41 4 foy: homage.
42 5 layes: laws. 42 7 Fayes: fairies.
42 8 Aegerie: the prophetic teacher of Numa of 39.6.
43 3 Morindus: The details of Spenser’s narrative are corroborated but not elaborated by the chroniclers, who tell that Morindus was devoured by a sea-monster. 43 8 Morands: a Gallic people. 4S 3 reseized: reinstated, restored to the throne.
45 7 successe: succession.
46 4 resedifye: rebuild.
46 5 Troynouant: ‘new Troy’, London.
46 6 gate: Ludgate, i.e., the gate of London, named after Lud.
46 8 aright: properly, or ‘of right’.
47 1 Erne: uncle.
47 8 blazed: praised.
48 2 renforst: forced back.
48 9 foyle: defeat.
49 s sword: Caesar’s sword is reputed to have been buried with Nennius.
49 6 tributarie: subject, tribute-paying.
50 2 What time: when, i.e., Cymbeline reigned at the time Christ was born to redeem man from Adam’s sin. 10 7 ditty: poem, treatise.
50 8 warrayd: made war upon.
51 7 draught: plot.
52 8 Forwasted: destroyed, laid waste. gent: gentle, noble.
53 4 first receiued Christianitie: i.e., became the first Christian king of
Britain. 53 5 Euangely: the Gospel.
53 7 Ioseph of Arimathy: Joseph of Arimathea (see Matthew 27.37 ff and
Mark 15.43). Later legends state that he caught Christ’s blood in the chalice used at the Last Supper (the Holy Grail) and carried it to Glastonbury, the legendary seat of King Arthur.
54 6 Bunduca: Boadicea, woman warrior who fought against the Romans.
Her victory at the Severn has not been traced to any source. 54 8 streight: directly, immediately. 54 9 enclose: trap.
55 i tride: undertook.
55 4 Paulinus: a Roman general who bribed Bunduca’s captains to desert.
55 6 Host: forces, army.
56 2 Semiramis: queen of Nineveh. See note to I.5.50.3.
56 4 Hysiphil’ ... Thomiris: Hypsipyle ruled Lemnos until the Argonauts came. Thomyris was the queen of Massagetae and killed Cyrus.
57 5 tirannize: i.e., claim the kingship (not necessarily with negative connotations).
58 5 Coyll: old King Cole.
58 7 first crownd Soueraine: i.e., was the first acknowledged king since
Lucius. 58 8 passed prime: former primacy or political glory.
58 9 Coyll did not, as Spenser says, give his name to Colchester.
59 2 Constantius established his power in Britain in AD 296. 59 6 thewes: virtues.
59 9 kyes: songs.
60 1 Constantine, Emperor of both Britain and Rome, AD 306-37.
60 4 roome: office.
61 4 wan: diminished.
61 8 Kcts: originally Pythians who settled in Northern Britain.
61 9 with easie hand: with no difficulty.
62 1 war-hable: ready or able for war.
63 2 Easterlings: the northern nations (Norway and Denmark). 63 4 bordragings: hostile incursions, border wars.
63 5 Scatterlings: vagabonds. 63 7 pyonings: excavations.
63 8 mightie mound: the ‘Picts’ wall’, running between the Forth and the
Clyde.
64 4 gathering to feare: i.e., growing fearful. 64 5 Armorkk: Armorica, Brittany.
64 6 for: because of. annoyes: annoyances. 64 7 straunge: foreign. reare: raise, gather.
64 8 hoyes: small ships.
65 2 approu’d: proven. 65 4 iarre: war.
65 pass="poem-line">enforst: forced. aband: abandon.
66 7 bord: table, feast.
66 9 Stonheng: Hengist’s treachery was supposed to have taken place at
Stonehenge, the neolithic stone structure on Salisbury Plain.
67 4 detaine: hold.
68 2 Spenser ends the chronicle abruptly with Uther Pendragon, the father of Arthur. Arthur is unaware of his parentage at this point in the poem. 68 3 full point: period, end-stop. Cesure: caesura, pause.
68 5 attend: remain.
68 8 empeach: prevent.
70 S Prometheus was punished for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to men. According to Ovid Prometheus also made the first man (Met. 1.82). See also Olga Raggio, JWC121, 1958, pp. 44-62.
70 9 riued: ripped apart.
71 1 Elfe: quick, alive.
71 4 gardins of Adonis: see III.6.29 ff
72 7 Elfinan: this might be Lud (see stanza 46.6).
74 6 materiall: to the point.
75 1 Elficleos: usually identified as Henry VII.
75 8 Oberon: usually identified as Henry VIII, who married his brother’s widow (see line 9).
76 4 Tanaquill: Elizabeth I, so called in I.Proem.2.5.
