Another grace she well deserves to be,
In whom so many graces gathered are,
Excelling much the meane of her degree;
Divine resemblaunce, beauty soveraine rare,
Firme chastity, that spight ne blemish dare!
All which she with such courtesie doth grace,
That all her peres cannot with her compare,
But quite are dimmed when she is in place:
She made me often pipe, and now to pipe apace.

"Sunne of the world, great glory of the sky, That all the earth doest lighten with thy rayes, Great Gloriana,7 greatest majesty!

Pardon thy Shepheard, mongst so many layes As he hath sung of thee in all his dayes, To make one minime of thy poore handmayd, And underneath thy feete to place her prayse, That, when thy glory shall be farre displayd To future age, of her this mention may be made!"

When thus that shepheard ended had his speach,
Sayd Calidore: "Now sure it yrketh mee,
That to thy blisse I made this lucklesse breach,
As now the author of thy bale to be,

Thus to bereave thy loves deare sight from thee: But, gentle shepheard, pardon thou my shame, Who rashly sought that which I mote not see." Thus did the courteous knight excuse his blame, And to recomfort him all comely meanes did frame.

NOTES.

Biographical Note. - EDMUND SPENSER was born in London in 1552. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1576. At college he was the intimate friend of Gabriel Harvey and other men of note; and during the next three years, a part of which was spent in London, he became acquainted with Philip Sidney, and others in Lord Leicester's household. In 1580 was published, but without his name, "The Shepheards Calender "; and in the autumn of that year he went to Ireland as the private secretary of Lord Grey of Wilton. The remainder of his life, with the exception of short visits to England, was spent in Ireland, where he finally settled on a grant of forfeited land at Kilcolman in the county of Cork. Sir Walter Raleigh, who visited him in 1589, persuaded him to accompany him to London, where, in 1590, he published the first three books of "The Faerie Queene." In 1591 he returned to Ireland; and in June, 1594, he married Elizabeth, the daughter of a neighbor settler. (See note 7, at top of page 154). The next year he again visited London, and in January, 1595–96, published the fourth, fifth, and sixth Books of the “Faerie Queene." About the same time were published his "Colin Clouts Come Home Again," an account of his visit to the Court in 1589-90, and an 66 Epithalamion," relating to his courtship and marriage. In 1598 a bloody rebellion was inaugurated by the Irish. Spenser's castle was sacked and burned, and he and his family barely escaped with their lives. In the following year he returned in great distress to London. He died in King Street, Westminster, Jan. 16, 1599, and was buried in the Abbey.

FIRST ADVENTURE OF THE RED CROSS KNIGHT. (Page 100.)

1. Each book of "The Faerie Queene" consists of twelve cantos of about fifty stanzas each. Each canto is introduced by a four-line doggerel, containing the argument, or a brief summary of the narrative-in imitation, doubtless, of Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso."

2. chide, champ. Spenser uses many words in a sense quite different from their ordinary meaning. Angry, in the same line, means impatient. The reader will find some of these expressions briefly explained in the Glossary which follows these Notes; the special meaning attached to many other words is sufficiently obvious from the context.

3. soveraine, efficacious, saving- now usually sovereign.

Some sovereign comforts drawn from common sense." - Dryden. From the Latin supern, supreme, which in turn is from supra, above. The old spelling sovran, or even soveraine, is nearer the Latin.

4. lemans lap. Earth is here represented as Jove's sweetheart (leman). In the Greek mythology she is the consort of Uranus, the heavens.

5. the trees. Compare this catalogue of trees with that given by Chaucer on page 62 of this volume. Much can they praise is a favorite expression of Spenser's, and occurs very often in this poem.

6. Cypresse funerall. The Romans dedicated the cypress to Pluto, because, when once cut, it never grows again. Cypress wreaths were much used at funerals.

7. laurell. The Greeks gave a wreath of laurel to the victor in the Pythian games. In modern times, the laurel is a symbol of victory and peace. It was a custom in the English universities to present a laurel wreath to graduates in poetry and rhetoric, hence the term poet laureate.

8. willow. Fuller says, "The willow is a sad tree, whereof such as have lost their love make their mourning garlands." The Jews in captivity were represented as hanging their harps on the willows; that is, laying aside mirth for weeping. See "Much Ado About Nothing," Act ii. sc. i. 9. platane, plane-tree. holme, probably the holly. 10. greedy hardiment, eager hardihood.

II. without entraile, untwisted.

12. raft. Past tense of rift, to split, to cleave.

13. wend. From A.-S. wendan, to go. We still use its past tense, went, and also, in poetry, wend and its variations.

14. Bidding his beades, counting his beads. The word bead originally meant a prayer, and biddan (A.-S.) meant to pray. When little balls with holes through them were used for keeping account of the number of prayers, the name bead was gradually transferred to them.

