217a

ing from his cantos before the Court is one of the most dramatic events in literary history. Elizabeth was captivated. Spenser felt assured of preferment, but after some delay received a formal grant only of £50 per annum. In disappointment he returned to his estate in Ireland. There in 1594 he married Elizabeth Boyle, whom he had addressed in his sonnets, Amoretti. He returned to England in 1596 and published the second three books of the Faerie Queene, without reward. In a peasants' uprising in 1598 his castle was burned to the ground, and he fled the country with his family. He reached London shattered in spirit and health, and died there a month after his arrival, "for want of bread," according to Ben Jonson. He was buried in Westminster Abbey only a few yards from Chaucer. Spenser's literary gifts were as rich as they were manifold. His lyrical power was of the very highest order; he displayed the rarest talent for epical narrative, in a medium of his own masterful contrivance; he expressed the English Renaissance best in several of its larger aspects, its aspiration, its fondness for allegory, and its luxury of color; only Milton and Gray among the English poets have surpassed him in learning; and in sheer imaginative splendor he excels all others who have written in English.

FAERIE QUEENE

The Faerie Queene is an epic poem in which Spenser, using as a plot many themes from medieval romance, sets forth an elaborate allegory designed, as he tells us, "to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous or gentle discipline." Prince Arthur is in love with the Faerie Queene, from whose court the Red Cross Knight and the heroes of the remaining books set forth on their various quests. The allegory is threefold -moral, religious, and political. Arthur, for example, represents Magnificence, which, according to Aristotle (see notes to p. 91a, 1. 38 and p. 91b, 1. 19 ff.) is the perfection of the moral virtues. He also represents divine grace. The Red Cross Knight represents Holiness and the Church of England. As a figure in the political allegory, Arthur suggests Leicester, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth, who is represented by the Faerie Queene. Duessa represents Mary Queen of Scots. And so on. The allegory is complicated and at times obscure and confused. The Faerie Queene is written in a nine-line stanza invented by Spenser and named in his honor. It consists of eight tensyllable lines followed by a twelve-syl

17. cheere, countenance.

20. Gloriana, Queen Elizabeth. 21. Faery Lond, England.

27. a dragon, the Devil. See Revelation xii, 9.

28. A lovely ladie, Una, or Truth. 217b 43. that infernall feend, the Dragon. 44. Forwasted, laid waste.

46. a dwarfe, Prudence, Common Sense. 52. lemans, lovers.

53. everie wight to shrowd it, etc., it compelled every creature to seek cover. 54. eke, also.

60. perceable, pierceable, penetrable. 218a 68. can, did.

69. The sayling pine, so called from its use in making sailing vessels. For the catalogue of trees, compare note to p. 120b, 1. 31 ff.

71. The builder oake, the oak used in building.

74. still, always.

76. eugh, yew.

77. sallow, a species of willow.

78. The mirrhe sweete, etc., the Arabian myrtle, which exudes a bitter but fragrant gum. Myrrha was the mother of Adonis. Wounded by her father, she fled to Arabia and was there changed into the myrtle.

79. The warlike beech, so called from its use in making spears, etc.

79. the ash for nothing ill. Ashwood was used for many purposes.

80. platane, plane tree.

81. The carver holme. The evergreen oak was used in carving. 84. weening, thinking. 88. doubt, fear.

94. about, out of.

98. Eftsoones, very soon, quickly. 218b 110. wot, know.

113. retrate, retreat.

114. the wandring wood, the wood in which men wander or go astray. 116. read, advice.

118. hardiment, bravery, daring. 129. boughtes, folds.

134. uncouth, unknown, strange. 136. effraide, frightened.

422. playned, complained.

422. false winged boy, Cupid.

222b 430. the Graces, the three daughters of Jupiter and Eurynome- Aglaia, Eu phrosyne, and Thalia, attendants of Venus. See 1. 14 ff. of Milton's L'Allegro.

431. Hymen Iö Hymen. From a Roman marriage song addressed to Hymen, god of Marriage.

447. To prove, etc., to try his senses and put her to the test to see if she were genuine.

454. the blind god, Cupid.

