A C T A U N I V E R S I T A T I S L O D Z I E N S I S
FO LIA LITTER ARI A A N G LIC A 1, 1997
Krystyna Kujawinska-Courtney
ALCHEM Y AND ED M U N D SPE N SE R ’S F A E R IE Q U EEN E A M E T H O D O L O G IC A L IN TR O D U C TIO N
The Proem to Book Two o f the Faerie Queene Edm und Spenser opens with an acknowledgement th at some people will complain because they will be able neither to see nor find their way into the world o f which he writes. R esponding to their predicam ent he asks the critics to m ake an analogy with the recent discoveries o f Peru, the Am azon and Virginia: these places all exist but until recently, even in the “ wisest ages” people had never know n o f them. And certainly, he adds, as these places were secret, so there are probably m any others th at rem ain uncharted by civilization.
In this context the “happy land of F aery” is just as fruitful and exotic as these unknow n or barely know n countries. Yet, unlike them , the “ happy land of F a e ry ” does n ot lie across the far seas and d istan t m ountains. It is, according to Spenser, somewhere in the world know n to everyone:
O f F aery Lond yet if he m ore inquire, By certaine signes here set in sundry place He may it find: ne let him then admire, But yield his sence to be to o blunt and bace, T han n o ’te w ithout an hound fine footing trace.1
Later, he calls the land a m irror o f Britain, her Queen and her history. A lthough the Proem m akes it clear th at the senses are insufficient for the task o f finding the hidden territory, still a way does exist and, in fact, Spenser promises to provide the “ signes” necessary for its discovery. The invitation is enticing; Book Two assumes the aura of a treasure m ap. In “couert vale” and “shadowes light” the discerning devotee can find “exceeding light” and “the fairest Princesse under sky” and all, so to speak, in his/her own backyard (Proem 4, 5).
1 E. Spenser, Poetical Works, eds. J. C. Smith, E. de Selincourt (Oxford: O xford U niversity Press, 1970), p. 69. All quotations from Faery Queene are taken from this edition.
Such too, as Spenser was probably aware, is the promise o f the science o f alchemy. W hoever could find in the cryptic words o f the sacred scriptures the m eans for transition, could m ake the world around him, as Geoffrey C haucer’s Yeom an says o f his m aster, into a world of riches:
I seye, my lord can switch subtilité...
That al this ground on which we been ryding, Til that we come to Caunterbury toun, He coude al clene turne it up-so-doun, And pave it al of silver and of gold.2
U nfortunately, what the honest but deluded Yeoman does not realize is th a t the true Arum philosophicum is seldom manifested in this way. Instead, the gold hidden in m atter is m uch like the land o f Faery hidden in the realm o f England, and the m eans for finding both are very similar.
The purpose o f this paper is to provide an introduction to a m ethodology o f opus alchemicum: its background, ideology, goals and practice, to determ ine how the study of alchemy m ay help illuminate some o f the shadows surrounding Spenser’s world o f Faery and some m eans by which th at world m ay be discovered.
A B RIEF H IST O R Y O F A LCH EM Y
Though there is some debate over when alchemy actually began, early practitioners unanim ously considered the Egyptian Hermes Trism egistus to be their first im portant spokesman. Believed to pre-date Plato and Pythagoras, Hermes was often associated with the time o f Moses. Cicero wrote of him as the slayer of Argus who consequently fled to Egypt and “ gave the Egyptians their laws and letters” .3 Lactantius and Augustine also regarded him as a person o f great antiquity and considered his writings sacred prophesies o f the coming o f Christ.
A fter the fall o f Rome, copies of Corpus Hermeticum were preserved in G reek and A rabic m anuscripts. In 1463 M arsilio Ficino translated m ost o f the treaties into Latin. Francis Yates comments:
This [that Ficino and others accepted the authority o f the early fathers and believed Herm es to be a contem porary o f Moses] is undoubtedly a fact, and one which all students o f the Renaissance N eoplatonism which Ficino’s translations and w orks inaugurated would do well to bear in mind. I t has n o t been sufficienUy investigated
2 G . Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, ed. F. E. Hill (New Y ork: T he H eritage Press 1935) p. 454.
