all things accounted by their showes, and nothing esteemed of, that is not delightfull and pleasing to commune sence. For this cause is Xenophon preferred before Plato, for that the one, in the exquisite depth of his judgement, formed a Commune welth, such as it should be; but the other in the person of Cyrus, and the Persians, fashioned a governement, such as might best be: So much more profitable and gratious is doctrine by ensample, then by rule. So haue I laboured to doe in the person of Arthure: whome I conceive, after his long education by Timon, to whom he was by Merlin delivered to be brought up, so soone as he was borne of the Lady Igrayne, to have seene in a dream or vision the Faery Queen, with whose excellent beauty ravished, he awaking resolved to seeke her out; and so being by Merlin armed, and by Timon throughly instructed, he went to seeke her forth in Faerye land. In that Faery Queene I meane glory in my generall intention, but in my particular I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faery land. And yet, in some places els, I doe otherwise shadow her. For considering she beareth two persons, the one of a most royall Queene or Empresse, the other of a most vertuous and beautifull Lady, this latter part in some places I doe expresse in Belphoebe, fashioning her name according to your owne excellent conceipt of Cynthia, (Phoebe and Cynthia being both names of Diana.) So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette forth magnificence in particular; which vertue, for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest, and conteineth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the deedes of Arthure applyable to that vertue, which I write of in that booke. But of the xii. other vertues, I make xii. other knights the patrones, for the more variety of the history: Of which these three bookes contayn three. The first of the knight of the Redcrosse, in whome I expresse Holynes: The seconde of Sir Guyon, in whome I sette forth Temperaunce: The third of Britomartis, a Lady Knight, in whome I picture Chastity. But, because the beginning of the whole worke seemeth abrupte, and as depending upon other antecedents, it needs that ye know the occasion of these three knights seuerall adventures. For the Methode of a Poet historical is not such, as of an Historiographer. For an Historiographer discourseth of affayres orderly as they were donne, accounting as well the times as the actions; but a Poet thrusteth into the middest, even where it most concerneth him, and there recoursing to the thinges forepaste, and divining of thinges to come, maketh a pleasing Analysis of all. The beginning therefore of my history, if it were to be told by an Historiographer, should be the twelfth booke, which is the last; where I devise that the Faery Queene kept her Annuall feaste xii. dayes; uppon which xii. severall dayes, the occasions of the xii. severall adventures hapned, which, being undertaken by xii. severall knights, are in these xii. books severally handled and discoursed. The first was this. In the beginning of the feast, there presented him selfe a tall clownishe younge man, who falling before the Queene of Faries desired a boone (as the manner then was) which during that feast she might not refuse; which was that hee might have the atchievement of any adventure, which during that feaste should happen: that being graunted, he rested him on the floore, unfitte through his rusticity for a better place. Soone after entred a faire Ladye in mourning weedes, riding on a white Asse, with a dwarfe behind her leading a warlike steed, that bore the Armes of a knight, and his speare in the dwarfes hand. Shee, falling before the Queene of Faeries, complayned that her father and mother, an ancient King and Queene, had bene by an huge dragon many years shut up in a brasen Castle, who thence suffred them not to yssew; and therefore besought the Faery Queene to assygne her some one of her knights to take on him that exployt. Presently that clownish person, upstarting, desired that adventure: whereat the Queene much wondering, and the Lady much gainesaying, yet he earnestly importuned his desire. In the end the Lady told him, that unlesse that armour which she brought, would serve him (that is, the armour of a Christian man specified by Saint Paul, vi. Ephes.) that he could not succeed in that enterprise; which being forthwith put upon him, with dewe furnitures thereunto, he seemed the goodliest man in al that company, and was well liked of the Lady. And eftesoones taking on him knighthood, and mounting on that straunge Courser, he went forth with her on that adventure: where beginneth the first booke, viz. A gentle knight was pricking on the playne, &c. The second day ther came in a Palmer, bearing an Infant with bloody hands, whose Parents he complained to have bene slayn by an Enchaunteresse called Acrasia; and therfore craved of the Faery Queene, to appoint him some knight to performe that adventure; which being assigned to Sir Guyon, he presently went forth with that same Palmer: which is the beginning of the