XLII

Now strike your sailes ye jolly Mariners,
For we be come unto a quiet rode,
Where we must land some of our passengers,
And light this wearie vessell of her lode.
Here she a while may make her safe abode,
Till she repaired have her tackles spent,°
And wants supplide. And then againe abroad
On the long voyage whereto she is bent:
Well may she speede and fairely finish her intent.

370

375

NOTES

Line 1. Lo I the man.

An imitation of the opening lines of

Vergil's Aeneid:

"Ille ego, qui quondam gracili modulatus avena
Carmen,.

...

Gratum opus agricolis, at nunc horrentia Martis."

Referring to his Shepheard's Calender (1579) Spenser thus gracefully indicates his change from pastoral to epic poetry.

5-9. Knights and Ladies. The poet here imitates the opening of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.

10. O holy virgin chiefe of nine, refers to Clio, the muse of history. Spenser should have invoked Calliope, the muse of epic poetry.

14. Of Faerie knights, the champions of Gloriana, the queen of Faerieland. fairest Tanaquill, a British princess, daughter of Oberon, king of Faerieland. In the allegory she is Queen Eliza

beth.

15. that most noble Briton Prince is Prince Arthur, the perfect knight, who is in love with Gloriana. In the allegory the Earl of Leicester is probably meant, though by one tradition Sir Philip Sidney is identified with Prince Arthur.

19. impe of highest Jove, Cupid, the god of love, and son of Jupiter and Venus. He is represented as armed with an ebony bow (1. 23).

25. triumphant Mart, Mars, the god of war. that of the Italians and Chaucer.

The spelling is

28. O Goddesse heavenly bright, Queen Elizabeth (aged 56), who was fond of such extravagant flattery, and expected it of all her courtiers.

31. Phoebus lampe, Apollo, the sun-god.

34. glorious type of thine, the Lady Una, who stands for Truth in the allegory.

35. The argument of mine afflicted stile, the subject of my humble pen. "Afflicted" has the original Latin sense of "cast

down."

36. O dearest dred, ✪ beloved object of reverence; a common salutation of royalty.

CANTO I

I. The Plot: At the bidding of Gloriana, the Redcross Knight undertakes to deliver Una's parents from a dragon who holds them captive. He sets out upon his quest attended by a dwarf and guided by Una, mounted on an ass and leading a lamb. They are driven by a storm into a forest, where they discover the cave of Error, who is slain by the Knight. They are then beguiled into the house of Archimago, an old enchanter. By his magic he leads the Knight in a dream to believe that Una is false to him, and thus separates them.

II. The Allegory: 1. Holiness, the love of God, united with Truth, the knowledge of God, is to deliver man from the thraldom of the Devil. Together they are able to overthrow Error; but Hypocrisy deceitfully alienates Holiness from Truth by making the latter appear unworthy of love.

2. There is a hint of the intrigues of the false Roman church and the treacherous Spanish king, Philip II, to undermine the religious and political freedom of the English people. The English nation, following the Reformed church, overthrows the Catholic faith, but is deceived by the machinations of Spanish diplomacy.

Line 1. A gentle Knight, the Redcross Knight, representing the church militant, and Reformed England. He is the young, untried champion of the old cause whose struggles before the Reformation are referred to in ll. 3, 4. His shield bore "a cross gules upon a field argent," a red cross on a silver ground. See The Birth of St. George in Percy's Reliques, iii, 3, and Malory's Morte d'Arthur, iii, 65.

15. For soveraine hope, as a sign of the supreme hope.

20. greatest Gloriana, Queen Elizabeth. In other books of The Faerie Queene she is called Belphoebe, the patroness of chastity, and Britomart, the military genius of Britain.

27. A Dragon, "the great dragon, that old serpent, called the devil," Revelation, xii, 9, also Rome and Spain. Cf. legend of St. George and the dragon, and Fletcher's Purple Island, vii seq. 28. a lovely Ladie, Una, the personification of truth and true religion. Her lamb symbolizes innocence.

46. a Dwarfe, representing prudence, or common sense; according to Morley, the flesh.

"By it Spenser

56. A shadie grove, the wood of Error. shadows forth the danger surrounding the mind that escapes from the bondage of Roman authority and thinks for itself.” — Kitchin. The description of the wood is an imitation of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, i, 37, Chaucer's Assembly of Foules, 176, and Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, iii, 75. Morley sees in this grove an allegory of man's life, the trees symbolizing trade, pleasure, youth, etc. 69. The sayling Pine. Ships were built of pine.

70. the Poplar never dry, because it grows best in moist soil.

71. The builder Oake. In the Middle Ages most manor houses and churches were built of oak.

72. the Cypresse funerall, an emblem of death among the ancients, and sacred to Pluto. Sidney says that they were wont to dress graves with cypress branches in old times.

73. The Laurell. Victors at the Pythian games and triumphing Roman generals were crowned with laurel. It was also sacred to Apollo, the god of poetry, hence "meed of poets sage."

74. the Firre that weepeth still. The fir exudes resinous substance.

75. The Willow.

"Willows: a sad tree, whereof such who have lost their love make their mourning garlands."-Fuller's Worthies, i, 153. Cf. Heywood's Song of the Green Willow, and Desdemona's song in Othello, IV, iii, 39.

76. The Eugh. Ascham in his Toxophilus tells us that the best bows were made of yew.

78. The Mirrhe, the Arabian myrtle, which exudes a bitter but fragrant gum. The allusion is to the wounding of Myrrha by her father and her metamorphosis into this tree.

79. The warlike Beech, because lances and other arms were made of it. the Ash for nothing ill. "The uses of the ash is one of the most universal: it serves the souldier, the carpenter, the wheelwright, cartwright, cooper, turner, and thatcher."- Evelyn's Sylva. The great tree Igdrasil in the northern mythology was an

ash.

81. The carver Holme, or evergreen oak, was good for carving. 106. shame were to revoke, etc., it would be cowardly not to go forward for fear of some suspected unseen danger.

114. the wandring wood, i.e. which causes men to go astray. 123. monster. The description of the monster Error, or Falsehood, is based on Hesiod's Echidna, Theog. 301, and the locusts in Revelation, ix, 7-10. She is half human, half serpent, because error is partly true and partly false. Dante's Fraud and Milton's Sin are similar monsters.

126. full of vile disdaine, full of vileness that bred disgust in the beholder.

130. Of her there bred, etc., of her were born a thousand young Her offspring are lies and rumors of many shapes.

ones.