissium, 1628). 3 '6 Luzvic, Cor Deo devotum Iesu , 144 and 154. 317 The only known copy o f Hawkins’s work complete with the picturae is the one kept at Eton College, see Henry Hawkins, The Devout Hart, 1634, introductory note by Karl Joseph Holtgen, facsimile ed. (llkley and London: Scolar Press, 1975); other surviving copies have blank pages where the picturae should have been printed. W ierix’s figures were readapted many times by different authors; the series is reproduced in Marie Mauquoy-Hendrickx, Les

estampes des Wierix conservees au Cabinet des Estampes de la Bibliotheque royale Albert Fr, introduction by Louis Lebeer (Bruxelles: Bibliotheque royals Albert Ier, 1978), 1:56-8, plates 429—46. An engraving by Wierix belonging to another series shows the image o f the Holy Child playing several stringed instruments within five hearts, see ibid., 1:55, plate 423.

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original contribution is in a short lyric section, ‘The Hymne’, added to the emblem immediately after the pictura and motto, and before the translations of the different prose parts of the Continen­ tal work. In the lines written for the first of the two emblems, Hawkins repudiates profane music, represented by the nightin­ gale’s and the Sirens’ songs,318 to exalt the divine song announcing eternity within the human heart: If thou within my hart wouldst dwel; О IESV, then what Philomel, Could warble with so sugred throne. To make me listen to her note? The Syrens o f the world to me; Would seeme to make no harmony. When they a long, a large resound O f pleasures, thou dost them confound. Chanting a long, a large to me, With ecchoing voyce, Eternity! A briefe o f pleasure, with like strayne Thou soundst a long o f endlesse payne. The Diapason, ioyes for me, To liue in blisse eternally.3 *!9

The metaphorical use of music as an action of the Word con­ tinues in the adaptation of the prose texts. Of particular interest is the link with the musical practice of the time in the reference to a polyphonic performance for three parts by Jesus, the angels and the human heart itself, all participating in the concert:

3 18 For the polyvalent image o f the nightingale in emblems and its literary trad­ ition, see Elena Laura Calogero, “‘The litle Orpheus o f the woods”: the nightingale motif in Renaissance emblems and poems’, in F lorilegio de

estudios de E m blem atica. A flo rilegiu m o f studies on Em blem atics. Adas del VI Congreso Internacional de Emblematica de The Society for Emblem Studies. A Coruna, 2002, ed. Sagrario Lopez Poza (Ferrol: Sociedad de Cultura Valle Inclan, 2004), 225-35. 3,9 Hawkins, Devout Hart, 1634, 172.

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О Sweet harmony! О diuine confort! Or are we mocked the while? 1 heare me-thinke a lute, the harpe playes, the flutes and comets wind, a whole Quire is kept in the hart; and if I be not deceiued it is a song o f three parts; they seeme to play according to the number o f the musitians that play. For the Angels here o f th’one side, though they vse diuers instruments; yet sounding but one thing seeme to play but one part; then IESVS the skilful and most exquisit Musitian tunes his voyce, and beares his part; lastly the hart hath his. For amidst these numbers it sings and dances al at once. How quaintly and aptly the strings, wind instruments, and voyce al agree: With how admirable a pleasure the numbers quauer and iump with al. But then how noble a Hymne is sung the while how curious & elegant IESVS stands in the midst, not only a singer, but as a Rectour o f the Quire also with a magistrat rod in hand now lifted vp, and then let fal; keeping the time, and ordering the key and ayr o f the whole song.320

In the meditation that follows numerology is again present, this time in the tripartition of heavenly music (the traditional angelic concert in Heaven), earthly music as human praise of God, and the music of the devout heart of man, interpreted here as a ‘tempera­ ment’ of his different faculties, presided over by the divine action:

The third symphony is held in the Temple o f mans hart, and then is that melody made, when al the faculties o f the soule, contayne themselues within their parts and functions; when reason playes the treble, the inferiour appetite beares the base, when our wil agrees with the diuine and supreame wil: and such is the sweetnes o f this harmony, as fils [t]he mind with immense pleasure. And no maruel, while IESVS him self moderats al this musike with his most certaine and temperate rules and measures.321

The link between Jesus the musician, David and Orpheus is even more explicitly emphasised in the emblem that follows, with the motto Iesus the Sonne o f David, playes on the harp in the hart, while the Angels sing. Hawkins also adds some lines in which the prototype of Orpheus, absent in the picture, is remembered:

320 Ibid., 174-5. 321 Ibid., 183-4.

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When IESVS doth my hart inspire, As Orpheus, with his tuned lire, The trees with power attractiue drew, My hart deep rooted (where it grew In baren soyle without content) So powerfully he drawes, that rent From thence, it followes him, takes root, And so self-loue which had set root Is banished farre, who charm’d before My hart deluded. Euermore IESV be al in al, my part. My God, musitian to my hart. And harmony, which solace brings Ah touch my heart, & tune it’s strings.322

