The Faerie Queene

by Edmund Spenser

  55 3 Meneuia: St Davids.

  55 S Saxon Virgin: Angela of the following stanzas. 55 6 Vlfin: Sir Ulfius, friend of Uther.

  55 7 Carados: this episode has not been traced to any source. See Harper {Var., p. 236). Carados is a king of Scotland in Malory.

  56 2 Angela: Spenser invented this noble woman from whom England takes its name.

  57 3 tynd: kindled.

  58 9 fretted: decorated.

  59 9 bauldrick: belt worn over shoulder to carry sword.

  60 2 Bladud: a British king famous for skill in magic. See U.10.25.6.

  60 6 sell: saddle.

  61 2 harnesse: armour.

  CANTO 4

  1 9 reuerse: return.

  2 4–6Homer does not mention Penthesilea, although she appears in Am. 1. 490–95and later redactions of Homer.

  2 7 Debora: the story of Deborah’s instigating Sisera’s death is told in Judges 4.

  2 8 CamilV: Camilla slays Orsilochus in Am. 11. 690-98.

  3 8 matter: subject.

  4 5 Congi: leave (French: congi).

  8–10The image oflife as a ship tossed on the sea is very common in Renaissance literature. See, for example, Petrarch’s Sonnet 189 translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt, ‘My galley charged with forgetfulness’.

  10 7 table: altar.

  15 9 crouper: crupper, i.e., horse’s romp.

  16 3 scuchin: shield.

  16 4 hauberque: long coat of maiL 168 8 soudng: falling.

  17 7 Distaines: stains.

  19 3 Cymoent: mother of Marinell, called Cymodoce in IV, is one of the fifty daughters of Nereus, called the Nereids. See IV.11.48-52. The over-protective care of Cymoent for Marinell imitates Thetis’ care for Achilles. See Met. 11.217–65and 13.162-70.

  19 6 Dumarin: French: ‘of the sea’.

  19 7 wheare: both ‘where’ and ‘weir,’ i.e., a covert

  20 8 Bidi strond: shore strewn with the gems and stones over which Brito- mart rides in stanza 18.

  23 5 owches: brooches.

  25 2 Proteus: a sea god who could assume any shape he pleased.

  28 6 tickle: unstable.

  28 9 T’approue: prove by showing.

  30 5 Continent: ground.

  31 9 surceast: stopped. 33 6 flaggie: drooping.

  33 7 bubbling roundell: wake of foam.

  34 5 surbate: bruise.

  35 3 mortall slime: i.e., human flesh subject to death. 35 6 wayment: lament.

  35 9 sobbing breaches: pauses between sobs.

  36 9 weft: waived; but see IV.12.31.6. 38 5 abye: suffer.

  40 5 watchet: pale blue.

  41 1 Liagore: Greek: ‘white-armed’.

  41 4 Pindus hill: mountain range separating Thessaly from Epirus.

  41 6 Peeon: the myth about Paeon is Spenser’s invention. 11.5.401,899 says that Paeon was the physician of the gods. He is sometimes confused with Aesculapius, for whom see I.5.36 ff. 43 4 vauted: vaulted.

  43 7 Tryphon: no person of this name appears in classical writing. Tryphon originates with Boccaccio, Gen. 7.36, where he is called a brother of Aesculapius.

  44 Marinell appears again in IV.11.7 ff.

  44 8 brooke: endure.

  45 This stanza, along with the mention of Duessa in HI.i.Arg., suggests that Spenser may have intended to use Archimago again in this book. He does not, and this is the last mention of Archimago in the poem.

  45 4 Prince, and Faery gent: Arthur and Redcross.

  46 2 attonce: together.

  46 8 dispart: depart from each other.

  47 2 forlent: gave up.

  48 7 doe away: do away with.

  49 6 Tassell gent: a tercel or male falcon.

  49 8 for-hent: seized.

  50 8 sewd: pursued.

  51 6 Hesperus: evening star. 51 7 sheene: bright.

  $a 6 surcease his suit: cease his pursuit

  5a 7 wyte: blame.

  5a 9 scope: object of pursuit

  53 8 throw: while.

  SS 5 Cocytus: river in hell.

  55 6 Herebus: Erebus was, according to the mythographers, with his wife Night, the parent of many horrors.

  56 7 Stygian: of the river Styx. 61 7 lumpish: heavy, dulL

  61 8 maltalent: ill will.

  61 9 i.e., the horse’s steps pick up and echo the mood of the rider.

  CANTO 5

  3 8 swat: sweated.

  4 9 out of hand: at once, immediately.

  5 1 mister wight: kind of person. 7 4 fro ward: perverse.

  7 6 attone: at once.

  7 9 errour: wandering.

