2Pastours: A key trope of the Calender, referring to both literary pastoral shepherds and
Protestant church ministers (OED). Spenser uses the word
only at As 9, when referring to Philip Sidney.
3imagined: The word can mean ‘thought’
but also ‘represented’; it is E.K.’s word for the symbolic and artistic significance
of the pastoral narrative.
1.0Thomalin: Perhaps representing Thomas Cooper, Bishop of
Lincoln, a supporter of Archbishop Grindal (McLane 1961: 203-15;
J.N. King 1990: 35;
Hadfield 2012: 472n126).
1.0Morrell: An anagram for John Aylmer, Bishop of London, whose
name could be spelled Elmer or Elmore, and who was notable for his suppression of
Puritanism (McLane 1961: 188-202;
J.N. King 1990: 42; Hadfield 2012: 472n126).
2bancke: Not merely ‘a raised shelf or
ridge of ground’ but also ‘a high ground, height, hill’ (OED).
3shrowde: Cf. June 16.
4rancke: A pun on ‘row’ or ‘a series
of things in a straight line’, as in E.K’s ‘three formes or ranckes’ of eclogues
(plaintive, recreative, moral) in the General Argument.
5–8What ho . . . and thee: Cf. Mantuan,
Eclogues 8.1-3, where Candidus identifies a seasonal reason for his invitation to Alphus to go to
the hills (a reason Spenser neglects, perhaps because he wishes to feature less a
climate change and more a biblical and Reformation meaning): Horrida solstitio tellus sitit, Alphe, reverso; / ad solitos montes, ubi
ros in gramine et aestas / mitior, haec armenta monet deducere tempus
(‘Summer’s solstice having returned, Alphus, the rugged earth is parched by drought.
The season counsels us to drive our herds as usual to the mountains where the dew is
on the grass and the summer is more gentle’).
5shepheards swayne: Previously applied
only to Immerito in To His Booke (9) and Colin Clout in Apr (98).
9–12clime . . . fall vnsoft: The terms of
medieval and sixteenth-century de casibus tragedy, which
features an unfortunate fall from a high place (J.N. King 1990: 32).
10looke alofte: Cf. Maye 124.
18fyriefooted: See John Studley’s translation of Seneca the Younger, Medea 'Shall Phoebus fiery footed horse goe lodge in western waue/ The drooping day . . . ?'
(1566; S2r) and Shakespeare’s later ‘Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds’ (Romeo and Juliet 3.2.1).
21rampant Lyon: This is the lion’s
traditional posture on Elizabethan coats of arms—‘standing on the sinister hind foot
with the forepaws in the air, the sinister above the dexter’ (OED)—especially Queen Elizabeth’s (Lane 1993: 116 and illustration on
118). OED cites Julye under
‘rampant’, meaning of ‘a fierce disposition’.
33–40Syker, thous . . . name: Cf. Mantuan,
Eclogues 8.8-16: O rude et
illepidum ingenium . . . irridere audes, et nauci pendere montes. / unde
fluunt amnes? templis ubi tanta locandis / marmora caeduntur? fulgens ubi
nascitur aurum? / quae parit antemnas tellus? medicamen ab herbis, / dic,
quibus est montanis? (‘Oh, rude and barbarous soul . . . you dare to
ridicule the mountains and esteem them a trifle. Whence flow the rivers? Where is so
much marble quarried to found our churches? Where is glittering gold begotten? What
earth produces yardarms for your boats? From whose herbs but the mountains’ come our
medicines?’). Spenser's Morrell offers none of these reasons, which make a better
case for the mountains than his self-consciously learned emphasis on saints' names.
33–34laesie loord . . . swinck: ‘Morrell,
in stigmatizing “swinck,” reveals his affiliations with an elite who in fact deserve
the opprobrious epithet laesie’ (Lane 1993: 119).
35fond termes, and weetlesse words:
Makes plain that not just church politics but specifically language and rhetoric are
at stake in the debate (Montrose 1979: 38).
36blere . . . eyes: ‘Blur my eyes’,
i.e., ‘hoodwink or deceive me’. Cf. Chaucer, Rom 3911-2:
‘Leccherie hath clombe so hye; / That almoost blered is myn ye’.
37hentest: Cf. Feb 195.
43S. Brigets bowre: Unidentified;
presumably, the bower was on top of a mountain. St. Brigid was a patroness of Ireland
who built her cell under a tall oak tree; the next line may mean that Morrell tropes
Kentish oaks.