15. thorough. An old form of the word through, still retained in thorough-fare. From Teut. thuru, a gate, a passage; whence duru, door. 16. a little wyde, a little way off, at a little distance.

17. Plutoes griesly dame. Proserpina.

18. Gorgon, Cocytus, Styx. See "Classical Dictionary."

UNA AND THE LION. (Page 111.)

1. divorced, separated. Through the wiles of the magician (Hypocrisy), the meeting with whom is described in the first canto, the Red Cross Knight has deserted Una, and she is now wandering alone through the wilderness, searching for him.

2. eye of heaven.

"All places that the eye of heaven visits

Are to a wise man ports and happy havens."

-Shakespeare, King Richard II.

THE PROCESSION OF THE PASSIONS. (Page 114.)

1. roiall dame. Lucifera, or Pride, the daughter of Pluto and Proserpina. She and her six counsellors are the seven deadly sins.

2. Iunoes golden chayre. Juno is represented in mythology and in ancient works of art as riding through fields of air in a golden chariot drawn by peacocks.

Ovid also says that Juno planted the eyes of Argus in the tail of her favorite bird; but others assert that Argus himself was turned into a peacock.

3. new-fanglenesse. The word new-fangled is frequently used by the older writers. Fangle, from A.-S. fengan, to begin; sometimes used in the sense of foolish, trifling.

"Constant without newfangledness." - Roger Ascham.

4. St. Fraunces fire. Probably "St. Anthony's fire," erysipelas. Compare the description of Envy, on page 118, with that in "Piers Ploughman," on page 30.

DUESSA'S DESCENT INTO HELL. (Page 120.)

The Saracen Knight, Sansfoy, is defeated in battle by the Red Cross Knight, and is left as dead upon the field. Duessa, in the chariot of Night, descends to hell in order to have him healed by Esculapius, the god of the medical art.

1. Avernus. (From Gr. a-ornos, without birds.) A lake in Campania, the gaseous fumes from which were said to kill all the birds that attempted to fly over it. It was called the entrance to hell, and such is the meaning of the word here used.

2. Phlegeton.

Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds." - Pope.

Compare these two stanzas with a similar description in Pope's "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day." See "Classical Dictionary," for proper names. Tityus. The poet probably means Prometheus.

3. Hippolytus. For the story of Hippolytus see the tragedy of Euripides having this title, also the "Phèdre" of Racine. A very similar legend is that of Saiawush and his step-mother Súdaveh, related in the Persian"Sháh Nameh."

4. Aveugles sonne. Literally, the son of blindness, i.e. Sansfoy, the Saracen Knight, the personification of unbelief.

THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINA. (Page 124.)

1. Hercules. The eleventh task of Hercules was to bring to his master Eurystheus the golden apples of the Hesperides. These apples were in the keeping of the Western-Maids, the "the clear-voiced Hesperides," whom Hesiod describes as the daughters of Night. It was Atlas who procured the apples for Hercules. Milton, in "Comus," speaks of

"Hesperus and his daughters three
That sing about the golden tree."

2. Eubœan young man. Milanion. See "Classical Dictionary." 3. The story of Acontius was derived by Ovid, from a lost poem by Callimachus, entitled "Cydippe." See "Classical Dictionary."

4. false Ate. Ate, the goddess of Discord, was not invited to the wedding feast of Thetis and Peleus. Angered at the slight thus put upon her, she threw on the table, where all the other deities were sitting, a golden apple "for the most beautiful." It was claimed by Juno, Pallas, and Venus, here called "th' Idæan ladies." These submitted their case, finally, to Paris, a shepherd on Mount Ida. Paris awarded the apple to Venus, and the final result of his judgment was the Trojan War.

THE GARDEN OF ADONIS. (Page 128.)

1. first seminary, place of origin; seed-place. From Lat. semen, seminis, seed.

2. kynds, natures. Spenser constantly uses the word kind for nature. He also says kindly for natural, and unkindly for unnaturally. The author of the "Vision of Piers Ploughman" personifies nature as Kind.

66

3. Old Genius, the generator. From Lat. geno, or gigno, to beget. In Roman mythology, Genius was a deity who had the power of pardoning. 'Every man had his Genius, and every woman her Juno; that is, a spirit who had given them being, and was regarded as their protector through life; whence the Jews, and from them the Christians, derived their idea of Guardian Angels." - Keightley. It was sometimes difficult to distinguish a man's Genius from himself. (See page 132, bottom.) The word finally came to denote innate talent (birth-wit); whence extraordinary mental power, ingenuity, intellect.

4. sinfull mire, mortal clay. So Milton, in "Comus" (line 244), speaks of the "mortal mixture of earth's mould."