1bewayleth the death: Identifies the
genre of the eclogue as a pastoral funeral elegy.
2Dido: The name of Virgil’s heroine in
the Aeneid, especially Books 1-6. She is the widowed Queen of Carthage, and falls in
love with, and is loved by, the hero Aeneas, who must nonetheless forsake her to
carry out his divine destiny, the founding of Rome. Dido’s tragic death by suicide
occupies Book 4; at Aen 4.335, Aeneas calls Dido by her alternate name, ‘Elissa’
(‘Elissae’), which Ovid remembers famously (Her 7.102 and 193; see Pugh 2005: 18-9).
Dido becomes the West’s most poignant casualty of empire (see L.S. Johnson 1990: 175;
Watkins 1995: 79-82; Horton 1996; Helfer 2012: 31-4).
2The personage is secrete: E.K.
identifies himself as the first to inquire about the symbolic mystery of Dido’s
‘personage’, but his failure to learn the truth from the author has not prevented
centuries of speculation. The case remains unsolved. The prime candidate continues
to be Queen Elizabeth, in danger of undergoing a figurative
death if she were to marry Alençon (see headnote). Like Aeneas visiting Carthage,
Alençon was a foreign visitor at Elizabeth’s court in the late 1570s, when Spenser’s
dedicatee, Philip Sidney, and his patron, Leicester, vociferously opposed the match.
4imitation: Identifies the poet’s
method of invention, the imitation of previous literary works---well established in
Renaissance poetics.
4–5Marot . . . Queene: Cf. Marot,
Eglogue sur le Trespas de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye.
November constitutes a careful imitation of Marot’s Eglogue
(Reamer 1968/9; Prescott 1978: 10-12): Spenser
borrows the main frame of the fiction, along with several of its details; but he
changes Marot radically. In particular, he borrows the fiction of a male poet
singing a two-part funeral elegy on the death of a beloved queen (lamentation at her
death followed by joy at her immortality), punctuated by a refrain, as well as the
introductory and concluding dialogue between two shepherds named Thenot and Colin,
the first an inferior poet awarding a prize to the second, superior one. Yet Spenser
changes Marot most glaringly by concealing the overt national topicality of the
elegy, including the dead queen’s identity. Whereas Marot situates the pastoral
fiction in ‘France’ (142, 151, and 218), and names members of Francis I’s royal family
(both his mother ‘Madame Loyse’ [title] and her daughter ‘Margot’ (Marguerite de
Navarre [60, 109]), Spenser nowhere mentions England (or even Kent), and he conceals
the identity of the deceased queen. This changes the nature of the fiction from
panegyric to (likely) allegory (see 67n) but also the self-presentation of the poet
himself. Whereas Marot clearly presents himself as the nation’s premier funeral poet
to his king—he is patriotic, sympathetic, learned, artful—Spenser accepts this role
but adds to it that of royal counselor, warning Elizabeth about a dangerous French
alliance. In this way, E.K.’s reference to Immerito’s imitation of a French poet
gestures to a French political context and opens the way to an English one. (Other
debts and changes appear below.)
5farre passing his reache: ‘Surpassing
his limit or skill’. The word ‘reach’ could mean ‘Of the mind or mental faculties:
range, scope; penetration; capacity for knowledge’ (OED).
The phrasing urges the reader to lend special attention to this eclogue among the
twelve.
1.0Thenot: Appears also in Februarie and Aprill (see,
respectively). Here Thenot assumes the role of an inferior poet to the superior
Colin Clout, but he also courteously serves as the pastoral host of Colin’s art.
1.0Colin: After breaking his pipe in Januarye, Colin returns for the first time in nine
eclogues to sing a song in the present tense of the fiction; yet no longer does he
sing about Rosalind. In Aprill, Colin is absent but Hobbinol
records his Song of Elisa; in June, Colin and Hobbinol
converse on the poet’s career, but Colin does not sing a song per se; and in August Cuddie rehearses Colin’s sestina of unrequited
love for Rosalind. Colin’s funeral elegy here constitutes a third and final form of
courtship; after his ‘amorous courtship of Rosalind’ and his ‘social courtship of
Eliza’, he engages in ‘spiritual courtship of Dido’: ‘Each . . . is also Spenser’s
exploration of a particular mode of poetic power and form: each is a manifestation
of the arduous courtship of the Muse’ (Montrose 1979: 35). (In December, Colin will return a final time, but instead of delivering an
intricate inset song about another, he offers a complaint of self-analysis leading
to a pastoral farewell.)
1–8Colin . . . higher vaine: ‘These
lines have no counterpart in Marot’ (Renwick, Var 7: 404).
