II proem antiqueancient antiqueAlso ‘antic’, meaning ludicrous or grotesque. Cf. Donne, Elegy 9, ‘The Autumnal’: ‘Name not these living death-heads unto me, / For these, not ancient, but antique be’ (43-4). This wordplay introduces an ambiguity that runs throughout the proem, which pretends to worry about whether Spenser’s fiction possesses the dignity and authority of antiquity or is merely a gothic extravagance. historynarrative historyIn early modern usage, either factual (the modern sense) or a purely imaginary (a common synonym for ‘story’). Of someby some no bodyAncticipating the contrast between faith in that which is unseen and knowledge that is available to the senses (the body), elaborated in st. 3 and 4. better senseAs opposed to those through which a 'body can know'; see 4.4n. advizeconsider redA favorite word of Spenser’s both for its convenience in rhyming and for its lexical range. Here primarily a synonym for its rhyming partner ‘discovered’, it also suggests the activities of conjecture, interpretation, declaration, and, of course, construal of a text. Its range is suggested by the way Spenser punningly enfolds the verb into its rhyming partners 'discover-red' and 'measur-red'. late agerecent ages, as opposed to antiquity Indian PeruEarly explorers had believed that Peru was India. By 1590 the difference was well understood. The passage thus suggests, through the rhyming play on ‘red’ and ‘discovered’ (with its accented last syllable), that Peru was initially both discover-read and misread. Amazons huge riverFrancisco de Orellana in 1541-42 was the first European to sail the Amazon. fruitfullest VirginiaNamed after Elizabeth in 1584. The epithet combines colonial motives, asserting the economic value of newly discovered lands, with a Protestant adaptation of the Virgin Mary’s paradoxical status as fecund virgin. 3.3-8Spenser is here imitating Ariosto, OF 7.1 and Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, Prol. 12-15. Spenser fuses these more or less playful references with an echo of Hebrews 11: 1: ‘Now faith is the grounde of things, which are hoped for, and the evidence of things which are not sene’; the rest of chapter 11, an extended definition of faith, is evoked more broadly in the proem. Hamilton 2001 also notes a reminiscence of Giordano Bruno’s astronomical speculations in the 1584 treatise De l'Infinito Universo e Mondi (‘On the Infinite Universe and Worlds’). This fusion of literary, religious, and scientific allusions creates an ambiguous, distinctively Spenserian tonal irony. misweenemisconceive, suppose incorrectly happilyby chance or good fortune certein signesCf. John 4: 48: ‘Then said Jesus unto Him, Except ye se signes and wonders, ye wil not beleve’. Extends the resonance of the allusion to Hebrews in st. 3 above. here settMay refer to the positioning of words in a piece of writing or to the setting of type on the page. sondrie placePlaying the geographical sense of ‘place’ against its use as the designation for a passage in a text, familiar from the glosses to the Geneva Bible. ‘Place’ in this sense is a vernacular equivalent for the more learned expression loci communes. sencePowers of interpretation (cf. 2.1, 'with better sense, and 3.4, ‘witless man’), but playing also on the five senses, or ‘wits’ and the ‘common sense’ that synthesizes them (thus Thomas Wilson 1553 says that ‘The common sense...is therefore so called, because it geveth judgement, of al the five outwarde senses’ [112]). These ‘outward’ or bodily senses were contrasted with the ‘inward sense’, i.e. faculties of mind or spirit. This ambiguity concentrates into a single word the playful pretense that Faeryland is a geographical location like Peru, able to be discovered by the outward senses, rather than a textual ‘place’ (4.2n) accessible only to the intellect. n'otemight not n'otepseudo-Chaucerian contraction for ‘ne mote’, might not. (See glossary entry.) fine footingElusive tracks or artful metricsan ambiguity parallel to those of ‘red’, ‘place’, and ‘sence’. The line may thus be paraphrased ‘That can’t track fancy (poetic) footwork without a bloodhound’. In 1596 Spenser will repeat the pun on ‘footing’, referring to Faeryland as ‘these strange waies, where never foote did use, / Ne none can find, but who was taught them by the Muse’ (VI.pr.2.7-9). fayrestSpenser more than once links ‘faery’ (4.1, 8) to ‘fayre’ (4.7) and ‘fayrest’ as if it expressed the comparative degree of a beauty whose superlative is embodied in the queen (cf. 1.pr.2.5). This ambiguity cuts against the wordplay elsewhere in the proem that tends to disembody Faeryland, and thus implies that it can be ‘red’ in both senses (intellectually as well as corporeally; see 4.4n) only in Elizabeth. this fayre mirrhourA favorite metaphor of Spenser’s, elaborated in all but one of the proems and in many other texts; for examples, see Am 7 and 45, HL 196, and HB 181, 224. Here its seeming simplicity is complicated by the association between ‘fayre’ and ‘Faery’, by the implication that Elizabeth is the mirror in which Faeryland may be ‘red’, and by the assertion in the immediately following lines that Faeryland reflects the past as well as the present. 