NOTES.

INTRODUCTION.

1. The Introduction is addressed, courtier-fashion, to Queen Elizabeth. The Poet makes apology for h's Faery-land. Truth is stranger than fiction: who could have foreseen the discovery of Peru and Virginia? may there not be worlds in the moon and stars? And, after all, Faery-land is not so far off the doubter, if he will search for it, may find it at home; for it is England, ruled by the fairest of Princesses. The Poet is fain thus to veil her glories under the misty shadows of Faery-land, lest men's eyes should be dazzled by them. He now prays the Queen to listen to the tale of Guyon, the Knight of Temperance.

2, 6. th' Indian Peru;- Indian,' because men had believed that America was India taken from the other side. See canto xi. st. 21, and note there. Peru, discovered by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa about A. D. 1513, was conquered by Pizarro in 1532.

8. The Amazons huge river;-the Amazon, in South America, the greatest river on the globe, runs a course of about 3000 (some say 4000) miles from source to sea, and in the rainy season is said to be thirty miles broad at its mouth. Yanez Pinçon first discovered the mouth of the river, A.D. 1500: but a Spaniard, Francesco d'Orillana, was the first who sailed down any part of it, in 1540. He reported that there was a community of female warriors on its banks; and the river was named after them. The scattered accounts of the Amazons were collected by Sir W. Raleigh, and are to be found in his History of the World, Life of Alexander

the Great.

9. fruitfullest Virginia;-now one of the United States of America. When Sir W. Raleigh returned from his expedition in 1584 with a glowing report of the country discovered in North America, and laid the new lands at the feet of the Virgin Queen,' she was pleased to accept them, and to give them the name of Virginia. In 1589, after much outlay in unsuccessful attempts at colonisation, Sir Walter handed over his rights to a London Company, reserving to himself a royalty of one-fifth of all precious metals found there. The colony then prospered; and it is interesting to note that while the Dedication to the first edition of the Faery Queene (A.D. 1590) styles Elizabeth " Queene of England, Fraunce and Ireland," that of the

N

second edition (1596) adds the words "and of Virginia," shewing that the colony had risen to high credit in the interval.

3, 2. from wisest ages;-hidden from ages renowned for their wisdom: why then should our dull age think an undiscovered Faery-land impossible? 9. yet such to some appeare;-such worlds (in the moon, stars, &c.) seem to some persons to exist.

4, 2. in sondrie place;—either, as the Prayer-book phrase in sundry places' in many different spots; or in one distinct place separated off from all others. In the latter case the clause here sett in sondrie place' will come after 'find': in the former case 'sett' will agree with ' signes.'

5. no'te... trace ;—' knows not how to track out.' This Old English contraction is common in Spenser's writings.

9. thy great auncestry;-especially described in canto 10, where the two knights, Arthur and Guyon, find two books, 'Briton Moniments' and 'Antiquitee of Faery Lond,' and read in them their countreys auncestry.'

5, 1. The style of this high compliment is a kind of parody on things divine: it is the veil on Moses' face transferred to the glory and majesty of the Queen.

4. beames;-notice the dissyllabic plural, a relic of the old Northern English dialects..

9. great rule of Temp'raunce;-thus Spenser states the subject of the Book. Guyon's part is to work out the triumph of moral virtue over the various temptations of vice.

CANTO I.

Archimago, having escaped out of Eden, sets himself to work fresh woe to the Red Cross Knight. He meets Sir Guyon attended by his Palmer, and with a false tale and the sight of the false grief of Duessa, pricks him to attack the Red Cross Knight. But Sir Guyon, seeing the cross on the other's shield, forbears to fight; and they fall to friendly converse. Soon after they part in all good-will; the Red Cross Knight disappears from the scene; Archimago and Duessa flee discomfited. Sir Guyon presently finds the dying Amavia, by the side of her dead husband, with her little babe whose bands are bedabbled with her blood. He bears ber last words, the tale of excess in drink, and swears to avenge her on Acrasia (or Intemperance). Then he gives them decent burial, takes up the babe, and fares forth on his way.

1, 1. That cunning architect, &c.;-sc. Archimago: see Bk. I. xii. 24-36. In Milton (Par. Lost, 4. 121) we have a like phrase, "Artificer of fraud:" both drawn from the Latin "sceleris infandi artifex."-Cic. Or. 48. Archimago and the Red Cross Knight are introduced in order to link together the First and Second Books, and to form a natural introduction to the new gest' or pageant of Sir Guyon.

