Platonism in English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Plato · en
“Daily they grow, and daily forth are sent
Into the world, it to replenish more;
Yet is the stocke not lessened, nor spent,
But still remaines in everlasting store,
As it at first created was of yore.
For in the wide wombe of the world there lyes,
In hateful darkenesse and in deepe horrore,
An huge eternall _Chaos_, which supplyes
The substances of natures fruitfull progenyes.
“All things from thence doe their first being fetch,
And borrow matters whereof they are made,
Which when as forme and feature it doth ketch,
Becomes a bodie, and doth then invade
The state of life, out of the griesly shade.
That substance is eterne, and bideth so,
Ne when the life decayes, and forme does fade,
Doth it consume, and into nothing go,
But chaunged is, and often altred to and fro.”
(III. vi. 36–37.)
Spenser now stops the play of fancy and becomes the philosopher,
explaining the doctrine of matter as taught by Plotinus. The substance
of things is eternal and abides in potency of further change.
“The substance is not changed, nor altered,
But th’ only forme and outward fashion;
For every substance is conditioned
To change her hew, and sundry formes to don,
Meet for her temper and complexion:
For formes are variable and decay,
By course of kind, and by occasion;
And that faire flower of beautie fades away,
As doth the lilly fresh before the sunny ray.”
(II. vi. 38.)
Finally, Spenser closes his account of the garden with a mingling of
fancy and philosophy. He adopts the suggestion of Plato that the source
of the many changes in natural phenomena is a father, and blends the
conception with the myth of Venus and Adonis. In the garden Venus is
represented as enjoying the pleasure of the presence of Adonis
perpetually, for he is described as the father of the various forms who
abides eternal in all change.
“There wont faire _Venus_ often to enjoy
Her deare _Adonis_ joyous company,
And reape sweet pleasure of the wanton boy;
There yet, some say, in secret he does ly,
Lapped in flowers and pretious spycery,
By her hid from the world, and from the skill
Of _Stygian_ Gods, which doe her love envy;
But she her selfe, when ever that she will,
Possesseth him, and of his sweetnesse takes her fill.