72 Charles G. Osgood, 



poem, however, Isis is the groom and Thame the bride. Spenser 

 may have got from it a suggestion both of subject and method 

 of treatment, as Upton thinks," but he borrowed no details 

 except possibly one in the picture of the Medway.^^ 



As for the 'weake and crooked' Isis, that 'scarce her way 

 could see,' Harrison carefully describes her deviousness just 

 above and about Oxford; but Spenser is almost certainly writ- 

 ing with a map before him, as is indicated by various details in 

 his account. Here his characterization would be readily sug- 

 gested by the crooked course of the Isis on the map. That the 

 map was one of Christopher Saxton's, who published his port- 

 folio of maps of sections of England in 1^79, to which Camden 

 often refers, is almost certain. ^- 



Therefore on either side she was sustained 

 Of two smal grooms, which by their names were hight 

 The Churne and Charwell, two small streames, which pained 

 Them selves her footing to direct aright.^^ 



'From hence [Tetbury] it runneth directlie toward the east 

 (as all good rivers should) and meeteth with the Cirne or 

 Churne' (Hoi. i. 79). 'It passeth at length by Oxford, of some 

 supposed rather to be called Ouseford of this river, where it 

 meeteth with the Charwell' (Hoi. i. 79). On page 82 Harrison 

 traces in detail the course of the Churne, and on pages 83-4 that 

 of the Cherwell. On the map it readily appears that Isis was 

 sustained on either side by these smaller streams. 



But Thame was stronger, and of better stay. 



Thame is, of course, the smaller stream, and, as we have seen, 

 in the old poem is the bride of Isis. Spenser may have reversed 

 the relation because Isis is feminine in implication, and because 

 the name of Thame dominates the new name Thames. And 

 to emphasize this reversal he has insisted upon the feebleness of 

 Isis, and, contrary to fact, upon the greater strength of Thame. 



Whether purposely or by mistake, he contradicts himself in 

 stanza 26. making it the Thame, not the Isis, which flows by 



"Note on F. Q. IV. xi. 8. 3, in Todd's Spenser 5. 431. 

 " See below, p. 90. 



'^Many of Saxton's maps reappear in Holland's translation of Camden, 

 from which I quote. 

 " St. 25. 



