48 4 lead… gold: see note to 36.6.
51 2 by many partes: by much.
51 5 Antickes: grotesque sculpture.
52 6 hauberques: coats of mail.
52 7 bayes: laurel crowns.
53 2 ordinance: arrangement, order.
55 8 sickernesse: safety.
55 9 welpointed: well appointed and/or sharp.
CANTO 12
3–27The masque of Cupid may be a revision of early work mentioned in the Epistle to The Shepheardes Calender and the gloss by E. K. to ‘June’ 25. No matter what the earlier state of composition was, this episode is imitating the tradition of the court masque, a dramatic presentation with allegorical figures. The significance of this literary masque is examined by Roche, Kindly Flame, pp. 72-88.
3 5–4graue personage: the part of’ presenter’, or introducer of the masque, is taken by the very un-tragic figure of Ease, who traditionally stands at the entrance to places of amatory delight because idleness (as Chaucer calls him in his Roman de I? Rose) is the first and necessary occasion for lechery.
5 2 intendiment: purpose.
5 7 consent: harmony.
6 7 report: echo.
7 3 ympe of Troy: Ganymede. See note to III.11.34.4.
7 5 daintie lad: Hylas, boy loved by Hercules.
7 6 Alcides: patronymic for Hercules when considered as son of Amphi- tryon, whose father was Alceus. See note to III.11.33.6.
8 1 say: fine wool.
9 5 disguised: fashioned fantastically, decked out.
9 7 straine: hold firmly.
10 2 disguyse: fantastic fashion.
10 3 Capuccio: hood, as of a Capuchin monk.
10 4 dependant Albanese-wyse: hanging down (Latin: dependere) in the Scottish fashion. (Albania is an ancient name for Scotland. See IV.11.36.6-7.)
10 6 as: as if.
11 1 Daunger: Danger is presented as a figure typifying the modern sense of the word, peril, threat, but it should be recalled that danger, meaning coy or aloof restraint, was one of the chief weapons of the lady in the battle of love. See also IV.10.17-18.
13 3 samite: a rich silk.
13 6 Sprinckle: aspergillum, a device to sprinkle holy water.
14 6 purloynd: stolen.
14 9 dewes: balls of thread.
15 4 lowrd: scowled.
IS 8 lattice: mask or vizard.
17 8 embost: exhausted, in extremity.
18 8 hony-lady: Maclean suggests ‘honey-laden’.
18 9 degree: order.
19 2 grysie: horrible.
19 3 cleped: called.
20 1 net: pure.
20 9 sanguine: bloody.
23 9 blinding him: i.e., blindfolding him.
29 5 blent: darkened.
29 6 second watch: time between nine and midnight.
32 7 embrew: plunge.
33 4 Compare the slight wound given to Britomart in III.1.65.6.
34 4 Dernely: dismally.
35 9 date: term of life.
36 7 reherse: recite.
37 6 Abode: waited.
40 7 teene: pain.
42 3 subuerst: overturned.
42 6 perlous: perilous, dangerous.
42 7 delayd: quenched.
44 3 Squire: Glauce, Britomart’s nurse, is mentioned here again, although Spenser has not spoken of her presence since III.3.
442 5 layes: ground.
442 8 soile: marshy ground to which deer retreats after chase.
452 2 streightly: closely.
452 9 stocks: blocks of wood.
462 2 Hermaphrodite: Met. 4.285–388tells of the nymph Salmacis who loved the youth Hermaphroditus so much that she prayed that they might never be parted. The prayer was granted, and they became one creature. The image also invokes Genesis 2.24 in which man and wife become one flesh. See Donald Cheney, PMLA 87 (1972), 192-200.
472 1 counteruayle: compensation.
472 4 iournall: daily.
472 5 assoyle: release.
BOOK IV
TITLE
Cambel appears only in cantos 2 and 3. No such character as Tela-mond appears. Roche suggests that the name (from Greek, télos, ‘perfect’) refers to the trinity of brothers – Priamond, Diamond, Triamond – whose story constitutes an allegory of the harmony in the world (Kindly Flame, pp. 16 ff). Some editions emend Telamond to Triamond. The virtue of friendship is to be understood more broadly than our modern conception of friendship. A tradition starting with Plato and Aristotle and significantly developed in Cicero’s De amicitia and St Ailred of Rievaulx’s De spiritual! amicitia defined friendship as that .bond between human beings based on the rational apprehension of the virtues of the other. Friendship then is the virtue that binds not only individuals but societies and is essential for political stability. It also defined the non-sexual aspects of the love between man and wife. Hence Spenser’s virtue applies not only to the groups of friends in Book IV but to the lovers as well: Britomart-Artegall, Amoret-Scudamour, and Florimell-Marinell.