In fact, they replace Marot’s lines 1-16, where Thenot describes the locus amoenus and urges Colin to engage in a singing
contest with Pan, the first part of which Spenser saves for June 1-8, and the second for various parts of the Calender (see Jan 73, Apr
73-81, and notes). Also, Spenser presents Thenot rehearsing details about Colin’s
past career, as presented in previous eclogues: in his sorrow over unrequited love
for Rosalind, Colin has stopped singing songs of pleasure valued by the shepherd
community for their ‘endles sovenaunce’ (5)—eternal renown—whether he has sung love
poems to Rosalind or divine hymns to Pan. The topics of love, pleasure, sorrow,
fame, community, and genre receive significant attention in this eclogue.
4loues misgouernaunce: Can mean both
that love has misguided Colin and that he has misguided love. Cf. the religious
connotation in Chaucer, CT Monk 3201-3: ‘Hadde nevere
worldly man so heigh degree / As Adam til he for mysgovernaunce / Was dryven out of
hys hye prosperitee’. The word could also have political resonance, perhaps
referring to the Alençon affair: ‘Misgovernment of a country, state, or (occas.) of
a public authority or other institution’ (OED), citing
Gower, Confessio Amantis 7.4566: ‘So that the lustes
ignorance / Be cause of no misgovernance, / Thurgh which that he be overthrowe.’ See
Jan 45n and Maye 121n.
5–6endles souenaunce . . . aye remaine: E.K. glosses ‘sovenaunce’ as ‘remembrance’. Both words speak to the topic of poetic fame.
5somewhat: Could have qualitative
resonance (OED): ‘sing something important’.
7–8Whether . . . vaine: Spenser imitates
Virgil, Ecl 5.10-11: Incipe, Mopse,
prior, si quos aut Phyllidis ignis / aut Alconis habes laudes aut iurgia
Codri (‘Begin first, Mopsus, if you have any strains on your flame
Phyllis, or in praise of Alcon, or in raillery at Codrus’). Whereas Virgil
identifies three kinds of songs—love lyric, encomium, satire—Spenser identifies two:
love lyric and hymn---songs addressing an earthly beloved and a deity. In Januarye, Colin turns from singing love songs to
Rosalind to singing a hymn to Pan, although in November Pan
signifies principally Christ (Berger 1988: 414). The phrase ‘higher vaine’ puts the
two kinds into a hierarchy, derived from Renaissance poetics, which identifies the
hymn as a higher genre than love lyric. In Marot’s Eglogue,
Thenot is not generically precise, encouraging Colin to enter into a singing contest
with Pan to produce great art. Spenser repeats his own two-genre paradigm at 10 and
(more nebulously) at 21-2 (see notes on each).
8Pan: Cf. Jan 17 and note.
8vaine: Vein, here meaning ‘kind’ or ‘species’ but also
‘A special or characteristic style of language or expression in writing or speech’ (OED, citing Oct 23).
The word recurs at 50.
9–12now nis the time of merimake . . . cocked
haye: Colin rejects the two kinds of songs that Thenot
proposes at 7-8, love lyric and hymn, because both are of ‘merimake’.
10herye: The word ‘herye’ is the
verb form of the noun ‘herse’ in the refrain of Colin’s elegy, meaning praise (Berger 1988: 401). The word could also evoke
‘harry’, torment (Pugh 2016: 137).
15lowlye laye: While Spenser's laye
may take color from a term for 'fallow ground' or 'meadow', the primary sense is related to that of modern
'lee' (which derives from an OE word for 'haven'; cf. 'your parte ys to obaye and wyllyngly to dwell in
that place where he wyll haue you And there to remayne in lea dynge a christean lyffe' [Pownall, 1556]).
But not only is the sun-god stabled low in the heavens, the god of poetry is taking shelter in lowly
pastoral poems, or lays, unmoved by Thenot's urgings of 'hymnes of higher vaine' (8).
16Fishes haske: A basket carrying a fish, and a major crux of the Calender,
because ‘Fishes haske’ refers to Pisces, the zodiacal sign of February, not to Sagittarius, the sign of November, as
depicted in the woodcut and mentioned by E.K. in his gloss (see Richardson 1989: 504). The phrase could be a remnant of a pre-calendrical stage
of the poem (Renwick 1930: 184); or it could allusively criticize the prospect of Elizabeth’s marriage with Alençon, the French dauphin (dolphin, fish)
(McLane 1961: 54). Supporting the latter: Alençon was born on 18 March 1554, ‘under the sign of Pisces’ (Pugh 2016: 151). For a contemporary imitation,
see the second edition of Francis Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody (1608): ‘The joyfull Sunne, whom cloudy winters spight / Had shut
from us in watry Fishes haske, / Returnes againe’ (38). Perhaps we should take Davidson’s cue, and see Pisces as metonymically a sign for winter.
