The Faerie Queene (115 page)

76 4
Tanaquill:
Elizabeth I, so called in I.Proem.2.5.

CANTO II
1 See Romans 6. 1 1 sore: serious, painful

1 9
vellenage: servitude.

2 3
the scepter weeld: i.e., govern. 2 8 banket: banquet.

5 9
imprest: produced.

6 6
Seuen of the same: the seven deadly sins.

7
The other five troops are evils that attack the five senses of the body (five great Bulwarkes), as the seven deadly sins attack the soul. The body with its five senses is constantly besieged by sense data received from a fallen world. Spenser is showing how man can be undermined by the misuse or misapprehension of the senses, what Paul calls ‘the body of sin' (Romans 6.6), the ever-present possibility in our fallen state to be turned away from our allegiance to our Creator, the source of all health. Sin and death entered the world at the fall. Spenser treated the effects of sin in Book I; here he treats the effects of death, physical and spiritual, on the body.

7 3
arret: appoint, decree.

7 7
importune: heavy.

7 9
battery: attack, battering.

8 3
vncomely: in an ugly fashion.

8 4
Gryphons: mythological beasts with the head and wings of an eagle and the body and legs of a lion, dreare: cruel.

8 6
had Lynces eyes: i.e., were keen-sighted like the lynx.

9 4
Titan …
exault: i.e., the sun rose. 9 5 withhault: withheld.

10 2
dessignment: design, enterprise. 10 5 brakes: ferns, bushes.

10 7
leasings: lies. crakes: crowings, i.e. boasts.

11 5
Puttockes: kites (greedy birds).

12 3
grysie: grim, horrible, ia 4 fist: faced.

12 7
Surfeat: excess. wast: waste.

13 4
Vrchins: hedgehogs.

14 3
Ordinance: instruments of war, probably cannons.

14 9
peece: structure.

15 7
maine: strength.

15 8
pretend: plan.

16 9
remercied: thanked.

17 2
hent: took. 17 3 conge: leave. 17 5 thee: thrive.

19 1
hayle: hail, volleys, repeated attacks.

19 5
reaue: take away.

19 7
Spumador:
Latin:
spumare,
‘to foam', docks: weeds.

19 9
Laomedon, father of Priam, inherited horses from his father Tros, which he had received from Jove in exchange for the boy Ganymede. Later, Anchises, father of Aeneas, bred these horses without Laomedon's consent (fl. 5.263 ff). The point is that Arthur's horse, Spumador, is not like ordinary horses. Spenser has no classical precedent for Laomedon's breeding of the horses.

21 3
keene: sharp.

21 9
tine: corrupt.

22 3
rooke: crow.

22 7
brake: bracken.

23 1
Maleger, the captain of the twelve troops besieging Alma's castle, is, as

C. S. Lewis pointed out, not Original Sin but the effects of that sin on the physical body of man: pain, sickness, death. His name means either ‘evil-bearer' (Latin:
male,
‘evil';
gerens,
‘bearing') or ‘badly sick' (Latin:
male,
‘evil';
aeger,
‘sick'). He wears a skull as a helmet and is accompanied by Impotence (which weakens the body through disease) and Impatience (which weakens the body through the unruly influence of the passions).

25 7
Infant: young nobleman. hide: hastened.

26 7–8
i.e., Tartars and Russians turned to shoot while retreating.

27 7
keepe his standing: stand apart.

28 6
attaching: seizing.

29 5
lode… layd: dealt heavy blows. 29 9 bane: death.

31 a
lade: old horse, a term of contempt.

31 3
lets: hindrances.

32 4
streight: narrow.

33 3
touzd: harassed.

33 8
quar'le: quarrel, short arrow.

33 9
made: earth, ground.

34 3
manhood meare: his own strength.

35 9
sundry way: fork in the road.

36 7
souse full neare: nearly successful swoop.

39 5
doubted: wondered. What follows is a nearly complete catalogue of the reasons advanced by Elizabethans for the appearances of ghosts.

