The Faerie Queene (129 page)

32 5
awhaped: amazed.

34 3
in ray: in a row, in order.

34 7
vulgar: common people.

36 4
franchisement: deliverance.

37–8
Sir Sergis is probably Sir Henry Sidney, father of Sir Philip and a friend of Leicester. He was Elizabeth's Lord Deputy in Ireland until 1578. His warnings about papal instigations to make the Irish rebel went unheeded. In 1580 Elizabeth dispatched Lord Grey de Wilton, to whom Spenser was secretary, to handle the growing rebellion.

39 3
saluage Hands: Ireland.

41
Arthegall's apology for his delay may refer to Elizabeth's vacillation) about sending aid to Ireland.

43–65
The episode of Sir Burbon is a retelling of recent French history. Burbon figures Henri de Navarre, head of the house of Bourbon. In 1589 Henri was designated king of France by Henri III, the last of the Valois kings. Navarre was of the Protestant persuasion, but altercations about his Protestantism and the long delay in crowning him led him in 1593 to embrace Roman Catholicism with his famous remark:
‘Paris vaut bien me messe'
(Paris is well worth a Mass). He was crowned in 1594.

44 6
rakehell: scoundrelly.

45 4
large dispence: great liberality (Old French:
despense,
‘spending
¹
). 47 6 recule: recoil.

49 6
Flottrdetis:
France, whose emblem is the fleur-de-lis.

51 1
troupe of villains: the Roman Catholic populace of France, tie
¹
rakehell bands' of stanza 44.

52
Burbon's abandonment of his shield represents Henri de Navarre's submission to Roman Catholicism.

53 2
Redcross's knighting of Burbon refers to Henri's baptism and upbringing as a Protestant.

53 4
endosse: inscribe.

54 4
scutchin: shield.

55 6
stile: title.

56 4
terme: terms.

57 6
wyte: blame.

58 5
glayues: clubs.

58 7
Boreas:
the north wind.

61 5
ff The lady's reluctance to accept Burbon probably indicates some of the resentment Henri caused by renouncing his religion.

61 7
meed: some editors emend to
hyre
for the sake of rhyme.

62 9
Phebus
lampe: the sun.

64 9
apayd: pleased.

65 9
terme: the ten days before Irena is put to death. See stanzas 39-40.

C
ANTO
12

Arg. 1–2
These lines apply to the action of the preceding canto, stanzas

43-65-

1 1
Imitation of
Aen.
3.56 ff. 1 3 that deuilsbindes:cf. James 2.19: “Thou believest that there is one God: thou doest well; the devils also believe, and tremble.'

3
Arthegall's task of rescuing Irena was assigned him by Gloriana in V.1.3, 4, 13.

4 6 with the coast did fall: nautical term; i.e., reached the coast
6
1 old knight: Sir Sergis of canto 11, stanzas 37 ff.

6 7
reare: direct

8 9
single fight: the common practice of deciding an issue not by general slaughter but by the victory of one knight over another. Cf. Prince Hal's offer to Hotspur in Shakespeare's
1 Henry IV,
5.1.83 ff.

9 1
reclayme: call back, a term from falconry. 10 3 he: Grantorto.

10 4
him once to entertaine: i.e., to offer hospitality to ArthegalL 10 7 did so well him paine: i.e., took such great pains. 13 Rose: imitated from
OF
32.108 and
GL
20.129. Cf. also IV.12.34 and VI.2.35.

13 9
farre day: late in the day.

14
Grantorto is armed like an Irish
gailogias,
or foot soldier, whom Spenser describes in his
View of the Present State of Ireland:
‘in a long shirt of mayle down to the calfe of his legg with a long brode axe in his hand'.

14 4
deadly feare: fear of death.

15 8
gerne: bare his teeth, snarl.

16 1
listes: area appointed for single combat.

18 8
vereth his mainsheat: i.e., loosens one end of the mainsail to reduce die pressure of the wind. 23 2
Chrysaor:
Arthegall's sword; but see V.5.21.

23 3
souse: blow.