45–73Muses skill . . . Of Synah: The
inventory of famous mountains—Parnassus, Olivet, Sinai, ‘three . . . sacred
mountains essential to Spenserian myth’ (Fletcher 1971: 15)—will reappear at FQ I.x.53-4 as a series of comparisons for the Mount of
Contemplation. The inventory evokes the three conventional dispensations of nature,
law, and grace (Kaske 1975: 147; Bergvall 1997: 30); but it also links the poet with
Christ and Moses. Such a biblical elevation of the poet forms the center of
Spenser’s claims for himself and for his prophetic vocation throughout his poetic
career (see, e.g., Aug 31-6 and note; for the link between
‘the political role of the [biblical] prophet’ and the Grindal ‘prophesyings’, see
A. Fletcher 1971: 71).
49–51And wonned . . . of Dan: Refers to
Christ teaching, as in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7).
49wonned: Cf. Feb 119.
50Oliuet: Cf. Matt 21:1, 24:3, and 26:30.
51Feeding . . . Dan: E.K. Cf. Num
1:38-39, Ezek 34:14-15. Dan is one of the twelve tribes of Israel.
52which . . . beget: Can mean both that
Christ begot the Tribe of Dan and that the Tribe of Dan begot him.
53–56O blessed sheepe . . . Wolves, that would them
teare: A version of poetic typology linked with Aug 31-6, the second scene on Willye’s mazer, which
depicts a shepherd saving his sheep from wolves, linking the poet with Christ.
55bloudy sweat: During the Agony of the
Passion in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ’s ‘sweate was like droppes of blood,
trickling down to the ground’ (Luke 22:44).
56Wolues: For Christ as the Good
Shepherd, see John 10:11-4.
57–64Besyde, as . . . long to dreame: Cf.
Mantuan, Eclogues 8.45-9, which refers only to Mount Baldus.
E.K. has glosses at 59, 63, and 64, identifying the ‘holy father’ as Diodorus
Siculous, the sleeping ‘shepheard’ as Endymion, and the ‘place of delight’ as
Paradise (and the ‘one [who] did fall’ as Adam). See notes below. Endymion is a
figure for both immortality and unconsciousness (Snyder 1998: 38); Natalis Conti,
Myth 4.9, tells the story of Endymion, as does
Boccaccio, Gen Deor 4.16.4; Neoplatonists see the myth
allegorizing an initiation into the mystery of love through death (Wind 1958, 1968: 154);
Endymion is also a figure in both pastoral (Theocritus, Idylls 20.37-9) and erotic poetry (Ovid, Heroides 18.61-5, Tristia 2.299). For the
myth’s later association with Elizabeth and her court, see Lyly, Endimion (1591); Drayton, Endimion and Phoebe
(1598).
74ourLadyes bowre: According to a
contemporary Catholic legend, angels transported the house of the Virgin Mary to
Loretto in Italy, mentioned by Mantuan, Eclogues 8.52; this
narrative becomes a source of Protestant skepticism regarding religious miracles
(Brooks-Davies 1995: 124).
75strow my store: ‘Display my stock of
examples’. Cf. Mantuan, Eclogues 8.56-7: cetera praetereo, nec enim sermonibus istis / omnia complecti statuo
(‘Others I omit, for it is not my intent to include every peak’).
79–84Here has . . . be meynt: Cf. Let 1.56-6,1, where Spenser mentions his now lost
work ‘Epithalamion Thamesis . . . setting forth the marriage
of the Thames . . . and . . . all the Rivers throughout Englande, whyche came to
this Wedding’.
99–100And he . . . a strawe: Cf. Virgil,
Aen 3.423: sidera verberat
unda (‘lashing the stars with spray’); Aen
3.574: sidera lambet (‘[Aetna] licks the stars’). Cf. also
Colin Clout’s ‘famous flight’ at Oct 88-90.
105–112My seely . . . be glutted: For the
separation of sheep and goats at the Day of Judgment, see Matt 25:32-3 and Julye gl 1 and note.
113holy saints: See Maye 15n. Cf. Nov 175-6.
222an To explain the
miscorrection in 1581 we may suppose that the compositor
misconstrued his copy text, a copy of 1579 marked for
correction; 1586 repairs the error and makes what we take to
have been the adjustment of ‘An’ to ‘an’ intended in 1581.
125–168 Thomalin offers an inventory of shepherds, contrasting Paris with the
biblical figures of Abel, the sons of Jacob, Moses, and Aaron. Thomalin, then, is
a scriptural purist in the tradition of Augustine and Calvin, rejecting classicism,
in contrast to Morrell, who is a Renaissance syncretist, fusing classical with
Christian, offering two models relating the Christian present to the classical past.