3 F. A. Y ates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 2-3.
what was the effect on Ficino o f his awe struck response to the Hermetica as the
prisca theologia, the pristine fount o f illum ination flowing from the D ivine Afens,
which would lead him to the original core o f Platonism as a gnosis derived from Egyptian w isdom.4
Ficino himself notes in regard to the explanation o f the creation given in P lato’s Timaeus th at “Trism agistus M ercurius teaches m ore clearly such an origin o f the generation o f the w orld,” and he even calls M ercurius “ the same m an as M oses” .5
M any o f F icino’s contem poraries shared his passion fo r H erm etic doctrine. His translation o f the treatise Pimander m ust have been very popular, since m ore m anuscripts o f it exist than o f any o f his other works. Certainly, the Hermeticum inspired Ficino’s adm irer Pico della M irandolla who joined in with the sacred writings o f the C abala to devise his theories o f magic. Pico’s m ost fam ous essay, the Oration on the D ignity o f M an, opens with a citation of H erm es’s Asclepius.6
In England, some traces o f Hermetic thought can be found in T hom as M o re’s Utopia and in the com m entary o f Jo hn Colet, who as Francis Yates says, was “certainly touched by Ficinian influences.”7 Later, Jo hn Dee, Philip Sidney’s instructor in philosophy and one of Queen Elizabeth I ’s favourites, was know n as a Hermeticist and practicing alchemist.8 Sidney himself, to whom Spenser dedicated his Shepheardes Calendar, seemed to have a passing acquaintance with Herm es’s philosophy. The following lines of the French Protestant Phillippe D u Plessis M ornay are from his translation:
M ercurius Trismegistus, who (if the bookes which are fathered uppon him bee his in deede, as in trueth they bee very aundent) is the founder o f them all, teacheth euerywhere. T hat there is but one God: T hat one is the roote o f all things th a t are; T hat the same one is called the onely good and the goodnesse it selfe, which hath universall pow er of creating things. ... T h a t un to him alone belongeth the nam e o f F ather, and o f G o o d ...’
Finally, Spenser’s close friend, G abriel Harvey, who referred to him self as a lover o f “All kynde o f bookes, good and badd, sayntish and divelish, th at ar to be h a d ,” classifies G iordano Bruno as the leading Herm etic teacher o f the Renaissance.10
4 Ibid., p. 17. I t is im p o rtan t to note th at Ficino who pretty m uch gave Plato to the Renaissance had a very high regard for Hermes.
5 Ibid., p. 26.
6 Y ates refers here to P. O. K risteller’s opinion. Ibid., p. 17. 7 Ibid., p. 185.
8 E. J. H olm yard, Alchemy (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1957), pp. 204-06. 9 F. A. Y ates, op. tit., p. 178.
10 See: G . H arvey, Marginalia, ed. G . C. M oore Smith (Stratford-upon-A von: Shakespeare H ead Press, 1913), p. 156 and the discussion o f H arvey in W. L. Renwick’s Edmund Spenser:
Though he does not specify Spenser’s interest in alchemical studies. H arvey does confirm Spenser’s other scientific curiosities: his knowledge of the “ sphere” and the “astrolabe,” and his em barrassm ent because o f “his lack of skill in canons, tales, and instrum ents.” 11 Taking into consideration the fact th at Spenser had been trained at a divinity school in Cam bridge, where both Dee and Colet had taught, and that he had been a close friend o f Sidney and the occultist Gabriel Harvey, and th at he himself adm itted his interests in science, it is fairly reasonable to assume th at Spenser acquired a t least the basic ideas of Hermeticism - and therefore o f alchemy, the H erm etic science par excellence.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ALCHEMY
In the seventeenth century, historians for the first time questioned the authority o f the Corpus Hermeticum. In 1614 Isaac C asaubon pointed out th at Hermes, if there had been such a person, could not have w ritten the works attributed to him - a t least not at the time they were believed to have been written. Now it is assumed th at Hermetic literature was actually composed by several people who lived in the second or third century A.D . T he writings themselves confirm this hypothesis, since by and large the
Hermeticum is founded upon the tenets o f the Gnostic philosophy taught
and written at that time.