PROEM
1 1 rugged forhead: tradition has it that Spenser is referring to William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, Elizabeth’s chief adviser, who apparently disapproved of the first three books of the poem because they disciplined the reader in virtue not explicitly, but under the guise of allegorical romance, which he supposed many readers would not understand.
3 6 father of Philosophie: Socrates.
3 7 Critias: Spenser may be confusing Critias with Alcibiades, to whom Socrates speaks about love in the Symposium. Spenser may also be recalling the shade tree from Phaedrus 230b (‘shaded oft from sunne,).
3 9 Stoicke censours: not strictly philosophic terminology. Spenser means those who too severely feel that poetry does not teach virtue.
J 2 dred infant: Cupid.
CANTO 1
I 4 Amorets: Amoret’s seizure by Busyrane and rescue by Britomart are told in III.11-12. I 5 Florimels: Florimell was left in the power of Proteus in m.8.43. Her story is taken up again in IV.11.
1 6 fit: trouble.
2 1–2Scudamour: the story of Scudamour’s winning Amoret is told in IV.10.
3 Only at this point does Spenser give the details of Busyrane’s capturing Amoret – after we have learned about his wicked masque and his defeat by Britomart (IIL11-12).
3 7 bestedded: assisted.
4 4 sterue: die, perish.
5–15The humour of this passage where Amoret is afraid of her rescuer and Britomart pretends amorousness to hide her sex is a side of Spenser’s genius too often overlooked by his critics. Britomart’s resolution of the ambiguous situation is the revelation of her true sex.
11 2 younker: young man.
11 9 so far in dout: of such doubtful consistency, ia 1 Seneschall: steward or major domo.
12 s let: hindrance.
13 1 ff Britomart’s revelation of herself is an imitation of Marfisa’s similar strategy in OF 26.28.
13 8 creasted: tufted, plumed (Latin: cristatus), beams of the meteor.
13 9 prodigious: portentous.
14 6 Bellona: goddess of war, whose name is sometimes confused with that of Minerva. See similar confusion in III.9.22 and note.
17 4 seeming in so fatre a space: i.e., seemed to be at such a distance.
18 1 Duessa: the villainess of Book I.
18 9 each degree: i.e., each degree of the hierarchy of society.
19–31Ate, or Discord, is the central force of disorder in Book IV. The source of her power over society is anatomized in Spenser’s thirteen stanzas of description.
20 6 out win: win their way out.
21 1 riuen: shattered.
21 6 Disshiuered: shivered into fragments.
22 1 Babylon: capital of Babylonian Empire and one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, conquered by the Persians in 539 BC and by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. He wanted to rebuild it and to make it the capital of his empire.
22 2 Thebes: great city in Boeotia founded by Cadmus, whose fortunes, with those
of his descendants, provided much matter for Greek epic and tragedy. Rome: whose whole history is a tale of discord.
22 3 Salem: Jerusalem, often conquered and destroyed. Hi on: Troy.
22 5 The golden Apple: see note to III.9.36.3-4.
22 7 Nimrod: the mighty hunter mentioned in Genesis 10.9. Renaissance Biblical commentaries make him the first king and the chief builder of the Tower of Babel, which brought confusion to human language.
22 8 Alexander: Alexander the Great, whose vast empire was at his death divided among five of his subordinates: Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigonus. The Elizabethans considered division of the kingdom an invitation to disaster. See 1 Maccabees 1.7-8.
23 1–5Spenser tells us that Hercules (Alcides) killed many drunken centaurs, for which we have scant evidence in earlier writers (Met. 9.191,12.536-41). The Lapiths and the Centaurs came together for the marriage of Pirithous and Hippodamia, on which occasion the Centaurs got drunk and one tried to rape the bride. A battle ensued. The hero of this myth is not Hercules but Theseus (Met. 12.210 ff). Spenser refers to this battle again in VI.10.13.
23 6–9Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautka, 1.492 S, states that Orpheus had to be called in so that his music could calm the discord among the Argonauts, who under Jason’s command were in search of the Golden Fleece.
24 8 byding: enduring, lasting.
25 5 factious: seditious.
25 8 iarre: discord.
26 3 sterue: die.
27 2 intended: directed.
27 4 comprehended: contained.
27 8 discided: cut into pieces (Latin: discindere).
28 2 matchlesse: not matched.