At 154, Spenser, himself a known syncretist, subtly complicates Thomalin’s model by
having the shepherd refer favorably to Argus.
125–140Such one . . . kynd: E.K. identifies
Abel as the ‘first shepheard’, mentioned by Mantuan, Eclogues 7.14-22. See Gen 4.
126Algrind: Cf. 157, 213-32. Algrind is
first mentioned at Maye 75, suggesting that in the
ecclesiastical eclogues ‘the authority deferred to is no longer either the Romish
Tityrus or the English one, but the figure of Algrind’: ‘by keying his anticlerical
eclogues . . . to a local confrontation between Elizabeth and her senior bishop,
Spenser provided a contemporary and national equivalent to both the pre-Reformation
critiques of the Roman church by Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Mantuan and the early
embattled Protestantism of Marot’ (Patterson 1987: 126).
141–144the brethren were . . . mighty Pan:
See Gen 46. Whereas Morrell ‘privilege[s] one group, Thomalin emphasizes the
collaborative character of community under God’ (Lane 1993: 126).
145–152But nothing . . . ill agree: Cf. Aug 137-8.
156steede of brasse: Cf. Chaucer, CT Squire 115-31.
157–164Sike one . . . I hote: Cf. Mantuan,
Eclogues 7.29-31: quando caelesti
exterritus igne / venit ad ostentum pedibus per pascua nudis, / pastor erat
Moses, Moses a flumine tractus (‘When Moses, terrified by the fire from
heaven, came barefooted through the fields to reveal this miracle, Moses, plucked
once from the river, was a shepherd’).
158–159sawe . . . face: Cf. Exod 33:11: ‘And
the Lord spake unto Moses, face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend’.
159His face: Either God’s or Moses’
face. Cf. Exod 34:35: ‘the skin of Moses’ face shone bright’.
160in place: Cf. Apr 131.
162cote: ‘House’, but also punning on
‘coat’, the sign of Aaron’s clerical profession, since he was the founder of the
priesthood, the original ‘man of the cloth’.
173–177purple and pall . . . glitterand
gold: A clear imitation of Plowman’s Tale
133-8 : ‘That hye on horse wylleth ryde / In glytterande golde of great array /
Ipaynted and portred all in pride / No co[m]men knyght may go so gaye / Change of
clothyng every day / with golden gyrdels great and small’ (Miskimin 1975: 93, 290;
see Norbrook 2002: 54); see also Skelton, Colyn Cloute
310-2. Cf. Maye 117-23.
173purple and pall: E.K. A woolen vestment worn by both Catholic Popes
and English Protestant archbishops. The reference evokes the controversy over
ecclesiastical vestments during the 1560s and 70s, wherein Puritans objected to the
wearing of such garments as surplice, chasuble, and cope. At Exod 28:5-6, 15, the
ephod and breastplate of judgment in Aaron’s priestly garments contain purple and
scarlet.
181Palinode: A palinode is a retraction
(in particular, a poem that retracts an earlier poem). The character of Palinode here,
who makes a pilgrimage to Rome only to discover its sins, changes from the Palinode
of Maye, who voices the Roman Catholic point of view.
182yode: Cf. Maye 22.
186Lordes: Cf. Plowman’s Tale 701-8.
187–200Theyr sheepe . . . to keepe: Cf.
Marot, Le Complaincte d’un Pastoreau Chrestien 179-209.
191corne is theyrs: Cf. Plowman’s Tale, Prologue 43: ‘Thei have the corne, and
we the dust’.
202heapen . . . wrath: Cf. Rom 2:5:
‘thou, after thine hardnes and heart that can not repent, heapest unto thy self
wrath against the day of wrath and of the declaration of the juste judgment of God’;
Rev 6:15-7: ‘And the Kings of the earth, & the great men, and the riche men . .
. hid them selves in dennes and among the rockes of the mountaines, And said . . .
Fall on us, and hide us . . . from the wrath of the Lambe. For the great day of his
wrath is come, and who can stand?’ For Protestants, such passages served as a
prophecy of the end of Catholicism.
209–212Thou medlest . . . of helth: Cf. Maye 55-72.
210wyten: Cf. June [100].
215–230He is . . . time: A clear yet tactful
allegory of Elizabeth’s dispute with Grindal, in which the female eagle represents
the queen, and the shellfish the ecclesiastical process leading to Grindal’s
suspension. The fable constitutes a miniature (Aeschylean) de
casibus tragedy (J.N. King 1990: 44).
230bett Were the reading in
1579 correct, Julye gl 118 would have been
unnecessary. Emending to follow E.K.’s lemma reverses the compositor’s substitution
of the more standard form, better, for what we take to be
the reading in his copy.
