The Shorter Poems

by Edmund Spenser

851 brocage: procuring, pimping.

  shifts: contrivances, tricks.

  854 purchase: booty, pillage.

  856 close conueyance: underhand dealing.

  857 coosinage: (cozenage) fraud, deception.

  cleanly: deft, adroit, dexterous.

  867 fee-simples: landed estates belonging absolutely to the owner and his heirs.

  869 Broker: agent, middleman.

  876 countenaunce: patron, supporter (i.e. countenancing his actions).

  881 preuent: forestall, anticipate.

  882 ment: had intended, or had in mind.

  887 In case: provided that, on condition that. Cf. line 962.

  recompenst… reason: reasonably rewarded or requited.

  889 friuolous: inconsequential, worthless.

  893 had ywist: had I but known. Cf. the proverbial expression ‘beware of had I wist’.

  908 tendance: waiting in expectation, attendant anticipation.

  909 meane: lowly (or possibly moderate, the comfortable ‘mean’ betwixt the high and low estates).

  913 himselfe… trie: prove himself to be a jackdaw or fool.

  922 fowlie… entreate: treated harshly.

  925 huckster: mercenary, money-making.

  928 countenaunce: public demeanour or bearing.

  930 vncased: stripped in the sense of threadbare.

  939 copesmate: accomplice, confederate.

  945 That… repented: that they regretted.

  948 hipps: fruit of the wild rose.

  950–1380 Cf. Aesop’s fable of the ass in lion’s skin (Fables, no. 279).

  950 rechlesse: heedlessly, aimlessly (i.e. with no object in view).

  960 scope: mark, goal.

  978 gest: action, deed.

  980 soueraign see: royal seat, throne.

  982 name… place: reckon his lowly position.

  986 cowardree: cowardice.

  996 Tickled: excited, stirred.

  rash: impulsive.

  997 whether: which of them.

  999 theretoo: to the matter.

  1005 aduenter: venture.

  1010 For… noyse: for fear of making noise.

  1021 stryfull: contentious.

  1023 rayne: sovereignty (or possibly the realm).

  1026 A common adage. Cf. Seneca, Thyestes, 444.

  1057–8 For this political sentiment cf. Cicero, De Officiis, 3. 21. 82.

  1060 inly quooke: inwardly quaked.

  1062 did: donned.

  1085 entertayne: entertainment, reception.

  1088 raged: spoke furiously, stormed.

  1090 inuasion: attack, assault.

  1098 warne: summon.

  1099 it to defend: present a legal defence of it.

  1103 stomack: pride. Cf. FQ, 2. 7. 41.

  1108 Conge: ceremonious leave.

  1115 pointed: appointed.

  1116 issue: passage.

  1118 equipage: retinue.

  1119 forreine beasts: allegorically alluding to foreign troops. It was feared that d’Alençon would bring French troops to England.

  1121 strange ayde: foreign military support.

  1123–4 Bred… Centaures: griffins had the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion; the Minotaur had a bull’s head and a man’s body; Centaurs had a human torso attached to a horse’s body; dragons were commonly pictured as winged reptiles; crocodiles and beavers were accounted part fish and part beast because of their amphibious nature.

  1128 Like as: even as, just as.

  1132 season: appropriate time.

  1137–224 Possibly intended as an attack on Lord Burghley who, as Lord Treasurer, was especially vulnerable to charges of financial corruption.

  1139 put in proofe: put in practice.

  1140 counterpoint: combination of contrary actions (analogous to the counterpoint of contrasting melodies producing one harmony).

  1141 reach: device, scheme.

  breach: breach of the laws.

  1144 Fiaunt: warrant.

  1145 lept: passed rapidly.

  1148 purchase for: provide for, make provision for.

  1150 little… pas: little did he care.

  1151 his cubs: Robert Parsons, writing in 1592, detected an allusion to Lord Burghley’s children. Cf. Wells, Allusions, 24.

  1154 malefices: mischiefs, evil deeds.

  1155 colours… white: because white is the colour of innocence.

  1158 weight… broken: Robert Cecil, Burghley’s son, was a hunchback.

  1159 chaffred: trafficked in, sold.

  Chayres… set: the sees or seats of bishops, bishoprics.

  1160 priuie ferme: private farming. The collection of public taxes was sometimes farmed out to a private individual for a fixed fee. The ‘farmer’ could then make a hefty profit by over-charging the tax-payers.

  1167 ought: anything (aught).

  1168 platforme: basis or foundation.