17Thilke . . . aske: ‘This sullen
season requires a sadder mood, state of mind, or literary approach’; also, a
principle of poetic decorum.
19–20The mornefull Muse . . . dayes: At
53, Colin identifies the Muse as Melpomene, Muse of Tragedy (see Nov gl 26 and
Teares 115-74); to make sense of these lines
together, they need to be paraphrased: ‘the Muse who is mournful now does not wear
her once mirthful countenance, the way she used to do when she was younger’. The
word ‘maske’ refers to the stage prop worn by tragic actors in antiquity.
Shakespeare appears to imitate these lines at Sonnet 102.6-8 (P. Cheney 2004:
233-6): ‘When I was wont to greet it with my lays, / As Philomel in summer’s front
doth sing, / And stops [her] pipe in growth of riper days’. November refers twice to Philomela: ‘Nightingale’ at 25 and ‘Philomele’ at 141 (see notes on each).
21–22light virelayes . . . looser songs of
loue: Colin again evokes the Renaissance hierarchy of
genres, but it is not clear whether he refers to one or both kinds mentioned at 7-8
and at 10: hymn and love poetry. Although the conjunction ‘And’ suggests two kinds,
Colin’s description of the virelays as ‘light’ supports E.K.’s gloss: ‘a light kind
of song’. Long ago, Herford saw the import: ‘The virelay (O. F. "virer," to turn,
veer) was properly a lyric with a continuous rhyme-system founded upon a periodical
return to the same rhymes. Chaucer mentions among his works (Leg.
of G. W. 423): "Many an ympne for your haly dayes / That highten
Balades, Roundels, Virelayes"’ (Var 7: 405). Colin’s
adjective for virelay, ‘light’, can be seen to disparage the kind of songs he once
sung to Pan. The word also appears at Apr [33] (see note)
but is rare in Spenser. Marot does not use the word ‘virelay’; cf. ‘chansons’ at Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 9 and 18.
22vnderfong: Medievalism. OED cites as a transformation of the verb underfo. Cf. June 103, where the
word means ‘seduce’.
24Relieue: Medievalism.
25–28The Nightingale is souereign . . .
fooleree: A clear imitation of Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse 29-32, which compares the nightingale to the
woodpecker: Le Rossignol de chanter est le maistre; / Taire
convient devant luy les Pivers. / Aussi estant, là où tu pourras estre /
Taire feray mes Chalumeaulx divers (‘The nightingale is the master of
song, / Silencing, as is proper, the woodpeckers before him. / Also, there where you
could be / Will he silence my restless reeds’; trans. Meyers). For Colin’s
connection with the nightingale, Philomela, see Aug 183-6,
Nov 141, and Dec 79 (P. Cheney
1993: 80). In an eclogue featuring ‘some mayden queen of greate bloud’, Spenser’s
identification of his persona as a ‘sovereigne’ is audacious, yet discreetly
indirect, referring to a bird, not a bard. Marot’s word is ‘maistre’, which can mean
variously ‘mistress’, ‘ruler’, or ‘lady’, but Spenser’s diction goes further by
drawing attention to the poet’s special relationship with the queen. In the Calender, Spenser uses the word ‘sovereign’ at Feb 33, 163, June 83, and Dec 7, the latter two especially having vocational
significance.
26Titmose: For the commonplace
opposition of nightingale and tit, see Gascoigne, Complaint of
Philomene (1576), 25-6, where Philomel sings, ‘sometimes I wepe / To
see Tom Tyttimouse, so much set by’. Spenser changes Marot’s woodpecker.
37drent: On the odd detail of Dido's
drowning, see 16n. Cf. Virgil, Aen 4.642-705, where Dido
mounts her funeral pyre and kills herself with Aeneas’ sword. (In Theocritus, Idylls 1.139-41, Daphnis is drowned in what appears to
be Acheron, the river of death in the classical underworld.) Yet in Ovid’s Fasti, Dido’s sister, Anna, drowns herself in the river
Numicius because she fears the wrath of Aeneas’ wife, Lavinia (3.645-56), and
thereby provides a close parallel with Spenser’s Dido (D. Cheney 1989: 156-61;
Nicholson 2014: 117).
38the greate shepehearde: Perhaps Leicester, but more likely, in an allegory of Elizabeth, her father, Henry VIII.
41–46And if . . . bynempt: For the promise
of a gift for song, cf. Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de
Savoye 37-44; Theocritus, Idylls 1.23-8.
41tene: Archaic.
42I shall . . . payne: Cf. Nov gl 46.
44As those that did thy Rosalind complayne: Links Colin’s songs about Rosalind with
his song about Dido: ‘Dido is, in part, a foil to Rosalind’ (Cullen 1970: 395); ‘for
Colin rejected love and death converge’ (Berger 1988: 403).
