whom one would like to have as a friend, a member vertu, and publick civility’ (1953–82:1.816). of the family, or a guest, or whom one would call a The sources of the virtue may be found in Renais-gentleman. (The praise given him at i3.1–5 would sance moral manuals, such as Elyot’s Gouernour not apply to any other knight.) According to Colin, (1531) with its first book treating ‘the best fourme those who possess the virtue may be recognized by of education or bringing up of noble children’ and the gifts given them by the Graces: ‘comely carriage, the planned second volume aiming to cover ‘all the entertainement kynde, | Sweete semblaunt, friendly reminant . . . apt to the perfection of a iuste publike offices that bynde’ (x 23.4–5) – or rather, according weale’ (1.2); or in Seneca’s De Beneficiis (tr. Arthur to the proem, given them by Elizabeth from whom Golding in 1578), as Archer 1987 argues; or in all virtues well ‘Into the rest, which round about you such courtesy books as Castiglione’s Courtier (1528, ring, | Faire Lords and Ladies, which about you tr. 1561) in which ‘The Count with golden vertue dwell, | And doe adorne your Court, where courtes-deckes’ the court, as Sackville wrote in its praise; and ies excell’ (7.7–9). especially Guazzo’s Civile Conversation (1574, tr. It follows, as Spenser acknowledges in the opening 1581/1586; see VI i 1.6n), for sections of it were line of canto i, ‘Of Court it seemes, men Courtesie included in Bryskett’s Discourse of Civill Life, which doe call’. In its wide range of meanings, the simplest claims to report his conversation with Spenser on is courtly etiquette and good manners. In this sense, moral philosophy. The full title of this last work, A it is more a social than a moral virtue, and therefore discourse, containing the ethicke part of morall philo-open to being feigned, as evident in the ‘faire dis-sophie: fit to instruct a gentleman in the course of a sembling curtesie’ seen by Colin at Elizabeth’s court vertuous life, could serve as a subtitle of Spenser’s (Colin Clout 700), which is ‘nought but forgerie’ poem, especially since Bryskett tells Lord Grey that (VI proem 5.3). While it is the virtue most closely his end is ‘to discourse upon the morall vertues, yet associated with the Elizabethan court and Elizabe-not omitting the intellectuall, to the end to frame a than culture generally, Spenser’s treatment of it goes gentleman fit for civill conversation, and to set him far beyond his own culture. As Chang 1955:202–20 in the direct way that leadeth him to his civill felicitie’ shows, it has an illuminating counterpart in the (6). See ‘courtesy books’ in the SEnc. Confucian concept of ritual. Spenser fashions a virtue As the final book of the 1596 edition, appropri-that may best be called civility, which is the basis ately Book VI raises larger questions about the whole of civilization; see VI proem 4.5n. Yet civility in poem. One such question is the relation of Spenser’s its political expression could legitimize violence in art to nature, and, for a generation of critics, the Ireland, as P. Stevens 1995 notes, and it is not sur-seminal essay has been ‘A Secret Discipline’ by Harry prising to see the patron of courtesy slaughtering the Berger, Jr, in which he concludes that ‘the secret (Irish) brigands at VI xi 46. Accordingly, its link with discipline of imagination is a double burden, discord-Machiavelli’s virtù has been rightly noted by Neuse ant and harmonious: first, its delight in the power 1968 and Danner 1998. On its general application and freedom of art; second, the controlled surrender to the uncertain human condition, see Northrop whereby it acknowledges the limits of artifice’ 2000. Ideally, though, it is the culminating moral (1988:242; first pub. 1961). As chastity is to Brito-virtue of The Faerie Queene, and, as such, has the mart, courtesy is to Calidore: the virtue is natural religious sense expressed by Peter in addressing those to him. He is courteous ‘by kind’ (ii 2.2): ‘gentle-whose faith, according to the Geneva gloss, is con-nesse of spright | And manners mylde were planted firmed ‘by holines of life’: ‘be ye all of one minde: naturall’ (i 2.3–4). It is natural also to Tristram one suffre with another: loue as brethren: be pitiful: because of his noble birth (ii 24) and proper nurtur-be courteous’ (1 Peter 3.8); see, for example, ing, as shown by his defence of the lady abused by Morgan 1981, and Tratner 1990:147–57. Without her discourteous knight. Its powers are shown in the courtesy’s ‘civility’ there would be no civilization; three opening cantos: Calidore may reform both without its ‘friendly offices that bynde’ (x 23.5), Crudor when he is threatened with death, and his there would be no Christian community. By includ-lady, Briana, who is ‘wondrously now chaung’d, ing courtesy among the virtues, Spenser fulfils from that she was afore’ (i 46.9) when she sees the Milton’s claim in Reason of Church Government that change in him (41–43). Also, he may restore Aldus