  1173 loftie towres: the extravagant building projects of the newly rich or ennobled were the subject of constant satirical attack. Burghley was engaged in building the palace of Theobalds from 1564 to 1585.

  1183 no… Nobilitie: made no account of the nobility, in the sense that he did not value them. Burghley was not of an ancient family.

  1190 streigned: restrained.

  1193 rascall: rabble.

  1202 by… addresse: by his own introduction (or possibly by application to him).

  1204 auaile: profit, advantage.

  1212 order… thing: the state of affairs or sequence of events.

  1214 rash: rashly, recklessly.

  1218 thwart: oppose, speak against.

  1224 boxe: the coffer or money box.

  1228 blacklidded: cf. the Homeric ‘black-browed’ (Iliad, 1. 528); FQ, 7. 6. 22.

  1233 guile suborn’d: equipped or endowed with guile.

  1234 subuerst: overturned, ruined.

  1237 dewest: fittest or rightful.

  1240 Him to auenge: take vengeance upon him.

  1246 Mercurie: messenger of the gods. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, 1. 297–304.

  1248 breed: dwell (an archaic usage).

  1250 stearne: stern (in the ironic sense of resolute and commanding).

  1254 remitted: put back, restored.

  1255 treachours: traitors.

  1257 Sonne of Maia: Mercury was the son of Zeus by Maia, daughter of Atlas and one of the Pleiades. Cf. Epith, 307 and note; FQ, 4. 3. 42.

  1258 cleau’d: penetrated, passed through (literally ‘divided’).

  1261 prescript: instruction or direction.

  1262 stouping: bending or curving downwards.

  1264 easie paine: light effort or exertion.

  1267 Ambrosiall: celestial.

  1274 blandishment: cajolery, flattering lures.

  1276 realme and raine: kingdom and sovereignty.

  1279–91 Conflating Mercury’s cap with Pluto’s magic hat of darkness which Mercury lent to Perseus. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1. 672; Comes, Mythologiae, 7. 11.

  1281 mocketh: deludes, deceives.

  1283 runnes… swerds: passes unscathed through enemy swords.

  1287 cunning theeueries: a notable feature of Mercury’s childhood.

  1292 Caduceus: a miraculous wand entwined by snakes, often employed as an emblem of concord. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, 4. 242–6; Comes, Mythologiae, 5. 5; FQ, 2. 12. 41; 4. 3. 42; 7. 6. 18.

  1293 damned ghosts: Mercury conducted the spirits of the deceased to Hades, hence his common epithet ‘psychopompus’ (conductor of souls).

  1294 Tartare: abode of the wicked in Hades.

  1299 Syre… Alcumena: while Hermes (Mercury) stood guard, Zeus slept with Alcmene in the form of her husband, Amphitryon, and commanded the sun not to rise for three days. Cf. Plautus, Amphitryo; Epith, 328–9; FQ, 3. 11. 33.

  1306 fild: filled.

  1310 raigning: holding sway, flourishing.

  1313 tolde: numbered, counted.

  1314 lothfull: reluctant (loath to see).

  1317 aue
ngement for: retribution for.

  1321 wicked weed: the detail of a soporific herb placed underneath the lion’s head has not been previously mentioned.

  1324 him auize: bethink himself, reflect.

  1330 blent: polluted, stained.

  1334 grating: smiting, striking.

  1356 as… reft: as one bereft of their wits.

  1364 turning… confusion: either attributing everything to the ape’s disorderly conduct or explaining everything in such a way as to undo the ape (and save himself).

  1366 stay at ease: remain unconstrained or untroubled.

  1371 strange: cf. note to line 1121 above.

  1388 bad: rude, coarse.

  bluntly: coarsely, without delicacy or refinement.

  Ruines of Rome: by Bellay

  Ruines of Rome is translated from Joachim Du Bellay’s Les Antiquitez de Rome contenant une generale description de sa grandeur, et comme une deploration de sa ruine, a work first published in 1558 together with Une Songe ou Vision sur le mesme subject, an appendage which Spenser translated for Jan Van der Noot’s A Theatre for Voluptuous Worldlings (1569) and substantially revised for publication in Complaints under the new title of The Visions of Bellay. Some version of The Ruines of Time may therefore date from the late 1560s, but the reference to Du Bartas’s Uranie (459–60) indicates that the ‘Envoy’ was composed after 1574 and whatever early materials Spenser may have had to hand are likely to have undergone extensive revision for publication in 1591. As the following notes indicate, the translation is generally accurate but contains some elementary errors which seriously distort the meaning of the original. Spenser’s style is generally less assured than Du Bellay’s whose Petrarchan sonnets (observing the traditional break between octave and sestet) are here refashioned into English sonnets of three quatrains and a couplet (rhyming ababcdcdefefgg).