The second century Academy o f Plotinus, who is the m ost likely candidate to have generated the thinking behind the Hermetic tracts, was not founded in Egypt, but it certainly showed an enthusiasm for Egyptian thought. Plotinus himself spent nineteen years in Egypt studying under Ammonius. His philosop hy and the philosophies o f others in his school not only demonstrated a concern for the Egyptians, but they also testified to a great eclecticism, com bining C hristian thought with Oriental and Greek philosophy.
Perhaps the greatest innovation o f Plotinus was his conception o f the One. W hereas Plato developed the idea of the U ltim ate as transcendent G ood. Plotinus derived an U ltim ate th at incorporates the T ranscendent G ood and the Pythagorean One:
As the one begets all things, it cannot be any o f them - neither thing, n o r quality, nor intelligence, nor soul. N ot in m otion, nor a t rest, not in space, n o r in time, it is the “ in itself uniform ” o r rath er it is the “w ithout form ” , proceeding form , m ovem ent and rest, which are characteristic o f being and m ake Being m ultiple. 12
11 G . H arvey, op. cit., p. 138.
12 Plotinus, The Essential Plotinus, ed. and trans. E. O ’Brian (New Y ork: M entor Books 1964), p . 77.
In short, the Plotinian One is the base unity of all multiplicity; and, as Sidney’s translation of M ornay indicates, the same idea is the pillar o f Herm etic teaching.
Two other Plotinian refinements of P lato’s philosophy are crucial to the particular goals o f Hermeticism. First, Plotinus clearly articulates th at the way to discover the One is to begin with knowledge o f phenom ena. A lthough Plato believes th at all universal concepts have objective reference, he did not state very clearly the exact relation between the particular and the universal - a weakness for which he was severely criticized by Aristotle, and a weakness which both Aristotle and Plotinius seek to overcome in very different ways.13
In Plotinus, one only comes by enlightenment through rational faculties; Erw in Edm an puts it: “ F o r Plotinus mysticism [union with God] is not the evasion but the climax of tho u g ht.” 14 The H erm etic “Em erald T ab let” renders this as knowing the One “ by the m ediation o f the O ne.” for “ all things proceed from this One by adaptation.” 15
Plotinus’s identification of subject and object proved influential to the later science. T o know one, he says, is to know the other, for all are founded in the One. R. Baine H arris explains:
Like A ristotle, he [Plotinus] makes know ing a form o f abstraction, but it is m ore than the abstraction of com m on forms out o f comm on sensibilities. I t is an identity of like kinds when the non-essential elements th a t confuse the issue have been taken away. I t is like perceiving like.16
By understanding the relation o f like to like in the m acrocosm and the m icrocosm , Plotinus suggests th at m an grasps self and the world at once. A ccording to the “ Em erald T ablet,”
T h a t which is above is as th a t which is below, and th a t which is below is as th a t which is above, for perform ing the miracles o f the One thing.17
13 See: A ristotle, Metaphysics, trans. R. H ope (Ann A rbor: A nn A rb o r Paperbacks, 1960), 1.6.987a29, b l2 , 988a7.
14 Cited in R . B. H arris, “ A Brief D escription o f N eoplatonism ” , in R. B. H arris (ed.),
The Significance o f Neoplatonism (N orfolk: International Societry for N eoplatonic studies,
1976), p. 6.
15 M . A. A tw ood, A Suggestive Inguiry Into the Hermetic M ystery (1850) (New Y ork. A m o Press, 1976). This book is an excellent source o f English translations o f alchemical docum ents; m any of these docum ents are now either out o f print or available only in Latin an d /o r in Greek. All references to the Corpus Hermeticum and to other ancient alchemical volumes are, unless otherwise indicated, from this text.
16 R. B. H arris, op. tit., p. 7. 17 M . A. A tw ood, op. cit., p. 498.
T H E A LCH EM ICA L M E T H O D
Fundam entally, the science o f alchemy arises from these G nostic prin ciples. It is an ontology: a search for the Essence o f m atter, with a pu r pose to transform base substances into th at which is perfect and simple. As such, the alchemical art duplicates the act of G o d ’s creation where, from the materia confusa, G od ordered the elements into a harm onious whole. A nd it is an epistemology: the spirit o f the One is om nipresent yet dimly perceived in n ature’s multiplicity. The stages o f the alchemical w ork necessarily involve stages o f illum ination. They also define the boundaries o f hum an awareness, the times where even the divine mens falls short o f perceiving the no-one-thing, the nothing and everything th at is the One.