49Thenot . . . tempt: Cf. Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 49: Tu me requiers de ce dont j’ay envie (‘You request of me
that which I desire’; trans. Meyers).
50vaine: See 8n.
52as. . .strayne.: While strain implies effort,
the primary sense here is a rare one, 'to make music' either by means of an
instrument or one's voice; cf. Euphues, where Fidus 'strayned his olde pipe,
and thus began' [II:58]. A learned poet, Spenser's Colin strains his 'conning',
not his pipe.
53–202Vp then . . . verse: Colin’s song
divides into two sections, adapting the convention of the funeral elegy: in the
first eleven stanzas, he mourns Dido’s death; in the last four, he witnesses her
soul breaking from its corpse to ascend to heaven. In the first section, Colin
addresses several figures (his Muse, the shepherds, the shepherds’ daughters,
Lobbin); he recalls Dido’s care of her shepherds, including himself; he witnesses
various figures in nature weeping over her loss (from flocks, forest beasts, and the
dove and nightingale to water nymphs, the Nine Muses, and the Three Fates); and he
offers a meditation on the transitoriness of all ‘earthly things’ (153). In the
second section, he bursts out in joy at seeing Dido’s resurrection; he re-addresses
Lobbin; he describes Dido walking in the Elysian Fields; he sees death as a good;
and he calls on his song to cease its mourning and find joy in Dido’s sainthood.
Altogether, the song serves the social and psychological function of the funeral
elegy as a literary form, the ‘work of mourning’ (Sacks 1985; cf. Kay 1990),
self-consciously identified in its penultimate line: ‘my woe now wasted is’ (201;
see note). While an elegy about a queen named Dido carries the valences identified
in the headnote, it also has application to Spenser’s unfolding career: ‘The death
of Dido . . . stands for the death of an ideal, that Spenser will write a Virgilian
epic for England’ (Helfer 2012: 131; cf. Horton 1996: 113-4).
53–62Vp then . . . verse: The imperative
anticipates Dido’s ascent in the song itself. In The first set of English
Madrigalls (1597), George Kirbye set these lines to music.
53–57Vp then . . . yore: Cf. Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 50-2: Sus donc mes Vers, chantez chants doloreux / Puis que la Mort
a Loise ravie / Qui tant tenoit noz Courtilz vigoreux (‘So rush on, my
verses, sing mournful songs, / For death has ravished Louise, / Who kept our gardens
full of life’; trans. Meyers); for Melpomene, cf. 265-6: Quand
tout est dit, Melpomene allume / Ton stille doulx à tristement chanter
(‘When all is said, Melpomene ignites / Your sweet style to sadly sing’; trans.
Meyers).
53Melpomene: Spenser here does not appear to imagine
tragedy as specifically a genre for performance on the stage; e.g., Colin does not
wear buskins. Yet see 55n.
55Up grieslie ghostes: E.K.’s gloss
referring to the classical tragedians Euripides and Seneca identifies the pastoral
elegy with the dramatic genre of tragedy, effectively showing Colin fulfilling
Cuddie’s failed wish in October to write in this high genre.
59wrapt inlead: A verbal repetition from Oct 63, which refers to Augustus, Maecenas, and other
worthies; and from June 89, which refers to Chaucer. Lead is
the metal of Saturn, god of melancholy and death.
60herse: Not merely the funeral bier,
but, as E.K. notes, the obsequies, including the song ‘rehearsed’ by Colin, as its
refrain-rhyme with ‘verse’ intimates. See note on ‘herye’ at 10. Cf. Aug 193.
63–66Shepheards . . . carke: Cf. Marot,
Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 53-4.
64warke: The spelling ‘alerts us to the
war in nature’s work’ (Berger 1988: 408).
67–69The sonne . . . night: Cf. Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 102-4.
67The sonne of all the world is dimme and
darke: ‘The extreme language with which Colin sings her
[Dido’s] loss—not only does the natural world decay and fall but even the "sonne of
all the world is dimme and darke"—seems to push the verse beyond seasonal exactitude
toward a hidden meaning of some sort that makes this death more mysterious than that
of Louise’ (Prescott 1978: 11).
71Breake . . . pypes: Cf. Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 105. The image recurs
at Jan 72 and Apr 3.
71Larke: Bird of dawn, hence the
traditional opposite of the nightingale, which is mentioned at 141 and 225 (see Romeo and Juliet 3.5.2-7 on both birds). For the lark
and its link with transcendence, see June 51 and note. Here
the image functions doubly: as a reference to a past joy now lost; and as a
premonition of Christian ascent. Marot includes many bird species in his Eglogue, but he does not mention the lark.
75gyrlond: From It ghirlanda and Gr gyros (γῦρος), ‘circle’, but
punning on ‘girl’.
77sing no moe: A topos, derived from
Theocritus, Idylls 1.116-7; see Moschus, Idylls 3.20-1.