27
1
Lord Grey de Wilton, who had broken the force of die rebellious Htz

Geralds of Desmond, was recalled by Elizabeth before he had accomplished his aim of subduing Ireland. This stanza is Spenser's praise for the former governor. Upton
(Var.,
p. 266) quotes from Spenser's
View of the Present State of Ireland:

I remember that in the late government of the good Lord Grey, when after long travail, and many perillous assays, he had brought all things almost to that pass that it was even made ready for reformation, and might have been brought to what her majesty would; like complaint was made against him, that he was a bloody man, and regarded not the life of her subjects… Whom, who that well knew, knew to be most gentle, affable, loving, and temperate… Therefore most untruly and maliciously do these evil tongues backbite and slander the sacred ashes of that most just and honourable personage, whose least virtue, and of many that abounded in his heroic spirit, they were never able to aspire unto.

28 4
Hags: Envy and Detraction. 28 6 to that: in addition to that

28 9
cases: garments.

29 Detraction (backbiting, wilfully malicious disparagement of another) is usually a daughter of Envy and visually represented by a woman with a ‘spear strung with the row of doughnut-like ears', into which she has injected her poisonous slander (Tuve,
Allegorical Imagery,
p. 188). See 34-5.

29 5
arew: in a row.

30 2
ouer taught: overgrown (literally, over-reached). 30 3 puttocks: kite, buzzard.

30 5
the other: Envy is derived from
Met.
2.768 ff, which is quoted by Boccaccio in his chapter on Envy
(Cen.
1.18), See also I.4.30-32.

31 4
Whose sight to her is greatest crosse: cf. Iago's comment on Cassio:

‘He hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly'
(Othello,
J.I.I9)-35 2 eeke: increase. 35 8 i.e., Envy hurts only herself.

35 9
perplext: troubled.

36 4
Aspis: asp.

36 8
kasings: lies.

37 7
Blatant beast:
the main enemy of courtesy in Book VI.

38 5
scryde: descried, perceived.

39 4
cf. the fury Allecto throwing a snake into the bosom of Amata (
Aen
.7.346).

40 4
blent: blemished.

40 9
traynes: wiles.

41 7
hundred tongues: see VI.12.33. In VI.1.9 and 12.27.1 the Blatant Beast has a thousand tongues.

42–3
Gough
(Var., p.
268) sees an allusion to David's flight from Jerusalem,
cursed and stoned by Shimei (2 Samuel 16.5-13). Like Talus, AbishaJ is rebuked by bis master David for wanting to avenge the insult. Gough's suggestion is supported by the feet that Shimei calls David ‘a bloody man', a phrase that Spenser uses twice to describe the detraction of Lord Grey. See note to 27.1.

BOOK VI

H
EADNOTE

Spenser's virtue of courtesy has been the subject of much speculation because it does not appear in any standard enumeration of the virtues. The difficulty arises in part because of Spenser's statement in the Letter to Ralegh that his poem is based on the ‘twehie priuate morall verities, as Aristotle hath deuised', for no such virtue appears in the Nicoma-chean Ethics. Attempts to make Spenser's courtesy conform to Aristotle's gentleness or truthfulness (Ethics 4.5-7) have been unconvincing; see notes to Letter to Ralegh, Var., pp. 325-45. A more fruitful source for the virtue is the so-called courtesy book of the sixteenth century, which took various forms, ranging from manuals of etiquette or expertise to philosophic discussions of the nature of love and beauty. These books, produced with abandon in the second half of the sixteenth century, share Spenser's avowed purpose: ‘to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline'. The most inflmtitial of the courtesy books in England were Sir Thomas Elyot, The Govemour (1531), Baldesar Casdglione, 77 Cortegimo (1528; translated by Sir Thomas Hoby, 1561) and Stefano Guazzo, La civile conversatione (1574; translated by George Pettie and Bartholomew Young, 1581-49. The standard work on the courtesy books is Ruth Kelso, The Doctrine of the English Gentleman in the Sixteenth Century, University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature 14,1929,1-2. A concise summary of Spenser's relation to courtesy books may be found in Humphrey Tonkin, Spenser's Courteous Pastoral (Oxford, 1972), pp. 163-72.

