livered from their misfortune. The story, however, obviously lends itself to a moral treatment, and it is not surprising that Plato, Plutarch, and many others should have made an allegory out of it. This is what our great poet Spenser has done in his Faery Queen, and we will next read the story as it appears in the second book of that poem. Here we read in the form of an allegory the character of a Christian gentleman as it was conceived by the moralist in the reign of Elizabeth. Sir Guyon, the hero, has overcome all the vices which in this poem are more or less personified. Among his adventures he comes to the abode of an enchantress called Acrasia, the Goddess of Intemperance. Aided by a palmer, Guyon dismantles the palace of this goddess and takes her prisoner; he finds that she is guarded by all sorts of beasts who try to rescue their mistress.
The knight asks the holy man to explain who these beasts might be. The rest of the story is thus given --
Said he, these seeming beasts are men indeed
Straightaway he with his virtuous staffe them strooke,
Said Guyon: See the mind of beastly man
What a difference between this conception and the earlier one in the Odyssey! It is easy to see that some two thousand years have elapsed. In Homer there was no conscious moral; in Spenser every verse has its moral. The men subdued by Acrasia are not the unfortunate subjects of a misadventure, but have themselves to thank for their condition, because they have been transformed into beasts by their intemperate lives. Again, their rescue is not effected by a stroke of good luck, through the virtues of the mystic moly, but by the wand of the palmer -- that is, by the warnings of religion. The last touch ending--
Let Grill be Grill and have his hoggish mind
is perhaps the furthest removed from Homeric ideas, because the hog grieves to find himself elevated to the rank of a human being again. The comment of the palmer, however, is cynical rather than Christian in spirit, because it exhibits a tolerance of evil rather than a determination to rescue the victim in spite of himself.
Another of our great poets has caught up the same story and varied it after his own noble fancy, still adapting it to a moral purpose. Comus, according to Milton, is son or Circe and, like his mother, delights to tempt belated travelers into his abode in "an ominous wood" in Wales.
And in thick shelter of black shades embowered
In this description, clearly based on Homer's tale and subsequent allegories, we can see one or two further refinements of thought. The men are not turned bodily into beasts; it is their face which is transformed. Fancy is here in harmony with sad fact. Next the men are doubly deceived; being degraded into beasts they know it not but still think they are fairer than before. We have got very far away from Homer's conception now, but Milton has remoulded the ancient tale into fancies not less beautiful although they carry a more serious meaning to the thoughtful reader. Having seen the various modifications which have been made by poets in writing of the tale of Circe, we can now understand the further import of this picture which I undertook to make clear. It is an expression of this fact -- that sensuality is not only sin, but a contemptible mistake. In studying a great picture it is a real pleasure to commit to memory those passages in the poets which explain the painter's design.
Typed by Kristina, Sept 2015
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