Appendix I: About The Assembly of Gods

a. The Poem

The Assembly of Gods is a fifteenth century dream vision poem comprised of 301 seven line stanzas which have the standard ababbcc rhyme pattern of the Rhyme Royal. The meter, as critics have noted,*See for example Schick cix, Klaber 117, MacCracken xxxv-xxxvi, Lewis, Allegory 261-262, Pearsall, Old 240 . Triggs discusses the meter at length and categorizes the variations in meter by type. He also gives a complete list of the rhymes and a partial list of the alliteration used in the poem (Assembly xiv-xxxiv). is irregular. The poem can be broken into five main sections: an introduction, three distinct but connected narrative episodes and a conclusion.

In the introduction, the poet establishes the setting using conventional astrological and geographical references which place the poem within the traditional framework of a dream poem. The dreamer sits “all solytary alone besyde a lake,/ Musyng on a maner how that I myght make/ Reason & Sensualyte in oon to acorde” (1). But, before he can think through his puzzle he is overcome by sleep.

Morpheus comes and escorts him to the court of Minos which is being held at the estate of Pluto. There the dreamer watches as Diana and Neptune accuse Aeolus of flouting their authority and discrediting them in the eyes of their worshipers. Before the trial can be concluded a messenger comes from Apollo, asking Minos to hold off on the judgement and inviting all the gods to his palace for a banquet. In Apollo’s palace, Diana’s complaint is resolved and the dreamer describes each of the gods and goddesses as they sit down to eat. The gods won’t allow Discord into their feast, but as she is leaving she meets with Atropos and sends him to stir things up. Atropos goes to the gods and complains that while the gods claim to have given him power to bring death to any who disobeyed or despised them, there is one person who has escaped his power. He threatens to leave their employ if they don’t make good on their promise to him and give him power over this person. All the gods agree that they will bring down this one who defies Atropos. They quickly resolve the dispute between Neptune and Aeolus to ensure that the offender will not be able to escape in the sea or air and then ask who it is that has defied them. When Atropos tells them that it is Virtue, Pluto says he knows him well and the only thing that can harm Virtue is Vice, Pluto’s bastard son. Vice is called for, and he assembles his host for battle. Morpheus warns Virtue of the impending battle and Virtue prepares his host and heads to the field of Microcosm hoping to arrive before Vice and thus have the advantage. The descriptions of the assembly of these armies are made up long lists of characters representing various vices and virtues and types of people under the influence of Vice and Virtue.

The second narrative episode of the poem is a psychomachian battle between the hosts of Virtue and Vice for the field of Microcosm which is possessed by Freewill. As the battle heats up, Freewill joins forces with Vice and they begin to drive Virtue and his host from the field. Perseverance comes and rallies Virtue’s troops, defeats Vice and wins the field. Freewill goes through a process of cleansing and is made a vassal of Virtue. Reason and Sadness are given control of Microcosm and set about cleansing it of the weeds planted there by Sensuality. A disgusted Atropos determines to leave the service of the “counterfete” gods saying, “For oo God ther ys that can euery dell / Turne as hym lyst, bothe dry & whete, / In to whos seruyce I shall assay to gete” (39). He goes in search of the Lord of Light and is told by Righteousness that the Lord of Light has been his master all along. Atropos’ name is changed to Death and he is sent to Microcosm. Priesthood and the sacraments are sent to the field to prepare it for the coming of Death who causes the grass to wither and shuts the gates on the field.

The third episode of the poem takes place in the arbor of Doctrine where the dreamer is taken to be instructed in the meaning of the vision he has seen. The walls of the arbor are painted with images of people from the history of the world which Doctrine uses to explain the meaning of the dream and the genesis of the pagan deities and to encourage the dreamer in the right way of life. When she is done, the dreamer remembers his question about the accord of reason and sensuality and he asks her to “determyne that doute” (56). She is surprised that he has not figured it out yet, and with that, Death appears. As the dreamer hides in fear of Death, Reason and Sensuality appear and agree that people should fear death.

After Doctrine explains this accord to the dreamer he is taken back to his spot by the lake. He awakens and writes his dream, exhorting those who read it, hear it read or see it to learn from it and asking the blessings of heaven on those who do.

b. Authorship and Date

The authorship and the exact date and of the poem are unknown though both questions have enjoyed considerable speculation. In his first printing of the poem, de Worde added the colophon ‘Thus endeth this lytyll moralized treatyse compiled by dan Iohn Lydgat somtyme monke of Bury on whose soule have mercy.’ He removed the colophon in later printings, but early catalogers of the poem perpetuated the attribution of the poem to Lydgate (Assembly xi). Triggs argued for Lydgate’s authorship in his introduction, but scholars since that time have challenged the attribution so convincingly that the poem is no longer considered part of the Lydgate canon.*Shick, in 1891, was “not absolutely certain that Lydgate was the author” (cix). For Triggs’ argument see Assembly xi-xiv. Frederick Klaber agreed with Triggs (116-117). Albert Rudolph’s 1909 pamphlet compared stylistic elements of The Assembly of Gods with those in works of Lydgate and concluded that Lydgate did not write the poem. In 1911, McCracken disputed Triggs’ assertion (xxxv-xxxvi). Lewis said, the poet “was certainly not Lydgate if we judge by his metre” (Allegory 262). Bühler lists people who have argued on both sides of the question and agrees with Henry Noble MacCracken and Lewis (251). In 1985, A. S. G. Edwards said that the poem is, “manifestly not by [Lydagte]” (450). The opinion that Lydgate did not write The Assembly of Gods is so widely held now that authors writing about Lydgate often don’t mention the work (e.g. Ebin, Schirmer). Stephen R. Reimer is currently working on a project to reassess the Lydgate canon using existing evidence and computer diagnosis. The list of works for his project includes The Assembly of Gods, but Reimer feels that the likelihood that Lydgate wrote the poem is low (Canon; (http://www.ualberta.ca/~sreimer/lydgate.htm e-mail 27 May 1999).

The belief that Lydgate was the author of the poem heavily influenced early attempts to fix a date for the writing of the poem as scholars speculated about which period of Lydgate’s writings the poem seemed most likely to have come from. More recent attempts to fix the date of the poem suggest that it was probably written after Lydgate’s death, in the second half of the fifteenth century.*See Schick cix, cxii; Lydgate xii-xiv; MacCracken xxxvi; Bloomfield, Seven 227; and Bühler 251.