Edmund Spenser

“ Edmund Spenser—The Shepherd's Calendar.—Having noticed these lesser lights of the age of Spenser, we return to a brief consideration of that poet, who, of all others, is the highest exponent and representative of literature in the age of Queen Elizabeth, and whose works are full of contemporary history.
Spenser was born in the year of the accession of Queen Mary, 1553, at London, and of what he calls "a house of ancient fame." He was educated at Cambridge, where he early displayed poetic taste and power, and he went, after leaving college, to reside as a tutor in the North of England. ”

“ Edmund Spenser and the worke it selfe, lest I should seeme to offer injury to his worth, by others so much celebrated. Hee was borne in London of an ancient and noble family, and brought up in the Universitie of Cambridge, where (as the fruites of his after labours doe manifest) he mispent not his time. After this he became secretary to Arthur Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Deputy of Ireland, a valiant and worthy governour, and shortly after, for his services to the Crowne, he had bestowed upon him by Queene Elizabeth, 3,000 acres of land in the countie of Corke. ”

“ Birch in 1731, Church in 1758, Upton in that same year, Todd in 1805, Aikin in 1806, Robinson in 1825, Mitford in 1839, Prof. Craik in 1845, Prof. Child in 1855, Mr. Collier in 1862, Dr. Grosart in 1884, have re-told what little there is to tell, with various additions and subtractions. Our external sources of information are, then, extremely scanty. Fortunately our internal sources are somewhat less meagre. No poet ever more emphatically lived in his poetry than did Spenser. The Muses were, so to speak, his own bosom friends, to whom he opened all his heart. ”

“ Edmund Spenser, the greatest of our allegoric poets, was born (1553) in East Smithfield, in London, and was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. He had the good fortune to secure the friendship of the all-powerful Earl of Leicester, of Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh. By their introduction to Queen Elizabeth, he obtained an annuity of £50 a year; and besides being employed by Leicester on a mission to France, went to Ireland in 1580 with Lord Grey de Wilton. ”

“ Delight is laid abed; and pleasure past;
No sun now shines; clouds have all overcast.
"Now leave, ye shepheards' boys, your merry glee;
My Muse is hoarse and weary of this stound:
Here will I hang my pipe upon this tree,
Was never pipe of reed did better sound:
Winter is come that blows the bitter blast,
And after winter dreary death does hast.
"Gather together, ye my little flock,
My little flock, that was to me so lief;
Let me, ah! let me in your folds ye lock,
Ere the breme winter breed you greater grief. ”

“ The whole land was saturated with an unexpressed poetry, and the imagination of young and old was so fired with patriotism and noble endeavor that nothing seemed impossible. Add to this intense delight in life, with all its mystery, beauty, and power, the keen zest for learning which filled the air that men breathed, and it is easy to understand that the time was ripe for a new and brilliant epoch in literature. First among the poetic geniuses of the Elizabethan period came Edmund Spenser with his Faerie Queene, the allegory of an ideal chivalry. ”

“ The problem for Spenser was a double one: how to commend poetry at all to a generation which thought it effeminate trifling, [298] and how he, Master Edmund Spenser, of imagination all compact, could commend his poetry to Master John Bull, the most practical of mankind in his habitual mood, but at that moment in a passion of religious anxiety about his soul. Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci was not only an irrefragable axiom because a Latin poet had said it, but it exactly met the case in point. ”

“ In England numerous Eclogues made their appearance. Amongst the earliest and the best of these were Spenser's. It would perhaps be unjust to treat this modern pastoral literature as altogether an affectation. However unreal, the pastoral world had its charms—a pleasant feeling imparted of emancipation, a deep quietude, a sweet tranquillity. If vulgar men discovered their new worlds, and trafficked and bustled there, why should not the poet discover his Arcadia, and repose at his ease in it, secure from the noises of feet coming and going over the roads of the earth? ”

“ We know nothing but what is good about Edmund Spenser; he seems to have been a kind man, loving everything true and beautiful, and when we have a chance to read his writings we shall feel certain that this is so. Besides the “Shepherd’s Calendar” he wrote a book in prose about Ireland while he was there, and it was also at Kilcolman Castle that his great poem, “The Faery Queene,” or as we should say “The Fairy Queen,” was written. This is a long, long poem, and was planned to be written in twelve parts, but it is probable that only six of them were ever finished. ”

