Turpitudinous Turpine

Turpine, perhaps the most traditional antagonist in the Legend of Courtesy, is the most

complete representation of a discourteous knight in The Faerie Queene. A. C. Judson calls

Turpine Spenser’s “most notable example of discourtesy [and] an arrant coward” (126); John D. Bernard identifies Turpine as “Spenser’s most egregiously discourteous knight” (96); Paul D. Green notes that Turpine “is [a] commoner masquerading as a knight” (391) marked by “extreme incivility” (392); Humphrey Tonkin observes Turpine’s “appallingly plebeian behavior”

(Spenser's Courteous Pastoral 161); and Daniel Fried refers to Turpine as “an emblem of false gentility” (240) and “[exemplar] of . . . false courtesy” (241). Though immersed in the chivalric

21 _{Danner comments that the “happy” conclusion of Briana and Crudor’s story is undermined by the fact that Crudor}

system, Turpine egregiously violates the code by which he has ostensibly pledged to live. The narrator and other characters refer to Turpine as “discourteous” or displaying “discourtesy”

seven times in the poem.22 Turpine’s own porter describes him as

one of mickle might,

And manhood rare, but terrible and stearne In all assaies to euery errant Knight

. . . For seldome yet did liuing creature see,

That curtesie and manhood euer disagree. (6.3.40)

Turpine’s consistent violations of the rules of chivalry and hospitality render him an almost comic anti-knight with few or no redeeming virtues.

Turpine, though a knight, ostensibly civilized and well-born, consistently displays bad behavior, often causing others to strip him of his birth status with their language. Tonkin contrasts him with the Salvage Man, who shows some nobility despite his wild nature; he notes that Turpine’s conduct “reveals his ‘base kind’, his ‘vile dunghill mind.’ Turpine creates and spreads trouble, confusion, and disorder. He is an enemy of benevolent nature and hence not

endowed with nature’s gifts . . . [he is] dishonest, basely born, cowardly” (Spenser's Courteous

Pastoral 161). The relation of birth to courtesy is a complicated question that recurs throughout The Faerie Queene, with no real resolution.23 Tonkin reminds us that “the question whether courtesy and noble birth go together, or whether the first is possible without the second, occupied

the attention of most of the authors who wrote on courtesy in the sixteenth century” (Spenser's

Courteous Pastoral 43). Guazzo also weighs in on the issue, stating,

22 _{These can be found at 6.3.33, 6.3.34, 6.4.2, 6.5.33, 6.7.1, 6.7.2, and 6.7.4.}

23 _{Tonkin discusses the issue of nobility and courtesy fully in Spenser’s Courteous Pastoral. See also Judson and}

truly I knowe many men of meane calling, who in Gentlemanlike and courteous conditions, in good bringing up, and all their talke and behavior, excell many Gentlemen. And contrariwise, I am sure you know many Gentlemen more uncivill then the Clownes themselves. (175)

Regardless of whether he is actually lowborn or just acts as though he is, Turpine is constantly labeled as basely born. Calepine calls him a “peasant Knight” who is “full base and euill borne” (6.3.31), a “rude churle” guilty of “fowle discourtesie, vnfit for Knight” (6.3.33), and an

“Vnknightly Knight” (3.3.35). Turpine is a knight in name only, and other characters emphasize this point over and over again. Much of Turpine’s bad behavior emerges from his cowardice, which “has three parts: first, self-assured malice and defiance in having a definite advantage over his adversary; second, unethical tactics; and third, ignominious flight when the odds are no longer in his favor” (Green 392). Arnold Williams observes that Turpine, like “every

discourteous person we meet in the story[,] shares these characteristics, boldness and violence in the face of their inferiors, cowardice towards their equals” (43). Turpine comes across as a bully, who acts out against other knights due to some repressed insecurity or cowardice on his part. He embodies the men who Aristotle refers to when he warns, “the cause of pleasure to those who

give insult is that they think they themselves become more superior by ill-treating others” (On

Rhetoric 2.2.6). The motivations behind Turpine’s discourtesy are less important than the fact that he fails to fulfill his role in upholding the codified civil contract of knighthood.

