1 in swowne: See vii.66.8-9. Varying designations of Guyon’s state may be tracked through the present canto.
2 Acrates sonnes: For the etymology shared by Acrates and Acrasia, see i.51.2-4n.
1.1 1.1 OED glosses the exclamatory use of ‘and’, ‘expressing surprise at, or asking the truth of, what one has already heard’. Spenser intensifies the sense of wonder by opening with the device, leaving unstated ‘what one has already heard’. A possibility would be 1 Pet 5:7, ‘Cast all your care on him: for he careth for you’. Contrast Virgil, tantaene animis caelestibus irae? (‘Can resentment so fierce dwell in heavenly breasts?’; Aen 1.11). The sense of wonderment at something already there, apprehended yet unapparent, in Spenser’s opening line may intimate the prevenience of grace.
1.2 1.2 Biblical precedent for the ministration of angels may be found at Ps 34:7, Matt 4:11, and Heb 1:14.
1.7 1.7 Cf. Ps 145:9, ‘his mercies are over all his workes’.
1.8 Angels: From Gk αγγελος aggelos messenger.
2.5 militant: Warlike or disposed to combat (cf. ‘Squadrons’); stationed at the end of the clause, ‘militant’ describes the manner of angelic ‘ayd’, but other senses are also available: ‘they militant’ and even ‘us militant’, where the zeugma draws ‘our’ militancy together with ‘theirs’ (the function of grace according to Calvinist doctrine). On spiritual warfare, see 2 Cor 10:4: ‘the weapons of our warrefare are not carnal’. Reformed theology distinguished between the Church Militant, comprised of Christians on earth engaged in combat against sin, and the Church Triumphant, comprised of those in heaven who have triumphed over sin. Cf. Eph 6:11-12: ‘Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the assaultes of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, and against the worldly governours, the princes of the darkenes of this worlde, against spirituall wickednesses, which are in the hie places’.
2.7 2.7 See Ps 34:7: ‘The Angel of the Lord pitcheth rounde about them, that feare him, and delivereth them’.
2.7–2.8 And . . . and . . .and: Polysyndeton, ‘characterized by the number of connecting particles employed’ (Quintilian, Inst 9.3.51). See 1.1n.
2.9 2.9 See Ps 8:4, ‘What is man, say I, that thou art mindful of him? and the sonne of man, that thou visitest him?’ Also 144:3, ‘Lord, what is man that thou regardest him!’, and Job 7:17, ‘What is man, that thou doest magnifie him, and that thou settest thine heart upon him?’
3.2–3.3 3.2-3 Phaedria denies the Palmer passage on her gondola at vi.19.4-9.
4.3 efforced: OED cites only this instance.
4.7 sunne his threasury: On Mammon’s ‘threasure’, see vii.arg 2n.
4.9 senceles dreame: Transferred epithet, applying properly to the dreamer; a dream with no sensory content would be no dream at all. See arg.1n on the ambiguity of Guyon’s state, and compare Redcrosse on the second night of the dragon battle in Book I, lying ‘as in a dreame of deepe delight’ (50.4) while his wounds are healed by a stream of balm trickling from the tree of life.
5.1 Beside his head: See I.ix.22.1-2, ‘they might perceive his head / To bee unarmd’, and note. Also John 20:12, ‘[Mary] sawe two Angels in white, sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feete’.
5.1 a faire young man: See Mark 16:5, ‘So they went into the sepulchre, and sawe a yong man siting at the right side, clothed in a long white robe’; also the description of Gabriel in Tasso, GL 1.13-14.
5.5 His snowy front: L frons forehead. See Matt 28:2-3, ‘the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven . . . And his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snowe’.
5.7 winged sheares: A metaphor for the wings, in which the tenor reappears as an adjective modifying the vehicle.
5.8 like painted Iayes: Cf. Chaucer, Parl 356, ‘the pekok, with his aungels fetheres bryghte’.
6.1 St. 6 The angel is winged like Cupid, but the simile goes on to specify when the resemblance is apt: when Cupid has laid his bow aside (cf. I.pr.3.5) to play with Venus and the Graces, shadowing Christian agape, divine beauty, and grace. For an account of this simile in the context of a Spenserianian ‘theodicy of Cupid’ that integrates human with divine love, see SpE s.v. ‘Cupid’ and ‘angel, Guyon’s’.
6.1 Idæan hill: Mount Ida; see vii.55.6n.
6.6 his goodly sisters: The three Graces are reputed daughters of Venus (Servius ad Aen 1.720, Boccaccio Genealogia 3.22, Conti Myth 325). Cf. VI.x.22 and Teares 401-6.
