far from heaven:the comfort of loversAs we have seen, the compiler of Rawlinson C. 813 or its exemplars implicitly
abolishes the narrative determinism of the pilgrimage of life, replacing it with
a continuous lyric complaint, a luxuriant consumption of tropes yearning
for a consummation that never arrives. In the face of the unknown reverses
that evidently jeopardized Hawes’s place at court around the accession of
Henry VIII in 1509 , a similar reading ofThe Pastimeis performed in Hawes’s
ownComfort of Lovers. Like its precursor,The Comfortopens with a prologue
in which Hawes professes his desire to imitate“the makyng of Lydgate”( 12 )
and the authors of obscure“poetycall scryptures”( 3 ). A chronographia sets
the poem in May or June“Whanne fayre was phebus with his bemes bryght /
Amyddes of gemyny”( 29 – 30 ). We encounter a lover alone and“musynge in
amedowegrene”( 36 ), sorrowing over the inauspicious course of his fortunes
and the plotting of mysterious adversaries. He falls asleep and dreams he is in
a garden. Here he meets a“lady of goodly age”( 76 ) who asks him to confess
his griefs to her. He tells his story; he once fell in love with a“lady fayre of
syght”( 90 ) above his station, and wrote“dyuers bokes”( 93 )tocommunicate
the passion he dared not voice. The lady, holding out hope of a future
“Ioyfull daye”( 196 ) when his sufferings will be past, directs him to a tower
( 219 ) where hefinds a“goodly temple”( 233 ). He enters this elaborately
decorated building and bewails his situation once more.
At this point he is confronted by three magic mirrors. From one hangs a
sword; from the second aflower in which is set an emerald; from the third
“an ymage...of the holy goost”( 452 – 53 ). Both the second and the third
mirrors are accompanied by“scrypture”( 359 ) which the lover reads; after
so doing he sees beside him a sword and shield, and takes them up. He
begins to lament his lady’s distance once again, but almost immediately
she arrives on the scene. A dialogue follows in which the lover-dreamer,
previously nameless, is designated as“Amour,”while the lady similarly
becomes“Pucell.”This obvious gesture back towardsThe Pastimecon-
cludes with Pucell’saffirmation that Venus and Fortune must settle the fate
of their love between them.“Amour”agrees and then wakes up, to write the
poem describing his dream.
This summary gives very little idea of how odd the poem is. The lover’s
opening lament,“Remembrynge well / [his] lady excellent”( 33 ), is almost
immediately turned in a different direction:
To god I sayde,“Thou mayst my mater spede
And me rewarde accordynge to my mede.Mémoires d’outre-tombe 129