The Shorter Poems

by Edmund Spenser

  To mery London, my most kyndly Nurse,

  That to me gaue this Lifes first natiue sourse:

  130

  Though from another place I take my name,

  An house of auncient fame.

  There when they came, whereas those bricky towres,

  The which on Themmes brode aged backe doe ryde,

  Where now the studious Lawyers haue their bowers,

  135

  There whylome wont the Templer Knights to byde,

  Till they decayd through pride:

  Next whereunto there standes a stately place,

  Where oft I gayned giftes and goodly grace

  Of that great Lord, which therein wont to dwell,

  140

  Whose want too well, now feeles my freendles case:

  But Ah here fits not well

  Olde woes but ioyes to tell

  Against the bridale daye, which is not long:

  Sweete Themmes runne softly, till I end my Song.

  9

  145

  Yet therein now doth lodge a noble Peer,

  Great Englands glory and the Worlds wide wonder,

  Whose dreadfull name, late through all Spaine did thunder,

  And Hercules two pillors standing neere,

  Did make to quake and feare:

  150

  Faire branch of Honor, flower of Cheualrie,

  That fillest England with thy triumphes fame,

  Ioy haue thou of thy noble victorie,

  And endlesse happinesse of thine owne name

  That promiseth the same:

  155

  That through thy prowesse and victorious armes,

  Thy country may be freed from forraine harmes:

  And great Elisaes glorious name may ring

  Through al the world, fil’d with thy wide Alarmes,

  Which some braue muse may sing

  160

  To ages following,

  Vpon the Brydale day, which is not long:

  Sweete Themmes runne softly, till I end my Song.

  10

  From those high Towers, this noble Lord issuing,

  Like Radiant Hesper when his golden hayre

  165

  In th’Ocean billowes he hath Bathed fayre,

  Descended to the Riuers open vewing,

  With a great traine ensuing.

  Aboue the rest were goodly to bee seene

  Two gentle Knights of louely face and feature

  170

  Beseeming well the bower of anie Queene,

  With gifts of wit and ornaments of nature,

  Fit for so goodly stature:

  That like the twins of loue they seem’d in sight,

  Which decke the Bauldricke of the Heauens bright.

  175

  They two forth pacing to the Riuers side,

  Receiued those two faire Brides, their Loues delight,

  Which at th’appointed tyde,

  Each one did make his Bryde,

  Against their Brydale day, which is not long:

  180

  Sweete Themmes runne softly, till I end my Song.

  FINIS.

  Commendatory Sonnets.

  To the right worshipfull, my singular good frend, M. Gabriell Haruey, Doctor of the Lawes.

  Haruey, the happy aboue happiest men

  I read: that sitting like a Looker-on

  Of this worldes Stage, doest note with critique pen

  The sharpe dislikes of each condition:

  5

  And as one carelesse of suspition,

  Ne fawnest for the fauour of the great:

  Ne fearest foolish reprehension

  Of faulty men, which daunger to thee threat.

  But freely doest, of what thee list, entreat,

  10

  Like a great Lord of peerelesse liberty:

  Lifting the Good vp to high Honours seat,

  And the Euill damning euermore to dy.

  For Life, and Death is in thy doomefull writing:

  So thy renowme liues euer by endighting.

  Dublin: this xviij. of Iuly: 1586.

  Your deuoted frend, during life,

  EDMUND SPENCER.

  [Prefixed to Nennio, or A Treatise of Nobility]

  Who so wil seeke by right deserts t’attaine

  vnto the type of true Nobility,

  And not by painted shewes and titles vaine,

  Deriued farre from famous Auncestrie,

  5

  Behold them both in their right visnomy

  Here truly pourtray’d, as they ought to be,

  And striuing both for termes of dignitie,

  To be aduanced highest in degree.

  And when thou doost with equall insight see

  10

  the ods twixt both, of both then deem aright

  And chuse the better of them both to thee,

  But thanks to him that it deserues, behight:

  To Nenna first, that first this worke created,

  And next to Jones, that truely it translated.

  ED. SPENSER.

  [Prefixed to The Historie of George Castriot, surnamed Scanderbeg]

  Wherefore doth vaine antiquitie so vaunt,

  Her ancient monuments of mightie peeres,

  And old Heroes, which their world did daunt

  With their great deedes, and fild their childrens eares?

  5

  Who rapt with wonder of their famous praise,

  Admire their statues, their Colossoes great,

  Their rich triumphall Arcks which they did raise,

  Their huge Pyramids, which do heauen threat.

  Lo one, whom later age hath brought to light,

  10

  Matchable to the greatest of those great:

  Great both by name, and great in power and might,

  And meriting a meere triumphant seate.

  The scourge of Turkes, and plague of infidels,

  Thy acts, ô Scanderbeg, this volume tels.