454. amate, subdue.

223a 473. redoubted, doughty. 476. shend, shame.

488. light, fickle.

494. he, the dream-spright.

1. northerne wagoner, constellation of Boötes, containing the bright star Arctu

55. the rosy fingred Morning, etc. The goddess Aurora loved the Trojan Prince Tithonus and won for him, by consent of the gods, immortality, but neglected to ask for eternal youth. He wasted away until nothing was left of him but his weak, rasping voice, and then the goddess in pity changed him into a grasshopper. Cf. Tennyson's Tithonus.

58. Titan, the Sun.

60. baser, too mean or lowly. 63. stowre, distress, misfortune. 83. science, knowledge, skill.

85. Proteus, the son of Poseidon. He was gifted with prophecy but was averse to using his powers. When seized and importuned, he would change his shape many times in order to escape, but at last would yield the benefits of his gifts.

224b 96. discolourd, many-colored.

99. Saint George, the patron saint of England.

105. Sarazin, Saracen, pagan.

107. Sans foy, literally, Without Faith.

109. a faire companion, Duessa, or Falsehood.

111. Purfled, bordered.

111. assay, quality.

113. owches, jewels.

117. bosses, studs.

118. disport, play, sport.

117. Aves. See note to p. 104b, I. 20 f. 121. bitt, bit of food.

125. hardly doen, done with difficulty. 136. Aldeboran, a bright star in the group Hyades of the constellation Taurus.

137. Cassiopeias chaire, a constellation opposite the Great Bear on the other side of the pole star.

143. stelths, thefts.

144. purchas criminall, robbery.

147. poore mens boxes of their due reliefe, alms-boxes of their contents.

230b 150. carelesse, free from care. 157. Abessa, Superstition.

157. Corceca, Blind Devotion.

172. Him booteth, it profits him.

231a 185. that long wandring Greeke, Ulysses, the hero of the Odyssey, who refused Calypso's offer of immortality that he might return to Penelope.

192. Kirkrapine, Robber of Kirks (churches). 196. amazèd deare, frightened deer.

204. her rayling, she, the elder, Corceca, of course; the other was dumb.

211. embost, arrayed.

214. traynes, wiles, guile.

231b 248. meere, absolute, out and out. 250. kindly, natural.

252. liefe, dear.

232a 257. deface, disfigure, harm.

271. beaten, storm-beaten.

276. fierce Orions hound, Sirius, the Dog Star.

279. Nereus, after Poseidon, the most important of the sea deities of classical mythology, kindly and benevolent, presiding over the Egean Sea in particular.

232b 294. chauffed, chafed, irritated. 307. Paynim, pagan, infidel.

321. Lethe lake, the river of Oblivion in Hades.

233a 323. Furies. See note to Sackville's In

duction, p. 197a, l. 109.

323. doen aslake, cause to abate.

345. hether, hither.

233b 376. thrilling, piercing.

377. launcht, split in twain.

382. spill, destroy.

SAMUEL DANIEL

Daniel was the son of a music master in the neighborhood of Taunton in Somerset. He entered Oxford as a commoner in 1579 but left in three years without a degree. After traveling for some time on the Continent, he became tutor in 1590 or soon after to William Herbert, later Earl of Pembroke, and thus be

234a

came a member of the celebrated Mary Sidney's circle, residing at Wilton, the family estate in Wiltshire. Without his knowledge and greatly to his embarrassment, twenty-seven of his sonnets were published with Sidney's Astrophel and Stella in 1591. His corrected edition, To Delia, appeared the following year, and was well received. In 1595 he issued the first four books of his historical poem, The Civil Wars, which, next to the Faerie Queene, is one of the longest poems of the period. The work was inspired in part by the enthusiastic patriotism, following the triumph over Spain, which sought to glorify English achievements, and in part by his own notion that men are influenced more by epical narrative than by any other writings. About 1599 he became tutor to the young daughter of Margaret, Countess of Cumberland (see p. 241a), at Skipton in Yorkshire. His associations in his new position were congenial, but he found the duties of tuition irksome. Early in the reign of James he was a figure at Court, but his popular favor was waning. He retired to Wiltshire in his later years, continued his literary work there, and died at Beckington in 1619. In his literary work he is reflective rather than passionate. He is at his best in his Delia sonnets, which possess a sweetness of rhythm, a delicacy of imagery and sentiment, and a beauty and purity of language which place them among the best of the sonnet series of the time. In his longer poems his pure, clear, stately, modern diction justifies the epithet given him by his contemporaries of "well-languaged" Daniel.

