5 stay, . . . offred: Hesitate till the occasion be offered.

14–15 for . . . tasted: The gist of this is that Spenser fears being thought to have been motivated by the hope of securing a sweetness that he has, in fact, already received from Sidney.

15–20 Then . . . like.: Although Spenser disavows the idea that celebration of a social inferior might render a work inappropriate for a reader like Sidney, attributing this scruple to others, he would express the same concern that a noble or royal reader might be offended by praise of inferiors in Am 33 and FQ VI.x.28.

16 his excellent Lordship: The phrasing leaves it unclear whether the work will be ‘offred’ to Sidney or to Leicester. On the traces of an original intention to dedicate the Calender to Leicester rather than to Sidney, see Hadfield 2012:128-30 and SC To His Booke 11.

16–17 a priuate Personage: The ‘Rosalind’ of the Calender.

21 your fine Addition: No convincing interpretation of what Harvey’s ‘Addition’ to the Calender was has yet been offered; Spenser seems to indicate that Harvey supplied some additional or alternate title. The present passage confirms that Spenser and Harvey spent some time discussing both the proper title of the work and the proprieties of dedicating a work of pastoral to an eminent patron, whether Leicester or Sidney: those discussions seem to receive playful reminiscence on the title page of the Calender, where the work is ‘Entitled | TO THE NOBLE AND VERTV-|ous Gentleman most worthy of all titles | both of learning and chevalrie M. |Philip Sidney’.

29–30 occasion . . . Preferment: The particular occasion may be presumed to be the resignation of Richard Bridgewater from the position of Public Orator at Cambridge in late October of 1579.

31–32 Verùm ne quid durius: ‘Truly, “nothing more severely”’. Spenser here alludes to the principle espoused in De poenis (‘On penalties’) in Justinian’s Digest: Respiciendum est judicanti ne quid aut durius aut remissius constituatur quam causa deposcit; nec enim aut severitatis aut clementiae gloria affectanda est (‘It should matter to a judge that nothing be either more leniently or more severely construed than the cause itself demands, for the glory neither of severity nor clemency should be affected’; Dig. Iust. 48.19.11). In the present context, Spenser seems to be enjoining Harvey not to judge his own accomplishments so harshly that he fails to press the case for his own preferment; certainly this is how Harvey seems to have construed Spenser’s advice (see 5.42-45).

34–36 De quibus . . . tuis: ‘Concerning these things in one of those surpassingly sweet, long letters of yours.’

36–37 Your . . . selfe: If we suppose that Spenser would not risk appearing rude in denying Harvey a report (by no means a necessary supposition), we might infer that the expected meeting with the queen never took place; but Spenser may indeed be risking the slight offensiveness, for the sake of insinuating that a glamorous meeting had indeed taken place—even if it hadn’t. Grosart and Buck construe the sentence as a taciturn report on an actual meeting (see Var 10.250).

38–39 they . . . familiarity: I am grateful that they habitually treat me somewhat as a familiar.

39–40 of whom . . . estimation: What appreciative things they say of you and what they are told on your behalf.

42 ἀρειωπαγῳ: Areiō pagō (Gk dat. for ‘Areopagos’). The name for this collective of literary arbiters is borrowed from that of the ancient tribunal that met on the ‘Hill of Ares’ in ancient Athens. Sidney, Dyer, and their literary ‘Senate’ may or may not have referred to themselves by this name. At 5.50-53 below, Harvey responds to Spenser as if the coterie thus named were ‘new-founded’ and, perhaps, comprised only Sidney and Dyer, yet a Latin elegy of Daniel Rogers from January of 1579 (reproduced in van Dorsten, Poets, Patrons, and Professors, 1962: 175-9) describes a small fellowship of writers that already comprises Sidney, Dyer, and Fulke Greville, and Spenser speaks of Sidney and Dyer as ‘having had . . . already great practise’ of quantitative versifying (4.46-47). Spenser’s turn to quantitative metrics involves taking up an activity that Harvey had advocated earlier and that seems to be especially worthwhile now that Sidney’s ‘Areopagus’ had interested itself in the enterprise.

