Amorette's Infatuation.

Amorette’s Infatuation

In search of her prophesied lover Artegall, Britomart travels through a vast fantasy land in which she encounters one adventure after the other. After leaving the House of Malbecco, in which she took refuge from a storm, Britomart comes across a young man being chased by the perverted giant Ollyphant and decides to help him. Fearing Britomart’s chastity, Ollyphant relinquishes his chase and flees. Britomart follows him until she sees the distressed Scudamour, lying on the ground. The latter tells her about Busirane, who kidnapped his wife Amoret and is holding her captive in his castle where he is subjecting her to terrible tortures. Moved by his story, Britomart vows to help Scudamour and together they make their way to the House of Busirane. This mystic house contains a row of opulently decorated rooms, which -- each in its own way-- glorifies and worships Cupid. Observing the modes of worship more carefully, they are shown to represent Amorette’s destructive infatuation with her captor, Busirane and not the reverse condition (Rooks, p. 74).

The House of Busirane, as we see it, is made up of three rooms, each representing a stage in the development of erotic love or passion. The walls of the first room are bedecked with tapestries woven with gold and silk. These tapestries portray the various amorous adventures and pursuits of different gods on earth, depicting the humiliation and folly that lust can lead to. At the upper end of the room there stands an altar on which a golden painting of Cupid is displayed. And “All the people in that ample hous / Did to that image bow their humble knee” (Spencer, Canto 11, stanza 49, l. 435-436) , signalizing their worship of the god of love .

The golden thread in the tapestries is compared to a snake that, hidden in the grass, sneaks up on one. The snake is a typical symbol of lurking evil, of temptation and seduction. It wants to deceive and mislead man. Metaphorically this image describes love (the golden thread) as an evil that sneaks up on you, tricks and deceives you. In the same way that the snake is hidden in the grass, love can’t be foreseen, but takes you by surprise before you can prepare yourself for it. Everyone is susceptible to it and no one is immune against it. Hence, the first step in the process of love, in which one is unexpectedly struck by attraction or desire, is represented here.

The next room is even more extravagant and is completely decorated in gold. It features an array of deformed golden statues. On the walls hangs memorabilia – broken swords and spears—of men who have fallen victim to “cruell love” (Spencer, Canto 11, stanza 52, l. 464).

The potential for perversion in love, its dangers and pitfalls are this time presented even more explicitly: “A thousand monstrous formes therein were made, / Such as false love doth oft upon him weare, / For love in thousand monstrous formes doth oft appeare” (Spencer, Canto 11, stanza 51, l. 457-459) and

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… Conquerours and Captaines strong, / Which were whilome captived in their dayes / To cruell love, and wrought their owne decayes: / Their swerds and speres were broke, and hauberques rent; / And their proud girlonds of triumphant bayes / Troden in dust with fury insolent . . . (Spencer, Canto 11, stanza 52, l.462-468).

The abundance of gold in this room signifies that the lover is meanwhile completely and hopelessly in the folds of passion and lust. Further the statues and the conquerors and captains represent the ills of love more dramatically than the events in the tapestries of room 1, signaling an increase in degree.

Written over the door leading from the first to the second room are the words: “Be bold”. In wonder, Britomart tries to figure out what it might mean but arrives at no conclusion. In the context of sixteenth-century courtship, one might interpret this imperative as urging the often over-cautious ladies not to shy away from love and passion and not to scorn and treat all men with disdain. They are encouraged to be brave, put away their anxiety about society’s expectations and judgments and let themselves open up.

A second door at the end of the room has the words: “Be not too bold” written on top of it. At exactly midnight a court masque, with twelve masquers forming six couples, issues forth from this door. The last two masquers, who represent “Despight” and “Cruelty” carry between them Amorette who’s heart has been extracted from her bleeding breast and stabbed with a dart. After that procession, Cupid himself comes riding in on a lion, making clear that the masque is in honor of him. Many new “characters” follow the god of love and after walking around the room three times, the whole assemblage returns into the room from which it came out. The actors in this performance personify different emotions and states of mind that come with erotic love. Very few of these (like hope and pleasure) are positive, while most of them are very negative. The pair Displeasure and Pleasance, holding an “angry Waspe” (Canto 12, stanza 18, l. 160) and a “hony-lady Bee” (Spencer, Canto 12, stanza 18, l. 161) respectively, shows the somewhat bitter-sweet quality of love .

In the third room, Britomart discovers Busirane who is writing a spell in blood dripping from Amorette’s heart. The latter is chained to a pillory in front of him. In contrast to the former room, this room contains only evil. It represents the last and most extreme phase of desire in which the lover experiences nothing but pure torment and complete helplessness. The inscription “Be not too bold”, on top of the door leading to this innermost room, can consequently be a warning to women, not to let all of their defenses down and completely turn themselves over to their beloved one.

