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</l i 1 11 
 
 Wissenschaftliche Beilage zum Programm der Luisenschule. 
 
 Ostern 1888. 
 
 An Essay 
 
 on 
 
 Spenser's Faery Queen 
 
 By 
 
 Dr. Albert Hamann, 
 
 Oberlehrer an der Ltiisenschule, Honorary Master of Arts of the Unireraity of Oxford. 
 
 X94L/FORN\K, 
 
 BERLIN 1888. 
 
 R. Gaertners Verlagsbuchhandlung 
 
 Hermann Heyfelder. t. 
 
 \ 
 
bfc"-^. 
 
The great dawn of Modern Europe, the sixteenjJL-rcentury, unparalleled in the 
 history of the world for .the number of men of great and original genius, is represented 
 in England by three men of the first order: Bacon, Shakesgeax£ir-aad-Sjienser. The two 
 first of these belong to Mankind at large; Ba'conptlie'Tather of modern philosophy, called 
 the human mind back from the barren pursuit of insoluble problems to apply its whole 
 force to the study and conquest of nature; Shakespeare made Man the subject of the 
 drama, Man in the vast complexity of his nature, in infinite variety of character; not the 
 man of a certain time or country, but Man as he always was and ever will remain. 
 Spenser, on the other hand, is only an Englishman, the child of his time and of the 
 society in which he moved, but at the same time the truest reflection of the political, 
 religious, and social condition of his people in the moet momentous period of its great 
 history, the middle part of the reign of Elizabeth. It is true that, unlike his two great 
 contemporaries, he has ceased to be a living power in England no less than in the world 
 in general; but for the student of history it is a delightful task to read in the idealising 
 mirror of his poetry the wonderful combination of ancient classicism and medieval romance, 
 of stern and ascetic faith and wild and world-conquering daring that constitute the cha- 
 racter of that extraordinary age. He was considered the representative poet, the truly 
 national laureate of that youthful England which broke the power of Spain, saved the 
 political and religious independence of Europe, and laid the foundation of the greatest 
 naval and colonial empire of the world; and thus, though Spenser may find few readers 
 in our own time, we may say of him in the words of Schiller : 
 
 Wer den Besten seiner Zeit genug gethan, 
 
 Der hat gelebt fur alle Zeiten. 
 
 The Age of Spenser. 
 
 Many forces were at work in the England of the 16 th century to prepare that 
 wonderful outburst of national power and human genius which finds its truest represen- 
 tative in Spenser. Out of the turmoil of civil war, on the ruin of the feudal aristocracy, 
 the Royal Power had raised itself to omnipotence, and the Tudor Dynasty, above all 
 Henry VHI and Elizabeth , tyrannical though they might appear towards individuals , had 
 always used the new power of the Crown in the interests of the nation, so that they not 
 only restored to England her former position in Europe, but won also great popularity 
 for themselves. The brilliant court of Elizabeth attracted all the nobility, the valour, 
 the beauty, the talent of the country; chivalry revived under the eyes of a majestic and 
 high-mettled lady, who, if she could not herself draw the sword, loved to inspire the men 
 
 1* 
 
 195968 
 
^ 4 — 
 
 about her with her own daring. The time offered free scope to the spirit of enterprise 
 and of manly hardihood. The sea that surrounded England on all sides, promised high 
 rewards to the bold navigator, the brilliant adventurer. It was a patriotic deed to capture 
 the argosies of Spain homeward-bound with the wealth of the Indies, to pillage the 
 Spanish colonies, to plant rival settlements in America, to carry the English flag into 
 unknown seas and discover new routes for British commerce. A new world was opened 
 to the subjects of Elizabeth, a world of strange and fantastic beauty and unheard-of 
 riches. The wild stories which a Francis Drake, a Walter Raleigh told when they 
 returned, laden with rich spoil, from a cruise in the West-Indian waters or from a sail 
 round the world, were far more extraordinary than the tales of fairyland or of the pa- 
 ladins of Charlemagne. The imagination was fired with the dazzling pictures of an El- 
 dorado beyond the sea where the bold man could find gold and honour and lead a life 
 of thrilling adventure; and returning thence he ^might kneel down at the throne of his 
 royal mistress and lay at her feet his sword and the treasures of a new world. 
 
 But the religious struggle of the time contributed even more strongly to form the 
 condition of society which Spenser's great poem reflects. The English reformation had 
 not been a spontaneous movement of elementary power like that of Germany. It had 
 been brought about by the arbitrary will of Henry VIII, who determined its character 
 and fixed its boundaries. Nor would it ever have sunk deep into the hearts of the people, 
 had not Mary undertaken to quench in blood every spark of the new light, and to hand 
 over her people, bound hand and foot, to the tender mercies of her Spanish husband. 
 And this happened at a time, when in every country of Europe Roman Catholicism rallied 
 after its defeat inspired with new strength and confidence by vigorous popes trusting in 
 the spiritual assistance of the Order of Jesus and in the keen-edged sword of Philip II, 
 whilst on the other hand -the sterner and more aggressive form of protestantism was 
 developed by Calvin and Knox. It was the fear of Spanish bondage and of the Inquisition 
 that made England definitely protestant, and as the tide of the catholic reaction rose higher 
 and higher on the continent, irresistibly recovering the ground that had been lost in the 
 first half of the century, the depth and intensity of protestant feeling and the aversion 
 to those institutions and ceremonies that savoured of Catholicism increased in England. 
 Towards the middle of the reign of Elizabeth the danger arising from the catholic reaction 
 increased from year to year; the Guises triumphed in France, the revolt of the Nether- 
 lands seemed about to be crushed, Jesuit emissaries traversed England sowing the seeds 
 of rebellion, conspiracies threatening the life of the queen followed each other in rapid 
 succession, and the excitement of the loyal part of the population rose to fever heat. 
 The cool prudence and cautious policy of Elizabeth were forced to yield to the irre- 
 sistible pressure of public opinion which clamoured for the blood of Mary Stuart, whose 
 mere existence in the midst of a wildly agitated and divided people sufficed to create a 
 panic. Thus Mary was sacrificed to the security of England, and the rampant Catholicism 
 of the Northern counties was deprived of its only possible head. The protestant people 
 exulted, and when in the following year (1588) the -storm burst and Philip hurled his 
 Armada against England, the whole nation, Protestants and Catholics alike, rallied in 
 unbounded enthusiasm around their Queen, and the English fleet which threw the 
 Spaniards into disorder and forced them to the disastrous retreat round the Orkneys, 
 
was commanded by a Howard, a member of one of the great Catholic families of the 
 country. 
 
 From that time forward every voice of discord was hushed in England in the 
 sublime symphony of patriotic loyalty that played in mighty waves around the throne of 
 Elizabeth. In her every Englishman of the time saw the defender of the true faith, the 
 saviour and guardian of the national honour and independence; and the chivalrous 
 devotion to women that lies at the bottom of the English character, lent a romantic 
 glamour to that loyalty which glows like a halo of poetry around the great central figure 
 of the national life of the England of the 16th century. 
 
 But to understand the moral and intellectual atmosphere in which Spenser breath- 
 ed, it is not enough to bear in mind the great discoveries and conquests, the grand 
 political struggle, and the religious life of the nation, which made the Bible and the 
 solemn problems of Calvinistic specijlation the chief mental food of the vast majority 
 of the people, but we have also to realise the share which England took in the 
 great movement of the renaissance, an influence most strongly felt among the higher 
 classes of society. — ■—«»«-"-—**"■"' 
 
 The New Learning spreading northward from Italy reached England in the third 
 decade of the 16 th century. In the last thirty years of the 15 th century ten thousand 
 editions of books and pamphlets are said to have been published throughout Europe, and 
 before the close of the century the whole of Latin literature was accessible to every 
 student. During the first twenty years of the 16 th century almost all the more valuable 
 authors of Greece followed. After the peace with France in 1525 the profound influence 
 of this sudden outburst of the two great classic literatures made itself felt in England. The 
 Royal House of England was the steady patron of the great movement. Henry VIII 
 remained its faithful friend through every phase of his career. The boy king Edward VI 
 was a fair scholar in both the classical tongues. Elizabeth began every day with an 
 hour's reading in the Greek testament, the tragedies of Sophocles, the dialogues of Plato, 
 or the orations of Demosthenes. The great ministers of the House of Tudor, widely as 
 they differed in politics, agreed in fostering the new culture that sprang up around them. 
 Grammar schools arose all over England; the old methods of instruction were discarded 
 and new school-books composed by Erasmus and others. At the head of the movement 
 stood Dean Colet the learned founder of St. Paul's school. The priests took alarm. „No 
 wonder," Thomas More wrote to the Dean, ,,your school raises a storm, for it is like the 
 wooden horse in which armed Greeks were hidden for the ruin of barbarous Troy". But 
 it was too late; the movement could not be suppressed and soon comprised the whole 
 system of middle-class education. The Universities revived. The old scolastic teaching 
 passed away like the phantoms of the night at the advent of a new day. The study of 
 Greek was introduced by Erasmus. The literature of Greece and Rome made its solemn 
 entry into the Universities, and natural science and mathematics followed. 
 
 For the moment the vernacular literatures of Europe were crushed by the over- 
 powering attraction of the great models of Greece and Rome; but soon they revived with a 
 grandeur of form and a large conception of humanity unknown to former generations. Italy 
 took the lead. For more than a century it was the centre and the focus of European 
 life; nor in the fine arts alone; all the gay splendours and dazzling fancies of the time 
 
— 6 — 
 
 are reflected in the poetry of Ariosto, all the classical learning, the solemn wisdom, the 
 statuesque perfection of form of the Kenaissance live in Tasso. 
 
