The Faerie Queene (121 page)

3–27
The masque of Cupid may be a revision of early work mentioned in the Epistle to
The Shepheardes Calender
and the gloss by E. K. to ‘June' 25. No matter what the earlier state of composition was, this episode is imitating the tradition of the court masque, a dramatic presentation with allegorical figures. The significance of this literary masque is examined by Roche,
Kindly Flame,
pp. 72-88.

3 5–4
graue personage: the part of' presenter', or introducer of the masque, is taken by the very un-tragic figure of Ease, who traditionally stands at the entrance to places of amatory delight because idleness (as Chaucer calls him in his
Roman de I? Rose)
is the first and necessary occasion for lechery.

5 2
intendiment: purpose.

5 7
consent: harmony.

6 7
report: echo.

7 3
ympe of
Troy:
Ganymede. See note to III.11.34.4.

7 5
daintie lad: Hylas, boy loved by Hercules.

7 6
Alcides:
patronymic for Hercules when considered as son of Amphi- tryon, whose father was Alceus. See note to III.11.33.6.

8 1
say: fine wool.

9 5
disguised: fashioned fantastically, decked out.

9 7
straine: hold firmly.

10 2
disguyse: fantastic fashion.

10 3
Capuccio: hood, as of a Capuchin monk.

10 4
dependant
Albanese-wyse:
hanging down (Latin:
dependere)
in the
Scottish fashion. (Albania is an ancient name for Scotland. See IV.11.36.6-7.)

10 6
as: as if.

11 1
Daunger:
Danger is presented as a figure typifying the modern sense of the word,
peril, threat,
but it should be recalled that
danger,
meaning coy or aloof restraint, was one of the chief weapons of the lady in the battle of love. See also IV.10.17-18.

13 3
samite: a rich silk.

13 6
Sprinckle: aspergillum, a device to sprinkle holy water.

14 6
purloynd: stolen.

14 9
dewes: balls of thread.

15 4
lowrd: scowled.

IS 8
lattice: mask or vizard.

17 8
embost: exhausted, in extremity.

18 8
hony-lady: Maclean suggests ‘honey-laden'.

18 9
degree: order.

19 2
grysie: horrible.

19 3
cleped: called.

20 1
net: pure.

20 9
sanguine: bloody.

23 9
blinding him: i.e., blindfolding him.

29 5
blent: darkened.

29 6
second watch: time between nine and midnight.

32 7
embrew: plunge.

33 4
Compare the slight wound given to Britomart in III.1.65.6.

34 4
Dernely: dismally.

35 9
date: term of life.

36 7
reherse: recite.

37 6
Abode: waited.

40 7
teene: pain.

42 3
subuerst: overturned.

42 6
perlous: perilous, dangerous.

42 7
delayd: quenched.

44 3
Squire: Glauce, Britomart's nurse, is mentioned here again, although Spenser has not spoken of her presence since III.3.

442 5
layes: ground.

442 8
soile: marshy ground to which deer retreats after chase.

452 2
streightly: closely.

452 9
stocks: blocks of wood.

462 2
Hermaphrodite: Met.
4.285–388tells of the nymph Salmacis who loved the youth Hermaphroditus so much that she prayed that they might never be parted. The prayer was granted, and they became one creature. The image also invokes Genesis 2.24 in which man and wife become one flesh. See Donald Cheney,
PMLA
87 (1972), 192-200.

472 1
counteruayle: compensation.

472 4
iournall: daily.

472 5
assoyle: release.

BOOK IV

TITLE

Cambel appears only in cantos 2 and 3. No such character as Tela-mond appears. Roche suggests that the name (from Greek,
télos,
‘perfect') refers to the trinity of brothers – Priamond, Diamond, Triamond – whose story constitutes an allegory of the harmony in the world
(Kindly Flame,
pp. 16 ff). Some editions emend Telamond to Triamond. The virtue of friendship is to be understood more broadly than our modern conception of friendship. A tradition starting with Plato and Aristotle and significantly developed in Cicero's De
amicitia
and St Ailred of Rievaulx's
De spiritual! amicitia
defined friendship as that .bond between human beings based on the rational apprehension of the virtues of the other. Friendship then is the virtue that binds not only individuals but societies and is essential for political stability. It also defined the non-sexual aspects of the love between man and wife. Hence Spenser's virtue applies not only to the groups of friends in Book IV but to the lovers as well: Britomart-Artegall, Amoret-Scudamour, and Florimell-Marinell.

P
ROEM

1 1
rugged forhead: tradition has it that Spenser is referring to William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, Elizabeth's chief adviser, who apparently disapproved of the first three books of the poem because they disciplined the reader in virtue not explicitly, but under the guise of allegorical romance, which he supposed many readers would not understand.

3 6
father of Philosophie: Socrates.

3 7
Critias:
Spenser may be confusing Critias with Alcibiades, to whom Socrates speaks about love in the
Symposium.
Spenser may also be recalling the shade tree from
Phaedrus
230b (‘shaded oft from sunne
^,
).

3 9
Stoicke censours: not strictly philosophic terminology. Spenser means those who too severely feel that poetry does not teach virtue.

J 2 dred infant: Cupid.

C
ANTO
1

I 4
Amorets:
Amoret's seizure by Busyrane and rescue by Britomart are told in III.11-12. I 5
Florimels:
Florimell was left in the power of Proteus in m.8.43. Her story is taken up again in IV.11.

1 6
fit: trouble.

2 1–2
Scudamour:
the story of Scudamour's winning Amoret is told in IV.10.

3
Only at this point does Spenser give the details of Busyrane's capturing Amoret – after we have learned about his wicked masque and his defeat by Britomart (IIL11-12).