4.7-9According to early modern constitutional theory, the monarch possesses two ‘bodies’: the personal body of the mortal individual and the undying ‘body politic’, through which the monarch personifies the realm. These lines evoke the body personal in Elizabeth’s ‘face’ and the body politic in her ‘realmes’, concluding with her lineage, which traces the genealogy of each. covert veleEchoes biblical accounts of Moses veiling his face to temper the ‘glory’ or radiance that shone from it after he spoke with God (Exod. 34: 30). At 2 Cor. 3: 13 St. Paul reinterprets the passage allegorically, suggesting that what Moses hid was not the radiance but its fading. If there is also a glance at the legal term femme covert (the legal status, or rather non-status, of a married woman), it would carry strong irony, given the queen’s unmarried state. Both vele and shadowes echo standard Renaissance discussions of fiction in general and of allegory in particular. shadowes lightShadows that are rivial or facetious (continuing the pretense from st. 1 that fiction is somehow disreputable), in contrast to the rhyming use (at 5.5) as illumination. But the paradox of ‘shadowes light’ reintroduces the sense of illumination as a secondary reference, and it thus plays against the superficial sense of ‘light’ as trivial. ruleThe term has a range of meanings here, among them the fundamental principle of temperance, the body of writings that make up its lore, the standard by which it is measured, and its reign or governance. goodly doth appeareCf. ‘to some appeare’ (3.9). This verbal echo belongs to the pattern of contrasts running throughout the language of the proem, suggesting that Temperance will ‘appear’ to the inward rather than the outward senses. This suggestion is reinforced by the rhyming partner ‘heare’(5.8), since hearing Guyon’s adventures is an activity of the common sense whereas the rule of Temperance can appear only to the intellect (see 4.4n). II.iv Furor madness fueled by anger Furor Aquinas writes that ‘the first reaction of anger is called wrath; enduring anger is called ill-will; when it seeks an opportunity for revenge it is [furor] . . . the Greek word thymosis [θύμωσις] which in Latin becomes furor, may imply both quickness to anger and a firm intention to obtain revenge’ (Summa I, qu. 21, art. 108-11, translation modified). occasion See OED for the personification of Occasion in 15th- to 17th-c usage, typically as a figure representing opportunitya commonplace that dates back to late antiquity in the Roman poets Ausonius and Phaedrus, appears in the Greek Anthology, and is illustrated in contemporary emblem books such as Whitney (1586, no. 181, In Occasionem). Given the extended allegory of baptism, sin, and the law in canto i, with its texture of allusions to Romans 5-7, the mention of ‘occasion’ here will also recall Paul’s celebrated definition of the law as the ‘occasion’ of sin (Rom 7:8); the provocative inversion of causality on which Paul insists (the law creates sin) foreshadows the repeated compounding of cause and consequence in this episode. Phaon (Phedon 1596)Phaon is the young man addressed by Sappho in Ovid’s Heroides 15. Phedon is mentioned by Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae 2.18) and by Ficino (In convivium 6.16) as a handsome young man rescued by Socrates from sexual slavery. vulgar . . . seedthe common people pretencepurpose or intention bornecarried, born native influencebirth rather than training native influence‘Seed’ and ‘blood’ stress ancestry, but ‘influence’ also suggests the effect of the stars at nativity. skill to rideEtymologically, chivalry, originally a synonym for ‘cavalry’, but in extended use a term for both the military skills and the ethos of gallantry specific to armed knights in the late Middle Ages. faine‘pretend’ (feign), with a play on ‘wish’ (fain) menagehandle menageAs a noun, ‘menage’ names the ability both to ride horses and to train them. 2.2The repetition of ‘menage’ emphasizes the allegorical connection, reinforced by the ambiguity of the pronoun ‘his’, between the knight’s horse and the knight’s passionate nature. Cf. the tensions in the opening procession of Book I, where Una rides slowly on a donkey while Redcrosse both spurs his steed and reins it in, or in the first canto of Book II, where Guyon rushes ahead leaving the Palmer behind. Such passages reflect the tradition descending from Plato’s Phaedrus in which the passions are represented as a horse resistant to the bit (cf. 34.1-2, ‘most wretched man / That to affections does the bridle lend’). Here the passion in question is pride, humbled by the need to go on foot; in canto i, it was anger leading to haste. yeedgo yeedIn ME, ‘yeed’ is the past tense of ‘go’; the infinitive ‘to yeed’ appears only in pseudo-archaic usage by 16th-c poets. slidego astray 2.6-9Cf. the Palmer’s moralization of the polarity of strength and weakness at i.57.7-9; both passages reflect Aristotle’s concept of virtue as a mean between the excess and deficiency of a given quality (Nic Eth 2.6-9). 