  The alteration in form reflects a significant difference in outlook. Spenser’s first translations from the Catholic Du Bellay appeared in the staunchly Protestant context of A Theatre for Worldlings, and The Ruines of Time displays a similar shift of emphasis. Although Du Bellay was by no means an uncritical admirer of the Renaissance papacy, the speaker’s attitude towards Rome is rendered even more problematic in Spenser. Du Bellay’s meditation upon the ruins of empire involves a reappraisal of the whole humanist enterprise, casting doubt upon the wisdom of emulating a culture in many respects so alien to the Christian ethos [cf. Greene (1982)]. Not infrequently his stance resembles that of the disappointed Petrarchan lover [cf. Rebhorn (1980)]. For Spenser, however, the image of Rome is refracted through the lens of Protestant polemic (365–78). Whereas the cause of the city’s decline is variously attributed to civil discord (127–40), divine intervention (43–56), invasion (141–54), time (36), social decadence (309–22), or the cyclical process of history (211–24), there is an implicit suggestion that even the highest worldly aspirations necessarily breed corruption, that earthly greatness somehow entails a concomitant depravity. Regarded as the epitome of the world (359), Rome is awesome in its very devastation and inspires ‘sacred horror’ (13) in the beholder – and in all those who might harbour hopes of a translatio imperii. The scale of its fall challenges the value of all worldly ambition, including the literary aspirations of modern poets intent on emulating Virgil and refashioning, through a sort of poetic necromancy (1–14), the Roman heritage in vernacular literature (337–50). By association with Babylon (15) Rome emerges as the antithesis of the New Jerusalem envisaged in Revelation, and the concluding reference to Du Bartas may be intended to imply that the ‘heauenly Muse’ directs one’s attention away from images of decay ‘th’Almightie to adore’ (460) [cf. Fichter (1981)]. But this is to oversimplify the matter: it is noteworthy that neither in Du Bellay nor Spenser does the speaker’s protracted meditation upon the ‘tragick sights’ (85) of Rome’s ‘ruin’d pride’ (208) serve to resolve the fundamental ambivalence of his outlook. Rome’s ‘heauenly spirites’ reside, incongruously, in ‘darkest hell’ (1–6), and a reluctant ‘wonder’ (182) for the city and its ‘braue writings’ persists (68). Paradoxically, aspiration and degradation converge, the ‘lowest earth, ioin’d to the heauen hie’ (106). The dark tension thus generated may well have influenced Shakespeare’s sonnets [cf. Hieatt (1983)]. Cf. Allen (1968); Ferguson (1982); Janowitz (1990); Manley (1982); Prescott (1978); Stapleton (1990); Tucker (1990).

  Ruines of Rome

  2 opprest: pressed down, overwhelmed.

  4 faire verses: Latin poetry.

  5 shrilling: piercing.

  8 shreiking yell: simply ‘mon cry’ in Du Bellay (1. 7).

  9–11 Thrice… Thrice: creating an effect of ritual incantation owing to the magical properties ascribed to the number three. Cf. Virgil, Eclogues, 8. 73–8.

  9 veale: veil.

  10 Your… all: ‘the solemn extent of your tombs’. A badly garbled version of Du Bellay’s ‘trois fois cernant sous le voile des cieux / De voz tumbeaus le tour devocieux’ (1. 9–10).

  12 antique furie: Du Bellay’s ‘antique fureur’ (1. 12), presumably in the sense of the Latin manes or ‘ghost’ rather than an avenging fury.

  13 sacred horror: reverend awe (but preserving the sense of dread).

  15–24 Babylon… Colosse: for the seven wonders of the ancient world cf. RT, 408–14 and note.

  15 Babylon: cf. TW, sonnet 13. 14 and note.

  16 sharped steeples: Du Bellay’s ‘vergers en l’air’ (2. 2) or the Hanging Gardens, but Spenser is presumably alluding to the Tower of Babel often confusedly associated with Babylon.

  17 Ephesian buildings: the temple of Diana at Ephesus.

  20 Ioues… Olympus: the temple of Zeus at Olympia (not Mount Olympus).

  21 Mausolus… Carians: the tomb of Mausolus, satrap of Caria, at Halicarnassus.

  22 Labyrinth: the labyrinth at Knossus built for King Minos was not generally accounted among the seven wonders.

  23–4 Rhodian… Memorie: the Colossus of Rhodes was erected to commemorate the raising of the siege of Rhodes (305–304 BC).

