The Faerie Queene

by Edmund Spenser

  (8.5-24, trans. George Chapman, 1598)

  1 6 aid enuy: begrudge aid. 3 2 without: outside, beyond. 3 9 thewes: manners.

  4 1 Timon: Greek: ‘honour’; cf. Arthur’s squire Timias, ‘honoured’, so named in III, IV, and VI. As usual Spenser carefully avoids the tradi tional Arthurian matter because in his fiction Prince Arthur is to marry Gloriana. In Malory, Arthur is brought to Sir Ector.

  4 6 Raman: a hill in Merionethshire, Wales. Since the Tudor dynasty originated in Wales, it very cleverly associated its origins with the legendary Arthur.

  4 7 Dee: river forming part of the border between England and Wales.

  5 4 nounture: nurture, training.

  6 1 gent: gentle.

  7 9 find: be eager to. on ground: in the world,

  8 9 respire: breathe.

  11 8 disauentrous: disastrous.

  12 2 mated: overcome.

  12 5 prickt: urged.

  13 S humour: moisture, air? 15 1 deuoyd: empty.

  I5 7 tyne: toil.

  17 8 prowes priefe: the proof of process.

  18 5 Als Vna earnd: i.e., also Una yearned.

  19 3 liquor pure: probably symbolic of grace. Some editors see it as the Eucharist. Arthur uses this liquor to cure the wounds of Amoret, IV. 8.20.

  19 5 incontinent: immediately.

  19 7 A booke: the New Testament.

  20 3 pray: prey upon.

  20 8 hew: appearance.

  21 4 him agast: mad him aghast. 21 7, 9 As: as if.

  21 9 Pegasus his kind: of Pegasus’ kind or nature, i.e., a winged horse. Pegasus, sprung from the blood of Medusa (Met. 4.786), was used by Bellerophon in killing the Chimaera. Pegasus is also associated with the Muses: he struck his hoof against Mt Helicon, creating the well Hippo-crene for them.

  23 2 what mister wight: what kind of man.

  23 9 misseeming: unseemly.

  26 9 had bene partaker of the place: i.e., would have fallen prey to the place he is now fleeing.

  28 3 blesse: protect.

  28 5 Despaire: or accidie, is one of the principal sins in Christian theology, for it denies the possibility of God’s mercy. Ironically it is the ultimate form of pride: the soul is so self-absorbed that it cannot believe that God is all-powerful and can save all. Faustus is in this condition at the end of Marlowe’s play. Cf. Chaucer’s ‘Parson’s Tale’ for the ramifications of this sin, which Spenser would have known as commonplaces.

  29 9 rope… knife: In John Skelton’s Magnificence (1515) the hero is offered a halter and a knife by Despair and Mischief.

  30 6 dying feare: fear of dying.

  30 9 But God you neuer let: i.e., but God never let you.

  312 Castle of his health: i.e., the body, a common metaphor; c£ Sir Thomas

  Elyot, The Castle of Health (1534). Spenser devotes all of II.9 to an expanded allegory of the body as a castle. 34 3 knees: crags.

  34 7 teene: grief.

  35 9 as: as if.

  37 9 to price: to pay for.

  38–47Despair’s speech is modelled carefully on the classical rules of rhetoric (see Herbert Rix, Rhetoric in Spenser’s Poetry, Pennsylvania State College Studies, vol. 34, 1940, pp. 68-9). The speech is opposed to the advice given by pagan philosophers such as Cicero and Seneca as well as by all Christian writers throughout the centuries. The argument is based on a fallacious understanding of Christian theology. Ernest Sirluck has pointed out that Despair emphasizes God’s justice to the point of excluding God’s mercy (MP 47, 1949, 8-17). Kathrine Roller (SP 61,1964,128-39), elaborates by showing that many of the phrases and arguments were common in the artes moriendi, treatises designed to help the Christian to die in hope, an aim which Despair perverts through his rhetorical skill. Una understands and explains the true mining in stanza 53.

  41 1 suddeine wit: quick intelligence.

  41 2–5Redcross is paraphrasing Cicero, De Senectute 20.73: ‘Hence it follows that old men ought neither to cling too fondly to their little remnant of life, nor give it up without a cause. Pythagoras bids us stand like faithful sentries, and not quit our post until God, our Captain, gives the word’ (trans. W. A. Falconer, Loeb Library).

