The Faerie Queene (118 page)

31 9
surceast: stopped. 33
6
flaggie: drooping.

33 7
bubbling roundell: wake of foam.

34 5
surbate: bruise.

35 3
mortall slime: i.e., human flesh subject to death. 35 6 wayment: lament.

35 9
sobbing breaches: pauses between sobs.

36 9
weft: waived; but see IV.12.31.6. 38 5 abye: suffer.

40 5
watchet: pale blue.

41 1
Liagore:
Greek: ‘white-armed'.

41 4
Pindus
hill: mountain range separating Thessaly from Epirus.

41 6
Peeon:
the myth about Paeon is Spenser's invention. 11.5.401,899 says that Paeon was the physician of the gods. He is sometimes confused with Aesculapius, for whom see I.5.36 ff. 43 4 vauted: vaulted.

43 7
Tryphon:
no person of this name appears in classical writing. Tryphon originates with Boccaccio,
Gen.
7.36, where he is called a brother of Aesculapius.

44
Marinell appears again in IV.11.7 ff.

44 8
brooke: endure.

45
This stanza, along with the mention of Duessa in HI.i.Arg., suggests that Spenser may have intended to use Archimago again in this book. He does not, and this is the last mention of Archimago in the poem.

45 4
Prince, and Faery gent: Arthur and Redcross.

46 2
attonce: together.

46 8
dispart: depart from each other.

47 2
forlent: gave up.

48 7
doe away: do away with.

49 6
Tassell gent: a tercel or male falcon.

49 8
for-hent: seized.

50 8
sewd: pursued.

51 6
Hesperus:
evening star. 51 7 sheene: bright.

$a 6
surcease his suit: cease his pursuit

5a 7
wyte: blame.

5a 9
scope: object of pursuit

53 8
throw: while.

SS 5
Cocytus:
river in hell.

55 6
Herebus:
Erebus was, according to the mythographers, with his wife Night, the parent of many horrors.

56 7
Stygian:
of the river Styx. 61 7 lumpish: heavy, dulL

61 8
maltalent: ill will.

61 9
i.e., the horse's steps pick up and echo the mood of the rider.

CANTO 5

3 8
swat: sweated.

4 9
out of hand: at once, immediately.

5 1
mister wight: kind of person. 7 4 fro ward: perverse.

7 6
attone: at once.

7 9
errour: wandering.

10 4
inuent: come upon, find (Latin:
invenire).

12 6
doubt: fear.

13 2
to him betid: befell him.

15
Upton (For., pp. 244-5) suggests that the three brothers represent the threefold distinction of lust: lust of the eye, lust of the ear, lust of the flesh –
mutier visa, audita, tacta
(woman seen, heard, touched). These are three of the traditional five steps of love. See D. W. Robertson, jr,
Preface to Chaucer,
p. 407 and n. 26.

20 8
empight: implanted. ai 5 forrest bill: a digging implement aa 7 blin: cease.

22 8
bestad: beset.

22 9
load vpon him layd: belaboured him with blows.

23 5
Pannikell: skull.

23 9
fenne: enclosure (French:
fermer).

25 2
ouerhent: overtook.

25 7
Continent: ground.

25 8
meaners: those who intended or meant mischief.

27 6–9
See II.3.

28 6
persue: track.

29 4
humour: fluid.

30–51
Spenser is imitating Ariosto's story of Angelica and Medoro (OF 19.17-42), ac least to shape his narrative. The meanings of the two
episodes are quite different. Angelica gives Medoro ‘the rose'; Bet-phoebe does not (stanza so ff).

31 9
burganet: helmet. light: remove.

32 6
Tobacco: this is the first reference to tobacco in English literature. Sir Walter Ralegh introduced tobacco to England in 1584.

32 7
Panachœa: healing herb.

Polygony: root used in medicine.

33 8
intuse: wound.

34 1
recur'd: regained.

