as bestes & with oute entendement / I haue therfore destroyed their blood and so
shall I do thyn yf thou canste not assoylle or sophyme that I shal make to the ( 392 )
The initial battle between Hercules and the Hydra is one of words and wits
rather than might:
the monstre maad vnto hercules seuen sosymes oon after an other so fallacious
and so subtyll / that whan hercules had gyuen solucion to oon / the monstre
replyed by seuen argumentes / All way hercules that was full of philosophie and
expert in all scyence. Answerd so solempnly to all his fallacious argumentes that
he surmounted hym / And for this cause the poetes fayne that this ydre had seuen
heedes as hyt appereth in thefirst tragedye of seneca / and sayen that whan
hercules had smiten of oon of his heedes. that seuen other heedes cam agayn in
the sameplace ( 392 )
Hawes follows this description closely, but with an addition:
Seuen sophyms, full harde and fallacyous,
This Ydre vsed in perposycyon
Vnto the people, and was full rygoryous
To deuoure them where lacked responcyon.
And whan one reason had conclusyon,
An other reason than incontynent
Began agayne with subtyll argument.
For whiche cause the poetes, couertly,
With .vii. hedes doth this Ydre depaynt,
For these .vii. sophyms, full ryght closely.
But of rude people the wyttes are so faynt
That with theyr connynge they can not acquaynt;
But who that lyst theyr scyence to lerne,
Theyr obscure fygures he shall well decerne. ( 1037 – 50 )The movement from Lefèvre’s moralization to a typical Hawesian denun-
ciation of foolish and unwary readers gives the analogy a new dimension.
Lefèvre’s source in Boccaccio, and its own source, Jerome’s continuation
of Eusebius’sChronicle, imply a critique of sophistical rhetoric.^49 Hawes’s
transition, however, has the effect–not, I think, accidental–of aligning
theauctor’s didactic but obscurely oracular voice with the hydra proposing
the sophisms, and the reader with his unwary victims. Caxton’s Hydra
depicts the unsubtle people he kills in terms which prefigure Hawes’s
“rude,”faint-witted audience; they die because they are short on herme-
neutic skills,“as bestes & with oute entendement.”
The workings of Hawes’s own poem replicate this metaphor. WhileThe
Pastimefinally reveals a doctrinal sense, it does not point the reader to this
openly. Instead, its deployment of popular vernacular genres associated
126 Court Poetry in Late Medieval England and Scotland