78The songs that Colin made in
her prayse: Indicates that Colin used his art to
court not just Rosalind and Elisa but Dido, as identified in the next line through
the phrase ‘wanton layes’.
83–92Whence . . . verse: A biblical and
classical topos: flowers die but live again; man dies forever. Cf. Job 14:7-9; 1 Pet
1:24 (‘all flesh is as grasse, and all the glorie of man is as the flower of grasse.
The grass withereth, and the flower falleth away’); Moschus, Idylls 3.99-104; Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de
Savoye 178-81.
91braunch: Cf. Job 14:7: ‘For there is hope of a tre, if it be cut downe,
that it will yet sproute, and the branches thereof wil not cease’.
96cracknells: Cf. Jan 58.
99–101clouted Creame . . . Colin cloute:
The repetition of the word ‘cloute’ suggests a reciprocal relation between poet and
sovereign: through the maternal nourishment of clotted cream, she has given Colin
his name, his identity, and thus his art. By praising her in his songs (78 and
note), he returns the life-giving source to her. At 106, this source is called
‘solace’. The word ‘cream’ was ‘a mediaeval variant of chrism, the mixture of oil and balm used in sacramental anointing,
including extreme unction even after it had ceased to be a sacrament in the English
Church’, citing OED (Brooks-Davies 1995: 178). Cf. E.K.’s
gloss at [195] on ‘Nectar with Ambrosia mixt’ (195): ‘Ambrosia they [the poets] liken to Manna in
scripture and Nectar to be white like Creme’.
103–112But nowe . . . verse: Cf. Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 93-6.
105death . . . daunce: The late medieval
topos of the dans macabre, Dance of Death.
107blew . . . gray: The colors of life
and hope are replaced by the colors of death and grief.
107tinct: A likely neologism, from L tinctus.
109embraue: Since the word means ‘to
adorn splendidly; to embellish, beautify’ (OED), it
functions as an aesthetic term.
113O . . . griefe: Translating Marot,
Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 61: O grand Pasteur, que tu as de soucy (‘O great shepherd,
how laden you are with woe!’; trans. Meyers), but transposing the address from
Frances I to ‘Lobbin’ (see note below).
113Lobbin: The name refers to Robert Dudley (Robbin),
earl of Leicester. Spenser will resurrect the name at CCCHA 735-6, which identifies Lobbin as a ‘worthie’ at ‘Princes Court’ (737-8).
114–121Where . . . memoree: Spenser changes
Marot considerably, taking the tasks that Loyse’s maids of honor used to perform for
her and having Dido perform them for Lobbin; cf. Eglogue de ma
Dame Loyse de Savoye 87-90: L’une plantoit herbes en
ung Verger, / L’autre paissoit Coulombs et Tourterelles, / L’autre à
l’Aiguille ouvroit choses nouvelles, / L’autre (en après) faisoit Chappeaux
de fleurs (‘One planted herbs in an orchard, / Another fed doves and
turtle doves. / Another wrought new needlework / Another made of them afterwards
garlands of flowers’; trans. Meyers).
114the nosegayes that she dight: The
line and the following ones may gesture to Elizabeth’s well-known contemporary role
as a poet, as the nosegay was a common trope for poetry, and perhaps a female
poetry, as witnessed in the title of Isabella Whitney’s A Sweet
Nosegay, or Pleasant Posy (1573). At Teares
576-9, Polyhymnia, Muse of Rhetoric, says of ‘Elisa, sacred Emperesse’, that she ‘is
her selfe a peereles Poëtresse. / Most peereles Prince, most peereles Poëtresse’.
Spenser often uses the word ‘dight’ when referring to the making of poetry; see June 1-8n, as well as Apr 29,
‘hys ditties bene so trimly dight’, said of Colin.
116rushrings: Dido’s ‘gifts . . . to . . . Lobbin . . .
do not necessarily imply marriage or betrothal. . . . But they do suggest something more intimate than a patron’s relationship to her retainer’ (Watkins 1995: 80).
116gilte Rosemaree: Cf. Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 231,
where romarin vert, ‘green rosemary’, are brought to adorn Loyse’s coffin.
123–124Ay me . . . course: Cf. Virgil, Ecl 5.34-5: postquam te Fata
tulerunt, / ipsa Pales agros atque ipse reliquit Apollo (‘Since the
Fates bore thee off, even Pales has left our fields, and even Apollo’).
125–128The faded . . . mourne: Cf. Marot,
Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 99-104: Les petis Ventz alors n’ont hallené, / Mais les fors Vents
encores en souspirent; / Fueilles & Fruictz des arbres abbatirent; / Le
cler Soleil chaleur plus ne rendit; / Du manteau vert les prez se
devestirent; / Le Ciel obscur larmes en respendit (‘The little winds
possessed no more breath, / But the strong winds still sigh for her. / They cast to
the ground leaves and fruit from the trees; / The bright sun gave out no more heat.