34 5
hopeless remedies: i.e., remedies not hoped for.

39 8
pumy: pumice.

40 2
mirtle: the myrtle is traditionally associated with Venus.

41 6
garish: cure.

42 3
hurt thigh: thigh wounds are common in medieval and Renaissance literature and often symbolize lechery. The Biblical source is Jacob's wrestling with the angel and suffering a ‘shrunk thigh' (Genesis 32.25 ff). The iconography is explained by D. W. Robertson, jr, Preface to Chaiuer, pp. 450-51.

42 8
duraunce: imprisonment.

42 9
aleggeaunce: alleviation.

48 1
warreid: waged war on.

48 8
leuin: lightning.

48 9
calcineth: burns to ashes.

50
The story of Belphoebe and Timias is picked up again in TV.7-8.

50 7
enuy: deny.

51
The image of the rose as a symbol of female virginity is common from the Roman de la Rose through Herrick's ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may', and examples continue to multiply even after the Renaissance.

51 6
lapped: folded. chaire: dear (French: diet) with pun on chaire (French: ‘flesh').

52
The image of the rose becomes platonized. See Roche, Kindly Flame, pp. 107 fE

52 5
enrace: implant.

52 8
spire: put forth.

C
ANTO
6

2 7
Astrologically the combination of Jove and Venus was unusually fortunate.

3 1
See Psalm 110.3:'The dew ofthy birth is ofthe womb of the morning', and Roche, Kindly Blame, pp. 105 S.

4 1
Chrysogonee: Greek: ‘golden-born'.

4 2
Amphisa: Greek: ‘of double nature'.

7 7
embayd: steeped.

8
The spontaneous generation of life by sun and moist earth is derived from Met. 1.416-37.

9 1
Great father: the sun.

9 3
faire sister: the moon, whose light, according to Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, is propitious to generation in that it is moistening.

11–36
Venus' search for the lost Cupid is based on an idyll of Moschus, Bros drapetes (Love the Runaway), a popular subject for imitation in the Renaissance.

12 1–5
Garden of Adonis described in stanzas 29-51.

14 5
whot: hot.

17 3
embrewed: blood-stained.

17 4
rew: row.

18 3
buskins: boots.

18 7
Embreaded: braided.

19 7
comprized: drew together.

20 1
Cytherea: Venus, so named because she first emerged from the sea on the island of Cythera.

22 9
eeke: augment.

24 1
Phtebe: another name for Diana.

24 8
abye: suffer.

27 4
Lucinaes: goddess of childbirth.

29 4–5
Paphos… Gnidus: all shrines of Venus. Paphos is on Cyprus, modern Baffo. Cytheron hill may be a Spenserian name for Cythera, the island commonly associated with Venus (see similar spelling in VI.10.9.6), or it may refer to Mount Cythaeron in Boeotia, sacred to Jupiter and the Muses and also the place where Actaeon was torn to pieces by his dogs. Spenser may be following Boccaccio, Gen. 3.22, who states that ‘Cytherea is so called either from the island of Cythera or from Mount Cytheron where especially she is wont to be worshipped.' Gnidus is a city in Caria, famous for its statue of Venus by Praxiteles.

29 9
Gardin of Adonis: in Spenser's time small pots of fast-growing herbs were called gardens of Adonis. Contemporary references show that the phrase applies to any place of great and rapid fertility. Spenser uses the phrase as a device to express common philosophical ideas about creation drawn from the Bible, Ovid, and mythographical commentaries such as that of Natalis Comes.

31 8
Genius: god of generation, whom Spenser derives primarily from Natalis Comes, 4.3. This good Genius has an evil double, who appears in Il.12.47.

32–42
For a discussion of the philosophic views in these stanzas, see Far, pp. 340-52. Proposals for alternative readings are stated in Roche, The Kindly Flame, pp. 120–22and Harry Berger, Criticism, 11, 1969, 234-61.

