[In the following essay, Scanlon attempts to demonstrate the underlying coherence of Zelauto, despite its episodic structure.]

I

According to Stillinger, had Anthony Munday finished Zelauto. The Fountaine of Fame (1580) «it could have been one of the most structurally sophisticated novels of the period.»¹ In support of this claim he proceeds to compare it with epic poetry, particularly The Odyssey. And there is undoubtedly some truth in what he says. If the structure of Munday's narrative is not sophisticated, it is elaborate, certainly one of the more ambitious attempts in prose fiction of the Elizabethan age. Yet to approach Zelauto in this light is to set up false assumptions, to give the wrong impression of its design and aims—and, consequently, of its success. Criticism of Zelauto has invariably been misled by such assumptions: what is needed in the first instance is simply an accurate description of the work, its form and function.

As its stands, Zelauto is composed of four major episodes in three parts set within a frame-tale. It opens in mediis rebus with a brief chivalric encounter between the hero and the hermit, Astraepho, in which Zelauto is vanquished in deed but victorious in word. Thereupon, being asked for his adventures, he begins them on the outskirts of Naples where he was beaten and robbed by outlaws. Dragging himself to a nearby inn, more dead than alive, he is taken in and treated with great courtesy and kindness. During the period of convalescence, which is recorded in some detail, the innkeeper's wife, Madonna Ursula, is especially attentive, administering to both his physical and spiritual needs. There has been some suggestion of amorous intention on her part, thought to be particularly evident in the love-song (pp. 29, 30).² But this is to miss the point: Charity has been mistaken for Eros. When asked by Zelauto, during the course of one of their many conversations, why she is prepared to give so much sympathy and attention to a stranger, she replies:

Sir … on the vertuous and well disposed, no one can bestowe courtesie sufficient. As for my part, to such Gentlemen, as upon some occasion are fallen into want and necessitie: I thinke it a great poynt of humanitie, to bestowe on them freendly hospitalitie …

(p. 26)

It is, in fact, an Elizabethan version of the story of The Good Samaritan, with the innkeeper's wife serving as the model and the action and dialogue pointing up the moral.

Upon recovering from the attack by the thieves, Zelauto makes his way to Lisbon and, hearing fair report of England and its queen, proceeds at once to London and thence to court. While there he meets many noble lords and has the exceeding good fortune to be accepted into the Queen's presence.

… credit mee [he tells Astraepho], her heauenly hew, her Princely personage, her rare Sobrietie, her singuler Wisedome: made mee stand as one bereft of his sences. For why, before mine eyes I sawe one that excelled, all the woorthy Dames that euer I haue read of.

(p. 36)

The second episode is not about the state of England or the importance of London; it is a court encomium, principally eulogizing the mayden Queene that swayed the Scepter there (p. 32). A chivalric pageant forms its centrepiece in which a learned and armed lady, first by rhetoric and then by might, defends the supremacy of her sovereign against the advances of a presumptious male champion.³

These first two adventures, contained in Part I, have taken Zelauto the remainder of the day to recount. So at the suggestion of Astraepho they break off for supper, and then retire intending to resume the history on the morrow. Part II, which consists of a single episode in Persia, bears definite resemblance to the Venetian one: both have to do with inns and innkeepers, lending a domestic character to some of the events; both are largely given over to pietistic discourse; and both would appear to be strongly influenced by Munday's personal observations and experiences, especially those in Rome the previous year.⁴ Nevertheless, they are quite different. For one thing, no longer is a moral of universal significance being presented; instead, there is a specific religious allegory, the Christian movement in Persia corresponding roughly to the Protestant one in Rome. And for another, whereas the first episode takes the form of a biblical parable, the later one is akin to a medieval sermon, with exemplum following exhortation.

Zelauto's profession of Christian (Protestant) faith, which opens the episode, is made to the host with evangelistic intent. It is almost immediately put to trial. For into the inn comes Mica Sheffola, nephew to the Sultan, lamenting the evil fate of his sister who has been condemned to die at the stake for her Christian beleefe, and constant auouching of the same … (p. 76). Yet, he concludes, hath the Soldane thus much graunted, that if any one whatsoeuer, dare venture him selfe against a Champion by force of Armes to set her free: shee shall upon his good successe be restored at lybertie.

The trail of faith, therefore, is heroically concretized by employing the convention of the chivalric tournament, adapted in such a way as to transform it from an act of knightly valour to one of religious martyrdom.⁵ Indicative of this alteration is the fact that, win or lose the combat, the champion—against the Lawe of Armes (p. 99)—is to be killed. However, it is neither the hero (who immediately accepts the Sultan's challenge) nor the lady (who submits to it) that suffers such a fate, but the host who, having in the meantime been converted, is ignominiously put to death. Thereby, he becomes the true martyr of the piece. The lady and the hero, though, are both tested in the process and prove their respective worth, the former being banished forthwith and the latter escaping from prison in order to pursue his adventures.

