1delectable controuersie: The oxymoron
draws attention to the function of the singing match, delight intermixed with
instruction (a humorous version of Horace’s famous dictum). The phrase also puns on the form of
the counter-verses, and, in its own way, emphasizes the motif of
harmony-from-conflict illustrated in the first of the mazer's two
scenes.
1made in imitation: The first Argument
to identify the poet’s artistic method: ‘imitation’ (see also Nov Arg).
2Theocritus: Cf. Idylls 5 and 6 but also 8, 9, and 27 (see headnote).
2Virgile: In addition to Ecl 3 and 7, see 5, 8, and 9 (see headnote).
3vmpere: Cf. ‘judge’ at 53. Perhaps a
play on ‘peer’; cf. ‘peregall’ at line 8.
4reciteth: See ‘rehearse’ at 142 and 193.
2dare . . . matche: Spenser’s language
of poetic rivalry recurs at 21-4.
3frame: For ‘frame’ as always part of
Spenser’s language of poetic craft in the Calender, see Jan 10; June 55 and 78; Oct 25; Dec 68, 77, and 115.
3Bagpypes: Cf. the woodcut, which
depicts a shawm.
8peregall: Cf. Chaucer,
TC 5.839-40: ‘His herte ay with the first and with
the beste / Stood paregal, to durre don that hym leste’.
10passe: Cf. June 74.
11Ah . . . daunce: While recurrent in
literature (‘almost proverbial’ [Renwick, Var 7: 341),
Perigot’s phrase ‘newe daunce’ may more directly speak to the idiom of the medieval
tradition of ‘the old daunce’ (the game of love), as at Chaucer, GP 477-8, said of the Wife of Bath: ‘Of remedies of love she knew per
chaunce, / For she koude of that art the old daunce’.
14raft: The spelling raft occurs here
and again at 40. The word reft appears many times elsewhere
(e.g., Daph, where it is repeated distinctively at l159, 160, 162, then a final time at 220).
26–36 Cf. Theocritus, Idylls 1.27-56; Virgil, Ecl 3.36-48. Willye’s cup depicts two emblematic scenes:
in the first, an ivy vine creates harmony out of the havoc wreaked by bears and
tigers; in the second, a shepherd saves a lamb from the jaws of a wolf. The
two-scene emblem presents a ‘familiar aesthetic’: ‘art acquires the power to draw
harmony out of conflict by removing itself from the world, but this withdrawal must
be followed by a renewed commitment to action. More simply, art must teach as well
as please’ (D.L. Miller 1979: 229). The details of the scenes, so intricate and
lifelike, suggest that Spenser may have inspected ‘actual mazers’ (Tuve, Var 7: 342).
28–30Of Beres . . . twine: Bears and
tigers, often linked but also opposed as enemies (cf., e.g., FQ II.ii.22.5-9), signify both wrath and sexual energy (Rowland 1973:
33, 151). The vine and ivy evoke Bacchus, god of wine, lust, and amorous excess. The
vine here also performs the traditional role of Orpheus, taming wild beasts by art.
28fiers warre: Cf. FQ I.pr.1.9: ‘Fierce warres and faithfull loves shall moralize my
song’ (see headnote).
32shepheard swayne: The phrase
describes both Immerito at To His Booke 9 and Colin at Apr
98 (Lane 1993: 177n5). The phrase appears subsequently (e.g., at Julye 5 and Dec 44).
33saue the innocent from the beastes
pawes: Inescapably evokes Christ the Good Shepherd, thus
suggesting a salvific role for art.
37Thereto . . . Lambe: Cf. Virgil, Ecl 3.29-31.
40–42raft me . . . forst to yield: The
detail anticipates mention of Colin at 50 and the singing of his song later, as well
as highlighting his superiority as a community singer. The eclogue fictionalizes a
complex hierarchy of poetic authority, in this order: Tityrus, Colin, Cuddie,
Perigot, Willye.
41purchast . . . playne field: ‘Won
from me on level ground’, i.e., fairly.
43Sicker . . . brother: ‘Assume that
the same will happen to his brother’.
45heardgrome: Cf. the description of
Cuddie at Feb 35.
53–124It fell vpon a holly eue . . . endeth our
roundelay: ‘Spenser was writing with a popular tune
in his mind’, probably ‘an old tune called “Heigh ho, holiday” to which one of the
songs in Deloney’s Garland of Good Will (1593) is to be
sung’ (Pattison, Var 7: 346). The roundelay was reprinted in
England’s Helicon (1600), and ‘became speedily
popular and aided in correcting the roughness and gravity of our earlier style’, the
‘dialogue in rhyme . . . a feat greatly more difficult than the “stichometry” of the
Athenian drama’ (Palgrave, Var 7: 338). For Henry
Constable’s imitation of the roundelay, see Var 7: 339.