second booke, and the whole subject thereof. The third day there came in a Groome, who complained before the Faery Queene, that a vile Enchaunter, called Busirane, had in hand a most faire Lady, called Amoretta, whom he kept in most grievous torment, because she would not yield him the pleasure of her body. Whereupen Sir Scudamour, the lover of that Lady, presently tooke on him that adventure. But being vnable to performe it by reason of the hard Enchauntments, after long sorrow, in the end met with Britomartis, who succoured him, and reskewed his loue. But by occasion hereof many other adventures are intermedled; but rather as Accidents then intendments: As the love of Britomart, the overthrow of Marinell, the misery of Florimell, the vertuousnes of Belphoebe, the lasciviousnes of Hellenora, and many the like. Thus much, Sir, I have briefly overronne to direct your understanding to the wel-head of the History; that from thence gathering the whole intention of the conceit, ye may as in a handfull gripe al the discourse, which otherwise may happily seeme tedious and confused. So, humbly craving the continuance of your honorable favour towards me, and th' eternall establishment of your happines, I humbly take leave. 23. Ianuary 1589, Yours most humbly affectionate, ED. SPENSER. Spenser's purpose being to show the labour of man heavenward through all his powers for good, and what is known as a system of Ethics being an attempt to discriminate these powers, account for each, and assign to it a name, the "Faerie Queene may, of course, be said to give Spenser's poetical view of Ethics in action. The whole study of Moral Philosophy is divided into Ethics, which treat of the individual, and Politics, which treat of the community. Spenser's plan, as this letter shows, was in one poem of twelve books-of which we have only six and a fragment of a seventh-to deal with powers of the individual life, Ethics, and here to represent Arthur as Prince; and in another large poem to represent the ideal community, Politics. with Arthur King. What we have, therefore, is little more than the execution of a fourth part of the whole design. Spenser planned for himself an ethical system that accorded with his spiritual aim. In Plato's "Republic" there were said to be four Cardinal Virtues Courage, Temperance, Justice, Wisdom. In the "Protagoras" Plato added to these Holiness (ὁσιότης; the εὐσέβεια frequently mentioned as а virtue by the Socrates of Xenophon). Aristotle omitted this, distinctly separating Ethics from Religion. In Aristotle's Ethics the Virtues specified are Courage (àropeía); Temperance (owppooúvn); Liberality (ev@epiórns); Magnificence (ueyaλorpenela); (ἐλευθεριότης); (μεγαλοπρεπεία) Magnanimity (μεγαλοψυχία); Laudable Ambition (piλoriuía); Mildness of a Regulated Temper (paórns); (φιλοτιμία) Courtesy, or Regulated Conduct in Society (described, but unnamed); Regulation of Boastfulness, which includes avoiding of the affectation of humility, in fact, sincerity of manner (also without a specific name); Social Pliability of Wit, that is, the power of being, in the honest sense of the words, all things to all men (EUTρateλía); Justice (dikaloσún). Modesty Aristotle did not reckon among virtues, because he considered it to be rather a feeling than a state. Having discussed these virtues in the third, fourth, and fifth books of his Ethics, Aristotle passed in the sixth book to the Intellectual Virtues, Philosophy and Wisdom, including Prudence (eùßová), Apprehension (σúveσis), and Considerateness (yvun). His seventh book, upon Pleasure, included discussion of Incontinence and Intemperance, and his eighth and ninth books were upon Friendship. In this system there was a continuous analysis, without any attempt to make up some definite number of virtues. the time of Spenser, Aristotle's teaching had been formulated into a system which divided the virtues into three sets, Intellectual, Moral, and Theological. The Intellectual were Knowledge, leading to Art, and Wisdom, leading to Prudence. The Moral Virtues were twelve, the first four of them called Cardinal, as those on which the others hinged. The Cardinal Virtues were Prudence, mother of all, Justice, Courage, Temperance. The other eight were Courtesy, Liberality, Magnificence, Magnanimity, Philotimia (Laudable Ambition), Truth, Friendship, Entrapalia (Social Pliability of Wit). The Theological Virtues were Faith, Hope, and Charity. In In Spenser's "Faerie Queene" there is no slavish 1 Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail But Let her know her place; She is the second, not the first. A higher hand must make her mild, For she is earthly of the mind, Tennyson's "In Memoriam." following of this or any system. He plans his work as a poet. His theme is religious. The Faerie Queene, Gloriana, stands for the glory of God, a Faerie Knight is a spiritual power, and faerie means throughout spiritual. He begins, therefore, with Religion; and as Una, the type of Truth, is associated with Religion whenever the Red Cross Knight, St. George, who represents the Christian Warrior or Christian