The Spenser Archive Prototype

0fq1590.bk3.III.v.0 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.argument.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.argument.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.argument.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.argument.4 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.1.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.1.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.1.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.1.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.1.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.1.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.1.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.1.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.1.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.2.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.2.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.2.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.2.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.2.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.2.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.2.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.2.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.2.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.3.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.3.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.3.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.3.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.3.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.3.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.3.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.3.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.3.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.4.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.4.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.4.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.4.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.4.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.4.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.4.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.4.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.4.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.5.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.5.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.5.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.5.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.5.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.5.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.5.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.5.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.5.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.6.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.6.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.6.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.6.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.6.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.6.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.6.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.6.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.6.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.7.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.7.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.7.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.7.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.7.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.7.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.7.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.7.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.7.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.8.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.8.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.8.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.8.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.8.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.8.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.8.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.8.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.8.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.9.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.9.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.9.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.9.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.9.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.9.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.9.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.9.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.9.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.10.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.10.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.10.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.10.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.10.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.10.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.10.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.10.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.10.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.11.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.11.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.11.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.11.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.11.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.11.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.11.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.11.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.11.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.12.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.12.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.12.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.12.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.12.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.12.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.12.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.12.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.12.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.13.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.13.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.13.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.13.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.13.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.13.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.13.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.13.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.13.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.14.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.14.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.14.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.14.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.14.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.14.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.14.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.14.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.14.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.15.1 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9fq1590.bk3.III.v.19.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.20.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.20.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.20.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.20.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.20.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.20.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.20.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.20.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.20.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.21.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.21.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.21.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.21.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.21.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.21.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.21.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.21.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.21.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.22.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.22.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.22.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.22.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.22.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.22.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.22.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.22.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.22.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.23.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.23.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.23.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.23.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.23.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.23.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.23.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.23.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.23.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.24.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.24.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.24.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.24.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.24.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.24.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.24.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.24.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.24.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.25.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.25.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.25.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.25.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.25.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.25.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.25.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.25.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.25.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.26.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.26.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.26.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.26.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.26.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.26.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.26.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.26.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.26.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.27.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.27.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.27.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.27.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.27.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.27.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.27.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.27.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.27.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.28.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.28.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.28.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.28.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.28.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.28.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.28.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.28.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.28.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.29.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.29.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.29.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.29.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.29.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.29.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.29.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.29.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.29.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.30.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.30.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.30.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.30.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.30.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.30.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.30.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.30.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.30.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.31.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.31.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.31.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.31.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.31.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.31.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.31.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.31.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.31.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.32.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.32.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.32.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.32.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.32.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.32.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.32.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.32.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.32.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.33.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.33.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.33.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.33.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.33.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.33.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.33.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.33.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.33.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.34.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.34.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.34.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.34.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.34.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.34.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.34.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.34.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.34.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.35.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.35.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.35.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.35.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.35.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.35.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.35.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.35.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.35.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.36.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.36.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.36.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.36.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.36.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.36.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.36.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.36.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.36.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.37.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.37.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.37.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.37.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.37.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.37.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.37.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.37.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.37.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.38.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.38.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.38.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.38.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.38.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.38.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.38.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.38.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.38.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.39.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.39.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.39.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.39.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.39.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.39.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.39.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.39.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.39.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.40.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.40.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.40.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.40.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.40.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.40.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.40.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.40.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.40.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.41.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.41.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.41.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.41.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.41.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.41.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.41.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.41.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.41.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.42.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.42.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.42.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.42.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.42.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.42.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.42.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.42.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.42.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.43.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.43.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.43.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.43.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.43.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.43.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.43.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.43.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.43.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.44.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.44.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.44.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.44.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.44.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.44.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.44.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.44.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.44.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.45.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.45.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.45.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.45.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.45.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.45.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.45.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.45.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.45.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.46.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.46.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.46.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.46.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.46.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.46.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.46.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.46.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.46.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.47.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.47.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.47.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.47.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.47.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.47.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.47.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.47.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.47.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.48.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.48.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.48.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.48.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.48.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.48.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.48.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.48.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.48.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.49.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.49.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.49.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.49.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.49.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.49.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.49.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.49.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.49.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.50.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.50.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.50.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.50.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.50.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.50.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.50.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.50.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.50.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.51.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.51.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.51.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.51.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.51.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.51.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.51.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.51.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.51.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.52.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.52.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.52.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.52.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.52.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.52.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.52.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.52.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.52.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.53.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.53.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.53.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.53.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.53.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.53.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.53.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.53.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.53.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.54.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.54.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.54.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.54.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.54.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.54.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.54.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.54.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.54.9 1fq1590.bk3.III.v.55.1 2fq1590.bk3.III.v.55.2 3fq1590.bk3.III.v.55.3 4fq1590.bk3.III.v.55.4 5fq1590.bk3.III.v.55.5 6fq1590.bk3.III.v.55.6 7fq1590.bk3.III.v.55.7 8fq1590.bk3.III.v.55.8 9fq1590.bk3.III.v.55.9

Cant. V.

Prince Arthur heares of Florimell:

three fosters Timias wound,

Belphebe findes him almost dead,

and reareth out of sownd.

[1]

WOonder it is to see, in diuersediverse mindes,

How diuerslydiversly louelove doth his pageaunts play,

And shewes his powre in variable kindes:

The baser wit, whose ydle thoughts alway

Are wont to cleauecleave vntounto the lowly clay,

It stirreth vpup to sensuall desire,

And in lewd slouth to wast his carelesse day:

But in brauebrave sprite it kindles goodly fire,

That to all high desert and honour doth aspire.

[2]

Ne suffereth it vncomelyuncomely idlenesse,

In his free thought to build her sluggish nest:

Ne suffereth it thought of vngentlenesseungentlenesse,

EuerEver to creepe into his noble brest,

But to the highest and the worthiest

Lifteth it vpup, that els would lowly fall:

It lettes not fall, it lettes it not to rest:

It lettes not scarse this Prince to breath at all,

But to his first poursuit him forward still doth call.

[3]

Who long time wandred through the forest wyde,

To finde some issue thence, till that at last

He met a Dwarfe, that seemed terrifyde

With some late perill, which he hardly past,

Or other accident, which him aghast;

Of whom he asked, whence he lately came,

And whether now he traueiledtraveiled so fast:

For sore he swat, and ronning through that same

Thicke forest, was bescracht, &and both his feet nigh lame.

[4]

Panting for breath, and almost out of hart,

The Dwarfe him answerd, Sir, ill mote I stay

To tell the same. I lately did depart

From Faery court, where I hauehave many a day

SeruedServed a gentle Lady of great sway,

And high accompt through out all Elfin land,

Who lately left the same, and tooke this way:

Her now I seeke, and if ye vnderstandunderstand

Which way she fared hath, good Sir tell out of hand.

[5]

What mister wight, (ſaide he)wight, (saide he)wight (ſaide he)wight (saide he)wight (ſaid he)wight (said he)wight, ſaid he,wight, said he, and how arayd?

Royally clad (quoth he) in cloth of gold,

As meetest may beseeme a noble mayd;

Her faire lockes in rich circlet be enrold,

AAnd fayrer wight did neuernever Sunne behold,

And on a Palfrey rydes more white 1590.bk3.III.v.5.6. then: thanthenthan snow,

Yet she her selfe is whiter manifold:

The surest signe, whereby ye may her know,

Is, that she is the fairest wight aliuealive, I trow.

[6]

Now certes swaine (saide he) such one I weene,

Fast flying through this forest from her fo,

A foule ill fauouredfavoured foster, I hauehave seene;

Her selfe, well as I might, I reskewd tho,

But could not stay; so fast she did foregoe,

Carried away with wings of speedy feare.

Ah dearest God (quoth he) that is great woe,

And wondrous ruth to all, that shall it heare.

But can ye read Sir, how I may her finde, or where.where?

[7]

Perdy me leuerlever were to weeten that,

(Saide he) 1590.bk3.III.v.7.2. then: thanthenthan ransome of the richest knight,

Or all the good that euerever yet I gat:

But froward fortune, and too forward Night

Such happinesse did, maulgre, to me spight,

And fro me reft both life and light attone.

But Dwarfe aread, what is that Lady bright,

That through this forrest wandreth thus alone;

For of her errour straunge I hauehave great ruth and mone.