One of the persistent questions that runs through all the attempts to define Spenser's courtesy is the false issue of whether Spenser is democratic or aristocratic in his attitude toward courtesy: is it a virtue restricted to the nobility and gentry, or is it a virtue attainable by all men? There can be no question that Spenser believed in monarchy and its attendant hierarchy as the truest form of government. Elizabeth is the revered patron of his poem.' He derives the word courtesy from court: ‘Of Court it seemes, men Courtesie doe call' (VI.1.1.1), and makes Elizabeth's court both the source and end of courtesy (Proem. 7). Pastorella and the savage man are discovered to have royal lineage, and Calidore instantly recognizes the nobility of Tristram even in toe woods: blood will tell. On the other hand, Spenser always insists on (lie virtuous actions of these characters; his courtesy is linked to late classical definitions of nobility and its offspring, the Middle English
gentilesse. True nobility is not derived from lineage but from virtuous action because all men have God as their first father, who calls them to a heavenly crown. Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy 3. Metre 6, makes the classic statement:

The whole race of men on this earth springs from one stock. There is one Father of all things; One alone provides for all. He gave Phoebus his rays, the moon its horns. To the earth He gave men, to the sky the stars. He clothed with bodies the souls He brought from heaven. Thus, all men come from noble origin. Why then boast of your ancestors: If you consider your beginning, and God your Maker, no one is base unless he deserts his birthright and makes himself a slave to vice [translated by Richard Green].

The same idea is found in Dante, Convivio 4.20, Purgatorio 7.121 ff, Roman de la Rose, 6579-92, 18607-896, Chaucer, ‘Wife of Bath's Tale', 1109 ff and Ballade of Gentilesse, and in the enormously influential Somme le rot (translated by Caxton, i486; see Tuve, Allegorical Imagery, pp. 41 ff). If one must speak of a conflict between aristocracy and democracy in Spenser, one must realize that Spenser's allegiance to aristocracy was rooted in that greatest of kingdoms, the democracy of God's creation, which exists in the virtuous actions of all men. Prince and peasant had the same option of being good or bad, but the prince had the heavier obligation to virtue because of his position in the earthly hierarchy. Spenser makes this point repeatedly in the stanzas that begin cantos 1-3. Spenser's courtesy emphasizes the community of virtue within the hierarchically ordered society of his time. Courtesy becomes in this book the social manifestation of holiness, the virtue of Book I.

P
ROEM

2 2
imps: the Muses, whose home was Mount Parnassus.

2 5
well: flow.

2 8
-9 Spenser is following Ariosto's boast that he is attempting something that no other poet has attempted (OP 1.2). Milton imitates both poets in claiming that his poem ‘pursues Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhyme' (PL 1.15-16).

4 See headnote.

4 7
ff The lament for the lost simplicity of ancient times recalls the proem to Book V.

5 5
See 1 Corinthians 13.12: ‘For now we see through a glass darkly.'

5 8
-9 The idea that virtue is not simply a form of social activity but a state of mind or condition of the soul is very important throughout Book VI.

7 4
-5 See Ecdesiastes 1.7: ‘All the rivers go into the sea, yet the sea is not full: for the rivers go unto the place whence they return, and go.'

C
ANTO
1

Arg. 1
Maleffort: French: ‘evil attempt'.

1 3
well beseemeth: it is appropriate.

1 6
ciuill conuersation: civilized relationships. The phrase means more than the modern meanings of these words imply. Perhaps an allusion to Stefano Guazzo's La civile conversatione (1574), a courtesy book of enormous popularity. See Tonkin, Spenser's Courteous Pastoral, p. 169.

1 7
redound: abound, overflow.

1 9
paragon: example or model of excellence.

2 2
Calidore: Greek: ‘beauty, gift'. The hero of this book has been identi- fied with Sir Philip Sidney and with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. See Var., pp. 349-64. 2 5 guize: appearance.

2 8
affray: attack.

3
The courtesy hooks placed great emphasis on attaining public recognition of one's virtues.

3 7
embase: humble.

3 8
leasing: falsehood.

4 2
sore bestad: beset by difficulty, hard-pressed.