And all the chamber filled was with flyes
Which buzzed all about, and made such sound
That they encombred all mens eares and eyes;
Like many swarms of bees assembled round,
After their hives with honny do abound.
All those were idle Thoughtes and Fantasies,
Devices, Dreames, Opinions unsound,
Shewes, Visions, Sooth-sayes, and Prophesies;
And all that fained is, as Leasings, Tales, and Lies.
Emongst them all sate he which wonned there,
That hight Phantastes by his nature trew;
A man of yeares yet fresh, as mote appere,
Of swarth complexion, and of crabbed hew,
That him full of melancholy did shew;
Bent hollow beetle browes, sharpe staring eyes,
That mad or foolish seemd : one by his vew
Mote deeme him borne with ill-disposed skyes,
When oblique Saturne sate in th' house of agonyes.
Whom Alma having shewed to her Guests,
Thence brought them to the second rowme, whose wals
Were painted faire with memorable gestes
Of famous wisards; and with picturals
Of magistrates, of courts, of tríbunals,
Of commen wealthes, of states, of pollicy,
Of lawes, of iudgementes, and of décretals,
All artes, all science, all philosophy,
And all that in the world was ay thought wittily.
Of those that rowme was full; and them among
There sate a Man of ripe and perfect age,
Who did them meditate all his life long,
That through continuall practise and usage
He now was growne right wise and wondrous sage:
Great plesure had those straunger Knightes to see
His goodly reason and grave personage,
That his disciples both desyrd to bee :
But Alma thence them led to th' hindmost rowme of
That chamber seemed ruinous and old,
And therefore was removed far behind,
Yet were the wals, that did the same uphold,
Right firme and strong, though somwhat they declind; And therein sat an Old old Man, halfe blind,
And all decrepit in his feeble corse,
Yet lively vigour rested in his mind,
And recompenst him with a better scorse : Weake body well is chang'd for minds redoubled forse.
This Man of infinite remembraunce was,
And things forgone through many ages held,
Which he recorded still as they did pas,
Ne suffred them to perish through long eld,
As all things els the which this world doth weld;
But laid them up in his immortall scrine,
Where they for ever incorrupted dweld:
The warres he well remembred of king Nine,
Of old Assaracus, and Inachus divine.
The yeares of Nestor nothing were to his,
Ne yet Mathusalem, though longest l'v'd;
For he remembred both their infancis :
Ne wonder then if that he were depriv'd
Of native strength now that he them surviv'd.
His chamber all was hangd about with rolls
And old records from auncient times derivd,
Some made in books, some in long parchment scrolls, That were all worm-eaten and full of canker holes.
Amidst them all he in a chaire was sett,
Tossing and turning them withouten end;
But for he was unhable them to fett,
A litle Boy did on him still attend
To reach, whenever he for ought did send ;
And oft when thinges were lost, or laid amis,
That Boy them sought and unto him did lend :
Therefore he Anamnestes cleped is;
And that Old Man Eumnestes, by their propertis.
The Knightes there entring did him reverence dew,
And wondred at his endlesse exercise.
Then as they gan his library to vew,
And antique regesters for to avise,
There chaunced to the Princes hand to rize
An auncient booke, hight Briton Moniments,
That of this lands first conquest did devize,
And old division into regiments,
Till it reduced was to one mans governements.
Sir Guyon chaunst eke on another booke,
That hight Antiquitee of Faery Lond:
In which whenas he greedily did looke,
Th' ofspring of Elves and Faryes there he fond,
As it delivered was from hond to hond:
Whereat they, burning both with fervent fire
Their Countreys Auncestry to understond,
Crav'd leave of Alma and that aged Sire
To read those bookes; who gladly graunted their desire.
A Chronicle of Briton Kings,
From Brute to Utheis rayne;
And Rolls of Elfin Emperours,
Till time of Gloriane.
WHO now shall give unto me words and sound
Equall unto this haughty enterprise?
Or who shall lend me wings, with which from ground
My lowly verse may loftily arise,
And lift itselfe unto the highest skyes?
More ample spirit than hetherto was wount
Here needes me, whiles the famous Auncestryes
Of my most dreaded Soveraigne I recount,
By which all earthly Princes she doth far surmount.
Ne under sunne that shines so wide and faire,
Whence all that lives does borrow life and light,
Lives ought that to her Linage may compaire;
Which though from earth it be derived right,
Yet doth itselfe stretch forth to hevens hight,
And all the world with- wonder overspred;
A labor huge, exceeding far my might!
How shall fraile pen, with fear disparaged,
Conceive such soveraine glory and great bountyhed!
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