[8]

That Ladie is (quoth he) where so she bee,

The bountiest virgin, and most debonairedkbonairedebonaire,

That euerever liuingliving eye I weene did see;

LiuesLives none this day, that may with her compare

In stedfast chastitie and vertue rare,

The goodly ornaments of beautie bright;

And is ycleped Florimell the fayre,

Faire Florimell belou’dbelov’d of manyof a many a knight,

Yet she louesloves none but one, that Marinell is hight.

[9]

A Sea-nymphes sonne, that Marinell is hight,

Of my deare Dame is louedloved dearely well;

In other none, but him, she sets delight,

All her delight is set on Marinell;

But he sets nought at all by Florimell:

For Ladies louelove his mother long ygoe

Did him, they say, forwarne through sacred spell.

But fame now flies, that of a forreine foe

He is yslaine, which is the ground of all our woe.

[10]

FiueFive daies there be, since he (they say) was slaine,

And fowre, since Florimell the Court forwent,

And vowed neuernever to returne againe,

Till him aliuealive or dead she did inuentinvent.

Therefore, faire Sir, for louelove of knighthood gent,

And honour of trew Ladies, if ye may

By your good counsell, or bold hardiment,

Or succour her, or me direct the way,

Do one, or other good, I you most humbly pray.

[11]

So may yeyou gaine to you full great renowme,

Of all good Ladies through the world so wide,

And haply in her hart finde highest rowme,

Of whom ye seeke to be most magnifide:

At least eternall meede shall you abide.

To whom the Prince; Dwarfe, comfort to thee take,

For till thou tidings learne, what her betide,

I here auowavow thee neuernever to forsake.

Ill weares he armes, that nill them vseuse for Ladies sake.

[12]

So with the Dwarfe he backe retourn’d againe,

To seeke his Lady, where he mote her finde;

But by the way he greatly gan complaine

The want of his good Squire late left behinde,

For whom he wondrous pensiuepensive grew in minde,

For doubtdouht of daunger, which mote him betide;

For him he louedloved aboueabove all mankinde,

HauingHaving him trew and faithfullfaithfall euerever tride,

And bold, as euerever Squyre that waited by knights side.

[13]

Who all this while full hardly was assayd

Of deadly daunger, which to him betidd;

For whiles his Lord pursewd that noble Mayd,

After that foster fowle he fiercely ridd,

To bene auengedavenged of the shame, he did

To that faire Damzell: Him he chaced long

Through the thicke woods, wherein he would hauehave hid

His shamefull head from his auengementavengement strong,

And oft him threatned death for his outrageous wrong.

[14]

Nathlesse the villein sped himselfe so well,

Whether through swiftnesse of his speedie beast;beast,

Or knowledge of those woods, where he did dwell,

That shortly he from daunger was releast,

And out of sight escaped at the least;

Yet not escaped from the dew reward

Of his bad deedes, which daily he increast,

Ne ceased not, till him oppressed hard

The heauieheavie plague, that for such leachours is prepard.

[15]

For soone as he was vanisht out of sight,

His coward courage gan emboldned bee,

And cast t’auengeavenge him of that fowle despight,

Which he had borne of his bold enimee.

Tho to his brethren came: for they were three

VngratiousUngratious children of one gracelesse syre,

And vntounto them complayned, how that he

Had vsedused beene of that foolehardie Squyre;

So them with bitter words he stird to bloodie yre.

[16]

Forthwith themseluesthemselves with their sad instruments

Of spoyle and murder they gan arme byliuebylive,

And with him foorth into the forrest went,

To wreake the wrath, which he did earst reuiuerevive

In their sterne brests, on him which late did driuedrive

Their brother to reproch and shamefull flight:

For they had vow’d, that neuernever he aliuealive

Out of that forest should escape their might;

Vile rancour their rude harts had fild with such deſpight.despight.deſpightdespight

[17]

Within that wood there was a couertcovert glade,

Foreby a narrow foord, to them well knowne,

Through which it was vneathuneath for wight to wadeVVadeWademade,

And now by fortune it was ouerflowneoverflowne:

By that same way they knew that Squyre vnknowneunknowne

Mote algates passe; for thy themseluesthemselves they set

There in await, with thicke woods ouerover growne,

And all the while their malice they did whet

With cruell threats, his passage through the ford to let.

[18]

It fortuned, as they deuizeddevized had,

The gentle Squyre came ryding that same way,

VnweetingUnweeting of their wile and treason bad,

And through the ford to passen did assay;

But that fierce foster, which late fled away,

Stoutly foorth stepping on the further shore,

Him boldly bad his passage there to stay,

Till he had made amends, and full restore

For all the damage, which he had him doen afore.

[19]

With that at him a quiu’ringquiv’ring dart he threw,

With so fell force and villeinous despite,

That through his haberieonhabericonhaberieon the forkehead flew,

And through the linked mayles empierced quite,

But had nonow powre in his soft flesh to bite:

That stroke the hardy Squire did sore displease,

But more that him he could not come to smite;

For by no meanes the high banke he could sease,

But labour’d long in that deepe ford with vaine disease.

[20]

And still the foster with his long bore-speare

Him kept from landing at his wished will,will;

Anone one sent out of the thicket neare

A cruell shaft, headed with deadly ill,

And fethered with an vnluckyunlucky quill;

The wicked steele stayd not, till it did light

In his left thigh, and deepely did it thrill:

Exceeding griefe that wound in him empight,

But more that with his foes he could not come to fight.

[21]

At last through wrath and vengeaunce making way,

He on the bancke arryudarryvd with mickle payne,

Where the third brother him did sore assay,

And drove at him with all his might and mayne

A forest bill, which both his hands did strayne,

But warily he did auoideavoide the blow,

And with his speare requited him agayne,

That both his sides were thrilled with the throw,

And a large streame of bloudﬂood out of the wound did flow.

[22]

He tombling downe, with gnashing teeth did bite

The bitter earth, and bad to lett him in

Into the balefull house of endlesse night,

Where wicked ghosts doe waile their former sin.

Tho gan the battaile freshly to begin;

For nathemore for that spectacle bad,

Did th’other two their cruell vengeaunce blin,

But both attonce on both sides him bestad,

And load vponupon him layd, his life for to hauehave had.

[23]

Tho when that villayn he auiz’daviz’d, which late

Affrighted had the fairest Florimell,

Full of fiers fury, and indignant hate,

To him he turned, and with rigor fell

Smote him so rudely on the Pannikell,

That to the chin he clefte his head in twaine:

Downe on the ground his carkas grouelinggroveling fell;

His sinfull sowle with desperate disdaine,

Out of her fleshly ferme fled to the place of painepa inepaine.

[24]

That seeing now the only last of three,

Who with that wicked shafte him wounded had,

Trembling with horror, as that did foresee

The fearefull end of his auengementavengement sad,

Through which he follow should his brethren bad,

His bootelesse bow in feeble hand vpcaughtupcaught,

And therewith shott an arrow at the lad;

Which fayntly fluttring, scarce his helmet raught,

And glauncing fel to ground, but him annoyed naught.

[25]

With that he would hauehave fled into the wood;

But Timias him lightly ouerhentoverhent,

Right as he entring was into the flood,

And strooke at him with force so violent,

That headlesse him into the foord he sent:

The carcas with the streame was carried downe,

But th’head fell backeward on the Continent.

So mischief fel vponupon the meaners crowne;

They three be dead with shame, the Squire liueslives with renowne.

[26]

He liueslives, but takes small ioyjoy of his renowne;

For of that cruell wound he bled so sore,

That from his steed he fell in deadly swowne;

Yet still the blood forth gusht in so great store,

That he lay wallowd all in his owne gore.

Now God thee keepe, thou gentlest squire aliuealive,

Els shall thy louingloving Lord thee see no more,

But both of comfort him thou shalt depriuedeprive,

And eke thy selfe of honor, which thou didst atchiueatchive.

[27]

ProuidenceProvidence heuenlyhevenly passeth liuingliving thought,

And doth for wretched mens reliefe make way;

For loe great grace or fortune thether brought

Comfort to him, that comfortlesse now lay.

In those same woods, ye well remember may,

How that a noble hunteresse did wonne,

Shee, that base Braggadochio did affray,

And made him fast out of the forest ronne;

Belphœbe was her name, as faire as PhoebusPhæbusPhœbus sunne.

