　　The term 'epithalamion', in Greek ‘epi' (=‘towards') ‘thalamos, (=‘bridal chamber'), was originally applied to a song sung for a newly married couple at their bridal chamber. There were other wedding songs, such as for the bridal procession or for the nuptial feast, and in Greek these were collectively called 'hymenaios'. It was Latin poets who used the word ‘epithalamium', generally applied to a body of hymns for different occasions throughout the marriage ceremony. It maybe by Spenser or Sidney that the word 'epithalamion', was first employed in English.

　 In its earliest form the wedding song may be traced back to the age of primitive communities. We can find some fragments of those songs in Sappho's short lyrics, and a glimpse of the earliest wedding customs in Homer's Iliad (XVIII, 493f.). Theocritus', Epithalamium for Helen written early in the third century B.C. is the first significant wedding song in its literary form. Theocritus sings for the legendary woman, Helen, as for a common girl at her brida1-bed, and ends in prayer for the bliss and offspring of the bride and bridegroom.

　 Next we are brought to a Roman poet, Catullus (86?-54 BC), whose epithalamia were looked to as a model by Renaissance epithalamists. The style of Catullus is colloquial and passionate. He seems to have borrowed motifs from his Greek model, and yet his achievement gives his works the effect of his own, that is, the traditional Roman marriage ceremony.³　0de 61, composed for a wedding celebration of his own close friend, has a ring of personal joy and vivid spontaneity. It begins with an invocation to Hymenaeus; virgins are asked to sing hymns:

　　The bride's emotions, proud in love and yet mixed with shame, follow next. Then the beauty of the bride in the procession comes. She approaches the portal. ‘A flame burns' in the bridegroom. She is led to her bridal bed; and the maids are bidden to leave the lovers:

Ode 64 is somewhat different. In this piece he is a mythologist，and　though his own experiences are projected in those myths，love is treated as a public affair. The marriage of Thetis and Peleus, a favourite subject of ancient poetry，gives this ode a distinctly epic character. The two important features of the epithalamium，lyrical and personal，epic and public，seem to coexist in Catullus' epithalamia，and he far excels in the former. Spenser owes to Catullus much of the reference to ancient marriage customs，borrowing from him some striking expressions as well as the basic structure，that is，the outline of his own Epithalamion.

　After Catullus the purely lyrical epithalamium seems to have passed out of the Latin world，but its epic feature still continues and takes a more dignified literary form in Statius and Claudian.⁵ Claudian（370?-404?）is the last poet of classical Rome．His Epithalamium of Honorius and Maria (398) was composed for　the celebration of a royal marriage，and is a wedding poem which had much influence upon late Latin epithalamists in the Renaissance.

　In this Epithalamium Claudian celebrates the royal union in a mythological setting. He is a court poet, and as such his way of handling the theme is entirely public and subtly political. It may be that Claudian did not afford any‘direct source' to Spenser's Epithalamion, yet in two important respects Claudian's Epithalamium is a precedent to Spenser's. First he views the whole theme in terms of political and social context, and this he successfully achieves by employing mythological imagery. In other words, Claudian arrays the marriage event with mythology which he closely relates to the national peace and the universal harmony. In Spenser's Epithalamion this political and social character takes a less overt form. Spenser is singing 'to himself alone', yet he arrays the marriage event with mythological figures that will be associated with universal peace and harmony in a similar way. In this he is certainly following the epithalamic convention.

　The other point we must not overlook is his 'pagan character', in the Christian empire. No one who tries to understand the contemporary world through Claudian's Epithalamium alone would think it to be a Christian world, and yet Honorius and Maria as well as their parents were all Christians.^.11 Why did he or could he employ such full use of pagan deities in the Christian court? Because this was simply an accepted part of the epithalamic convention. Venus and Cupid bring lovers together. The gods and goddesses no longer implied Roman state religion: they were purely literary, an expected feature of the epithalamic genre.

　There is another song of a slightly different origin, but is no less important to the epithalamic convention. It is the Song of Songs or the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament. This beautiful love or wedding song(as it is accepted to have been)is composed of a series of dialogues　between the bridegroom and the bride, intermixed with choruses. Neither the exact date nor the occasion of its composition is known for certain. Probably it took its extant form in the fifth century B.C. This song was traditionally interpreted as a metaphorical expression of God's love towards His people, and Renaissance writers interpreted it as symbolically describing the union of Christ and the Church as his bride. This is important because the same idea is implied in Spenser's Epithalamion for his own union with his bride.