  41 9 droome: drum, but pun on doom.

  43 6 Genesis 9.6: ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God hath he made man.’

  44 3 that life ensewen may: i.e., that may ensue in the rest of your life.

  45 9 happen fall: happen to fell.

  47 5–6See Ezekiel 18.4 and Job 34.15.

  49 6 table: picture.

  50 5 ouercraw: exult over.

  52 3 reliu’d: revived.

  53 8 accurst hand-writing: the justice of the old law, now abrogated by the mercy of the new law of Christ.

  CANTO 10

  1 See Ephesians 2.8-9: ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God – not of works, lest any man should boast himself.’ Spenser is alluding to Paul’s warning that we are justified (‘saved’) by faith and not by our good works. The relation between faith and good works is stated in Articles XI and XH of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion of the Church of England:

  XI. Of the Justification of Man. We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification.

  XII. Of Good Works. Albeit that Good Works, which are the fruits of Faith, and follow after Justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God’s Judgement; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith; insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.

  2 8 chearen: comfort, console, solace.

  3 5 hore: grey-haired.

  3 8 bidding of her bedes: saying her prayers.

  4 I Ccelia: ‘heavenly’. Caelia is the mother of the three theological virtues: faith (Fidelia), hope (Speranza), and charity (Charissa), whose source is Paul, i Cor. 13.13: ‘And now abideth faith, hope, and love [charity], even these three, but the chiefest of these is love.’ Fidelia and Speranza are virgins because faith and hope deal with things not of this world. Charity, described so well by Paul in 13, is both the source and the fruit of our relations with our neighbours, and hence Charissa is married and fruitful. 4 7 spousd: betrothed, engaged.

  4 8 fere: mate.

  5 1–4The door is locked to allow an allusion to Matthew 7.7: ‘Ask and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.’

  5 8 Humilta: humility. See Luke 14.11: ‘For whosoever exalteth himself, shall be brought low, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.’

  5 9 streight & narrow: see Matthew 7.14:’ Because the gate is strait and the way narrow that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.’

  6 4 francklin: a wealthy landowner.

  89 eld: old age.

  12 7 Chris tall: crystal, with pun on Christ-all.

  13 1 White is the colour associated with faith.

  13 2–3cup of gold: communion chalice.

  13 4 Serpent: Spenser’s addition. Ripa (Iconologia, ‘fede cattolica’) describes Faith as holding a cross and a chalice, or a chalice and a book. The serpent may be related to the brazen serpent of Moses (Numbers 21.8-9) which is a type of Christ crucified (John 3.14), and hence of the cross.

  13 8 A booke: the Bible, which is signed and sealed with the blood of Christ.

  13 9 darke things… vnderstood: see 2 Peter 3.16.

  14 2 Blue is the traditional colour of hope. The anchor is an emblem of hope derived from Hebrews 6.19: ‘Which we have as an anchor of the souX both sure and stedfast, and it entereth into that which is within the veil.’

  15 9 gest: deed of arms (Latin: gesta).

  17 S recoyle:
retire.

  18 7 agraste: graced, favoured, was gracious to.

  20 All these feats are allusions to works of faith in the Bible. Joshua commanded the sun to stand still (Joshua 10.12); Hezekiah turned the sun back (2 Kings 20.10); Gideon’s victory over the huge host of Midianites is instanced in Judges 7. Matthew 21.21 records Christ’s saying that with faith, ‘if you say unto this mountain: Take thyself away and cast thyself into the sea, it shall be done’.

  In 1590 and 1596 this stanza consisted of the eight lines here printed. In 1609 a central line appeared for the first time. ‘Dryshod to passe, she parts the flouds in tway’, a reference to Moses’ parting the waters of the Red Sea (Exodus 14.21-31). The line may be Spenser’s, for we do not question the authority of the ‘Mutabilitie Cantos’, which appeared first in 1609. On the other hand Alastair Fowler’s suggestion that a line 5 was purposely omitted is too intriguing to overlook (Spenser and the Numbers of Time, p. 14s n).

  23 7 Leach: doctor.

  24–27Spenser here follows the traditional formula for repentance of a sinner. The sinner must know, or be taught, his sins; he must repent them, confessing to God directly or through his confessor; he must resolve to avoid them in the future (Amendment); he must perform whatever reparation is asked of him (Penance).

