Notebook 14, located in the NFF, 1991, box 24, splits into two bodies of material. The first half, published in Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on Romance as Notebook 14a, consists of notes on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival. A reference to the Alexander Lectures as being in the past means that the date for this part of the notebook must be after 1967; references to the Third Book project suggest a cutoff date around 1972. The second half, published here as Notebook 14b, is a series of notes on Robert Chester’s Loves Martyr, and probably comes from roughly the same period: a paragraph immediately following the Loves Martyr material (though appended to Notebook 14a because it concerns romance) makes clear that The Secular Scripture (1976) had not yet been written (see paragraph 57 in Notebook 14a, NR, 181). In paragraph 83 of Notebook 12 (1968-70), Frye links Parzival to the Adonis imagery of the Third Book project, and concludes by saying, “Then I can go on to Sidney, the Elizabethan Adonis figure, & the ‘Phoenix nest’ & Love’s Martyr symbolism” (TBN, 150-1), However, Frye’s one published reference to Loves Martyr does not occur until “The Survival of Eros” in 1983 (MM, 49). In the back of Notebook 14 is a series of lists and mostly-cancelled drafts of paragraphs for a “History of English Literature,” very difficult to read and not reproduced here. The arrows at the beginning of paragraphs 3, 5, and 7 are Frye’s.
[1] I should go through that Robert Chester poem, Love’s [Loves] Martyr, Shakespeare’s PT [The Phoenix and Turtle] being so central to Eros symbolism. It’s a very strange confection. Title-page of 1601 says it’s translated from Torquato Caeliano, who evidently doesn’t exist, & includes a poem of Arthur “being the first Essay of a new Brytish Poet.”1 Note on the other poems, & a motto from Martial. Mutare dominum non potest liber notus.2 Dedicated to Salisbury; poem addressed to whoever the Phoenix was, a topos of modesty to the reader, a 1611 title-page featuring the Arthur part as the main poem (identical otherwise with 1601, according to Grosart).3
[2] Then “Rosalin’s [Rosalins] Complaint, metaphorically applied to Dame Nature”: an assembly of gods setting, Nature complaining that her masterpiece the Phoenix has no mate. (And right here I should say that “phoenix” and “dove” appear to be practically interchangeable terms.) There follows the usual female-topography catalogue, the parts named in the margin. “Arms” are branches of the Hesperides silver tree; “bellie” is the place where the Arabian phoenix might “build a glorious bower.”4
[3] ⋸ There are at least two phoenixes, one male & the other female, which suggests that the bird of loudest lay in Shakespeare [The Phoenix and Turtle, 1.1.] could be a phoenix after all.
[4] Then comes the cunt, marked simply “Nota” in the margin, said to be a “paradise” “From whence the golden Gehon overflows,” with a fountain, walled about with “trees of life” [Loves Martyr, sts. 5-6].
[5] ⋸ Explicit identity of Eden, the hortus conclusus, and the cunt in a female catalogue, all the more striking for being by a rather confused & tasteless poet who wouldn’t have original ideas.
[6] Anyway, after he gets to the feet he says the marigold opens when she walks at night—she’s a Flora figure, Flora being mentioned in the next stanza, like the Sensitive Plant mistress.5
[7] ⋸ Topos of the pattern of beauty needing “increase” to bring it down into time, as in the sonnets.
[8] Nature shows Jove the phoenix’ picture & Jove falls in love with it, telling Nature that she can find another Phoenix in Paphos in Cyprus: she has to leave Arabia and Britain, wherever the hell she is, & fly there. Paphos is described as another earthly Paradise, with trees, fruits, & springs. Under a tree “Fair Venus from Adonis stole a kiss [kisse],” Diana naps in the middle of dancing nymphs, “The Gardens smell like Floras paradice”:6 in short
No place is found under bright heavens fair [faire] blisse
To beare the name of Paradise but this. [st. 5]
Hera hires a male Phoenix called “Liberall honor,” whose house Jove made “like this heavenly roofe of mine” [st. 5] An even more explicit stanza saying snakes & crocodiles can’t approach it, but
Here Milke & [and] Honey [Hony] like two rivers ran
As fruitfull as the land of Canaan [st. 5]
[9] Nature is supposed to put ointments on him which will direct him to where the female phoenix is.