 The countless allusions to ancient mythology and to the legends and the history 
 of Greece and Rome as well as to the heroes of Homer and Virgil, the numerous remi- 
 niscences and quotations of beautiful passages of favourite authors, — beauties newly 
 revealed and dazzling the eye of the student accustomed to the somber shades of the 
 cloister, with the bright and lovely colours of glowing life , — filled the mind and fired 
 the imagination of the poet of the time, so that he seemed to move in an enchanted 
 land, as fresh and beautiful as paradise. Italian then became the favourite language of 
 those higher classes of English society which the new sun reached and kindled with its 
 rays. „The enchantment of Circe", Ascham, the Schoolmaster of England, called that 
 fascination which fair Hesperia once more exercised on the rude Children of the North. 
 
 Add to this influence of ancient and of Itaiian poetry the newly awakened interest 
 in the study of the English past, of medieval history and poetry with its romantic tra- 
 ditions of honour and chivalry, the strange adventures of valiant knights and fair ladies, 
 of giants and dwarfs, of wizards and fairies, of dragons and monsters. In the wake of 
 the renaissance of the wonders of antiquity came that first revival of romantic marvels 
 of the Middle Ages. 
 
 These then were the influences that favoured the growth of the greatest and 
 most characteristic poem of the age of Elizabeth: The Faery Queen. 
 
 The Life of Spenser» 
 
 Comparatively little is known of the poet's life. 
 
 Edmund Spenser was born in London, near the Tower, connected, though distantly, 
 with the famous house whose name he bears, probably in the year 1552. He entered 
 Cambridge as a sizar ^) of Pembroke Hall 1569; he took his degree as a B. A. in 1573, 
 as an M. A. in 1576. His taste drew him to the study of the highest poetry. The Bible 
 was then for the first time in every body's hands; Spenser possessed an intimate know- 
 ledge of the Hebrew poets as well as of the New Testament. He knew and understood 
 the Homeric epics, was well acquainted with the chief Latin poets and a master of Italian, 
 whilst at the "Same time he loved the old poets of his own people, proclaiming himself 
 the disciple of Chaucer. Nor did he neglect the severe study of philosophy. How he 
 wartascinated by Plato we see by his „Four Hymns on Love and Beauty", whilst the 
 influence of Aristotle~can be traced throughout the Faery Queen, where we meet the 
 Twelve Moral Virtu^of the Greek philosopher with their crowning chief. Magnanimity, 
 idealised in the forms of twelve knights and of King Arthur. """ " 
 
 At Cambridge Spenser contracted an intimate college friendship with Gabriel Harvey 
 who exercised the greatest influence on the poet. Having left the university, Spenser 
 resided some time in the North of England, whence he came back to London in 1578, where 
 Harvey introduced him to Sir Philip Sidney, the mirror of knighthood at the court of 
 Elizabeth. To him he dedicatedHiis „Shepheard's Calendar" in 157-9. In 1580 Arthur, 
 
 1) enjoying a scholarship or nStipendium", to which certain college duties were attached. 
 
Lord Grey de Wilton, took Spenser with hijn as his private secretary to Ireland, a pro- 
 motion which he probably owed to Lord Leicester to whom he had been introduced by 
 Sidney. When Lord Grey was recalled in 1582 Spenser came back with him. In 1586 
 he obtained from Elizabeth the grant of a considerable estate at Kilcolman in the county 
 of Cork, part of the lands forfeited by the Earl of Desmond. In the quiet retreat of 
 his Irish estate he wrote the first three books of the Faery Queen — which he showed 
 to his guest Sir Walter Raleigh, to whom he afterwards addressed the explanatory letter 
 prefixed to his work. Thereupon, in 1590, he went over to England to publish these 
 three books, when the Queen granted him a pension and made him her laureate. In 1594 
 he married ajt Cork a simple country girl of great beauty. How dearly he loved her, 
 appears from his splendid Epithalamium where he speaks of her as: 
 „so sweet, so lovely, and so mild", continuing: 
 „her eyes were sapphires blue, her hair of rippling gold". 
 In 1596 he is again in England to publish the books IV — VI of the Faery Queen; 
 in the following year he was back on his estate. The year 1598 brought the fatal crisis 
 of his life. The great rebellion of the Irish under Tyrone broke out, his house was 
 sacked and burnt to the ground, and one of his children perished in the flames. The 
 poet fled to England with the rest of his family and died in January 1599 near West- 
 minster broken-hearted and in penury; he sleeps in the Poets' Corner of West- 
 minster Abbey. 
 
 The Faerj Queen. 
 
 The Faery Queen is an epic poem planned to comprise twelve books, each of them 
 setting forth the deeds of a knighF achieved in honour of Queen Gloriana , in each of 
 them King Arthur was to appear at a critical moment. The first six books only exist, 
 nor is it probable that the poet had time to write more. As it is, the poem is one of 
 the longest epics in existence, consisting of about four thousand stanzas. The Spenserian 
 stanza is a modification of the „ottave rime" of Ariosto and Tasso. It adds to the eight 
 lines, of which each consists of five iambic feet, an Alexandrine which lends to the metro 
 a dignity and repose which suits the gravity of Spenser's mind; in the stanza the rhymes 
 follow the model ababbcbcc. This metre may be fairly said to be Spenser's own; it has 
 been accepted at his hands by many poets for their noblest conceptions, as by Byron for 
 his Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. 
 
 When we turn to the sources from which Spenser drew his materials, we have to 
 mention in the first place Homer and Virgil, from whom he took many turns of expression 
 and felicitous illustrations, nay sometimes a whole scene, as that of the bleeding trees 
 from Virgil B. I. C haucer's influence is frequently felt. Much he owes to the old ro- 
 mances. We perceive from his conception of the character of Arthur, how carefully he 
 studied Malorie's ^Iorte,.d'.Arthur. The twelve knights of the Faery Queen are modelled 
 after the Seven Champions of' Christendom. In these old romances he found the ,iStage 
 properties" of his scene: the lion, the enchanted horn, the diamond shield, the sacred 
 well. Among contemporary j^qets the t\yo great Italians, Ariosto and Tafeso, have of 
 •coui"se the^greatest attraction for him. From the latter, the severely classical poet," the 
 
delight of the critics of the 18*^ century, he borrowed whole scenes, yet he felt a 
 
 stronger inclination for the natural and fresh mind and world-wide sympathy of 
 
 Ariosto. 
 
 Milton represents his Penseroso poring over the immortal pages of Spenser, 
 
 reading: 
 
 „of forests and enchantments drear, 
 
 Where more is meant than meets the ear," — 
 
 and indeed for Spenser's contemporaries the great charm of the poem lay in its „dark 
 conceit" and in the unravelling of its entangled skein. The whole work is in fact a double 
 allegory, one moving skillfully within the other. In the first place the Faery Queen may 
 be regarded as a Morality, one of those dramatic performances so much in fashion at the 
 time of the Renaissance, in which the dramatis personae are abstract qualities, virtues 
 and vices, or general types of human character, whilst the plot is based on the struggle 
 between Good and Evil for the soul of Man. In the second place it is a representation 
 of contemporary events, of the principal actors on the real stage of English politics, of 
 the great struggle between the powers of light and darkness, viz. the reformed religion 
 and the Catholic reaction, of Elizabeth and Philip, and of the final overthrow of the 
 latter. The purpose of the whole work, as stated in his letter to Raleigh, 'is /JJto form 
 a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline"^ Prince Arthur is to be 
 his hero, representing the h ighest of all the virtues, Mag nificence, — the ideal knight, 
 the true gentleman, the representative of all that is great andT manly, tender and loveable 
 in the English character. This prince has beheld the Faery Queen In a dream and is so 
 enamoured of the vision, that he resolves to seek her in Faery Land. This Queen is 
 Gloriana, representing sublime glory, the highest and noblest goal of Man; and the 
 question is: Will Arthur succeed in Tils task to find and to win her? is it possible for 
 
 \ Man to attain the highest aim of life, to win what Faust calls „the Crown of Humanity"? 
 
 *^Can the Ideal be realised on earth? 
 
 The poet makes the Queen keep her annual feast during twelve days; twelve 
 several adventures happen in that time, each of them being undertaken by a knight, the 
 representative of a certain moral virtue, at the command and in honour of the Faery 
 Queen; the first is the Red Cross Knight expressing Holiness; the second, Sir Guyon or 
 Temperance; the third, Britomartis, a „lady knight", representing Chastity; Cambel and 
 Triamond, typifying Friendship, are the heroes of the fourth; Artegall or Justice is the 
 hero of the fifth; Sir Caledore or Courtesy that of the sixth book. But in all these 
 adventures prince Arthur appears to rescue, to advise, and to guide the struggling knight, 
 though not to help him in his final victory, in order not to lessen his merit. Only six 
 books were finished, as has been mentioned before, and it is very doubtful, whether the 
 poet had time and strength in the terrible catastrophe of his fortunes, to write the 
 second half of his poem, though tradition tells of the .accidental loss of the last six books. 
 But so much is certain that the hope of Arthur was to be crowned, and Gloriana was 
 united with her knight in the end; whereby the question whether Man's strivings could 
 . meet with success here below, was answered in the affirmative. 
 
 But we maintained that a second allegory was intended referring to contemporary 
 events and characters. This Faery Land of the time, the country of mightiest achieve- 
 
ments, is England and its Queen is Elizabeth; it is she who inspires that brilliant band 
 of heroes, Kaleigh, Drake, Howard, Sidney, Essex, with an irresistible daring and loftiness 
 of purpose. And thus they fight her battles in the name of all the virtues and crush 
 Spanish craft and insolence, and returning as conquerors they kneel down at the steps 
 of her throne to receive their meed of praise. 
 
