Spenser wasn't the first one

I am rereading Perelandra again. Often, with Lewis, I forget how much I love his writing, until I read something again. I read this passage last night:

But this is very foolish,' said the Un-man. 'Do you not know who I am?'

'I know what you are,' said Ransom. 'Which of them doesn't matter.'

'And you think, little one,' it answered, that you can fight with me? You think He will help you, perhaps? Many thought that. I've known Him longer than you, little one. They all think He's going to help them -- till they come to their senses screaming recantations too late in the middle of the fire, mouldering in concentration camps, writhing under saws, jibbering in mad-houses, or nailed on to crosses. Could He help Himself?' -- and the creature suddenly threw back its head and cried in a voice so loud that it seemed the golden sky-roof must break, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.'

And the moment it had done so, Ransom felt certain that the sounds it had made were perfect Aramic of the first century. The Un-man was not quoting; it was remembering. These were the very words spoken from the Cross, treasured through all those years in the burning memory of the outcast creature which had heard them, and now brought forward in hideous parody; the horror made him momentarily sick.

Interestingly, I think this is quite similar to a passage in Anne Vaughan Lock's sonnet sequence. I was rereading the sequence today while working on my chapter. In this sonnet (number 3 in the introduction), she is personifying Despair, which is the same thing that Edmund Spenser did in The Fairie Queene, thirty years later. I know it can't be proven that Spenser read Lock, but I think the incidents are interesting. Here is the sonnet:

 But mercy while I sound with shreking crye
For grant of grace and pardon while I pray,
Even then Despair before my ruthefull eye
Spredes forth my sinne & shame, & semes to saye
"In vaine thou brayest forth thy bootlesse noyse
To him for mercy, O refused wight,
That heares not the forsaken sinner's voice.
Thy reprobate and foreordeined sprite,
For damned vessell of his heavy wrath,
(As selfe witnes of thy beknowing heart,
And secrete gilt of thine owne conscience saith)
Of his swete promises can claime no part:
But thee, caytif [prisoner], deserved curse doeth draw
To hell, by justice, for offended law."

One thing that is the same in these two pieces (which were written over four hundred years apart) is that Satan (Despair) uses the same old tricks with the Christian. He wants to plant seeds of doubt in the garden of our minds that will flower into screeching mandrakes of despair, doubt, and self-hatred.

But, what must be remembered is that Christ, the ultimate warrior, is the only one that can defeat these enemies. And He will.

"The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth quake. But the Lord is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel." Joel 3:16

Note: I modernized some spelling in the sonnet, and added quotation marks to emphasize Despair's speech.

Comments

[Elisabeth K]

Beautiful! I love your analogy of weeds running amok in gardens. Seemingly insignificant seeds can cause such damage when they sprout and quickly spread vines that will soon choke the flowerbeds.