/ Of their green cloak the fields disrobed themselves, / The dark sky overflowed
with tears’; trans. Meyers).
125oke: A tree of permanence, but also a
symbol of power, famous from Lucan, Civil War 1.136-43, in a
simile describing the aged Pompey, reworked in Du Bellay’s simile for Rome in Les Antiquitez de Rome, and translated by Spenser at Rome 379-92. Cf. Februarie for
Thenot’s fable of the Oak and the Briar, especially 102-116 on the decrepit Oak,
once ‘King of the field’ (113). The oak is Spenser’s addition to the Marot passage
cited at 125-9.
128The mantled medowes mourne: A deft imitation of Marot,
Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 103: Du manteau vert les Prez se desvestirent (‘Of their green cloak the fields disrobed themselves’; trans. Meyers).
Cf. Barnfield, The Affectionate Shepheard (1594), sig. B1v: ‘The mantled meaddowes, and the fields so fayre’.
133The feeble . . . foode: Cf. Virgil,
Ecl 5.25-6: nulla neque amnem /
libavit quadrupes nec graminis attigit herbam (‘no four-footed beast
tasted the brook or touched a blade of grass’).
133–139 For examples of the natural world lamenting the loss of a beloved, see
Bion, Idyll 1-39; Moschus, Idylls
3.1-9; Virgil, Ecl 5.20-8, 7.51-6, 10.9-18; Mantuan, Ecl 3.180-7; Marot, Eglogue de
ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 107-9.
138–142The Turtle . . . verse: Cf. Marot,
Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 125-8: Sus Arbre sec s’en complaint Philomene; / L’aronde en faict
cryz piteux & tranchans;/ La Tourterelle en gemit, & en meine /
Semblable dueil; & j’accorde à leurs chants (‘Beneath the dried-up
tree laments Philomela, / The Swallow released wretched and piercing cries; / The
turtle dove sobbed and carried on / Similar mourning. And I harmonize with their
songs’; trans. Meyers). Whereas Spenser mentions Philomela and the turtledove, Marot
adds the swallow; for Spenser, however, the swallow is not a bird of lamentation but
rather one that either peeps out of its nest to signal the arrival of spring (Mar 11 and E.K.’s note) or flies swiftly and often
precariously (Dec 20).
138Turtle: The turtledove is a figure of
fidelity in love; it is also a figure for the poet as faithful lover (Am 89.1-8).
141Philomele: E.K.’s gloss, by citing Gascoigne, draws attention
to a genealogy for the nightingale as a figure for the poet, also revealed in
Spenser’s reference to ‘song’ (141).
141steepe: Cf. Mar 116.
143–147The water . . . seare: Cf. Virgil,
Ecl 5.20-1: Exstinctum Nymphae
crudeli funere Daphnin / flebant (vos coryli testes et flumina Nymphis)
(‘For Daphnis, cut off by a cruel death, the Nymphs wept—ye hazels and rivers bear
witness to the Nymphs’); Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de
Savoye 229-40: Portez Rameaulx parvenus à
croissance, / . . . / Et n’oubliez force branches d’Olive, / Car elle estoit
la Bergere de Paix (‘Carry boughs newly grown, / . . . / And do not
forget the olive branches, / For she was the shepherdess of peace’; trans. Meyers).
In Marot, Colin calls on the nymphs to bring flower-filled baskets to scatter on
Loyse’s tomb, amplified in a flower catalogue that includes laurel, and the nymphs
are reminded to bring olive branches to commemorate her role as a figure of peace.
In Spenser, Colin laments how the water nymphs who once made olive garlands for Dido
now bring cypress boughs, and how the Muses who once wore laurel now bring elder
branches, while the Three Fates stand by, repenting that they cut Dido’s life short.
146bayes: Emblem of poetic fame.
147Eldre: Judas was said to have hanged
himself on an elder tree. The berries are bitter. Cf. ‘Clorinda’ 42, which also
refers to this tree. ‘Clorinda’ 37-42 offers a reprise of Nov 143-7, for both passages represent a funereal change of garlands
for branches of cypress and elder.
148The fatall sisters: Referred to again at 163.
153–162O trustlesse state . . . carefull
verse: ‘The traditional reversal stanza’ relies on a
‘series of aphorisms, Chaucerian in tone and sentiment’ (Hoffman 1977: 60). Colin’s
attention to Dido’s ‘body’ laid out on the funeral bier has no correlate in Marot
(see 163-72n).
158mould: A complex word with multiple
meanings: pattern, form, frame; soil, earth; body.
