Muiopotmos
or The Fate of the Butterfly /Edmund Spenser/poetry
The Fate of the Butterflie is a
mock-heroic poem or epyllion of 440 lines.
Spenser used allegory, mythology, fable,and symbol as an indirect means
of expressing his thoughts and feelings in order to avoid a brush with
authorities and aristocrats. His Mother Hubberd’s Tale embodies a
political satire in the guise of the fable of The Fox and the Ape.
Muiopotmos narrates the fable of the
fight between the Butterfly Clarion and the Spider Archanol. It is supposed to allude to the animosity
between Essex and Raliegh or between Sidney and Oxford. The first stanza of the prescribed
piece portrays the butterfly as being endowed with a delicate aesthetic
sensitivity. He tastes every flower and
every herb in the garden without upsetting their order or disfiguring
them.
The second stanza shows the butterfly
as an Epicurean with a refined sensibility.
He seems to believe in the dictum that variety is the spice of
life. Spenser’s humour comes out in the
aphoristic utterance; for all change is
sweete.