3.2,5See 10.2-5n. Spenser’s equivocations echo the simile describing Aeneas’s glimpse of Dido in the underworld: qualem primo qui surgere mense / aut vidut aut videsse putat per nubila lunam (‘even as, in the early month, one sees or fancies he has seen the moon rise amid the clouds’; Aen 6.454). Milton echoes this echo in a conspicuously Spenserian moment at the close of PL 1, when ‘Some belated peasant sees / Or dreams he sees’ a fairy dance by moonlight (781-88). agreeconciliate in hast it to agreeFor Guyon’s tendency to respond ‘in haste’, see i.13.1-2, i.39.2, ii.25.1, and especially ii.21.6-7. 3.5-7In ‘Slander, A Warning’ (an essay widely known in the Renaissance), Lucian describes a painting by Apelles that shows Slander ‘haling a youth by the hair’ (Works 4.2). He explains that Apellesfalsely accused of conspiracy and nearly executedtransformed his experience into an allegorical painting. For a full account of the Renaissance literary and pictorial tradition to which Lucian’s brief essay gave rise, see Cast 1981. st. 4-5 Spenser’s allegorical portrait of the ‘wicked Hag’not named until the Palmer identifies her as Occasion at 10.9draws upon literary and iconographic traditions for several related figures, including Occasion, Penitence, Fortune, Envy, Discord, and Punishment. Within these traditions, the attributes, appearances, and accoutrements of such figures continually alter as the concepts they embody are redefined. Kiefer (1979), for example, describes the gradual conflation of Fortune with Occasion in the literature, emblems, paintings, and imprese of the Italian Renaissance, as the medieval view of an arbitrary force imposed upon largely passive victims yields to a rival conception of Fortune as a variable set of conditions to be met and mastered by the resourceful human agent. Occasion is regularly depicted in emblems as a naked young woman with winged heels, not a lame hag clothed in rags. The lameness of Spenser’s hag in 4.3 may echo a verse from Horace used by Van Veen in Horatii Flacci Emblamata (Plate 27a): raro antecedentem scelestum / deseruit pede Poena claudo (‘Punishment with her lame foot rarely forsakes the fleeing criminal’; Odes III.ii.31-32); it may also echo Homer, who says that the sharp-tongued detractor Thersites was ‘bandy-legged and lame in one foot’ (Il 2.217). See Var 2.225-27 and Manning and Fowler (1976). Beyond these echoes, Spenser recombines elements from at least three sources, Lucian, Ausonius, and Boiardo. From Lucian he takes the image of the young man dragged by the hairtransferring it from Calumny, a beautiful woman, to his ‘mad man’. (The theme of calumny will resurface when this young man’s story is revealed). Unlike Calumny, Spenser’s ‘wicked Hag’ comes stalking after the young man dragged by his hair, in the place of Lucian’s Penitence. As a provocateur in this oddly trailing position, she reflects a persistent motif in canto iv wherein temporal sequences are reversed. In Ausonius, Epigram 33, Occasio and Metanoea (Regret) appear together as a before-and-after pair. Boiardo offers a similar conception: Orlando, failing to grasp the forelock of Fata Morgana, is set upon by a hag with a flail who identifies herself as ‘Penitenza’ (OI II.ix.1-20). The forelock is a familiar attribute of Occasion, as in the proverb ‘Seize occasion (opportunity, time) by the forelock’ (Smith 1970, no. 777) and in the emblem tradition illustrating it, e.g. Whitney’s In occasionem: ‘What meanes longe lockes before? that suche as meete / Maye houlde at firste, when they occasion finde. / The head behinde all balde, what telles it more? / That none shoulde houlde, that let me slippe before’ (lines 9-12; see arg.2n). Spenser joins the forelock of opportunity to the abusive speech of Calumny, the ‘vengeaunce’ visited upon her victims by Punishment, and the trailing position of Penitence. This conception mingles figures of consequence with those of cause, suggesting, for example, a connection between the youth dragged along by his hair in st. 3 (consequence) and the forelock (st. 4) by which ‘cause is caught’ (44.6). This compounding of before-and-after reflects the broad irony by which characters in the canto, having mistaken an allegorical figure for the causes of wrath (arg.2n) as the conventional emblem of an opportunity to be grasped, find themselves pursued by the uncontrolled fury they have sought (cf. 32.1n). 