  Ed. Spenser.

  [Prefixed to The Commonwealth and Gouernment of Venice]

  The antique Babel, Empresse of the East,

  Vpreard her buildinges to the threatned skie:

  And Second Babell tyrant of the West,

  Her ayry Towers vpraised much more high.

  5

  But with the weight of their own surquedry,

  They both are fallen, that all the earth did feare,

  And buried now in their own ashes ly,

  Yet shewing by their heapes how great they were.

  But in their place doth now a third appeare,

  10

  Fayre Venice, flower of the last worlds delight,

  And next to them in beauty draweth neare

  But farre exceedes in policie of right.

  Yet not so fayre her buildinges to behold

  As Lewkenors stile that hath her beautie told.

  Edm. Spencer.

  Attributed Verses

  From Sir James Ware’s The Historie of Ireland, 1633.

  Certaine verses of Mr Edm. Spenser’s.

  A translation made ex tempore by Mr Edm. Spenser upon this distich, written on a Booke belonging to the right honorable Richard Earle of Corke, &c.

  Nvlla dies pereat, pereat pars nulla diei,

  Ne tu sic pereas, ut periere dies.

  Let no day passe, passe no part of the day,

  Lest thou doe passe, as dayes doe passe away.

  Verses upon the said Earles Lute.

  Whilst vitall sapp did make me spring,

  And leafe and bough did flourish brave,

  I then was dumbe and could not sing,

  Ne had the voice which now I have:

  5

  But when the axe my life did end,

  The Muses nine this voice did send.

  E. S.

  From Thomas Fuller’s The History of the Worthies of England, 1662.

  I was promis’d on a time,

  To have reason fo
r my rhyme;

  From that time unto this season,

  I receiv’d nor rhyme nor reason.

  NOTES

  Abbreviations

  The Notes cite items listed under Further Reading in the abbreviated form of surname and date of publication. Thus ‘cf. Lotspeich (1942), 40’ refers to H. G. Lotspeich, Classical Mythology in the Poetry of Edmund Spenser (Princeton, 1942), p. 40. The most important primary sources are cited by author and title as follows:

  Boccaccio, Genealogia (cited by book and chapter)

  Camden, Britain (cited by page)

  Castiglione, Courtier (cited by page)

  Comes, Mythologiae (cited by book and chapter)

  ECE (for Elizabethan Critical Essays, cited by volume and page)

  Ficino, Commentary (cited by book and chapter)

  Holinshed, Chronicles (cited by volume and page)

  Servius, Commentarii (cited by Virgilian passage)

  Wells, Allusions (cited by page)

  Full details of these works are supplied under Further Reading.

  The following abbreviations for Spenser’s works are used throughout the Notes:

  Amor

  Amoretti

  Ast

  Astrophel

  CCH

  Colin Clouts Come Home Againe

  Comp

  Complaints

  Daph

  Daphnaïda

  DLC

  Dolefull Lay of Clorinda

  Epith

  Epithalamion

  FH

  Fowre Hymnes

  FQ

  The Faerie Queene

  ΗΒ

  An Hymne in Honour of Beavtie

  HHB

  An Hymne of Heavenly Beavtie

  HHL

  An Hymne of Heavenly Love

  HL

  An Hymne in Honovr of Love

  Letters

  Three Proper… Letters. Two… Commendable Letters

  MHT

  Prosopopoia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale

  Muiop

  Mviopotmos, Or the Fate of the Butterflie

  Prose

  Spenser’s Prose Works, Variorum Edition, vol. 9 (1949)

  Proth

  Prothalamion

  RR

  Ruines of Rome: by Bellay

  RT

  The Ruines of Time

  SC

  The Shepheardes Calender

  TM

  The Teares of the Muses

  TW

  A Theatre for Worldlings

  VB

  The Visions of Bellay

  Vewe

  A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande

  VG

  Virgils Gnat

  VP

  The Visions of Petrarch

  VW

  Visions of the Worlds Vanitie

  Other abbreviations used in the Notes and Further Reading are as follows:

  CL

  Comparative Literature

  EA

  Études Anglaises

  EIC

  Essays in Criticism

  ELH

  English Literary History

  ELN

  English Language Notes

  ELR

  English Literary Renaissance

  ES

  English Studies

  HLQ

  Huntington Library Quarterly

  JEGP

  Journal of English and Germanic Philology

  JHI

  Journal of the History of Ideas

  JMRS

  Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies

  MLN

  Modern Language Notes

  MLQ

  Modern Language Quarterly

  MLR

  Modern Language Review

  MP

  Modern Philology

  N&Q

  Notes and Queries

  OED

  Oxford English Dictionary

  PMLA

  Publications of the Modern Language Association of America

  PQ

  Philological Quarterly

  REL

  Review of English Literature

  RES

  Review of English Studies

  SEL

  Studies in English Literature

  SP

  Studies in Philology

  SpE

  The Spenser Encyclopedia (ed. Hamilton)