The last lines play with the well-worn conceit of the heart­ strings, widespread in previous and contemporary love poems, but more interesting in this case, as the context allows for an application that is more literal than usual. The heart-strings conceit, as well as the link with David, is also used in the subsequent prose section, ‘The Incentive’, in which the meaning of the image is further explained to introduce the meditation: 1. IF IESVS touch alone and mooue affects, which are the strings o f our hart, good God! how sweet, how diuine a musike he makes therein. But if self-loue once play the Harper, and medle with the quil, and touch the springs but neuer so litle, ah me! it is a hellish horrour, and no musike. 3. Touch but the harp, litle Dauid, giue it a lick with the quil, twang only, I say, twang the domestical harp but neuer so slightly, wheron thy Gransier Dauid playd so long a goe, and it is enough. It was it dispersed the horrid clouds o f sadnes and melancholy & draue away the wicked Genius. О God, when I heare this Dauid both father and sonne o f the Royal Psalmist, playing on his harp, how my hart iumps the while, yea how ready it is to leap out o f it-self.323

322 Ibid., 186. 323 Ibid., 187-8. The image o f the human heart as a musical instrument in the Western tradition is also linked to puns on the Latin words cor, cordis ( heart )

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1113 The Tuning of the Human Soul The human heart in heart emblematics not only becomes the site of the divine concert, but also a musical instrument - the object o f the divine action signified through the musical metaphor. The similar idea of the soul as a musical instrument, namely a lyre or a stringed instrument, has its roots in the most ancient philosophical tradition, Pythagorean in particular, in which human harmony corresponded to that of the macrocosm.324 The idea o f the human soul ‘played’ by God was later elaborated in early Christian thought. Without trying to retrace the complex evolution and the variants of this concept throughout the centuries, 1 will examine its presence in seventeenth-century English poetry and emblem books, where it seems to hold a relevant place. In the English context the image o f the ‘tuning’ o f the devout is present in two different senses, either with exclusively spiritual implications or with artistic implications also. In the first, man is the passive object o f this action, performed by God, and specifically, in some instances, by the Word through the mediation of its ministers. In the second case it is the poet himself who tunes his own soul, drawing poetical inspiration from it: in this way the action o f tuning becomes a moment o f individual preparation for a contact with the divine through poetry. The conceit o f the preacher’s tuning o f the devout’s soul is found in an English emblem book o f a more overt Puritan inspiration. In an emblem of Thomas Jenner’s The Soules Solace, a plain pictura shows a man sitting at a table and tuning a lute within a bare context, devoid of those decorative elements that charac­ terise other similar representations of interiors in emblems.325 The unage is perhaps derived from a Dutch source, in this case from an

and chorda, chordae (‘string'). see Spitzer. Classical and Christian Ideas, 84. 324 See Fubini. Esietica della musica. 45-9. 325 See Thomas Jeimer, The Soules Solace, or Thirtie and One SpiritualI Emblems (London: Sold by Thomas lenner, 1631). sig. F5‘.

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emblem by Cats already met, in which the tuning of the lute ap­ plied to the theme of sympathetic vibration.326 In the related verses, under the title ‘The New Creation’, the poet evidently refers to the new relationship that Protestants wanted to establish with sacred texts through a more direct contact with the divine word, the Bible, as it was spread by preachers. The ancient meta­ phor of the tuning of the believer by God is renewed through its actualisation in a Protestant key. The basic concept of tuning a stringed instrument is still the same that, for example, had provided Alciato in the previous century with the matter for a political elaboration, and that had been applied in England to King James as a new Orpheus.327 However, Jenner’s text does not mention the other associations that must evidently resonate in the mind of a reader familiar with the polyvalent emblematic significance of the tuning of the instrument. The focus here is on the idea of the preparation of the true Christian, compared to a musical instrument rightly fitted for playing: A M ustek Instrum ent , though fitting strin gs , Apt p e g g s, and f r e ts , it hath; and other things Which Instruments require; Yet t’is rejected. I f t bee but out o f tune’s not once respected O f skilfull Masters', being still the sam e , With all the Ornaments that they can name. As other Instruments; which sweetly play; Only that it’s not tun’d, t’is naught they say, Away with’t. Would you know the reason why? It’s out o f tune, t’will make noe melodie. But being scrude, and tun’d, and new amended. It soundeth pleasingly, and is commended. So every man that’s borne is a [full] creature. Fraught with all humane faculties, as fe a tu re 326 For Cats’s emblem, see above, 93, and fig. 35; Jenner’s presumed debt to Dutch emblematists is suggested by Gottlieb, see his introduction to Thomas Jenner, The Em blem Books o f Thomas Jenner: The Soules Solace. The Path o f Life. The A ges o f Sin , ed. Sidney Gottlieb (Delmar, N.Y.: Scolars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1983), xiii-xiv. 327 See above, 25-7.

