Myn ignoraunce whome clouded hath eclyppes
With thy pure bemes illumynyne all aboute
Thy blessyd brethe let refleyre in my lyppes
And with the dewe of heven thou them degoute
So that my mouth may blowe an encense oute
The redolent dulcour aromatyke
Of thy deputed lusty rhetoryke.
The section of rhetoric.
Dame Rethoryke moder of eloquence
Moost elegaunt moost pure and gloryous
With lust delyte, blysse, honour and reverence
Within her parlour fresshe and precyous
Was set a quene, whose speche delycyous
Her audytours gan to all Joye converte
Eche worde of her myght ravysshe every herte.
And many clerke had lust her for to here
Her speche to them was parfyte sustenance
Eche worde of her depured was so clere
And illumyned with so parfyte pleasaunce
That heven it was to here her beauperlaunce
Her termes gay as facunde soverayne
Catephaton in no poynt myght dystane.
She taught them the crafte of endytynge
Whiche vyces ben that sholde avoyded be
Whiche ben the coulours gay of that connynge
Theyr dyfference and eke theyr properte
Eche thynge endyte how it sholde poynted be
Dystynctyon she gan clare and dyscusse
Whiche is Coma Colym perydus.
Who so thynketh my wrytynge dull and blont
And wolde conceyve the colours purperate
Of Rethoryke, go he to tria sunt
And to Galfryde the poete laureate
To Janneus a clerke of grete estate
Within the fyrst parte of his gramer boke
Of this mater there groundely may he loke.
In Tullius also moost eloquent
The chosen spouse unto this lady free
His gylted craft and gloyre in content
Gay thynges I made eke, yf than lust to see
Go loke the Code also the dygestes thre
The bookes of lawe and of physyke good
Of ornate speche there spryngeth up the flood.
In prose and metre of all kynde ywys
This lady blyssed had lust for to playe
With her was blesens Richarde pophys
Farrose pystyls clere lusty fresshe and gay
With maters vere poetes in good array
Ovyde, Omer, Vyrgyll, Lucan, Orace
Alane, Bernarde, Prudentius and Stace.
Throughout this passage rhetoric is never mentioned in any other context than one of pleasure to the ear of the auditor. Of the three aims of rhetoric which Cicero had phrased as docere, delectare, et movere, only the delectare remains in the rhetoric of Lydgate. From his initial invocation to Clio, in which he prays that his style be illuminated with the aromatic sweetness of her rhetoric, to the passage in which he refers to his own writings for examples of ornate speech Lydgate never refers to the logic or the structure of persuasive public speech. Rhetoric, in Lydgate, is not used in its classical sense, but as being synonymous with ornate language--style. Here and here only does Lydgate discuss any part of rhetoric in its classical implications. When, in his poem, he discusses the craft of writing as including "coulours gay," he refers to the figures of classical rhetoric--Cicero's "colores verborum." And when he refers to the "coma, colum, perydus," he is harking back to the classical divisions of the rhythmical members of a sentence: the "comma, colon, et periodus." In the classical treatises on rhetoric this division of "elocutio" or style into two parts: (1) figures of speech and language, and (2) rhythmical movement of the sentence, is universal. Lydgate's rhetoric is thus a development of only one element of classical rhetoric--style.
But Lydgate's rhetoric was not only restricted to style; it was expanded to include the style of the poets as well as that of the prose writers, as the last stanza shows. If Lydgate thought poetry to include anything more than this style, he does not say so.