6.8 through sleepe beguild: Sleep in Spenser is regularly associated with deception; see ii.46.6-7 and v.34, as well as the extended tableau of the sleeping Verdant at xii.72-80.
7.3 childe: In ME ballads and romances, a young noble awaiting knighthood; Spenser uses the term more generally as a chivalric and slightly archaic title designating a young man of gentle birth.
8.1 8.1 See Ps 91:11, ‘For he shal give his Angels charge over thee to kepe thee in all thy waies’.
8.7 offend: From L offedere to strike against.
9.4 as . . . flight: ‘As [if he were a] fowle escapt by flight’.
9.8 courd: We make an exception here to our policy of modernizing u/v orthography because the spelling ‘courd’ appears meant to capture a particular pronunciation (a phonetic reduction) in the service of monosyllabic scansion. The phonetically reduced form of ‘covered’ allows it to merge with ‘cured’. OED identifies ‘cure’ as an elided form of ‘cover’, although ‘cure’ (as in ‘curate’, from L curare to care for) is also relevant. (Cf. recured and note at iv.16.7 and discure as a form of ‘discover’ at ix.42.8.)
9.8–9.9 9.8-9 Cf. Matt 23:37, ‘I have gathered thy children together, as the henne gathereth her chickens under her wings’. The syntax (‘courd it . . . from’) indicates a defensive gesture.
9.9 newly hatcht: For the hatchling as a conventional symbol of the soul’s immortality, see e.g. Camerarius 1590, Symbolorum et Emblamata Centuria 3.69, Nulla mihi mora est (‘death is nothing to me’)
10.2 Paynim: The ‘two sonnes of Acrates’ are not identified as Saracen knights during their earlier appearance in cantos iv-vi.
10.3 10.3 Archimago plays the Palmer’s part, as in the first episode of Book 2.
10.6 two sonnes of Acrates: See arg.2 and i.51.2-4n.
10.7–10.8 10.7-8 At vi. 47-51 the brethren encounter Archimago on the shore of the ‘Idle lake’ (vi.10.1-2).
11.4–11.5 11.4-5 Cf. Prov 26:21, ‘As the cole maketh burning coles, and the wood a fyre, so the contentious man is apt to kindle strife’.
11.4 Atin: See iv.42.5n.
11.7 slombred: A Spenserianism. Cf I.vii.15.6, the sole instance cited by OED.
12.3 comely: In ME usage, ‘applied in courtesy to those of noble station’ (OED). Cf. i.7.2.
13.7 enuy . . . to barke: Cf. SC ‘To His Booke’ 5, ‘And if that Envie barke at thee’. Early modern envy commonly barks and often bites as well.
14.5 14.5 Proverbial (Smith 1970, no 336).
14.7–14.9 14.7-9 Misapplies a well-known saying attributed to Solon the Lawgiver by Herodotus (Persian Wars 1.30) and Plutarch (Parallel Lives, Solon 37).
16.4–16.5 16.4-5 See Mark 15:24 on the soldiers casting lots for Christ’s garments; Faith’s rebuke to the Roman soldier who wounds Christ’s body on the cross in Langland, Piers Plowman: ‘Cursede caytyues! Knighthood was it nevere / To misdo a dead body, by daye nor by nyght’ (Crowley 1550, 18.96-97,); and Achilles’ treatment of Hector’s corpse in Homer (Il 22.375-404).
16.9 16.9 See Goliath’s threat to David at 1 Sam 17:44, ‘I wil give thy flesh unto the foules of the heaven, and to the beastes of the field’.
17.7 17.7 For the shield covered to protect onlookers from its blinding brightness, see I.viii.19 and OF 2.55-56.
17.7 Well kend him so far space: Archimago recognizes Arthur from a distance.
18.6 Sar’zins: From late L Saracēni, the people of Arabia. Applied to Muslim combatants in the Crusades; a medieval etymology going back to Jerome derives the term from the name of Abraham’s wife Sarah while identifying the Muslims who bear the name as descendants of Hagar.
19.1 19.1 The first mention of this lack, although Pyrochles is described at vi.41.3-4 as having abandoned his horse.
20.5 Medæwart: Herb also known as ‘meadow-sweet’. The etymology of the name is uncertain; see OED s.v. ‘meadwort’.
20.7 Aetna: The location of Vulcan’s forge, where both the sword of Turnus and the armor of Aeneas were made.
20.8–20.9 20.8-9 Virgil reports that the sword of Turnus was tempered in ‘the Stygian wave’ (Stygia tinxerat unda, Aen 12.91); it was also in the ‘Stygian lake’ that Occasion is said to have kindled the fire-brand she brings to Furor (v.22.6-8).