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And p a rts o f body,; and soules p o w e rs , as m ind , WT//, C onscience, Memory:; hee’s nought behind The perfect’st C hristian ; What can be desir’d? There’s all in him, that is in man requir’d. Yet yields he not to Got/ a pleasant sound, Because he is not a new creatu re found. But when G ods m inister shall these vp screw, And so doth tune and make this creature new. He streight resounds Spiritu all melody. And in G ods eares giues heavenly harmony. The Bones E zech iell saw both dead and dry. Became o f vse, when he did Prophesie. Thou nothing art, whilst thou art but meere nature. Stocks, Stones, & Beasts, each one o f them’s a creatu re And thou no m ore ; But wilt thou better be? Let G ods w o rd new transforme, and fashion thee: As Instrum ents , vnlesse in tune , are slighted; So men, except new m ade , ne’re G o d delighted.328

At the end of the epigram two initials indicate that the subject of the emblem, as of others in the same collection, comes from a contemporary sermon, as the author states in the preface to this work. In this case the letters ‘M.D.’ have been interpreted as a possible reference to a ‘Master Donne’ or ‘Mister Donne’, that is to John Donne the preacher, who actually employed musical imagery in some of his sermons. In any case, this feature in Jenner’s collection confirms the multiple relationships between religious emblematics and other forms of literary expression of the period.329 The recurrence of a similar image in John Bunyan’s emblem book can be traced back to the same tradition as Jenner’s. Bunyan almost justifies his work by underlining a didactic aim already in the title that indicates young readers as the ideal addressees. The

328 Jenner, Soules S olace , sigs. F5V-F 6 V. 329 Jenner, Emblem Books o f Thomas Jenner , xii. Some instances o f the use o f musical imagery in Donne’s work are included in Milton Allan Rugoff, D onne's Im agery: A Study in C reative Sources (New York: Russell & Russell, 1962), 103-

6.

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emblem in question, both in the simplicity of the figure of a trumpet player (fig. 59) and in the text - which, making the comparison explicit, excludes any interpretative effort from the start - signals the end of the evolution of the emblematic musical image. Even the shift from tuning the musical instrument to simply playing it perhaps shows the waning of the concept of universal harmony expressed through images of temperament/tuning, so well studied by Spitzer in a celebrated essay.330 Only the equation between music and the Word, spread in this case, as in Jenner, through the preacher’s action, remains: Upon a skilful Player on an Instrument. He that can play well on an instrument, Will take the ear, and captivate the mind. With mirth, or sadnes: for that it is bent Thereto as musick, in it, place doth find. But if one hears that hath therein no skill, (As often musick lights o f such a chance) O f its brave notes, they soon be weary will: And there are some can neither sing nor dance. COMPARISON. Unto him that thus skilful doth play, God doth compare a gospel minister. That rightly preacheth, (and doth godly pray) Applying truly what doth thence infer. This man, whether o f wrath or grace he preach, So skilfully doth handle every word, And by his saying, doth the heart so reach. That it doth joy or sigh before the Lord. But some there be, which, as the bruit doth lie Under the word, without the least advance

330 See Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas.

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God-ward: such do despise the ministry. They weep not to it, neither to it dance.331

We can compare Bunyan’s emblem to the one devised on the same subject in the sixteenth century by Paradin, where the preacher’s action is indicated almost hieroglyphically by the simple image of a bagpipe (fig. 60). In a later English adaptation the image is accompanied by an epigram where the association of the musical instrument with the preachers as ‘shepherds’ of the Church is equally left implicit: To establish the state o f Christian religion, and to preserue the soundnes and integritie o f the same it shall be necessarie that the faithfull preachers o f Gods word by their examples and liuing doe exercise their dutie o f preaching the worde diligently without ceasing.332

In the two emblems above the musical action is mainly a meta­ phor for the diffusion of the Christian message and for the transformation of the devout through it. In other instances poetical inspiration coming from God is seen in musical terms, when the poet himself is compared to a musical instrument tuned or played by God.3

331 John Bunyan, D ivine Em blem s: O r the T em poral Things Spiritu aliz d, F itted f o r the U se o f Boys a n d G irls (London: Sold by J. Wilkie, 1770), 71-2. Cf. also

the first edition, without illustrations, in which emblem 40 is based on a very similar analogy between the unskilful musician and T h e unleam’d Novices in things Divine’, A Book f o r Boys a n d G irls: or, C ountry rhim es f o r children (London: Printed for N. P., 1686), 49. In emblem 19 o f the same edition (ibid., 36-8), Bunyan compares his soul’s faculties to bells, and he wishes them to be played by Grace; Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky , 276-81, stresses the analogies between this text and Traherne’s poem ‘B ells’ (cf. Thomas Traherne, S elected P oem s a n d Prose, ed. Alan Bradford [Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1991], 111-14). 332 Paradin, H eroicall D evises , 224-5. Cf. also the French original, Paradin, D evises H eroiqu es , 174.

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In Sylvester’s translation of Du Bartas’s poem, the concept of poetical inspiration as a gift from God is built round an emblematic image, that of the poet as a musical instrument. Here the organ is directly moved by the divine breath: Each A rt is leam’d by Art: but POESIE Is a meer H eav ’nly gift: and none can taste The Deaws wee drop from Pindus plenteously, If sa c r e d F ire have not his breast imbrac’t. For, as a humane Furie makes a man Lesse then a man: so D ivine-F ury makes him More then himselfe; and sacred Phrenzie then Above the heav’ns’ bright flaming arches takes-him. Thence, thence it is that divine P oets bring So sweet, so learned, and so lasting N um bers; Where Heav V s & Nature’s secret works they sing. Free from the power o f F ate's etemall slumbers. True P o e ts , right are like winde-Instruments, Which full, do sound; empty, their noise surceases. For with their Fury lasts their Excellence; Their M use is silent, when their Fury ceases.333