55wont . . . shrieue: ‘[C]ustomarily
hear confession: the feast could be that . . . under the auspices of Virgo, the
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, 8 September, on the eve of which Queen Elizabeth was
born. Note that this roundelay . . . is thus located in a
Cranmerian rather than progressive Protestant landscape’ (Brooks-Davies 1995: 132).
57–63hill . . . dale: The landscape
especially of June and Julye.
61I saw the bouncing Bellibone:
Perigot’s Petrarchan sight of a beautiful female recalls Colin’s epiphany of Queen
Elisa in Aprill and anticipates that of Queen Dido in November. Spenser uses the word ‘Bellibone’ earlier only
at Apr 92; together, the two examples are the first of
three cited by OED, which adds: ‘corruption of French belle bonne or belle et bonne
fair and good; if not a humorous perversion of bonnibel’.
66hey ho . . . greete: Cf.
Drayton, Pastorals, Eclogue 4, on Dowsabell: ‘She ware a
Frock of frollicke green, / Might well become a Mayden Queene, / Which seemly was to
see’ (Var 7: 346).
71Uiolets: Flower of love and modesty.
81–92All as the Sunnye beame . . . piteous
plight: A sustained set of similes, comparing the effect of
the Bellibone’s ‘glauncing eye’ (itself compared to crystal at 81) on Perigot: first
to a sunbeam, next to lightning, and finally to moonlight striking a wave. The
elaborate comparison draws attention to the way erotic desire creates poetic art.
93glaunce . . . glide: The two words form a familiar link in
battle descriptions (see FQ III.ix.25.5n).
94glyder: An unusual word in English at
this time, used uniquely to describe the glance as an object performing an action
(cited OED).
95gryde: Cf. Apr 82.
103–104Ne can I find salue . . . curelesse
sorrowe: Pinpoints a key question raised by the eclogue,
both here and regarding Colin’s sestina: can singing about unfulfilled desire be
therapeutic (‘find salve’)? At 143-4, Perigot appears to change his mind; see note
on these lines and on 190-3. Cf. Oenone’s complaint to Paris in Ovid, Heroides 5.149: me miseram, quod amor
non est medicabilis herbis! (‘Alas, wretched me, that love may not be
healed by herbs!’). For Paris, cf. 137-8, Julye 146-7.
104curelesse The reading in
1579, although traditionally unchallenged, sharply
contradicts the theme of the psychological burdens of love, hence our emendation,
which extends the figure in the previous line.
110pinching: Cf. Apr 18.
113gracelesse greefe: ‘Grief’ that ensues
when ‘grace’ or favor is withheld.
125roundle: Cf. Chaucer, LGW F 422-3: ‘And many an ympne, for your halydayes, /
That highten balades, roundels, virelayes’. See Apr
[33]n.
128vndersongs: cf. ‘overgone’ in the
preceding line. Spenser will go on to use the word ‘undersong’ distinctively, e.g.,
Daph 245; CCCHA 169;
Proth 110.
136wite the witelesse: Cf. June 100 and E.K.’s gloss.
138shepheard of Ida: See Julye 145-52.
141OfRosalend (who knowes not
Rosalend?): Spenser will re-deploy the rhetorical
device famously at FQ VI.x.16.4: ‘Of Colin Clout (who knowes not Colin Clout?)’;
TCM VII.vi.36.6: ‘Of Arlo-hill (Who knowes not Arlo-hill?)’.
Puttenham, Arte of English Poesy, discusses erotesis under erotema or the questioner, ‘speaking
indeed by interrogation which we might as well say by affirmation’ (296).
142rehearse: Cf. 193.
143ladde: According to OED, both a ‘young shepherd’ in ‘pastoral poetry’ and ‘a
man of spirit and vigour’.
144With mery thing its good to medle
sadde: Identifies the love sickness of Perigot and Willye’s
roundelay as ‘mery’ in comparison to the sadness of Colin’s sestina (Cullen 1970:
108). Cf. Apr 68, Maye 263, and Julye 209.
