Your own dear sake forc'd me at first to leave
My father's kingdom'-There she stopt with tears;
Her swollen heart her speech seem'd to bereave;
And then again begun; My weaker years,
Captiv'd to fortune and frail worldly fears,
Fly to your faith for succour and sure aid:
Let me not die in languor and long tears.'
'Why, dame,' quoth he, what hath ye thus dismay'd?
1 Affrights. What frayes1 ye, that were wont to comfort me
'Love of yourself,' she said, ' and dear constraint,
Lets me not sleep, but waste the weary night
In secret anguish and unpitied plaint,
Whiles you in careless sleep are drownéd quite.'
Her doubtful words made that redoubted Knight
Suspect her truth; yet since no' untruth he knew,
Her fawning love with foul disdainful spite
He would not shend;2 but said, 'Dear dame, I
rue,3
That for my sake unknown such grief unto you grew:
'Assure yourself, it fell not all to ground;
For all so dear, as life is to my heart,
I deem your love, and hold me to you bound:
Ne1 let vain fears procure your needless smart,
Where cause is none; but to your rest depart.'
Not all content, yet seem'd she to appease
Her mournful plaints, beguiléd of her art,
And fed with words, that could not choose but
please:
So, sliding softly forth, she turn'd as to her ease.
Long after lay he musing at her mood,
Much griev'd to think that gentle Dame so light,
For whose defence he was to shed his blood.
At last, dull weariness of former fight
Having yrockt asleep his irksome sprite,
That troublous dream gan freshly toss his brain
With bow'rs, and beds, and ladies' dear delight:
But, when he saw his labour all was vain,
With that misformed sprite he back return'd again.
The guileful great enchanter parts
The Redcross Knight from Truth:
Into whose stead fair Falsehood steps,
And works him woeful ruth.
By this the Northern Wagoner1 had set
His sevenfold team behind the stedfast star2
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
But firm is fixt, and sendeth light from far
To all that in the wide deep wand'ring are;
And cheerful chanticleer with his note shrill,
Had warned once, that Phoebus' fiery car
In haste was climbing up the eastern hill,
Full envious that night so long his room did fill:
When those accursed messengers of hell,
That feigning Dream, and that fair-forged Sprite,
Came to their wicked master, and gan tell
Their bootless pains and ill-succeeding night:
Who, all in rage to see his skilful might
Deluded so, gan threaten hellish pain
And sad Prosérpine's wrath, them to affright.
But, when he saw his threat'ning was but vain, He cast about, and searcht his baleful books again.
Eftsoones1 he took that miscreated Fair,
And that false other sprite, on whom he spread
A seeming body of the subtile air,
Like a young squire, in loves and lustihed
His wanton days that ever loosely led,
Without regard of arms and dreaded fight:
Those two he took, and in a secret bed,
Cover'd with darkness and misdeeming 2 night,
Them both together laid, to joy in vain delight.
Forthwith he runs with feignéd-faithful haste
Unto his guest, who, after troublous sights
And dreams, gan now to take more sound repast;
Whom suddenly he wakes with fearful frights,
As one aghast with fiends or damnéd sprites,
And to him calls; Rise, rise, unhappy swain,
That here wax old in sleep,3 whiles wicked wights
Have knit themselves in Venus' shameful chain:
Come, see where your false Lady doth her honour
stain.'
All in a maze he suddenly up start
With sword in hand, and with the old man went;
Who soon him brought into a secret part,
Where that false couple were full closely ment⭑
In wanton lust and lewd embracement:
Which when he saw, he burnt with jealous fire;
The eye of reason was with rage yblent;5
And would have slain them in his furious ire,
But hardly was restrainéd of that aged sire.
Returning to his bed in torment great,
And bitter anguish of his guilty sight,1
He could not rest: but did his stout heart eat,
And waste his inward gall with deep despite,
Irksome of life, and too long ling'ring night.
At last fair Hesperus in highest sky
Had spent his lamp, and brought forth dawning Then up he rose, and clad him hastily; [fly. The Dwarf him brought his steed: so both away do
Now when the rosy-finger'd Morning fair,
Weary of aged Tithone's saffron bed,
Had spread her purple robe through dewy air;
And the high hills Titan2 discoveréd;
The royal Virgin shook off drousyhed: 3
And, rising forth out of her baser bow'r,
Look'd for her Knight, who far away was fled,
And for her Dwarf, that wont to wait each hour:-
Then gan she wail and weep to see that woeful
stowre.4
And after him she rode with so much speed,
As her slow beast could make; but all in vain:
For him so far had borne his light-foot steed,
Prickéd with wrath and fiery fierce disdain,
That him to follow was but fruitless pain:
Yet she her weary limbs would never rest;
But every hill and dale, each wood and plain,
Did search, sore grievéd in her gentle breast,
He so ungently left her, whom she loved best.
But subtile Archimago, when his guests
He saw divided into double parts,
1 The
guilty sight he had seen.
And Una wand'ring in woods and forests,
(Th' end of his drift,) he prais'd his devilish arts,
That had such might over true-meaning hearts:
Yet rests not so, but other means doth make,
How he may work unto her farther smarts:
For her he hated as the hissing snake,
And in her many troubles did most pleasure take.
He then devis'd himself how to disguise;
For by his mighty science he could take
As many forms and shapes in seeming wise,
As ever Proteus to himself could make:
Sometime a fowl, sometime a fish in lake,
Now like a fox, now like a dragon fell;
That of himself he oft for fear would quake,
And oft would fly away. O who can tell
The hidden
power of herbs, and might of magic spell!
But now seem'd best the person to put on
Of that good Knight, his late beguiled guest:-
In mighty arms he was yclad1 anon,
And silver shield; upon his coward breast
A bloody cross, and on his craven crest
A bunch of hairs discolour'd diversely.
Full jolly Knight he seem'd, and well addrest; "
And, when he sate upon his courser free,
Saint George himself ye would have deemed him to
But he, the Knight, whose semblaunt2 he did
The true Saint George, was wand'red far away,
Still flying from his thoughts and jealous fear:
Will was his guide, and grief led him astray.
At last him chanc'd to meet upon the way
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