Constancy in Literature

In Renaissance culture, virtues and ideals for men and women differed. The ideal man was noble, courageous, courteous, and excelled in court/knightly behavior as seen in several books of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. The ideal woman’s virtues were patience, humility, chastity and above all, constancy. Constancy is the overwhelming theme in Lady Mary Wroth’s sonnet sequence, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. Pamphilia is overcome with love for Amphilanthus, but his inconstancy is what grieves her the most. She is lost in a world of pleasure and pain where Amphilanthus is the creator of both emotions. Her most hopeful desire is that Amphilanthus will live up to be the man she always knew he could be and ultimately be faithful to her. While her emotions are anything but constant, her desire for “true love” takes her on an emotional journey where she “seeks to discover the truth of her own feelings.” (Roberts, 44.) Constancy is her closest companion on this journey and it is constancy towards the divine where she ultimately finds her comfort. In order to prove that constancy plays such an important role in this sonnet sequence, Lady Mary Wroth does three things: she shows how far inconstancy is from true love, she portrays how Pamphilia has emotional inconstancy due to her betrayal by Amphilanthus, and then shows how Pamphilia comes to terms with her constancy and what changes in her life she vows. Lady Mary attempts to prove to the reader that Pamphilia’s constancy in her love to Amphilanthus shows that her love is what is considered true, or virtuous love, while Amphilanthus’ inconstancy is what in fact makes him un-virtuous when he proclaims that he loves Pamphilia. In Sonnet 3, lines 7 and 8, Pamphilia says that love burns in her so deep that it exiles “thoughts that touch inconstancie,/Or those which waste nott in the constant art,” This sonnet allows Pamphilia to express her ideas that for those people who have love so far inside them that it only allows them to love purely. No thoughts of infidelity or inconstancy touch those who truly love. 2 In the Crown of Sonnets, (sonnets 77-90) also known as the corona, Lady Mary uses Pamphilia’s voice to address love, and dedicate this part of the sequence entirely to true love. In Sonnet 85, Pamphilia says that if we use Cupid, as a teacher of what true love is, then we learn that two hearts and two bodies come together in love to make one mind, and in fact one person. This alludes to the idea that only those people truly in love rise above all else to come together and form one complete human. This is a concept seen in Plato’s Symposium. People who are meant to be together are constantly looking for the other person who completes them. This is an image used for true and constant love. Lady Mary uses this image to promote the idea that Pamphilia feels that if Amphilanthus’ love was as constant for her as hers is for him, then they would truly be happy and one as sonnet 85 suggests. After Lady Mary sets up the idea that constant love is what would make Pamphilia (and in essence all of humanity) happy, she shows how the inconstant love of Amphilanthus has destroyed Pamphilia’s self control and has made her own emotions inconstant towards her. In Sonnet 16, she talks about how she has been conquered by love and attempts to free herself of this earthly burden. She does in fact declare herself free, only to discover at the end of this sonnet that she has lost her liberty and is still a captive. In that very sonnet alone we see how fragile and inconsistent her feelings are regarding the power love has over her. Another way Pamphilia struggles with opposing forces with her emotions is her indecisiveness concerning day and night. On one hand, she longs for the night so she can wallow in her self-pity. She truly feels that night (personified) understands what she is going through, and in sonnet 17 she says to night “Truly poore Night thou welcome art to mee:/I love thee better in this sad attire” (lines 1-2) In literature, night has generally represented the unknowing, the evil and the depressed. Pamphilia does not truly know the extent of Amphilanthus’ love, she knows his infidelity to her is evil, and has therefore made her depressed 3 and alone. The night and dark helps her come to terms with her feelings and helps her express the deep emotional wounds that Amphilanthus has caused. However, in Sonnet 23, she expresses how the sun gives way to happiness on earth and “takes the place from taedious drowsy night/making the world still happy in his grace.” (lines 3-4) She doesn’t know whether she would rather have night come so that she can drown her sorrows with someone who will understand her, or if she would rather have day. Daytime relieves her of her pain and suffering and