England battling for the Faith, is not misled into superstition, it may be said that Truth, which had a place among the twelve Moral Virtues, is represented here. From the First Book, of Religion, the first requisite of a pure mind, Spenser passed in the Second Book to Temperance, the corresponding need of a pure body and restraint upon all forms of earthly desire; of Temperance Sir Guyon is the knight. Next Spenser went on to the first great bond of life and strongest of all powers that aid in the battle heavenward, Love. To this he gave two books with their matter very closely interwoven, the subject being thus divided: Book the Third, Love seeking marriage, Chastity, of which Britomart is representative; Book the Fourth, Love in all other human forms, Friendship, of which the knights are Cambel and Triamond. But Love needs to be joined to Justice, the next great bond of society, and the due companion of love. It is to Artegal, the knight of Justice, that Britomart seeks to be joined. The Fifth Book, therefore, was of Justice. Then followed in the Sixth Book, and in the Seventh, of which the subject is known from a fragment, the diffused counterparts of love and justice that temper the relations of life even among strangers, Courtesy and Constancy. As Love must be joined to Justice, Justice to Love, so Courtesy, that bids us yield our own opinions and desires on all but points of duty to the comfort even of a stranger, must be joined to Constancy, that keeps the mind firm as a rock where duty is concerned. But even then, Courtesy adds its grace to Constancy. So Spenser utters the strictest doom of Justice through the lips of Mercilla, who is a type of Mercy. It is not possible to guess what would have been the theme of the next four books, had they been written. The twelfth, Spenser has told us, would have knitted all the allegories into one at the Court of Gloriana. One virtue in the old technical list was Magnificence. This Spenser said that he assigned to Arthur; and as Arthur distinctly represents the bearer of the grace of God, without which man by his own deeds cannot attain, there can be no question of the fitness of the attribute of greatness to that which is done by help of divine grace for man. In every book there is a fixed place the eighth canto for this intervention, which, from Spenser's religious point of view, was inseparable from the argument. "Ne let," he says— "Ne let the man ascribe it to his skill That thorough Grace hath gainéd victory. If any strength we have, it is to ill: But all the good is God's, both power and eke will." The only one of six books in which Arthur does not intervene in the eighth canto is that of Chastity; for Spenser held the doctrine afterwards expressed by Milton that no evil thing hath hurtful power o'er true Virginity. But the close union of the third and fourth books is expression of one virtue in many forms, and the usual intervention in the eighth canto of the fourth book makes the very characteristic exception in the case of Britomart no interruption to the plan of the whole poem. The allegory of the Red Cross Knight, which has for its theme English religion, had to be set forth in the volume of this Library by which that theme was illustrated. Therefore I say here no more of it than is necessary to show its relation to the rest of the poem. Thus it begins with the Red Cross Knight, the Christian clothed in the whole armour of righteousness, setting forth upon his assigned duty, to overcome the Devil. The knight is in fellowship with his guide Una, who is Truth, and whose name, derived from the Latin for " one," denotes Truth's singleness, while her opposite, Falsehood, is personified with a name from the Latin for "two," Duessa, indicating doubleness. As one that inly mournd, so was she sad, V. So pure and innocent, as that same lambe, She was in life and every vertuous lore: And by descent from Royall lynage came Of ancient Kinges and Queenes, that had of yore Their scepters stretcht from East to Westerne shore, And all the world in their subjection held;, Till that infernall feend with foule uprore Forwasted all their land, and them expeld; Whom to avenge she had this Knight from far compeld. VI. Behind her farre away a Dwarfe did lag, That lasie seemd, in being ever last, Or weariéd with bearing of her bag The Dwarf in the last stanza represents the Flesh and its needments, or, when the allegory becomes national, the body of the people. The first canto contains an introductory allegory of the world figured as a wood, and its broad beaten road that leads to the Cave of Error. After a contest with Error, represented as a dragon, the Red Cross Knight, with Una and the Dwarf, retraces his way, and presently meets Archimago, father of wiles, the Devil, in guise of a hermit. The allegory now begins to trace the separation of Christendom from Truth by the wiles of Satan, whom Spenser, keenly combatant against what he held to be the corruptions of the Roman Catholic Church, regarded as the founder of Catholicism. The allegory starts from the primitive times of the Church, and