In the masque the qualities “Despight” and “Cruelty”, typical attributes of the lady and her treatment of her lover in courtly love, carry in the prostrate Amorette as their victim. Because the institution of courtship and the role of the lady within this institution were so well established and universally recognized, the reversal of roles in the masque shows the extremity of the consequences of excessive boldness on the part of the lady.

Many other elements show that Busirane’s house is meant to portray profane and perverted love. The decoration of the rooms are extravagant and showy which reflects the state of overblown attraction and the tendency of a person in infatuation to glorify his beloved. The effect of the ornamentation on Britomart is also noteworthy. On several occasions, it is shown to have a somewhat hypnotic effect on Britomart:

[“That wondrous sight faire Britomart amazed, / Ne seeing could her wonder satisfie, / But ever more and more upon it gazed, / The whiles the passing brightnes her fraile sences dazed” (Spencer, Canto 11, stanza 49, l. 438-441)

and

“ In full straunge notes was sweetly heard to sound / That the rare sweetnesse of the melody / The feeble senses wholly did confound” (Spencer, Canto 12, stanza 6, l. 47-49)].

These instances reflect the way a person in infatuation is blinded to reality and lives in his or her own illusion. The emptiness of the rooms, noted several times by Britomart and the mysterious vanishing of all the actors in the masque lend the House a sort of surreal and dream-like character. This again corresponds to infatuation, which is mostly produced and fed by one’s fancy and imagination and not reality. Cupid is hence portrayed, not as a god of love, but as a treacherous god of lust and sexual desire.

Typical assumptions in critical literature on Spencer are that the distorted passion represented in the House of Busirane is a manifestation of either Busirane’s feelings for Amorette or Amorette’s feelings for Scudamour. However, I will now show why I hold it to represent Amorette’s desire of Busirane.

First and most importantly, Amorette is the obvious victim of the twisted love represented in Busirane’s House -- actually and symbolically. It is she, who is kidnapped, taken captive and tortured. In the last room the reader sees her bound to a “brazen pillour” with “yron bands” (Spencer, Canto 12, stanza, 30, l. 269/270). In the court masque her heart is shown to be ripped out of her breast and pierced with a dart, the traditional symbol of love. Cupid, who’s portrayed as a “cruell” (Spenser, Canto12, stanza 22, l.198) and sadistic god is shown to take delight in Amorette’s state:

His blindfold eyes he bad a while unbind, / That his proud spoyle of that same dolorous / Faire Dame he might behold in perfect kind; / Which seene, he much rejoyced in his cruell mind (Spencer, Canto 12, stanza 22, l.195-199).

Consequently the whole court masque can be seen as a celebration of Amorette’s suffering. Furthermore a clear allusion to the fact that the psychological states personified in the masque refer to Amorette are the lines at the very end of the procession: “ So many moe, as there be phantasies, / In wavering wemens wit, that none can tell,” (Spencer, Canto 12, stanza 26, l.229).

Having established that Amorette is the victim and therefore lover, we need only prove that her feelings of tormented love are directed at Busirane and not Scuadamour.

The feelings represented in the Castle of Busirane are of a dark and destructive nature. Among the characters in the masque are emotions like Fear, Grief, Fury, Danger and Disloyalty. A general ambiance of turbulence and madness is produced by the masque. As far as we know, however, Amorette’s relationship with Scudamour is a perfectly healthy and harmless one. Their marriage, a socially recognized and conventional institution suggests the latter. Another hint is provided by the fact that the masque appears at exactly midnight. Nighttime, and especially midnight, carries with it implications of forbidden love and erotic dreams. This would again apply better to Busirane than to Scudamour. Moreover when the dart is removed from Amorette’s heart and the spell is broken, the magical rooms all vanish, but Amorette’s love for Scudamour remains: “She much was cheard to heare to heare him mentiond, / Whom of all living wights she loved best” (Spencer, Canto 12 , stanza 41, l. 361-362). This proves that the rooms with their ornaments and performances could not have stood for her feelings for Scudamour. Finally, Busirane is unable to seriously injure Britomart, who throws him to the ground and threatens to kill him. This act suggest that had Amorette been as chaste as Britomart she would have been protected against Busirane and would not have fallen victim to him. Hence, Amorette must have been feeling something other than the chaste love of a woman for her husband.

In sum, the state of extreme emotional turbulence represented in the House of Busirane cannot be a reflection of Busirane’s feelings for Amorette as her captivity and the masque show her to be the obvious victim of this state. It further cannot represent her love for Scudamour as that would be of a chaste nature and as the removal of the dart from her heart has proved. Hence, the distorted desire portrayed in Busirane’s Castle are a representation of the irrational lust Amorette is caught up in and can’t free herself of.