THE CIVIL WARS

The portion given is from stanza 19 to the end of the Third Book. Compare Shakespeare's Richard II for a treatment of the same subject.

1. The parliament, which now is held. Richard was deposed by act of Parliament, September 30, 1399.

2. the king, Henry Bolingbroke, now King Henry IV.

11. Close prisoner. After his deposition Richard was confined in Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire until his assassination.

17. Carlile, the Bishop of Carlisle.

26. Aventine-retire, post of refuge or safety. The Aventine was farthest south of the seven hills of Rome.

234b 46. assecure, make sure or certain. 57. accident, incident, event.

66. th' abbot's skill of Westminster. The plot to kill King Henry and restore Richard to the throne was laid at the house of the Abbot of Westminster.

235a 89. Bewray, betray, disclose. 106. Surrey, Thomas, Duke of Surrey. 235b 120. dash, destroy.

120. fact, deed.

145. Blount, Sir Thomas Blount. 151. warier carriage in the thing, a more cautious conduct in the business.

236a 181. cast the worst of ill, forecast the worst that may befall.

236b 215. raise another head, organize another power or army.

237a 245. Aumarle, Edward, Duke of Aumerle, son to the Duke of York. 237b 289. foregoes, goes before, anticipates 290. eminent, imminent, near at hand. 290. woful king, Richard. 293. rose, rose in revolt. 299. he, Henry IV.

238a 311. a knight, Sir Pierce of Exton. 341. Pomfret, Pontefract Castle in the West Riding of Yorkshire. See note to 1. 11. 342. laid in hold, committed to prison. 346. near genius, presiding spirit or good angel.'

238b 351. prophetising, prophetical. 359. unquick, lacking life or luster. 368. Conferring, comparing. 382. restraint, confinement. 239a 393. Diocletian, a Roman emperor who, after a troubled reign of twenty-one years, longed for repose and abdicated A.D. 305. He spent the remainder of his life among his gardens in Illyria. 418. Whenas, when, whereupon. 419. Enforced them strain who, compelled them to make a nice point as to who. 239b 437. Marius' soldier at Minternum. In the civil war with Sulla in 88 B.C., Marius took refuge at Minturnæ in the lowlands of Latium. The soldier sent to kill him quailed at a look from the old general and fled, exclaiming, "I cannot kill Caius Marius!"

446. presently, immediately.

466. being laid to sore, being hard pressed. 240a 473. proditorious, treacherous.

487. So th' wolf, etc., referring to the wellknown fable of Æsop.

488. Betraying, deceiving. 503. check, rebuke.

506. th' oblation, sacrifice, offering. 240b 548. Of mild access, easy to approach. 241a 556. being the simple usager, etc., be being simply the agent or user only for the state.

561. concussed, violently shaken, agitated. 565. revocate, revoke.

569. Syndick, organized body of control or management.

573. president, precedent, principle of proce dure.

573. of pestilent import, of pernicious character.

581. calls up many's hopes, etc., excites hope in many, but brings gratification to few. 583. their. The antecedent is “kings,” l. 579

TO THE LADY MARGARET, COUNTESS OF CUMBERLAND

241b 7. seat, site, situation.

18. stately, of or pertaining to the state. 20. ill-succeeding, turning out ill. 22. Great pirate Pompey, etc. In little more than a month in 67 B.C., Pompey the Great drove the Mediterranean pirates from the sea. Because of his unscrupulous and almost successful effort to dominate the Roman world, Pompey might be spoken of as a pirate. 35. sits, in judgment as a magistrate. 48. not strange, but as foredone, as not being unnatural, because foreordained.

