The Allegory of Wisdom in Lyly’s Endimion

Abstract

The Allegory of Wisdom in Lyly’s Endimion Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz John Lyly’s Endimion: The Man in the Moon is considered by many scholars to be either an allegory of love or a political allegory.1 While these interpretations provide certain insights into Endimion, they do not explain adequately the intriguing references to knowledge that appear throughout the play. I sug­ gest that Endimion is an allegory of wisdom. According to its title-page, Endimion was first performed before Queen Elizabeth on Candlemas by the Children of Paul’s. Candlemas, the traditional name for the Feast of Purification of St. Mary the Virgin, commemorates the ritual purification of Mary after the birth of Jesus and the presentation of Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem. The holy day became in Protestant England a celebration of human aspiration to purity and to the highest possible knowledge—knowledge of God. The Collect in The Boke of common praier of 1559 reads, “Almightie and euerlasting God, we humbly beseche thy maiestie, that as thy onely begotten sonne, was this daye presented in the Temple, in substaunce of our fleshe, so graunte that we maye be presented unto the with pure and cleare myndes. . . Donne calls the feast “a day of purification to us” and discusses how to learn the essence of God by exaltation of the five senses, of reason, and of understanding—the sensual and intellectual faculties of the soul or mind as understood in the Renaissance.2 The lessons to be read during the morning and evening services on Candlemas are Chapters 9 and 12 of The Book of the Wisdome of Salomon. Not every verse of Wisdome corres­ ponds to action or theme in Endimion; however, the main events in the plot of the play are all present in that book of Apoc­ ryphal Just as Endimion loves and desires to serve Cynthia from his youth, Salomon loved and wished to marry the female personification of Wisdom in his youth (8.2). Just as Endimion 235 236 Comparative Drama endures his trance and its visions because of the magic of Dipsas, so Salomon says that the unwise are “scattered abroad in the darke couering of forgetfulnes, . . . troubled with visions” (17.3) and with magical illusions (17.7). Just as Tellus must confess the malice that caused her to seek the aid of Dipsas, so Salomon also says that “malice is condemned by her owne testimonie” (17.10). Just as Endimion gains perpetual youth from Cynthia, Salomon gains immortality through Wisdom (8.13). Just as Cynthia restores the lives of the characters in the play to order, Wisdom “renueth all” (7.27). These parallels demonstrate the similarity between the action of the play and that of The Book of Wisdome, but a more subtle resemblance between the two lies in their presentation of reality. In Endimion, plot, character, and scene are deliberately con­ fused so that knowledge of ultimate truth becomes beyond the understanding of any human without divine aid. In The Book of Wisdome, Salomon asks, “And hardly can we disceme the things that are vpon earth, and with great labour finde we out the things which are before vs: who can then seke out the things that are in heauen?” (9.16). The answer is that God grants wisdom by sending his holy spirit from above (9.17). Lyly con­ structed his play to imitate the difficulty of discerning the truth about “the things that are vpon earth.” Endimion’s actions also show the continual spiritual ascent of the dedicated human mind to knowledge of “the things that are in heauen.” Wisdom in the figure of Cynthia who possesses her power “by the eternal] Gods” (V.iii.25)4 expands Endimion’s knowledge of the divine mysteries of the universe. The ravishment of the trance aids his faculty of understanding to achieve higher knowledge. Although previous critics of Endimion have not recognized that the play is drawn from the reading and the Collect for Candlemas, Lyly’s audience would have immediately recognized the play’s relation to the liturgy and would have understood that the subject was the acquisition of a pure and clear mind, capable of understanding...