30 5 indigne: unworthy (Latin: indignus).
30 8 golden chaine: see note to L9.1.1.
31 3 baude: procuress, pimp.
31 7 floure deluce: fleur de lys, iris. See II.6.16.2 and V.n.49-64.
32 4 Blandamour: ‘the flatterings or blandishments of love’?
32 9 whether: which of the two.
33 4 paragon: companion, mistress.
34 4 Britomart overthrew Paridell in III.9.12-16.
34 5 scutchion: shield.
35 5 hot-spurre youth: impetuous, headstrong Blandamour. Some editors try to identify Blandamour with the Henry Percy whom Shakespeare calls Hotspur in 1 Henry IV.
37 3 to weld: to exert himself.
39 2 bore: i.e., bore on his shield.
41 3 preuenting: anticipating (Latin: praevenire, ‘come before,).
43 1 on an heape: in a heap.
44 5 in plight: in trim, in health.
46 8–9The source of these lines is ultimately Ovid’s comment that majesty and love are incompatible (Met. 2.846-7). The Middle Ages developed the idea into the conventional theme of maistrie, the proper relation of man and woman in Christian marriage. A famous example is Chaucer’s ‘Franklin’s Tale’. For an interpretation of maistrie in that tale see D. W. Robertson, jr, A Preface to Chaucer, pp. 470-71.
47 9 willow bough: emblem of grieving love. bayes: laurel crown of victory.
49 8 Parthian: tribe noted in classical literature for fierceness. shiuering: i.e., quivering.
50 3 Glauce: Britomart’s nurse, who has been with Scudamour since Britomart entered the house of Busyrane in III.11.
53 8 aby: pay the penalty for.
54 5 expyred: ended.
CANTO 2
1 1 tynd: kindled.
Phlegeton: Phlegethon is the river of fire in the classical Hades.
1 7 Orpheus: Orpheus calmed the contentious spirits of the Argonauts by playing his harp. See note to IV.u3.6-9.
2 1 celestiall Psalmist: David, who by his music calmed the evil spirit that tormented Saul (1 Samuel 16.23).
2 4 relented: abated.
2 5 concented: harmonized.
2 7 prudent Romane: Menenius Agrippa, whose deed is told by Livy, Historia, 2.32.
3 8 dreuill: a sloven; dirty or foul person; a pig.
4 S Sir Ferraugh stole False Florimell from Braggadocchio in III.8.19.
4 9 weft: wait but see precise legal meaning in IV.12.31. and notes to V.3.27.S.
5 7 dumpish: heavy, spiritless.
8 2 paragon: love.
10 4 draft: attraction.
12 8 way’d: made their way.
16 3 lea: meadow.
16 4 stemme: ram.
16 8 ordenance: ordnance, artillery.
18 3 rayle: flow.
18 5 sprent: sprinkled.
21 s wroken: wreaked, wrought, avenged.
23 9 aggrate: thank.
25 3 learne: teach.
25 7 a girdle: see IU.7.29 S. The tournament referred to in stanzas 26 and 27 occurs in IV.4.
29 8 enure: put into practice.
31 ff The story that follows is Spenser’s interpretation and completion of Chaucer’s unfinished ‘Squire’s Tale’. Milton refers to the tale in B Penseroso 109-12.
32 1 Imitation of the first line of Chaucer’s ‘Knight’s Tale’, the first of The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer writes ‘olde’, not ‘antique’.
32 2 fellonest: fiercest.
32 8 Dan Chaucer: Chaucer was regarded by Spenser and other Elizabethan poets as the first true English poet. He is apostrophized throughout The Shepheardes Calender. See especially ‘June’ 81–96and VII.7.9.4, where he is called ‘The pure wel hed of Poesie,.
34 6 Ne dare I like: i.e., nor dare I try the like.
34 9 so I may the rather meete: i.e., so that I may complete the meaning of your tale rather than attempting to finish your poem.
35 3 seene: well versed.
40 9 brooke: tolerate.
41 4 burden: birth.
41 7 Agape: Greek word for Christian love.
41 8 Priamond: ‘first world’.
41 9 Dyamond: ‘second world,.
Triamond: ‘third world,. Roche suggests that the three brothers allegorize the harmony of the three worlds of Renaissance cosmology, which were in fact brought into being by Love (Kindly Flame, pp. I5-3I).
4a 7 curtaxe: battle-axe.
45 4 cristall flood: clear stream.
47 2 t’enlarge with long extent: i.e., to get them long life.