A good guide to the procedures o f alchemy, dem onstrating the integral relationship o f both the physical and m etaphysical com ponents o f the opus is the H arranite Liber Platonis quartorum.18 The docum ent which pre-dates the tenth century, is composed o f four series o f correspondences, each containing four “ books” .
I II III IV
1. De opere naturalium
(The w ork o f natural things)
1. Elementum
aquae
(W ater)
1. Natura compositae
(Com posite natures)
1. Sensum
(Senses)
2. Exaltatio divisionis
naturae
(Em phasis on or exal tation o f the division o f nature) 2. Elementum terrae (Earth) 2. Naturae discreate (Discriminated natures) 2. Discretic intellec- tualis
(Intellectual discrim i nation)
3. Exaltatio animae (Em phasis on o r exalta tion o f the soul)
3. Elementum (Air) 3. Simplicia (Simple things) 3. Ratio (Reason) 4. Exaltation intellectus
(Em phasis on o r exal tatio n o f the intellect)
4. Elementum
ignis
(Fire)
4. Aether is simplicorus
(Things pertaining to yet simpler ether)
4. R es quam conclu-
dunt hi efectus p r e cedents
(Ther thing included in the foregoing effects)
18 The series o f the Liber Platonis quartorum is given with a brief synopsis o f the accom panying books in C. G . Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R. F . C. H ull, Bollingen Series 20 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 262-69.
The vertical columns designate analogous m odes o f operation: literal, allegorical, m oral or categorical, and anagogic. The literal series involves the physical m anipulation of metals, the search for the unima M ercurii and its fixation. The allegorical series, colum n two, relates to the act o f creation. According to the author, the earth emerges from the chaotic waters o f the beginning; it releases the volatile elem ent air, and air gives rise to the “ finest” substance, fire. The categorical series, colum n three, specifies the general dynamics o f the chart - the m ovem ent from com pound to simple, the simplest o f course being the quintessence, the prim ordial Ideas. Lastly, an anagogic level concerns the undefm able and m ysterious m ovem ent of m ind, the transform ations it undergoes in passing from perception to apperception.
T he horizontal rows, on the other hand, indicate grades or stages o f m a tu ra tio n . F o r exam ple, if one follows the progression o f th e first colum n, the literal m ode o f operation, the w ork commences with “ n a tu ra l th in g s” , th a t is substances as they exist p rio r to any hum an interference. On the second grade, these substance are dissolved by various chemical procedures until the four basic elements (fire, air, w ater and earth) are fully separated from one another. A t the base o f the elements lies the precipitate or the quintessence. This is the anima
M ercurii, o r the spirit o f the One. T he th ird stage is th e exaltation, or, as some say, the sublim ation of this spirit, which then changes and converts the whole. T he last stage is the effect o f the above operations. If they have all been perform ed properly, and it is the will of G od, the philosopher produces a new, perfectly refined being, the Aurum hermeticum th at is also called aurea apprehensio, the “golden understanding” .
ALCHEMY AND ALLEGORY
Returning to the Faerie Queene Book Two, one discovers th at there exist stages in G uyon’s journey to A crasia’s Bower which parallel the stages o f developm ent given by the Liber Platonis quartorum. Cantos i-iv present the reader with images o f composite nature. Some figures are in harm ony, like gold growing naturally in the heart o f the earth, and others are in strife. But the reasons for accord or dissention, beyond a dim conception o f F ortune or Fate, are unknown. G uyon, the guide, proceeding through
the four elements, as personified by Pyrocles, Phaedria, Cymocles and M am m on, dissolves the composition in C antos v-vii, and finds the m eans to convert the substances in vii and viii, Cantos ix and x, then, the journey thro ugh the Castle o f A lm a, reflect the ascension o f reason (the anima rationalis) which fuses the elements by bringing them into p roportion. Cantos xi and xii pertain to the perfecting of the conversion, the transform ation of exoteric nature by the light radiating from the centre.