234In . . . virtus: ‘Virtue is in
the middle’, referring to the golden mean of Aristotelian philosophy (Nic Eth 2; see Horace
Odes 2.10.5: 'aurea mediocritas' golden mean).
236In . . . fœlicitas: ‘Felicity is at
the summit’, an adage from Plato adapted to worldly goals.
1scrypture: See 105-12n. Cf. Matt
25:32-3.
6Clymbe: Cf. John 10:1.
7Seneca: Not in Seneca, but cf.
Horace, Odes 2.10.10, which E.K. quotes at 67.
10sonne: Likely a pun on the Son of
God, as depicted at Mark 13:6-26.
13The Cupp and Diademe: The
constellations Crater and Corona Borealis, respectively.
17Dogge starre: The Dog days, beginning
mid-July with the rising of the Dog Star, a sign of social unrest.
20Overture: OED’s only citation of this meaning.
25more dread then dignitie: The reading
in 1579, ‘more dread and dignitie’, might stand, yet the
adversative construction offered in 1586 and the grudging
resistance it attributes to the ancient Britons seems more consistent with the tenor
of E.K.’s gloss. Moreover, the phrase seems to echo the similarly adversative
construction in a passage from Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, in
which the death of Queen Mary is said to deliver Elizabeth and England ‘from dread
to dignity’ (1563: NNNN8v; Foxe himself may be echoing Elizabeth’s own meditation
on her liberation; see Bentley, Monument of Matrones, 1582,
Aa8v).
34Feuer Lurdane: Disease of laziness.
‘Lurden’ (lout) was a common term of abuse. Cf. Wily
Beguiled (1606): ‘long, large . . . loselled lurden’ (47); for E.K.’s
etymology, see Holinshed, Chronicles 1.709, 5.256 (see
Brooks-Davies 1995: 123).
36Weeteless: ‘Apparently coined by
Spenser’ (OED headnote).
40Synecdochen: A rhetorical figure in
which the part represents the whole (i.e., Dan for Israel).
41Diodorus Syc: Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 17.7.6-7, although the principal source is
Mantuan, Eclogues 8.42-49.
42Ida: Endymion slept on Mount Latmus,
not Mount Ida.
51–52follye . . . thence: Cf. Gen 3:23-4.
53Synah: Mount Sinai, where Moses
received the ten commandments (Exod 19-20).
56Rochester: A city in England, at the
mouth of the Medway, of strategic and naval importance. Spenser was secretary to
John Young, Bishop of Rochester.
61Theocritus: E.K.’s following
quotation from the Greek of Epigrams 1.6 is problematic,
and, possibly, misquoted; the version he offers may be translated as ‘end of a
branch of terebinth [belonging to] goats’. The canonical reading is τερμίνθου τρώγων
ἔσχατον ἀκρεμόνα, which the Hopkinson’s Loeb edition translates as ‘This white,
horned billy goat that is nibbling the end of a branch of terebinth’.
61Mantuane: See Eclogues 8.15-18.
67Feriuntque . . . montes: ‘It is the
mountain peaks that are struck by lightning’ (Horace, Odes
2.10.11-2, but substituting fulmina for fulgura).
89–90Venus . . . Paris: The story of Paris
choosing Aphrodite over Hera and Athena was understood to allegorize a valuing of
love over wisdom and virtue. Cf. Fulgentius, Mytholologiae
2.1; Boccaccio, Gen Deor 6.22.8-9; Conti, Myth 6.24.
95–96Argus . . . Io: Cf. Ovid, Met 1.588-747.
102Not so true: At Exod 32:1-6, Aaron
makes the idolatrous golden calf.
107Chaucer: In fact, the
pseudo-Chaucerian Plowman’s Tale 134 and 162.
108I. Goore: John Gower, who wrote Confessio Amantis (1390).
112Wisards: Conjurors. Protestants often accused Catholic priests
of being magicians (at FQ, I.i-ii, Spenser presents Archimago as a black magician
in disguise as a Catholic hermit deceiving the Protestant champion, the Redcrosse Knight).
122Æschylus: Recorded by Pliny, Natural History 10.3.7. In 1564, Grindal told the story
in a funeral sermon for Emperor Ferdinand; see Remains of
Archbishop Grindal (1843) 8.
138doctour: Learned educator in the
church. The specific doctor has not been identified.
138Suorum Christus humillimus: ‘Christ
the humblest of his own’.
141Suorum deus altissimus: ‘God the most
exalted of his own’.
131two contrary vices: Cf. Aristotle,
Nic Eth 2.9.1-4.