 But the bravest of the brave, the most brilliant in the glittering throng, the 
 cynosure of all eyes, upon whom even the eyes of the Queen bave often lighted with a 
 look of tender promise, is Leicester, the counterpart of Arthur in this second and deeper 
 allegory, however short the unprincipled courtier, the incapable statesman and un- 
 successful general may actually have fallen of the fancy picture of ideal chivalry which 
 Spenser drew. 
 
 As it would be impossible in the narrow compass of the present sketch to set 
 before the reader the contents and purport of the whole work of Spenser, we shall content 
 ourselves with an analysis and explanation of the first book, by far the most interesting 
 part of the whole poem. 
 
 Analysis of the First Book of the Faery Queen. 
 
 The first book is preceded by a Dedication to the Queen. Turning from the 
 pastoral poetry of the Shepheard's Calendar to 
 
 „sing of knights' and ladies' gentle deeds", 
 the poet invokes the help of Clio, of Venus and Cupid, and above all of that 
 
 „Mlrrour of grace and majestic divine", 
 viz. Queen Elizabeth, to raise his thoughts to that „true glorious type of thine", viz. the 
 Faery Queen herself whom Arthur sought through the world and in seeking „suffered so 
 much ill". 
 
 Canto 1. A gentle knight appears before us 
 
 „ycladd in mightie arms and silver shield" 
 wearing as a badge a bloody cross both on his breast-plate and on his shield; it is 
 St. George of merry England and, as we are told later on (Canto X. 65 and 66), a scion 
 of the old Saxon kings of the land, but exchanged in his youth by a wicked Faery for 
 one of her own „base elfin brood". The child was found by a ploughman from whom he 
 received his name Georgos, But goon the noble blood of the boy revealed itself / and 
 „prickt with courage" he came to Faery Court to prove his puissance in the service of 
 Gloriana, the glorious queen of Faery land. He_is at present bent on a dangerous ad- 
 venture against „a dragon horrible and stearne", which laid waste the land and oppressed 
 the royal parents of the lovely lady Una who, clad in a shining white garment which she 
 has however covered with a black stole, rides by the side of the Red Cross Knight, seated 
 upon a snow-white ass and leading „by her in a line a milaewhite lambe". A dwarf 
 follows in their wake bearing on his back the needments of his mistress. Whilst they 
 ride along through green fields, a storm of rain bursts over them and they are fain to 
 seek the shelter of a shady grove 
 
 ,,that heaven's light did hide 
 
 Not perceable with power of any starre", 
 
 LuiseoBch. ;1888. 2 
 
— 10 — ( 
 
 and they enjoy „the birdes' sweete harmony" and praise the trees „so straight and hy", 
 which the poet describes in the following famous passage: 
 
 „The sayling pine, the cedar proud and tall, 
 
 The vine-prop elrae, the poplar never dry, 
 
 The builder oake, sole king of forests all, 
 
 The aspine good for staves, the cypress funerall, 
 
 The laurell, meed of raightie conquerours 
 
 And poets sage, the firre that weepeth still. 
 
 The wiUow worne of forlorne paramours, 
 
 The eugh^) obedient to the benders will. 
 
 The birch for shaftes, the sallow for the mill. 
 
 The mirrhe sweete bleeding in the bitter wound, 
 
 The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill. 
 
 The fruitful olive, and the platane round. 
 
 The carver holme 2), the maple seeldom inward sound". 
 Unwittingly they have entered „the wandering wood", and they approach the 
 Qave of Err our. The ugly monster lay in her den, half serpent and half woman, sur- 
 rounded by her ill-favoured young ones. She rushed at the knight, whose shining armour 
 lighted up the darkness of the place, 
 
 „for hght she hated as the deadly bale"; 
 and she suddenly wound herself around his body, 
 
 „That hand or foot to stirre he strove in vain: 
 
 God help the man so wrapt in Errour's endlesse traine". 
 But „adding faith unto his force", as Una bade him, the knight strangled her 
 with such strength that she brought forth the horrible and loathsome contents of her 
 stomach: 
 
 „Her vomit full of bookes and papers was. 
 
 With loathly frogs and toades which eyes did lacke, 
 
 And creeping sought way in the weedy grass". 
 At last he succeeded in cutting off her head. Her filthy brood 
 
 „sucked up their dying mother's blood", » 
 
 whereupon their bellies swole and burst, and thus 
 
 „His foes have slaine themselves, with whom he should contend". 
 Passing on they left the haunted wood, when they met with an aged sire of most 
 venerable appearance, 
 
 „And all the way he prayed, as he went, 
 
 And often knockt his breast, as one that did repent". 
 Archimago — this was the name of the old man — received them hospitably in 
 his hermitage in a solitary dale, entertaining his guest with fair discourse; 
 
 „For that olde man of pleasing wordes had store, 
 
 And well could file his tongue as smooth as glass. 
 
 He told of saintes and popes, and evermore 
 
 He strowed an Ave-Mary after and before". 
 
 ^) yew. 
 
 *) the evergreen oak. 
 
— 11 — 
 
 • No sooner however, had the weary wayfarers betaken themselves to rest, than the 
 
 false magician began to try the power of his charms. He summoned two Sprites to 
 his aid 
 
 „fittest for to forge true-seeming lyes", 
 one of whom he despatched to the house of Morpheus, 
 
 „where dawning day doth never peepe, 
 
 there Tethys his wet bed 
 
 Doth ever wash, and Cynthia still doth steepe 
 
 In silver dew his ever-drouping hed. 
 
 Whiles sad night over him her mantle black does spread". 
 In a stanza of perfect rhythm and of great musical charm the poet continues to 
 describe the drowsiness which holds Morpheus under its melodious spell: 
 
 „And more, to luUe him in his slumber soft, 
 
 A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe, 
 
 And ever-drizling raine upon the loft, 
 
 Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne^) 
 
 Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne^): 
 
 No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes. 
 
 As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne. 
 
 Might there be heard: but carelesse Quiet lyes, 
 
 Wrapt in eternal silence farre from enemyes". 
 At last the messenger succeeded in awaking Morpheus and asked of him a diverting 
 dream which he carried on his wings back to his master, who had in the meantime 
 changed the other sprite into a lady of bewitching beauty and most like Una. In vain 
 the magician tempted the knight through voluptuous dreams and the charms of this im- 
 pure counterfeit of pure Una to be faithless to himself. Though baffled by the virtue of 
 the knight, Archimago succeeded in convincing him that Una was false by showing him 
 that second Una, whom he created, in loving dalliance with a fair youth. Then the Red 
 Cross Knight fled in disgust abandoning the task he had undertaken. 
 
 Canto 2. Awaking from her sleep Una discovered the flight of her knight and 
 her dwarf, and started in vain pursuit. St. George meanwhile, „flying from his thoughts and 
 jealous fear", met with a goodly pair: Sans Foy, a Saracen knight armed from head to foot — 
 
 „full large of limbe and every point 
 
 He was, and cared not for God or man a point", 
 and fair Duessa, clad in scarlet with a Persian mitre on her head and bedecked with jewels 
 and with rich ornaments „which her lavish lovers to her gave". In fierce encounter the 
 knights met, and but for the cross on his breast it would have fared badly with St. George; 
 but it „revived in him the sleeping spark of native virtue", and he cleft helmet and head of 
 proud Sans Foy. Seeing the fall of her lover the lady approached with feigned humility 
 and tried to rouse the pity and to win the love of the Red Cross Knight. She called 
 herself Fidessa, sole daughter of a mighty emperor on the Tiber, betrothed to a king, 
 most rich and sage; but widowed through his sudden death she had set out, a virgin 
 widow, to find the dead body of her husband. But in her wanderings she was met by 
 
 *) sound. 2) swoon. 
 
 2* 
 
— 12 — 
 
 and forced to follow proud Sans Foy, the eldest of three brothers, Sans Foy, Sans Loy, 
 Sans Joy. Won through fond pity and the charm of false Fidessa, the knight invited 
 her to rest in the shade of two trees until the hot hour of noon was past. But when 
 he plucked a bough from one of those trees to make a wreath for his lady, he saw to 
 his dismay drops of blood trickle from the rift and a piteous voice was heard lamenting 
 the sad fate of the two lovers here changed into trees. Fradubio (the Waverer) had 
 won the love of fair Fraelissa; one day when riding together they met another couple, 
 a proud knight and his lady, Duessa, seeming fair but really foul and false. The two 
 knights fought each in honour, of his lady, and Fradubio, proving the stronger, carried 
 off the seemingly fair prized And then he stood in doubt to which to give ^his love — 
 „the one seeming fair, the other such indeede", when the false witch by her magic blasted 
 the beauty of good Fraelissa „dimming her former beauties shining ray", so that Fra- 
 dubio could have slain her, but Duessa preferred to change her into a tree. Then 
 ,^ the infatuated knight took the false woman for his Dame and his infatuation might have 
 
 lasted for ever, had he not once seen her on a day 
 
 „when witches wont do penance for their crime — " 
 in her proper shape, such as she really was: „a filthy foul old woman". But when 
 Duessa perceived the sudden change in her lover, she took a cruel revenge and placed 
 him as a tree by his wretched lady's side. 
 