[28]

She on a day, as shee pursewd the chace

Of some wilde beast, which with her arrowes keene

She wounded had, the same along did trace

By tract of blood, which she had freshly seene,

To hauehave besprinckled all the grassy greene,

By the great persue, which she there perceau’dperceav’d,

Well hoped shee therhethe beast engor’d had beene,

And made more haste, the life to hauehave bereav’d:

But ah, herhether expectation greatly was deceau’ddeceav’d.

[29]

Shortly she came, whereas that woefull Squire

With blood deformeddeforweddeformed, lay in deadly swownd:

In whose faire eyes, like lamps of quenched fire,

The Christall humor stood congealed rownd;

His locks, like faded leauesleaves fallen to grownd,

Knotted with blood, in bounches rudely ran,

And his sweete lips, on which before that stownd

The bud of youth to blossome faire began,

Spoild of their rosy red, were woxen pale and wan.

[30]

Saw neuernever liuingliving eie more heauyheavy sight,

That could hauehave made a rocke of stone to rew,

Or riuerive in twaine: which when that Lady bright

Besides all hope with melting eies did vew,

AllAndAll suddeinly abasht shee chaunged hew,

AndAllAnd with sterne horror backward gan to start:

But when shee betterbitter him beheld shee grew

Full of ſoftsoftſofesofeſof⁀tsoft passion and vnwontedunwonted smart:

The point of pitty perced through her tender hart.

[31]

Meekely shee bowed downe, to weete if life

Yett in his frosen members did remaine,

And feeling by his pulses beating rife,

That the weake sowle her seat did yett retaine,

She cast to comfort him with busy paine:

His double folded necke she reard vprightupright,

And rubd his temples, and each trembling vaine;

His mayled habericonhaberieonhaberieonhabericon she did vndightundight,

And from his head his heauyheavy burganet did light.

[32]

Into the woods thenceforth in haste shee went,

To seeke for hearbes, that mote him remedy;

For shee of herbes had great intendiment,

Taught of the Nymphe, which from her infancy

Her nourced had in trew Nobility:

There, whether yt diuinedivine Tobacco were,

Or Panachæa, or Polygony,

Shee fownd, and brought it to her patient deare

Who al this while lay bledingbleeding out his hart-blood neare.

[33]

The souerainesoveraine weede betwixt two marbles plaine

Shee pownded small, and did in peecespeeees bruze,

And then atweene her lilly handes twaine,

Into his wound the iuicejuice thereof did scruze,

And round about, as she could well it vzeuze,

The flesh therewith shee suppled and did steepe,

T’abate all spasme, and soke the swelling bruze,

And after hauinghaving searcht the intuse deepe,

She with her scarf did bind the woũdwound frõfrom cold to keepe.

[34]

By this he had sweet life recur’d agayne,

And groning inly deepe, at last his eies,

His watry eies, drizling like deawy rayne,

He vpup gan lifte toward the azure skies,

From whence descend all hopelesse remedies:

Therewith he sigh’d, and turning him aside,

The goodly Maide ful of diuinitiesdivinities,

And gifts of heauenlyheavenly grace he by him spide,

Her bow and gilden quiuerquiver lying him beside.

[35]

Mercy deare Lord (said he) what grace is this,

That thou hast shewed to me sinfull wight,

To send thine Angell from her bowre of blis,

To comfort me in my distressed plight?

Angell, or Goddesse doe I call thee right?

What seruiceservice may I doe vntounto thee meete,

That hast from darkenes me returnd to light,

And with thy heuenlyhevenly saluessalves and med’cines sweete,

Hast drest my sinfull wounds? I kisse thy blessed feete.

[36]

Thereat she blushing said, Ah gentle Squire,

Nor Goddesse I, nor Angell, but the Mayd,

And daughter of a woody Nymphe, desire

No seruiceservice, but thy safety and ayd,

Which if thou gaine, I shalbe well apayd.

Wee mortall wights, whose liueslives and fortunes bee

To commun accidents stil open layd,

Are bownd with commun bond of fraïltee,

To succor wretched wights, whom we captiuedcaptived see.

[37]

By this her Damzells, which the former chace

Had vndertakenundertaken after her, arryu’darryv’d,

As did Belphœbe, in the bloody place,

And thereby deemd the beast had bene depriu’ddepriv’d

Of life, whom late their ladies arrow ryu’dryv’d:

For thy the bloody tract they followdfollow fast,

And eueryevery one to ronne the swiftest stryu’dstryv’d;

But two of them the rest far ouerpastoverpast,

And where their Lady was, arriuedarrived at the last.

[38]

Where when they saw that goodly boy, withwlth blood

Defowled, and their Lady dresse his wownd,

They wondred much, and shortly vnderstoodunderstood,

How him in deadly case theyr Lady fownd,

And reskewed out of the heauyheavy stownd.

Eftsoones his warlike courser, which was strayd

Farre in the woodes, whiles that he lay in swownd,

She made those Damzels search, which being stayd,

They did him set theron, and forth with them conuaydconvayd.

[39]

Into that forest farre they thence him led,

Where was their dwelling, in a pleasant glade,

With mountaines rownd about enuironedenvironed,

And mightie woodes, which did the valley shade,

And like a stately Theatre it made,

Spreading it selfe into a spatious plaine.

And in the midst a little riuerriver plaide

Emongst the pumy stones, which seemd to plaine

With gẽtlegentle murmuremnrmuremurmure, that histheir cours they did restraine.

[40]

Beside the same a dainty place there lay,

Planted with mirtle trees and laurells greene,

In which the birds song many a louelylovely lay

Of gods high praise, and of their ſweet louesſweet lovessweet louessweet loves loues ſweetloves ſweetloues sweetloves sweet teene,

As it an earthly Paradize had beene:

In whose enclosed shadow there was pight

A faire PauilionPavilion, scarcely to be seene,

The which was al within most richly dight,

That greatest Princes likingliuingliving it mote well delight.

[41]

Thether they brought that wounded Squyre, and layd

In easie couch his feeble limbes to reſ⁀t,rest,reſ⁀trest

He rested him a while, and then the Mayd

His readie wound with better saluessalves new dreſ⁀t,drest,dreſ⁀tdrest

Daily she dressed him, and did the best

His grieuousgrievous hurt to guarish, that she might,

That shortly she his dolour hath redrest,

And his foule sore reduced to faire plight:

It she reduced, but himselfe destroyed quight.

[42]

O foolish physick, and vnfruitfullunfruitfull paine,

That heales vpup one and makes another wound:

She his hurt thigh to him recurd againe,

But hurt his hart, the which before was sound,

Through an vnwaryunwary dart, which did rebownd

From her faire eyes and gratious countenaunce.

What bootes it him from death to be vnbowndunbownd,

To be captiuedcaptived in endlesse duraunce

Of sorrow and despeyre without aleggeaunce?

[43]

Still as his wound did gather, and grow hole,

So still his hart woxe sore, and health decayd:

Madnesse to sauesave a part, and lose the whole.

Still whenas he beheld the heauenlyheavenly Mayd,

Whiles dayly playsters to his wownd she layd,

So still his Malady the more increast,

The whiles her matchlesse beautie him dismayd.

Ah God, what other could he doe at least,

But louelove so fayre a Lady, that his life releast?

[44]

Long while he strouestrove in his corageous brest,

With reason dew the passion to subdew,

And louelove for to dislodge out of his nest:

Still when her excellencies he did vew,

Her souerainesoveraine bountie, and celestiall hew,

The same to louelove he strongly was constraynd:

But when his meane estate he did reuewrevew renew,

He from such hardy boldnesse was restraynd,

And of his lucklesse lott and cruell louelove thus playnd.

[45]

VnthankfullUnthankfull wretch (said he) is this the meed,

With which her souerainsoverain mercy thou doest quight?

Thy life she sauedsaved by her gratious deed,

But thou doest weene with villeinous despight,

To blott her honour, and her heauenlyheavenly light.

Dye rather, dye, 1590.bk3.III.v.45.6. then: thanthenthan so disloyally

Deeme of her high desert, or seeme so light:

Fayre death it is to shonne more shame, to dy:

Dye rather, dy, 1590.bk3.III.v.45.9. then: thanthenthan euerever louelove disloyally.

