PROTHALAMION.

OR,

A SPOUSALL VERSE,

MADE BY

EDM. SPENSER,

In honour of the double marriage of the two honorable and vertuous ladies, the Ladie Elizabeth, and the Ladie Katherine Somerset, daughters to the right honorable the Earle of Worcester, and espoused to the two worthie gentlemen, M. Henry Gilford and M. William Peter, Esquyers.

25*

PROTHALAMION:*

OR,

A SPOUSALL VERSE.

CALME was the day, and through the trembling ayre Sweete-breathing Zephyrus did softly play

A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay 1

1

Hot Titans beames, which then did glyster fayre;

When I, (whom [whose] sullein care,

Through discontent of my long fruitlesse stay
In princes court, and expectation vayne
Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away,
Like empty shadows, did afflict my brayne,)

Walkt forth to ease my payne

Along the shoare of silver streaming Themmes;
Whose rutty 2 bank, the which his river hemmes,
Was paynted all with variable flowers,

1 Delay, temper, mitigate.

2 Rutty, rooty.

5

10

* "In the same year (1596) he produced his Prothalamion, in honor of the double marriage of Lady Elizabeth and Lady Catharine Somerset. This piece, though defective as a poem, contains a good deal of poetical imagery, but is chiefly distinguished for the peculiar melody of its stanzas." —Retrospective Review.

And all the meades adornd with dainty gemmes,
Fit to decke maydens bowres,

Against the brydale day, which is not long1:

Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.

15

There, in a meadow, by the rivers side,

A flocke of Nymphes I chaunced to espy,

20

All lovely daughters of the Flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untyde,
As each had bene a bryde;

And each one had a little wicker basket,

Made of fine twigs, entrayled 2 curiously,

In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,3
And with fine fingers cropt full feateously

The tender stalkes on hye.

25

Of every sort, which in that meadow grew,

They gathered some; the violet, pallid blew,

30

The little dazie, that at evening closes,

The virgin lillie, and the primrose trew,
With store of vermeil roses,

To deck their bridegroomes posies

Against the brydale day, which was not long:

35

Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.

With that I saw two Swannes of goodly hewe

Come softly swimming downe along the lee 5;
Two fairer birds I yet did never see;

The snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew,
Did never whiter shew,

40

1 Long, distant.

• Entrayled, interwoven.

3 Flasket, vessel, basket.

4 Feateously, dexterously.

5 Lee, stream.