  10 4 inuent: come upon, find (Latin: invenire).

  12 6 doubt: fear.

  13 2 to him betid: befell him.

  15 Upton (For., pp. 244-5) suggests that the three brothers represent the threefold distinction of lust: lust of the eye, lust of the ear, lust of the flesh – mutier visa, audita, tacta (woman seen, heard, touched). These are three of the traditional five steps of love. See D. W. Robertson, jr, Preface to Chaucer, p. 407 and n. 26.

  20 8 empight: implanted. ai 5 forrest bill: a digging implement aa 7 blin: cease.

  22 8 bestad: beset.

  22 9 load vpon him layd: belaboured him with blows.

  23 5 Pannikell: skull.

  23 9 fenne: enclosure (French: fermer).

  25 2 ouerhent: overtook.

  25 7 Continent: ground.

  25 8 meaners: those who intended or meant mischief.

  27 6–9See II.3.

  28 6 persue: track.

  29 4 humour: fluid.

  30–51Spenser is imitating Ariosto’s story of Angelica and Medoro (OF 19.17-42), ac least to shape his narrative. The meanings of the two episodes are quite different. Angelica gives Medoro ‘the rose’; Bet-phoebe does not (stanza so ff).

  31 9 burganet: helmet. light: remove.

  32 6 Tobacco: this is the first reference to tobacco in English literature. Sir Walter Ralegh introduced tobacco to England in 1584.

  32 7 Panachœa: healing herb.

  Polygony: root used in medicine.

  33 8 intuse: wound.

  34 1 recur’d: regained.

  34 5 hopeless remedies: i.e., remedies not hoped for.

  39 8 pumy: pumice.

  40 2 mirtle: the myrtle is traditionally associated with Venus.

  41 6 garish: cure.

  42 3 hurt thigh: thigh wounds are common in medieval and Renaissance literature and often symbolize lechery. The Biblical source is Jacob’s wrestling with the angel and suffering a ‘shrunk thigh’ (Genesis 32.25 ff). The iconography is explained by D. W. Robertson, jr, Preface to Chaiuer, pp. 450-51.

  42 8 duraunce: imprisonment.

  42 9 aleggeaunce: alleviation.

  48 1 warreid: waged war on.

  48 8 leuin: lightning.

  48 9 calcineth: burns to ashes.

  50 The story of Belphoebe and Timias is picked up again in TV.7-8.

  50 7 enuy: deny.

  51 The image of the rose as a symbol of female virginity is common from the Roman de la Rose through Herrick’s ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may’, and examples continue to multiply even after the Renaissance.

  51 6 lapped: folded. chaire: dear (French: diet) with pun on chaire (French: ‘flesh’).

  52 The image of the rose becomes platonized. See Roche, Kindly Flame, pp. 107 fE

  52 5 enrace: implant.

  52 8 spire: put forth.

  CANTO 6

  2 7 Astrologically the combination of Jove and Venus was unusually fortunate.

  3 1 See Psalm 110.3:’The dew ofthy birth is ofthe womb of the morning’, and Roche, Kindly Blame, pp. 105 S.

  4 1 Chrysogonee: Greek: ‘golden-born’.

  4 2 Amphisa: Greek: ‘of double nature’.

  7 7 embayd: steeped.

  8 The spontaneous generation of life by sun and moist earth is derived from Met. 1.416-37.

  9 1 Great father: the sun.

  9 3 faire sister: the moon, whose light, according to Plutarch, Isi
s and Osiris, is propitious to generation in that it is moistening.

  11–36Venus’ search for the lost Cupid is based on an idyll of Moschus, Bros drapetes (Love the Runaway), a popular subject for imitation in the Renaissance.

  12 1–5Garden of Adonis described in stanzas 29-51.

  14 5 whot: hot.

  17 3 embrewed: blood-stained.

  17 4 rew: row.

  18 3 buskins: boots.

  18 7 Embreaded: braided.

  19 7 comprized: drew together.

  20 1 Cytherea: Venus, so named because she first emerged from the sea on the island of Cythera.

  22 9 eeke: augment.

  24 1 Phtebe: another name for Diana.

  24 8 abye: suffer.

  27 4 Lucinaes: goddess of childbirth.

  29 4–5Paphos… Gnidus: all shrines of Venus. Paphos is on Cyprus, modern Baffo. Cytheron hill may be a Spenserian name for Cythera, the island commonly associated with Venus (see similar spelling in VI.10.9.6), or it may refer to Mount Cythaeron in Boeotia, sacred to Jupiter and the Muses and also the place where Actaeon was torn to pieces by his dogs. Spenser may be following Boccaccio, Gen. 3.22, who states that ‘Cytherea is so called either from the island of Cythera or from Mount Cytheron where especially she is wont to be worshipped.’ Gnidus is a city in Caria, famous for its statue of Venus by Praxiteles.