CANTO II 1 See Romans 6. 1 1 sore: serious, painful
1 9 vellenage: servitude.
2 3 the scepter weeld: i.e., govern. 2 8 banket: banquet.
5 9 imprest: produced.
6 6 Seuen of the same: the seven deadly sins.
7 The other five troops are evils that attack the five senses of the body (five great Bulwarkes), as the seven deadly sins attack the soul. The body with its five senses is constantly besieged by sense data received from a fallen world. Spenser is showing how man can be undermined by the misuse or misapprehension of the senses, what Paul calls ‘the body of sin’ (Romans 6.6), the ever-present possibility in our fallen state to be turned away from our allegiance to our Creator, the source of all health. Sin and death entered the world at the fall. Spenser treated the effects of sin in Book I; here he treats the effects of death, physical and spiritual, on the body.
7 3 arret: appoint, decree.
7 7 importune: heavy.
7 9 battery: attack, battering.
8 3 vncomely: in an ugly fashion.
8 4 Gryphons: mythological beasts with the head and wings of an eagle and the body and legs of a lion, dreare: cruel.
8 6 had Lynces eyes: i.e., were keen-sighted like the lynx.
9 4 Titan … exault: i.e., the sun rose. 9 5 withhault: withheld.
10 2 dessignment: design, enterprise. 10 5 brakes: ferns, bushes.
10 7 leasings: lies. crakes: crowings, i.e. boasts.
11 5 Puttockes: kites (greedy birds).
12 3 grysie: grim, horrible, ia 4 fist: faced.
12 7 Surfeat: excess. wast: waste.
13 4 Vrchins: hedgehogs.
14 3 Ordinance: instruments of war, probably cannons.
14 9 peece: structure.
15 7 maine: strength.
15 8 pretend: plan.
16 9 remercied: thanked.
17 2 hent: took. 17 3 conge: leave. 17 5 thee: thrive.
19 1 hayle: hail, volleys, repeated attacks.
19 5 reaue: take away.
19 7 Spumador: Latin: spumare, ‘to foam’, docks: weeds.
19 9 Laomedon, father of Priam, inherited horses from his father Tros, which he had received from Jove in exchange for the boy Ganymede. Later, Anchises, father of Aeneas, bred these horses without Laomedon’s consent (fl. 5.263 ff). The point is that Arthur’s horse, Spumador, is not like ordinary horses. Spenser has no classical precedent for Laomedon’s breeding of the horses.
21 3 keene: sharp.
21 9 tine: corrupt.
22 3 rooke: crow.
22 7 brake: bracken.
23 1 Maleger, the captain of the twelve troops besieging Alma’s castle, is, as
C. S. Lewis pointed out, not Original Sin but the effects of that sin on the physical body of man: pain, sickness, death. His name means either ‘evil-bearer’ (Latin: male, ‘evil’; gerens, ‘bearing’) or ‘badly sick’ (Latin: male, ‘evil’; aeger, ‘sick’). He wears a skull as a helmet and is accompanied by Impotence (which weakens the body through disease) and Impatience (which weakens the body through the unruly influence of the passions).
25 7 Infant: young nobleman. hide: hastened.
26 7–8i.e., Tartars and Russians t
urned to shoot while retreating.
27 7 keepe his standing: stand apart.
28 6 attaching: seizing.
29 5 lode… layd: dealt heavy blows. 29 9 bane: death.
31 a lade: old horse, a term of contempt.
31 3 lets: hindrances.
32 4 streight: narrow.
33 3 touzd: harassed.
33 8 quar’le: quarrel, short arrow.
33 9 made: earth, ground.
34 3 manhood meare: his own strength.
35 9 sundry way: fork in the road.
36 7 souse full neare: nearly successful swoop.
39 5 doubted: wondered. What follows is a nearly complete catalogue of the reasons advanced by Elizabethans for the appearances of ghosts.
40 3 appeach: accuse.
42 7 wrest: wrench, violent twist.
43 1 Bird: eagle.
44 2 trauell: travail, hard work.
44 9 reprize: to take again.
45 1 Arthur is remembering the story of the Libyan king Antaeus, son of
Neptune and Earth, whom Hercules defeated by using the tactics adopted by Arthur in 45-6. Maleger, like Antaeus, is revived by contact with his mother, Earth. The Antaeus-figure was allegorized in the Renaissance as the libidinous impulse, which grows stronger when it comes in contact with its source, the flesh. Some modern commentators interpret Arthur’s victory by throwing Maleger into water as a symbol of baptism.
46 2 scruzd: squeezed. 46 5 Aboue: more than.
CANTO 12 1 1 frame: edifice. 1 3 to pricke of: to the point or position.