In England making poetry is again associated with the ‘tuning’ of the poet’s soul, this time by God, as in George Herbert’s ‘The Temper (I)’: How should I praise Thee, Lord? how should my rhymes Gladly engrave thy love in steel. If, what my soul doth feel sometimes, My soul might ever feel! Yet take thy way; for sure thy way is best: Stretch or contract me, thy poor debtor:

333 Urania, Or, The Heavenly Muse, in Complete Works o f Joshuah Sylvester, 2:4.

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This is but tuning o f the breast. To make the music better.334

Herbert, a poet who appreciated music, must have found this concept particularly suitable to express the indissoluble bond between his poetical activity and prayer, as can be seen in another poem, ‘Denial’: When my devotions could not pierce Thy silent eares. Then was my heart broken, as was my verse: My breast was full o f fears And disorder; Therefore my soul lay out o f sight, Untun’d, unstrung; My feeble spirit, unable to look right Like a nipt blossome, hung Discontented. O, cheer and tune my heartlesse breast. Defer no time; That so thy favours granting my request. They and my mind may chime. And mend my rhyme 335

The image can be elaborated in a different form when the stress is not on the passivity of the person who receives the inspiration, 334 ‘The Temper (1)’, lines 1-4 and 21-4. 335 ‘Denial’, lines 1-5 and 21-30. In a similar way, Henry Vaughan reused the image, with no reference to his poetical activity, to indicate the changeability o f human moods, in ‘Affliction (I)’, lines 35—40 (The Complete Poems, ed. Alan Rudrum [Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976], 219-20): Thus doth God key disordered man (Which none else can,) Tuning his breast to rise, or fall; And by a sacred, needful art Like strings, stretch every part Making the whole most musical.

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but on the devout poet’s preparation for the relationship with the divine. The concept of tuning man’s soul returns again here, this time as a subjective action. Nevertheless, the basis for this image is still an idea of preparation as spiritual purification. In a Jesuit emblem book, Drechsel’s Zodiacus Christianus, which had several versions in different languages, the image of a lute is still applied to the moral lesson of ‘tuning’, harnessing of passions. Here twelve symbolic images are used as a starting-point for as many moral lessons on the conduct of the Christian. One of the emblems in the English edition represents only a lute accompanied by the motto Moderation o f our passions (fig. 61). The meaning of the image is widely explained in the prose text that follows, where, together with the conceit of a pure soul ‘like a Lute indeed, with all its strings in tune’,336 we can find the equally traditional image of the soul as player of the human body as instrument:

For he who overcomes his enemy is onely stronger than another man, but he who resists his libidinousnesses is stronger than himselfe. A curious Musitian never leaves tampering with his instrument, till it be in tune, and so the predestinate ceases not to compose his affections, till they agree among themselves in a harmonious peace. If we will believe P lato the body is a Lute, and the soule the Lutenist, which now tunes one string, now another, as it finds occasion: now it moderates the eyes, and now the tongue; now it containes the eares, and now the hands; and whensoever the passion o f anger, or luxurie chance to rise too high, it reduces them to the right pitch o f reason againe. He was a skilfull Musician indeed who said: C astigo corpus mens & in servitutem redigo, I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection. And so the principal care o f the predestinate, is, daily to examine the instrument o f his affections, and now to strive against his choler, now represse his envy, now excitate his drowsinesse, now moderate his sadnesse, and now reffaine his joy; he is still practising on it, and so long tunes up some strings, and lets down others, till it agree in perfect harmony.337

336 Jeremias Drechsel, The C hristians Zodiake (London: Printed for William Willson, 1647), sig. K8V. 337 Ibid., sigs. K10rv. Cf. also the Latin edition, Jeremias Drechsel, Zodiacus Christianus locupletatu s (Cologne: Apud Cornel: ab Egmond, 1632), fols. 15r v;

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This idea of ‘tuning oneself as an act of preparation for eternal life and as a ‘song’ of true Christianity is, in a way, the foundation for the specifically metapoetical use of the musical metaphor: the tuning of the soul as a spiritual practice can become the startingpoint for poetical creation. The image is used by Quarles as the opening of his collection of emblems. The engraving preceding the ‘Invocation’ (fig. 62) represents a woman, the personification of the poet’s soul, against a laurel tree, carelessly sitting on Cupid and on a bag of coins. She is on the earthly globe but her glance turns upwards to the heavenly globe within which is the triangle of the Holy Trinity. The quotation from Virgil, Maiora canamus,iiS inscribed as words coming out of the woman’s mouth, the motto Dum caelum aspicio, solum despicio, and other details of the figure indicate the opposition between earthly transience and glory after death that are further elaborated in the lines that follow. A relevant feature of the pictura is a big theorbo beside the fe­ male figure, in a position that is diametrically opposed to that of the earthly goods. The musical instrument clearly alludes to the sacred inspiration of the poet, through a figure already used in the dedication of the work, where his friend Benlowes is described as he who has given Quarles the theorbo, with his encouragement: MY deare Friend, you have put the Theorboe into my hand; and I have playd; You gave the Musitian the first encouragement; the Musicke retumes to you for Patronage. Had it beene a light Ayre, no doubt but it had taken the most; and, among them, the worst: But being a grave Strayne, my hopes are, that it will please the best; and among them. You.*38339

and the Italian one, Jeremias Drechsel, II Zodiaco Cristiano locupletato (Rome: A spese di Hermanno Scheus, 1645), 214-15. 338 Virgil Bucolics 4.1. 339 Quarles, Emblemes, sigs. A r v. Holtgen rightly notes that the ‘theorbo’ set in the hands o f Quarles was actually Benlowes’s gift o f two Continental emblem books that the English emblematist used as a starting-point for his collection; see Karl Joseph Holtgen, ‘Francis Quarles and the Low Countries’, in Anglo-Dutch