20.8 seuen times: The number of times Elisha tells Naaman to dip himself in the river Jordan to be cleansed (2 Kings 5:10).
20.9 which hidden vertue to it gaue: Cf. the near-total invulnerability conferred upon Achilles when, according to Statius, he was dipped in the river Styx as an infant. (Achilleid 1.133-34, 266-71).
21.3 fone: ME plural of ‘foe’, still current in the 16th-c.
21.6 Morddure: From L mordere to bite + durus hard, perhaps by way of Fr; cf. English ‘mordant’. Sound evokes also Fr mort death, and English ‘murder’, and may echo ‘Durlindana’, the sword of Orlando in OF.
22.4 22.4 See 20.8-9n above, and v.22.6-9, where Occasion arms Furor with ‘a flaming fyer brond’ that is not a poetically-designated sword but literally a fire-brand: Furor is then ‘armed with fire’.
22.5 His Lords owne flesh: The scriptural resonance of the phrasing, while not a precise echo, does recall the language of passages like John 6:48-60, and in this way touches on the allegory that makes Arthur a type of Christ bringing life to fallen man: ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Sone of man, and drinke his blood, ye have no life in you’ (6:53). John’s emphasis on this flesh as the only food that can nourish the soul (e.g., 6:48-51 and marginal glosses) may also be relevant to Guyon’s famished state.
22.6 vertuous: Morally righteous, but also having occult powers.
23.2 salued: Cf. Caxton, ‘He salued theym curtoysly’ (Sonnes of Aymon iii.75.28).
23.9 magnanimity: The culminating virtue in Aristotle’s Nic Eth. Cf. FQ Letter 38-40, where Spenser uses ‘magnificence’ to designate the virtue that is ‘(according to Aristotle and the rest) . . . the perfection of all the rest’, and ascribes this virtue to Arthur.
25.9 deface: If the etymology is taken from L facere, the sense might be ‘undo’.
26.7–26.8 26.7-8 On the special power of temperate or temporizing language, see 22.1-2, vi.36.3-5, III.ii.15.5-6, IV.ii.2.5-6, IV.ix.14.6-7, and VI.v.30.6-8.
27.7 Not to debate the chalenge of your right: To ‘challenge right’ is to lay a claim to, or assert a right, so that ‘not to debate the chalenge of your right’ means ‘not to take up the claim (of right) that you have laid/entered’: Arthur indicates that he is not going to dispute the legal basis of the knights’ quarrel with Guyon, but rather ask ‘pardon’ for him on essentially compassionate grounds. At the same time there is a play on the word ‘chalenge’, because medieval trials of right usually took the form of ordeal, including combat. In a chivalric encounter of this kind, a ‘challenge’ is a summoning or defiance offered by one contestant to others. Hence the ‘chalenge’ here might also be ‘an offer of battle, a defiance’, linked to the ‘matter of right’ being contested between the brothers and Guyon; cf. ‘debate’ as combat at 11.9 and 54.6. (On the concentration of legal diction in this episode see Zurcher 2007:70).
28.2 28.2 See Job 9:33: ‘Neither is there any dayesman to lay his hande betweene us’ (Bishops’ Bible; Geneva reads ‘Nether is there any umpire that might laie his hand upon us bothe’.
29.1–29.6 29.1-6 Arthur’s definition of God’s justice in these lines is based on the second commandment, Exod 20:5.
29.3 Nephewes: From L nepos.
29.5 bereaue: Normally the thing taken is valued, with the verb expressing a sense of loss.
29.7 vpreare: Breaks the rhyme-scheme. Hamilton 2001 notes that ‘“upheaue” would satisfy the “b” rhyme, though that word is never used in the poem while “upreare” is common’.
30.4 Termagaunt: ‘An imaginary deity held in mediæval Christendom to be worshipped by Muslims’ (OED); cf. 33.3.
31.6–31.7 31.6-7 The notion of a ‘law of armes’ goes back to Roman authors, but was revived and elaborated in form of the ‘chivalric code’ by medieval writers like Jean de Meun and Christine de Pizan. To ‘strike foe undefide’ was to attack without first issuing a formal challenge; see i.25.9n.
32.5 32.5 Pyrochles lays ‘rude hand’ on Guyon’s shield at 17.1.
33.3 Mahoune: A form of the name ‘Mohammed’, but also another imaginary deity held in the Middle Ages to be worshipped by Muslims; see 30.4n.
33.8 Els mote it needes: Otherwise it must (OED s.v. ‘needs’).
35.4 stowre: Etymologically linked to ‘storm’ (see 48.2).
36.5 gryde: Cf. SC Feb. 4 E.K. gloss, ‘Gride) perced: an olde word much used of Lidgate’.
