Spenser's Britomart: From Books III, IV, and V of the Faery Queene

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Ginn, 1896 - 265 pages

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Page ix - Did both find, helpers to their hearts' desire, And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish, — Were called upon to exercise their skill, Not in Utopia, — subterranean fields, — Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where! But in the very world, which is the world Of all of us, — the place where, in the end, We find our happiness, or not at all...
Page xxii - The generall end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline...
Page xxx - Queene to assygne her some one of her knights to take on him that exployt. Presently that clownish person upstarting, desired that adventure ; whereat the Queene much wondering, and the Lady much gainesaying, yet he earnestly importuned his desire.
Page xv - Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried, What hell it is in suing long to bide : To lose good days, that might be better spent ; To waste long nights in pensive discontent ; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow ; To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow ; To have thy Princes
Page xxvii - I have followed all the antique Poets historicall, first Homere, who in the Persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governour and a vertuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis: then Virgil, whose like intention was to doe in the person of...
Page xv - To have thy asking, yet wait many years; To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares ; To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs; To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, To spend, to give, to want, to be undone. Unhappy wight, born to disastrous end, That doth his life in so long 'tendance spend...
Page 94 - And in the thickest covert of that shade, There was a pleasant arbour, not by art, But of the trees...
Page xxix - For the methode of a poet historical is not such as of an historiographer. For an historiographer discourseth of affayres orderly as they were donne, accounting as well the times as the actions; but a poet thrusteth into the middest, even where it most concerneth him, and there recoursing to the thinges forepaste, and divining of thinges to come, maketh a pleasing analysis of all.
Page 116 - Who seem'd of riper years than the other swain, Yet was that other swain this elder's sire, And gave him being, common to them twain : His garment was disguised very vain, And his embroidered bonnet sat awry ; Twixt both his hands few sparks he close did strain, Which still he blew, and kindled busily, That soon they life conceiv'd and forth in flames did fly.

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