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The metaphor of the musical instrument as a symbol of poetical inspiration is of classical origin. But in this instance, as Quarles’s verses make clear, the idea is amplified through the opposition between ‘profane’ poetry on the one hand, and ‘divine theorbo’, that is sacred inspiration, on the other. The search for the latter is symbolised by the image of the tuning of the instrument that is kept distinct from the human soul in the picture, and consequently in the related lines, although in the literary tradition the two can be identified. The soul/instrument must be brought to an adequate pitch to praise God and sing together with the angelic musicians: ROWZE thee, my soul, and dreine thee from the dregs O f vulgar thoughts: Skrue up the heightned pegs O f thy Sublime Theorboe foure notes higher. And higher yet; that so, the shrill-mouth’d Quire O f swift-wing’d Seraphims may come and joyne. And make thy Consort more than halfe divine. Invoke no Muse; Let heav’n be thy Apollo ; And let his sacred Influences hallow Thy high-bred Straynes; Let his full beames inspire Thy ravisht braines with more heroick fire; Snatch thee a Quill from the spread Eagles wing. And, like the morning Lark, mount up and sing.*340*

The identification of the poet’s Muse with his soul, implying the idea of an inspiration coming from one’s own heart rather than from external factors, is a variation on the topos, present, for ex­ ample, in profane literature, of a presumed sincerity of the feeling ‘sung’ in a poem. It also confirms within this context the emphasis on personal experience underlined by some critics as typical of Protestant poetics. The image illustrating the ‘Invocation’ is further

Relations in the Field o f the Emblem, ed. Bart Westerweel (Leiden, New York and Cologne: E.J. Brill, 1997), 123-48. 340 QuarieS5 Emblemes, 1. A fascinating hypothesis on the rising o f the pitch o f the theorbo o f four tones as a reference to the Doric mode, at the time connoted as serious and solemn, is in Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 283-4.

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evidence of this, if contrasted to the frontispiece of Typus Mundi, one of Quarles’s Continental sources. The latter, in fact, does not represent the personification of the soul, but rather Saint Ignace who, despising worldly goods, turns his eyes towards the heavenly globe.341 A closer model for the English emblematist and his engraver may have been the title page of Wither's Motto that, while lacking musical images, presents striking similarities with the image in Quarles, especially in the pose of a central male figure despising worldly goods and turning his eyes towards heaven.342 The conceit of the tuning of the self as an act of preparation for a contact with God, as Hollander has noted, is conspicuously present in English poetry of the time.343 It was briefly used by John Donne at the beginning of one of his most celebrated religious poems, where the tuning of the instrument is at the same time the act of contrition by which the poet prepares for death and a prelude to the subsequent stanzas addressed to God: Since I am comming to that Holy roome, Where, with thy Quire o f Saints for evermore, I shall be made thy Musique; As 1 come I tune the Instrument here at the dore. And what 1 must doe then, thinke here before.344

In a way closer to Quarles’s lines, the invocation of one’s soul as a musical instrument can be found in a minor poet, Clement Paman, where the heart-strings metaphor is associated with the song of mirth for Christmas day:

341 Cf. the frontispiece o f Typus Mundi (Antwerp: Apud loan. Cnobbaert, 1627). 342 See the frontispiece o f Wither’s Motto. Nec Habeo, пес Careo, nec Curo (London: Printed By Iohn Marriott, 1621). This is also reproduced and discussed in Young, ‘George Wither’s Other Emblems’, 210-14. 343 See Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 266-94. 344 ‘Hymne to God my God, in my sicknesse’, lines 1-5.

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To Day: Hark! Heaven sings! Stretch, tune my Heart (For hearts have strings May bear their part) And though thy Lute were bruis’d i’ th’fall; Bruis’d hearts may reach an humble Pastoral. To Day Then screwe thee high My Heart: Up to The Angells key; Sing Glory; Do; What if thy stringes all crack and flye? On such a Ground, Musick ’twill be to dy.345

The difference between self-tuning and the simple call to the soul to wake up and sing on the occasion of some religious festivity is hardly perceptible in poems exploiting, with few variations, the same image and the same terminology. Still, in ‘Easter’, by Herbert, the heart and the lute as symbols of poetical inspiration are kept distinct in the first two stanzas, but they are brought together, if not identified, in a final ‘polyphonic’ performance, animated by the Holy Spirit:

Rise, heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise Without delays. Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise With him mayst rise; That, as his death calcined thee to dust. His life may make thee gold, and, much more just. Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part With all thy art. The cross taught all wood to resound his name

345 ‘On Christmas Day to my Heart’, lines 1-7 and 29-35, in The Oxford Book o f Seventeenth Century Verse, ed. Herbert J.C. Grierson and Geoffrey Bullough (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), 825-6; quoted in Hollander, Untuning o f the Sky, 284-5.