  SpN

  Spenser Newsletter

  SR

  Studies in the Renaissance

  SSt

  Spenser Studies

  TLS

  Times Literary Supplement

  TSLL

  Texas Studies in Language and Literature

  UTQ

  University of Toronto Quarterly

  Var

  The Works of Edmund Spenser. A Variorum Edition

  YES

  Yearbook of English Studies

  For the explanation of recurrent words and phrases the reader is referred to the Glossary of Common Terms. Owing to pressure of space such usages are not normally glossed in the notes. The majority of archaisms and dialectical terms used in The Shepheardes Calender are adequately explained by E. K., but the remainder are dealt with either in the notes or the glossary as appropriate. References to E. K.’s glosses are given in square brackets, for example SC, November, [161].

  FROM A THEATRE FOR WORLDLINGS

  The work which has become known to Spenser’s readers as A Theatre for Worldlings was published in 1569 under the full title of A Theatre wherein be represented as wel the miseries & calamities that follow the voluptuous Worldlings, As also the greate ioyes and plesures which the faithfull do enioy. An argument both profitable and delectable, to all that sincerely loue the word of God. The author was Jan van der Noot, a Dutch refugee fleeing religious persecution at the hands of ‘that wycked tyrant’, the Duke of Alva (fol. 105v) [cf. Forster (1967b)]. How Spenser became involved in the enterprise remains unknown, although the likeliest explanation is through the influence of Richard Mulcaster, his schoolmaster at Merchant Taylors’, who had close associations with the émigré Dutch community. It is noteworthy, however, that the publisher was Henry Bynneman who later produced the Spenser–Harvey Letters (1580). Two previous editions, the first in Dutch and the second in French, had already appeared from the press of John Day (1568) [cf. Van Dorsten (1970)]. The English edition is comprised of a dedicatory epistle to Queen Elizabeth, a series of epigrams and sonnets accompanied by emblematic illustrations, and a long prose commentary (heavily indebted to John Bale and Heinrich Bullinger) expounding the meaning of the preceding ‘visions’ – a format of text and exegesis designed to lend the work something akin to scriptural authority [cf. Hyde (1983)]. Despite an overtly eirenic attitude, the work is uncompromising in its denunciation of the Roman Catholic Church [cf. Prescott (1978)] and in representing its ‘worldliness’ as both cause and symptom of the spiritual malaise of the time [cf. Rasmussen (1980)]. ‘Borne of the subversion of the Empire’, the papacy is represented as the successor to imperial tyranny, and the Church of Rome as the temple of Antichrist (fol. 20ν).

  From the viewpoint of literary history, A Theatre is significant for the development of the sonnet form in three languages, Dutch, French and English. The presence of accompanying illustrations constitutes one of the earliest examples of its kind, establishing a tradition that was to influence The Shepheardes Calender. The Dutch and French editions are illustrated by fine copperplate etchings and the English edition by less sophisticated woodcuts. The precise relationship between the two sets of illustrations is problematic, although the traditional attribution of the copperplate engravings to Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder remains possible despite arguments to the contrary [cf. Friedland (1956); Bath (1988)].

  The poems are arranged in three groups. The ‘Epigrams’ are derived from Petrarch’s Rime Sparse (323) in the French translation of Clément Marot. Sonnets 1–11 derive from the Songe (a sequence of fifteen sonnets) appended to Du Bellay’s Antiq
uitez de Rome (later translated by Spenser as Ruines of Rome). Sonnets 12–15 are original compositions (presumably by Noot) inspired by the Book of Revelation and full of the Apocalyptic excitement of the age. The French edition simply reproduces the poetry of Marot and Du Bellay and it would appear that this was the version from which Spenser worked, but with some knowledge of the Italian in the case of Petrarch. The quality of the English translations, though variable, is generally accurate and there seems little reason to doubt their attribution to the same hand, although Spenser’s responsibility for the four ‘Apocalyptic’ sonnets has been called in question [cf. Satterthwaite (1960)]. The epigrams display a certain insecurity of structure. Marot was faithful to Petrarch’s twelve-line format, but Spenser develops epigrams 1 and 3 into English sonnets rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. The internal structure, however, remains at odds with the demands of the sonnet form and the problem remained largely unresolved when the epigrams were revised as The Visions of Petrarch. Far more successful in this respect were the translations from Du Bellay, the earliest instance of a blank-verse sonnet sequence in English, and doubtless influenced by current theories of neo-classical poetics of the sort discussed in the Spenser–Harvey correspondence. The Roman subject matter would have made the avoidance of rhyme (present in the original) seem theoretically appropriate.