1 5 bountihed: goodness, virtue.
2 ff Guyon’s voyage to the Bowre of Bliss is modelled on GL15, in which the knights Carlo and Ubaldo journey to rescue the hero Rinaldo from his enchantment by Armida. Tasso’s episode is based on earlier epics, in particular, the wanderings of Ulysses and his encounter with Circe (Od. 12) and Virgil’s adaptation of Od. in Am. 1-6.
3 2 euen: steady.
3 3 God do vs well acquight: God help us to perform well.
3 4 Gtdfe qfGreedinesse: the Charybdis of Od. 12 and Am. 3.
3 7 vp againe doth lay: vomit.
4 1 hideous Rocke: the Scylla of Od. 12.
4 2 Magnes stone: a magnet, named from Magnesia, its alleged place of origin.
4 3 Depending: hanging. 4 5 rift: i.e., rocks split off from the clifE 4 9 helplesse: offering no help. wawes: waves.
6 4 Tartan: Tartarus, helL
6 9 drent: drowned.
7 4 shiuered: broken, scattered. 7 5 exanimate: dead.
7 9 blent: stained.
8 4 Meawes: sea-gulls.
8 9 drift: course, tendency.
10 1 Ferryman: reminiscent of Charon, the ferryman who carries souls across the river Styx. Natalis Comes interprets Charon as ‘clearness of conscience’.
11 2 fordonne: killed.
11 3 seeming: appearing.
11 7 wandring Islands: like Phaedria’s island inll.6.11 or the Symplegades of
Od. 12.
12 8 recure: recover.
13 Debs: Latona, pregnant with Apollo and Diana, was fleeing from the angry Juno when Neptune ordered the wandering island of Delos to stand still so Latona could be delivered (Met. 6.185ff)o
13 9 herded: praised, honoured. 14. 3 fleet: float.
14 8 daintie damzell: Phaedria of canto 6. 14 9 skippet: small boat.
16 2 bord: address. purpose diuersly: converse of various things.
16 8 wite: blame, reprimand.
17 3 gate: way, course.
18 7 checked: chequered.
19 3 brauely: finely.
19 4 disauenture: misfortune. mesprize: mistake (French: miprise, from prendre, ‘take’)’ 19 7 recur’d: recovered.
19 9 recoyle: retrieve.
20 3 doole: grie£
21 3 breach: inlet. fetch: reach. 21 s Maine: ocean.
21 8 guise: usual manner or appearance.
22 4 charet: chariot.
22 7 reare: cause.
23 6 Hydraes: seven-headed serpent of mythology. Where one head was severed, two grew in its place. Hercules, as one of his twelve labours, killed the Hydra of Lerna. 23 7 whirlpooles: whales. 23 8 Scolopendraes. centipede-like fish.
23 9 Monoceros: sea-unicorns. unmeasured: unmeasured, immense.
24 1–2the name Of Death: i.e., Latin: mors, ‘death’, the morse or- walrus.
24 3 “Wasserman: German: ‘water man’, i.e., merman.
24 7 Ziffius: sword fish (Greek: xiphias).
24 9 Rosmarines: walruses.
25 9 entrall: insides, entrails.
“37
36 4wicked witch: Acrasia. to worke vs dreed: i.e., to frighten us. 269 Tethys: wife of Ocean, here the sea.
28 7 ill apayd: distressed.
29 7 shruncke: cowered, exhibited fear. bayt: abate.
30 2 Spenser’s mermaids resemble Homer’s Sirens, who were half woman, half bird. 30 J toured: towered.
30 8 trade: occupation.
31 2 Heliconian maides: the Muses. Their struggle with the mermaids
(sirens) has not been traced to any classical source.
31 4 moyity:hal£
32 7 storme-bet: storm-beaten.
33 4 Meane: the middle part of a harmonized musical composition. 33 5 Zephirus: the west wind.
36 2 fatall: i.e., portending evil fate.
36 4 ffl-faste: ugly.
36 7 Strich: screech-owl. bere: tomb, sepulchre.
36 8 Whistler: plover.
36 9 Harpies: see note to II.7.23.6.
37 8 sacred: accursed.
39–40The beasts are men transformed by the enchantments of Acrasia, who is in the long tradition of enchantresses: Homer’s Circe, Ariosto’s Aldna, Trissino’s Acratia, Tasso’s Armida.
39 8 vpstarting: bristling.
40 6 fraying: frightening.
41 2 The caduceus of Mercury symbolizes peace won from conflict.
41 7 Orcus: Hell or Pluto, god of the underworld.
42–87The Bowre of Bliss is nature ‘improved’ by art. The whole episode is based on the contrast between nature (what man is given by God) and art (what man does to the natural condition). The moral implications are discussed by C. S. Lewis, Allegory of Love, pp. 324-6.