335
thousand yeares: similar myths may be found in Plato, Republic 10 (the myth of Er), and Met. 15.165-75.

34 6
Genesis 1.28.

34 9
imply: contain.

35
See 1 Cor. 15.39:' All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, and another of fishes, and another of birds.'

36
Boccaccio, Gen. 1.2, describes Chaos similarly.

39 7
flaggy: drooping.

40 6
spyde: some editors emend to saw for sake of rhyme.

42
The coincidence of spring and autumn, seed time and harvest, is traditionally symbolic of unfallen nature in the Garden of Eden. Here it represents the perfect condition of a world where perfect love is achieved, as in stanza 41.

43
The mount may be described in sexual terms, but it is still literally a mountain.

44 4
rancke: thick, dense.

44 6
Caprifole: honeysuckle, woodbine.

44 9
Aeolus: god of winds.

45
This stanza contains only eight lines in 1590 and 1596. The 1609 edition adds the truncated line, ‘And dearest loue' between the present lines three and four.

45 3
Hyacinthus: accidentally killed by Apollo, who loved him and named for him the flower that grew from his blood. See Met. 10.163-219.

45 5
Amaranthus: Greek: ‘unfading'; the immortal flower of Paradise, according to Milton, PL 3.353-7; Lycidas, 149; word used to describe ‘the crown of glory that fadeth not away', 1 Peter 5.4.

45 7
Amintas: a reference to Thomas Watson's Latin Amyntas (1585); translated by Abraham Fraunce in 1587. See Donald Cheney, Spenser's Image of Nature, pp. 132-3, especially note 12.

46 6
skill: the skill of die Stygian gods is death.

47 4
All: although.

47 8
Father of all formes: Adonis is form and Venus matter.

48 5
wilde Bore: Adonis was killed by a boar. See Met. 10.519–739and Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis (1593).

50
The story of Cupid and Psyche is in Apuleius, The Golden Ass; Psyche's trials and her final reconciliation to Venus and marriage to Cupid were allegorized by later commentators as the struggles of the human soul.

See D. C. Allen, SP 53, 1956, pp. 146-9.

50 8
Pleasure: mythographers interpret Pleasure as timeless beatitude or the joy of the soul generating itself or – simply – sexual delight.

53 9
The story of Amoret and Scudamour is told in cantos 11-12.

C
ANTO
7

1
ff Florimell's flight is modelled on Angelica's flight in OF 1.33-4, which is itself modelled on Horace, Ode 1.23.

2 3
relent: slowdown.

2 7–9
The image of the uncontrolled horse as a symbol of the passions overcoming reason is traditional from the time of Plato.

4 4
launce: balance.

4 8
subject to: beneath.

7 3
gin: plot.

8 6
Beldame: good mother.

10 5
quaint: fastidious.

11 6
i.c, doubted that she was human.

12 3
loord: churl, lout. nothing good to donne: good for nothing.

12 8
slug: live idly.

13 1
vndertime: undent, noon,

13 4
adaw: daunt.

14 2
mister wight: kind of person.

15 9
tind: kindled.

16 6
louely semblaunces: shows of love.

16 8
resemblaunces: i.e., demonstrations of affection.

17 1
wildings: crab apples.

18 5
compast: contrived.

18 8
furnitures: trappings.

19 S
ouerhent: overtaken.

19 7
kent: learned.

21 7
leares: lore, arts.

22–8
Blanchard, Vat., p. 263, suggests a source in Boiardo, Orlando inna- morato 3.3.24 ff. 22 5 queint elect: skilfully chosen.

22 8
Hyena: compare with the Blatant Beast of VL1.7-9.

23 4
brought in place: i.e., brought back to the witch.

25 9
sickernesse: safety.

26 1
Myrrha: Myrrha committed incest with her father Cinyras and bore Adonis (Met. 10.312-518).

26 4
Daphne: pursued by Apollo, was turned into a laurel tree to preserve her virginity (Met. 1.450-567).