　A number of Latin epithalamia were modelled on Statius' or Claudian's during the Middle Ages.¹²　But it was not by those Latin epithalamists but rather through vernacular poets, esp. in France, that the Renaissance epithalamium regained its vigour. Those were the poets of La Pléiade,　among whom were Pierre de Ronsard(1524－85), Joachim DuBellay(1522－60), and Rémi Belleau (1528?－77).　They　studied classical and Italian literature, and for their poetical allusions adopted Greek mythology rather than national or Christian. Young Spenser was so much influenced by those poets that he translated DuBellay's poems into English.

　DuBellay's Epithalame Sur le Mariage de Prince Philibert et Princesse Marguerite de France(1559) is interesting in this respect because it has several elements Spenser seems to have used in his own Epithalamion, that is, a wakening of the beloved, dressing of the bride, praising of the wedding day.¹³ Rémi Belleau's Epithalame Surle Mariage (du) Duc de Lorraine¹⁴ would be another epithalamium Spenser probably knew. Belleau seems to have followed Catullus both in the structure and in its lyric features. Marc-Claude de Buttet's Epithalame¹⁵is also a French epithalamium Spenser turned to for some of his materials. Beginning with the Muses' attendance the similarities with Buttet's Epithalame are pointed at throughout Spenser's¹⁶ work. It was a part of the French epithalamic convention to have the nymphs of the local rivers and forests attend the nuptial celebration. Since Spenser well knew classical and Italian literature as well as French poetry, he cannot be said to have any particular source or model in his mind. Yet these 'new poets' certainly did not fail to have their influence on our poet, and in his later years on his Epithalamion.

　 Now it is necessary to glance at the philosophical atmosphere of Spenser's time. In 1452 a group of artists and scholars gathered under Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) and studied the classics at Florence in Italy. Their chief concern was in reconciling or harmonizing Platonism with Christianity; and they tried to attain this through interpretation of Plato's works, esp .the Symposium, Phaedrus, and Timaeus. The philosophy they established in this way is ca1led Renaissance Neoplatonism.

　 According to their philosophy there exist in heaven divine 'ideas' or 'forms'. These are unchangeable reality. Everything on the earth is produced through the dynamic union of these 'forms' with ‘matter'. Since God created the universe out of love, it is in essence full of beauty and loveliness; so that‘matter' on the earth tends to ascend or aspire to the higher and purer 'forms'. Man also, being a composite of the spiritual and the corporeal, ever desires through his love of a beautiful person or thing to attain union with divine love and beauty. Therefore man's physical desire of the beautiful, awakened through his senses, should be regarded as the first step from which he is to ascend stage by stage to the love of the highest that is called ‘divine beauty', or 'idea'. Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529), a Neoplatonist well known for his Il Cortegiano (1528, translated as The Book of the Courtier), explains these stages in terms of the rungs of a ladder, and describes the way of ascent as follows:

He [a lover of beauty] should contemplate beauty as far as he is able in its own simplicity and purity, create it in his imagination as an abstraction distinct from any material form, and thus make it lovely and dear to his soul, and enjoy it there always, day and night and in every time and place, without fear of ever losing it; and he will always remember that the body is something altogether distinct from beauty, whose perfection it diminishes rather than enhances.¹⁷

　It was also believed that God through his love and beauty has blessed this universe and reproduces and regenerates the beautiful. This belief led to the idea that in the same way a human lover through his union with the beloved can procreate children who are ‘beauty's print' on matter.

　This ascent of love towards the perception of the true beauty was a favourite theme of Renaissance poets for their sonnet sequences; and it is important to add here that a poet also regarded himself as a 'maker',－a maker of a poetic universe. The word 'poem' is derived from Greek 'poiein', which means ‘to make.' As a maker of a poetic universe he follows God's creation and aims to reflect the whole universe in his work, as if in a mirror. This idea of imitating nature is one of the basic doctrines of Renaissance art. The imitation of the world covered not only the spiritual values and beauty of God's creation but also its proportions and structures, according to the cosmology imagined by the poet. Renaissance Neoplatonism is a Platonism combined with Christianity. It is difficult to discern just to what extent Spenser was influenced by this contemporary philosophy; but it was the intellectual atmosphere he breathed, and his Epithalamion cannot have escaped its influence.