42 7 aggrate: please.
43 5 fortilage: fortalice, small fort.
44 4 Iason and Medeea: Medea, the forsaken wife of Jason, revenged herself by giving his new bride Creusa (45.9) a robe which burst into flames when she put it on. Jason was the leader of the Argonauts, who were searching for the golden fleece. Jason’s history is told by Apollonius of Rhodes.
45 6 Medea murdered her brother and cast his body piece by piece into the sea to delay her father’s pursuit of her and Jason.
47–8Genius, as the presiding spirit of generation, has both good and bad manifestations. The good Genius, called Agdistes (48.2), is shown in m.6.31-2, the Garden of Adonis. The bad Genius, who presides over the Bowre of Bliss, perverts the sexual drive by concentrating exclusively an its pleasurable aspects. The good Genius produces love; the bad Genius lust. 48 3 this same: i.e., the Genius of 47.
48 7 gouernall. control.
49 3 Mazer bowle: a decorated drinking vessel made of some kind of hard wood. See Tuve, Essays, pp. 103-11. 49 4 sacrifide: offered as sacrifice.
49 9 charmed semblants sly: conjured false appearances.
50 3 pleasauns: pleasing things.
SO S Flora, goddess of flowers, called ‘a famous harlot’ by E. K. in his gloss to Shepheardes Calender, ‘March’ 16.
50 7 niggard: stingy.
51 1 Iouiall: influenced by the beneficent planet Jupiter (Jove).
53 2 Rhodope: mountain in Thrace where die music of Orpheus charmed the trees {Met. 10.86 ff). The nymph Rhodope bore a giant child to Neptune.
53 4 Tempe: a valley in Thessaly, where Cupid struck Apollo with love of
Daphne. She fled from Apollo and, with the help of her father, was changed into a laurel (Met. 1.452 ff).
52 6 Ida: mountain where Paris gave the apple of discord to Venus. See note to III.9.36.3-4. 52 8 Pamasse: Mount Parnassus, sacred to Apollo and the Muses.
54 7 Hyacint: the jacinth, or sapphire. Some editors emend to Hyacine to preserve the rhyme. 56 4 scruzd: squeezed.
56 5 empeach: injury, detriment.
57 4 fond: found.
58 7 Christall: a clear stream.
58 8 aggrace: enhance.
59 3 ensude: followed. 59 4 repine: complain. 59 7 in fine: in the end. (So 9 embay: bathe.
62 3 lauer: basin.
62 6 cubits: a length of about twenty inches.
62 8 Iaspar: a green precious stone. 63–8Imitated from GL 15.58 ff.
63 1 margent: border. 63 2 defend: fend off.
63 3 bet: beat.
64 5 from… restraine: i.e., restrain from rising. 64 8 vnhele: uncover.
64 9 greedy: lustful
65 1 Starre: Venus as the morning star.
65 3 Cyprian goddesse: Venus, born on Cyprus.
65 6 Christalline humour: clear water.
66 4 avise: view.
67 6 reft: stolen.
69 5 amis: incorrectly.
69 9 drift: scheme.
71 4 respondence: response, answer. meet: appropriate.
73 9 toyes: recreations.
73 4 depasturing: consuming.
74–5The song of the rose imitates GL 16.14-15.
76 7 display: see.
77 7 Arachne: see note to 11.7.28.7. 80 4 ra’st: erased.
80 9 blend: blind.
81 9 wrest: twist.
82 3 distraine: tear apart.
82 6 adamant: a very hard rock, such as diamond.
82 8 Verdant: Latin: ‘green-giving’; cf. Mordant of II.1.49.9 and note.
83 8 race: raze.
86 7 Grille: Plutarch, in his dialogue Whether Beasts have the Use of Reason, makes Grillus, a companion of Ulysses, refuse to return from animal to human shape after Circe’s enchantment. Plutarch’s story was retold in Giovambattista Gelli’s Circe (1548). Spenser may have read the story inGelli.
86 8 repined: sorrowed.
BOOK III
PROEM
a 3 Zeuxis or Praxiteles: a painter and a sculptor of Greece, fourth century BC, both proverbial for their excellence in counterfeiting life.
2 4 daedale: skilful, from the name of the inventor Daedalus.
3 8 in coloured showes may shadow it: i.e., may give but the shadow of the reality in my poetical fictions.
3 9 antique: ancient.
4 5 gracious seruant: Sir Walter Ralegh wrote a poem to Elizabeth I,
The Ocean’s Love to Cynthia, only a fragment of which is extant. 4 6–9Spenser writes in the Letter to Ralegh:
The Faerie Queene Page 118
