Following Sir Scudamour in his pursuit of Amoret, we return to the mode of high allegory with a visit to Care’s workshop. Figured as a metalworker, Care is the first In Your Face Allegory that we’ve encountered in quite a while– as we jokingly pointed out, his name isn’t even in Latin! But I wonder if there’s something to that– if the obviousness of Care also relates to the other ways in which he is In Your Face.
One of those other ways has to do with his sheer size. He is a huge figure, but he is also described in granular detail as the poem focuses on his hands and material conditions. What, we asked, is the scale on which Care operates? And what is the relationship between care and fastidiousness, the kind of attention to detail given to Care in Spenser’s description of him? What happens to this fastidiousness when it has nowhere to go? Glauce might be an alternative figure for care, long-serving as Britomart’s nurse. But Glauce is also often on the move– she travels with the figures in her care– and perhaps it is this mobility which helps her to avoid the bloatedness of Care. Maybe the discomfort of “care” is a grammatical problem. Perhaps “care” is not meant to be a noun, but instead is most safely encountered as a verb…
Scudamour certainly suffers from encountering Care, the proper noun, spending a sleepless night on his floor and leaving the next morning, both looking and feeling rough.
On the whole, this scene felt curiously extractable, like a set-piece that might be placed anywhere in the poem. (Is this related, I wonder, to the stationary quality of Care? It does not contribute to narrative progression, but instead forms a closed circuit in which worries just bounce back and forth?) But ultimately, it isn’t anywhere– it’s here, in the Book of Friendship, prompting us to wonder whether friendship has anything in common with this ever-labouring figure of Care. Is friendship also something on which one must be constantly working?