10. Acrates: Anger, Intemperance. 13. The Palmer is not alone the defender of Guyon; he is here the counselor of the wrathful knights against themselves, urging them to temperance. 17. An armed knight: Arthur. 20. Which Merlin made: The enchanted sword is one of the "properties" of romance. The other name of Morddure is Excalibur. Medaewart: meadow-plant. 24. Arthur's courtesy is a lesson in temperance, self-restraint. 30. The treacherous attack of Pyrochles is the climax of his career of intemperance. Termagaunt: a legendary idol of the Saracens. 33. Mahoune: Mahomet. 35. So both attonce: The artistic effect is to make the fight more uncertain, therefore more interesting, and to enlist the sympathy of the reader on Arthur's side. CANTO XII The Bower of Bliss is another of the epic conventions (see note, Bk. ii, i, 51). The poet here pictures the most powerful temptation of the knight of Temperance. We should remember that Spenser is a Platonist, and believes that Beauty is the natural quest of the soul; Guyon would therefore be easily deceived by this paradise of false beauty, were he not constantly cautioned by the Palmer. 43. Those unruly beasts: The Bower of Bliss was guarded by wild beasts, which the Palmer tamed with his staff. 44. Jason and Medæa: Jason sailed in the Argo, with fifty Grecian heroes, to capture the Golden Fleece from Eetes, king of Colchis. He succeeded, with the help of the king's daughter, Medea, whom he married. When the king pursued them over the sea, Medea slew her brother, Absyrtus, and dropped the fragments of his body in the path of her father's ship. Eetes stopped to pick them up, and the fugitives escaped. Jason afterwards fell in love with Creusa, and the jealous Medea sent her a magic robe, which consumed her with fire. 46. A comely personage: not the true genius, Conscience, but the genius of intemperate pleasures. 50. The luxurious landscape is the first expression of intemperance. Flora: goddess of flowers. 52. Rhodope: a mountain in Thrace, where Dionysus was worshiped. Tempe: a valley in Thessaly. Parnasse: the home of Apollo and the Muses. 55. A comely dame: Drunkenness. 70. The music of Spenser's Bower of Bliss is perhaps its most remarkable characteristic. In this and the following stanza is gathered up all the music of the landscape, to be uttered again in the human song. The last line of 70 gives the theme of 71; notice how the images are linked, so as to give the effect of unbroken harmony. 74-75. This famous theme, common to all literature, here has its first notable expression in English poetry. It is practically a translation from Tasso (Ger. Lib., xvi, 14). A comparison with Herrick's more often quoted "Gather ye rosebuds" will show Spenser's far greater tenderness and human sympathy; he emphasizes the passing of youth, the decay of beauty, rather than the hard counsel to eat, drink, and be merry. 75. With equal crime: the most extraordinary example of Spens r's sacrifice of meaning for the sake of rhyme (see Introduction, p. xviii). There cannot be any sense of crime in the song, or its message would be contradicted. The original line in Tasso is quite unambiguous: amiamo or quando Esser si puote riamato amando. 82. Verdant: the youthful one; the type of nature that is rescued by Guyon's victory over Intemperance. BOOK III CANTO II The history of Britomart and Arthegall is the great lovestory of the Faerie Queene. Arthur is indeed in love with Gloriana, but his love adventures form no part of the poem. All the fortunes of Britomart, on the other hand, are involved in some way with her love for the knight of Justice. Britomart is derived through the epics, from the original legend of Amazons, women warriors; none of the earlier fighting maidens, however, with the possible exception of Camilla, in the Æneid, can compare with her in nobility and charm of character. 18. Ryence: King of Wales and Ireland, an enemy of Arthur's in Malory's version of the legend. 20. The Towre: Spenser is supposed to derive this incident from a medieval legend, which evidently combined the fame of the Pharos at Alexandria with the astronomer Ptolemy's repute as a magician. 25. Achilles armes, which Arthegall did win: Arthegall becomes more and more the human hero of the poem, as it progresses, and it is evidently Spenser's intention to give him something of the Homeric hero's splendor. In Arthegall Spenser idealizes his friend, Lord Grey. 26. The false archer: Cupid. BOOK IV CANTO VI 19. This famous passage illustrates the power of Beauty a doctrine that Spenser gets from Plato. Arthegall is conquered by the sight of Britomart's face. Cf. Par. Lost, ix 453-463. 20. Pactolus: Midas, an avaricious king, obtained from Bacchus his wish that everything he touched might be turned into gold. When this power became a curse, Bacchus told him to bathe in the Pactolus. The curse was removed, but the sands of the river turned into gold. A LETTER OF THE AUTHORS, EXPOUNDING HIS WHOLE INTENTION IN THE COURSE OF THIS To the Right Noble and Valorous SIR WALTER RALEIGH, KNIGHT, LORD WARDEIN OF THE STANNERYES,1 AND HER MAIESTIES LIEFETENAUNT OF THE COUNTY OF CORNEWAYLL. SIR, knowing how doubtfully all Allegories may be construed, and this booke of mine, which I have entituled the Faery Queene, being a continued Allegory, or darke conceit, I haue thought good, as well for avoyding of gealous opinions and misconstructions, as also for your better light in reading thereof, (being so by you commanded,) to discover unto you the general intention and meaning, which in the whole course thereof I have fashioned, without expressing of any particular purposes, or by accidents, therein occasioned. The generall end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline: Which for that I conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historical fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for variety of matter then for profite of the ensample, I chose the historye of King Arthure, as most fitte for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many mens former workes, and also furthest from the daunger of envy, and suspition of present time. In which I have followed all the antique Poets historicall; first Homere, who in the Persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governour and a vertuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in 1 Stannaries; tin-mines. 2 Incidental, as in "by-product." |