48–49 one . . . Abuse: Stephen Gosson recognized that his attack on contemporary English drama in The School of Abuse (1579), especially coming from someone who was a playwright himself, might seem a perverse undertaking, but his decision to dedicate the work to Sidney was an almost unaccountable gaffe. The critical social history of poetry with which The School of Abuse opens seems to have provoked Sidney to write the Defense of Poesy. Sidney’s scorn for Gosson’s effort increased Spenser’s nervousness about the tactics and proprieties of publication in general and of dedication in particular, yet Sidney seems not to have broadcast his disdain for Gosson’s dedication, for Gosson dedicated yet another book to Sidney, The Ephemerides of Phialo, before the end of the year.

53 My Slomber: An earlier title, presumably, of the work to which Spenser and Harvey will later refer as Dreames. It should be noted that, if this work were some sort of reworking of the poems translated for the Theatre for Worldlings, Spenser’s scruple at dedicating it to Sidney is difficult to explain, since those poems have the double virtue of a close relation to the work of eminent modern poets (Petrarch, Marot, and DuBellay) and of firm affiliation to militant anti-Catholic understandings of Revelation, both of which should have appealed to Sidney. The scruple would be easier to explain if the poems had a different lineage, and were somehow improperly erotic in character. Todd proposed that Spenser is referring to the same work to which Ponsonby refers, in the prefatory epistle to Complaints, as ‘A senights slumber’ (13-14).

54 meant them: Intended that they be ‘entituled’.

57–58 Sed te . . . Anglicos: ‘Although at that time, I believed you alone—and Ascham—to know [about these matters]; I now see that the court nourishes remarkable English poets’.

58 Maister E.K.: Presumably the same person or persona responsible for the commentary to the Calender.

63–64 Mystresse Kerkes . . . Carrier: Spenser relies on Mrs. Kerke, who has not been identified, for discreet delivery of his correspondence with Harvey; see below (4.258). It has been surmised, on weak evidence, that she was the innkeeper at the Bull Inn in Bishopsgate, which was later, and may already have been, one of the London termini for carriers transporting goods and letters between London and Cambridge. (The Bell in Coleman Street was another such terminus.) It has also been imagined that she is some relative to E.K., the glossator of the Calender, perhaps his mother.

70 imparte . . . to me: Make a comparable effort in tandem with me.

71–72 quod . . . autoritati: ‘Which we will nonetheless forgive in the case of such a Poet, by virtue of your great authority in these matters’.

75–76 Veruntamen . . . viuam: ‘Although I will follow only you (as I so frequently acknowledge), I surely won’t overtake you as long as I live’. Spenser rings changes on the compliment at 1.98-9.

77–78 shortest . . . Iambickes: Spenser slightly overstates here: the trimeter line is not very short. While the iambic foot (‿-) is indeed shorter than the dactylic one (-‿‿), Greek and Latin lyric verse is composed in metra, or metres. Greek iambic metres and many Latin ones are composed of pairs of feet (iambic dipodies: x-‿-), whereas dactylic metres are composed of single feet and therefore, because a single line of iambic trimeter and a single line of dactylic hexameter each contain 6 feet, a line of dactylic hexameter will not appear conspicuously longer than a line of iambic trimeter. In terms of total allowable duration of the line, the normal Latin dactylic hexameter comprise 23 to 24 morae (that is, the equivalent of 23-24 short syllables); the normal Latin iambic trimeter comprises 18 to 21 morae.

78 I dare . . . perfect: Harvey will take exception to the terms of Spenser’s claim here in his response; see 5.52ff.

82 Maister Preston, Maister Still: Thomas Preston was a reasonably skilled Latin poet, though he is remembered more as the probable author of Cambises. He had been a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge since 1556 and received his doctorate in Civil Law c.1576. Preston had received notice from Elizabeth I during her visit to Cambridge in 1564, and she interceded on his behalf two decades later, insisting on his election as master of Trinity Hall in 1586. As the Cambridge Oratorship came open, Preston became one of Harvey’s rivals for the position. For John Still see 2.466n. above.

