characterizes the commonplace book more generally. It would be entirely
possible to schematize the poem’s relations to the other genres around it in
its physical context: Arthurian and other romances (the stanzaicMorte
d’Arthur,Ipomydon) and variously fragmentary courtly lyrics (“O Mystres,
Why,”at fol. 84 v, the two-line“Yet am I bonde”on the recto side of fol.
133 *v, whereSpeke Parottbegins), other satires directed against Wolsey (“Of
the Cardinall Wolse,”“Thomas, Thomas, All Hayle”at fol. 158 r, Skelton’s
ownCollyn Cloute), fragments of prophecy (fol. 1 v) and excerpts from laws
regulating trade. In the nature of the commonplace book,Speke Parott
draws in all these genres, but turns them inside out, setting an apocalyptic
horizon to the city itself and its various mobilities.
Theseflows, which seem both to seek and elude containment, are
immediately apparent in the Latin distich that opens the work:
Lectoribus auctor recipit opusculy huius auxesim
Crescet in immensem me vivo pagina presens;
Hinc mea dicetur Skeltonidis aurea fama.[By his readers an author receives an amplification of his little poem. This book will
grow in boundless extent while I am alive; Thence may my golden fame of Skelton
be proclaimed.]^7
We may wonder whether the lines promote the reader, requested to“amplify”
the work, or the power of theauctor. The distich, I think, strikes in multiple
directions. The“author”may“make”or“increase”his book,^8 but he also
“receives”[recipit] increase by his readers.Auxesis, a term that points to
rhetorical amplification and to economic growth,^9 implies that the book is
capital which through its readers will bring symbolic return,aurea fama.The
pagina presens, however, will growin immensumin the author’slifetime–not,
it should be stressed, solely to“greatness,”but, as Kinsman’s version (which I
quote here) and the etymology ofimmensumhave it, to“boundlessness,”the
immeasurable. Not only does the book’s potential reach have no end once
readerly subjectivities come into play, it may even exceed its own nature as a
book. The author here is ancillary, his living body (me vivo) to one side of the
book’s own organic growth (crescit), his fame’sincreaseamereconsequence
(hinc). Rather than simply privileging either author or reader, Skelton’s syntax
queries the very notion of their mutual alterity, and refuses to settle the
matter. Here the book itself, as well as its author, is alive, poised to go beyond
its identity and slough off material form.
The poem, then, is an Eco-esque open work, a“litelle quayre, named the
Popagay”( 278 ), which at its outset immediately conjures up another form
of boundary. Parott is “a byrde of Paradyse” ( 1 ), endowed by Dame
Mapping Skelton:“Esebon, Marybon, Wheston next Barnet” 147