3 7
bestedded: assisted.

4 4
sterue: die, perish.

5–15
The humour of this passage where Amoret is afraid of her rescuer and Britomart pretends amorousness to hide her sex is a side of Spenser's genius too often overlooked by his critics. Britomart's resolution of the ambiguous situation is the revelation of her true sex.

11 2
younker: young man.

11 9
so far in dout: of such doubtful consistency, ia 1 Seneschall: steward or major domo.

12 s
let: hindrance.

13 1
ff Britomart's revelation of herself is an imitation of Marfisa's similar strategy in
OF
26.28.

13 8
creasted: tufted, plumed (Latin:
cristatus),
beams of the meteor.

13 9
prodigious: portentous.

14 6
Bellona: goddess of war, whose name is sometimes confused with that of Minerva. See similar confusion in III.9.22 and note.

17 4
seeming in so fatre a space: i.e., seemed to be at such a distance.

18 1
Duessa:
the villainess of Book I.

18 9
each degree: i.e., each degree of the hierarchy of society.

19–31
Ate, or Discord, is the central force of disorder in Book IV. The source of her power over society is anatomized in Spenser's thirteen stanzas of description.

20 6
out win: win their way out.

21 1
riuen: shattered.

21 6
Disshiuered: shivered into fragments.

22 1
Babylon: capital of Babylonian Empire and one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, conquered by the Persians in 539
BC
and by Alexander the Great in 331
BC.
He wanted to rebuild it and to make it the capital of his empire.

22 2
Thebes: great city in Boeotia founded by Cadmus, whose fortunes, with those of his descendants, provided much matter for Greek epic and tragedy. Rome: whose whole history is a tale of discord.

22 3
Salem: Jerusalem, often conquered and destroyed. Hi on: Troy.

22 5
The golden Apple: see note to III.9.36.3-4.

22 7
Nimrod:
the mighty hunter mentioned in Genesis 10.9. Renaissance Biblical commentaries make him the first king and the chief builder of the Tower of Babel, which brought confusion to human language.

22 8
Alexander:
Alexander the Great, whose vast empire was at his death divided among five of his subordinates: Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigonus. The Elizabethans considered division of the kingdom an invitation to disaster. See 1 Maccabees 1.7-8.

23 1–5
Spenser tells us that Hercules (Alcides) killed many drunken centaurs, for which we have scant evidence in earlier writers
(Met.
9.191,12.536-41). The Lapiths and the Centaurs came together for the marriage of Pirithous and Hippodamia, on which occasion the Centaurs got
drunk and one tried to rape the bride. A battle ensued. The hero of this myth is not Hercules but Theseus
(Met.
12.210 ff). Spenser refers to this battle again in VI.10.13.

23 6–9
Apollonius Rhodius,
Argonautka,
1.492
S,
states that Orpheus had to be called in so that his music could calm the discord among the Argonauts, who under Jason's command were in search of the Golden Fleece.

24 8
byding: enduring, lasting.

25 5
factious: seditious.

25 8
iarre: discord.

26 3
sterue: die.

27 2
intended: directed.

27 4
comprehended: contained.

27 8
discided: cut into pieces (Latin:
discindere).

28 2
matchlesse: not matched.

30 5
indigne: unworthy (Latin:
indignus).

30 8
golden chaine: see note to L9.1.1.

31 3
baude: procuress, pimp.

31 7
floure deluce: fleur de lys, iris. See II.6.16.2 and V.n.49-64.

32 4
Blandamour:
‘the flatterings or blandishments of love'?

32 9
whether: which of the two.

33 4
paragon: companion, mistress.

34 4
Britomart overthrew Paridell in III.9.12-16.

34 5
scutchion: shield.

35 5
hot-spurre youth: impetuous, headstrong Blandamour. Some editors try to identify Blandamour with the Henry Percy whom Shakespeare calls Hotspur in 1
Henry IV.

37 3
to weld: to exert himself.

39 2
bore: i.e., bore on his shield.

41 3
preuenting: anticipating (Latin:
praevenire,
‘come before
^,
).

43 1
on an heape: in a heap.

44 5
in plight: in trim, in health.

46 8–9The source of these lines is ultimately Ovid's comment that majesty and love are incompatible
(Met.
2.846-7). The Middle Ages developed the idea into the conventional theme of
maistrie,
the proper relation of man and woman in Christian marriage. A famous example is Chaucer's ‘Franklin's Tale'. For an interpretation of
maistrie
in that tale see D. W. Robertson, jr,
A Preface to Chaucer,
pp. 470-71.

47 9
willow bough: emblem of grieving love. bayes: laurel crown of victory.

49 8
Parthian: tribe noted in classical literature for fierceness. shiuering: i.e., quivering.

50 3
Glauce:
Britomart's nurse, who has been with Scudamour since Britomart entered the house of Busyrane in III.11.

53 8
aby: pay the penalty for.

54 5 expyred: ended.

CANTO
2

1 1
tynd: kindled.

Phlegeton: Phlegethon is the river of fire in the classical Hades.

1 7
Orpheus:
Orpheus calmed the contentious spirits of the Argonauts by playing his harp. See note to IV.u3.6-9.

2 1
celestiall Psalmist: David, who by his music calmed the evil spirit that tormented Saul (1 Samuel 16.23).

2 4
relented: abated.

2 5
concented: harmonized.

2 7
prudent Romane: Menenius Agrippa, whose deed is told by Livy,
Historia,
2.32.

3 8
dreuill: a sloven; dirty or foul person; a pig.

4 S
Sir Ferraugh stole False Florimell from Braggadocchio in III.8.19.

4 9
weft: wait but see precise legal meaning in IV.12.31. and notes to V.3.27.S.