SPENSER ON LOVE
That Love, too, continued to be looked at from a material point of view, long after the chivalric efforts to idealise it, is shown strikingly by the way in which Spenser compares love with friendship and family affection. In the fifth book of the Faery Queene he asks—
“Whither shall weigh the balance down; to wit,
The dear affection unto kindred sweet,
Or raging fire of love to womankind,
Or zeal of friends, combined by virtues meet?”
Like an ancient Greek he decides in favour of friendship—
“For natural affection soon doth cease,
And quenched is with Cupid’s greater flame,
But faithful friendship doth them both suppress,”
(for)
“Love of soul doth love of body pass.”
Could anything attest better than this the general mediæval ignorance of the psychic traits or “overtones” which constitute Romantic Love?