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Platonism in English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — Plato — John Shaqi
Platonism in English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Plato · en
Again, when Guyon’s senses are “softly tickled” by the rare melody of
the mermaids, as it mingled with the strange harmony of the rolling sea,
he bids the boatman row easily.

                 “But him the Palmer from that vanity,
                 With temperate advice discounselled,
                 That they it past.”

                 (II. xii. 34.)

Even when Guyon began to lessen his pace at the sight of the fair
maidens sporting in the lake, which kindled signs of lust in his
countenance, his reason was able to resist.

            “On which when gazing him the Palmer saw,
            He much rebukt those wandring eyes of his,
            And counseld well, him forward thence did draw.”

            (II. xii. 69.)

He has now become so strong that he can perform the great object of his
adventures, the destruction of the Bower of Bliss and the capture of the
enchantress, Acrasia. (II. xii. 83, 84.)

So powerful is the hold on Spenser’s mind of this Platonic conception of
the nature of the struggle in the soul striving to be temperate that it
colors even the Aristotelean doctrine of the mean which is worked out in
the episode of Medina’s castle. (II. ii. 13 _et seq._) According to
Aristotle temperance is a mean between the excess and defect of
pleasure. (“Nich. Ethics,” III, 10.) In Spenser, Medina is the mean; her
two sisters, Elissa and Perissa, are the defect and excess respectively.
(II. ii. 35, 36.) Yet Spenser has colored the character of each in
accordance with the Platonic division of the soul. The three sisters are
daughters of one sire by three different mothers; that is, they are the
three principles of the soul (the sire); namely, right reason (Medina),
wrath or spirit (Elissa), and sensual desire (Perissa). Thus Spenser
describes Elissa:

               “with bent lowring browes, as she would threat,
         She scould, and frownd with froward countenaunce;”

         (II. ii. 35.)

and Perissa

            “Full of disport, still laughing, loosely light,
            And quite contrary to her sisters kind;
            No measure in her mood, no rule of right,
            But poured out in pleasure and delight.”

            (II. ii. 36.)

So, too, in the description of the lovers of each, the presence of the
two irrational principles is felt. In Hudibras, the devoted Knight of
Elissa—

               “not so good of deedes, as great of name,
           Which he by many rash adventures wan,

                  ·       ·       ·       ·       ·

           More huge in strength, then wise in workes he was,
           And reason with foole-hardize over ran,”—

           (II. ii. 17.)

the angry impulse of the soul is reflected; while in Sans Loy, the lover
of Perissa, who had attempted to violate the purity of Una,—

                 “The most unruly, and the boldest boy,
                 That ever warlike weapons menaged,
                 And to all lawlesse lust encouraged,”—

                 (II. ii. 18.)