ABSTRACT
Four years before he organized the memorable royal entry into Lyon (1548), Maurice Scève had published a collection of love poems which he called Délie.1 Although they were informed by the work of earlier Italian poets,2 they were also inspired by the topography of the city of Lyon and, in particular, by the two great rivers: the fiery Rhône and the calm and placid Saône, whose waters ran into each other at the heart of the city. Scève used their confluence to express the ineradicable nature of his feelings for his mistress:
Plutost seront Rhosne, et Saone desjoinctz Plutost le Rhosne aller contremont lentement Saone monter tres violemment Que ce mien feu, tant soit peu diminuer … (XVII)
[The Rhône would rather be separated from the Saone, The Rhône would rather flow slowly backwards And the Saone advance violently Than my fire would diminish in the slightest.]3
Through lines such as these evoking accurately the presence and character of the two rivers, and deliberately distorting them, Scève showed how the landscape of the city had entered his imagination; and it was to remain part of his creative life. As he contemplated the design of the double arch of Saint Paul for the royal entry,4
2 The sources of Scève’s poems were identified and explained by Dorothy Gabe Coleman, Maurice Scève: Poet of Love: tradition and originality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).