242a 57. madam. See the title. 67. kind, womankind, nature. 68. head, armed force, power.

69 f. hue The world can cast, color or shade the world can contrive by way of illusion. 82. use to do, are accustomed to do. 242b 101 f. dispense With, grant dispensation

to.

106. cast the sum, reckoned the total.

114. set, set up, as in music.

117. union, unison.

119. accord, concord, harmony.

MICHAEL DRAYTON

Drayton was born in the northern part of Shakespeare's county of Warwickshire, preceded him by a year in birth, and is said by Aubrey to have had a butcher to his father, a trade that is also associated with Shakespeare's name. Drayton himself says he was "nobly bred," which probably means he was brought up in the household of Sir Henry Goodere of Powlesworth. There is no evidence that he was ever at either university. He published in 1591 some portions of Scripture metrically rendered. A volume of eclogues followed in 1593. The next year appeared his Idea sonnets, which fill a worthy place among the numerous cycles of the time. Then for a decade or more he was in part a playwright, usually in collaboration with others, but mainly, like Samuel Daniel, a poet of the heroical in English history. His Heroical Epistles appeared in 1597 and his Barons' Wars in 1603. Parts of his Poly-olbion, a versified geography of England, appeared in 1613. It is his magnum opus, representing many years of industrious labor and containing amid much solid matter passages of great sweetness and light, but it fell unnoticed from the press because the wave of patriotic fervor which prevailed in England at the time of its inception had subsided. His dainty and inimitable fairy poem Nymphidia appeared in 1627. The tone and metrical form are derived from

Chaucer's Sir Thopas, but in general Nymphidia owes little to its predecessors. Nothing better of its kind has ever been done. Drayton died in 1631 and received interment in Westminster Abbey. He was a man of life upright and a poet of unusual talent and marvellous industry. Many plaudits came to him in his day, which have not yet ceased to echo the fame of his poetry.

NYMPHIDIA

An interesting comparison, for the treatment of the fairy element in literature, may be made with Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which, strange to say, Drayton forgets to mention. 243a 1. Topas. Sir Thopas, the hero of Chaucer's burlesque romance of the same name, set out to seek an elf queen.

2. Rabelais. François Rabelais, ca. 14901553, a French humorist, was the author of the celebrated "novel " Pantagruel, which contains much learned fooling and is based on the romances of chivalry. 3. Dowsabel, a favorite name for a rustic sweetheart in pastoral poetry. It came from the French douce et belle, "sweet and pretty."

18. Or of the later, or the old, either in recent times or in the past.

25. Nymphidia.

The poet's muse and informant is one of the spirits in attendance upon Queen Mab.

243b 49. Obe, Oberon, King of Fairyland. 54. upright, face upwards.

66

55. the mare that hight. The nightmare was supposed to be an incubus or evil spirit that oppressed people in sleep. 63. dancing hays, dancing in a ring. 65. sluttery, slatternliness, slovenliness. 79. oaf, an elf's child, in reference to the popular belief in the changeling. 102. emmet's eyes, eyes of the ant. 244a 118. may, the hawthorn flower. 132. letting, prevention, hindrance. 244b 160. diswitted, deprived of wit or sense. 182. as mad as any hare, as mad as a March hare," in reference to the wild actions of the hare in the breeding season. 190. About his head he lets it walk. He swings it about his head as a club. 193 f. The Tuscan poet. Ariosto, 1474-1533, in his Orlando Furioso, "Roland in Madness," recounts the semimythical exploits of Roland, one of the "paladins," or distinguished followers of Charlemagne. 196. Alcides, Hercules, a celebrated Greek hero, driven mad by Juno.

197. Ajax Telamon, a Grecian hero in the Trojan War, called Ajax the Greater. After being defeated by Ulysses, he went mad.

199. Bedlam, mad. The word is a corruption of Bethlehem, an institution in London