163–172But maugre . . . verse: Signaled by
the transitional word ‘But’, this is the moment contradicting the fact of death via
the poet’s vision of the deceased’s apotheosis. Cf. Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 191: Elle est
aux champs Elisiens receue (‘She is received into the Elysian fields’;
trans. Meyers). Whereas Marot presents Colin recording an apotheosis that has
already happened, Spenser presents Colin himself undergoing a vision of the
apotheosis.
165She hath the bonds broke: Spenser’s phrasing,
‘She hath the bonds broke’, gives agency to Dido; she appears messianic.
170–172O happye . . . verse: For the
traditional change in the elegiac refrain, cf. Theocritus Idylls 1.127; Moschus, Idylls 3.119-20; Marot,
Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 216.
175–176saintes . . . saynt: See Maye 15n.
179Elisian fieldes so free: The phrase translates
Marot’s champs Elisiens at Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 191,
which equates the eternal pagan afterlife with a political Christian place, the Elysium Fields with the Champs-Élysées
in Paris (which is named after the Elysium Fields). In classical culture, the Elysium Fields were a divine abode of
heroic individuals but also a place of immortalizing song (Homer, Od 4.563; Hesiod, Works and Days 170;
Pindar, Odes 2.59-75; Virgil, Aen 6.637-59, 743-7; Ovid, Met 14.111; see also Dante,
Paradiso 15.25-7; Chaucer, Tr 4.789-91). Yet Spenser’s spelling of the word ‘Elisian’ evokes the name
‘Elisa’, connecting Dido with Queen Elizabeth (cf. Berger: ‘Elisa . . . centers and embodies Elisium’ [1988: 410]). Like Marot, Spenser politicizes the
afterlife in terms of the nation, but he adds the word ‘free’, making the Elisian Fields a place of eternal freedom (see Introduction and notes below).
183–187Unwise . . . astert: Jortin long ago
found these lines to be ‘Lucan [translated] very beautifully’ (Var 7: 413); see Civil War 4.517-20: Agnoscere solis / Permissum, quos iam tangit vicinia fati, /
Victurosque dei celant, ut vivere durent, / Felix esse mori (‘None but
those whom the approach of death already overshadows are suffered to know that death
is a blessing; from those who have life before them the gods conceal this, in order
that they may go on living’).
186Dye . . . dayly: Cf. 1 Cor
15:31: ‘By our rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I dye daily’.
188–189Fayre fieldes . . . the grasse ay
greene: Cf. Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame
Loyse de Savoye 193-6, Là où elle est n’y a rien
defloré; / Jamais le jour & les plaisirs n’y meurent; / Jamais n’y meurt
le Vert bien coloré, / Ne ceulx avec qui là dedans demerent (‘There
where she is, nothing is without beauty. / Never do the day nor pleasures there die.
/ Never does the full-colored forest there die / Nor those who reside within it’;
trans. Meyers); 201-2: En ces beaulx Champs et nayves maisons /
Loyse vit (‘In these beautiful fields and naive house / Louise dwells’;
trans. Meyers).
187astert: Cf. Chaucer, CT Knight 1.1595.
188layes: See 15n.
194–196There lives . . . misse: Cf. Marot,
Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 197, 206-7: Car toute odeur Ambrosienne y fleurent . . . / Là mange
fruict d’inestimable pris, / Là boyt liqueur, qui toute soif appaise
(‘For every ambrosial smell there blooms . . . / There she eats fruit of
immeasurable price, / There she partakes of drinks that allay any thirst’; trans.
Meyers). Cf. Drayton, who imitates Spenser at Shepherds
Garland, Eclogue 4.143, where the deceased Elphin is in heaven ‘Tasting
sweete Nectar, and Ambrosia’.
203–208Ay francke . . . fast: Thenot’s
six-line coda imitates the rhyme scheme of Januarye (ababcc) to anticipate the rhyme scheme of December.
203–205Ay francke . . . constrainte?: Cf.
Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 261-2: O franc Pasteur, combine tes Vers sont pleins / De grand
doulceur & de grand amertume (‘Oh honest shepherd, how full are
your verses / Of great sweetness and great bitterness’; trans. Meyers).
203Ay francke shepheard: At once a
translation and a quotation of Marot’s Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse
de Savoye 261: O franc Pasteur (‘Oh honest
shepherd’). In addition to changing the ‘O’ to ‘Ay’, Spenser translates ‘pasteur’ as
‘shepherd’, but he simultaneously translates and quotes the French word ‘franc’ as
‘francke’. Spenser’s word can mean either ‘generous’ or ‘free’ or perhaps
‘unburdened’. In English, however, ‘frank’ can also mean ‘open’ as well as ‘candid’,
referring to ‘speech’, and even ‘free in condition; not in serfdom or slavery’ (OED). Morley was the first to see a pun: ‘The "frank
Shepherd" in his mind was Clement [sic] Marot’ (Var 7: 414).