 Fidessa, well knowing all the time that she herself, the false Duessa, had brought 
 about such woeful misery, pretended to have swooned with fright at the sound of the 
 voice of the Speaking Tree; then the knight 
 
 „with trembling cheare 
 Her up he tooke, too simple and too trew. 
 And oft her kist", 
 and so the ill assorted pair leave the weeping trees and pass on. 
 
 iCanto 3. Una meanwhile, wretched and forlorn after the flight of her champion, 
 had wandered in vain search of him; but unhurt she passed through the wilderness making 
 
 „a sunshine in the shady place" 
 and even the savage, lion crouched at her feet in proud submission, then followed her to 
 guard her steps, while she continued her quest on her milkwhite ass. They met a 
 damsel who carried on her shoulder a pot of water, but in vain did Una attempt to 
 make her understand her wants, and the sight of the lion threw her into such an agony 
 of terror that she fled tp^lier cottage where she took refuge with her blind old mother. 
 The impatient lion tore open the door, and there they discovered the superstitious old 
 woman pent up in a dark corner 
 
 „Upon her heads devoutly penitent; 
 Nine hundred Pater nosters everyday 
 And thrise nine hundred Aves she was wont to say"^). 
 When their fears were at last allayed, they permitted Una to rest in the cottage that 
 night. But at midnight somebody knocked loudly at the door to obtain entrance. It 
 was a robber, Kirkrapine by name, who was returning from the pillage of a church and 
 
 1) So Popish Superstition retired into the solitude and secrecy of the country among silly peasants 
 obstinately resisting the new truth of the reformation. 
 
- 13 — 
 
 came to bestow his plunder on the damsel Abessa (Abjecta), the daughter of old Corceca 
 [cuore cieco]; Neither of the women venturing to open the door from fear of the lion, 
 the thief broke into the house by force, to find a bloody death by the claws of the enraged 
 beast. Maddened at the sight of the mangled remains of their friend, the two women 
 followed after Una, who had left the cottage at daybreak, cursing and railing at her. 
 
 In the meantime Archimago had disguised himself as a noble knight assuming not 
 only the armour and device, but also the bearing and manner of the Red Cross Knight, 
 so that he could indeed pass for him. He met the blind old hag who had at last given 
 up the pursuit, heard from her what had happened, and soon overtook Una, who, on seeing 
 what she believed to be her knight who had so suddenly deserted her, humbly approached 
 him expressing her delight at beholding once more 
 
 „her light and shining lampe of blis". 
 With fair words he soothed her, promising her his succour and company, and she, in the 
 joy of the moment, quickly forgot all she had suifered, for 
 
 „one loving howre 
 
 For many yeares of sorrow can dispence: 
 
 she speaks no more 
 
 Of past: true is, that true love hath no powre 
 
 To looken backe; his eyes be fixt before". 
 But Archimago was doomed to be unlucky in his disguise; for Sansloy, the brother of 
 the slain Sansfoy, appeai'^^d 2nd catching sight of the badge in the shield of Archimago 
 and believing to have before him St. George, the slayer of his brother, he set spurs to 
 his horse and overthrew the old magician in a fierce charge. When he opened the helmet 
 of the fallen man, Sansloy discovered his mistake, but as the old man seemed past help, 
 he rode away carrying off poor Una who thus lost her supposed champion and found 
 herself at the mercy of a wild and lawless knight. In vain the lion rushed to her help ; 
 the royal beast could only die in her cause. 
 
 Canto 4. . The Red Cross Knight still beguiled by Duessa who continued to play 
 the part of fair Fidessa, had reached in the meantime a magnificent palace called 
 the House of Pride. Here sat surrounded by many glittering courtiers in unheard of 
 splendour proud Lucifera the Queen, who ruled her usurped kingdom with cunning and 
 tyranny leaning on the counsel of six old wizards. .Vanity, the usher of the palace, 
 introduced the newly arrived pair to the Queen who hardly deigned to notice them. 
 Then Lucifera rose from her seat to set out in grand state on a royal procession. Her 
 golden carriage was drawn by six strange beasts ridden by her councillors. These were 
 sluggish Idleness sitting on an ass, dressed in the garb of a monk with a breviary in 
 his hand; loathsome Gluttony riding on a swine, his belly „blown-up with luxury"; lustful 
 Lechery upon a goat; greedy Avarice 
 
 „Upon a camel laden all with gold, 
 
 For of. his wicked pelfe his God he made, 
 
 And unto hell himself for money sold; 
 
 Yet child ne kinsman living had he none 
 
 To leave them to, but thorough daily care 
 
 To get, and nightly fear to lose, his owne. 
 
 He led a wretched life unto himself unknowne". 
 
— U — 
 
 Then followed malicious Envy upon a ravenous wolf 
 
 „who still did chaw 
 Between his cankred teeth a venemous tode, 
 / That all the poison ran about his jaw"; 
 
 and last not least fierce avenging Wrath 
 
 „upon a lion loth for to be led", 
 brandishing a burning brand about his head. 
 
 On the beam of the carriage sat Satan whip in hand to drive the weird team 
 through the shouting crowds whilst 
 
 ,,Underneath their feet all scattered lay 
 Dead sculls and bones of men whose life had gone astray". 
 Meanwhile a Saracen knight had arrived at the court of Lucifera, Slmsjoy by name, 
 burning with rage at the sight of the shield of his slain brother Sansfoy, which the page 
 of St. George * carried. 
 
 He was on the point of falling upon the Eed Cross Knight when the Queen of 
 Pride, who had returned from her procession, commanded the two adversaries to delay 
 their quarrel until the following day when they were to fight in the lists. During the 
 ensuing night Duessa crept secretly to Sansjoy offering him her love and her assistance 
 against, the Red Cross Knight. 
 
 X3anto 5. In the morning the two knights enter the royal hall, 
 „There many minstrales mi>,k9n melody, * ^ />/ 
 To drive away the dull melancholy; 
 And many bardes, that to the trembling chord 
 Can tune their timely voices cunningly; 
 And many chroniclers that can record 
 ^ Old loves, and wars for ladies doen by many a lord"; — 
 
 and they ple'flp themselves to observe the sacred laws of arms. Then began a fearful 
 combat in the presence of the Queen and her assembled court; the Saracen fought fier- 
 cely to avenge his brother, but the Red Cross Knight 
 
 „quickening faith, that earst was woxen weake", 
 struck hhn so mighty a blow that he brought him down upon his knees and would have 
 slain him, had not a sudden cloud interposed itself hiding the fainting knight from his 
 view. St. George was hailed victor, false Duessa concealing her bitter disappointment under 
 a show of deep pity for the wounds and sufferings of the successful champion. 
 
 But at the approach of darkness the witch threw herself into the air and flew to 
 the gloomy cavern of grisly Night, to invoke her assistance for the fallen Saracen, the 
 son of old Aveugle and grandson of Night herself. Then she harnessed her black steeds 
 to her dark chariot and sped to the place where a cloud still covered the fallen Sansjoy; 
 she placed him, still senseless, in her carriage and brought him to the house of J lnto into 
 the dire regions of Tartarus where in a doleful cave they found Aesculapius condemned 
 to eternal chains, because he had remade Hippolytus, who had been horribly dismem- 
 bered at the command of Neptune in answer to the prayer of Theseus^). In his charge 
 
 1) This whole scene is an imitation of classical authors with the exception of this punishment of 
 Aesculapius. It is unknown where Spenser found this version of the story. 
 
^ 
 
 — 15 — 
 
 j 
 
 Night and Duessa left their favourite. When the latter returned to the Palace of Pride, 
 she found that the Red Cross Knight was gone. He had departed suddenly and by night, 
 when his dwarf had discovered the snares and dangers which surrounded them, for in a 
 dark and loathsome dungeon of the palace were kept many prisoners 
 
 „to live in woe, and die in wretchednesse", 
 among them Nebucadnezar, Croesus, Nimrod, Alexander, Caesar, Pompey, and many more 
 of the great men of old who had fallen under the yoke of pride. Seeing the terrible 
 state of these and many meaner men the knight fled in dismay from 
 
 h „the dreadful spectacle of that sad house of Pride". 
 
 In the to*** Canto the story returns to Una whom Sansloy in the disguise of the 
 Red Cross Knight had carried off as his prize after the overthrow of Archimago. Sansloy 
 first wooed her with fawning words, but seeing his failure, he dastardly attempted to do 
 violence to the unfortunate maid; when her wild shrieks of despair resounding through 
 the wood drew around her a troop of Fauns and Satyrs, who were holding their revelry, 
 whilst old Sylvanus, their master, was asleep in a shady arbour. At the sight of these 
 strange monsters the Saracen took to flight. The_ beauty, innocence, and forlorn condition 
 of Una touches these uncouth children of Nature and they show their pity and admiration 
 kissing her feet, dancing and playing around her, and worshipping her as their queen. 
 Even old Sylvanus deems her fairer than the Olympian goddesses, Venus and Dian, and 
 as to the Satyrs, 
 
 „henceforth nothing faire but her on earth they find". 
 Una was delighted to stay and to teach these rude minds a higher truth to wean 
 them from idolatry; but when she forbade them to worship her, they fell to worship her 
 ass. Then a knight of greatest daring and invincible strength came to the wood, Sa- 
 tyrane, the wayward offspring of a gentle lady whom an amorous satyr had forced to 
 love against her will. This wild son of nature had in his childhood tamed the savage 
 beasts of the forest, and as a youth had made himself feared by his prowess. He it was 
 that found Una, 
 
 „Strange lady, in so strange habiliment, 
 
 Teaching the satyres, which her sat around, ^ 
 
 Trew sacred love, which from her sweet lips did redound". 
 Taking pity on her state he helped her to escape from the forest and her savage 
 hosts. Then they met a venerable pilgrim of whom they inquired after the Red Cross 
 Knight; but he told them that the hero had been lately killed by a Saracen, whom they 
 would find not far from the spot. Then Satyrane met Sansloy, and a terrible battle began 
 between the two, whilst Una who recognised the miscreant who had attempted her honour, 
 ^^fled in dismay, secretly followed by the pilgrim /^. who was none other than Archimago 
 himself. 
 
 fcanta .7i When the Red Cross Knight had escaped from the Palace of Pride, he 
 sat down to rest in a wood in a shady place near a spring, and laid aside his armour. 
 Here Duessa, still disguised as Fidessa, discovered him and again subdued him to her 
 service with cunning words. And as he was thirsty, she made him drink of the water 
 of that enchanted spring which at once dissolved the manly strength in his very bones. 
 At this moment a monstrous giant approached, Orgoglio by name, surprised him unarmed 
 
/ - 16 - 
 
 and unmanned, and having struck him senseless to the ground with his club he carried 
 him off to his castle and threw him into the deepest dungeon. But Duessa he made his 
 mistress, giving her 
 
 „gold and purple pall to weare, 
 
 And triple crowne set on her head full hye"; 
 and to enhance her majesty and the terror of her name he set her on a huge dragon 
 with seven heads. 
 