4.1-2Cf. Lucian’s description of Penitence, as translated by Melanchthon: A tergo, lugubri habitu, pullata laceraque Poenitentia subsequitur (‘Following behind in mourning guise, black-robed and with torn hair, comes [I think he named her] Repentance’). Bull conjectures that Spenser read pullata as ‘filthy’ rather than ‘black’ (1997, n10). n'otecould not, a contraction of ‘ne mote’ walke‘move briskly’ (unlike her feet) raught him‘brought him’, from ME past tense of ‘reach’ in the sense of ‘give, pass’ (OED) impetuousrash impetuousSee ii.21.5-9n for Guyon’s previous effort to pacify with force. mighty handsCf. Medina’s contrast between ‘mighty hands’ and ‘rightful cause’ at ii.29.8-9. 6.8The madman’s lack of governance (7.2) is anticipated here in the disarticulated flailing of his hand-to-hand combat, which resembles a tantrum. wistknew avengementTrisyllabic. micklemuch governaunceSee i.29.9n for the link to Guyon’s rash anger in the opening episode of Book II. wydeEchoing the efforts of passion ‘from the right way . . . to draw him [Guyon] wide’ (2.7). blentblinded reason blent through passionCf. I.ii.5.7, ‘The eie of reason was with rage yblent’. at randomRandomly; from OF randir to run fast, hence also impetuously (cf. 6.3). menaging / Of armesskilled handling of weapons menaging / Of armesCf. 1.9, 2.2; Guyon’s skill is contrasted to the madman’s lack of governance (7.2). nathemoenot at all more enfiercedprovoked to greater fierceness 8.8-9The first of several suggestions that in wrestling with the figure of rage Guyon wrestles himself. villein . . . clownishpeasant . . . rustic villein . . . clownishCf. the emphasis on social class in st. 1, and note the contrast between ‘clownish fistes’ and ‘manly face’. in the placeright then and there in the placeFor the figurative treatment of space in this episode, see 32.4n. emboylingboiling, agitated unbraceloosen 10.2-5Echoing the equivocations at 3.2 and 3.5, the Palmer tells Guyon that he only ‘seems to see’ Furor. Having personified both Furor and Occasion as embodied agents whose features, actions, and accoutrements call for interpretation, the allegory now insists they are not really embodied agents after all. Spenser’s allusion to the ‘Calumny of Apelles’ topos, with its emphasis on the artistic processes of embodiment and depiction (see 3.5-7n), anticipates this self-conscious undoing of personification. The Palmer’s decoding sheds light as well on the motif of inverted cause and consequence (st. 4-5n), which complements the transposition of self and other whereby Guyon misreads his own affective state as an embodied adversary (8.8-9n). 10.6-9Here as often, names are disclosed not when a character first appears, but in a climactic moment, to signal that the character’s nature has been revealed. In this instance, the moment of naming confirms an interpretation in which personification as such is revealed to be a symptom of rage. 10.9The Palmer seems less concerned that Guyon repress anger’s consequences than that he discern its causes. To disentangle self from other in dealing with rage is also to clarify the relation of causes to consequences. St.11Cf. 2 Cor 11:12: ‘that I may cut away occasion, from them which desire occasion’. The Palmer’s advice that anger needs to be prevented (L pre + venire, to come before) arrives belatedly, much as Occasion, with whom he says Guyon ‘Must first begin’, trails after the fury she provokes, introduced with the words ‘And him behynd’ (4.1). On the episode’s play with hysteron proteron, see the notes to 10.2-5 and st. 4-5. amenagedomesticate amenageFrom ménage as household, but cf. 1.9, 2.2, and 8.3-4. The emergence of this term as a motif underlines the allegory of horsemanship as anger-management. coragewrath eatheasy ydleunoccupied woodmad 11.9Blocking a river without stopping its source will cause it to flood. Cf. Smith (1970, no. 731), ‘The stream (current, tide) stopped swells the higher’, and Prov 17:14, ‘The beginning of strife is as one that openeth the waters; therefore or [ere] the contention be medled with, leave off’. The Palmer’s advice points to the consequences (flooding) of not attending to causes (stopping the source). empriseundertaking hentseized 12.2-3Belatedly realizing the proverb ‘to seize occasion by the forelock’ (Manning and Fowler 1976: 264). n'ould she stentshe would not cease n’ould she stentn’ould’ is a contraction of ‘ne would’, ‘stent’ a form of ‘stint’. heGuyon an yron lockEvoking the branks, or scold’s bridle, ‘a kind of iron framework to enclose the head, having a sharp metal gag or bit which entered the mouth and restrained the tongue’ (OED). the last helpBoth Furor and (as lines 4-5 retroactively suggest) the hands she uses to summon him. notecould not defasteundone defasteThe sense ‘destroy, demolish’ reflects the Latin roots of the word (de + facere, to make, to do). Given the canto’s emphasis on allegorical personification, the sense ‘mar the face, disfigure’, with its proximate etymology in Fr deffacer (de + face, face), suggests that Furor’s defeat is accomplished by undoing the personfication that had given a face and body to an affective state. at earstpromptly quailddaunted re’nforcedreinforced hundred yron chaines . . . And hundred knotsSee Jupiter’s prophecy of the Augustan pax in Virgil: Furor impius intus / saeva sedens super arma et centum vinctus aënis / post tergum nodis fremet horridus ore cruento (‘within, impious Rage, sitting on savage arms, his hands fast bound behind with a hundred brazen knots, shall roar in the ghastliness of blood-stained lips’; Aen 1.294-96). strakesstreaks 15.5-6Wrath’s eyes similarly give off sparks of fire in the House of Pride (I.iv.33.5-6). 