Sir Walter Ralegh, The Lie, court satire, corrupt institutions , abuses, duel, give the lie
<< previous
next >>
36
of “superfluous words” in order to “shewe the dexteritie of their wits, [rather] than the valour of their mindes” (sig. Biir). Weinstein examines the Italian example of Captain Lanfredino Cellesi and Piero Gatteschi who, having both failed to receive satisfaction through the courts over a disagreement involving a debt owed by Gatteschi’s cousin to Cellesi, resorted to exchanging libels for a period of three years over the arrangements of a duel that was never to happen. The following two wit combats are associated with prominent Elizabethan courtiers and both are similarly contextualised by the formal arrangements of duelling.
In Sir Walter Ralegh’s court satire, ‘The Lie’, he embarks his satirical persona on a mission to confront corrupt institutions with their abuses and conceives of this happening within the context of provoking a formal challenge to settle the matter with a duel:
Say to the Court it glowes,
and shines like rotten wood,
Say to the Church it showes
whats good, and doth no good.
If Church and Court reply,
then giue them both the lie.
Tell Potentates they liue
acting by others action,
Not loued vnlesse they giue,
not strong but by affection.
If Potentates reply,
giue Potentates the lie. (ll.7-18)
65
In this slur upon the body politic Ralegh envisages something very like what Weinstein describes as
the typical scenario […] of the Renaissance duel [whereby] Cavalier A calls Cavalier B a cheat or poltroon, and Cavalier B, resenting the attack on his honour, tells Cavalier A that he lies in his throat […]. According to the duel theorists, Cavalier A, having been given the lie, is ‘charged’ (caricato), and becomes the
65 The Poems of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. Agnes M. C. Latham (Constable, 1929), pp.45-7. For a discussion of Ralegh’s authorship of ‘The Lie’ see Stephen J. Greenblatt, Sir Walter Ralegh: The Renaissance Man and his Roles (London and New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1973), pp.171-6.
<< previous
next >>
Stumble It!