　There is another feature we have to know in order to understand Renaissance poetry. In Near Eastern empires and ancient Rome the position of the king had a special significance since he was regarded as ‘the sun' of the kingdom or of the world. This king's sovereignty was symbo1ically expressed in the form of a ceremony or a procession in which the king held the central position just as the sun was believed to do in the cosmic universe. This special emphasis on the centre or the mid point was based on the image of the 'sun-king'. Indeed the king was often called ‘the son of the sun' and was believed to hold the political authority which symbolized the cosmic power of the sun. This tradition came down to Renaissance Europe and was developed into elaborate forms of triumph,¹⁸ named after the ancient Roman victory procession. This form emphasizing royal magnificence found its expression not only in public occasions but in various fields of art and architecture, including poetry. In poetry this form or pattern often gives to the principal figure the central place in the structural division of the poem.

For　example, in Petrarch's Trionfi (The Triumphs), six allegorical figures, Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time and Eternity are successively pictured. In,‘The Triumph of Chastity' (during 1340－44)¹⁹which　is a single canto,　after　the　procession　of　16　Virtues,　we find 16‘holy women' and 2 other groups of women are praised. Just at the mid point, between the eighth and the ninth women, come these lines:

　Number symbolism or numerology, is another literary form that Renaissance poetry inherited from the classics. Plato in his Timaeus (303-36) gives some symbolic meanings to numbers: god's purpose in the world is perfect and complete, therefore there must be only l universe; the body of the world is composed of 4 elements that make perfect concord; there are 7 physical motions, of which the uniform circular motion is the most perfect. It seems these values given to each of the particular numbers are both philosophical and cosmic. Cosmic number symbolism was developed in the Middle Ages and Renaissance into an elaborate astronomical numerology, in which Spenser was very skilled. The influence of the 7 planets(the sun included)assigned to each day of the week was also very important.

　Philosophical values may be traced back to Pythagorean Cult. Thus, for example, 2 is female and 3 is the first male number, therefore 5 (2+3) symbolizes a relation of men to women, i.e. the marriage number^.21 This is probably the reason why Spenser's Prothalamion, in which 2 weddings are celebrated, has 10 stanzas (5×2=10). For understanding Epithalamion, however, astronomical numerology would be more important. This numerology includes numbers that symbolize time, that is, 'temporal' numbers. The commonest temporal numbers would be 24 hours, 7 days, 4 seasons, 12 months, etc. These are usually expressed by dividing the poem into lines, stanzas, cantos and books. Spenser was one of those poets who introduced complex temporal numerology into English poetry.²²

　Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), one of Spenser's friends, seems to be the first who wrote an English epithalamium after the convention we have seen.²³ His marriage song appears in The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. This prose romance was begun in 1580 for the amusement of his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. But it was not until 1590, after his death, that Arcadia was published. The epithalamium appeared in the 1593 edition, in the third eclogue in Book III. The marriage of Thyrsis and Kala is being celebrated, and Dicus, one of the shepherds, begins to sing 'with a clear voice and cheerful countenance':

　Then the Muses are called on: 'to this chaste love your sacred favours bow'; nymphs are begged to let Thyrsis and Kala meet 'like two rivers sweet'; Father Pan is requested to make their issue increase in number. But 'foul Cupid', who is the 'sire to lawless lust', is bidden to be‘far hence with thy enpoisoned dart'. Throughout the following three stanzas various evils that will spoil a happy marriage are dispelled. Although Sidney's Cupid is different from Spenser's, the vein of this song seems to be similar. It may be that Spenser was influenced by some of Sidney's phrasings.

　The second epithalamiumin English is found in Bartholomew Young's Diana of George of Montemayor (1598). This is a translation of a very famous pastoral romance, Diana (1559/60), written in Spanish by Montemayor. Montemayor died (probably in 1561) with his main story uncompleted.²⁵ In 1564 two continuations of Diana appeared, one of which was Gaspar Gil Polo's　Diana Enamorada. Young's translation, the Diana of Montemyor, includes Gil Polo's Enamoured Diana. This was published in 1598, but Young says in his preface that he had finished the translation 16 years before. So it is possible that Young knew Sidney's song already at that time, for both the meter and the rhyme scheme of the translation are closely similar to Sidney's.²⁶ Spenser also may have seen Young's translation. This marriage song, which is included in England's Helicon (1600), occurs at the end of the fourth book of Enamoured Diana. Arsileus begins to sing 'in memory and joy of the new marriage between Syrenus and Diana':

　 This song also seems to have some words and phrases in common with Spenser's two wedding songs. If he knew Young's translation, Spenser's refrain in Epithalamion may have been suggested by Young's whose last refrain changes to 'End nymphs, your songs, that in the clouds are ringing'.