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Who bore the same. His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key Is best to celebrate this most high day. Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song Pleasant and long: Or since all music is but three parts vied And multiplied, О let thy blessed Spirit bear a part. And make up our defects with his sweet art *46

We can note that Herbert also concisely uses the emblematic image of Christ on the cross as a musical instrument serving as a touchstone for the believer's ‘music'. Hawkins expounded on this association in the following terms: But why the harp (most sweet IESVS) rather then another? Yet should 1 thinke thou takest it not by chaunce: Vnles perhaps it be that the forme and sound o f this Instrument Ah! thou wouldst present that figure which in mount Caluary thou actedst so long a goe; playing the Chorus o f that sad Tragedy, in the publike Theater o f Heauen & earth, in view o f al? Ah, now I remember how thine armes and feet were then stretched forth on the tentours, as in the harp the strings are wont*47

Some critics have noted how ‘Easter' re-elaborates the verses of Psalm 57 that in the King James Version read: 7. My heart is fixed, О God, my heart is fixed; 1 will sing and give praise.*

* ^ ‘Easter’, lines 1-18. 347 Hawkins, Partheneia Sacra, 189-90. See also the pictura in a Dutch emblem book in which the cross carried by the Soul-Staurofila is provided with strings, as if it were a harp: Benedictus van Haeften, Regia Via Crucis (Antwerp: Ex officina Plantiniana Bahhasaris Moreti, 1635), 228 (fig. 63); Praz (Studies, 150) notes similar verbal imagery in Ledesma’s Epigramas у kieroglificos a la vida de Christo (Madrid: Рог Iuan Gonzalez, 1635), 15.

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8. Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp; I myself will awake early.348

It is not by chance, then, that lines similar to Herbert’s are echoed also in poems by other writers, always inspired by some festivity in honour of Christ. In Vaughan the call to the heart takes the form of an exhortation to join the universal concert of joy for the birth of Christ; 1 Awake, glad heart! get up, and sing, It is the Birth-day o f thy King, Awake! awake! The Sun doth shine Light from his locks, and all the way Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

2 Awake, awake! hark, how the wood rings. Winds whisper, and the busy springs A consort make; Awake, awake! Man is their high-priest, and should rise To offer up the sacrifice.349

Again in Traherne, in another poem on Christmas, we find: 2 Shake o ff thy sloth, my drouzy soul, awake; With angels sing Unto thy King, And pleasant music make; Thy lute, thy harp, or els thy heart-strings take. 348 Psalm 57: 7-8; on Herbert’s poetry and music, see Diane Kelsey McColley,

Poetry and Music in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 160-1. 349 ‘Christ’s Nativity’, lines 1-12.

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And with thy music let thy sense awake. 3 Shall houses clad in summer-liveries His praises sing And laud thy King, And wilt not thou arise?350

But the most elaborate use of this image is the one made by the Catholic poet Crashaw, building the whole first part of a long Hymn in honour of Jesus’s name on this theme. Here are the most representative passages: Awake, My glory. SOUL, (if such thou be. And That fair WORD at all referr to Thee) Awake & sing And be All Wing; Bring hither thy whole SELF; & let me see What o f thy Parent HEAVN yet speakes in thee. Wake LUTE & HARP And every sweet-lipp’t Thing That talkes with tunefull string; Start into life, And leap with me Into a hasty Fitt-tun’d Harmony. Nor must you think it much T’obey my bolder touch; I have Authority in LOVE’s name to take you And to the worke o f Love this morning wake you; Wake; In the Name O f HIM who never sleeps, All Things that Are, Or, what’s the same. Are Musicall; Answer my Call And come along; Help me to meditate mine Immortal Song. Come, ye soft ministers o f sweet sad mirth, Bring All your houshold stuffe o f Heavn on earth;

350 ‘On Christmas-Day’, lines 13-18 and 2 5 -8 (Traherne, Selected Poems and

Prose , 108).

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О you, my Soul’s most certain Wings, Complaining Pipes, & prattling Strings, Bring All the store O f SWEETS you have; And murmur that you have no more. Chear thee my HEART! For Thou too hast thy Part And Place in the Great Throng O f this unbounded All-imbracing SONG. May it be no wrong Blest Heavns, to you, & your Superior song. That we, dark Sons o f Dust & Sorrow, A while Dare borrow The Name o f Your Dilights & our Desires, And fitt it to so farr inferior LYRES. Our Murmurs have their Musick too. Ye mighty ORBES, as well as you. Nor yields the noblest Nest O f warbling SERAPHIM to the eares o f Love, A choicer Lesson then the joyfull BREST O f a poor panting Turtle-Dove.351

The calling of the soul to spiritual awakening and to music in­ volves here every single participant in Christian world harmony from the natural elements to the animals, from the celestial spheres to the Seraphim - in a cluster of images that is really representative of the ‘Baroque’ taste of the poet. Rather than an act of contrition, Crashaw’s lines suggest rejoicing in an elaborate polyphonic per­ formance, where it is not the single contribution in itself that mat­ ters, but the result of the intertwining of all the voices. In setting Crashaw’s lines beside Herbert’s we can perceive the same difference that in emblem literature distinguishes Hawkins’s flourishing prose from Quarles’s and Jenner’s essential style in the

351 ‘To the Name above Every Name, the Name o f Jesus: A Hymn’, lines 13-18, 46-67, 88-91 and 97-108 (Crashaw, Steps to the Temple, 193-6). Martz, The Poetry o f Meditation , 331-52, has shown an exact relationship between the structure o f this poem and methods o f meditation theorised in some contemporary works.