15.5-9The red of Furor’s eyes, the copper of his hair, and the yellow- or orange-brown of his beard are all conventional signs of an irascible temperament. Humoral theory ascribed this temperament to an excess of choler, called ‘yellow bile’ and often associated with the color red. rankextreme Guyon Furor had captivdOn the episode’s deliberate confounding of self and other, see notes to 8.8-9 and 10.2-5. The question whether Guyon will ‘captive’ Furor or be ‘captivd’ by him has been the crux of the passage; here, the juxtaposition of names underlines the reversibility of the syntax even as context resolves the question. lying on ground, all soild with blood and mireThe posture of this ‘wretched Squire’ echoes that of the prostrate Mortdant in canto i: cf. ‘the soiled gras’ upon which ‘the dead corse of an armed knight was spred, / Whose armour all with blood besprincled was’ (41.1-3). respyreLiterally, to breathe; figuratively, ‘To breathe again, after distress, trouble, etc.; to recover hope, courage, or strength’ (OED). recuredCombining the senses of ‘cured’ and ‘recovered’. caytivesWretch’s, villain’s, but the more specific sense ‘captive’s’, followed by the doubling of ‘thrall’, emphasizes the circularity of Furor as a form of self-captivity or self-defeat. St. 17-35The following inset narrative derives from Ariosto (OF 4.42-6.61) and reappears in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (see Evans 2010 on the relations among the three texts). Spenser’s is the only version related in the first person. Tales of friendship destroyed by love (or love destroyed by false friendship) have a distinguished history that includes Chaucer’s ‘Knight’s Tale’ and Shakespeare’s Othello. The story recalls Archimago’s use of a fabricated tale and a disguised female to provoke Guyon at II.i.9-30, and his earlier use of disguised sprights to enrage Redcrosse at I.ii.3-6. 17.2-5These lines introduce a self-exculpating motive that reappears throughout the squire’s tale. whelmingengulfing whelmingIn earlier usage, the mention of Fortune refers to the downward turn of her wheel; the sense of submerging under water also recalls Fortune’s association with the sea in the emblem books. Using the term to describe her ‘lap’ may recall the Palmer’s complaint to Gloriana that the ‘wicked Fay’ Acrasia had ‘many whelmd in deadly paine’ (ii.43.3-4), especially as it anticipates the reiterated association of the Bower of Bliss with various female laps (v.36.3, vi.14.6-7, vi.15.4-5, xii.76.9). Fortuna and Occasion were sometimes described as beautiful (or depicted as nude) to emphasize their potentially deceptive allure. weake wretchEither one who is helpless and miserable or one who is morally feeble and hence contemptible. mischiefemisfortune trechtrick trechNot in OED; probably formed from ME ‘treche’, to deceive or betray. The c-rhymes in this stanza are revised or corrected in 1596, replacing ‘her guileful trech’ with ‘through occasion’ to rhyme with ‘weakest one’ and ‘light upon’. 18.3The shared breast of their nurse identifies the two as foster-brothers. Attoncetogether It was my fortuneEchoes both the opening of st. 18, ‘It was a faithless Squire’, and the emphasis on fortune and ‘hap’ in st. 17. The squire, who characterizes ‘Misfortune’ in terms of female sexual allure (17.5n) even though he knows his male friend to be the source of the ‘guilful trech’ (17.8) that brought him to mischief, fails even now to distinguish his fortune from his misfortune. partakeinform Philemon From Gr φιλήμων philema (‘affectionate’). A common Greek proper name, it became the title of ‘The Epistle of Paul to Philemon’ and hence a Christian name of some currency in 16th-c England. privitiepersonal business, intimacy, or secrets gracefavor graceCf. ‘gratious’ (20.4), meaning courteous or benevolent, with a secondary sense of charming or pleasing. Affyauncebetrothal mariage makeCf. Epith 216-17: ‘sacred ceremonies . . . / The which do endlesse matrimony make’. falservery false towardapproaching towardThe related sense ‘favorable or propitious’ is also relevant. assyndallotted distaind her honorable bloodstained her family’s honor staypause stayPhaon’s diction in this stanza is marked by legalisms, including treason, assynd, bynd, and stay. sadRelevant senses include wise, discreet, sober, grave, mature, sorrowful, and distressing. infixedUsed twice previously in the poem, both times to describe the action of stinging, first by Errour’s brood (I.i.23.6) and then by the Dragon in Eden (I.xi.11.8). Cf. ‘out wrest’ (23.5) and ‘mortall sting’ (33.5). engreeved‘filled with grief’ engreevedGiven the legal coloring of Phaon’s diction in this passage, the sense ‘made into a grievance, taken as a ground of accusation’ may be relevant (OED). sacred bandCf. 