  29 9 Gardin of Adonis: in Spenser’s time small pots of fast-growing herbs were called gardens of Adonis. Contemporary references show that the phrase applies to any place of great and rapid fertility. Spenser uses the phrase as a device to express common philosophical ideas about creation drawn from the Bible, Ovid, and mythographical commentaries such as that of Natalis Comes.

  31 8 Genius: god of generation, whom Spenser derives primarily from Natalis Comes, 4.3. This good Genius has an evil double, who appears in Il.12.47.

  32–42For a discussion of the philosophic views in these stanzas, see Far, pp. 340-52. Proposals for alternative readings are stated in Roche, The Kindly Flame, pp. 120–22and Harry Berger, Criticism, 11, 1969, 234-61.

  335 thousand yeares: similar myths may be found in Plato, Republic 10 (the myth of Er), and Met. 15.165-75.

  34 6 Genesis 1.28.

  34 9 imply: contain.

  35 See 1 Cor. 15.39:’ All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, and another of fishes, and another of birds.’

  36 Boccaccio, Gen. 1.2, describes Chaos similarly.

  39 7 flaggy: drooping.

  40 6 spyde: some editors emend to saw for sake of rhyme.

  42 The coincidence of spring and autumn, seed time and harvest, is traditionally symbolic of unfallen nature in the Garden of Eden. Here it represents the perfect condition of a world where perfect love is achieved, as in stanza 41.

  43 The mount may be described in sexual terms, but it is still literally a mountain.

  44 4 rancke: thick, dense.

  44 6 Caprifole: honeysuckle, woodbine.

  44 9 Aeolus: god of winds.

  45 This stanza contains only eight lines in 1590 and 1596. The 1609 edition adds the truncated line, ‘And dearest loue’ between the present lines three and four.

  45 3 Hyacinthus: accidentally killed by Apollo, who loved him and named for him the flower that grew from his blood. See Met. 10.163-219.

  45 5 Amaranthus: Greek: ‘unfading’; the immortal flower of Paradise, according to Milton, PL 3.353-7; Lycidas, 149; word used to describe ‘the crown of glory that fadeth not away’, 1 Peter 5.4.

  45 7 Amintas: a reference to Thomas Watson’s Latin Amyntas (1585); translated by Abraham Fraunce in 1587. See Donald Cheney, Spenser’s Image of Nature, pp. 132-3, especially note 12.

  46 6 skill: the skill of die Stygian gods is death.

  47 4 All: although.

  47 8 Father of all formes: Adonis is form and Venus matter.

  48 5 wilde Bore: Adonis was killed by a boar. See Met. 10.519–739and Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis (1593).

  50 The story of Cupid and Psyche is in Apuleius, The Golden Ass; Psyche’s trials and her final reconciliation to Venus and marriage to Cupid were allegorized by later commentators as the struggles of the human soul.

  See D. C. Allen, SP 53, 1956, pp. 146-9.

  50 8 Pleasure: mythographers interpret Pleasure as timeless beatitude or the joy of the soul generating itself or – simply – sexual delight.

  53 9 The story of Amoret and Scudamour is told in cantos 11-12.

  CANTO 7

  1 ff Florimell’s flight is modelled on Angelica’s flight in OF 1.33-4, which is itself modelled on Horace, Ode 1.23.

  2 3 relent: slowdown.

  2 7–9The image of the uncontrolled horse as a symbol of the passions overcoming reason is traditional from the time of Plato.

  4 4 launce: balance.

  4 8 subject to: beneath.

  7 3 gin: plot.

  8 6 Beldame: good mother.

  10 5 quaint: fastidious.

  11 6 i.c, doubted that she was human.

  12 3 loord: churl, lout. nothing good to donne: good for nothing.

  12 8 slug: live idly.

  13 1 vndertime: undent, noon,

  13 4 adaw: daunt.

  14 2 mister wight: kind of person.

  15 9 tind: kindled.

  16 6 louely semblaunces: shows of love.

  16 8 resemblaunces: i.e., demonstrations of affection.

  17 1 wildings: crab apples.

  18 5 compast: contrived.

  18 8 furnitures: trappings.

  19 S ouerhent: overtaken.

  19 7 kent: learned.

  21 7 leares: lore, arts.

  22–8Blanchard, Vat., p. 263, suggests a source in Boiardo, Orlando inna- morato 3.3.24 ff. 22 5 queint elect: skilfully chosen.

  22 8 Hyena: compare with the Blatant Beast of VL1.7-9.

  23 4 brought in place: i.e., brought back to the witch.

  25 9 sickernesse: safety.