37.2 his Gods: Termagaunt (30.4) and Mahoune (33.3).
37.8 brond: See 22.4n.
38.3 The one: conflating the knight (now Pyrochles) with his swordstroke.
38.4 his owner byte: Pyrochles wields Morddure (see 21.6n and 22.5n).
38.5 troncheon: From L truncus trunk.
38.9–39.2 38.9-39.2 ‘But one of the souldiers with a speare perced his side, and forthewith came there out blood and water’ (John 19:34). For the medieval tradition that locates this wound on the right, see Gurewich (1957: 359b). Cf. 22.5n.
40.7–40.9 40.7-9 The simile is scriptural: cf. 2 Sam 17:8, Prov. 17:12, Hos 13:8.
40.9 yond: OED suggests Spenser may have misunderstood a line from Chaucer: ‘Beth egre as is a Tygre yond in Ynde’ (CT Clerk IV 1199)’.
42.1 St. 42 Imitated from a simile in Ariosto: Chi ha visto in piazza rompere steccato, a cui la folta turba ondeggi intorno,immansueto tauro accaneggiato, stimulato e percosso tutto 'l giorno (‘Imagine a wild bull pent up in a public square, goaded and struck all day long until, in a fit of rage, he breaks out . . . .’; OF 18.19.1-4).
42.2 42.2 ‘Once rancor goads him with rage’.
43.3 43.3 The portrait on Guyon’s shield is mentioned previously at i.28.7-8 and v.11.7-8.
43.6 For ‘stowre’, see 35.4n.
45.1 renfierst: OED cites only this instance.
45.6–45.9 45.6-9 See the death of Turnus in Virgil, ast illi solvuntur frigore membra / vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras (‘But the other’s limbs grew slack and chill, and with a moan life passed indignant to the Shades below’, Aen 12.951-52).
46.8 Harrow and well away: See vi.43.6 and note.
47.2 47.2 The desire for revenge blends with the desire for death; cf. the confusion of retribution with self-destruction in Pyrochles’ motto (iv.38.5 and note).
47.4 47.4 Pyrochles flies fiercely at Arthur with Arthur’s own sword.
49.1–49.7 49.1-7 See Tasso’s description of the combat between Tancred and Argante (GL 29.17).
50.2–50.4 50.2-4 Imitated from Virgil Aen 11.721-24; cf. Ovid Met 6:516-18.
50.2 Bittur: A smaller cousin of the heron.
51.1 great mind: Magnanimity, from L magna great + animus spirit; see 23.9n and Aristotle, Nic Eth 4.3.
51.5 dismall day: From L dies mali; see vi.43.7n.
51.6 miscreaunce: Cf. 31.6.
51.7 liegeman: ‘A vassal sworn to the service and support of his superior lord, who in return was obliged to afford him protection’ (OED).
52.1 Foole: Cf. Matt 5:22, ‘whosoever shal say, Foole, shalbe worthie to be punished with hel fyre’.
52.2 52.2 Cf. Virgil, utere sorta tua (‘use thou thy chance’; Aen. 12.932). The allusion to Virgil’s Turnus may pass though Tasso’ Argantes at GL 19.26.
52.8–52.9 52.8-9 The elliptical treatment of the decapitating blow in these lines recalls a similar ellipsis in Virgil’s description of the death of Priam, Aen 2.554-58. In combining a reminiscence of Priam’s death with that of Turnus, Spenser here anticipates Shakespeare’s conflation in Hamlet (2.2.468-497) of the same Virgilian moments.
53.2 her sencelesse foe: Transferred epithet: life’s foe is senselessness itself.
53.9 53.9 See Recrosse’s similar address to Una at I.ix.17.4-5.
55.1 the tokens trew: The visible evidence that the Palmer’s words are true.
55.2 embayd: Possibly with baptismal overtones.
55.4 the Patrone of his life: Cf. 26.9, ‘thy knights last patronage’; also I.ix.17.6, II.xi.16.9.
55.5 my liege: See 51.7n.
55.9 55.9 This half-line remains in later editions; Church 1758 observes that Arthur may cut Guyon off. If so, then in preempting Guyon’s speech Arthur closes the canto as it opens, with a formal mimesis of the prevenience of grace.
56.1 Infant: From Span Infante.
56.1–56.3 56.1-3 For the contrasting economies of merit and grace, see 2.8 and vii.49.9n.
56.7–56.8 56.7-8 ‘In this way they devised together a substantial conversation about kindness and the courteous giving of grace’. For ‘aggrace’ as a noun, OED cites only this instance. As a verb it means to convey grace, as at I.x.18.7, where it describes the action of Fidelia in preparing Redcrosse to read scripture.