18.6. Phaon’s language reflects a set of attitudes and social practices characteristic of early modern friendship in one of its specific forms: a learned tradition, with classical and medieval roots, in which the formal exchange of vows solemnizes a degree of intimacy, intensity of affect, and sense of mutual obligation that modern custom more often reserves to the marriage relation or domestic partnership. boordedapproached boultedsifted boultedThe proverb means that Philemon has found out the truth. Spenser may be echoing Chaucer, CT Nun’s Priest 7.3240: ‘But I ne kan nat bulte it to the bren’. groome of base degreeA groom is a serving-man or other male of inferior position. Phaon and Philemon have both been identified as squires (16.2, 18.1), a rank just below knighthood. The distance between Phaon’s rank and that of the groom is real, then, but may be less than the distance between himself and his lady of ‘great degree’. His phrasing recalls the ME romance ‘The Squire of Low Degree’, which similarly turns on a deception that keeps the squire apart from his beloved, the king’s daughter. partener Paramourepartner by way of sexual desire partener ParamoureThe adverbial sense of ‘Paramoure’ reflects its derivation from OF par amour, by or through love. Spenser here plays the sexual sense against the polite usage in which it meant ‘for the sake of love’ or ‘if you please’. Partener glances at its synonym ‘parcener’, familiar in such standard legal phrases as ‘parcener per le cours de commune ley’ and ‘parcener per le custome’ (partner in the course of common law, partner by custom). Spenser’s mock-legalese implies that the ‘groome of base degree’ is a ‘parcener per amour’, that is, a joint tenant in Claribell by virtue of an adulterous liaison. thatthat which nearer movemore closely affect gracelesseUnregenerate, lacking decency; cf. 21.1, 20.4, and 25.4, ‘more pleasing to appeare’. embosomecherish; conceal Pryene From L prae, before, + iens, going. Gr πῦρ pyr (‘fire’) is also suggested by the reference to ‘blazing pride’ at 26.3. Note the alliterative link to ‘proud through praise’ at 27.1. 25.7-9Cf. 17.4-8, 19.1 for the recurrent emphasis on fortune. defaceoutshine defaceImmediate context suggests the sense ‘outshine by contrast’, but the word and its etymology also link Phaon’s tale to the preceding episode’s concern with the poetics of ‘impersonation’ (see 14.3n). blentblinded blentCf. 7.7. She blinds ‘their blazing pride’ by outshining it. In ME the verb can also mean to conceal or put out of sight. Claribell From L clara, famous or bright, and bella, beauty. as thou artThe rhyming pair (‘all her art’) pointedly contrasts the being ascribed to Pryene with the artifice attributed to Claribellironically, since Pryene will soon be dressed in Claribell’s identity. 26.8Pryene’s impersonation of Claribell, mingling social advancement with pride in ‘gorgeous geare’, recalls the themes of Braggadocchio’s knightly imposture in the previous canto (see esp. iii.5) as well as the emphasis throughout this canto on the trope of allegorical personification. treachourtraitor; deceiver treachourAt 17.8 Phaon ascribed the ‘guilful trech’ to Fortune; here he more properly ascribes it to Philemon, but the accusation still serves to shift his own guilt onto another. did removeHamilton suggests ‘moved again’ (2001), although OED does not record such a usage. Alternatively, Phaon may be saying that Philemon ‘transferred’ the deception to him; ‘Me leading’ suggests that Phaon is as much self-deceived as betrayed by another. enginplot, scheme 27.6Phaon does not recognize himself as the subject of ‘his’ tragedy. properown weendsupposed assaydafflicted assaydAccording to OED influenced by ‘assail’. 28.8-9‘I would rather suffer death ten thousand times than the pain of jealousy and the shame of disgrace’. deathesDisyllabic. priefeProof, test. The action of passing through (‘proving’) death is central to Book II, from the allegorical tableau of Mortdant and Amavia in canto i to Guyon’s swoon in canto viii and Arthur's confrontation with Maleger in canto xi. gealous wormeserpent of jealousy repriefedisgrace chawingchewing, ruminating 29.6-7‘For when, asked the cause of my outrageous deed, I laid out [my justification] for all to see . . .’. 30.1-5The movement from ‘my selfe’ to ‘him’, reinforced by the repetition of ‘first’, shows Phaon displacing the cause of his ‘hellish fury’ to a source outside himself, in keeping with the self-exculpatory motives of his tale. In replacing himself with another as the source of his rage, Phaon enacts the reversal central to the allegory in this canto (see 10.2-5n). vengeable despightcruel injury vengeable despightSuggesting an outrage that calls for vengeance (cf. 29.2). faytourimpostor washt away his guiltSardonic reference to absolution. In a Book marked by failed absolutions (Ruddymane in canto ii, Pilate in canto vii), Phaon’s poison is the one instance of efficacious ‘washing’. 