151–189Ye wastefull . . . pitie augment: The
sestina modifies the Petrarchan sestina at RS 22, 30, 66,
80, 142, 214, 237, 239, and 332 [a double sestina]), where the rhyme scheme of six
words—e.g., at RS 237, Italian words for waves (‘onde’) moon (‘luna’), night (‘notte’), woods
(‘boschi’), meadow (‘piaggia’), evening (‘sera’)--follows no particular order after the first stanza,
except for the repetition in the first line of the second stanza of the last line in
the first (e.g., 123456615243364125). In contrast, Colin’s rhyme scheme follows the
strict order of its six rhyme-words—woe, resound, cryes, part,
sleepe, augment—in this
order: 123456612345561234, etc. The final tercet uses only 246, a direct imitation of Petrarch’s tercet. Possibly, ‘Spenser’s
simple end-word scheme . . . is . . . borrowed from the sixteenth-century Spanish
poet Gutierre de Cetina’ (Brooks-Davies 1995: 136). Nowhere in the Calender is the contrast between the fiction of a dejected Colin and the
virtuosity of Spenser greater. E.K. does not gloss Colin’s sestina, suggesting that
Spenser may have added it late in the process of publication, perhaps in response to
Sidney’s sestina, ‘Ye Goteherd gods’.
151–156Ye wastefull woodes . . . ofte
augment: The image of Colin singing his songs in the
natural locale of woods, birds, and spring recalls his habitual position throughout the
Calender (see especially Apr 33-6,
June 1-8 and 49-64).
157–174Resort of people . . . my deadly
cryes: Colin turns from society and community to self and
alienation, from ‘walled townes’ (158) to ‘gastfull grove’ (170), from the domain of
epic to that of pastoral, concluding, ‘Here will I dwell apart’ (169).
159–160resound . . . Echo: The Orphic
formula of the woods resounding. See 180-6n.
161I hate the house, since thence my loue did
part: A domestic parallel to Orpheus’ loss of Eurydice.
173–174byrds . . . death: Owls and ravens
were birds of ill omen.
180–186till safe and sound . . . bred her
woe: A significant change from June
97-101, where Colin imagines his complaint harming Rosalind. Here the graceful
poetry imagines Rosalind coming home again and using her beautiful voice to
‘chaunge’ Colin’s ‘cherelesse cryes’ to ‘cheerefull songs’. This fantasy, which
never materializes in the fiction of the Calender, prepares for
Colin’s identification with Philomela: ‘Hence with the Nightingale will I take
part’. Philomela is the Athenian princess raped by her brother-in-law, Tereus; after
she and her sister, Procne, take revenge on him, they escape, and metamorphose into
birds: Philomela, into the nightingale; Procne, into the swallow. Because Philomela
uses harmonious song to express deep sorrow, she becomes a Western icon of the
poet’s power to convert tragedy into art. See Ovid, Met
6.424-674; yet Spenser’s key source-texts are Virgil, Georg
4.511-3; Petrarch, RS 311; Gascoigne, Complaint of Philomene. The Georgics is most
important for associating Orpheus, a poet who has lost his wife, with Philomela, a
woman who has been raped, thus making Spenser’s representation ‘Orphic’ (Brown
1972-3: 14-6). Yet Spenser differs from his sources in transposing the nightingale
to pastoral, where the bird becomes especially associated with Colin (Nov 25, 141, and Dec 79), and evokes
a poet progressing from pastoral to epic (P. Cheney 1993: 98-107). The phrase
‘blessed byrd’ draws attention to Colin’s sympathy with the raped nightingale and
with the departed Rosalind (see headnote).
181siluer sound: On this phrase, see June 61n. There, the Muses, and especially Calliope,
Muse of epic, hear a ‘silver sound’, drop their musical instruments, and rush to
find the cause of it, but are taken aback when they find a lowly shepherd, Colin
Clout. Here in August, Spenser traces the origin of Colin’s
silver art—a trope for the paradox that a lowly pastoral poet can sound the
heightened note of epic—to Rosalind, with her ‘voyces silver sound’. Cf. Apr 46 and note, where Spenser links Colin’s ‘silver
song’ with Queen Elisa.
189pitie augment: Colin’s address to
‘you that feele no woe’, and his request that they augment their pity for him,
constitutes a change: now he uses song to express his willingness to rejoin the
pastoral community.
191turning . . . verse: ‘Frame your
verse line endings’ in accord with the sestina form (McCabe 1999: 552).
197Vincenti gloria victi: ‘The glory of the vanquished goes to the
conqueror’.
199Vinto non vitto: It, ‘Conquered, not defeated’.
201Felice . . . puo: ‘Let him be happy who can be', although, as
E.K. observes, the meaning is ambiguous.