Spenser, who scourged so fiercely the corruptions and superstitions of Catholicism, could appreciate none the less the glory and beauty of the old ideal. His face was set towards the future but he was no harsh iconoclast; he had a profound reverence for the past. He longed to take over with him into his Puritanism all that in the old religion was most vital and most profound.

There is one mediaeval author to whom Spenser is always, in all portions of his work, indebted and that one is Chaucer. Spenser's archaic language is very largely an imitation of Chaucer and a surprising number of his old and obsolete words are Chaucerian. The first book of the poem, like the others, is full of verbal reminiscences and there is also a certain amount of material which is directly embodied. Chaucer is fond of giving lists of birds and trees. In his account of the wood of Error, Spenser copies one of Chaucer's tree-lists1.

Chaucer has:

"The bilder ook and eek the hardy asshe;

The sayling firr; the cipres, death to pleyne
The sheter ew;

"The sayling Pine:

The vine-propp Elme:

The builder Oake, sole king of forrests all

.the Cypresse funerall !

The Laurell meede of mightie Conquerours

Again Spenser adopts a Chaucerian habit of noting time by the constellations and by the position of the stars. Chaucer gives both date and hour by astronomical method as in the Squire's Tale :

"Phebus the sonne ful joly was and cleer;

For he was neigh his exaltacioun

In Martes face, and in his mansioun
In Aries, the colerik hote signe."

In Chaucer's time these astronomical references served a real purpose; he was genuinely skilled in astronomy and, in days when almanacks were not generally available, it was a natural method of computation. Spenser employs the astronomical allusions purely and simply as an ornament but they are often exquisitely beautiful. We might observe that, whereas Chaucer gives both date and time, Spenser gives time only:

and

"By this the Northerne wagoner had set

His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre,
That was in Ocean waves yet never wet,

But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all, that in the wide deepe wandring arre1,"

"Now when Aldeboran was mounted hie

Above the shynie Cassiopeias chaire2."

It is interesting to note the transition from the businesslike accuracy of Chaucer to Spenser's romantic mythology.

The account of the dwelling of Morpheus is suggested by the very similar account of the house of Morpheus in Chaucer's Book of the Duchesse. Chaucer has:

This messager came flying faste,
And cryed, 'O ho! awak anon!

Hit was for noght; ther herde him non!'
'Awak' quod he, 'who is, lyth there?'
...This god of slepe, with his oon yë
Cast up, axed, 'who clepeth there ?

So Spenser:

"And more, to lulle him in his slumber soft,

A trickling streame from high rocke tumbling downe,
...No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,

As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne,

Might there be heard......

The messenger approching to him spake,

But his wast wordes returnd to him in vaine;

So sound he slept, that nought mought him awake1."

Spenser's description of the House of Pride probably owes something to Chaucer's description of the House of Fame; both are gorgeous erections but built upon an insecure and weak foundation, in Chaucer's case a mountain of ice, in Spenser's a hill of sand.

Chaucer says:

"This were a feble foundement

To bilden on a palace hye;

He ought him litel glorifye

That her-on built, god so me save.'

And Spenser has:

"It was a goodly heape for to behould,

...But full great pittie, that so faire a mould

Did on so weake foundation ever sit2."

Todd thinks that Spenser's description of Idleness as a monk may have been suggested by Chaucer's description of the idle monk in the Prologue, but this is hardly likely, for the chief characteristic of Chaucer's monk (humorously

alluded to by the Host) was his excessive fondness for hunting and hard riding-whereas Spenser says emphatically of his monk that he "greatly shunned manly exercise," though they are both alike in their indifference to religion; perhaps it would be fairer to say that Spenser marks a considerable step onward in the degradation of the religious orders; Chaucer's monk loves hard riding and dresses elegantly, whereas Spenser's "Idleness" is past all but sloth and licentiousness.

The description of Wrath, however, borrows many of its attributes from the misfortunes of Mars as described in the Knight's Tale.

Chaucer has :

"The cruel ire, reed as any glede;

...and eek the pale drede;

The smyler with the knyf under the cloke;
The treson of the mordring in the bedde;
Contek, with bloody knyf and sharp manace;
... Yet saugh I woodnesse, laughing in his rage;
Armed complaint, out-hees and fierce outrage."
And Spenser :

66

"And in his hand a burning brond he hath,

... His eyes did hurle forth sparkles fiery red.
...As ashes pale of hew and seeming ded;
And on his dagger still his hand he held,

Unmanly murder, and unthrifty scath,
Bitter despight, with rancours rusty knife;

Through unadvized rashnesse woxen wood1."

Arthur's love-story, as he himself narrates it, is plainly derived from the poem of Sir Thopas. It is curious to observe that the tale which Chaucer selects as a fitting subject for burlesque should be treated with entire seriousness by Spenser. Sir Thopas relates how that good knight rides out into the wood in search of adventures; he lies 1 IV 33-35.

down to rest and dreams that an elf-queen comes to him as his love and, when he awakes, he rides on in search of her. The closest parallels are :

"He prikketh thurgh a fair forest,

Spenser makes his Arthur tell how he was riding out one day :

66

Raunging the forest wide on courser free,

...For-wearied with my sports, I did alight

From loftie steed, and downe to sleepe me layd;
The verdant gras my couch did goodly dight,

...Me seemed, by my side a royall Mayd

Her daintie limbes full softly down did lay1:

And at her parting said, She Queene of Faeries hight.

From that day forth I lov'd that face divine;

...And never vow to rest, till her I find"."