31.4-5Playing on the Latin etymology of the name (see 25.6n). first . . . lastIn a canto filled with reversals of sequence (see 4-5n and 10.2-5n), Pryene’s move from first to last in Phaon’s program of vengeance suggests that he imagines himself to be working back from consequences to causes (see 30.1-5n). That his confidence is deluded may be suggested by the phrase ‘poursewing my fell purpose’, which implies that he is chasing his own anger. ghastly dreriment‘Dreriment’ is coined by Spenser from ‘dreary’, by analogy to merry/merriment; synonyms are ‘drerihed’ and ‘dreriness’. ‘Dreriment’ appears 12 times in FQ, and is ‘ghastly’ a third of the time. enforstcompelled; reinforced 32.1The rage that ‘enforst’ Phaon’s flight takes embodied form as the ‘mad man’ who pursues him. This emergence of the allegorical personification out of passionate delusion reverses, and retroactively explains, the Palmer’s earlier undoing of the personification allegory (see notes to 10.2-5 and 10.9). TillSpenser often uses temporal succession to imply causality. in middle spaceAllegorically the place where extremes are moderated (see ii.20.3); also the rhetorical space in which the relations of first/last, cause/effect, and self/other are subject to chiasmus, or reversal. 32.5The pattern of self/other reversal is mirrored in the chiasmus of the pronoun sequence ‘I her . . . he me’. sore chauffedseverely chafed; raged 32.8The metaphor acknowledges that Furor’s power arises from Phaon’s ‘heat’. me doen to dyethey have almost killed me stubborne handelingruthless treatment mortalldeadly mortallAlso, characteristic of mortal existence; capable of depriving the soul of grace (as in ‘mortal sin’). diseasdAfflicted with illness, but the rhyme-partner ‘easd’ calls attention to the broader meaning implicit in the etymology: deprived of comfort, tormented. St. 34For the polarity of strength and weakness as central to temperance, cf. i.57.7-8, ‘The strong it weakens with infirmitie, / And with bold fury armes the weakest hart’, and ii.31.3, ‘Weake she makes strong, and strong thing does increace’. affectionspassions the bridle lendSee 2.2n. betimesspeedily; before it is too late perfectmature or complete perfectFrom L perfectus, fully grown 34.7-8Cf. xi.1.1-4 and the attacks on Alma’s castle in cantos ix and xi. St. 35Abraham Fraunce quotes these lines in full in Arcadian Rhetoric (1588, E3r) as an example of polyptoton, ‘the repetition of a word in different cases or inflections within the same sentence’ (OED). The four passions on which the elaborate patterning of the syntax is based correspond to the four humors: wrath to choler, jealousy to phlegm, grief to black bile, and love to blood. do thus expellThis and the verb phrases in lines 6-8 are to be construed as imperatives; cf. Col. 3:8: ‘But now put ye away even all these things, wrath, angre, maliciousnes’. filthlust; sins of the flesh 35.4-5‘The fire bred from sparks, the weed bred from a little seed, the flood bred from drops, and filth bred the Monster’. The lines employ a version of zeugma known as syllepsis: three intransitive clauses are paralleled with a fourth transitive clause, all linked by zeugma to the verb ‘breede’. The effect, in an episode concerned with reversals of sequence, is unsettling. delayallay; dilute or temper outweedweed out mischiefeCf. the squire’s self-exculpating accusation against ‘Misfortune’ at 17.8, and ‘Unlucky’ in line 1. governaunceCf. Guyon’s ‘goodly governaunce’ (i.29.8n) and Furor’s manifest lack of it (7.2). 36.4-5Cf. John 5:14, ‘Sinne no more, least a worse thing come unto thee’. readtell advauncebring forth; raise up Phaon Ovid's Sappho, yearning for Phaon, laments Uror, ut indomitis ignem exertibus Euris / fertilis accensis messibus ardet ager (‘I burnas burns the fruitful acre when its harvests are ablaze, with untamed east-winds driving on the flame’; Heroides 15.9-10). advaunceWith tendentious senses implied: extol, promote, elevate, put forward as a claim. Cf. ‘rayse . . . to honour’ in line 9. Coradin Gray suggests L cor, heart, + Atin (2006); cf. 42.5. 37.1As at 32.3, succession implies causality. varletmale servant varletMay be used as a synonym for either ‘groom’ or ‘squire’. soyldCf. Phaon ‘Lying on ground, all soild with blood and myre’ (16.4). bashed not / For‘was unabashed by’ Guyons lookesGuyon’s glances eyglaunce at him shotPunning on ‘glance’ as a blow or impact, as in Hakluyt: ‘they saile away, being not once touched with the glaunce of a shot’ (1589: 1.153). field . . . wreathHeraldic terms referring to the surface of the shield and to the ornamental border in which the motto is inscribed. Burnt I doe burneSee arg.2n. This riddling motto makes its first person pronoun at once the subject and the object of its doubled verb: ‘I burn (myself/another) because I am burnt’. It thus condenses the play with cause and consequence, self and other, that runs throughout the canto: ‘Having been burnt by another/myself, I burn myself/others as if in an act of retribution’. redoubteddreaded or respected dartesjavelins or light spears flitswift dightprepared placeCf. the ‘middle space’ of 32.4. The varlet’s belated claim to have preempted this space of figuration extends the canto's exploration of the relation between preventative and precipitate action. 