Some thoughts on temperance inspired by a student paper on the Faerie Queene , Book 2. The student cited an article linking Guyon’s story with the developing “modern” view of time as a commodity. With the new view of time, temperance began to be linked with self-restraint in time. Instead of a sheathed sword, the hourglass became the new symbol of temperance.
The article argues that Spenser was opposing this development, but I’m not so sure. And, whatever Spenser thought, the link of time and temperance seems more than linguistic. Temperance is not inaction or passivity, certainly not for Spenser. Temperance is instead patience, waiting for the right time to act. That is, temperance is timeliness. When Guyon goes into his frenzy and destroys the Bower of Bliss at the end of the poem, he is not being intemperate but perfectly temperate, because the time has come for just this zeal.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Restoring Man at Notre Dame
It is fascinating to be an outsider on the inside of an institution going through times of…
Deliver Us from Evil
In a recent New York Times article entitled “Freedom With a Side of Guilt: How Food Delivery…
Natural Law Needs Revelation
Natural law theory teaches that God embedded a teleological moral order in the world, such that things…