 The dwarf had meanwhile taken up the armour and the spear of his master and 
 was sadly travelling on his way, when he met Una flying from the battle of Satyrane and 
 Sansloy. The sight of the dwarf with the weapons of her champion and the sad tale of 
 his captivity threw her into an agony of sorrow and despair. In this hour of her greatest 
 need she was met by a knight in splendid armour, wearing on his breastplate a priceless 
 jewel shaped as a woman's head and representing the Faery Queen; his shield formed of 
 a single diamond was covered with a veil, as its unendurable brightness could not be seen 
 unpunished by mortal eyes. The knight was King Arthur himself clad in the armour 
 forged for him by Merlin's art. With gentlest courtesy he began to soothe her, but at 
 first she refused to listen to his words saying like Schiller's Thekla: 
 
 „My last left comfort is my woes to weepe and waile". 
 But he persisted in kindly urging her to tell the cause of her grief: 
 
 „Mishaps are maistred by advice discrete, 
 
 And counsell mitigates the greatest smart; 
 
 Found never help, who never would his hurts impart". 
 Thereupon ensued the following short dialogue full of charming conceits which 
 made her surrender at last to the force of his arguments: 
 
 „0 but (quoth she) great griefe will not be tould, 
 
 And can more easily be thought than said." 
 
 „Right so; (quoth he) but he that never would, 
 
 Could never: will to might gives greatest aid." 
 
 „But griefe (quoth she) does greater grow displaid. 
 
 If then it find not helpe, and breeds despaire." 
 ' „Despair breeds not (quoth he) where faith is staid." 
 
 „No faith so fast (quoth she) but flesh does paire."^) 
 
 „Flesh may erapaire (quoth he), but reason does repaire." 
 Thus overcome at last bx-gentle persuasion Una reveals to Arthur her fate, and 
 here we learn for the first time the story of her former sufferings. She is the daughter 
 of a king and queen, whose rule once spread 
 
 „through all the territories, 
 
 Which Phison and Euphrates floweth by, 
 
 And Gehons golden waves does wash continually", 
 in fact through the fair land of Eden. But a huge and horrible dragon 
 
 „bred in the loathly lakes of Tartary"^), 
 wasted their kingdom and forced them to take shelter in a strong castle where he had 
 besieged them for the last four years. Then Una, hearing of the proud order of chivalry 
 in Faery Land, had fled to the court of Great Gloriana, the queen of that country, whose 
 
 1) impair. 2j Tartarus. 
 
seat is the proud city of Cleopolis (city of fame) , in order to ask for a knight to fight 
 in her cause. There she chanced to find a fresh and untried youth who had never yet 
 spilt blood or given earnest of "futm^ prowess," havmg" been brought up as a ploughman 
 in the country. He, however, boldly claimed the great mission to be her champion, and 
 when he was arrayed in armour, he looked a goodly knight, and Una was well pleased to en- 
 trust her cause to his hands, and since then he had given mighty proofs of valour and of 
 strength. Then Una continued to tell Arthur, how her knight was deceived by Archimago, 
 led astray by Duessa, and finally subdued and emprisoned by Orgoglio. Whereupon Arthur 
 promised her not to forsake her, before he had delivered her knight. 
 
 _^anto 8. When they arrived before the castle of Orgoglio, Arthur's squire blew 
 a wonderful horn: 
 
 "* „No false enchantment, nor deceiptfull traine, 
 Might once abide the terror of that blast, 
 But presently was void and wholly vaine; 
 No gate so strong, no locke so firme and fast, 
 But with that^ercing_noise flew open quite, or brast." 
 At the dreadful sound the giant rushed forth from his hold followed by Duessa on 
 her many-headed dragon, and a terrible battle began. But when the monster had trampled 
 the brave squire under its feet and a terrific blow of Orgoglio's club had brought the 
 knight down on his knees, that stroke itself tore the veil aside from the diamond shield, 
 which now flashed forth with dazzling brightness, and giant and monster were dazed as 
 if by the lightning of God. Then Arthur sprang to his feet and struck oif the giant's 
 head. When Duessa saw his fall she threw away her mitre and would fain have fled, 
 but she was arrested by the squire. ThenjLrthur rushed into the castle to free the Red 
 Cross Knight. Here he met the silly old foster-father^ of Orgoglio, Ignaro, who answered 
 to every question nothing but that „he could not tell". From his girdle Arthur snatched 
 the keys and opened the halls of the castle which bore visible traces of the massacre of 
 guiltless children, of true Christians, and holy martyrs. At last he discovered the fearful 
 dungeon where St. George languished, and bursting open the door he released him; but 
 he was half dead with hunger and sickness. Gently Arthur led him forth to show him 
 the dead tyrant and to decide the fate of Duessa. At Una's counsel they spared her 
 life but stripped her of her gaudy trappings and revealed her naked hideousness: 
 
 „A loathy, wrinkled hag, ill-favoured, old, 
 
 Whose secret filth good manners biddeth not be told." 
 And then she fled to hide her shame, whilst the knights and Una rested in the castle. 
 Canto 9i. Arthur asked by Una after his birth and ancestry told her that his 
 origin was still a mystery to himself; that he had grown up near the source of the river 
 Dee in Wales in the care of old Timon, a wise and brave Faery Knight, assisted by the 
 great magician Merlin who promised him that he should in due season hear his birth 
 and parentage. And then he began to tell Una of hisjo ve of Gloriana in the following 
 beautiful lines full of the f antasti c conceits of the time of „Euphues^ 
 
 „Deare dame, quoth he, you sleeping sparks awake. 
 
 Which troubled once, into huge flames will gifow; 
 
 Ne ever will their fervent fury slake. 
 
 Till living moysture into smoke do flow, 
 
 Luisensch. 1888. 3 
 
— 18 ~ 
 
 And wasted life do lye in ashes low. 
 
 Yet sithens silence lesseneth jiQlLjny__fire, 
 
 But told it flames, and hidden it does glow; 
 
 I will revele what ye so much desire: 
 
 Ah Love, lay down thy bow, the whiles I may respire!" 
 At the time when he was still „iii the freshest flowre of youthly yeares" he had 
 laughed^at the pangs of love boasting „in beauties chaine not to be bound"; but one 
 day ranging the forest in the delight of youth, when he had laid himself down in the 
 verdant grass and had sunk into deep slumber, he suddenly saw by his side a royal 
 maid of wondrous beauty who called herself the Queen of Fairies, and spoke to him 
 sweet words of love. But when he awoke he could not tell whether it had been a dream 
 or reality^ yet he felt that henceforth he must love that face divine, and he vowednever 
 to rest until he found her. 
 
 After such sweet discourse Arthur took leave from the Red Cross Knight and 
 Lady Una, who, thus reunited, continued their pilgrimage. They soon perceived a knight 
 riding towards them in mad speed with the gestures of wildest terror, fleeing with a 
 rope around his neck; his head was turned backward towards some imaginary enemy. 
 "When they had stored him and with difficulty appeased his fear, he told them the 
 cause of his dread. [ He, ^revisan^ when riding one day together with a friendly knight. 
 Sir Terwin, made miserable through unhappy lotig, chanced to meet a knight who called 
 himself Despair and who, through his subtle arguments, so melted all manhood in their 
 hearts, that they would rather die than continue to live on earth. Having succeeded so 
 far Despair gave to the one a dagger, to the other a rope, to put an end to their existence. 
 Sir Terwin plunged the dagger into his heart, but Trevisan seeing him die, fled in wild 
 dismay, before he had put the rope to its deadly use. ; 
 
 When the Red Cross Knight heard this strangeTale, he determined to brave Des- 
 pair in his den _ _— 
 
 „low in an hollow cave, 
 
 Far underneath a c raggy cliff v mghtM. 
 
 Darke, doleMl, dreary, like a greedy grave. 
 
 That siill for carrion carcases doth crave: 
 
 On top whereof aye dwelt the ghastly owle, 
 
 Shrieking his balefull note, which ever draye 
 
 Far from that haunt all other chearefull fowle; 
 
 And all about it wandring ghostes did waile and howle". 
 
 They found the cursed creature sitting on the ground with dishevelled hair and 
 
 hollow eye, ^—-^^ ■- 
 
 ''v,inusing^fnll sadly in his suUein mind'v' 
 and by his side lay the dead body with the rusty dagger still sticking in the wound. 
 Then commences a rapid discussion between the angry knight and sullen Despair, either 
 marshalling his arguments for and against suicide in strong array. Is it unjust. Despair 
 asks, to let the man die who loathes life, that he may die at ease who liveth here uneasy? 
 
