Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’, The Bower of Bliss and the Garden of Adonis

by

Ian Mackean

In Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’, Books 11 and 111 The Bower of Bliss and the Garden of Adonis might look similar from a distance; their geographical form is certainly similar, and the tour on which Spenser takes us seems to follow the same kind of route. But their ostensible similarity, and their juxtaposition in two adjacent books of ‘The Faerie Queene’ only serve to highlight their differences. The two gardens represent very different qualities of human life, and Spenser indicates the differences visually in his description of the gardens, verbally in the words he uses in these descriptions, and dramatically in the kinds of activity that take place in the gardens.

The first distinction to be made is between the proportion of Art to Nature that has gone into the construction of the gardens. The ‘Bowre of Blisse’ is introduced as: ‘A place pickt out by choice of best alive, That natures worke by art can imitate:’ [11.X11.42] Art itself is not condemned, but the use of art to stimulate wasteful unproductive lust. The artifice of the garden is admired for its skill, but condemned for being used to excess. ‘And them amongst, some were of burnisht gold, So made by art, to beautifie the rest, . . . That the weake bowes, with so rich load opprest, Did bow adowne, as over-burdened.’ [11.X11.55] The image of the vine bending under the weight of golden grapes illustrates how nature is distorted by artifice, just as human nature is distorted by entering the Bower of Bliss. Spenser’s description of the golden ivy seems to anticipate Baroque sculpture and architecture in that it is more than an imitation of nature; it tries to supersede nature by exaggerating the most pleasing aspects. The result is an excess of sweetness to the point of sickliness. The stimulation of pleasurable sensations is almost pornographic, and Spenser ensures that we get the message by the use of the words ‘lascivious’ and ‘wantones’. ‘And over all, of purest gold was spred, A trayle of yvie in his native hew: For the rich mettall was so colored, That wight, who did not well avis’d it view, Would surely deeme it to be yvie trew: Low his lascivious armes adown did creepe, That themselves dipping in the silver dew, Their fleecy flowres they tenderly did steepe, Which drops of Christall seemed for wantones to weepe.’ [11.X11.61] A modern reader might not pick up the quality of excess implied in this description, but in fact Spenser takes pains to point out the excess. Art in the Bower of Bliss ‘Was poured forth with plentifull dispence, And made there to abound with lavish affluence.’ [11.X11.42] ‘Wherewith her mother Art, as halfe in scorne Of niggard Nature, like a pompous bride Did decke her, and too lavishly adorn’ [11.X11.50] The emphasis on excess is of course most relevant to the theme of Book 11: Temperance. In contrast to the lavish glittering spectacle of the ‘Bowre of Blisse’, The ‘Gardin of Adonis’ comprises of natural goodness. ‘It sited was in fruitfull soyle of old’ [111.V1.31] and: ‘In that same Gardin all the goodly flowres, Wherewith dame Nature doth her beautifie, And decks the girlonds of her paramoures, Are fetcht:’ [111.V1.30] The arbour is ‘of the trees owne inclination made’ [111.V1.44]. This garden is free of artifice, and in emphasising its natural perfection Spenser likens it to Ovid’s golden world: ‘Ne needs there Gardiner to set, or sow, To plant or prune: for of their owne accord All things, as they created were, doe grow’ [111.V1.34] The quality of life represented by the Garden of Adonis is represented by ‘Genius’ who guards its gates. The Bower of Bliss was also guarded by a ‘Genius’, but not the real one. In keeping with another of Spenser’s themes, appearance versus reality, the Genius of the Bower of Bliss is a fake ‘That secretly doth us procure to fall, Through guilefull semblaunts’ [11.X11.48] The Genius of the Garden of Adonis guards the gate through which old people enter and young babies leave, and the cycle of regeneration being represented has the same seemingly-paradoxical combination of transience and permanence as Spenser’s Mutability Cantos [4]. The paradox is resolved by Platonism. While Time is the enemy of life in the garden: ‘For all that lives, is subject to that law: All things decay in time, and to their end to draw.’ [111.V1.40] It seems that the people, or perhaps just their souls, are recycled from old age to babyhood. And Adonis himself: ‘All be he subject to mortalitie, Yet is eterne in mutabilitie, And by succession made perpetuall’ [111.V1.47] This is the same conclusion Spenser comes to at the end of the Mutability Cantos: ‘I well consider all that ye have sayd, And find that all things stedfastnes doe hate, And changed be: yet being rightly wayd They are not changed from their first estate; But by their change their being doe dilate: And turning to themselves at length againe, Doe worke their owne perfection so by fate:’ [V11.V11.58] The garden is an allegory for the Platonic life-principle expounded in verses 36 to 38 of the Garden of Adonis where changeless ‘things’ or ‘substance’ borrow temporary physical form during life, decay, and are restored again. In ‘sublunary’ terms this represents the fruitfulness of earthly life and the principle behind the ‘mightie word . . . increase and multiply’ [111.V1.34]. The Garden of Adonis is first and foremost, fruitful. The garden itself is a kind of storehouse for the various forms of life: ‘. . . there is the first seminarie Of all things, that are borne to live and die’ [111.V1.30] And its resident lovers, Cupid and Psyche, bear a child. Spenser approves of the pleasure indulged in in this garden, because it takes place between people who are enjoying natural healthy love: ‘But now in steadfast love and happy state She with him lives, and hath him borne a chyld’ [111.V1.50] In contrast, the pleasures to be had in the Bower of Bliss are thoroughly disapproved of. Even the word ‘bliss’ itself implies an extreme and transitory sensation compared to ‘steadfast love and happy state’ of the Garden of Adonis. The lovers of the Bower of Bliss are indulging in ‘lewd loves, and wastfull luxuree’ [11.X11.80]. They indulge in sex for its own sake, with no love, and no intention of procreation. This kind of activity, according to Spenser, saps the spirit and will-power of a knight, and causes him to lose interest in his true quest. ‘Ne for them [his armour] ne for honour cared hee Ne ought, that did to his advancement tend, But in lewd loves, and wastfull luxuree, His dayes, his goods, his bodie he did spend: O horrible enchantment that him so did blend.’ [11.X11.80] The word ‘enchantment’ is important here; the queen of the garden is an enchantress with the power to turn men into pigs, and by implication a mind attracted by lust is a mind under a kind of spell. As with the golden ivy, it takes a man of insight and experience to see through the superficial attractions to the underlying depravity. ‘That wight, who did not well avis’d it view, Would surely deeme it to be yvie trew:’ [11.X11.61] Guyon himself becomes enchanted by the sight of the ‘naked Damzelles’ bathing. This long description [11.X11.63-68] is extremely attractive; it is designed to arouse feelings of lust in the reader or listeners. Spenser’s ‘warning words’ such as ‘greedy eyes’, ‘kindled lust’ and the all-important ‘seemed’ [11.X11.64,68,65] are few and far between, but they are there, warning the reader of the danger Guyon is in. This is part of Guyon’s education into temperance. The Palmer drags him away. ‘He much rebukt those wandring eyes of his, And counseld well, him forward thence did draw.’ [11.X11.69] But not all the pleasures to be had in the Bower of Bliss are tainted with artifice. The ‘lovely lay’ sung in verse 75 simply advocates enjoying life while it lasts: ‘So passeth, in the passing of a day, Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre, Ne more doth flourish after first decay, That earst was sought to decke both bed and bowre, Of many a Ladie, and many a Paramowre: Gather therefore the Rose, whilest yet is prime, For soone comes age, that will her pride deflowre: Gather the Rose of love, whilest yet is time’ [11.X11.74]

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Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’, The Bower of Bliss and the Garden of Adonis