  29 $ chearish: see Ephesians 5.29. ‘For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord doth the Church.’

  30 9 Rose or red is the traditional colour of charity. The reason Spenser dresses Charissa in yellow is uncertain, but it may owe something to Psalm 68.13 ‘o ‘Though ye have lain among pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove that is covered with silver, and whose feathers are like yellow gold.’ The Douai Bible glosses the feathers of yellow gold as ‘with great increase of virtue, and glowing with the fervour of charity’. Yellow is associated with harlots in the Middle Ages, but in Venetian painting of the Renaissance St Anne is often clothed in yellow. See also VIL7.30.1-2.

  31 5 tyre: headdress.

  31 6 owches: ornaments.

  36–43Spenser describes here the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy: to feed the hungry, t o give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to visit the imprisoned, to shelter the homeless, to visit the sick, to bury the dead. The Scriptural source for the first six is Matthew 25.35-6. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part II, second part, Question 32, ‘Of Ahnsdeeds’, standardized the list. Spenser’s list conflates ‘to feed’ and ‘to give drink’ and adds caring for widows and orphans, the Scriptural source for which is James 1.27. Charles E. Mount, PMLA 54, 1939, 974-So, shows that Spenser’s order is derived from the fourth-century Lactan-tius, Divine Institution, chapter 65, as it was recorded in Heinrich Bullinger’s Decades, translated as Fijtiegodlie sermons, editions in 1577, 1584, 1587.

  40 5 feultie: at fault through not believing.

  40 8 he that harrowd hell: the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus relates Christ’s descent into hell to redeem the lost souls. The events are referred to as the harrowing of hell.

  41 9 See Ecclesiastes 11.3: ‘In the place that the tree falleth, there it shall be.’

  42 3 bridall bed: the grave is a bridal bed because Christ the Bridegroom will take to Himself the souls of the faithful. Cf. Matthew 25.1-13.

  42 6 workemanship: God created man in his image and likeness (Genesis 1.26-7).

  44 6 louted: bowed.

  47 S persant: piercing.

  52 2 man of earth: George (Greek: georgos, ‘one who tills the earth [gmd[“).

  52 9 recur’d: rec jvered.

  53 1–9ount: Mt Sinai, where Moses went to receive the Ten Command- ments from God (Exodus 24.16-18) after victoriously escaping the Egyptians by crossing the Red Sea (Exodus 14.21 ff). The Old Law of justice received by Moses was written in stone, unlike Christ’s New Law of mercy which is written in the hearts of men.

  54 1 sacred hill: Mount of Olives, where Christ retired to pray after the Last Supper. Cf. Luke 22.39 ff ’s well as Acts 1.12.

  54 6 pleasaunt Mount: Mount Parnassus, the dwelling place of the Muses, who inspire poets.

  55 3 Citie: the New Jerusalem. See Rev. 21.10 ff.

  55 7 ditty: subject.

  56 1–2as in Jacob’s dream (Genesis 28.12).

  57 6 cursed tree: the Cross. Tradition held that a seed placed on the tongue of the dying Adam (fallen man) grew into the tree that formed the wood for the cross of Christ (the redeemer). vnspotted lam: the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world (John 1.29).

  58 2 Cleopolis: the city of Glory ruled by Gloriana, Queen of Faeryland. 58 6 Panthea: derived from the Pantheon in Rome, a temple dedicated to all the gods; here a temple of those who have achieved earthly fame or glory.

  61 8 Saint George: the legend of St George slaying the dragon was extremely popular in England at this period. George was patron saint of the Order of the Garter, instituted in 1344 by Edward III. St George’s story is told in the very popular Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, translated by Caxton in 1483. See notes to I.1.1.2 and 2.11.9.

  64 7 nominate: name.

  66 1–6Spenser is imitating the story of Tages, born of the earth, and discovered by a ploughman. Tages grew up to instruct the Etruscans in the art of prophecy {Met. 15.553-9). 66 6 Georgos: see note to 52.2.

  CANTO 11

  3 This stanza was added in 1596.

  49 blith: blithely, joyfully.

  5 6 Muse: Calliope, Muse of epic poetry, whom Spenser, following Natalis Comes, 4.10, makes the daughter of Apollo and Mnemosyne (Memory), not of Jove and Mnemosyne, as in Hesiod.