　 Before we come to Spenser's Epithalamion, it would be good to summarize the epithalamic convention as it was established in Spenser's time. The Italian critic J.C. Scaliger gave a set of rules for composing an oration on a wedding occasion in his Poetices libri septem(1561). With reference to this book some of the main features of the convention will be as follows:²⁸

6. The epithalamist should refer to the specific day of the celebration and follow the course of events throughout, among which an exhortation to go to bed, and a prophecy of offspring are to be included. If the poet has referred to wedlock he might resort to mythological figures such as Thetis and Peleus.

　Now Spenser in his Epithalamion follows most of these rules except in two important respects, the identification of the poet with the bridegroom and his status as upper-middle-class bourgeoisie. The unity of the bridegroom and the poet himself is certainly unique to Spenser. By this double role he was able to achieve fusion of the two traditions that characterized the ancient epithalamia, the lyrical and the epic or mythological.

　From the beginning we feel the lines impassioned by the poet's personal utterance. Laying aside 'sad complaints' he starts to sing to himself alone. The nymphs of Mulla and other local nymphs are summoned to attend. When he listens to the birds' singing and feels their voices in perfect concord 'to this day's merriment', there is the true ring of his own joy. The fair Hours and the three handmaids of Venus, instead of human maids, are asked to dress the bride. We share with them the surrounding solemnity when the couple stand before the altar. Joy flows out of the festivity and there is a joke that the bridegroom complains about the tardiness of the sun and regrets he has chosen the longest day. When night comes he finds 'my fair love lying in proud humility. The prayer for dispelling the evil powers is unusually long and to the catalogue of ominous birds are added the 'frogs' which he seems to have disliked. The song ends in an earnest prayer to fulfil 'our wishful vow' and ask for 'our comfort'.　All these effects come from the unity of the poet and the bridegroom.

　And yet we are aware that Epithalamion is very rich in the mythological imagery which is characteristic of the epic tradition. The oncoming dawn makes us anticipate that 'the world's light-giving lamp' will soon spread its 'golden beam'. Hymen is awake and is ready to star this masque. The 'rosy Morn' ascends the chariot and Phoebus begins to show his glorious head. The bride's eyes are brighter than Hesperus. The three Graces are requested to attend her as they do to Venus. When‘the damsels' sing and merry music resounds 'all the firmament' is filled with joy. The beauty of the bride is pictured by the Biblical image of royal bride. The wedding is announced to the whole town and angels sing 'Alleluiah.　During the night Silence and Majesty are requested to reign. Juno, Genius, Hymen, Hebe are summoned to sanction their hope for offspring. And the poem ends in prayer for their inheritance of　'heavenly tabernacles'.

　The poet is indeed making full use of his double role to express his own joy; but at the same time he is strictly following the convention of his time. That is, he pictures his own wedding celebration as a public event. The mythological setting is fully exploited for this purpose. In the centre the bride and the bridegroom are standing; the whole town surrounds them and gives applause. It is as if only on 'this day' the two are‘the King and the Queen' at their royal wedding; the 'personal' of the bridegroom is in this context the personal of the King, and of the Queen. In harmony and concord their marriage is closely linked to the whole society, to nature around them, and to the universe. This fusion of the personal and the public is in my view the real force that gives vitality to Spenser's Epithalamion.

　It seems that Spenser's status as one of the upper-middle-class gives his description a certain frankness and a touch of humour. During the bridal procession 'merchants' daughters' are asked to admire the bride's beauty. The festal merriment is depicted with a certain boldness. There are the bridegroom's jokes, and in the wedlock all the cares of the husband are 'summed up in one and cancelled for ay'. These realistic touches are another uniqueness to Spenser's wedding song, though curbed so as not to impair the solemnity of the whole atmosphere.

　There are some genres in Elizabethan literature that flourished　only for a short period; the epithalamion seems to be one of these. We have several distinguished epithalamia after Spenser's.²⁹ There is John Donne's Epithalamion made at Lincoln's Inn (1594?)³⁰ which has a touch of sensuality and satire, Robert Herrick's An Epithalamie to Sir Thomas Southwell and his Ladie ³¹(1618?) is lovely with a drop of tearing pathos, and Ben Jonson's Epithalamion ³² (1632)celebrating Weston is lively with lighter metric schemes. Richard Crashaw's Epithalamium ³³(1635?) is a dirge for a virgin. Including these many of the major epithalamia were written during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. After the seventeenth century this genre seems to have gradually changed, and Spenser's Epithalamion, which gave influence to its posterity, may be said to be at the zenith of this genre.