84

Iambicum Trimetrum: Spenser is adapting the rules of classical iambic trimeter, the most widely used meter in spoken passages of classical drama. Greek iambic trimeter consists of three dipodies, or pairs of feet, each pair composed of either two iambs or a spondee and an iamb (thus, x-‿-); substitutions of paired short syllables for a single long one are allowed in all but the final syllable of the line. The Latin adaptation of the iambic trimeter, often called the senarius, was widely used in Roman comedy and tragedy (with slightly different rules for each genre). The senarius is organized in feet rather than in metra and while the sixth foot is always an iamb, the preceding five feet often feature even greater freedom of substitution than was allowed in Greek trimeter. Spenser has chosen a form that allows considerable metrical latitude for his earliest surviving effort in quantitative versifying.

Although he claims that his practice here is ‘precisely perfecte for the feete’ and in other ways strictly regular, it has not seemed so to those readers who have attempted to scan his lines. Davison, presumably regarding the second line as defective and the third as hypermetrical, transposed ‘Thought’ in his reprinting of the poem in A Poetical Rhapsody; Attridge solved the same problem by treating ‘fluttring’ as a misprint for ‘fluttering’ and by scanning the fifth foot of the third line as a dactyl, a substitution allowable in the senarius. (A more elegant solution to the difficulty of the second line might be to emend by interpolating ‘for’ as the second word in the line.) Harvey is the most explicitly critical: at 5.59-76 below, he notes the inconsistent quantities of l. 2 (though not its defective character) and the hypermetrical character of l. 3, and chides Spenser for spelling that carelessly obscures what Harvey imagines to be his intended scansions, for the overuse of spondees, and for a reliance on initial trochaic substitutions that undermines the iambic character of the verse.

In Davison’s edition of 1602, the poem is arranged into three line strophes, which gives visual prominence to its triple rhetorical structures.

Harvey and Spenser argue below about the metrics of this poem, so the following scansion must be regarded as especially uncertain:

Harvey seems to have scanned lines 87/3 and 90/6 differently. His discussion at 5.59-65 suggests that he regards their scansion, with some disappointment, as

and

At 5.65-9 Harvey considers whether the last foot of the last line—‘merito’—should be scanned as an anapaest or a spondee, but he is disapprovingly confident that it cannot be iambic. For Harvey’s solution to the problem of the hypermetricality he attributes to 90/6, see 5.61-63 and 5.63n.

88-4–106 reastlesse . . .Virginals: That the beloved is as restless and cheerless as the lover violates the conventions of Elizabethan amatory verse; the third alternative, that she makes music alone, restores her to a more conventional carelessness.

90-6 Virginals: A musical instrument of the harpsichord family, but smaller than a standard harpsichord, with a more sonorous tone.

110 one mans negligence: Presumably the negligence of one of the carriers.

240

Ad Ornatissimum . . . reducat. etc.: ‘To that most accomplished man and, for a long time, the most eminently renowned, G.H., the Farewell [eutychein] of his Immerito, soon to make his voyage into Gaul.

‘Thus the bad poet salutes the great one; thus the not unfriendly one, his friend; thus the novice, the veteran, and wishes him, now returned after many years, favorable skies, more favorable than those he himself now enjoys. Behold, the god—if indeed he really be a god who tempts the unyielding to wickedness and brings sworn love to ruin—behold, the sea god has now given me clear signs and, gentle, smooths his seas, soon to be furrowed by a sail-bearing bow; Father Aeolus also puts by his furies and the huge gusts of the North Wind: thus all things suit my passage.

‘Only I am unsuited. For just now my mind, wounded by I know not what injury, is tossed by an uncertain sea, while Love, a powerful sailor, hauls here and there the powerless prow. Reason, that makes use of better counsel, and immortal honor have been split by Cupid’s fickle bow. We are anguished by this doubt, and shaken even while still at port. Oh, you who are now The Great Scorner of quiver-wearing Love (I pray that the gods not allow you that title unpunished) loosen these fetters and you will be, to me, The Great Apollo. A generous spirit, I know, drives you to the highest honors, and teaches the Poet to aspire more greatly.

