PROTHALAMION SUMMARY PDF FULL

If they do so, she will tread nothing but flowers on her procession from her rooms to the site of the wedding.

On their way, they are to gather all the fragrant flowers they can and decorate the path leading from the 'bridal bower,' where the marriage ceremony is to take place, to the door of the bride's chambers. The groom instructs the muses to summon all the nymphs they can to accompany them to the bridal chamber. Here it is the marriage ceremony, not the bride (or the groom) which determines what is urgent.

The focus is on the sanctity of the wedding day-this occasion itself should urge the bride to come celebrate it as early as possible. If the god of marriage is ready, and the groom is ready, then he expects his bride to make herself ready as well. The groom urges the muses to remind his bride that this is her wedding day, an occasion that will return her great delight for all the 'paynes and sorrowes past.'ДЄnother classical figure, Hymen, is invoked here, and not for the last time. Hymen, god of marriage, is already awake, and so too should the bride arise.

The reference to Orpheus is an allusion to that hero's luring of his bride's spirit from the realm of the dead using his beautiful music the groom, too, hopes to awaken his bride from her slumber, leading her into the light of their wedding day.Д«efore the break of day, the groom urges the muses to head to his beloved's bower, there to awaken her.

PROTHALAMION SUMMARY PDF FULL

Unlike many poets, who called upon a single muse, Spenser here calls upon all the muses, suggesting his subject requires the full range of mythic inspiration. In the tradition of classical authors, the poet calls upon the muses to inspire him. He claims he will sing to himself, 'as Orpheus did for his own bride.' As with most of the following stanzas, this stanza ends with the refrain 'The woods shall to me answer and my Eccho ring.' The groom calls upon the muses to inspire him to properly sing the praises of his beloved bride. Once the night arrives, however, the groom turns his thoughts toward the product of their union, praying to various gods that his new wife's womb might be fertile and give him multiple children. Almost immediately, the groom wants everyone to leave and the day to shorten so that he may enjoy the bliss of his wedding night. She comes to the 'temple' (the sanctuary of the church wherein she is to be formally married to the groom) and is wed, then a celebration ensues. Once the sun has risen, the bride finally awakens and begins her procession to the bridal bower. Then follows a growing procession of figures who attempt to bestir the bride from her bed. Spenser is very methodical in his depiction of time as it passes, both in the accurate chronological sense and in the subjective sense of time as felt by those waiting in anticipation or fear.ДЄs with most classically-inspired works, this ode begins with an invocation to the Muses to help the groom however, in this case they are to help him awaken his bride, not create his poetic work. The poem moves through the couples' wedding day, from the groom's impatient hours before dawn to the late hours of night after the husband and wife have consummated their marriage. Epithalamion is an ode written by Edmund Spenser as a gift to his bride, Elizabeth Boyle, on their wedding day.

Prothalamion summary pdf