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examples above. Even if it is not possible to speak of totally different musical imagery in the case of Protestant and Catholic writers - both eventually drawing on the same materials, handed down through centuries of classical and Christian traditions - the difference in the possible treatment of the musical image remains, confirming a more or less marked difference in the underlying poetics. In conclusion, the emblematic use of images of music in seven­ teenth-century English emblem books of spiritual or properly religious inspiration, considered within the wider context of con­ temporary literature, seems to be grounded on a bipartition. On the one hand, practical music maintains the already medieval character of a vanitas. As in the visual arts of the same period, some emblem books that were the result of the new spiritual climate contain either allusions to the transient character of musical sounds (to indicate the corresponding transience of human experience) or the representation of musical instruments those of the ‘profane’ practice such as lutes or violins in particular - as a symbol of vain and fleeting activities. On the other hand, ancient ideas of world harmony and of the stringed instrument as a symbol of the same become important again, in the wake of the long religious tradition of these motifs: they are used for the clearly didactic purposes of emblem books and they are also variously elaborated in poetry. The figure that is perhaps at the root of, or that in any case strongly influences, the elaboration of the above motifs within the English context is that of David, who has a meaningfully dual and often polyvalent character. In the image of the biblical musicianking several aspects are in fact conflated, and this allows different possible applications. Traditionally taken as the author of the Psalms, David can serve as a model for the religious poet - the author of texts expressing the relationship of man with God in different tones - considering the variety of inspiration and themes of the Psalms themselves. Furthermore, David as a skilful player of

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a stringed instrument, as handed down in the Bible, can also serve as a prototype for the musician, a role that is particularly meaningful at a time when the opportunity for and the use of music during the religious service were hotly debated. The biblical figure and the references to music in the work attributed to him are taken by defenders of music as an important justification of music itself in a religious context. Even the different poetical variations on the theme of playing or tuning the musical instrument can be related one way or another to the divine psalmist, as a new tutelary deity of sacred inspiration. But David is also a prototype of the divine musician. Intentionally conflated with Orpheus throughout the centuries for the affective power of his art, the ‘Orphic’ David is a mirror image of Christ. The latter, assimilated to the mythical and the biblical singers, becomes the author of the metaphorical tuning of the heart or soul of the believer in different emblematic uses of the image in this period.

Conclusion My research into English and Continental sixteenth- and seven­ teenth-century emblem books has revealed a relevant presence of ideas and images of music as a subject that can be fitted to differ­ ent semantic fields. In emblems related to the theme of the effectus musices, the dis­ cussion of ideas that are central for Renaissance culture - such as the power of music, poetry and eloquence - is treated through references to mythological characters and traditional materials connected with music that are often drawn from mythographic handbooks, iconographies and similar works. In some instances, such as in the use of Orpheus and Amphion, or of the stringed mu­ sical instrument as a symbol of civic concord, ideas relative to the ‘power of music’ imply that of a ‘music of power’, the ancient metaphor of ‘harmony’ being specifically applied to the political sphere. Within the wide corpus of love emblems, the theme of the rhet­ orical power of music is associated with that of the ‘ragionamenti’ about love and is treated in a variety of ways. Love represented by Cupid ‘the musician’, as well as the reference to some musical instruments as symbols of human concord, usually exemplify the ‘harmonising’ and ennobling power of love. On the other hand, the negative effects of love take concrete shape in the widespread use of the song of the Sirens as a call and stimulus to sensual love, or, in other instances, again as a symbol of eloquence, but this time seen as a superficial or even dangerous discipline. The relationships between music and spirituality are explored in particular in seventeenth-century emblem books inspired by a new religious climate, in both Catholic and Protestant countries. Relevant are the instances of the use of musical instruments as ex­ amples of the vanitas of human activities (their meanings similar to those they have in paintings of the same period), or as a metaphor for the human soul ‘played’ by God, by the preacher, or by man himself, as a spiritual practice - a use that is also present in