[46]

But if to louelove disloyalty it bee,

Shall I then hate her, that from deathes dore

Me brought? ah farre be such reproch fro mee.

What can I lesse doe, 1590.bk3.III.v.46.4. then: thanthenthan her louelove therefore,

Sith I her dew reward cannot restore:

Dye rather, dye, and dying doe her serueserve,

Dying her serueserve, and liuingliving her adore;

Thy life she gauegave, thy life she doth deseruedeserve:

Dye rather, dye, 1590.bk3.III.v.46.9. then: thanthenthan euerever from her seruiceservice swerueswerve.

[47]

But foolish boy, what bootes thy seruiceservice bace

To her, to whom the heuenshevens doe serueserve and sew?

Thou a meane Squyre, of meeke and lowly place,

She heuenlyhevenly borne, and of celestiall hew.

How then? of all louelove taketh equall vew:

And doth not highest God vouchsafe to take

The louelove and seruiceservice of the basest crew?

If she will not, dye meekly for her sake;

Dye rather, dye, 1590.bk3.III.v.47.9. then: thanthenthan euerever so faire louelove forsake.

[48]

Thus warreid he long time against his will,

Till that through weaknesse he was forst at last,

To yield himselfe vntounto the mightie ill:

Which as a victour proud, gan ransack fast

His inward partes, and all his entrayles wast,

That neither blood in face, nor life in hart

It left, but both did quite drye vpup, and blast;

As percing leuinlevin, which the inner part

Of eueryevery thing consumes, and calcineth by art.

[49]

Which seeing fayre Belphoebe, gan to feare,

Least that his wound were inly well not heald,

Or that the wicked steele empoysned were:

Litle shee weend, that louelove he close conceald;

Yet still he wasted, as the snow congeald,

When the bright sunne his beams theron doth beat;

Yet neuernever he his hart to her reuealdreveald,

But rather chose to dye for sorow great,

1590.bk3.III.v.49.9. Then: ThanThenThan with dishonorable termes her to entreat.

[50]

She gracious Lady, yet no paines did spare,

To doe him ease, or doe him remedyhiɯ remedyhim remedyhim remedie:

Many RestoratiuesRestoratives of vertues rare,

And costly Cordialles she did apply,

To mitigate his stubborne malady:

But that sweet Cordiall, which can restore

A louelove-sick hart, she did to him enuyenvy;

To him, and to all th’vnworthyunworthy world forlore

She did enuyenvy that souerainesoveraine saluesalve, in secret store.

[51]

That daintie Rose, the daughter of her Morne,

More deare 1590.bk3.III.v.51.2. then: thanthenthan life she tendered, whose flowre

The girlond of her honour did adorne:

Ne suffred she the Middayes scorching powre,

Ne the sharp Northerne wind thereon to showre,

But lapped vpup her silken leauesleaves most chayre,

When so the froward skye began to lowre;

But soone as calmed was the christall ayre,

She did it fayre dispred, and let to florish fayre.

[52]

Eternall God in his almightie powre,

To make ensample of his heauenlyheavenly grace,

In Paradize whylome did plant this flowre;

Whence he it fetcht out of her natiuenative place,

And did in stocke of earthly flesh enrace,

That mortall men her glory should admire:admyreadmire

In gentle Ladies breste, and bounteous race

Of woman kind it fayrest flowre doth spyre,

And beareth fruit of honour and all chast desyre.

[53]

Fayre ympes of beautie, whose bright shining beames

Adorne the world with like to heauenlyheavenly light,

And to your willes both royalties and ReamesRealmes

Subdew, through cõquestconquest of your wondrous might,

With this fayre flowre your goodly girlonds dight,

Of chastity and vertue virginall,

That shall embellish more your beautie bright,

And crowne your heades with heauenlyheavenly coronall,

Such as the Angels wereweare before Gods tribunall.

[54]

To youre faire seluesselves a faire ensample frame,

Of this faire virgin, this Belphebe fayre,

To whom in perfect louelove, and spotlesse fame

Of chastitie, none liuingliving may compayre:

Ne poysnous EnuyEnvy iustlyjustly can empayre

The prayse of her fresh flowring Maydenhead;

For thy she standeth on the highest stayre

Of th’honorable stage of womanhead,

That Ladies all may follow her ensample dead.

[55]

In so great prayse of stedfast chastity,

Nathlesse she was so courteous and kynde,

Tempred with grace, and goodly modesty,

That seemed those two vertues strouestrove to fynd

The higher place in her Heroick mynd:

So striuingstriving each did other more augment,

And both encreast the prayse of woman kynde,

And both encreast her beautie excellent;

So all did make in her a perfect complement.complement;

2. fosters: foresters

4. sownd: swoon

3. variable kindes: various natures

5. clay: the flesh of the body

5. accident: event or disaster

5. aghast: frightened

7. whether: whither

8. sore he swat: he sweated profusely

1. out of hart: utterly discouraged

2. ill mote I stay: I may not well pause

5. sway: dominion

6. accompt: esteem

9. out of hand: immediately

1. mister wight: sort of person

9. trow: trust

4. tho: then

5. foregoe: go on before

5. maulgre: literally, ill favor (mal +gree), but used by Spenser as an interjection meaning, roughly, ‘curses!’

6. attone: at once

9. errour straunge: uncommon wandering

2. bountiest: ‘most bounteous’, i.e. most full of goodness

2. debonaire: courteous

4. inuent: come upon, discover

3. rowme: place

4. magnifide: praised

9. nill: ne will, i.e. will not

6. doubt: fear

8. tride: found

1. assayd / Of: assailed by

5. at the least: at last

3. cast: decided

1. sad: causing sorrow

2. byliue: promptly

3. vneath: not easy

6. algates: in any case

6. for thy: therefore

9. let: bar

8. restore: restitution

3. habericon: habergeon

3. forkehead: an arrow (‘dart’) with a barbed head

8. sease: take possession of

9. disease: difficulty, distress

7. thrill: pierce

8. empight: implanted

2. mickle: great

5. strayne: grip

8. thrilled with the throw: pierced by the thrust

7. blin: cease

1. auiz’d: noticed

5. Pannikell: skull

9. ferme: probably ‘enclosure’, from Frfermerto close

3. as that: as one who

8. raught: reached

2. ouerhent: overtook

7. Continent: ground

7. engor’d: deeply wounded; steeped in blood

2. deformed: marred in appearance

4. humor: moisture (Timias’s eyes are glazing over)

7. stownd: ordeal; trance

4. Besides all hope: without hope

5. cast: resolved

9. burganet: helmet

1. st. 32-33These stanzas are based on Ariosto, OF 16-19 (see st. 27-54n).

3. intendiment: understanding

1. soueraine: surpassingly effective

1. marbles plaine: flat slabs of marble

2. bruze: grind into pieces

4. scruze: squeeze

5. well it vze: employ (the medicine) to best advantage

6. suppled and did steepe: softened by bathing (as she applies the juice to the flesh surrounding the wound)

8. intuse: bruise, a nonce-usage based on Lintusumbruised

1. recur’d: recovered

5. hopelesse remedies: remedies for what seems hopeless

9. gilden: golden

4. safety: trisyllabic

5. ryu’d: pierced

8. pumy: pumice

9. liking:living1596

4. readie wound: wound that has been prepared for new dressing

6. guarish: cure (probably picked up from Caxton)

7. dolour: suffering

7. redrest: remedied

8. reduced: restored

8. duraunce: imprisonment

9. aleggeaunce: allegeance: in ME usage, relief or alleviation

5. playsters: bandages

9. releast: delivered

5. celestiall hew: heavenly appearance

2. quight: requite

2. deathes: disyllabic

1. warreid: waged war

7. blast: shrivel

8. leuin: lightning

7. enuy: deny

5. enrace: plant

8. spyre: sprout

3. Reames: realms

9. complement: fulfillment or completion

5.1.wight, (ſaide he)wight, (saide he)] state 2; wight (ſaide he)wight (saide he) state 1; wight (ſaid he)wight (said he) 1596; wight, ſaid he,wight, said he, 1609;

5.5.A] 1590; And 1596, 1609;

6.9.where.] 1590, 1596; where? 1609;

8.2.debonaire] state 2; dkbonaire state 1; debonaire 1596, 1609;

