With him went Danger, clothed in ragged weed
Made of bear's skin, that him more dreadful made;
Yet his own face was dreadful, ne did need
Strange horror to deform his grisly shade:
A net in the one hand, and a rusty blade
In the other was, this mischief, that mishap;
With the one his foes he threatened to invade,
With the other he his friends meant to enwrap;
For whom he could not kill he practised to entrap.
Next him was Fear, all armed from top to toe,
Yet thought himself not safe enough thereby,
But feared each shadow moving to or fro;
And his own arms when glittering he did spy,
Or clashing heard, he straight away did fly,
As ashes pale of hue, and winged-heeled ;
And evermore on Danger fixed his eye,
Gainst whom he always bent a brazen shield,
Which his right hand unarmed fearfully did wield.
With him went Hope in rank, a handsome maid,
Of cheerful look, and lovely to behold;
In silken samite she was light arrayed,
And her fair locks were woven up in gold:
She always smiled, and in her hand did hold
An holy-water-sprinkle, dipped in dew,
With which she sprinkled favours manifold
On whom she list, and did great liking shew,
Great liking unto many, but true love to few.
And after them Dissemblance and Suspect
Marched in one rank, yet an unequal pair;
For she was gentle and of mild aspect,
Courteous to all, and seeming debonair,
Goodly adorned, and exceeding fair;
Yet was that all but painted and purloined,
And her bright brows were decked with borrowed hair;
Her deeds were forged, and her words false-coined:
And always in her hand two clews of silk she twined:
But he was foul, ill-favoured, and grim,
Under his eyebrows looking still askance;
And, ever as Dissemblance laughed on him,
He lowered on her with dangerous eye-glance,
Showing his nature in his countenance;
His rolling eyes did never rest in peace,
But walked each where for fear of hid mischance,
Holding a lattice still before his face,
Through which he still did peep as forward he did pace.
Next him went Grief and Fury, matched yfered
Grief all in sable sorrowfully clad,
Down hanging his dull head with heavy cheer,
Yet inly being more than seeming sad;
A pair of pincers in his hand he had,
With which he pinched many to the heart,
That from thenceforth a wretched life they lad
In wilful languor and consuming smart,
Dying each day with inward wounds of Dolour's dart.
But Fury was full ill apparelled
In rags, that naked nigh she did appear,
With ghastly looks and dreadful drearihead;
For from her back her garments she did tear,
And from her head oft rent her snarled hair:
In her right hand a firebrand she did toss
About her head; still roaming here and there,
As a dismayed deer in chace embost,3
Forgetful of his safety, hath his right way lost.
After them went Displeasure and Pleasance;
He looking lumpish and full sullen sad,
And hanging down his heavy countenance;
She cheerful, fresh, and full of joyance glad,
As if no sorrow she ne felt ne drad,h
That evil-matched pair they seemed to be:
An angry wasp the one in a vial had,
The other in her's an honey lady-bee.
Thus marched these six couples forth in fair degree.
After all these there marched a most fair dame,
Led of two grisly villains; the one Despite,
The other cleped Cruelty by name:
She, doleful lady, like a dreary sprite
Hard run and wearied out.
'Entangled, knotted. h Dreaded.
Called by strong charms out of eternal night,
Had Death's own image figured in her face,
Full of sad signs, fearful to living sight;
Yet in that horror shewed a seemly grace,
And with her feeble feet did move a comely pace.
Her breast all naked, as nett ivory
Without adorn of gold or silver bright,
Wherewith the craftsman wonts it beautify,
Of her due honour was despoiled quite,
And a wide wound therein (O rueful sight!)
Entrenched deep with knife accursed keen,
Yet freshly bleeding forth her fainting sprite,
(The work of cruel hand) was to be seen,
That dyed in sanguine red her skin all snowy clean.
At that wide orifice her trembling heart
Was drawn forth, and in silver basin laid,
Quite through transfixed with a deadly dart,
And in her blood yet streaming fresh embayed;1
And those two villains (which her steps upstayed,
When her weak feet could scarcely her sustain,
And fading m vital powers gan to fade)
Her forward still with torture did constrain,
And ever more increased her consuming pain.
And after her the winged God himself
Came riding on a lion ravenous,
Taught to obey the message of that elf,
That man and beast with power imperious
Subdueth to his kingdom tyrannous:
His blindfold eyes he bade awhile unbind,
That his proud spoil, of that same dolorous
Fair dame, he might behold in perfect kind;
Which seen, he much rejoiced in his cruel mind.
Of which full proud, himself uprearing high,
He looked round about with stern disdain,
And did survey his goodly company,
And marshalled the evil-ordered train;
m It may be doubted if this be the right word. Perhaps it should be "began to vade "—that is, to pass away.
With that the darts which his right hand did strain
Full dreadfully he shook, that all did quake,
And clapped on high his coloured winges twain,
That all his menyn it afraid did make;
Tho, blinding him again, his way he forth did take.
Behind him was Reproach, Repentance, Shame;
Reproach the first, Shame next, Repent behind:
Repentance feeble, sorrowful, and lame;
Reproach despiteful, careless, and unkind;
Shame most ill-favoured, bestial, and blind:
Shame loured, Repentance sighed, Reproach did scold:
Reproach sharp wings, Repentance whips entwined,
Shame burning brand-irons in her hand did hold:
All three to each unlike, yet all made in one mould.
And after them a rude confused route
Of persons flocked, whose names is hard to read:
Amongst them was stern Strife, and Anger stout,
Unquiet Care, and fond Unthriftihead,
Lewd Loss of Time, and Sorrow seeming-dead,
Inconstant Change, and false Disloyalty,
Consuming Riotise, and guilty Dread
Of heavenly vengeance, faint Infirmity,
Vile Poverty, and, lastly, Death with Infamy.
There were full many moe P like maladies,
Whose names and natures I note readen a well;
So many moe as there be fantasies
In wavering women's wit, that none can tell,
Or pains in love, or punishments in hell;
All which disguised marched in masquing wise
About the chamber by the damozell,
And then returned, having marched thrice,
Into the inner room, from whence they first did rise.
A volume of poetry such as this, Spenser might fitly, and with some pride in the worth of the offering, as well as in all humility, dedicate, present, and consccrate, to the Most High, Mighty, and Magnificent Empress,
Company, attendants.
9 Know not (wot not) to read.
Elizabeth, to live with the eternity of her fame." The latter Books of the Fairy Queen have less continuity of splendour than the three first; but, besides innumerable single stanzas and short passages of exquisite beauty, they contain not a few pictures on a more extended canvass, which must be reckoned among the most remarkable in the work. Among others may be mentioned those of the Temple of Venus in the Tenth, and of the gathering of the rivers at the marriage of the Thames and the Medway, in the Eleventh Canto of the Fourth Book; those of the night spent by Sir Caledon among the shepherds in the Ninth, and of the Dance of the Graces in the Tenth Canto of Book Fifth; and that of the procession of the Seasons in the second of the Two Cantos of Mutability. But, passing over these more brilliant displays of an inventive and florid fancy, we will select, as our sample of this portion of the poem, one of its more soberly coloured passages, in which, nevertheless, there may perhaps be thought to be as much of" the vision and the faculty divine," though otherwise exercised, as in any of those we have yet quoted. The following, from the Second Canto of the Fifth Book, might seem to be a satire written in our own day on the folly and madness of fifty years ago, and it is difficult to believe that it was published two centuries before the events which it so strikingly prefigures:
There they beheld a mighty giant stand
Upon a rock, and holding forth on high
An huge great pair of balance in his hand,
With which he boasted, in his surquedry,
That all the world he would weigh equally,
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