  26 1 Myrrha: Myrrha committed incest with her father Cinyras and bore Adonis (Met. 10.312-518).

  26 4 Daphne: pursued by Apollo, was turned into a laurel tree to preserve her virginity (Met. 1.450-567).

  26 7 fond: past of’find, find heart to’.

  27 8 shallop: a light boat.

  28 2 forward hope: too eager hope.

  29 8 i.e., but enjoyed to be himself rather than to seem something else.

  29 9 labour lich: identical work.

  30 1 Sir Satyrane: first appeared in I.6.20 ffto rescue Una from the satyrs.

  30 4 vnfilde: unpolished!

  31 4 betide: happen.

  31 7 magnifide: praised.

  34 2 enclose: some editors emend to containe to correct the rhyme scheme.

  34 5 Maine: ocean.

  34 9 idle boone: useless gift or sacrifice.

  36 The symbolism of the girdle is explained in IV.5.3.

  36 6 pray: i.e., the action of preying.

  39 2 Culuer: dove.

  39 9 bannes: curses.

  41 4–9marble Pillour: Spenser erroneously places on Mt Olympus the pillar used to mark the course in the Olympic games.

  42 3 martelled: hammered (French: marteler).

  45 5 cbeuisaunce: enterprise.

  47 2 Atgante: Argante and her twin brother Ollyphant were begot by Typhoeus, whom Spenser thought one of the Titans, the arch-rebels of classical mythology; their mother was Earth (Tellus). Their birth is opposed to the chaste birth of Belphoebe and Amoret in the preceding canto. Argante and Ollyphant represent unnatural abuses of love. Ollyphant appears again briefly in canto 11.3 if.

  47 4 The Titans (or Giants) rebelled against Jove’s newly acquired authority and threatened to pile Mount Ossa on Mount Pelion to scale the walk of Olympus (Met. 1.151 ff). The Olympians finally defeated the Titans at Phlegra.

  51 7 plighted haue: have pledged.

  51 8 mistreth: is necessary.

  51 9 Squyre of Dames: represents the social abuse of love. His story is im
itated from OF 28.

  52 6 Palladine: a knight who does not appear again in the poem. Her name, derived from Pallas Athene, the goddess of wisdom, suggests that she might have been the knight hero of an unwritten book of the poem on wisdom.

  54 a saue, or spill: spare or kill.

  58 4 lane: jane, a coin.

  58 7 Chappellane: chaplain, confessor.

  60 1 Safe: except for (French: sauf).

  61 a hent: taken.

  61 4 Akides: Hercules, whose labours to accomplish the seemingly impossible had become proverbial.

  CANTO 8

  1 8 find: decide.

  1 9 repriefe: reproof

  4 3 mew: den.

  5–9The witch’s creation of the False Florimell links the adventures of Florimell to the myth of the false Helen, a story told by many commentators (see Roche, Kindly Flame, pp. 152-67). In this version Helen did not go to Troy. Paris in fear of pursuit sailed to Egypt where Proteus the king demanded that Helen be left. A new Helen fashioned of clouds sailed on to Troy with Paris, while the real Helen stayed with Proteus, from whom Menelaus recovered her at the end of the war.

  6 4 Riphcean hils: the Riphaean mountains in northern Scythia.

  6 8 vermily: vermilion.

  6 9 sanguine: blood.

  7 Spenser parodies the sonnet conventions in describing the hair and eyes of False Florimell. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 130.

  7 3 arret: entrust.

  7 7 thrise: i.e., by a third.

  8 7 gest: bearing.

  8 8 counterfeisance: counterfeiting, deception.

  11 8 Braggadocchio: the braggart warrior, who first appeared in II3.

  “55

  11 9 repose: rest. credit: reputation.

  13 4 Tromparts: Braggadocchio’s wily henchman.

  14 4 glozing: flattering.

  14 9 reaue: steal.

  15 3 An armed knight: Sir Ferraugh, first named in IV.2.4, derived from Ferrau in OF 1.77-81, one of the many knights who pursue Angelica.

  15 4 lay: lea, land.

  15 6 Capons: emasculated roosters, i.e., cowards.

  16 3 as he mote, on high: as loudly as he could.

  16 4 excheat: property, belonging by right to the lord of a manor.

  16 s hide him battell: stay and endure battle with him. treat: entreaty, discussion

  20 6 Queene: i.e., Fortune.

  21 6 Dan Aeolus: Master Aeolus, god of winds.

  22 2 drouer: boat.

  22 8 extasie: madness.

  24 4 cock-bote: small boat.

  26 The fisherman’s attempted rape is based on OF 8.30-50.

  27 6–9The apostrophe to absent knights is imitated from OF 8.68.