I was interested that the final debate between Nurture and Nature ends so firmly on the side of Nature, and even goes so far as to say that Nurture was the ultimate reason for the fall of mankind: "Nothing was ever in Adam / except what God created / and placed there. / It is not like God / to leave an evil nature in him to claim him...Whatever evil Adam did / was due to you, Nurture, without a doubt, / for the Devil fed him / evil, rotten advice." (Line 6057 - 6070)
This stark division of Nurture and Nature along the lines of good and evil seemed surprising, but slightly less so when I considered the relation between God and Nature in the poem. In many of the previous sections, Nature is shown to be the creator of man - a creator who occasionally makes mistakes and allows a little rough flour in with the fine - but in the relation of the fall of mankind, only God is given creative powers, and he never makes mistakes. If Nature is simply the agent of God (helping with the work of creating a larger population?), and Nurture has "opposed [Nature] ever since the first man / sinned be eating that apple" (Lines 6046-6047), then Nurture is in some way consistently interfering with God's work.
Still, considering that Nurture is the reason that Silence was able to grow into the person she becomes- valiant, brave, and strong as well as beautiful - I was taken aback that it would be so explicitly associated with the Devil. The text even seems to argue that the nurturing of Silence allows greater wrongs, such as King Evan's not allowing women to inherit, be redressed. Silence's story may end with her reversion to her Nature, but the story would not have existed had Nurture not taken precedence for a large part of Silence's life.
I have to question whether Nurture is really allowed to take responsibility for anything good at the end of the poem. Nature undoes everything Nurture had done with Silence, at an accelerated pace. Perhaps this is to prove her victory, but it seems to undo the conflict altogether. After finally becoming the picture of a perfect woman, all Silence has left from Nurture is her experience - and on that account she is basically silent. As much as Nurture is responsible for the events of this story, and Nurture is by no means devilish in her early interactions with (appearances to?) Silence, I think Heldris somewhat retrospectively erases that influence by equating Nurture with the Devil. Perhaps it serves to make the audience think that all along Silence's upbringing was the evil influence of the Devil, and it is in this ending that she has conquered that evil, for all that this conquest is a dissatisfying submission to Nature.
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