 1) pitched or fixed. 
 
— 19 - 
 
 „Is not short paine well borne, that brings long ease, 
 And lays the soule to sleepe in quiet grave? 
 Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, 
 Ease after warre, death after life does greatly please." 
 The knight answers with the noble maxim: 
 
 „The soldier may not move from watchful sted, / ^f^i^^ 
 
 Nor leave his stand, untill his captaine bed^). 
 Despair replies that man cannot resist destiny; that by cutting ofif his life before its na- 
 tural end he escapes many sins and their penalty, 
 
 „for he that once hath missed the right way. 
 
 The further he doth go, the further he doth stray", — 
 therefore lie down 
 
 „and to thy rest betake, 
 
 „Th' ill to prevent, that life ensewen may." 
 And is really life worth living? with all its ailings and sorrows — 
 
 „where ever fickle fortune rageth rife". 
 And then he exhorts the knight himself to escape from the thraldom of life, where he 
 had languished in the terrible dungeon of Orgoglio, and had defiled himself by serving 
 false Duessa. For does not the just God say: Let every sinner die? is it then not better 
 to carry out the sentence oneself on one's own guilty head? 
 
 Then was St. George deeply moved in his conscience which upbraided him with his 
 crimes and wickedness, 
 
 „as he were charmed with inchaunted rimes; 
 
 That oftentimes he quakt, and fainted oftentimes". 
 Seeing him in this state Despair ^sliswad to him Hell with its damned spirits 
 wailing in endless torments and with its thousand fiends. And then he brought him in- 
 struments of death to commit suicide, as he had deserved death by provoking God's 
 wrath. Already St. George raised a dagger against his heart, when Una snatched it from 
 his hand, asking whether this was the battle which he had promised to fight against her 
 enemy? At the sanje time she reminded him of divine grace: 
 
 „In heavenly mercies hast thou not a part? 
 
 Why shouldst thou then despeire, that chosen art? 
 
 Where justice growes, there grows eke greater grace". 
 Thus they escaped from the dreadful place, whereupon Despair seeing his victim 
 saved, chose a halter from among the rest 
 
 ; - „And with it hung himself, unhid, uublest". 
 
 Gant o 15. Seeing her knight still enfeebled, Una brought him to a place where 
 he was to recover his old strength; this was the house of Dame Caelia. 
 
 „whose only joy was to reUeve the needes 
 
 Of wretched soules, and helpe the helpless pore"; 
 mother of three daughters, the eldest two virgins, yet betrothed ,^ Fidelia and Speranza; 
 the third, Charissa, married and mother of many children. The porter of the house, 
 Humilta, admitted them through a narrow entrance hall into a spacious court where they 
 were hospitably received by a courteous franklin, Zele by name. He conducted them to 
 
 1) bid. 
 
 3* 
 
— 20 — 
 
 the hall where Reverence, a gentle squire, showed them all honour. Here Dame Caelia 
 gave a glad welcome to Una, a meeting like that of Elizabeth and the Virgin Mary, and 
 to the knight who had trodden that narrow path which few children of the world will 
 pass. Here they were joined by the two fair sisters, entering arm in arm, Fidelia all 
 arrayed in lily white carrying in one hand ^OiipIqL5^I3^ filled with wine and in the other 
 ,^_(|^_bo()ke* that was both signd and seald with blood: 
 Wherein dark things were writ, hard to be understood"; — 
 her younger sister Speranza was all clad in blue, she carried a silver anchor in her arm 
 and cast her eyes steadfastly up to heaven. Charissa did not appear being still in bed, 
 after having given birth to another pledge to her beloved husband. Then Dame Caelia 
 counselled the knight to rest, and her good servant Obedience put him to bed. When 
 he had been refreshed with sleep and food, Fidelia took him into her school house to teach 
 him heavenly things, opening to him that difficult book which 
 
 „none could read, except she did them teach", 
 and she discoursed 
 
 „of God, of grace, of justice, of free will", .... 
 „For she was able with her words to kill 
 And raise againe to life the heart that she did thrill". 
 Listening to her with rapt attention the knight felt more deeply than ever his 
 own unworthinesSi; whereupon Speranza approached and taught him to take hold of her 
 anchor, and Caelia sent for a physician, a ^reat doctor of the soul, whose name was 
 (5* Patience, who gave him much comfort. But to get at the root of his disease he purged 
 "hini with severe fasting and with the strict discipline of Penance, Remorse, and Repen- 
 tance, so that the contrite sinner often groaned and shrieked. When at last this cure 
 was over, Una brought her knight to Charissa who was by tnis time restored to her 
 strength and beauty. Her they found arrayed in yellow robes, surrounded by her children, 
 the youngest of whom she was nursing. She then undertook to instruct the knight in 
 every righteous and kindly deed. After that she called a worthy old matron, Mercy by 
 name, to take care of him and to show him the ready path to heaven. It was~she^ho, 
 clearing from his path thorns and weeds, brought him to a holy hospital, in which there 
 were seven pious bead-men spending their life in doing good. The first gave entertain- 
 ment and lodging to the weary traveller, the second fed the hungry, the third clothed 
 the naked, the fourth relieved prisoners and redeemed captives, the fifth tended the sick, 
 the sixth took charge of the dead, and the seventh lent aid to widows and orphans. 
 Having sojourned here a while the travellers continued on their toilsome path, which now 
 ascended a steep hill and led to a chapel, where an aged man, called Contemplation, 
 meditated in solitude on things divine. None more fit than_Mercy, . said the old man, to 
 lead up the weary traveller to that height and even beyond, to heaven itself. Yet he 
 undertook himself the task to guide the knight to the highest mount, whence he saw a 
 steep and long path leading to a wondrous city the walls of which were built of pearl 
 and precious stone: 
 
 „The city of the great king height^) it well. 
 Wherein etemall peace and happinesse doth dwell", 
 
 ») heifst. 
 
— 21 ~ 
 
 whilst radiant angels passed in and out at the gates. It was the New Jerusalem that 
 God has built for his saints, more beautiful even than Gloriana s town Cleopolis, _though 
 indeed that lady deserves to be served by knights who covet eternal fame; 
 „for she is heavenly borne, and heaven may justly vaunt". 
 
 Pointing to the holy city the old man promised the Eed Cross Knight, that when he had 
 fought the great battle on earth, which it was his great task to accomplish, he should 
 seek the path to the New Jerusalem and there live among^ the Blessed as Saint George, 
 the patron of England and the sign of her victory. For of English blood he was, the 
 old man here told the knight, a scion of the old Saxon kings, but stolen by a Faery, 
 who took him into Faery Land, where a ploughman found him, naming him Georgos after 
 his trade. 
 
 Having heard and seen all these marvels the Red Cross Knight descended from 
 the hill of Contemplation, and started once more on his sacred errand with Una for 
 his guide. 
 
 Canto__ll.[ At last they arrived before the castle, in which Una's parents were 
 besieged by the dragon. When the monster beheld the knight, he rushed at him half 
 flying half running, with outspread wings, making a terrible noise; beating the ground 
 with his endless tail and stretching forth his claws as sharp as steel, whilst his jaws 
 opened with three rows of teeth like the mouth of hell, throwing up a cloud of smo- 
 thering smoke. The eyes of the monster the poet compares to two beacons set up on 
 high to 
 
 „send forth their flameS far off to every shyre, 
 And warning give, that enemies conspyre 
 With fire and sword the region to invade"; 
 
 jihus carrying the reader a few years back to that famous 29*'' of July 1588, when the 
 /Armada hove in sight of the coast of the Channel and the two beacons on the Malvern 
 Hills flashed the news over the midland counties of England. 
 I Terrible was the combat. At one time the monster carried man and horse up 
 
 into the air, till forced by a cruel wound it came down again to the ground; at another 
 it all but stifled the knight with the fiery blaze from its mouth, and at last' it swept 
 him to the ground with an irresistible blow of his tail. But he chanced to fall into a 
 magic spring, the well of life, the wajters of which restored his strength and his courage. 
 Thus on the next morning he arose 
 
 „As eagle fresh out of the ocean wave", 
 
 and began the battle anew. It now appeared, that the magic water had given a keener 
 
 edge to his sword as well as greater strength to his arm. But though he succeeded in 
 
 inflicting terrible wounds on the beast, he was all but burnt by the scorching fire, and 
 
 ^ at last fell down fainting. But it so chanced that the knight fell at the foot of the Tree 
 
 j3f Life from which a stream of balm flowed restoring life and health and closing even 
 
 deadly wounds. Thus wheiPOirsun of the tHmTitay^'rosertEe" knight sprang from the 
 
 earth once more ready for battle. Again the dragon rushed upon him opening wide 
 
 "''^his terrible jaws to swallow him, but the knight ran his sword through his mouth 
 
 and buried it deep in its maw. 
 
- 22 - 
 
 „So downe he fell, and forth his life did breath, 
 That vanisht into smoke and cloudes swift; 
 So downe he fell, that th' earth him underneath 
 Did grone, as feeble so great load to lift; 
 So downe he fell, as an huge rocky clift, 
 Whose false foundation waves havd washt away, 
 With dreadfuU poyse is from the mayneland rift. 
 And, rolling downe, great Neptune doth dismay; 
 So down he fell, and like an heaped mountain lay." 
 
 danto 12. Then there rushed out of the besieged castle a joyous throng trium- 
 phant and thankful, among them „the ancient lord and aged queene", the parents of 
 Una, now at last released from captivity; and they thanked the victor and welcomed 
 Una, but 
 
 „the raskall many 
 Heaped together in rude rablement" 
 
 gazed ,,with gaping wonderment" on the slain monster. Then followed the triumphal 
 entry of the victorious couple and great feasts and rejoicings, and /in a pause of the 
 banquet the knight told the story of his adventures and sufferings 
 
 „And all the while salt teares bedeawed the hearers cheaks". 
 Thereupon the king wished to betroth his daughter to the victorious knight, but the 
 wedding itself had to be put off for the time, as he declared that he was bound to return 
 to Faery Court in order to serve Oriana for a term of six years against her foe, the 
 great Paynim king. However the king called for Una, who now appeared, having thrown 
 aside her mourning, in radiant whiteness and resplendent beauty: 
 
 „As bright as doth the morning starre appeare 
 
 Out of the east, with flaming lockes bedight 
 
 To tell that dawning day is drawing neare. 
 
