of their own sleep." Chaucer has used a similar figure in deoribing the "dark valley" of sleep:

"A few wells

Came running from the cliffs adown,

That made a deadly sleeping soun."

The false dream, brought for the purpose of misleading the knight, is one in which the vile Duessa, disguised as Una, is made instrumental in deceiving him as to the character of his true lady. The knight seems credulous, as honest people are apt to be; but we can scarce forgive him for being persuaded to doubt Una. His weakness costs him dear; for the new effort of Archimago, with which the following Canto opens, succeeds so far as to make the Red Cross Knight flee away, leaving "the royal virgin" unprotected in the toils of the arch-hypocrite. The passage describing the artifice being simply disagreeable, it has been omitted.

CANTO II.

The guileful great enchanter parts

The Red Cross Knight from Truth:
Into whose stead fair Falsehood steps,
And works him woeful ruth.

I.

By this the northern wagoner had set
His sevenfold team behind the steadfast star
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
But firm is fixt, and sendeth light from far
To all that in the wide deep wandring are;
And cheerful chanticlere with his note shrill
Had warned once, that Phœbus fiery car,
In haste was climbing up the eastern hill,
Full envious that Night so long his room did fill:

II.

When those accursed messengers of hell,

That feigning Dream, and that fair-forged spright, 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 Prosérpines wrath, them to affright.
But, when he saw his threatening was but vain,

He cast about, and searcht his baleful books again.

*

*

*

*

*

The result is another vile deception, in which Duessa is made to wear the form of Una, to the confusion and horror of her true knight.

VI.

Returning to his bed in torment great,
And bitter anguish of his guilty sight,

He could not rest; but did his stout heart eat,
And waste his inward gall with deep despight,
Irksome of life, and too long lingring night.
At last fair Hesperus in highest sky

Had spent his lamp, and brought forth dawning light;
Then up he rose and clad him hastily;

The dwarf him brought his steed: so both away do fly.

VII.

Now when the rosy-fingered Morning fair,

Weary of aged Tithon's saffron bed,

Had spread her purple robe through dewy air;

And the high hills Titan discovered;

The royal virgin shook off drowsyhed:

And, rising forth out of her baser bower,

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.*

* Stowre, blow.

VIII.

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,
Pricked 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 grieved in her gentle breast,
He so ungently left her, whom she loved best.

IX.

But subtile Archimago, when his guests
He saw divided into double parts,

And Una wandring in woods and forests

(Th' end of his drift), he praised 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 further smarts:
For her he hated as the hissing snake,

And in her many troubles did most pleasure take.

X.

He then devised 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 pow'r of herbs, and might of magic spell!

XI.

But now seem'd best the person to put on
Of that good knight his late beguiled guest:-
In mighty arms he was yclad anon,
And silver shield; upon his coward breast
A bloody cross, and on his craven crest

A bunch of hairs discolourd 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 be.

XII.

But he, the knight, whose semblance he did bear,
The true Saint George, was wandred 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
A faithless Saracen, all arm'd to point,
In whose great shield was writ with letters gay
Sans foy; full large of limb and every joint
He was, and cared not for God or man a point.

XIII.

He had a fair companion of his way,

A goodly lady clad in scarlet red,

Purpled with gold and pearl of rich assay;
And like a Persian mitre on her head

She wore, with crowns and owches garnished,
The which her lavish lovers to her

gave:

Her wanton palfrey all was overspread

With tinsel trappings, woven like a wave,

Whose bridle rung with golden bells and bosses brave.