representing Archimago as a hermit, dates from them the beginning of the separation of the Red Cross Knight from Truth. XXIX. At length they chaunst to meet upon the way An aged Sire, in long blacke weedes yclad, His feete all bare, his beard all hoarie gray, And by his belt his booke he hanging had : Sober he seemde, and very sagely sad, And to the ground his eyes were lowly bent, Simple in shew, and voide of malice bad; And all the way he prayed as he went, And often knockt his brest, as one that did repent. The Knight and his companions are sheltered in the Arch-deceiver's house. XXXIV. A litle lowly Hermitage it was, Downe in a dale, hard by a forests side, Far from resort of people that did pas In traveill to and froe: a litle wyde There was an holy chappell edifyde, Wherein the Hermite dewly wont to say His holy thinges each morne and eventyde : Thereby a christall streame did gently play, Which from a sacred fountaine welléd forth alway. The sun's rays became hot, and Duessa was not framed to endure the heat of the day. They went to a wood where Fradubio and Frælissa were found transformed to trees, "till they be bathed in a living well. The allegory represents in Fradubio the follower of a pure Platonic philosophy (Fræelissa), who is drawn to the false faith (Duessa), discovers its abomination, and becomes then powerless for life and action. He vegetates with his philosophy until the water of life, knowledge of Christian truth, shall give them back their energies. In the third canto the song returns to Una following her knight, and daily seeking him through woods and wastes. Till, seeing by her side the Lyon stand, With suddeine feare her pitcher downe she threw, XII. Full fast she fled, ne ever lookt behynd, And home she came, whereas her mother blynd Dame Una, weary Dame, and entrance did requere : XIII. Which when none yielded, her unruly Page And thrise nine hundred Aves she was wont to say. XIV. And to augment her painefull penaunce more, This represents Reason opening the way for Truth to enter the house of Ignorance and Superstition. At night came Kirkrapine. And all that he by right or wrong could find, Unto this house he brought, and did bestow Upon the daughter of this woman blind, Abessa, daughter of Corceca slow. Kirkrapine is the hireling, of whatever grade, who enters the Church, whether as monk, abbot, or archbishop, only for the worldly good he can take out of it the plunder he can get. He was slain by the lion, and "the thirsty land drank up his life." The lion, with his paw on the slain Kirkrapine, might typify Henry VIII. when he broke up the monasteries. Leaving the house of Ignorance and Superstition, followed for a time by "the fearful twain, half mad through malice and revenging will," Una found, as she thought, her Red Cross Knight, but it was Archimago in his guise, and bearing his "like seeming shield." She joined him. He professed that he had left her only for pursuit of a strong felon; and as they rode together they were met by another of the faithless Saracens, Lawlessness, Sans loy, the brother of Sansfoy. Archimago, overthrown by him, was found to be his friend. Then Una became captive to Sansloy, who slew the lion when it would defend her. Reason cannot resist the brute force of Lawlessness. The part of Reason in the allegory has been played, that of Divine Grace is to follow, and this is an ingenious way of bringing the lion to his end. In the next canto, the fourth, Spenser represents the Red Cross Knight, who has taken Duessa for his faith, led by her to the House of Pride. [CANTO IV.] IV. A stately Pallace built of squared bricke, Which cunningly was without morter laid, Whose wals were high, but nothing strong nor thick, That purest skye with brightnesse they dismaid : Full of faire windowes and delightful bowres : V. It was a goodly heape for to behould, And spake the praises of the workmans witt; But full great pittie, that so faire a mould Did on so weake foundation ever sitt : For on a sandie hill, that still did flitt And fall away, it mounted was full hie, That every breath of heaven shakéd itt: And all the hinder partes, that few could spie, Were ruinous and old, but painted cunningly. VI. Arrivéd there, they passéd in forth right; Of her, that was the Lady of that Pallace bright. Then follows an allegory of the relation of Catholicism to earthly pride and pomp. Lucifera, Pride herself, whom Duessa serves, rides forth in state. XVII. So forth she comes, and to her coche does clyme, Adornéd all with gold and girlonds gay, That seemd as fresh as Flora in her prime; And strove to match, in roiall rich array, Great Junoes golden chayre; the which, they say, The gods stand gazing on, when she does ride To Joves high hous through heavens bras-paved way, Drawne of fayre Pecocks, that excell in pride, And full of Argus eyes their tayles dispredden wide. XVIII. But this was drawne of six unequall beasts, On which her six sage Counsellours did ryde, Taught to obay their bestiall beheasts, With like conditions to their kindes applyde: Of which the first, that all the rest did guyde, |