“ A sonnet addressed to Harvey, is dated 'Dublin this xviij of July, 1586.' Again, in the course of the decad now under consideration, Spenser received a grant of land in Cork—of 3,028 acres, out of the forefeited estates of the Earl of Desmond. All these circumstances put together make it probable, and more than probable, that Spenser remained in Ireland after Lord Grey's recall. How thorough his familiarity with the country grew to be, appears from the work concerning it which he at last produced. The years 1586-7-8 were eventful both for England and for Spenser. ”

“ Her snowy brest was bare to readie spoyle
2 Of hungry eies, which n'ote therewith be fild,
And yet through languour of her late sweet toyle,
4 Few drops, more cleare then Nectar, forth distild,
That like pure Orient perles adowne it trild,
6 And her faire eyes sweet smyling in delight,
Moystened their fierie beames, with which she thrild
8 Fraile harts, yet quenched not; like starry light
Which sparckling on the silent waues, does seeme more bright. ”

“ This is the last complete poem Spenser wrote. No doubt he entertained the idea of completing his Faerie Queene; and perhaps it was after 1596 that he composed the two additional cantos, which are all, so far as is known, that he actually wrote. But the last poem completed and published in his lifetime was the Prothalamion. This second visit to England at last came to an end. It was probably in 1597 that he returned once more to Kilcolman. ”

“ He urges the stationing numerous garrisons; he is for the abolishing native customs. Such proposals won a not unfavourable hearing at that time. They have been admired many a time since. It is to this work of Spenser's that Protector Cromwell alludes in a letter to his council in Ireland, in favour of William Spenser, grandson of Edmund Spenser, from whom an estate of lands in the barony of Fermoy, in the county of Cork, descended on him. 'His grandfather,' he writes, 'was that Spenser who, by his writings touching the reduction of the Irish to civility, brought on him the odium of that nation ”

“ He here set forth special teachings of his great master Plato, and abandoned himself to the high spiritual contemplations he loved. But perhaps the finest of these four hymns is the second—that in honour of Beauty. Beauty was indeed the one worship of Spenser's life—not mere material beauty—not 'the goodly hew of white and red with which the cheekes are sprinkled,' or 'the sweete rosy leaves so fairly spred upon the lips,' or 'that golden wyre,' or 'those sparckling stars so bright,' but that inner spiritual beauty, of which fair hair and bright eyes are but external expressions. ”

“ Probably, however, then, as in later days, the most ardent appreciators of of Spenser were the men of the same craft with himself—the men who too, though in a different degree, or in a different kind, possessed the 'vision and the faculty divine.' This great estimation of the Faerie Queene was due not only to the intrinsic charms of the poem—to its exquisitely sweet melody, its intense pervading sense of beauty, its abundant fancifulness, its subtle spirituality—but also to the time of its appearance. For then nearly two centuries no great poem had been written in the English tongue. ”

“ Which hong adowne his side in twisted gold
25 And tassels gay. Wyde wonders over all
Of that same hornes great vertues weren told,
Which had approved bene in uses manifold.
IV
Was never wight that heard that shrilling sownd,
But trembling feare did feel in every vaine;
30 Three miles it might be easie heard around,
And Ecchoes three answerd it selfe againe:
No false enchauntment, nor deceiptfull traine,
Might once abide the terror of that blast,
But presently was voide and wholly vaine:
35 No gate so strong, no locke so firme and fast,
But with that percing noise flew open quite, or brast. ”

“ Had his destitution been so complete, he would have accepted the pieces for his family, even though 'he had no time to spend them himself.' It must be remembered that he was still in receipt of a pension from the crown; a pension of no very considerable amount, perhaps, but still large enough to satisfy the pangs of hunger. But numerous passages might be quoted to show that he died in somewhat straitened circumstances. It was said, some thirty-four years after Spenser's death, that in his hurried flight from Ireland the remaining six books of the Faerie Queene were lost. ”