F urther, as the Proem suggests, the actions catalogued above should be understood in relation to various levels o f in terpretation. T he literal, allegorical, m oral and anagogic m odes all coexist and are in sim ultaneous relationship in Spenser’s poem just as they are in the series.
Carl G. Jung comments th at the Liber Platonis quartorum expresses “in the clearest way possible the identity o f something in m an with som ething concealed in m atte r” .19 Leonard Barkan says alm ost the same in the artistic context o f the Faerie Queene:
T he uniqueness o f Spenser’s co n trib u tio n lies n o t so m uch in ju x ta p o sin g the a b stra c t and concrete as in uniting th e tw o ju s t as bo d y and soul are u nited.20
The spiritual and contem plative nature resides directly in concrete form: in the analogy between the sensual realm and that of the soul.
This similarity can only be perceived by a vision which can see m aterial things in qualitative terms - that is, inwardly, - and that which grasps the things o f the soul in m aterial terms - that is objectively and concretely. Both alchemy and Spenser’s allegory bring us an art o f nature because for them all states of inward consciousness are but ways o f the one and the only “ N atu re” which encompasses all things.
The hidden “ N ature” that feeble eyes cannot behold in Faerie Queene Book Two is the vision of Queen Elizabeth - an image com prising both tim e and space. Spenser’s m etaphor for finding her in the Proem is one fam iliar to the Adepts.
T he hounds that “fine footing trace” Elizabeth appear in their literature as the dogs that led the enthusiastic Acteon from the realm o f sense perception to the celestial pool where D iana, the All-In-One, bathes.21 It
19 Ibid., p. 269.
20 L. B arkan, Nature's Work o f A rt. The Human Body as Image o f the W orld (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), p. 132.
21 Frances Y ates provides a discussion o f the A ctaeon m yth as an allegory o f th e search fo r vestiges o f divinity in the writing o f G iordano Bruno. F . A. Y ates, op. cit., p. 278; for the A ctaeon m yth in other alchemical writings see: M . A. A tw ood, op. cit., p. 315.
seems to indicate that the world o f Faery and its Queen have to be taken as m uch m ore than the corporeal England and its sovereign. The attitude tow ards them is com m ensurate with the words o f Herm eticist G iordano Bruno, who writes o f Elizabeth I in his Cena de le cenerv.
If her earthly territory were a true reflection of the w idth and grandeur o f her spirit, this great A m phitrite (the Ocean o f the fountain o f ideas) would bring far horizons within her girdle and enlarge the circumference o f her dom inion to include n o t only Britain and Ireland but some new world, as vast as the universal fram e, where her all-powerful hand should have full scope to raise a united m onarchy.12
T o discover the spirit o f Elizabeth, “ the Ocean of the fountain of ideas,” is to bridge the universe o f G o d ’s creation to the universe o f the m ind and, if the All-In-One holds sway, to create a truly united m onarchy.
The “ Em erald T ablet” says th at this unity was the state of things in the beginning:
A nd as all things were from One, by the m editation of the One, so all things proceed from this One thing by ad ap ta tio n.23
The objective to regain the original nobility o f hum an nature m eans th at a hum an being m ust be rendered once again like G od; otherwise, the hum an form cannot be reassumed into its infinite and divine archetype.
The transm utation o f lead into gold, spiritually understood, is this act o f Becoming. Just as the quality of gold cannot be produced by the outw ard sum m ation of m etallic properties such as mass, hardness and colour, so a hum an being’s perfection is no mere assemblage of virtues, but a harm onious equilibrium o f all properties. This is the reason why Book Tw o, which guides the reader tow ards the refulgent image of Oneness, is entitled “The Legend o f ... Tem perance.”
