faithful to her husband beyond death itself,^59 and Hypsipyle (“fayre Isaphill,”
1025 ), loyal to a father whose life she saves, betrayed by her husband Jason.^60
And in the extended and faintly voyeuristic retelling of the story of Cydippe
in the lyric addressed to Lady Muriel Howard, Skelton allegorizes his own
procedure in these short poems. Cydippe arouses the passion of Acontius,
who is visiting Delos to celebrate the feast of Diana. He throws her an apple
carved with the words“I swear by the sanctuary of Diana to marry Acontius”;
she reads them aloud, and the goddess takes them as a binding vow.^61 If at the
outset Skelton is in Cydippe’s position– bound by a letter which is a
feminized source of authority–here a male inscription takes hold of female
desire,finds gratification by devious means.
Skelton thus translates thefigure of the female patron into a doublet of
related types: women outrageously transgressive, women whosefidelity
traps them in death and desertion. Women are simultaneously vested
with immense danger and shown to be not so dangerous. The most
complete undoing of the sign of the patroness falls to Isabel Pennell,
compared to a nightingale, lyric tropes reduced to familiar Philomelan
sounds:
Dug, dug,
Jug, jug,
Good yere and good luk,
With chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk. ( 1000 – 03 )Skeltonics celebrate this lady through what Jonathan Goldberg calls“the
Ovidian etiology of song in rape and violation.”^62 Under the veil of courtly
compliment, Skelton appropriates the women’s powers to make his name,
while subjecting their names to semiotic mutilation. It is after this unmak-
ing of the patroness that Skelton’s three forefathers appear once more, to
conduct him before the poets’conclave. The chamber scene issues in an
empowered Skelton and bonds solidified across time among male poets.
This, however, is not quite the end of the matter. To be sure, Skelton’s
autobibliography boasts an insane and virtuosic inclusivity, covering a range
from his most politically worthy enterprises–such as hisSpeculum principis
and translation of Diodorus Siculus – to his most salacious lyrics.
Sandwiched between a description of the morality playMagnyfycenceand
the Latin verses which, according to John Norton-Smith, encode another
reference to Skelton’s birth from his own verses,^63 wefind a mention of
“Manerly Margery Mylke and Ale,”Skelton’s low-style dialogue between a
clerk and a protesting serving-maid. TheGarlandallusion deserves to be
quoted in full:
Mapping Skelton:“Esebon, Marybon, Wheston next Barnet” 165