  6 7 equipage: equipment.

  7 1 furious fit: Spenser may be referring to Plato’s discussion of the two modes of music useful to the state, the Phrygian, wild and turbulent, and the Dorian, more restrained (Republic III.399). Spenser seems to be saying that he will reserve the turbulent strain for the battle between the Faerie Queene and the Paynim King (perhaps the battle which would climax Book XII), which would be truly allegorical as opposed to the moral or tropological intention of this battle. That is, this battle treats the efforts of an individual to overcome evil, whereas the battle of the Faerie Queene would figure the effort of a nation. This has led some editors to believe that the battle referred to was to have been in the twenty-fourth book, in that second (unwritten) epic of political virtues, which would extend and complete the private virtues of the poem as we have it. See notes to the Letter to Ralegh.

  7 8 second tenor: lower mode.

  8 ff The description of the dragon is conventional, a type of the great beast of Revelation and of the Leviathan, Job 41. Some details derive from the dragon killed by Cadmus, Met. 3.26-94. 10 I flaggy: droopy.

  10 4 pennes: quills. pineons: feathers.

  11 3 boughts: coils.

  11 8–9two stings: see Rev. 9.10, concerning the locusts: ‘And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails’, and 1 Cor. 15-55-65: ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting ot death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.’

  12 9 rauin: prey.

  132 Three ranckes: like the dragon of Cadmus in Met. 3.34.

  13 3 gobbets: lumps of flesh. 15 6 chaufled: angered.

  18 5 flitting partes: moving particles.

  19 1 subiect: lying below (Latin: subicere, ‘lie under’). 19 2 Ewghen: made of yew.

  19 5 hagard hauke: wild female hawk, caught when mature.

  19 7 pounces: claws.

  20 1 disseized: deprived of. gryping grosse: great gripful.

  21 6 neighbor element: earth.

  21 7 blustring brethren: winds.

  23 s implyes: entangles.

  25 8 stye: mount.

  20 4 A flake of fire: a spark. Carol V. Kaske, SP 66, 1969, 609-38, in a highly allegorical reading of this episode, glosses the spark as concupiscence.

  26 6 swinged: singed.

  27 Redcross is compared to Hercules, who, his Twelve Labours accomplished, married Deianira, whom Nessus the C
entaur tried to rape. In fury, Hercules shot Nessus, but before he died, the centaur gave Deianira a shut that burned all who wore it. She gave it to Hercules, who died from its burning him (Met. 9.98-272). Kellogg and Steele suggest that Spenser is referring to the conception of the Christian Hercules, in which the death by burning figures the Passion of Christ. Kaske, op. dt., glosses the burning as the conflict of concupiscence and the Law, figured by Redcross’s armour (see Romans 7.7 3). For the development of Hercules as a hero see Eugene M. Waith, The Herculean Hero (New York, 1962), pp. 11-59.

  29 8 hot: het, called.

  29 9 The well of life: Rev. 22.1-2:’ And he showed me a’pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life which bare twelve manner of fruits and gave fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree served to heal the nations with.’ Some commentators would make this well, and the tree of life in stanza 46 S, symbolic of Baptism and the Eucharist, the two sacraments recognized by the Church of England. Yet if they are read here strictly only as the sacraments, the narrative is made to say that Red-cross, who wears the armour of faith even before the poem begins, is baptized only at this point. Tuve is clearly right in seeing well and tree as common symbols of grace, without badgering the narrative with specifics it will not sustain (Allegorical Imagery, pp. 110-12).

  30 6–9The rivers listed are all associated with restorative and purgative powers. Silo is Siloam of John 9.7,11. The Jordan is the river in which John baptized Christ (Matthew 3.16. See also Deuteronomy 27 and 2 Kings 5.10-14). Bath and Span were famous watering places in the sixteenth century. Cephise is a river in Greece famed for its cleansing power and noted by Pliny, Natural History U, 106. Hebrus is a river in Thrace into which, myth has it, the severed head of Orpheus was thrown; it is mentioned by Horace, Epistles I.16.13.

  31 4 iournall: daily.

  33 2 That: when.

  34 3 As Eagle: see Psalm 103.1-5, in which the soul redeemed by God is compared to the eagle revivified by the sun. It was supposed that the eagle, when old, would fly into the sun, bum off his old feathers, and then dive into a pool to renew his youth.