TEMPERANCE AND ALCHEMY
T hom as Aquinas comments on the state o f tem perance in his Summ a
Theologica:
A lthough beauty is becoming to every virtue, it is ascribed to tem perance by the way od excellence, fo r tw o reasons. F irst in respect o f th e generic n o tio n o f
22 F. A. Yates, op. cit., p. 289. 23 M . A. A tw ood, op. cit., pp. 498 -99.
tem perance, which consists in a certain m oderate and fitting proportion, and this is what we understand by beauty as attested by D ionysus (Div. Norn. IV). Secondly, because the things from which temperance withholds us, hold the lowest place in m an, and are becoming to him by reason o f his animal nature, as we shall state further on (AA. 4, 5:QCXJL11, A4), wherefore it is natural th at such things defile him.24
L ater A quinas argues that the body or the passions per se do not w ithdraw tem porance from us; th at which holds “the lowest place” is n o t the body or the passions per se, but the state where they dom inate, leading m an to act contrary to, or out o f harm ony with reason.25
i h e beauty th at A quinas calls the excellence o f tem perance — the “m oderate and fitting proportions” and the m ovem ent away from the “ lower p a rts” , the animal nature that rejects reason - is actually the force th a t propels the H erm etic transform ation. Beginning with the inferior composite, the four elements are separated and then, finding their quintessence (the anima rationalis), they are recombined in the proper propo rtio n to create the philosopher’s stone. “Convert the elements” , says A rnaldus de Volanova, “ and you shall have w hat you desire: that is to say, separate the m atter in its essential relationships and join them again together in harm onious p ro p o rtio n .” A nd, similarly, Sir George Ripley writes: “The elements o f M ercury being separated and again combined by equal weight or proportion, m ake the elixir com plete.”26
Yet, the harm ony o f the elements is only part of the perfection o f the elixir. Paracelsus explains that the balance o f the elements also yokes together body, soul, and spirit. Referring to these as salt (the incom bustible and nonvolatile), sulphur (the inflammable), and m ercury (the fusible and volatile), he concluded that the infirmities o f the flesh are brought about by excesses in one or all o f these. W hen they are balanced, they m ake the hum an being im m ortal.27
1 he G olden 1 reaties a p art of the Corpus liermeticum, anticipates Paracelsus’s theory. It likens his three “hypostatic principles” to earth (body), water (soul) and oil (spirit):
24 Thom as Aquinas, The Sum ma Theologica, trans. F ather o f English D om inican Province (London: B um s, O ates and W ashboum es Lyd., 1932), 2.2.141.2. Cf.: 2.2.143.1.
25 A quinas writes th at excessive pleasure o f the body “absorbs the m ind” , and th a t it is against nature being “incom patible with the act u n d erstan d in g ” 2 2 153 2 C f- 2 2 1 5 1 4 2.2.153.5. 2.2.156.1.
26 A tw ood com pares the w ords o f Consilium coniugii: “The elements o f the stone are four, which, when well proportioned to one another, constitute the philosophical m an, th a t is, the perfect elixir.” T . A quinas, op. tit., pp. 84 and 116. Cf.: C. G . Jung, Alchemical Studies, trans. R . F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967).
The Son-Father, which o f these is more w orthy than the other, to be the heaven or to be the earth? He replies - Each needs the other; for the precepts dem and a m edium... In every nature there are three from two, first the needful w ater, then the oily tincture, and lastly the faeces or earth which rem ains below... . But a dragon inhabits all these and are his habitation; and the blackness is in them, and by it he ascends into the air. But, whilst the fume rem ains in them , they are n o t im mortal. T ake away therefore the vapour from the w ater, and the blackness from the oily tincture, and death from the faeces; and by dissolution th o u shalt achieve a trium phant reward, even th a t in and by which the possessors live.2*
T hus again, when body, soul and spirit are pro perly m ixed, th e subject withdraws from that which deforms and blackens it, and rises tow ards the sphere of transcendent nature. According to the “Em erald T ablet” : “It (the newly created stone) ascends from earth to heaven, and again to earth; and receives the strength o f the superiors and the inferiors.”29
The H ouse of Tem perance where Alm a abides, the apex o f G u y on’s quest, is built on the same principles o f proportion of which the alchemists write. Spenser describes its structure in C anto ix, stanza 22:
The fram e thereof seem’d partly circulare, A nd p a rt triangulare, O w orke diuine; T hose tw o the first and last proportions are; The one imperfect, m ortall, feminine; T h ’other im m ortall, perfect, masculine:
A nd twixt them both a q u ad rate was the base, Proportioned equally by seuen and nine: Nine was the circle set in heauens place: All which compacted m ade a goodly diapase.