“ As if she had a feuer fit, did quake,
And euery daintie limbe with horrour shake;
And euer and anone the rosy red,
Flasht through her face, as it had been a flake
Of lightning, through bright heauen fulmined;
At last the passion past she thus him answered.
Faire Sir, I let you weete, that from the howre vi
I taken was from nourses tender pap,
I haue beene trained vp in warlike stowre,
To tossen speare and shield, and to affrap
The warlike ryder to his most mishap;
Sithence I loathed haue my life to lead,
As Ladies wont, in pleasures wanton lap,
To finger the fine needle and nyce thread ”

“ Ne ought he did, but with fast fixed eies
He gazed still vpon that snowy mayd;
Whom euer as he did the more auize,
The more to be true Florimell he did surmize.
As when two sunnes appeare in the azure [272] skye, xix
Mounted in Phœbus charet fierie bright,
Both darting forth faire beames to each mans eye,
And both adorn’d with lampes of flaming light,
All that behold so strange prodigious sight,
Not knowing natures worke, nor what to weene,
Are rapt with wonder, and with rare affright.
So stood Sir Marinell, when he had seene
The semblant of this false by his faire beauties Queene. ”

“ And ever as he rode, his hart did earne
25 To prove his puissance in battell brave
Upon his foe, and his new force to learne;
Upon his foe, a Dragon° horrible and stearne.
IV
A lovely Ladie° rode him faire beside,
Upon a lowly Asse more white then snow,
30 Yet she much whiter, but the same did hide
Under a vele, that wimpled was full low,
And over all a blacke stole she did throw,
As one that inly mournd: so was she sad,
And heavie sat upon her palfrey slow;
35 Seemed in heart some hidden care she had,
And by her in a line a milke white lambe she lad. ”

“ The bowels of wide Fraunce, a forlorne Dame,
And taught her first how to be conquered;
Since which, with sundrie spoiles she hath beene ransacked.
Let Scaldis tell, and let tell Hania, xxiv
And let the marsh of Estham bruges tell,
What colour were their waters that same day,
And all the moore twixt Eluersham and Dell,
With bloud of Henalois, which therein fell.
How oft that day did sad Brunchildis see
The greene shield dyde in dolorous vermell?
That not Scuith guiridh [775] it [776] mote seeme to bee,
But rather y Scuith gogh, signe of sad crueltee [777] . ”

“ In Edmund Spenser, in whom the spirit of the age shows itself most vividly, we constantly meet with imitations of the Latin or Italian poets, which here and there aspire to be paraphrastic translations, and may be inferior to his originals, even to the modern ones, in delicacy of drawing, since he purposely selected their most successful passages: yet how thoroughly different a spirit do his works breathe in their total effect! ”

“ To scorne the ioy, that Ioue is glad to seeke;
We both are bound to follow heauens beheasts,
And tend our charges with obeisance meeke:
Spare, gentle sister, with reproch my paine to eeke.
And tell me, if that ye my sonne haue heard, xxiii
To lurke emongst your Nymphes in secret wize;
Or keepe their cabins: much I am affeard,
Least he like one of them him selfe disguize,
And turne his arrowes to their exercize:
So may he long himselfe full easie hide:
For he is faire and fresh in face and guize,
As any Nymph (let not it be enuyde.) ”

“ Whose flying feet so fast their way applyde,
That round about a cloud of dust did fly,
Which mingled all with sweate, did dim his eye.
He soone approched, panting, breathlesse, whot,
And all so soyld, that none could him descry;
His countenaunce was bold, and bashed not
For Guyons lookes, but scornefull eyglaunce at him shot.
Behind his backe he bore a brasen shield, xxxviii
On which was drawen faire, in colours fit,
A flaming fire in midst of bloudy field,
And round about the wreath this word was writ,
Burnt I do burne. Right well beseemed it,
To be the shield of some redoubted knight ”

“ Tho fast her clipping twixt his armes twaine,
2 Extremely ioyed in so happie sight,
And soone forgot his former sickly paine;
4 But she, the more to seeme such as she hight,
Coyly rebutted his embracement light;
6 Yet still with gentle +countenaunce+ retained,
Enough to hold a foole in vaine delight:
8 Him long she so with shadowes entertained,
As her Creatresse had in charge to her ordained. ”