7. out of caytives hands;-what is meant by 'he frees himself out of caytives hands'? Probably Spenser means out of the hands of those who

=

held him captive;' or 'out of the hands of the rascals,' his gaolers. It has been suggested that this is a misprint for 'caytive hands' either hands of the base,' or 'captivity' simply; or another misprint for caytive bands,' which would make the best sense: but then 'bands' occurs already as one of the rhymes of this stanza.

8. his artes be moves;-Proteus-like: cp. Virg. Aen. 1. 661, artes... versat;" and 12. 397, “agitare . . . artes."

"novas

2, 2. to worken;-notice the old Southern infinitive. Spenser was not particular as to the dialect he used.

4. onely special, as in the theological usage of the word: see Bk. I. vii. 50, 'mine onely foe.' 'Only' is first an adj., then an adv.

6. bis;-i. e. the Red Cross Knight's.

3, 2. food; peculiar spelling of feud. See Bk. I. viii. 9: in Bk. IV. i. 26, the word is spelt feood.

6. fayre filed tong;-he was a smooth-tongued rascal. See Glossary to Bk. I. File.

9. For hardly, &c. ;-i. e. the man who has once been hit will not be likely to fall again into Archimago's hands.

4, 5. ketch;-note this spelling of the word 'catch,' answering to the now vulgar pronunciation.

5, 2. to win occasion to bis will;—to get a good opportunity to work his will. Spenser personifies Occasion in canto iv, bringing her in as the mother and cause of Fury.

9. no place appeared;-i. e. he was armed cap-à-pie, and no unarmed spot could be seen from head to foot.

6, 8. Sir Huon;-Sir Huon of Bordeaux. He was King Oberon's favourite. In the romance named after him, Oberon, after many gifts and marks of good-will, makes him his successor in his kingdom of Faery-land. Todd adds that as such he obtained the kingly right of conferring knighthood. But in true days of chivalry, knighthood could be conferred not only by kings, but by any knight. Thus the dead Sir Launcelot knights the hero of one romance, the sword being placed in his skeleton hand in history, Francis I requested the great Bayard to dub him a knight. So that no kingly powers were needed in the case of Sir Huon.

9. King Oberon ;-King of Faery-land. In canto x. 75, Henry VIII of England is introduced under this name.

7, 2. a comely Palmer;-under the person of the Palmer Spenser wishes to indicate the prudence and sobriety which counsel aright in times of moral trial. The Palmer plays the part of a kind of Chorus; he brings sober reason to bear upon every question; his remarks throughout the Book are sententious and soothing. When he is hindered from following his master, the Knight falls into violent passions, and is wellnigh undone. He corresponds to the Mentor of Telemachus, a slow-paced "sage and sober sire," without imagination, aged and free from youthful temptations, clad in black. Spenser may have meant to shadow out also the Church, as the moral guide and teacher of noble spirits.

8, 3. deceiptfull clew;-the clew, or twisted hank of string, kept ready to be made into nets.

7. seeke;-2nd pers. sing. for seekest.

8, 9. miser; an Italian and Latin usage. So Ariosto, Orl. Fur., "Chè 'l miser suole," &c.

9, 3. Who;-notice the Latinized construction. Modern writers would have broken the sentence, and begun again with He.'

8. in place;-favourite phrase with Spenser, either ='here, in this place; or (as we now say) in a position' to tell.

9. thy sight;--Latinism = sight of thee.'

10, 4. virgin cleene;-so in Sir Bevis of Hampton, a romance which Spenser knew well, we have "But were she a maiden cleene."

11, 5. looser;-Spenser affects this Latin comparative = 'too loose'dishevelled by her tormentor.

12, 3. doen;-here is a present tense plural which belongs rightly to the Midland dialects (see Morris and Skeat's Specimens, Introduction, p. xix); another example of Spenser's seizing on antique forms from any part of England.

9. The stricken deare;-Shakespeare has the same epithet in Hamlet, act. 3. sc. 2:

"Why, let the stricken deer go weep."

16, 6. but doth the ill increase;-an intricate construction, half interrogative, half direct. 'What boots it to lament ?-to do so, when the mischief is done, but increases the evil.'

9. voluntarie;-i. e. it was a feigned tale, and feigned grief throughout. The gentle lady' was Duessa, the spirit of falsehood.