8.8.of many] 1590, 1609; of a many 1596;

11.1.ye] 1590; you 1596, 1609;

12.6.doubt] 1590, 1609; douht 1596;

12.8.faithfull] 1590, 1609; faithfall 1596;

14.2.beast;] 1590, 1596; beast, 1609;

16.9.deſpight.despight.] 1596, 1609; deſpightdespight 1590;

17.3.wade] 1596, 1609; made 1590; VVadeWade 1590FE;

19.3.haberieon] state 1,2; habericon state 3; haberieon 1596, 1609;

19.5.no] 1596, 1609; now 1590;

20.2.will,] 1590; will; 1596, 1609;

21.9.bloud] 1596, 1609; ﬂood 1590;

23.9.paine] state 2; pa ine state 1; paine 1596, 1609;

27.9.Phoebus] this edn.; Phæbus 1590; Phœbus 1596, 1609;

28.7.the] state 3; rhe state 1,2; the 1596, 1609;

28.9.her] state 3; het state 1,2; her 1596, 1609;

29.2.deformed] state 3; deforwed state 1,2; deformed 1596, 1609;

30.5.All] state 2,3; And state 1; All 1596, 1609;

30.6.And] state 2,3; All state 1; And 1596, 1609;

30.7.better] 1596, 1609; bitter 1590;

30.8.ſoftsoft] state 3; ſofesofe state 1,2; ſof⁀tsoft 1596, 1609;

31.8.habericon] state 3; haberieon state 1,2; haberieon 1596; habericon 1609;

32.9.bleding] 1590; bleeding 1596, 1609;

33.2.peeces] 1596, 1609; peeees 1590;

37.6.followd] 1590; follow 1596, 1609;

38.1.with] 1596, 1609; wlth 1590;

39.9.murmure] state 2; mnrmure state 1; murmure 1596, 1609;

39.9.his] 1596, 1609; their 1590;

40.4. ſweet louesſweet lovessweet louessweet loves ] 1590; loues ſweetloves ſweetloues sweetloves sweet 1596, 1609;

40.9.liking] 1590; liuingliving 1596, 1609;

41.2.reſ⁀t,rest,] 1590, 1596; reſ⁀trest 1609;

41.4.dreſ⁀t,drest,] 1590; dreſ⁀tdrest 1596, 1609;

44.7. reuewrevew ] 1590; renew 1596, 1609;

50.2.him remedy] state 2; hiɯ remedy state 1; him remedy 1596; him remedie 1609;

52.6.admire:] 1609; admyre 1590; admire 1596;

53.3.Reames] 1590; Realmes 1596, 1609;

53.9.were] 1590; weare 1596, 1609;

55.9.complement.] 1596, 1609; complement; 1590;

Ff8rGg1rGg1vGg2rGg2vGg3rGg3vGg4rGg4vGg5rGg5vGg6rGg6vGg7rGg7vGg8r

v.1.1

st. 1-2

The sharp antithesis between lust and idealizing worship is qualified by the narrative context (see notes to i.18-19, iii.1, and iv.48-51), even as the stanzas assert, problematically, that Arthur’s pursuit of Florimell is motivated by love. See iv.54.4-8, where Arthur, assailed by fantasies that keep him awake, blurs the distinction between Florimell and Gloriana.

v.1.2 his pageaunts play: ‘Perform his scenes’, implying that with respect to love, ‘diverse mindes’ are so many theatrical spectacles.

v.1.5 clay: Echoing Job 10:9, ‘Remember, I pray thee, that thou hast made me as the clay’, and 13:12, ‘Your memories may be compared unto ashes, and your bodyes to bodyes of clay’. Also the element of earth in contrast to that of fire.

v.1.7 lewd: vile

v.2.1 it: Either ‘noble brest’ or ‘free thought’.

v.2.7–v.2.9 2.7-9 The driving force of love is conveyed by the accelerating repetition of the verb clause as the sententiae of the opening stanzas return upon the narrative; at the same time, the ironies qualifying these sententiae return both in the note of amused sympathy (love barely lets Arthur catch his breath) and in the ambiguity of the reference to ‘his first poursuit’, which strategically confuses the chase of chaste Florimell with the quest for Gloriana (echoing iv.54.6-8).

v.2.7 It . . . it . . . it: Love . . . love . . . the ‘noble brest’ or ‘free thought’.

v.2.9 2.9 In juxtaposing the prefixes pour- and for-, as Arthur’s suing ‘for’ (after) Florimell calls him onward (to the ‘fore’), this line introduces the canto’s preoccupation with senses of for-, and may also recall the narrator’s observation at iv.47.2 that Timias ‘Ladies love unto his Lord forlent’. The reference to his ‘first poursuit’ suggests that he has, for the moment, given up the chase of Florimell and resumed his quest for Gloriana, but it also anticipates the recurrent emphasis in the canto on hysteron proteron reversals.

v.3.1 3.1 The contrast with 2.9 encapsulates Arthur’s predicament: love calls him ever forward, but in so doing it calls him in into the forest, a setting characterized by the lust and violence personified in the ‘fosters’ (foresters) who inhabit it.

v.3.8 sore he swat: The Dwarf’s frantic haste—running, sweaty, scratched, lame, and (like Arthur at 2.8) out of breath—offers a sadly comic analogue both to Florimell’s speedy flight and to Arthur’s hapless pursuit of her.

v.4.1 out of hart: With a punning suggestion that the dwarf has failed to recover the quarry (‘hart’ as stag) he is pursuing.

v.4.9 out of hand: Echoing ‘out of hart’ from the stanza’s first line, this phrase punningly answers the Dwarf’s question: ‘out of hand’ is where Florimell has gone.

v.5.1 5.2 Cf. i.15.6, ‘Her garments all were wrought of beaten gold’.

v.5.4 5.4 Florimell’s ‘faire lockes’ are featured in her initial description at i.16.3, but there they fly behind her in the wind like the tail of a comet, rather than being ‘enrold’, or coiled, into a ‘rich circlet’.

v.5.5 5.5 At I.ix.13.9 Arthur says of the ‘royall Mayd’ who appeared in his dream, ‘So fayre a creature yet saw never sunny day’, implying that she may not exist in the waking world. Florimell does exist by daylight, but her fleeting elusiveness approximates the inaccessibility of the Fairy queen.

v.5.6–v.5.7 5.6-7 Echoing the initial description of Florimell at i.15.2-5.

v.5.8–v.5.9 5.8-9 Cf. i.18.8, ‘the fairest Dame alive’. At once serious and playful, these lines suggest that allegorically Florimell is the personification of earthly beauty, even as they tease the conventional chivalric rhetoric according to which every knight is the most valiant and every damsell the fairest of them all. The difficulty of actually reading this ‘surest signe’ will be implied in canto viii and elaborated with considerable irony in Book IV, canto v.

v.5.9 trow: A subtly anticlimactic flourish that qualifies the surety of the surest sign by re-introducing the subjective element informing such judgments. Rhyming ‘I trow’ with ‘ye may . . . know’ is a nice touch.

v.6.5 foregoe: The alternative sense ‘precede in time’ will be activated—retroactively, of course—in st. 9-10.

v.7.1 7.1 ‘By god I’d rather know that [than have]’.

v.7.4 froward . . . forward: A common rhetorical pair, personified in II.ii by the sisters Elissa and Perissa. The contrast between stubborn backwardness (‘froward’) and eager or presumptuous forwardness harks back to the Redcrosse knight’s first appearance in the poem’s opening canto (see I.i.1 and notes); this motif takes on added significance in the context of the narrative’s self-conscious play in this episode with hysteron proteron, and its growing preoccupation with the prefix for-.

v.7.9 errour straunge: The context activates additional senses: Florimell’s wandering is erroneous in preceding its cause, and strange for the same reason; ‘straunge’ also suggests that she is out of place, both in not belonging to the forest and in being so ‘Carried away’ (6.6) with fear that she cannot stay or be stayed (6.5) in one spot.

v.8.3 eye I weene: Cf. ‘I trow’ (5.9 and note).

v.8.7–v.8.9 8.7-9.4 The elaborately repetitive patterning of these lines plays Florimell’s singular devotion (‘none but one’) against Marinell’s devotion to singularity.