 And to the world doth bring long wished light: 
 
 So fair and fresh that lady shewed herself in sight". 
 
 But when the betrothal was about to take place, a messenger arrived in hot 
 haste bringing a letter which announced that the Red Cross Knight had already pledged 
 his faith to Fidessa, daughter of the great emperor of the West, who now claimed her 
 right with violent threats. The knight pleaded his innocence, and Una came forward to 
 bear witness to the malice and falsehood of Fidessa whose real name, she said, was Duessa; 
 moreover she disclosed in the disguised messenger Archimago himself, the plotter of so much 
 mischief. And when the king heard his misdeeds, he bade his servants throw him into 
 a deep dungeon bound with iron chains. Then at last the marriage rites were duly per- 
 formed with great solemnity, whilst heavenly music ravished every ear. But when the 
 Red Cross knight pressed his fair bride to his heart ,, swimming in that sea of blissfull 
 joy", he did not forget his promise to the Faery Queen, but took leave from his sor- 
 rowing wife. 
 
- 23 - 
 
 ._ Commentary on the First Book of the Faery Queen. 
 
 The first book of the Faery Queen is a complete allegory by itself, bearing a 
 striking and not accidental resemblance to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Two allegories 
 underlie the story: one of abstract virtues and religious qualities, the other of concrete 
 and historical, nay contemporary presentations of the same. The first allegory shows 
 the struggle of the soul after holiness and ideal purity, under the guidance of Truth, 
 truth in the narrow sense of the gospeltruth of the reformed church. The second brings 
 before us the leading persons in the great drama that was performed on the stage of 
 Europe in Spenser's days, according to the character of each. 
 
 When we examine the first allegory, we see in the Red Cross Knight the Christian 
 warrior who, tnrough great trials and with some slips and failures, fights his way heaven- 
 ward Over the vanquished bodies of Sins and Temptations. He is clad in the shining 
 armour spoken of by St. Paul and is guided by white Truth. Thus he sets out to fight 
 against the huge Dragon, the old Serpent, which has wrought the ruin of man and holds 
 him beleaguered in his land which was once a paradise and is now a wilderness. No 
 doubt the poet wishes to portray the great struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism, 
 which was raging at that moment in France, Holland, and England, and the final over- 
 throw of Spain in the glorious fight against' the Armada in 1588. 
 
 The Red Cross Knight, §t George, is the pattern Englishman of the reformed 
 church in the strong armour of his faith, led by Una, the one and unchangeable truth of 
 the word of God revealed in His gospel. Thus he goes forth to encounter Satan. But 
 on his way he meets with many „lets and hindrances". A storm obscures the heavens 
 and the warrior and his guide lose their way in the Wandering Wood. At last he 
 encounters Error herself in her loathsome den swollen with the abuses, the foul pamphlets 
 and books of priests and Jesuits ; after a, fierce struggle he overcomes and destroys her. 
 Here the poet wished to point out the 4Qubts and dangers which beset the soul of the "^ 
 new Believer, — the many variations of Protestantism, then rife, and the risks of private 
 judgment. This was as it were the first great struggle between the New Faith and 
 its foe. ^^^_^^ ,. 
 
 Then follows what is called in history: the great Catholic reaction inaugurated 
 f by^he Order of Jesus. The Red Cross Knight is met by Archimago or Hypocrisy, hiding 
 ms villany under an outward show of piety, and by J)uessa, a double-faced witch, fair 
 and foul, falsehearted and frivolous, the unflattering portrait of Mary of Scots who, with 
 her beauty and pretended meekness, had drawn so many Englishmen from the path of 
 truth and loyalty. The bold knight who bravely conquered Error, falls a victim to their 
 combined flattery and dissimulation. Duessa is the opposite of Una; besides representing 
 the charming and dangerous head of Roman Catholicism in England, she may be con- 
 sidered as the representative of Roman Catholicism in general. Dressed in scarlet she rides 
 on the monster of the Apocalypse, in which reformed England saw the Rome of the Popes. 
 The subtle cunning of Archimago makes the Red Cross Knight mistake falsehood for 
 truth, truth for falsehood. Three adversaries cross his path one after another, the three 
 sons of old Aveugle viz. Moral Blindness, who is himself the son of Satan and of Night; 
 these Paynims are called Saracen knights or infidels. They are Sansfoy or Faithless 
 
C^^^i' ^^''-^^ - 24 - 
 
 who is overthrown and killed by St. George; Sansjoy or Joyless whom he overthrows in 
 the lists at the court of Pride, and Sansloy or Lawless, who attempts to violate Una 
 or Truth. 
 
 After the overthrow of Sansfoy the Red Cross Knight, who thinks Una faithless, 
 follows Duessa, imagining her to be good and true. This is the cause of all the mis- 
 fortunes that befall him. Thus he gives way to self-indulgence, falling into the snares 
 of wily Fidessa (Duessa) in spite of the warning of the lovers changed into bleeding trees; 
 and enters together with her into the House of Pride. 
 
 A Morality complete in itself is the scene in the palace of Lucifera, which we 
 might call: the Mask of the Seven Deadly Sins. It is true the knight's better nature 
 is not tainted by contact with these. As he had before overcome the Paynim Unbelief 
 (Sansfoy), he now conquers his brother Sansjoy; and seeing the danger of his position- 
 and the innumerable victims of the cruel Queen of Pride, he secretly leaves her palace 
 and escapes from her snares and her revenge. 
 
 Nor are the paths of Truth smooth on earth. Abandoned by her chosen cham- 
 pion, enslaved first to the will of Hypocrisy, then of Disloyalty (Sansloy), she falls among 
 rustic and simple children of nature (the satyrs); they are struck with her beauty and 
 divine charm, but vain are her endeavours to teach them a higher life; they make an 
 idol of her, and finally grovel before her ass. At last she is rescued by the wild but 
 loyal Satyrane, whom the poet perhaps intended to be the representative of the honest, 
 rough Englishman, fond of country -life and of wild sports, open to truth, of innate 
 courtesy to women, — the opposite of the false cunning, and frivolous courtier whom 
 he hated. 
 
 The Red Cross Knight, meanwhile, incurs new and greater dangers. Having put 
 y ^ aside the armour of faith and again listening to the words of Falsehood, he grows J^int 
 and easily falls a victim to giant Orgoglio who shuts him up in his stronghold. Who 
 does not think here of reformed England waxing faint in faith in the reign of Bloody 
 Mary and being subdued to the power of Philip, who treated her like a bondsman and 
 a prisoner and tortured her with the mutilation and burning of the faithful martyrs of 
 the English church?' But in the moment of greatest need Arthur — here a symbol of 
 heavenly grace — comes to the rescue of distressed Truth and enthralled England; in 
 point of fact God's grace revealed itself by the timely death of Mary which cleared the 
 path for the accession of Elizabeth. Arthur wears on his breast plate the image of great 
 Gloriana herself carved in a diamond; thus he fights under the auspices of Queen Eliza- 
 beth to free enslaved England from the Roman and^Spanisk^oke. We have been told 
 that the Red Cross Knight had been appointed by the Faery Queen to be a champion 
 of Truth, that truth which was expelled from Paradise when Satan the father of lies and 
 of popery wasted the land and shut up its lords in a terrible siege. And now the 
 appointed Deliverer lies in durance vile! But Arthur, — God's grace working in the 
 noble-hearted Englisman and paralising the might of the enemy with its glittering shield, 
 as Zeus turned into stone the giants with his aegis, — overcame Philip-Orgoglio allied 
 with Romish-Duessa, and set free the Red Cross Knight, viz. the Reformed Church of 
 England. In this place Spenser seems to plead for the_\mc[uished^Catholics. At Una's 
 request Duessa's life is spared. Let the Roman Church be stripped of her gaudy 
 
- 25 - 
 
 and deceitful trappings, so that her real state may be seen, but do not sully your 
 victory with bloodshed, — such is the noble lesson he seems to teach his people in this 
 passage. 
 
 The next adventure shows us the Red Cross Knight in a terrible struggle with 
 despair, such as Luther endured in the solitude of his cell at Erfurt or in his lonely 
 closet in the Castle of Wartburg. How should Man be saved, depraved_andjiegraded by 
 defiling intercourse with foul Duessa, that is to say: with the falsehood of Rome. But when 
 despair is on" the point of crushing the faint and trembling heart, the faith in Divine Grace 
 revives, kindled into new life by the truth of the gospel, and the new Christian is saved. 
 