40 3
appeach: accuse.

42 7
wrest: wrench, violent twist.

43 1
Bird: eagle.

44 2
trauell: travail, hard work.

44 9
reprize: to take again.

45 1
Arthur is remembering the story of the Libyan king Antaeus, son of

Neptune and Earth, whom Hercules defeated by using the tactics adopted by Arthur in 45-6. Maleger, like Antaeus, is revived by contact with his mother, Earth. The Antaeus-figure was allegorized in the Renaissance as the libidinous impulse, which grows stronger when it comes in contact with its source, the flesh. Some modern commentators interpret Arthur's victory by throwing Maleger into water as a symbol of baptism.

46 2
scruzd: squeezed. 46 5 Aboue: more than.

CANTO
12 1 1 frame: edifice. 1 3 to pricke of: to the point or position.

1 5
bountihed: goodness, virtue.

2 ff
Guyon's voyage to the Bowre of Bliss is modelled on
GL
15, in which the knights Carlo and Ubaldo journey to rescue the hero Rinaldo from his enchantment by Armida. Tasso's episode is based on earlier epics, in particular, the wanderings of Ulysses and his encounter with Circe
(Od.
12) and Virgil's adaptation of
Od.
in
Am.
1-6.

3 2
euen: steady.

3 3
God do vs well acquight: God help us to perform well.

3 4
Gtdfe qfGreedinesse:
the Charybdis of
Od.
12 and
Am.
3.

3 7
vp againe doth lay: vomit.

4 1
hideous Rocke: the Scylla of Od. 12.

4 2
Magnes
stone: a magnet, named from Magnesia, its alleged place of origin.

4 3
Depending: hanging. 4 5 rift: i.e., rocks split off from the clifE 4 9 helplesse: offering no help. wawes: waves.

6 4
Tartan:
Tartarus, helL

6 9
drent: drowned.

7 4
shiuered: broken, scattered. 7 5 exanimate: dead.

7 9
blent: stained.

8 4
Meawes: sea-gulls.

8 9
drift: course, tendency.

10 1
Ferryman:
reminiscent of Charon, the ferryman who carries souls across the river Styx. Natalis Comes interprets Charon as ‘clearness of conscience'.

11 2
fordonne: killed.

11 3
seeming: appearing.

11 7
wandring Islands:
like Phaedria's island inll.6.11 or the Symplegades of

Od.
12.

12 8
recure: recover.

13
Debs:
Latona, pregnant with Apollo and Diana, was fleeing from the angry Juno when Neptune ordered the wandering island of Delos to stand still so Latona could be delivered
(Met.
6.185ff)o

13 9
herded: praised, honoured. 14. 3 fleet: float.

14 8
daintie damzell: Phaedria of canto 6. 14 9 skippet: small boat.

16 2
bord: address. purpose diuersly: converse of various things.

16 8
wite: blame, reprimand.

17 3
gate: way, course.

18 7
checked: chequered.

19 3
brauely: finely.

19 4
disauenture: misfortune. mesprize: mistake (French:
miprise, from prendre,
‘take')' 19 7 recur'd: recovered.

19 9
recoyle: retrieve.

20 3
doole: grie£

21 3
breach: inlet. fetch: reach. 21 s Maine: ocean.

21 8
guise: usual manner or appearance.

22 4
charet: chariot.

22 7
reare: cause.

23 6
Hydraes:
seven-headed serpent of mythology. Where one head was severed, two grew in its place. Hercules, as one of his twelve labours, killed the Hydra of Lerna. 23 7 whirlpooles: whales. 23 8 Scolopendraes. centipede-like fish.

23 9
Monoceros:
sea-unicorns. unmeasured: unmeasured, immense.

24 1–2
the name Of Death: i.e., Latin:
mors,
‘death', the morse or- walrus.

24 3
“Wasserman: German: ‘water man', i.e., merman.

24 7
Ziffius:
sword fish (Greek:
xiphias).

24 9
Rosmarines:
walruses.