sheds new light on the whole meaning of her life. This contrast of dark and light represents her emotions and how she cannot decide if she is fatally in love with Amphilanthus, (who obviously does not deserve her) or if she should break free and stay constant to herself and her country. The use of Cupid in the sonnet sequence also allows Lady Mary to continue to show the reader how Pamphilia’s emotions have become inconstant because of her situation with Amphilanthus. As the sonnet sequence starts out she tells the reader how Cupid and Venus were the ones her brought her into this situation and made her a lover. Then we see, again in Sonnet 16 how she mocks Love, (Cupid) by referring to his childish ways, and how blind he really is. She questions why we can’t resist his foolish charms, and why we are servants to his power. She is consistently asking why Love has done this to her. She has been made to fall in love with someone who does not love her the way she wants him to. This is the very reason her heart has been broken and why she is grieving. Therefore, she thinks she has every right to throw blame his way. She berates him, yet in the Crown of Sonnets, she exonerates him. In Sonnet 81 she calls Cupid a tutor and a profit, and in 80 she talks about his glorious light, which shines in the eyes of faith and constancy. (line 2) As late as Sonnet 96 she still refers to Cupid, but here he is a lost child, who is cold, wet and crying. She portrays Cupid as someone who needs help along his way. This mother figure over love serves as Pamphilia’s desire to have control over her love 4 for Amphilanthus. The labyrinth she finds herself in concerning her feelings for the very being who brought her into her enigmatic situation represents the very way her emotions betray her. There is no clear-cut way out for Pamphilia, and her emotions mirror this. She’s lost, confused yet delights over the fact that she is in love. She is in a situation that she both loves and hates, and therefore she is trapped in a state of inconstancy to herself. According to Josephine Roberts, “the sonnets in the last group (95-103) are extremely melancholy in tone, and predominant imagery is that of the winter world of clouds, shadows, and darkness.” (46) While this may be true, and Pamphilia comes to terms with the fact that pain has to accompany pleasure, the last two sonnets offer a glimpse of hope and a desire to love more than a man who cannot be faithful to her. She begins “to prize a type of love finer than she once accepted.” (Roberts, 46) The divine route that her love takes, and the desire to remain a virgin monarch not only gives praise to Queen Elizabeth I, but also allows Pamphilia to give her constancy and love to someone (God and her country) who will never refuse her. Sonnet 102 talks about the sun warming the frozen earth, and finally Pamphilia’s desire to be satisfied during the day has come true. She ends the sonnet sequence with her muse being happy who can “sleepe in the quiet of a faithful love.” (Sonnet 103, line 2) Pamphilia has realized that perfect constancy is unattainable due to human weakness and frailty. The reader has the sense that she is not upset with Love, or Amphilanthus, but she has decided to him go, and let her constancy be focused on God. She says only in eternal goodness can there be true joy. While many scholars have criticized Lady Mary Wroth’s work as boring and tedious in reading, her sonnet sequence, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, shows Lady Mary’s dedication to romance, poetry and virtues in the tradition of her uncle, Sir Philip Sidney. While many themes can be looked at in this sonnet sequence, nothing is more prominent than the Renaissance idea of constancy. Richard Bear, from The University of Oregon says, “Constancy is an extension of the 5 medieval virtue of chastity.” In fact, constancy, represented in Pamphilia to Amphilanthus is described as the dedication of lovers. It is this fidelity that makes a relationship a virtuous one, and according to Lady Mary Wroth, true love. Constancy in this sonnet sequence is shown not only by Pamphilia’s dedication to Amphilanthus, but it’s contrast, inconstancy, is also shown by Pamphilia’s own emotions. Her feelings and emotions betray her just as much as Amphilanthus does. She is lost in the labyrinth of her heart and cannot find the way out. She turns to God as her ultimate, most trusted “lover” and therefore dedicates her life to Him and to serving her country. She knows Amphilanthus is not worthy of her despite how much she cares for him.
Therefore she comes to the conclusion that constancy proves honor. To Pamphilia, dependability, faithfulness and constancy are the highest virtues, therefore vowing to not focus on the “unpredictability of human emotions” (46) but her service to God and her people.