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religious lyrics of the time. The figure of David emerges as the primary touchstone for the musician, the poet and the devout man within the context of English Reformation culture. It is necessary to underline how only a part of the emblems examined treats music at the literal level, by considering specific aspects and phenomena of this art. More often music is variously used as a metaphor, and its ancient associations with other discip­ lines such as poetry, rhetoric and philosophy are exploited to this end. Music as audible sounds can be only indirectly alluded to in the visual arts, and, regarding the representation of musical topics in the emblematic picturae, it is possible to make a distinction be­ tween emblems with musical instruments as the main subject, and those with human or divine players represented in the act of hold­ ing, tuning or playing their instrument. Theorists of that time often excluded the presence of human figures from the picture or ‘body’ of imprese, but they thought it fit for emblems, according to the different features and aims attributed to emblems and imprese as close but separate genres.352 This distinction seems to remain valid in the case of musical subjects: emblems using only a musical in­ strument in the pictura, often a lute or a stringed instrument repre­ senting concord (as in an emblem by Alciato that would often be imitated),353 seem to be closely linked to imprese on a similar topic and to an indirect ‘hieroglyphic’ signification. This is not the case for musical instruments in the hands of mythological or realistic figures in other emblems, where the stress is often on the ability of the players. In some instances a comparison between the representation of music in emblems and a similar presence of music in the visual arts is plausible. The myths of Orpheus, Arion and the Sirens, for ex­ ample, and the musical contests of Apollo as a lyre player, received 352 On im prese , see Praz, Stu dies , 55-82; Robert Klein, ‘La teoria dell’espressione figurata nei trattati italiani sulle “imprese”, 1555-1612’, chap, in La fo r m a e I'in telligibile (Turin: Einaudi, 1975), 119—49; and Daly, L iteratu re in the L ight o f the Em blem , 21-5.

353 See above, 26.

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several treatments in the visual arts of the time, including those by famous artists. We may infer a direct or indirect influence of those works, or of the iconographic traditions behind them, on the illus­ trators responsible for the emblematic picturae. Furthermore, the use of music as an example of a frivolous and impermanent activ­ ity in spiritual emblems is analogous to the same subject in paintings belonging to the genre of the vanitas. My study has tried to take into account these possible links, while always pointing out the heavy dependence of English emblematic picturae on Contin­ ental ones, as well as the frequent interdependence between Continental books. I also intended to investigate the possible relationships between ideas and images of music in emblem books and those in literature, particularly in English poetry of the same period, and occasionally in some ‘mixed’ forms such as masques and civic and court en­ tertainments. My intent was not to show specific sources of particular images that writers could find outside emblem books (in literature, collections of topoi, iconographic manuals, etc.), but to explore parallelisms that may further our understanding of the meanings and functions of emblematic images in various types of works. As the examples discussed have shown, the musical image in literature recurs within different contexts in association with civic, political, profane and sacred subjects in a way that is often similar to its treatment in contemporary emblem books. Moreover, in a number of cases emblematics seems to have been influential as a structuring principle for the text in the same poems that contain musical references, a further sign of the multiple links between emblem books and the culture of the time.

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v Г Fig. 5. Ultro veniunt, quodamore trahantur. Augustin Chesneau, Emblemes Sacrez sur le Tres-Saint et Tres-Adorable Sacrement de I ’Eucharistie (Paris: Chez Florentin Lambert, 1657), 1.

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O, Orphevs with his harpe, that fauagc kindcdid tame: The Lions fierce,and Leopardes wildc,and birdes abouthim саше. For, with his mufickc fweetc, their natures hce fubdu’dc: But if wee thinkc his playe fo wroughre, our (clues wee doe delude. For why ? befides his (kill, hce learned was, and wife: And couldc with (wcecencs of his conge, all fortes of men fuffice. And thofe that wcare mod rude, and knewe no good at all: And wcare of-fierce, and crucll mindes, the worlde did brudflic calL Yet with perfoafions founde, hcc made their hartes relence, Sylueffrei htmtneija- That mceke,and ’ .milde r they1did , rbecome,*and.followed where he wente. utmurprtfiM'Tu’», Lo thele, the Lions herce, thelc,Beares, and Tigers wcare: C dMrZt& ovum-au Tbc trees, and rockes, that lefte their roomes, his mufickc for to heare, г>,ПшоЬfccitmreti- But, you arc happie moft, who in fuche place doe ftayc: [pbyc« и**, у on ncede not T h r a c i a feeke, to heare fomc impc of О я г н £v s E. P. Efjuicr. Since, that fo neareyour home , Apollos darlingc dwelled; rropew.Ub. i.dc Who Lin vs,& Amphion ftaynes, and Orphevs farre excelled Tw tt*fmr,uihi$ ^ОГ*^lartcs гаагЫе harde, his harmonic dotlie pierce : r.^rTnew '* And makes them yeelding pa(lions feele, that are by nature fierce, ra' ^™At4°nl!°" ^ u t* ^ his muficKc faile: his curtefie is fuche, n,k~ &lJi2pbion That none fo rude, and bafe of minde,but hee recJaimes them muchc. *’r*MNowc fince you, by deforce, for both,commended are: I choofo you, for a Iudgc herein, if truthc I doc declare. D*ccn?»y q u e f in e , q u a r u m

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П О fundry keics doth * h i » a h i ? compare * The holy Plajmes o f dint prophetique King, Caule in their Natures fo difpof'd thev are, That as it w ere, by fundry dorcs they brimj. The foulc o f man 5opprert with deadly ftnne, Vnto the Throne 5where he may mercy winne. П

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For wouldft thou in thy Saviour ¥ flill reioycc, Or for thy finnes , witn tcarcs lament and pray, 01 J i i * **£«/*