To be a ‘francke shepheard’ is to be what November so openly
declares, a Marotian poet of religious, political, and poetic freedom, able to speak
his mind (see Introduction).
204doolful pleasaunce: Mournful
pleasure. Spenser compresses the attributes conjoined in Marot’s Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 261-2 (see 203-5n above) into an
oxymoron descriptive of Colin’s entire elegy: ‘When Thenot says he does not know
whether to rejoice or weep, he is referring not simply to his double feeling about
Dido’s death, but to his reactions to Colin’s poem. Its power as a technical
performance is essential to its spiritual use—which is to enable men to endure,
accept, celebrate, not to transcend’ (Alpers 1972: 363; for a rebuttal, see Berger
1988: 395-6).
205constrainte: Cf. Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 263: mon cueur tu contraincts (‘my heart you compel’; trans.
Meyers).
206cossette: See 42, 46 and 46n. Cf.
Marot, Eglogue de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye 270-2, where
Thenot supplements his earlier promise of a flute with a vert
Laurier (‘cap of green laurels’; trans. Meyers).
210La . . . mord: ‘Death does not bite.’
Marot used the phrase as his personal emblem in the 1539 edition of his Œuvres. The emblem becomes Spenser’s final seal as a
‘francke shepheard’. Cf. 1 Cor 15.55: ‘O death, where is thy sting!’
8–9in the signe Pisces all Nouember: A
much-discussed error, since the sun is in Pisces in February. See 16n.
12Castalias: The fountain of poetic inspiration
on Mount Parnassus, sacred to Apollo and the Nine Muses. Cf. Virgil, Geor
3.291-3; Apr 41.
15Pan: Identified with Henry VIII at
Apr [50].
16closely buried in the Authors
conceipt: ‘Thus Eliza is indeed "buried", figuratively
speaking, "in the Authors conceipt"’ (McCabe 1999: 565).
27Melpomene . . . boatu: ‘Melpomene
cries aloud with the echoing voice of gloomy tragedy’; not in Virgil but from the
epigram Nomina musarum, formerly attributed to Ausonius.
29–30Hecuba . . . Seneca: The ghost of
Polydorus appears in Euripides’ Hecuba and the ghost of
Tantalus appears in Seneca’s Thyestes.
34Epanorthosis: Rhetorical figure
that recalls a word in order to substitute a more correct word.
37A . . . maius: ‘From less to
greater’--- a rhetorical technique of comparison, and specifically a topos in Virgil
pointing to the cursus or course of his literary career (Coolidge 1965).
58sisters husbande: Tereus.
60Gaskin: George Gascoigne,
in his Complainte of Philomene. Gascoigne, England’s
reigning poet before Spenser, died just before the Calender was
published. The remembrance here forms an elegy within an elegy, and thus momentarily
gestures to authorship as the center of November. E.K. gives
credit where credit is due, identifying Gascoigne as England’s leading figure for
the nightingale myth, and transacts a passing of the literary torch, with Spenser as
Gascoigne’s heir, as revealed at 25, when Thenot calls Colin ‘The Nightingale . . .
sovereigne of song’ (see 25n).
74Clotho . . . occat: ‘Clotho bears the
distaff; Lachesis draws out the thread; Atropos cuts it’ (Anthologia Latina 729R).
78Persephone: Mistake for Tisiphone,
perhaps confusing their names from Virgil, Culex 218-9 with
261-2, an error repeated at Teares 164. ‘This is one of the
arguments for the identity of E.K. and Spenser’ (Renwick, Var 7: 416).
84Elysian fieldes: Home of the blessed
in Virgil’s underworld (Aen 6.637-59, 743-7); yet Virgil’s
Dido is consigned to the Mourning Fields (6.440-66; see McCabe 1999: 570).
87Plato in Phædone: E.K. is likely
thinking of Phaedo 61b-c for the idea that death is a good.
90Manna in scripture: See Exod 16:4-35.
91Hebe: Cupbearer to the gods. The
source for E.K.’s ‘tale of Hebe’ has not been identified. He is troping the Milky
Way.
93Commentarye . . . dreames: Not
extant. Spenser tells Gabriel Harvey that he plans to publish the work: ‘I take best
my Dreames shoulde come forth alone, being growen by meanes
of the Glosse . . . full as great as my Calendar. Therein be
some things excellently, and many things wittily discoursed of E.K. and the Pictures so singularly set forth, and purtrayed, as if
Michael Angelo were there, he could (I think) nor
amende the best, nor reprehende the worst’ (Let 1.81-6).
102–104trespasse . . . one: Cf. 1 Cor
15:21-2. The ‘first man’ is Adam.
105Chaucer: Cf. the opening of CT Parson, quoting Jer 6:16.