Twelfth Book for the history of the babe and the grievance against Acrasia. The hero of the Book is drawn as an honest, manly gentleman, tried as man is, but (fortified by the wise counsels of his calmer comrade) finally victorious over all temptations. And just as the episode of the bloody-handed babe brings before us the evil to be overcome, so does the Castle of Medina, in the second Canto, lay out the general principle which is to run through all morality, the Aristotelian principle that Virtue lies in the mean between the extremes of excess and defect. Yet even here the poet deviates from the philosopher. His 'defect,' the frowning Elissa, is not merely too little of the quality of which 'excess,' the gay Perissa, is too much; but each of them is a definite and independent obliquity. The one is too fond of pleasure; the other is too morose and gloomy. The knight, devoting himself to moderation, will be called on to contend now against the one, now against the other; for Spenser tacitly divides the moral trials of the knight into those of pleasure and those of pain; those of anger and spite, and those of idleness and license. The earlier Cantos deal with painful struggles against the passions of wrath and malignity, the latter ones with the passions of desire. We may say, in passing, that the episode of Braggadocchio and Trompart, in the third Canto, is intended both to be quasi-comic, as a foil to the grave nobleness of the hero, and also to complete the general treatment of the subject by adding a picture of cowardice and low knavery. It would have been impossible to have subjected Sir Guyon himself to temptations to that moral deficiency, the merest suspicion of which would have damaged the dignity of the knightly character. Braggadocchio is, therefore, drawn and left alone, after being contrasted with the splendid vision of the Virgin Queen. The serious business of the Book begins with the fourth Canto. There Guyon encounters and overcomes Fury and the hag Occasion; and we have in the episode of Phedon a pleasing if not original illustration of the evils against which the knight is now struggling-the evils of unbridled anger and revenge. The Book continues in the same strain: to Fury and Occasion succeed the varlet Strife and the fiery Pyrocles. But in the sixth Canto the transition to the other series of temptations begins in the introduction of Phaedria, the spirit of idleness. The Knight, after these toilsome struggles, falls into her hands, and is parted from the wise Palmer. This incident relieves the action, and also prepares the way for what is to come. The loose merriment of Phaedria, the love-song in praise of idleness, the floating island, the idle lake, the little gliding skippet,—all foreshadow the yet more soft and alluring beauties of the Bower of Bliss. With the sight of the agony and burning wounds of Pyrocles, the utter misery and pain of ungoverned wrath, this division of the Book comes to an end. Thus far Passion (τὸ θυμικόν); now Desire (τὸ ἐπιθυμητικόν). And first the temptations of wealth and ambition in Mammon's Cave, overcome by Guyon, but with so much stress on him that he lies senseless and as dead on his return to the upper air. In this condition he is attacked by the fiery brothers, Cymocles and Pyrocles, and would have perished had not Prince Arthur appeared to rescue him and to overthrow them finally. Then we have the Castle of the Soul, and the venomous assaults of its myriad foes, the twelve troops of temptation— five attacking the five senses, and seven representing the seven deadly sins-led by their gaunt captain Maleger. The curious and very dull episode of the British annals delays the action through a long Canto, and mars its unity and forward movement. But in the last two Cantos the struggle draws to its end. Arthur delivers the beleaguered soul, destroying the devilish captain and scattering the villains away; and Guyon, passing undismayed through many marvellous risks, reaches at last his goal the Bower of Bliss, and (thanks to a power guiding him stronger than himself) resists all the most subtle temptations of the flesh, and destroys for ever the charmed domains of luxury and intemperance. Thus in Mammon's Cave, the World is overcome; in the person of Maleger, Arthur resists the Devil; in Acrasia's bower, Guyon wrestles with the flesh, and prevails against it. So the three great enemies are smitten down, and the task is done. If the First Book drew the portrait of the English Christian, this Book may be said to draw that of the English gentleman, as Spenser conceived it. He says as much in the opening stanzas of the third Canto, where Braggadocchio cannot manage the steed. The thought also runs through the Book: on it are based the principles, the actions, even the temptations of the knight. Spenser draws with a loving hand the picture of a true Englishman doing his duty to God and his Queen, in the noble lines in which Belphoebe covers Braggadocchio with scorn. Those words may be regarded as the utterance of Queen Elizabeth herself, speaking for the re-awakened national life of this country. They are her protest against all lowness of aim, idleness, worldliness, self-indulgence. To be simple, industrious, truthful, pure-this is the ideal set before the Englishman, this is the moral teaching of the Book. Let this then be our excuse for laying this little volume before the students of English history and literature. It is essentially an ennobling book, giving us a full and admirable conception of the ideal of man's best estate as a moral agent, as it was understood in those days of the young life of this country. Add to this a nobility of tone and aim, a splendour of imagery never excelled, exquisite beauty of language, dignity of thought, evervaried incident, graphic touches of character, ceaseless variety of illustration and accessories, and we have a book well worthy to be ranked, forgotten though it has been, among the masterpieces of that age of masters. One word as to this edition. As before, the text is founded on the editions of 1590 and 1596, collated afresh by the Rev. W. H. Bliss, M. A., of the Bodleian Library. My best thanks are due to him for his valuable help, and for the extreme care with which he has secured the accuracy of the text. The natural rule in the case of two editions issued in an author's lifetime and under his eye, is to trust almost entirely to the later. But unfortunately this rule does not hold here. The edition of 1596 shows throughout signs of great carelessness and haste. It is full of misprints and errors: when it does make corrections they are often for the worse; and one is almost tempted to think that the edition of 1590, with its page of "Faults Escaped" at the end, would have been a safer guide by itself alone. It is possible that Spenser (who was far busier, probably, in 1596 than in 1590) confined his attention almost entirely to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Books, then for the first time appearinga. The Notes to this Book are bulkier than those to the First, in consequence of the very large amount of historical allusion, especially in the tenth Canto. I have tried to shorten them by omitting most of the explanations of idiomatic and peculiar phrases; thinking that many of them have been already given in the First Book; and also, indeed, believing that the student is not the better for being over-helped. The Glossary is also longer than I could have wished: but my excuse must be that old words, dying or dead, have a historical value in themselves, beside their interest as parts of language. I must add here, that both Notes and Glossary have had the very great advantage of the oversight of Professor Cowell, to whom this little book and I owe much. a The editio princeps, 1590, contains only the first three Books. THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE FAERY QUEENE CONTAYNING The Legend of Sir Guyon, or of Temperaunce. I RIGHT well I wote, most mighty soveraine, Of some th' aboundance of an idle braine Sith none, that breatheth living aire, does know Which I so much doe vaunt, yet no where show, But vouch antiquities, which nobody can know. 2 But let that man with better sence advize, B |