v.9.1–v.9.4 8.7-9.4 The elaborately repetitive patterning of these lines plays Florimell’s singular devotion (‘none but one’) against Marinell’s devotion to singularity.

v.9.6–v.9.7 9.6-7 See iv.25-27 for Cymoent’s recourse to the ‘mighty spell’ of Proteus. These lines extend the episode’s increasing emphasis on the prefix for-: her maternal protectiveness gets ahead of itself in the effort to ‘forwarne’ her son through the ‘foresight’ (iv.25.6) of the sea-god. Syntactically, ‘forwarne’ operates as a transitive verb meaning ‘forbid’.

v.9.8 9.8 Continuing the play on for-, ‘forreine’ refers to Britomart’s origins outside Faeryland (‘a virgin straunge’, iv.25.9), but also echoes the ‘womans force’ (iv.27.8) that Cymoent neglects to fear, and evokes Marinell’s sense that all women are foreign.

v.9.9 9.9 Fame (like Cymoent at iv.36.6-9) gets ahead of events in reporting that Marinell is slain.

v.10.1–v.10.2 10.1-2 The uncharacteristic precision with which the Dwarf calculates elapsed time calls attention to sequence in which Florimell’s flight turns out to have preceded its cause: she rides so fast that she arrives in canto i before she has left the court. The echo of ‘foregoe’ (see 6.5n) in ‘forwent’ links the speed of her flight to its prematurity, and the continued play on the prefix (fowre days since she forwent the Court) reinforces this suggestion: the elapsed time can be four days only if she foregoes (precedes in time) her foregoing (going away from) Faery court.

v.10.4 inuent: With the added suggestion, in context, that she has invented (contrived, created) his wounding before it happens.

v.10.7 good counsell, or bold hardiment: A conventional pair that echoes in a more positive register the ‘open force or hidden guyle’ with which Maleger’s force assail the bulwarks of Alma’s castle (see II.xi.7.4n).

v.11.3–v.11.4 11.3-4 Reminding Arthur of ‘his first poursuit’ (see 2.9n), these lines call him at once backward to a prior commitment (Gloriana) and ‘forward’ in pursuit of Florimell.

v.11.5 At least eternall meede: Reward in at least heaven, even if not (‘haply’) on earth.

v.12.1–v.12.2 12.1-2 backe retourn’d . . . his Lady: Sustaining the extended play in this episode on Arthur’s confusion between going forward and going backward, seeking Gloriana and seeking Florimell.

v.12.3–v.12.4 12.3-4 Arthur’s belated concern for Timias (‘late left behinde’, echoing ‘backe retourn’d’) supplies a transition to the next episode in the canto, but also recalls the ironies attending their separation (see i.18-19 and notes), and plays into the forward/froward motif running through the canto (see 7.4n).

v.12.5–v.12.7 12.5-7 The repetition of ‘For’ plays into the canto’s concern with various senses of the prefix (see 2.9n), unpacking the latent pun in ‘forest’ as the superlative degree of ‘for’-ness.

v.13.4–v.13.9 13.4-9 As Timias’s hot pursuit of the foster extends through nine masculine pronouns over six lines, the distinction between the pursuer and the pursued begins to blur.

v.14.5–v.14.6 14.5-6 The villain ‘escaped . . . Yet not escaped’ offers yet another version of the conflicted directionality and temporality of the canto: seeming to have outrun danger, he will turn back to seek revenge and find instead the ‘dew reward’ that has been ‘prepard’ for him (in advance). Planning to ambush Timias, he is himself ambushed by Providence.

v.15.5–v.15.6 15.5-6 The emphasis on lack of grace suggests an allusion to the threefold lust of 1 John 2:16: ‘For all that is in the worlde (as the luste of the flesh, the luste of the eyes, and the pride of life) is not of the Father’.

v.16.1

st. 16

Continuing the canto’s verbal for- play, the brothers’ impetuousness is emphasized by the repetition in ‘Forthwith . . . foorth . . . forrest’ (picked up again in lines 7-8, ‘For . . . forest’). The effect carries through the enjambments of lines 4-5, complete with verbs that ‘drive’ the rhythm across the line-breaks.

v.17.1

st. 17

At A Vewe 98, Irenius describes a ‘perilous ford’ where Irish rebels would often attack English troops. In 1581 Ralegh, ambushed in this fashion by men loyal to the earl of Desmond and his brother, Sir John of Desmond, killed his attackers. The earl of Desmond and his brother were later killed as part of the New English suppression of their Munster-wide revolt. In the ensuing division and plantation of Desmond’s vast estates, Spenser secured the grant of Kilcolman castle and a ‘seignory’ of about 3,000 acres.

v.17.2–v.17.4 Foreby . . . foord . . . fortune: See st. 16n.

v.17.5–v.17.6 17.5-6 ‘they knew that the Squire [must pass] by that same unknown [to him] way’.

v.18.1

st. 18-19

fortuned . . . ford . . . fo[r]ster . . . foorth . . . further . . . afore . . . force . . . forkehead . . . For . . . ford: See st. 16n: here the impulsion previously associated with for- opposes Squire’s progress.

v.19.2 19.2 The extended play on for- in stanzas 16-18 prepares for the pun that concentrates the episode’s excess of ‘for’-ness into the ‘force’ that wounds Timias.

v.19.3 habericon: A sleeveless coat of mail (probably trisyllabic, ‘há - ber- con’; cf. the related form ‘hauberk’).

v.19.7 19.7 ‘It displeased him even more he could not get close enough to strike the foster’.

v.19.8 sease: Echoing legal usage; see st. 17n.

v.20.1 bore-speare: At II.iii.29.1 Belphoebe carries ‘a sharpe bore-speare’ used to slay the forest animal traditionally associated with lust; here wielded against Timias.

v.20.7 20.7 The thigh-wound associates Timias with Ovid’s Adonis, slain by the boar he was hunting: tuta petentem / trux aper insequitur totosque sub inguine dentes / abdidit et fulva moribundum stravit harena (‘deep in the groin [the fierce boar] sank his long tusks, and stretched the dying boy upon the yellow sand’; Met 10.714-16). Timias, like Adonis, is a hunter whose prey has turned upon him. The wound to the groin or thigh is allegorically sexual, and thus tends to identify the hunter with his predator/prey; the implication is that Timias partakes of the lustful nature of his opponents. See Robertson’s discussion of the thigh-wound suffered by Launcelot in Chretien’s Chevalier de la charrete (1961: 450-51), quoting St. Jerome on the use of ‘thigh’ as a genital euphemism.

v.20.9 20.9 Echoing 19.7, the repetition reinforces the suggestion (see 20.7n) that Timias cannot ‘come to fight’ with his foes because he partakes of their nature.

v.21.1 21.1 Compare the motives of vengeance and ‘bloodie yre’ that stir the three fosters in st. 15.

v.21.5 forest bill: ‘An implement used for pruning, cutting wood, lopping trees, hedges, etc., having a long blade with a concave edge, often ending in a sharp hook . . . and a wooden handle in line with the blade’ (OED).

v.22.1–v.22.2 22.1-2 Dying warriors in classical epic often ‘bite the dust’ quite literally (see Homer, Il 2.418; Virgil, Aen 11.418, 11.669; Silius Italicus, Pun 9.383-4). For Spenser the expression gains resonance as an echo of God’s curse upon the serpent in Eden: ‘upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the dayes of thy life’ (Gen 3:14).

v.22.6 spectacle: Accented on the second syllable.

v.23.9 ferme: See Upton 711-12. The word’s etymology connects it to both ‘firm’ and ‘farm’, the latter sometimes spelled ‘ferme’; the Foster has, in modern parlance, ‘bought the ferme’.

v.24.1 24.1 ‘Seeing now [his brother's death], the last remaining foster’.

v.25.8 25.8 As the foster’s severed head fell backward onto the riverbank, so the harm that he (‘the meaner’) intended ‘fel’ upon his own head (‘crowne’).

v.26.5 26.5 Echoing the description of Marinell at iv.16.9.

v.27.1

st. 27-54

This episode is based on Angelica’s nursing of Medoro in OF 19.17-42.

v.27.1 27.1 Echoing I.vi.7.1.

v.27.3 27.3 ‘For loe’ suggests that we are being directed to witness a miracle of providence, but the line backs off this assertion with the equivocation ‘great grace or fortune’.