Turpine consistently violates the code of chivalry and—at times—basic human decency. He refuses to help the wounded Serena cross a river, taunting Calepine and Serena instead of helping (6.3.30-34), an action which Leonard Ashley calls “wantonly malicious” and “a breech

of the laws of chivalric courtesy” (122). Calepine, offended that Turpine dare call himself a knight, formally challenges him to either fight or give up his claim to knighthood, saying,

Vnknightly Knight, the blemish of that name And blot of all that armes vppon them take, Which is the badge of honour and of fame, Loe I defie thee, and here challenge make, That thou for euer doe those armes forsake; And be for euer held a recreant Knight. (6.3.35)

Instead of fighting, Turpine disdains the challenge and hides in his castle. He does eventually emerge and attack Calepine on horseback, but only after Calepine dismounts his own horse, making the fight unfair. The Salvage Man happens upon them and saves Calepine by chasing Turpine away, and the subsequent interactions between Turpine and other characters reveal different ways that Turpine acts unknightly. When the Salvage Man gets close to the discourteous knight, he “gan cry aloud with horrible affright, / And shrieked out, a thing vncomely for a knight” (6.4.8). Serena complains to Arthur of “the foule discourt’sies and vnknightly parts, / Which Turpine had vnto her shewed late, / Without compassion of her cruell smarts” (6.5.33), and Arthur steps in to “auenge th’abuses of that proud / And shamefull Knight” (6.5.34). When Arthur approaches, Turpine again hides in his castle. Characters and the narrator consistently comment on the ironic discrepancy between Turpine’s title and his actions: a quality he shares with the empty rhetoricians that were distrusted by many. Still, Turpine’s discourtesy does not seem particularly out of place or dangerous in the book.

Perhaps some of the familiarity of Turpine’s brand of discourtesy stems from the fact that

in her time of need (1.2.6); both Malbecco and Briana refuse to offer hospitality to passing knights (3.9.10-13, 6.1.13-15); Radigund overturns the traditional chivalric system by forcing men to dress as women (5.4.31-32); and first Malecasta and then later Dolon’s knights

discourteously visit Britomart’s bed chamber (admittedly, with different intentions) (3.1.59-61, 5.6.28-29). Whereas these other characters may be said to act with similarly unknightly or cowardly behavior, Turpine adds intentional malice to his behavior that sets him apart as the best example of a discourteous knight. Fried calls Turpine “the book’s prime example of false

courtesy, the lord who lives with the trappings of knighthood and nobility but only uses such trappings to hide a moral foulness” (240). Beyond just twisting a single aspect of courteous behavior, Turpine repeatedly abuses both the external trappings and the moral sense of chivalric conduct.

Turpine’s abuses remain limited to violations of social codes from within the system. His abuses are little more than hyperbolic instances of everyday discourtesies that knights may encounter, and Arthur punishes Turpine’s indiscretions without excessive violence (for more on Arthur’s treatment of Turpine, see Chapter 5). Turpine resists learning how to be courteous or admitting the error of his behavior, even after being shamed by Arthur repeatedly. William Oram attributes this to a recurring paralysis in the efficacy of Spenser’s characters, suggesting that “the angry helplessness associated with the paralysis motif gains new meaning as Spenser focuses on external limits to human action . . . Arthur can strip Turpine of his armor but cannot shame a man naturally shameless” ("Spenserian Paralysis" 64). While Turpine violates social custom over and over again and inhibits (or even threatens) the comfort of others—particularly with the refusal of hospitality—his cowardice and his place within the existing chivalric structure of Faeryland limit

the effects of his discourtesy. As the Legend of Courtesy moves forward, the villains—and their brand of discourteous behavior—become increasingly serious.