 The 10*^ Canto is another Morality as complete in itself as that of the House 
 of Pride and, as has been mentioned before, bearing a strong resemblance in its alle- 
 gorical symbolism to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The Red Cross Knight, enfeebled by 
 the wounds received in his combat at the Court of Pride , by his emprisonment in the 
 dungeon of Orgoglio, by the terrors of the Cave of Despair, is strengthened for his 
 great task, viz. the final struggle with the Dragon, in the heavenly house of Dame Caelia, 
 where the education of the New Christian is accomplished by the three sisters Faith, Hope, 
 and Charity; whereupon Mercy takes the contrite sinner by the hand and leads him up the 
 hill of Contemplation where this divine sage shows him from afar the goal : the shining city, 
 the New Jerusalem. It is very remarkable that the Red Cross Knight, the representative of 
 Reformed England, is told here on highest authority that he is of Saxon race, a scion of the 
 old English kings brought up as a ploughman in the country. It is the German element in 
 the English character to which the reformation is due ; and the true reformation of England, 
 not the courtly and artificial one of Henry, but the sincere and popular reformation under 
 Elizabeth, originated in the middle and lower classes of the people itself. The Saxon 
 ploughman struggling with the Dragon, is not this a splendid illustration of the struggle 
 of Luther with Satan, viz. Rome, as it appeared to these truthful Teutons? 
 
 Now at last the Knight is sufficiently prepared to meet the dragon. Truth 
 looks on in speechless anguish; the human race, pent up in dire captivity, — ^ the fate of 
 a world trembling in the balance — hang on the event in frightful suspense. Terrible 
 is the strength and fierce rage of the monster, but St. George is undismayed, and 
 twice in his need divine help is vouchsafed to him, and he is refreshed in the fountain 
 of life. So we see that even the best of men cannot prevail against Evil, unless divine 
 Grace come to their aid. At last the enemy of mankind, Popery, is overcome. St. 
 George of merry England has with God's help struck him down; mankind is freed from 
 thraldom and breathes freely, Truth rejoices and is married to the knight in spite of 
 the last impotent attempt of false Archimago and of Duessa, — of Jesuits and Mary 
 Stuart. But St. George may not rest idle ; the great Fairy Queen, Elizabeth, wants him 
 for another struggle with the Paynim King, Philip, who is about to hurl his great Ar- 
 mada against England. This is the struggle, greater than the preceding one, to which 
 the poet refers in the 11*^ canto where he promises that he 
 
 „0f warres and bloody Mars will sing 
 And Briton fields with Sarazin blond bedyde, 
 Twixt that great Faery Queene, and Paynim King, 
 That with their horror heaven and earth did ring" ; 
 
 LuiseoBch. 1888. 4 
 
- 26 — 
 
 from which passage it appears that Spenser either intended to write an epic poem on 
 the great war with Spain and the defeat of the Armada, or that he looked forward to 
 more heroic descriptions in the later books of the Faery Queen, which either were not 
 written or have been lost. His sonnet to Lord Essex seems to justify the former 
 assumption. Here he addresses him: 
 
 „But when my Muse .... 
 
 With bolder wing shall dare aloft to styi) 
 
 To the last praises of this Faery Queene, 
 
 Then shall it make most famous memory 
 
 Of thine heroicke parts, such as they beene." 
 
 Some critical observations on the Faerv Queen. 
 
 Ba con and S hakespeare look forward into the future of Mankind, the heralds of 
 a new time, of modern thought; Spenser looks back into its past, to the dim ages of 
 romantic heroism. Chivalry rises once more before us in his poem with its naive belief 
 in an ideal world, with its strong religious faith, its bright honour, its enthusiastic devotion 
 to women. Ariosto too conjures up the marvels of romantic poetry, but only to play 
 with them ; they are bright bubbles of the fancy which he tosses into the air where they 
 play in a thousand colours. The poet watches them with a smile and laughs when they burst. 
 Spenser is always serious and intense in his belief in the creations of his genius ; there 
 is not a vestige of humour in his work. It is true that also Tasso is serious and solemn, 
 he never unbends. But he is not naive. His Gerusalemme Liberata is an elaborate 
 work of self-conscious art. Spenser alone has caught the naive spirit of medieval poetry. 
 The Faery Queen represents the sunset of the age of chivalry. As in the real world 
 the Bayards and the Sidneys revived the remembrance of a golden age where honour 
 was the spring of human action, so in the world of fiction knighthood blazed forth once 
 more in all its glory, before it was quenched for ever. Six years after the death of the 
 poet these spectres of the past vanished at the shrill crowing of the cock of a new day; 
 in 1605 Don Quixote appeared, and chivalry was laughed out of existence. 
 
 Looking to the past as he does, Spenser affects an archaic style which was felt 
 as such in his own time. Not sharing in the rapid development which the English 
 language underwent in the time of Elizabeth, he uses the words and grammatical forms 
 of a disappearing society, nay sometimes those of provincial dialects in which the old 
 Saxon language or the earlier forms of words of French origin had been preserved. 
 His contemporary Daniel referred to him in his 111'^ sonnet in these terms: 
 „Let others sing of knights and palladines 
 In aged accents and untimely words". 
 A few examples will suffice. Spenser frequently uses the impeismialJferb wrthout 
 the usual pronoun before it: „sits not" = „it sits not"; „seemed" = „it seemed". He 
 uses the double negative „ne can no man"; „should" for , , would have", as „should bear" 
 for „would have born". The past participle frequently retains the augment y (German 
 ge), moreover he likes the strong forms where the weak ones had superseded the strong 
 
 1) mount. 
 
— 27 - 
 
 ones long ago, or even where the latter were altogether wrong; thus we find: ydrad = 
 dreaded, yclad = clad, woxen as p. p. of to wax, raft as p. p. of to reave = bereave ; can 
 = gan = began; raught = reached. We find „bene" or „been" for the modern „are", 
 „mote" for „might" etc. He uses the participle present in „and" which is characteristic 
 of the Anglian or North English dialect, e. g. trenchand, glitterand. We find also old 
 plurals of nouns, as „fone" = „foes", „eyne" or „eyen" = eyes. As to the words of 
 French origin we find them in their older forms, nearer to the original, and generally 
 accented in the French way, e. g. „ferse" for ,,fierce", „perse" „persaunt" for „pierce" 
 and „piercing"; rich^sse, noblesse, humblesse, esloyne (Eloigner), covetise, journdll (= daily) 
 are all words yet undigested by the English language. Moreover Spenser tenaciously 
 clings to the Old English alliteration which he has maintained most carefully throughout 
 his work. 
 
 This intentional predilection for a language and a form that were fast getting 
 obsolete, could not but have a disastrous effect on the popularity of the author. Whilst 
 the world of chivalry which he represented and revived for a time by the spell of his 
 poetry, was soon swallowed up for ever by the Puritan revolution and the victory of the 
 republican middle classes, the uncouth language of the Faery Queen deterred all but the 
 most enthusiastic student from piunging"~mto such strange and difficult reading. The 
 result was that Spenser was soon well nigh forgotten by the masses; he remained the 
 favourite poet of a small circle of highly gifted men who had patience enough to seek 
 under the_rugged and uni nviting shell the sweet kernel of „true_ poetry. 
 
 There is another, even more important reason which accounts for the fact that 
 Spenser is little read, it is the allegorical character of his poem. We saw that every 
 one of his personages represents two otherjbein gs besid e&-himself; he is a general qua- 
 lity, and he is a contemporary character. But the modern reader desires to meet in a 
 poem fellow-beings who share with him the human lot, fellow-travellers on the path of 
 life, real men with a clearly marked, individualitv: an abstract type leaves him cold and 
 indifferentj^ however great and noble the idea may be" which it represents; and as to the 
 historical allusions, they create a fictitious interest foreign to poetry. They may have 
 been extremely interesting for the contemporary reader, they only puzzle anjijlistractJihe- 
 modern student. In making his poetry serve the party interesTs^^ the hour, flatter and 
 exaTTthe mighty, paint the enemy in the blackest dye, the poet achieved a passing tri- 
 umph, but we may say of him in the words of the Bible: Verily, he has his reward; 
 posterity does not thank him for it. 
 
 AiiSS2IX is the besetting sin of English poetry; it flows in a broad river from 
 Gower and Lan^^ down to our own time; the best and greatest poets have sacri- 
 ficed to the national Idol, often enough at the cost of their own lasting fame. In the 
 whole range of_allegorical_pqetry there is only one work thatj|as_j:£taiaed_its_ freshM 
 and popuKifity : the Pilgrim's Progre^ssT^BunyanTwas^ no doubt inspired by Spenser whose 
 inferi or he is in _thejiTr'oO[igher poetry; but he has the art which Spenser lacks, of 
 r ousing the human inter est./ In him the Puritanir^pTrTrTiai''freed~itself from the tram- 
 mels of classical learning, medieval romanticism, and all historical allusions; the human 
 interest alone survives. His personages are not flitting shadows, disembodied spirits, 
 they possess a powerfully marked individuality. They face the problems, they undergo 
 
— 28 — 
 
 the struggles which beset the intellect and the heart of Man in every phase of his history. 
 Bunyan2&_-JJJiagination creates real men who stand out lifelike in plastic distinctness. 
 Spenser's ^eatness lies in the art of telling a story and in his wonderful descriptions- 
 He is a great painter, representing scenes of fairylike beauty. A golden haze hangs 
 over his landscape, mellowing the bright colours and removing what is near into a 
 softening distance. There is the same dreamy indistinctness in his pictures as in the 
 wonderful landscapes of Turner; and his human figures pass through the fairy scene like 
 flitting spirits of shining radiance or darkest gloom, uncertain of outline, but leaving on 
 the imagination a strong impression of alternating light and shade, as the figures in the 
 chiaro oscuro of the pictures of Correggio. Such poetry requires of the reader a far 
 stronger grasp of the imaginative faculty, A child can understand Bunyan ; his characters 
 are as real to him as those of the Bible. Spenser can be duly appreciated only by a 
 congenial spirit, and not unjustly has he been called the Poets' Poet. 
 
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