v.27.5–v.27.8 27.5-8 Belphoebe’s encounter with Braggadocchio (II.iii.21-45) contrasts pointedly with the present episode. Cf. Ariosto: Tanto è ch’io non ne dissi più novella, / ch’a pena riconoscher la dovreste: / questa, se non sapete, Angelica era (‘It is so long now since I last spoke of her, you may scarcely be able to recognize her: in case you do not know, she is Angelica’; OF 19.17.5-7).

v.27.9 27.9 Belphoebe’s name links her to the moon (see II.iii.arg.4n). This line, playing on Phoebus (Apollo) and Phoebe (Diana), anticipates events in canto vi.

v.28.1

st. 28

That the trail of blood leads to Timias associates him with the beast Belphoebe was hunting (see 20.7n). For tracking as a trope of interpretation, see II.pr.4.1-5 and note. Belphoebe’s arrival in this stanza divides the canto into halves of twenty-seven stanzas each; cf. vi.28n.

v.28.6 the great persue: A nonce-usage, taking the verb as a noun in apparent reference to the ‘tract of blood’.

v.30.1

st. 30

Belphoebe’s ‘melting eies’ and sudden pallor link her to Timias; her twofold response, first starting back and then pierced with pity, echoes Guyon’s response at II.i.42 on beholding the ‘Pitifull spectacle of deadly smart’ (40.1) presented by Mordant, Amavia, and the bloody babe.

v.30.4 Besides all hope: The syntax is interestingly ambiguous, with the phrase either modifying ‘Lady’ or describing what her ‘melting eies did vew’.

v.30.8–v.30.9 30.8-9 Cf. Ariosto: insolita pietade in mezzo al petto / si sentì entrar per disuaste porte, / che le fe’ il duro cor tenero e molle (‘an unaccustomed sense of pity stole into her breast by some unused door, softening her hard heart’; OF 19.20.5-7).

v.31.8 habericon: See 19.3n on this form of ‘habergeon’.

v.32.6–v.32.7 32.6-7 On the medicinal properties of the herbs mentioned in these lines see SpE s.v. ‘plants, herbs’, but note that Belphoebe searches out only one ‘souveraine weede’ (33.1)—not all three—and that it may or may not have been one of those named by Spenser’s carefully equivocal narrator.

v.32.6 diuine Tobacco: From the name Sacra herba or Sancta herba; Sir Walter Ralegh played a central role in popularizing the use of tobacco in England upon its introduction in 1584.

v.32.7 Panachæa: From Gk πανακος panachos (‘all-healing’) the name of a plant reputed to possess universal healing power. Along with dittany (mentioned by Ariosto but replaced in Spenser with Tobacco) and ambrosia (the nectar of the gods), odoriferam panaceam (‘fragrant panacea’) is provided by Venus to treat Aeneas’s wound (Aen 12.419).

v.32.7 Polygony: Specially used for treating ‘greene’ (i.e., fresh) wounds.

v.33.4 scruze: Cf. II.xii.56.4, where we are told that Excesse ‘scruzd’ the ‘riper fruit’ into her cup, and 35.3 in this canto, which associates Belphoebe with a very different ‘bowre of blis’.

v.34.2–v.34.8 34.2-8 Timias lifts his gaze first ‘toward the azure skies’, but finds ‘divinities / And gifts of heavenly grace’ at his side, in the person of Belphoebe.

v.34.3 34.3 Contrast 29.3-4, where the congealing of moisture in the eyes is a sign of fading life.

v.35.5 35.5 A recurrent motif in Spenser, the surmise of divinity is taken from Homer by way of Virgil (see II.iii.33n). In context, it contrasts with the surmise of bestiality hinted at in Belphoebe’s confusion of Timias with the prey she hunts, a confusion repeated by her retinue (37.4-6).

v.35.7 35.7 Echoing 1 Pet 2:9, ‘him that hathe called you out of darnekes into his marveilous light’. If there is also an echo of John 1:5 (‘And the light shineth in the darkenes, and the darkenes comprehended it not’), then the allusion anticipates Timias’s backsliding into infatuation with Belphoebe in yet another of the canto’s reversals of direction.

v.35.9 sinfull wounds: See notes to st. 20 and 28.

v.36.3 woody Nymphe: The Nymph is Belphoebe’s nurse (32.4-5), not her birth mother.

v.37.1–v.37.2 former . . . after her: The wordplay extends the canto’s preoccupation with the trope of hysteron proteron and with the implications of the prefix for- (see 2.9n). Accordingly, this opening to the stanza is matched by a close in which the two swiftest nymphs ‘arrived at the last’.

v.38.1 boy: The office of squire to a knight is appropriate for a youth; ‘boy’ links Timias to Cupid and Adonis, the other wounded young men prominent in Book III.

v.39.1

st. 39-40

Spenser’s description of Belphoebe’s ‘Pavilion’ echoes Ovid’s account of Gargaphie succinctae sacra Dianae (‘Gargaphie, the sacred haunt of high-girt Diana’; Met 3.155-63), the retreat where Actaeon spies the goddess bathing and is then torn apart by his hounds. Spenser alludes to an earlier version of the Belphoebe story at Time 519-32, where the ‘pleasant Paradize’ whose destruction the speaker laments is compared to one made by Merlin ‘for the gentle squire, to entertaine / His fayre Belphoebe’. As this ‘gardin wasted quite’ anticipates the destruction of the Bower of Bliss in II.xii, so too the description of Belphoebe’s ‘Pavilion’ echoes the poem’s earlier, more heavily eroticized versions of the locus amoenus, e.g. II.v.27-35, II.xii.50-52, and III.i.20.4-7.

v.39.8–v.39.9 39.8-9 At II.v.30.1-4, the water playing over ‘pumy stones’ in the Bower of Bliss lulls the listener to sleep; in this more chaste locus, the river-currents complain at being restrained.

v.40.2 40.2 Virgil’s Corydon reports that formosae myrtus [gratissima] Veneri, sua laurea Phoebo (‘the myrtle [is most dear] to lovely Venus, and his own laurel to Phoebus’; Ecl 7.62). Ovid explains Venus’s preference for myrtle with a surprised-while-bathing story reminiscent of the Actaeon myth (Fasti 4.139-44; see st. 39-40n), and he describes Daphne’s transformation into a laurel (Gk 𝛿αϕν daphne ‘laurel’) to avoid rape by Apollo (Met 1.548-52). Allusions to Phoebus in this episode (cf. 27.9n) look forward to canto vi.

v.40.3–v.40.4 40.3-4 Cf. the description of the Bower at II.v.31.6-9 and xii.70-71, where the song of the birds gives pleasure only; here their love songs seem to alternate with sacred hymns.

v.41.7 redrest: Punning on the rhyme-word ‘drest’, since Belphoebe has just re-dressed the wound.

v.42.1

st. 42-43

Spenser reverses the situation in Ariosto, where it is Angelica rather than the wounded youth who suffers (see st. 27-54n). The contrast between Timias’s two wounds participates in a sustained and complex exploration in Book III of the conventional metaphor that characterizes love as a wound. This exploration begins with the tapestry image of Adonis ‘Deadly engored of a great wilde Bore’ (i.38.2); it continues in Britomart’s wounding by Gardante, in the subsequent account of her wounding by ‘the false Archer’ when she sees Artegall in her father’s mirror, and in the wound she inflicts on Marinell.

v.42.9 aleggeaunce: Also suggests ‘allegiance’, since this is what Timias is in the midst of transferring from Arthur to Belphoebe. And while it wouldn’t be heard in the word, the visual pun on ‘leg’ is hard to miss (no relief for Timias’s ‘thigh’).

v.43.1 43.1 The contrariety between the two wounds—one healing while a second is inflicted by that which heals the first—is here concentrated into the language describing the healing of the first wound: it ‘gathers’ in the sense of growing together, but also in the sense specific to wounds of becoming infected and swelling with pus; it grows ‘whole’, or healthy, but also ‘hole’, opening rather than closing up. The opening/closing wound presents yet another version of the pervasive conflicts of directionality in this canto.

v.44.2 44.2 The repetition of ‘dew’ sets up the terms of the lament in the next three stanzas: what is Belphoebe’s ‘dew reward’ (46.5) from Timias? And, though the question is vehemently disavowed, what is due to him for loving her?