The final episode, comprising Part III, is in sharp contrast to this demonstration of faith and martyrdom. In almost every way, to be sure, is it to be distinguished from whatever has gone before, appearing (at least in the book's unfinished state) as much like an appendix as a digression. In all probability it was written separately perhaps even at a different time, and hurriedly «included only to extend the work to book length».⁶ Because not only has the narrative point of view distinctly shifted—this section being tenuously linked with the rest only by the fact that Zelauto is reading it—but so has almost every other feature. The previous episodes, although sundry traditions and motifs and even individual works have gone into their making, can safely be said to have been fashioned by Munday; moreover, partly because of this, they are loosely knit, wordy, and quite simple in nature. This «Amorous discourse», however, is both more sophisticated and certainly much more derivative, with basically two types of literature directly underlying it.⁷ A young couple fall in love and, following the prescribed procedure of courtship, eventually plight their troth; then, by way of developing the tale, the pound- of-flesh story has been engrafted. The first section belongs unmistakably to the much modified and fashionable tradition of courtly love, with the themes of friendship and misogyny (perhaps after Lyly's Euphues) interwoven into it.⁸ And the second derives ultimately from the comic novella, although the bond story was familiar in various forms to Munday and his contemporaries.⁹ Whether or not this union of courtly romance and comic novella had already been made in the source tale is uncertain; but at least a comparable model was available at that time in George Whetstone's brief narrative of «Rinaldo and Giletta» (1576).¹⁰

II

Besides Munday's general interest in rhetorical setpieces and euphuistic language, the structure of Zelauto was evidently designed to accommodate a variety of matter and purpose. But it must also be recognized that each episode centres on a particular kind of writing and is directed toward a specific end—taking the form of, respectively, a biblical parable, a court panegyric, a medieval sermon, and a romantic-comic novella. Accordingly, while a range of literary types is offered, within each episode a diversity of material is given coherence. It is a pattern, too, repeated in the frame-tale, which besides imposing an over-all order, is itself varied in nature (including chivalry, the pastoral, and courtesy literature). In other words, instead of simply yoking together heterogeneous material, as is commonly believed, Munday was attempting to create a kind of structural discordia concors.

The inherent weaknesses of the form, however, also become manifest, especially as the tale develops. Stillinger points out perhaps the most obvious difficulty: «Zelauto relates to Astraepho some of the facts that Munday has already given the reader in establishing the framework of the novel, and Zelauto repeats some of these details once or twice within the stories that he tells to Astraepho.»¹¹ This sort of background repetition, though, is only symptomatic of a more deeply-rooted problem. With a different form and purpose directing each episode, linked mechanically together by means of a central figure, inconsistency and contrivance cannot but result. For not only is Zelauto's character altered regularly to suit the demands of the individual episodes, making him a less than credible character, but curious narrative manipulations occur as well. One of the most apparent, in the Persian affair, is the execution of the host rather than the hero. As a martyr is necessary to satisfy religious needs, and as the hero is clearly not available for the role, a minor character was perforce substituted. It is not really satisfactory in any way. Nor, indeed, is the annexing of the final episode. The narrative had to be extended probably for commercial rather than literary reasons; but why was a romantic-comic novella chosen for the purpose? Perhaps this happened to be the tale Munday had already on hand; perhaps he chose it rather than other possibilities, not because of any epic scheme,¹² but because he had not used the form previously. Whatever the reason, its character was just too far removed from the rest of the book for Munday to include it among Zelauto's own adventures. There was little choice, in fact, but to do as he did.

One wonders, in conclusion, if Munday, as well as running out of time, was coming to realize the limitations of his structural design. Maybe he could have treated this fourth episode as a kind of interlude, resuming his story with either Zelauto's second Persian adventure or Astraepho's courtly and tragic love affair.¹³ In either case, what would appear to have been an aspect of his original intention—of including two episodes in each of the parts (the second Persian adventure to have completed Part II)—was now quite out of the question. Moreover, and a matter of much greater importance, a good number of the fashionable literary modes had already been employed. Therefore, without repeating himself in more serious ways than he had already, and without distorting the hero out of all proportion, and instead of being forced into further narrative contrivance, perhaps Munday preferred to leave Zelauto permanently at supper with Astraepho.

Notes

1. Jack Stillinger, ed. Introduction, Zelauto, The Fountaine of Fame, by Anthony Munday (Carbondale, Ill., 1963), p. x. Hereinafter, all references are to this edn.

2. See Celeste Turner, Anthony Mundy. An Elizabethan Man of Letters, Univ. of California Publications in English, Vol. II, no. 1 (Berkeley, 1928), p. 31.

3. Munday might have witnessed such a performance or perhaps he had read an account of one, such as Hermetes the Heremyte (presented to Queen Elizabeth as a New Year's gift in 1579).

4. A number of details of the first and third episodes can be found in Munday's The English Romayne Lyfe (London, 1582).

5. Stillinger's remark that Zelauto becomes «less heroic … as the novel progresses» (Introduction, p. xxvi) is simply not true. The heroics which he displays in this third episode are by far his most impressive.

6. Stillinger, Introduction, p. xi.

7. Stillinger (Introduction, pp. xix-xxi) confuses the issue by adding a third source, the jest-book, which in this case had almost certainly been assimilated by the novella long before.

8. Courtesy literature, perhaps Euphues itself, would appear to be the main source here regarding courtly love, rather than the chivalric tradition as Stillinger suggests (Introduction, p. xix).

9. Turner, p. 34, conjectures that Munday's version is based on a lost play, mentioned by Stephen Gosson in 1579.

10. George Whetstone, «The Discourse of Rinaldo and Giletta», in The Rocke of Regard (London, 1576).

11. Stillinger, Introduction, p. xii.

12. Ibid., p. xi.

13. Zelauto, concluding the third episode, remarks: Thus haue you heard my first aduentures in Persia: now tell me your iudgement thereof (p. 105). And much earlier in the story Astraepho states that after hearing Zelauto's history I shall declare the better some of my straunge aduentures (p. 20).