4 - BOOK 4
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
Summary
Friendship and concord
Tully defmeth friendship in this manner, saying that it is none other thing but a perfect consent of all things appertaining as well to God as to man, with benevolence and charity; and that he knoweth nothing given of God (except sapience) to man more commodious. Which definition is excellent and very true. For in God, and all thing that cometh of God, nothing is of more great estimation than love, called in Latin amor, whereof amicitia cometh, named in English friendship or amity; the which taken away from the life of man, no house shall abide standing, no field be in culture. And that is lightly perceived, if a man do remember what cometh of dissension and discord.
(Sir Thomas Elyot, The Governor (1531) pp. 132–3)Elyot quotes Cicero's definition of friendship from De Amicitia, the standard source-book for ideas about friendship in the sixteenth century, and elaborates it to stress the close relationship of friendship to love and concord. This is essentially Spenser's understanding. Amicitia's derivation from amor helps to explain the close links between Books 3 and 4. For Spenser friendship is an inclusive term for mutual virtuous love in whatever form it appears: between lovers or brothers, as much as between man and man, or woman and woman. Where Book 3 dealt with the effects of sexual love upon individuals, Book 4 is concerned with the various kinds of alliance, worthy and unworthy, wrought by love.
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- The Faerie Queene: A Reader's Guide , pp. 97 - 120Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999