v.44.5 soueraine bountie: supreme goodness (or generosity)

v.44.6 constraynd: The narrator obligingly endorses Timias’s portrayal of himself as a hapless victim of Belphoebe’s beauty.

v.45.1

st. 45-47

Timias’s lament in these stanzas echoes the three matched complaints in canto iv (see iv.55-60n).

v.45.1

st. 45

In accusing himself of ‘villeinous despight’, Timias declares the sexual nature of his desire for Belphoebe, albeit in the mode of a self-reproach bordering on the suicidal.

v.45.2 souerain mercy: Appearing for the third time in this episode, the word ‘sovereign’ accumulates resonance from Belphoebe’s allegorical link to Elizabeth I. Spenser says in FQ Letter 35-37 that the queen’s royal person is represented by Gloriana, whereas her private personage as ‘a most vertuous and beautifull Lady . . . in some places I do expresse in Belphœbe, fashioning her name after your own excellent conceipt of Cynthia, (Phœbe and Cynthia being both names of Diana.)’ He recurs to Ralegh’s poetic ‘worship’ of Elizabeth as a goddess in stanzas 3-5 of the proem to Book III (see notes). Spenser is careful to use ‘sovereign’ in this episode in its generalized sense of ‘preeminent’, but the insistent trace of royal status in this word points to the terms of the dilemma Timias shares with Ralegh: the queen’s ‘two persons’ cannot really be separated, and so the erotic devotion she is said to inspire in her private capacity as a beautiful woman must be restrained by the awe due to her royal majesty. Timias (again, like Ralegh) enacts the relation between the queen’s two bodies in a histrionics of desire at once ‘constraynd’ and proscribed.

v.46.3–v.46.4 46.3-4 The contrast between ‘fro me’ and ‘therefore’ participates in the canto’s sustained wordplay on for-.

v.46.6–v.46.9 46.6-9 In early modern usage ‘dye’, ‘serve’, and ‘service’ refer to sexual intercourse.

v.48.1 warreid: With overlapping puns on the homonyms ‘worried’ (in the early modern sense ‘harass, assail’) and ‘wearied’.

v.48.1 against his will: At 44.9 Timias is said to complain ‘of his lucklesse lott and cruell love’; here he is said to be at war with himself, and specifically with his own sexual urges (OED ‘will’ n.2, ‘carnal desire or appetite’).

v.48.9 calcineth by art: ‘Calcine’ is an alchemical term meaning ‘burn to a powder’, applied metaphorically to the metaphorical lightning that consumes Timias ‘by art’.

v.49.5–v.49.6 49.5-6 Another glance at Ariosto (see st. 27-54n, 42-43n), transferring the figure of melting snow from Angelica to Timias: la misera si strugge, come falda / strugger di nieve intempestiva suole, / ch’in loco aprico abbia scoperta il sole (‘the poor damsel wasted away, as a patch of snow out of season will waste when exposed on open ground to the sun’; OF 19.29.6-8).

v.50.4–v.50.6 Cordialles . . . Cordiall: from L cor heart, medicines that are good for the heart

v.50.9 that soueraine salue: See 45.2n. Here the veil of allegory thins, briefly, as the latent political meaning of ‘soveraine’ comes closer to the surface. Elizabeth’s royal status is allegorized as a kind of figurative divinity (cf. 35.5, 47.1-2), in which context her virginity appears as sacred, like Diana’s.

v.51.1

st. 51

Imitated from Catullus 62.39-47:

ut flos in saeptis secretus nascitur hortis, ignotus pecori, nullo convulsus aratro, quen mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber, iam iam se expandit suavesque expirat odores;* multi illum pueri, multae optavere puellae: idem cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui, nulli illum pueri, nullae optavere puellae: sic virgo dum intacta manet, dum cara suis est; cum castum amisit polluto corpore florem, nec pueris iucunda manet nec cara puellis.

(*missing line supplied by editorial conjecture)

As a flower springs up secretly in a fenced garden, unknown to the cattle, torn up by no plough, which the winds caress, the sun strengthens, the shower draws forth, and even now it unfolds and exhales sweet fragrance, many boys, many girls, desire it; when the same flower fades, nipped by a sharp nail, no boys, no girls desire it: so a maiden, while she remains untouched, the while she is dear to her own; when she has lost her chaste flower with sullied body, she remains neither lovely to boys nor dear to girls.

Spenser’s echo of Catullus in the present episode is especially pointed in the way it plays against the Ariostan allusion: Angelica a Medoro la prima rosa / coglier lasciò, non ancor tocca inante: / né persona fu mai sì aventurosa, / ch’in quel giardin potesse por le piante (‘Angelica let Medoro pluck the first rose, hitherto untouched—no one had yet enjoyed the good fortune of setting foot in this garden’; OF 19.33.1-4).

The decorum of this stanza is at once risky and delicate, since Spenser as poet is venturing into the ‘secret store’ (50.9) where neither Ralegh nor Timias dares to tread (see pr.3.9n, pr.5.6-9n, and cf. II.iii.26.9n, II.iii.27.7-9n). The phrase ‘daughter of her Morne’ evokes Belphoebe’s youth but does so in a catachrestic figure that represents her virginity as precisely that which it prevents, offspring. The phrase ‘More deare than life’ reinforces this suggestion, implying that Belphoebe cherishes her own intactness more than Timias’s survival or the need to propagate. ‘The girlond of her honor did adorne’ implies a sense of display that runs counter to the privacy of ‘secret store’ (50.9), and the following lines play out these implications as the weather changes and Belphoebe allows her rose to spread its petals and ‘florish fayre’.

This doubleness runs through the diction of the lines as well: ‘lapped up’ means ‘wrapped’ or ‘folded’, but ‘lap’ is also a common early modern term for the genitals; ‘chayre’ describes how the petals are ‘lapped’ (dearly, from Fr cher), but also says what they are (Fr chaire flesh). In this diction and imagery the tensions surrounding the royal body natural are wrought to a fine pitch: at one extreme, the trope of catachresis respects the inexpressibility of the royal genitals, while at the other extreme the mimetic likeness of the opening rose to that which must not be named is no less unmistakable.

v.52.1

st. 52

The mythmaking in this stanza sustains the precarious ambiguities of st. 51. God and Paradise evoke the memory of Gen 1:28, ‘Bring forthe frute and multiplie, and fil the earth’; God’s act ‘enrace[s]’ the transplanted flower but also embodies it in a line of descent through ‘earthly flesh’. It inhabits a ‘race / Of woman kind’, where the line-break restricts the word for ‘house or family’ to a single sex whose relation to ‘kind’ (nature) is in question, and it ‘beareth fruit’ in a resonant reassertion of the catachresis that opens st. 51.

v.53.1 53.1 Sustaining the catachrestic plant metaphor, the ladies addressed directly in this stanza are called ‘ympes’, i.e. offshoots.

v.54.1 54.1 The framing of an example is the only way virginity can propagate, and is thus metaphorically a kind of asexual procreation.

v.54.5 Enuy: the modern sense predominates but may be colored by the proximate repetition of ‘envy’ as ‘deny’ at 50.7, 9.

v.54.9 her ensample dead: Cf. ‘his ymage dead’ at iii.29.2. The phrase may be construed ‘her example [which will live on] when she has died’, but in its compressed ambiguity it also recalls line 4, ‘none living may compayre’, and 51.2, ‘More deare than life’, reasserting the catachresis of the preceding stanzas and implying that Belphoebe’s example, however ‘fresh flowring’ it may be in the rhetoric of poetic ‘prayse’, cannot survive its own refusal of procreativity.

v.55.1 prayse: This usage condenses the poet’s celebration of Belphoebe with the virtuous conduct it celebrates, allying the two as forms of asexual reproduction.

v.55.4 those two vertues: Presumably chastity and courtesy, although the corollary presence of kindness, grace, and modesty does crowd the field.

v.55.6–v.55.9 55.6-9 Contrast the rivalry of Art and Nature at II.xii.59.5-6: ‘So striving each th’other to undermine, / Each did the others worke more beautify’.

v.55.7 encreast: A verb of precreation, often used to translate the Biblical commandment at Gen 1:22 (see st. 52n), and so used by Spenser at vi.34.6.

Introduction

Textual Changes

Apparatus