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Courtship was further assisted by the new fashions in gardens. Of old, lovers had held their rendezvous in the grounds of feudal castles, which did not lack nooks and arbours. Now from Italy and France came such delights as the maze, where a couple could escape the observations not only of their equals but of their prying servants. It was impossible not to be amorous in a maze. There was the conspiratorial fun of entering it; the laughing and jostling to find the centre; the gratifying discovery that there was no one else there; the excitement of being man and woman in a secret place; the conviction that there was positively no other way of spending the time than by making love. Besides the maze, there were quiet alleys, where a lady could hopefully adjust a stocking if she had reason to suppose she was being observed; there were bowers, temples, retreats, all designed for dalliance. 'When dalliance palled, there was beguilement to be found in the clever toys with which the great gardens were strewn. In the sixteenth century the grounds of the Tuileries held every frivolous device, from an artificial echo to a water-wheel which played the flageolet.
One of the standard works on behaviour in these quickening times-The Book of the Courtier-was written by Count Baldassare Castiglione, who flourished in the hilltop palace of Urbino, The task of imposing a polite pattern on the cynical brilliance of the Renaissance was ho easier, it may be supposed, than trying to discipline the jovial carnality of Chaucer's world. Castiglione could but try. He was no advocate of idle seduction. Instead, he urged that a gentleman should woo a lady 'not chiefly to come by her body but to win the fortress of the mind, to break in pieces the most hard diamonds, to heat the cold ice that lie many times in the tender breasts of these women'.
Castiglione thought that ladies ought to be proficient at letters, dancing, sports and pastimes, but 'imagine with yourself what an unsightly matter it were to see a woman play upon a tabour or drum or blow in a flute or trumpet or any like instrument'.
Many and various have been the thoughts inspired in men by the unexpected sight of a pretty ankle. Castiglione's are worth quoting, in these days of fully-fashioned hose. On the way to church, 'it happeneth that a woman lifteth up her clothes so high that she sheweth her foot, and some times a little of her pretty leg unwittingly". The observant gentleman would note 'her hose sitting clean to her leg'. Said Castiglione: 'Truly it delighteth me much, and I believe all of you, for every man supposeth that preciseness in so secret a place and so seldom seen to be unto that woman rather natural and proper than forced, and that thereby she thinketh to get her no commendation at all.'
Like many of his day, Castiglione had a wary respect for the power of the human eye. 'Those lively spirits that issue out at the eyes because they are engendered nigh the heart, entering in like case into the eyes that they are levelled at, like a shaft to the prick, naturally pierce the heart.. . and with the most subtle and fine nature of blood which they carry with them infect the blood about the heart. . . and warm it.' The lips are potent, too. Those indulging in the sensual recreation of kissing would do well to remember that although 'the mouth be a parcel of the body yet it is an issue for the words that be the interpretation of the soul'.
Fashionable manners in the British Isles were the subject of condescension among visitors from the Continent. Erasmus had been amused at the way in which the English kissed each other coming and going. Before the fawning vogue of votre tres humble seruiteur came in, the style of greeting (says Aubrey) had consisted of 'God keep you', or 'How dost doe?' accompanied by a thump on the shoulder. Although there were always those who despised continental influences, many preciosities were now copied from the courts of Italy and France. Woman found herself at the crest of a wave again. Around her flitted peacocking gallants, scented and mock-slavish, paying her incessant outrageous compliments. The fashionable lover was expected to 'weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers'. He was expected to kiss his lady's hand, her fan, her nosegay, her petticoat, to 'play with her little puppy'. Above all, he must have the gift of the gab:
That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.
The woman's part was that of Rosaline:
How I would make him fawn, and beg and seek,
And wait the season, and observe the limes,
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes,
And shape his service wholly to my hests,
And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
Once again, skill at rhyming was the indispensable accomplishment of a gallant. Like schoolboys doing impositions, pale suitors ground out their wailful sonnets. Love poetry still contained echoes of the troubadours, but the pastoral convention-that sentimentality of an unvirginal world day-dreaming of arcady-was imposing its stilted shape. In fancy, even the most battered roue became a shepherd boy, the most shopsoiled baggage a shepherdess.
Not every gallant had the prodigal wits necessary to rhyme himself into bed. Some borrowed, translated or adapted the works of better men; a few were found out. Others were not above hiring assistance. The wily Sir Thomas Overbury wrote sonnets to the Countess of Essex on behalf of his master, Sir Robert Carr. When it was clear that Overbury's personal intrigues were not succeeding, he cut off the supply of sonnets, but by this time the Countess's passions had been suitably roused. From the Tower, the doomed Overbury complained to his master: 'When you fell in love with that woman as soon as you had won her by my letters and after all the difficulties being passed you then used your own for common passages.'
Fashionable courtship at this period was as often as not devoid of serious matrimonial intent; it was an exercise in profligacy, a courtier's sport, a game in which, as in battle, success brought its peculiar prestige.
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