47 4 three fatall sisters: the three fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, named in stanza 48. Clotho holds the spindle, or distaff (‘rocke’), Lachesis spins the thread, and Atropos cuts the thread to end life. Spenser may derive his information from Boccaccio, Gen. 1.5, since he places the fates with Demogorgon, an invention of Boccaccio, for which see notes to I.1.37.8–9and I.5.20.
CANTO 3
3 9 define: decide. OED cites this line.
4 1 listes: enclosures of the field of combat.
4 9 gage: wager.
5 5 amenance: bearing.
5 7 ordinance: order.
6 2 abet: maintain.
6 7 affret: onset.
7 1 practicke: skilful.
9 1 poynant: keen.
9 4 arresting: stopping.
10 4 empight: fixed itself.
11 2 abet: instigation.
11 8 beuer: faceguard of helmet.
12 2 troncheon: spear shaft.
12 7 weasand pipe: windpipe. gorget: armour for the throat.
13 1 assoyld: delivered.
13 6 traduction: transmission, a word used in philosophical discourse for the transmission of the soul from parent to child, deriued: transferred.
14 1 brother: i.e., Diamond.
14 5 generous: highborn.
14 7 in reuersion: a legal term – by right of succession, which Diamond has earned on the death of Priamond.
17 3 wariment: wariness.
19 6 souse: swoop.
23 7 teene: grief.
24 8 on equall cost: on even terms.
25 6 soust: struck violently. foynd : thrust.
25 9 water-sprinkles: drops of water.
27 2 Shenan: the river Shannon in Ireland.
28 6 disentrayled: drawn forth.
29 5 guarisht: cured.
31 9 teene: grief.
32 2 Stygian: of the river Styx in classical Hades. 37 2 whether: which.
37 4 tine: grief.
37 5 fine: end.
38 4 furniment: equipment.
38 9 maker selfe: God.
39–45Cambina, not named until stanza 51, sister of the three brothers, appears with a number of attributes that associate her with peacemaking and concord, thus establishing her as an antitype to Ate. For iconography of Cambina see Roche, Kindly Flame, pp. 23-8.
39 2 two grim lyons: two lions draw the chariot of the goddess Cybele.
They are the metamorphosed Atalanta and Hippomenes brought to concord. Atalanta, a young and valiant virgin, would marry no man who could not outrun her. Many tried and failed. Hippomenes, by dropping golden apples which Atalanta stooped to pick up, outran her and won her as wife. They were turned into lions for making love in the temple of Cybele (Met. 10.560 if).
42 I rod of peace: the caduceus of Mercury, a rod entwined with two serpents, was used to produce concord.
42 3 in louely lore: in loving fashion.
42 6 Maias sonne: Mercury.
42 9 Nepenthe: Nepenthe is the drink used by Helen to extinguish grief (Od. 4.219-25). Spenser christianizes it in stanza 43 as does Milton (Comus 675 ff).
45 2 water of Ardenne: OF 1.78 describes two fountains, one of which produces love, the other hatred. We are told that these two fountains are the cause of all the changing loves in the poem.
45 3 Rinaldo: a hero in OF who is smitten by love after drinking from one of the fountains.
46 4 auaile: descend. 52 6 fere: love.
CANTO 4
1 2 turne to: become.
2 7 as ye remember well: see canto 2.20.
2 8 descride: examined.
6 1 folke-mote: meeting of folk.
7 2 vaunted: advanced.
8 3 he: i.e., Braggadocchio.
9 The offer proposed by Blandamour to Braggadocchio imitates the fight between Marfisa and Zerbino over the old hag Gabrina (OF 20).
11 7 mesprize: contempt (French: mipris).
12 5 which is not long: not fir away in time. See refrain of Prothaiamion: ‘Against the brydale day which is not long’.
12 7 prolong: put off.
13 2 bord: jesting.
14 1–3The confusing number of battles in these opening cantos may make it helpful to name the two sides of’this faire crewe’: one side is Blanda-mour with the False Florimell, whom he took from Ferraugh in IV.2.7; Paridell with Ate and Duessa, and presumably the Squire of Dames, who is still riding with them in TV.2.29 but is not mentioned again nmtdl IV.5.18. The other side consists of Cambel and Cambina, Tria-mond and Canacee. Braggadocchio, who can be neither friend nor foe (stanza 11.8-9), belongs to neither side. On the other hand Spenser may mean the entire group named above as opposed to Satyrane and his Knights of Maidenhead, since Blandamour, Cambel, and Triamond fight on the same side in theensuing tournament.
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