18, 9. that quartred all the field;-heraldic phrase. The red cross divided the whole 'field' of the shield into four equal quarters.

19, 7. armes he swore;-swore the oaths usually taken when a knight first dons his armour.

8. Th' adventure, &c. ;—i. e. the succouring of Una.

20, 7. blotted;-ed. 1590, 'blotting.'

21, 4. Duessa;-in Book I she did her utmost to lead true men into false doctrine; here into immoral life.

22, 7. Sith her, &c. ;-cp. Book I. viii. 45.

23, 3. To slug in slouth, &c.;—in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the Christian's course is first endangered by the Slough of Despond; Bunyan was drawing the spiritual, Spenser the moral state of man. This temptation to idle sensuality meets Guyon, the hero of morality, at the outset, just as Error met the Red Cross Knight at the beginning of his career. He was striving after truth and was tried by error; Guyon after moral perfectness and is tempted by idleness.

9. as virtues like, &c. ;-such good knights as Guyon and the Red Cross Knight ought to be friends by nature; but the Evil One sets them

sometimes at variance.

25, 5. but vaine;—the phrase is a Latinism, ‘at vanum': 'vaine' being elliptical or adverbial.

8. So...

that;ita . . . ut,' so angry that, &c. 26, 1. to pricke;-note this use of the infinitive.

3. in the rest; this was a catch under the knight's right arm, into which the spear was lowered: not the place on the stirrup on which the lance is rested while the horseman is not riding a tilt. It is the "ferro al

petto del cavaliere, ove s'accomoda il calce della lancia per colpire." Cp. Ariosto, Orl. Fur. 1. 61:

"Sprona a un tempo, e la lancia in resta pone."

28, 3. Note the courtesy ofwell becommeth you, But me behoveth,' &c.

7. fayre image of that heavenly maid;-i. e. the portrait of Queen Elizabeth on Sir Guyon's shield. She is the Virgin of English sixteenthcentury courtier-chivalry. In the shows and tilts of her reign, her figure was a favourite device. Camden, in his Remains, says that one of her courtiers displayed on one such occasion a half zodiac on his shield, with Virgo rising, and the motto "Jam redit et virgo:" a conceit in many ways pleasing to the Queen.

29, 3. each to other beare;-note the pl. verb; each to other'=' one with another they.'

5. mote I weet;-answers nearly to our modern 'Might I know ..?' 30, 3. A false, &c.;-the construction is, '(It) once befell me to meet a traitor.' Note the use of 'for': for Spenser's parallel use of 'from' see note below, xii. 26.

31, 1. earnest with game;-so Chaucer, Prologue to the Milleres Tale, 78: "Men schulde nat make earnest of game."

8. and that deare Crosse, &c.;-in the same construction with 'you,' a dative after 'happie chance.'

32, 5. a saint with saints;-the Red Cross Knight is also Saint George of mery England.' Cp. Book I. x. 61.

33, 6. whose pageant next ensues;-pageants were favourite pastimes at the Queen's court. Virtues and vices were therein personified. So in st. 36. 1. 3, we have

'To see sad pageaunts of mens miseries.'

The pageant that was about to follow was that of Sir Guyon, the subject of the coming book. The Red Cross Knight now takes his farewell of the audience, and puts his successor forward as the next actor.

7. Well mote yee thee;-'may you prosper.' See Glossary, Thee.

8. thrise; edd. 1590, 1596, 'these'; but in 'Faults Escaped' at end

of ed. 1590, it is corrected to 'thrise.'

39, 4. dolour;-ed. 1596, ‘labour.'

balf dead, half quicke;-so in the Creeds "the quick and the dead." See Glossary, Quick.

40, 4. gore;-ed. 1596, 'gold.'

41, 5. yett being ded;-in apposition to 'his'; 'his'' of him,'-' the cheeks of him yet being dead.'

6. seemd; he seemed,' the personal pronoun being not rarely omitted by Spenser.

44, 8. your untimely date;—the allotted, or given, end of her days, coming before the kindly term of life; cp. Virg. Aen. 4. 697, of Dido, "misera ante diem." These stanzas are modelled upon the description of Dido's last moments. So the Therewith her dim eye-lids,' &c., is imitated from Virgil's

"Illa, graves oculos conata attollere, rursus Deficit,"

and Thrise he her reard,' &c., from "Ter se attollens," &c. (Aen. 4 690.)