25 9
entrall: insides, entrails.

“37

36 4
wicked witch: Acrasia. to worke vs dreed: i.e., to frighten us. 269
Tethys:
wife of Ocean, here the sea.

28 7
ill apayd: distressed.

29 7
shruncke: cowered, exhibited fear. bayt: abate.

30 2
Spenser's mermaids resemble Homer's Sirens, who were half woman, half bird. 30 J toured: towered.

30 8
trade: occupation.

31 2
Heliconian
maides: the Muses. Their struggle with the mermaids

(sirens) has not been traced to any classical source.

31 4
moyity:hal£

32 7
storme-bet: storm-beaten.

33 4
Meane: the middle part of a harmonized musical composition. 33 5
Zephirus:
the west wind.

36 2
fatall: i.e., portending evil fate.

36 4
ffl-faste: ugly.

36 7
Strich: screech-owl. bere: tomb, sepulchre.

36 8
Whistler: plover.

36 9
Harpies: see note to II.7.23.6.

37 8
sacred: accursed.

39–40
The beasts are men transformed by the enchantments of Acrasia, who is in the long tradition of enchantresses: Homer's Circe, Ariosto's Aldna, Trissino's Acratia, Tasso's Armida.

39 8
vpstarting: bristling.

40 6
fraying: frightening.

41 2
The caduceus of Mercury symbolizes peace won from conflict.

41 7
Orcus:
Hell or Pluto, god of the underworld.

42–87
The Bowre of Bliss is nature ‘improved' by art. The whole episode is based on the contrast between nature (what man is given by God) and art (what man does to the natural condition). The moral implications are discussed by C. S. Lewis,
Allegory of Love,
pp. 324-6.

42 7
aggrate: please.

43 5
fortilage: fortalice, small fort.

44 4
Iason
and
Medeea:
Medea, the forsaken wife of Jason, revenged herself by giving his new bride Creusa (45.9) a robe which burst into flames when she put it on. Jason was the leader of the Argonauts, who were searching for the golden fleece. Jason's history is told by Apollonius of Rhodes.

45 6
Medea murdered her brother and cast his body piece by piece into the sea to delay her father's pursuit of her and Jason.

47–8
Genius, as the presiding spirit of generation, has both good and bad manifestations. The good Genius, called Agdistes (48.2), is shown in m.6.31-2, the Garden of Adonis. The bad Genius, who presides over the Bowre of Bliss, perverts the sexual drive by concentrating exclusively
an its pleasurable aspects. The good Genius produces love; the bad Genius lust. 48 3 this same: i.e., the Genius of 47.

48 7
gouernall. control.

49 3
Mazer bowle: a decorated drinking vessel made of some kind of hard wood. See Tuve,
Essays,
pp. 103-11. 49 4 sacrifide: offered as sacrifice.

49 9
charmed semblants sly: conjured false appearances.

50 3
pleasauns: pleasing things.

SO S
Flora, goddess of flowers, called ‘a famous harlot' by E. K. in his gloss to
Shepheardes Calender,
‘March' 16.

50 7
niggard: stingy.

51 1
Iouiall: influenced by the beneficent planet Jupiter (Jove).

53 2
Rhodope:
mountain in Thrace where die music of Orpheus charmed the trees
{Met.
10.86 ff). The nymph Rhodope bore a giant child to Neptune.

53 4
Tempe:
a valley in Thessaly, where Cupid struck Apollo with love of

Daphne. She fled from Apollo and, with the help of her father, was changed into a laurel
(Met.
1.452 ff).

52 6
Ida:
mountain where Paris gave the apple of discord to Venus. See note to III.9.36.3-4. 52 8
Pamasse:
Mount Parnassus, sacred to Apollo and the Muses.

54 7
Hyacint:
the jacinth, or sapphire. Some editors emend to
Hyacine
to preserve the rhyme. 56 4 scruzd: squeezed.

56 5
empeach: injury, detriment.

57 4
fond: found.

58 7
Christall: a clear stream.