[10] Then follows Venus’ prayer “made for the prosperitie of a silver coloured Dove, applyed to the beauteous Phoenix” prefaced by a two-stanza harrumph. The prayer is explicitly Christian, & the serpents become the devil. One stanza prays to have the Dove guided to “that place
Where she Temptations envie may outface.”
The stanza begins “And as thou leadst through the red coloured waves” [sts. 13, 14, 15]. Israel: P.L. [Paradise Lost] link.
[11] Then an address “To those of light Beleefe,” followed by a dialogue “between Nature, the Phoenix, and the Turtle Dove,” where “and” appears to mean “or.” This starts on p. 16, continues to p. 25, suddenly switches to a quasi-historical poem about cities of Britain & their founders, then starts a poem about Arthur with a long preface on p. 34, & on p. 77 says “now, to where we left,” and picks up the dialogue again. Schizophrenic bugger.
[12] No: eventually it straightens out into a male dove & a female phoenix, but there is some confusion. Well, the dialogue of Nature & Phoenix shows the latter in a Thel mood of despondency. Apparently she’s lonely, & a certain Envy becomes a pharmakos, summoned up & driven away by nature. But it’s the Thel mood that is to be cured by the Turtledove.
[13] So we go on one of those instructive flights, complete with marginalia. First, the cities of England & who built them. Alfred built Oxford, Lear Leicester; a certain Aquila prophesied in Baldud’s (sic) time [st. 26]; etc. Then Nature names nine female worthies: Minerva, (mother of Apollo & cy. [contemporary] of Abraham), Semiramis, Tomnyris; Jael, Deborah, Judith; Matilda, Elizabeth (Isabella) of Spain, Joanna of Hungary [sts. 30-2.] Of Deborah he says that she
In peace preserv’d her Land, her land of Grace
Where honest sportive Mirth did always dwell, [st. 31]
Windsor Castle built by Aviragus; it’s assoc. w. the Garter & St. George’s Cross, & so to Arthur.
[14] Long preface defending the historicity of Arthur, who bore 13 arrows on his shield. The Arthur story concentrates on the Amphitryon Legend of Igraine [Ingrene] laid by Uther [Uter] disguised (through Merlin) as her husband (later he marries her properly). Arthur is “the right Idea of his father’s mind” [st. 47]—Faulconbridge type of birth.7 At his coronation Rome’s Emperor Lucius Tiberius demands tribute: cf. Cymbeline & the name Lucius. (I think Chester’s source is mainly Leland.)8 Formal blank verse speeches by him. Arthur & two of Arthur’s minor kings. The precedent of Constantine is quoted—obvious Reformation parallels which may be the point to all of this. Also Belin: Arthur’s the third Briton to conquer Rome. Then a battle scene, with some very obscure verses about the cross as the British emblem (Constantine-St. George link, I suppose). I think Shakespeare’s Cymbeline has King John links too. Well, Arthur kills a giant, but has to return to Britain because of the Mordred revolt. Gawain is said to be M’s lawful brother, “Legitimate by father & by mother” [st. 69], but no other Arthurian knight is mentioned. So Arthur’s buried in Glastonbury & dug up by Henry II. Then an epitaph on Arthur from Leland, a “pedigree” tracing Arthur’s descent from Joseph of Arimathea, & so back to “where we left” [sts. 84-5].
[15] Nature points out London, then sings a song about love (secular) & the phoenix replies with another (sacred). The convention of the two levels is rubbed in, in other words.
[16] After this the catalogues begin: herbs, gems, animals, fish & birds, leading to the Turtle. I suppose catalogues of herbs & gems & their legendary virtues really belong in an earthly-paradise setting—everything is magical there: everything is useful, everything shows nature regenerate & related to man. A great number of those herbs & such are said in particular to have power to kill or banish snakes, spiders, or other creatures of ill omen. Of the herbs, the thematic ones include the mandrake (not much said), agnus costus, & moly. Narcissus gets four stanzas & Hyacynthus two.