‘How fickle is Love (and yet not all love is fickle). You therefore judge nothing equal to endless fame and, because of your sacred vision of such glory, you are accustomed to trample beneath you those other things that the senseless mob worships as gods—estates, friendships, city property, money, and whatever pleases the eyes, beauties, spectacles, lovers—all like dirt and the trumperies of sense. Surely this is a judgement worthy of my Harvey, worthy of the grand speaker and the noble heart; nor would the Stoic wisdom of the Ancients hesitate to sanctify this judgement with eternal bonds. Yet for all that, tastes differ.

‘It is said that the eloquent son of feeble Laertes, however much driven across the seas beneath unknown skies, and however long an exile in an ocean stormy with whirlpools, refused those born of heaven and the blessed couch of the gods in favor of the embrace of a tearful spouse: so mighty was his love, and his wife, in fact, even mightier than Love himself. And yet you mock it; such is your boast. Compared with an enshadowed vision of such great splendor and a reputation born of famous merits, you despise all those other things that the senseless mob worships as gods—estates, friendships, herds, property, money, and whatever pleases the eyes—beauties, spectacles, lovers—whatever is pleasing to the tongue and to the ears.

‘Indeed, fine as is your palate, taste is not wisdom: he who knows well how to be unwise, often bears the palm away from arrogant wisemen. The harsh crowd of the Wise now mocks Aristippus for tempering mild words to the purple-robed tyrant; Aristippus mocks the empty precepts of the Wise, whom the merest shadow of a passing gnat could cruelly torment. And whoever strives to please great heroes, strives to be unwise, for rewards flood the foolish. All told, whoever hopes to glorify his brow with plaited laurel and to please a favorable crowd, strives, crazed, for unwisdom and seeks the degraded praise of shameful folly. Father Ennius was said to have been the only wise man in a numberless crowd, yet he is praised for having poured out songs drenched in lunatic wine. Nor, if one may say so, would you, the greatest Cato of our age, really deserve the sacred name of reverend Poet, no matter how gloriously you sing or how noble the song, unless you would wish to make a fool of yourself, for the world is full of fools.

‘Yet a safe path remains in the midst of the whirlpool, for you should call wise only he who wishes to seem to the rest neither too foolish, nor too wise: here by a wave you would have drowned, and there been consumed by a fire. If you are wise, do not reject gushing delights outright, nor a mistress sluggish in responding to your vows, nor stolen gold: leave such pitiful scruples to the Curiuses and Fabriciuses, those pitiful men, once the grand honor of their age, but now the dishonor of our own. Don’t try too hard. Either extreme is worthy of reproach. The man who is thus prepared, if anyone is really prepared thus, call him alone wise, even if Socrates would resist doing so.

‘One power makes men pious, another makes them just, and still another makes their hearts both most prudent and most bold, but ‘he who mixes the useful and the pleasant wins on every count’. Long ago, the gods gave me the gift of the Pleasant, but they’ve never given me the Useful. Oh, if only they had made me, then, or even now, both Useful and Pleasant. If the gods didn’t so begrudge happiness to mortals, they could have granted me, at once, (since to the gods great things and small ones weigh equally) both the Pleasant and the Useful. But your good Fortune is so great, that it gives you, equally, whatever pleases and, freely, whatever is useful. Meanwhile, we, born under a harsh star, go off to seek at length our fortune -- through the inhospitable Caucasus, the rocky Pyrenees, and polluted Babylon. But if we shall not find there what we seek, having crossed a huge sea in endless wandering, we will seek it more remotely, in the midst of the flood, in the company of Ulysses. Thenceforth with weary steps we will attend the grieving Goddess, for whom, seeking for that noble thing which was stolen, leaving the world bereft. For it shames the not too unluckily gifted youth, languishing in shameful darkness and in the paternal lap, vainly to waste his flourishing years on worthless tasks and to pick out only empty stalks, when fruits were hoped for.