  26 magnifie: extol.

  29–42 Du Bellay’s source was a Latin epigram attributed to Janus Vitalis for which cf. Du Bellay (1966), 275; Kelly (1994).

  31 arches: triumphal arches.

  44 One… Morning: one foot in the west, the other in the east. Thetis, a sea-goddess, represents the ocean into which the sun sets. Cf. note to line 270 below.

  45 One… More: one hand on the east, the other on the west, complementing line 44. Scythia lay north of the Black and Caspian Seas, and the ‘More’ are the ancient inhabitants of Mauretania.

  48–9 Giants… hills: cf. note to lines 155–8 below. For Rome’s association with the Giants cf. TW, sonnet 11.4 and note. For Giants and Titans (whom Spenser often conflates) as types of arrogance cf. Comes, Mythologiae, 6. 20–21.

  51–6 Vpon… meete: the pinning down of Rome is modelled upon that of the giant Typhoeus under Sicily. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 5. 346–58.

  54 noysome Esquiline: because of its sewers. Cf. FQ, 2. 9. 32.

  57–8 A Petrarchan topos. Cf. Rime Sparse, 248. 1–2.

  59 In case: if so be that.

  gesse in harte: form some conjecture or mental image of.

  60 picture: image, representation.

  61 shade: spirit or ghost (Latin umbra).

  66–7 spirite… masse: garbling Du Bellay’s allusion to the ‘spiritus mundi’, or world spirit (5. 11). Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, 6. 724–7.

  69 of… dust: a biblical topos, cf. Genesis 2: 7.

  70 Idole: image, likeness.

  71–3 Berecynthian… light: Cybele or Magna Mater, to whom Mount Berecyntus in Phrygia was sacred, was usually depicted wearing a turreted crown because she invented the art of fortification. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, 6.

  784–7; FQ, 4. 11. 28.

  74 fownd: found or discovered to be.

  75 Phrygian mother: Cybele.

  76 famous progenie: Cybele was mother of the gods.

/>   85–98 Du Bellay’s source was Castiglione’s sonnet ‘Superbi colli, e voi sacre ruine’. Cf. Castiglione, Opere (Padua, 1733), 326.

  91 flie: hasten.

  92 fable: common talk.

  spoyle: the Roman ruins were used as stone quarries.

  93 frames: structures.

  94 ruinate: destroy, bring crashing down.

  99–112 Du Bellay adapts George Buchanan’s epigram ‘Roma armis terras, ratibusque subegerat undas’. Cf. Buchanan, Franciscus et Fratres et Opera Alia (Geneva, 1584), 46.

  99 vassals: mistranslating Du Bellay’s ‘vaisseaux’ (vessels, 8. 1).

  101 in roundnes: in total compass, thoroughly.

  103 fruitfull: prolific, fecund.

  104 nephewes: descendants.

  108 quight: freed, liberated from.

  111 head… deep: alluding to the legend that the Capitol takes its name from the human head (caput) discovered by workmen digging the foundations of the temple of Jupiter. Cf. Varro, De Lingua Latina, 5. 41.

  114 stepdame Nature: for this topos cf. Quintilian, Institutes, 12. 1. 2.

  115 course of kinde: normal or customary course of nature.

  119 palaces: the rhyme scheme is defective here whether deliberately or by accident.

  122 beneath… Moone: only sublunary things were supposed to be subject to change, but FQ often suggests otherwise. Cf. FQ, 5 Proem 5–8; 7. 6. 8–14. For the contemporary controversy cf. McCabe (1989), 149–53.

  123 temporall: subject to time, transitory.

  126 this whole: the whole universe.

  127–8 sonne… land: Jason, son of Aeson and leader of the Argonauts, took the Golden Fleece from Colchis on the Black Sea with the aid of Medea’s magic spells or ‘charmes’.

  129–30 earth… sand: fully armed men sprang from the serpent’s teeth sown by the king of Colchis but turned upon one another when Jason cast a rock among them. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7. 121–42.

  132 Hydra: the many-headed monster slain by Hercules as his second labour. Cf. TW, sonnet 8. 11–12 and note.

  134 one… hous: obscure in Du Bellay (10. 8), possibly earth and sky.

  140 earthborn brethren: Ovid’s ‘terrigenae… fratres’ (Metamorphoses, 7. 141).

  141 head: ascendancy, power.

  142 off-spring: Romulus and Remus, legendary founders of Rome.

  148 Gothicke colde: because the Goths were a northern tribe.

  149 Nation… brood: the Goths, regarded as a new race of Giants.