“O this word Carrots [Garrets], if a number knew
The virtue [vertue] of thy rare excelling root [roote],
And what good help to man there doth ensue,
They would their lands, & their lives sell to boot [boote].” [st. 88]
i.e. it’s an aphrodisiac: I thought its penis shape would suggest something like that. Proved by Orpheus, no less.
[17] Herbs give place to trees, which are also there (i.e. in this Cyprus e.p. [earthly paradise]). “And most of them I mean [meane] to nominate” [st. 95]. Some metamorphosis stories. One about “Mersin” (myrtle branch) may be Chester’s invention [sts. 96-7]. A mysterious “Mose-tree” is the tree of knowledge in Eden, but he doesn’t seem to know whether it’s by “Aleph” (Nineveh?) in Assyria or by “Venetia” [st. 98]. Another very muddled description of what appears to be a comparison of rivers & seas to branches & trunk of a tree. Anyway, we go on to fish, & from there to gems. Some restiveness about the credibility of all this stuff; cf. the earlier address to readers of light belief.
[18] Animals: dragons & elephants always fight, because one hates man & the other likes him. (In the natural history books of my childhood this nonsense was still going on, the dragon being replaced by the rhinoceros).
[19] Grosart thinks this paradisal Cyprus is Ireland [“Introduction,” li-lii.], hence no snakes. Anyway, we have to have a list of snakes, including the crocodile. And so to birds. I imagine all this stuff is from Batman on Bartholomew.9 The pelican is featured; then comes the Turtle, & Nature, like a tactful chaperone, buggers off.
[20] The phoenix & turtle have to build a funeral pyre to burn up in. I suppose the piling of wood theme in The Tempest is another thematic e.p. [earthly paradise] link, the natural consummation being of course sexual. The phoenix says to the turtle: “thou shalt be myself [my selfe], my perfect Love” [st. 135] & proposes to “Burn [Burne] both our bodies to revive one name” [st. 136]. They have one witness, the pelican, & Dido is the demonic cpt. [counterpoint]. Notice that there is no certainty of another “name” springing from their ashes: just
“I hope of these another creature [Creature] springs
That shall possess [possesse] both our authority.” [st. 131]
Finis R.C. [Robert Chester]. There follows a commentary by the Pelican, possibly a source of Shakespeare’s Complaint of Reason. The pelican also hopes for a “child” inheriting beauty, wit & virtue from the phoenix & love, intelligence & constancy from the dove. Contrast with love nowadays, etc.,
To see these two consumed in the fire,
Whom Love did copulate with true desire, [st. 133]
Then a “Conclusion” attacking satirists & speaking definitely of a female child (hence another phoenix).
Whose feathers purified did yield [yeeld] more light
Than he late burned mother out of sight, [st. 142].
[21] Finis R.C. again, so there are only thirty-odd more pages. One series of rhyme royal stanzas with each line beginning with the same letter, right through the alphabet, then a long string of posies,10 each word of which forms the first word of a r.r. [rhyme royal] line. Adds nothing to the symbolism. Maybe Envy, who’s consistently the enemy in this poem, suggesting the banished screech-owl of Shakespeare (though it’s always a snake).
[22] The miscellany at the end has two prefatory poems signed “Vatum Chorus.” One is an invocation to Apollo & the Muses, the other a dedication to Salisbury saying they’re doing it for free. Then two epigrams by “Ignoto.” Then Shakespeare, then a group by Marston on the theme of perfection:
Ought into nought can never remigrate. [st. 185]
And Perfection is a “boundless Ens”:
Ideas that are idly feigned
Only [Onely] here subsist invested, [st. 186]
Another poem calls perfection heaven’s mirror & says:
No suburbs [Suberbes]: all is mind. [sts. 179-80]
Then a poem on the Turtle by Chapman: “She was to him th’ Analyzed
[Analised] world [World] of pleasure” [st. 188].
Then the Jonson group, beginning with a Prelude banishing, among others, Cupid & Venus: cf. the Tempest mask. Another poem repeats the word “Analyzed.”11
Wonder if they deliberately picked poets of unusual intellectual power?