T he inferior triangle (the body) joins the superior circle (the soul) on the base of the four proportioned elements; thereby it is brought into accord with seven (the planets) and nine (the intelligences), and the circle (the soul) even ascends to “ heauens place” .30
This design of Spenser’s H ouse o f Tem perance is similar to m uch H erm etic artw ork intended to show the harm ony o f the universe. T he Figure below, tak en from th e Viatorum spagyricum which dates back to the
1620s.31
“ M . A. A tw ood, op. cit., pp. 119-20. 29 Ibid., p. 499.
30 See: Sir K inelm Digby, “ O bservations” , in E. G reenlaw et al. (eds.) The W orks o f
Edmund Spenser: A Variorum Edition (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1923), pp. 472-78.
The masculine Sol (Spirit) and the feminine Luna (body) are united by the word soul or M ercury. The harm ony in the m acrocosm is m ir rored in the microcosm by the accord between the triangle, quadrangle and circle. The C aption reads: “All things do live in three, but in the four they m erry be.” Bringing the three together with the one is the power o f M ercurius. The ground plan o f the Sabaean temple o f M er- curius was a triangle inside a square. In the Scholium to the ancient
Tractatus Aureus, the sign for M ercurius is a square inside a triangle
surrounded by a circle.32
Spenser m ay no have such representations o f M ercurius in m ind when he fashioned A lm a’s Castle but there is plenty o f evidence to suggest that he was thinking o f the same concepts. The widespread p o p u larity o f Hermeticism am ong Renaissance scholars, its sacred and empirical character, its influence on the N eoplatonism o f Ficino and Pico, the appearance of the celebrated mystic G iordan o Bruno in England and his effects on acquaintances like Sidney and Harvey, all present a convincing argum ent that Spenser indeed knew the precepts o f alchemy if he did not himself practice them.
F urther, Book Two, which Spenser promises can open the hidden world o f Faery, appears to develop along the lines of the four principle steps in the opus alchemicum: namely, it begins with com pound substances and proceeds tow ard the simple through separating and recombining the principle elements. It has various levels of interpretation which are all present simultaneously from literal to anagogic, and all are somehow centered on the m ystical idea o f an All-In-One. The Faery Queen, Elizabeth I, rules over a world perfectly proportioned and unified. The m eans to her, as the alchemists believe to be the m eans to G od, is to become like her, to bring forth balance and unity and shun all that causes disharm ony: It is, in short, to gain the virtue o f temperance.
British Studies and Research C enter
Krystyna Kujawińska-Courtney
ALCHEMIA I KRÓLOW A ELFÓW EDMUNDA SPENSERA WPROWADZENIE METODOLOGICZNE
Prezentowany artykuł oparty n a literaturze średniowiecznej, renesansowej i współczesnej, m a n a celu „w prowadzenie do metodologii opus alchemicum", jego tła, ideologii, celów i p ra k ty k i, a także m a określić, ja k stu d ia n ad alchem ią m o g ą p o m ó c w ośw ietleniu spenserowskiego świata czarów w poemacie The Faerie Queene.
Punktem wyjścia dla rozw ażań autorki jest Proem do drugiej księgi Królowej Elfów, wskazujący n a zbieżność myślenia kompozycyjnego poety, oraz teorii i praktyki alchemii, które Spenser m usiał poznać podczas studiów uniwersyteckich.
A rtykuł składa się z następujących części: k ró tk a historia alchemii, m etoda alchemiczna, alchem ia i alegoria. W ostatniej części au to rk a w raca d o równoległości między postępow aniem alchemicznym a postępowaniem alegoryzującym Spensera. Używa on metody alchemicznej, łącząc abstrakcję i konkret tak ja k duszę i ciało. U jm ując poem at w czterech poziom ach interpretacji - od dosłownej do anagogicznej, sprawia, że ziemskie terytorium Anglii staje się odbiciem wielkości i wspaniałości Elżbiety I, A m fitryny Oceanu rozciągającego się d o nowego św iata i stanowiącego jego symbol. Jednocześnie tytuł drugiej księgi - Temperance - odnosi się do cnoty um iarkow ania jak o drogi d o królowej i - w jedności rzeczy - do Boga.