39.6-9Instead of rising to the bait, Guyon lets go the ‘opportunity’ for rage presented by the varlet’s ‘great boldness’, checking his scorn in order to discover the cause; the internal rhyme ‘not to grow of nought’ emphasizes that Guyon has learned the Palmer’s lesson: ‘who so will raging Furor tame / Must first begin’ with ‘Occasion, the roote of all wrath’ (10.9-11.2). to him, that mindes his chaunce t’abyeto him who intends to take his chances’, responding to the challenge at 39.5; ‘abye’ in this sense is influenced by ‘abide’. assayproven worth staywait for Pyrochles Gr πῦρ pyr, fire + ὀχλέω ochleō, ‘to be swept away’. The correction in FE, reducing the consonant cluster of ‘Pyrrh-’ to ‘Pyr-’, may be calculated to reduce the possibility that a reader will construe the syllable as metrically promoted. In classical quantitative scansion, a syllable spelled ‘Pyrrh’ might be regarded as ‘long by position’ and therefore metrically prominent; the correction thus seems to confirm that the first syllable is not to be regarded as promoted by its orthography and that the first foot of the line therefore conforms to Spenser’s iambic. (For more on Spenser’s interest in the relation of quantitative meter to English verse practice, see the introduction to Letters). Cymochles Gr κῦμα kuma, wave + ὀχλέω ochleō, ‘to be swept away’. For both brothers’ names, meter suggests that the accent should fall on the second syllable. Acrates See II.i.51.2-4n on the etymology of Acrasia as ‘lack of self-control’. 41.7-9Phlegeton is the river of fire in the classical underworld, crossed by Duessa and Sansjoy at I.v.33.3 on their way to visit Aesculapius. Jarre is discord; Herebus is Erebus, generally the region of the underworld. Hesiod, Theog 123-25, makes Erebus and Night the children of Chaos. In making Erebus the son of Aeternitie, Spenser may be adapting Boccaccio (Gen Deor 1.1), who derives Night from Herebus and Litigium (Jarre), who in turn derive from Demogorgon and Aeternitie. 41.8The hypermetric line creates an unusual double alexandrine in this stanza. The isochronic tendencies of these lines build on the marked pattern of repetition begun in lines 6-7 to intensify the archaic theogonic turn given to the brothers’ genealogy. raceancestry Draddreaded derring doeBold action, courage, a usage derived from misunderstanding of the ME idiom, which meant ‘daring [to] do’; cf. SC Oct 65 gloss by E.K., ‘manhoode and chevalrie’. His am Ii.e. his attendant Atin From Gr ἄτη atē, mischief or ruin, and OF atine, ‘incitement to battle’ (Heiatt 1975: 185); the line thus suggests that Atin is not only Pyrochles’ attendant but his occasion, riding ahead to start the cycle of fury anew. Ate, the Greek goddess of discord who provoked the Trojan War (II.vii.55.4-9) will appear as a character in Book IV. steadplace steadCf. 39.3n. confusiondestruction behightcommanded 44.1-7The Palmer’s comment in these lines brings out the implicit irony of an allegorical figure who combines the iconography of strife with that of opportunity (Occasio; see st. 4-5n). Only from the point of view of Atin and his lord, Pyrochles, does strife appear as an opportunity to be ‘caught’ by the forelock. The rhyming pair ‘seeke’ and ‘followes eke’ (like the epithet ‘mad man’, repeated from 3.5) link Pyrochles’ reversal of sequence to the predicament initially faced by Guyon and then elaborated in Phaon’s tale (see notes to 30.1-5 and 31.5-6). rustyreddish-brown with dried blood cause is caught‘occasion [for anger] is seized’. In formulating the reversal of sequence by which Pyrochles, already inflamed, looks for a reason to be angry, this phrase condenses the canto’s sustained meditation on cause and effect with its reversals of pursuit. upbrayreproach (cause to be blamed) sillydefenseless 45.5-7Echoing Dido’s bitter reproach to Aeneas: egregiam vero laudem et spolia ampla refertis / tuque puerque tuus; magnum et memorabile numen, / una dolo divum si femina victa duorum est (‘Splendid indeed is the praise and rich the spoils ye win, thou and thy boy [Ascanius]; mighty and glorious is the power divine, if one woman is subdued by the guile of two gods!’; Aen 4.93-95). thrillantpiercing vengeable despightSee 30.3n; here ‘despight’ suggests rather ‘contempt’ than ‘injury’. intendedguided empightimplanted itself 46.6-8Cf. Eph 6.16, ‘Above all, take the shield of faith, wherewith ye may quench all the fyrie dartes of the wicked’, and Whitney, Calumniam contra calumniatorem virtus repellit (‘virtue beats back slander against the slanderer’; 1586, no. 138b, trans. Green 1866).