Writing on Water

language which divides the universe rigidly. But when the spirit begins to describe in more detail the world he is entering, he sets the scene in relation to water, drawing attention to Britain’s identity as an island. He notes that he is descending to the third of the universe ruled over by Neptune, master of the waters, who, however, delegates authority over islands to others, and 52. Stella Revard also points out how the masque recalls the Homeric model, though significantly reversing the gender positions of the figures, in Milton and the Tangles ofNeaera5 Hair: T h e Making of fhe 1645 Poems (Columbia, Ma., I997), p. 137. 53. For example, William Browne’s Inner Temple Masque (1615), in The Whole Works, ed. W. Carew Hazlitt (Hildesheim, 1970). pp. 241-59. 54. Halpern thus reads the text as a narrative of English conquest in Wales: “When the Lady defeats Comus, her victory is an imperial one that definitely inscribes Wales as the inferior or barbarian culture” (“Puritanism and Maenadism in A Mask,” p. 102). However, Cornus is hardly a typical or stereotypical Welshman. For that, one would have to go to Jonson’s revised antimasque for the unappreciated Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue, For the Honor of Wales, which pokes fun at literalist and nationalist yokels who prefer their native countryside to Jonson’s idealized classical landscape. 5 5 . As in 11. 373-84 and 453-75. 298 English Literary Renaissance this Isle, The greatest and the best of all the main, He quarters to his blue-hair’d deities; And all this tract that fronts the falling Sun A noble Peer of mickle trust and power Has in his charge, with temper’d awe to guide An old and haughty Nation proud in Arms. (27-33) Earthly authority over the island is derived from and reflects Neptune’s divine power over the seas. As critics have noted, however, the description here obscures the location of authority. The formulation makes it impossible to id en ti^ Neptune and Charles, so that Bridgewater’s power seems to be derived directly from Neptune himself.56 The context and occasion of the masque have been much discussed re~ently.~’ It was performed at the Michaelmas on which the Earl of Bridgewater was installed as President of the Marches, the border area between England and Wales.58 It is hard to imagine that Milton was not taken by the felicity of Bridgewater’s name, which nicely expresses his function: to bridge the two realms, divided by the body of water, the S e ~ e r n . ~ ~ Yet the Earl of Bridgewater is strikingly absent from the action, and his authority derived from power over water transferred to others: the Guardian Spirit, the figure of Sabrina herself, and finally, through them, the poet. By including the river Severn, which does not actually flow through Ludlow, Milton frees himself from the geographical fidelity of Drayton and shows his own liberty to create a symbolic landscape. In choosing to invoke Sabrina, he recalls Drayton’s pivotal boundary figure of reconciliation and thus reminds us of the divisions between the two parts of the $6. See also Leah S. Marcus, The Politics ofMirth:Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Marvell and the DeJense .f Old Holiday Pastimes (Chicago, 1986), pp. 179-86. Creaser also points out that in this description England’s uniqueness as an island is undercut (“ ‘The present aid ofthis occasion,’ ” p. 129). 57. See Marcus, pp. 169-212 and Creaser, pp. I I 1-34, In Dragon’s Teeth: Literature in the English Revolution (Oxford, 1987). Michael Wilding argues that the period marked increasing discontent in Wales (pp. 34-37). The fact that the Earl ofBridgewater was given increased powers in the Marches reflects not fear of Welsh insurrection so much as Charles’s attempt to reinforce his authority in general at this period. Wilding argues more persuasively that the masque suggests a general concern with Bridgewater’s appointment as a symbol of Charles’s personal rule which raised questions concerning the limits of the King’s authority (pp. 28-88). O n the situation in Wales during this period, see J. GwynforJones, Early Modern Wales: 1525-1640 (New York, 1994), pp. 197-206. 58. In his notes to Poly-Olbion, John Selden discusses the etymology ofthe word Marches, which he links to Mercury and identifies with borders, limits, and frontiers; see pp. 61-62, 136-37. 59. Sharpe notes that the bridge was “a favourite metaphor of the time” @. 205). used in masques as another symbol of union.