‘We will therefore set out at once (would anyone wish me good luck at the outset?); we will trudge with weary foot up the steep Alps. Who, meanwhile, who will send you little notes, spiced with British dews? and who will write the song goatish with love? Beneath the peak of the Oebalian mountain the unpracticed Muse in inexhaustible laments will bemoan her silence so protracted, and weeping will mourn sacred, silenced Helicon. Good Harvey -- who can be dear to all, and deservedly so, since he is sweeter than almost anyone else -- my Angel and my Gabriel, however much he is thronged by countless friends and pressed by delightful choirs of guardian spirits, will nevertheless often pine for an absent one, for Immerito, and will wish, “if only my Edmund were here, he who has written news and who has not kept silent about his own love affairs, and often prays, from his heart and with kind words, for my good fortune. May God eventually return him, etc.”’

121 in Gallias: ‘Gaul’ means ‘France’ here, but might perhaps be understood as including northern Italy as well.

125-3–126-4 post . . .reducem: Spenser implies that Harvey has returned after many years’ absence, but there is no evidence of his actual absence from England. It may be that Spenser is simply referring here to Harvey’s absence from London.

127-5 Ecce Deus: ‘Behold, the god’: the invocation to Poseidon/Neptune, the god of the sea, implies a link between the voyaging Spenser and Odysseus/Ulysses. In the Odyssey, Poseidon is Odysseus’ chief divine opponent. The Odyssean allusion is loose: Poseidon is not involved in the epic’s instances of temptation or erotic betrayal.

131-9 Æolus: Ruler of the winds. There are many traditions about a god or a ruler of this name. According to one, Æolus is the son of Poseidon; in the Odyssey, he is said to be the son of Hippotes (Od 10.1-22). This second Æolus hosts Odysseus for a month at the end of which he provides the hero with a favourable west wind and a sealed bag containing all the other winds, which Odysseus’ crew later open, with disastrous consequences.

135-13–139-17 dum . . . in ipso.: Although the figure of Love as a domineering sailor is traditional (for which see Petrarch, RS, 189), it has been argued that these lines express a particular reluctance to leave England because of the claims of affection, powerfully determining the latter interpretation.

135-13–136-14 Nauita . . . Amor: ‘A Sailor . . . Love’; for Love as a domineering sailor, see Petrarch, RS, 189.

140-18 pharetrati: ‘Quiver-wearing’; in Ovid’s poetry, a favorite attribute of Cupid: see Met 10.252, Amores 2.5.11, Rem Am 379, and Trist 5.1.22.

144-22 spirare: ‘To aspire,’ but also ‘to be inspired poetically’.

240

Quàm . . .temnis: The poem as printed seems to preserve vestiges of competing drafts: the similarity of 147-51 and 163-8 suggests that they represent two different versions of the poem, one of which was to have been supplanted by the other. Another sign of lack of finish here is the poor continuity between the unusually short period at 145 (originally printed as part of the sentence beginning at 143, despite its syntactic independence) and the lines immediately following. We therefore surmise that the two versions of the poem here printed as one are

A:

[A generous spirit, I know, drives you to the highest honors, and teaches the Poet to aspire more greatly. You therefore judge nothing equal to endless fame and, because of your sacred vision of such glory, you [are accustomed to trample] beneath you those other things that the senseless mob worships as gods—estates, friendships, city property, money, and whatever pleases the eyes, beauties, spectacles, lovers—all like dirt and the trumperies of sense. Surely this is a judgement worthy of my Harvey, worthy of the grand speaker and the noble heart; nor would the Stoic wisdom of the Ancients hesitate to sanctify this judgement with eternal bonds. Yet for all that, tastes differ. Indeed, fine as is your palate, taste is not wisdom:, etc.]

and B:

[A generous spirit, I know, drives you to the highest honors, and teaches the Poet to aspire more greatly. How fickle is Love (and yet not all love is fickle). It is said that the eloquent son of feeble Laertes, however much driven across the seas beneath unknown skies, and however long an exile in an ocean stormy with whirlpools, refused those born of heaven and the blessed couch of the gods in favor of the embrace of a tearful spouse: so mighty was his love, and his wife, in fact, even mightier than Love himself. And yet you mock it; such is your boast. Compared with an enshadowed vision of such great splendor and a reputation born of famous merits, you despise all those other things that the senseless mob worships as gods—estates, friendships, herds, property, money, and whatever pleases the eyes—beauties, spectacles, lovers—whatever is pleasing to the tongue and to the ears. Indeed, fine as is your palate, taste is not wisdom:, etc.]

156-34 effæti . .. Laërtæ: ‘The eloquent son of feeble Laertes’, i.e., Odysseus. Ovid’s Ajax describes Ulysses as facundus (‘eloquent’) in his dismissive account of the latter’s cowardice during the Trojan War (Met 13.92).

240 Præ . . . beatos: ‘Refused those born of heaven and the blessed couch of the gods in favor of the embrace of a tearful spouse’, referring unspecifically to Ulysses’ loyalty to Penelope and his scorn for the divine temptations of Calypso (with which the Odyssey opens) and Circe (Od 10-12).

163-41 subumbrata: ‘Enshadowed’; not a classical word, and possibly Spenser’s coinage, the term has an erudite and slightly mystifying quality.

240 Tu tamen . . . faventi: These lines, both in their argument for the social and political utility of Folly (stultitia) and in their vocabulary, rely heavily on Erasmus’ arguments in The Praise of Folly.

174-52 Aristippus: A student of Socrates, Aristippus espoused a philosophy of hedonistic adaptability. In his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius transmits a rich body of anecdotes about Aristippus, many of which concern Aristippus’ bold and witty interactions with the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse. See also Horace’s account of Aristippus in Epist. 1.17.13-32.

213-91 inexhaustis: ‘Unexhausted’ if strictly rendered, but Spenser may well be remembering the inexhaustis . . . metallis (‘inexhaustible mines’) of Virgil, Aen 10.174. Spenser’s odd phrase suggests that his wanderings are a kind of resource.

181-59 Ennius: Born c. 239, Ennius was one of the earliest poets writing in Latin and the first to adapt Greek dactylic hexameters to Latin. Horace alleges the importance of wine to Ennius’ achievement: Ennius ipse pater numquam nisi potus ad arma / prosiluit dicenda (‘Even Father Ennius never sprang forth to tell of arms save after much drinking’, Epist. 1.19.7-8).

184-62 Cato: Either a reference to the soldier and statesman, Cato the Elder, also known as Cato Censorius for his rigorous regulation of Roman morals, or to his grandson, Cato the Younger, also a statesman and, like his grandfather, also noted for his rigor. A comparison to the the younger Cato, famous for his powers as an orator, would have been especially flattering to Harvey; but reference to the elder Cato would also be pertinent here, for Cato Censorius was much praised by Ennius, whom, according to Cicero, this Cato regarded as his familiar friend (De Sen, 10).

187-65 Stultorum omnia plena: Although the sentiment is deeply indebted to Erasmus’ Praise of Folly, Spenser is quoting from Cicero (Familiar Epistles, 9.22.4), a maxim familiar to most English readers, since it is quoted in Lily’s Grammar (1542: G3v).

194-72 Curijs . . . Fabriciisque: Manius Curius Dentatus was tribune of the Roman plebs early in the 3rd C BCE and thereafter thrice elected consul; Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, of the same generation, was consul in 282 BCE. Both men had a reputation for frugality and incorruptible probity; Plutarch records an anecdote of Fabricius’ refusal of a bribe, despite his poverty (Pyrrhus, 18).

196-74

nostri sed dedecus æui: ‘But now the dishonor of our own age’: insinuating that a reputation for virtue no longer weighs more heavily than the ‘dishonor’ of frugality and poverty.

202-80 Omne . . . dulci: ‘He who mixes the useful and the pleasant wins on every count’. Offered as a general guide to conduct, the famous line is quoted verbatim from Horace, Ars Poet , 343, where it serves as part of a series of injunctions intended particularly for poets.

205-83 æqualia: We adopt Grosart’s proposed emendation, believing ‘æquivalia’ to be an uncorrected printing error for ‘æqualia’. The post-classical word, out of keeping with the diction of the rest of the poem, violates the prosody of the hexameter, a violation on which we might expect Harvey to have commented, had it appeared in the copy he reviewed.

211-89 Babilonaque turpem: ‘And polluted Babylon’; whereas in Revelation, ‘Babylon’ represents Rome as the seat of the Roman Empire, in Protestant anti-Catholic polemic, ‘Babylon’ usually represents Rome as the seat of the papacy and the Catholic Church. Cf. Van der Noot’s commentary on Revelation 18.10: ‘Alas, alas, that greate citie Babylon, that myghtie Citie. Alas, our mother the holy Churche of Rome, so many holy fathers, Popes, Cardinalles, and Byshops’ (Theatre Decl 1807-9).

213-91 vltrâ: ‘Beyond’. With the suggestion that, having sought his fortune in a quest that takes in all of Europe from the Caucasus to the Pyrenees, he will join Ulysses in a quest ‘beyond’ those boundaries, Spenser evokes a tradition most famously witnessed in Dante (Inf 26.90-142). According to this tradition, Odysseus/Ulysses made a final voyage that took him beyond the pillars of Hercules until he caught sight of Purgatory before drowning; in Dante the hero’s last voyage stands as both a culpable quest for knowledge and a betrayal of his avowed love for Penelope.

215-93 Deam . . . ægram: ‘The grieving Goddess’. In an abrupt shift, Spenser now imagines himself accompanying not Ulysses, but Demeter/Ceres, frustrated in her search for her stolen daughter.

224-102 petulcum: Lit. ‘butting’. The use of this odd adjective to describe Spenser’s love poems both indicates their pastoral modality and emphasizes the animal urgency of the desire they evoke.

225-103 Oebalij . . . montis: The mountain might be understood as Spartan (because named after the Spartan king Oebalus) or as Vesuvian (named for the mother of Oebalus, the nymph of a stream near Naples).

227-105 Helicona: For Helicon as dedicated to the Muses, see SC Apr gl 51-58; at Teares 5 it serves as a setting for the Muses’ voluble lamentations.

240 Plura . . . charissime: ‘I would write more by the Graces, but the Muses won’t permit it. Farewell, and more farewells, my most amiable Harvey, by far the dearest to my heart of all my friends.’

245 my Lorde: Presumably, the Earl of Leicester.

256–257 Qui monet, vt facias, quod iam facis: ‘He who reminds thee to do what thou art already doing’. This is the penultimate line of book 5 of Ovid’s Tristia, the last line of which is ‘ille monendo laudat et hortatu comprobat acta suo’ (‘. . . by so reminding praises thy acts and by his very exhortation approves them’; Trist 5.14.45-6).

262 This. . . . 1579.: The date, as printed—‘This. 5. of October. 2579.’—is plainly in error. While it is easy to correct the year, correcting the day is not. At 60-62, Spenser reports that he completed the bulk of the letter on 15 October and that, going to post it on the 16th, he received a letter from Harvey that provoked his decision to include ‘Iambicum Trimetrum’. At 103-9, Spenser writes of having learned—possibly on 16 October, but more plausibly later—of the carrier’s failure to deliver to Harvey a copy of Spenser’s latin verse epistle and of Spenser’s decision to include the Latin poem along with the letter and Iambicum Trimetrum.

262 Leycester House: Around 1575 the Earl of Leicester had built a grand new home at the very east end of the Strand. That Spenser here claims to have written from Leicester’s town residence reasserts an affiliation with the family claimed throughout the correspondence as well as in the Calender.

Per . . . Immerito.: ‘Through sea and land / Alive and dead / Your Immerito.’