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Descends to Hell: there creature never passed
That back returned without heavenly grace;

But dreadful furies, which their chains have brast,1
And damned sprights, sent forth to make ill men aghast.

By that same way the direful dames do drive
Their mournful chariot filled with rusty blood,
And down to Pluto's house are come belive :2
Which passing through, on every side them stood
The trembling ghosts with sad amazed mood,
Chattering their iron teeth, and staring wide
With stony eyes; and all the hellish brood
Of fiends infernal flocked on every side,

To gaze on earthly wight that with the Night durst ride.

Book I. Canto V.

UNA AMONG THE SATYRS.

The wild wood-gods, arrived in the place,
There find the virgin, doleful, desolate,
With ruffled raiments and fair blubbered face,
As her outrageous foe had left her late,

And trembling yet through fear of former hate.
All stand amazed at so uncouth sight,
And gin to pity her unhappy state;
All stand astonied3 at her beauty bright,
In their rude eyes unworthy of so woeful plight.

She, more amazed, in double dread doth dwell; And every tender part for fear does shake. As, when a greedy wolf, through hunger fell,4 A seely lamb far from the flock does take, Of whom he means his bloody feast to make, A Lion spies fast running towards him, The innocent prey in haste he does forsake; Which, quit from death, yet quakes in every limb With change of fear to see the Lion look so grim:

Such fearful fit assayed her trembling heart,
Ne word to speak, ne joint to move she had:
The salvage nation feel her secret smart,
And read her sorrow in her countenance sad :
Their frowning foreheads with rough horns yclad,

And rustic horror, all aside do lay;

And, gently grinning, show a semblance glad
To comfort her; and, fear to put away,

Their backward bent knees teach her humbly to obey.

The doubtful damsel dare not yet commit
Her single person to their barbarous truth;
But still twixt fear and hope amazed does sit,
Late learned1 what harm to hasty trust ensu'th.
They, in compassion of her tender youth,
And wonder of her beauty soverain,

Are won with pity and unwonted ruth;
And, all prostrate upon the lowly plain,

Do kiss her feet, and fawn on her with countenance fain.

Their hearts she guesseth by their humble guise, And yields her to extremity of time.

So from the ground she fearless doth arise,
And walketh forth without suspéct of crime.
They, all as glad as birds of joyous Prime,2
Thence lead her forth, about her dancing round,
Shouting and singing all a shepherd's rhyme;
And, with green branches strowing all the ground,
Do worship her as Queen with olive garland crowned.
And all the way their merry pipes they sound,
That all the woods with doubled echo ring;
And with their hornèd feet do wear the ground,
Leaping like wanton kids in pleasant Spring.
So to-wards old Sylvanus they her bring;
Who, with the noise awakèd, cometh out
To weet3 the cause, his weak steps governing,
And aged limbs, on cypress stadle stout;
And with an ivy-twine his waist is girt about.
Book I. Canto VI.

PRINCE ARTHUR.

At last she chanced by good hap to meet
A goodly knight, fair marching by the way,
Together with his squire arrayèd meet:
His glitterand armour shinèd far away,
Like glauncing light of Phoebus' brightest ray;
From top to toe no place appeared bare,
That deadly dint of steel endanger may.

Athwart his breast a bauldric brave he ware,1

That shined, like twinkling stars, with stones most
precious rare.

And in the midst thereof one precious stone
Of wondrous worth, and eke of wondrous mights,
Shaped like a Lady's head,2 exceeding shone,
Like Hesperus amongst the lesser lights,
And strove for to amaze the weaker sights:
Thereby his mortal blade full comely hong3
In ivory sheath, ycarved with curious slights,
Whose hilts were burnished gold, and handle strong
Of mother pearl; and buckled with a golden tong.5

4

His haughty helmet, horrid all with gold,
Both glorious brightness and great terror bred:
For all the crest a Dragon did enfold
With greedy paws, and over all did spread
His golden wings: his dreadful hideous head,
Close couched on the beaver, seemed to throw
From flaming mouth bright sparkles fiery red,
That sudden horror to faint hearts did show;
And scaly tail was stretched adown his back full low.

Upon the top of all his lofty crest,

A bunch of hairs, discoloured diversely,

8

With sprinkled pearl and gold full richly drest,
Did shake, and seemed to dance for jollity,
Like to an almond tree ymounted high

On top of green SelinisR all alone,

With blossoms brave bedeckèd daintily :
Whose tender locks do tremble every one

At every little breath that under heaven is blown.

Book I. Canto VII.

THE CAVE OF DESPAIR.

Ere long they come where that same wicked wight 10
His dwelling has, low in an hollow Cave,
For-underneath 11 a craggy cliff ypight,12
Dark, doleful, dreary, like a greedy grave,
That still for carrion carcases doth crave:

1 Wore.

2 This was a likeness of the mighty Gloriana, Queen of Faery-land, whom Prince Arthur served.

6 Rough.

3 Hung. 4 Devices. 5 Tongue, strap.

7 Feathers, plumes.

8 Variously coloured.

On top whereof aye dwelt the ghastly owl,
Shrieking his baleful note, which ever drave
Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl;
And all about it wandering ghosts did wail and howl.
And all about old stocks and stubs of trees,
Whereon nor fruit nor leaf was ever seen,
Did hang upon the ragged rocky knees;
On which had many wretches hangèd been,
Whose carcases were scattered on the green,
And thrown about the cliffs. Arrivèd there,
That bare-head knight, for dread and doleful teen,1
Would fain have fled, ne durst approachen near;
But the other forced him stay, and comforted in fear.

That darksome Cave they enter, where they find That cursed man, low sitting on the ground, Musing full sadly in his sullen mind:

His griesy2 locks, long growen and unbound,
Disordered hung about his shoulders round,
And hid his face, through which his hollow eyn
Looked deadly dull, and starèd as astound ;3
His raw-bone cheeks, through penury and pine,
Were shrunk into his jaws, as he did never dine.

His garment, nought but many ragged clouts,
With thorns together pinned and patchèd was,
The which his naked sides he wrapt abouts;
And him beside there lay upon the grass
A dreary corse, whose life away did pass,
All wallowed in his own yet luke-warm blood,
That from his wound yet welled fresh, alas!
In which a rusty knife fast fixèd stood,

And made an open passage for the gushing flood.
Book I. Canto IX.

MINISTERING ANGELS.

And is there care in heaven? And is there love

In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,

That may compassion of their evils move?

There is: else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts. But O! the exceeding grace
Of highest God that loves his creatures so,
And all his works with mercy doth embrace,

That blessed Angels he sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe.

How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
To come to succour us that succour want!
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant,1
Against foul fiends to aid us militant!
They for us fight, they watch and duly ward.
And their bright Squadrons round about us plant;
And all for love, and nothing for reward.

Oh! why should heavenly God to men have such regard?

Book II. Canto VIII.

PRIMEVAL BRITAIN.2

Thy name, O soverain Queen !3 thy realm, and race, From this renownèd Prince derived are,

Who mightily upheld that royal mace

Which now thou bear'st, to thee descended far
From mighty kings and conquerors in war,
Thy fathers and great grandfathers of old,
Whose noble deeds above the Northern star
Immortal fame forever hath enrolled;

As in that old man's book they were in order told.

The land which warlike Britons now possess,
And therein have their mighty empire raised,
In antique times was salvage wilderness,
Unpeopled, unmanured, unproved, unpraised;
Ne was it Ísland then, ne was it peised 1
Amid the ocean waves, ne was it sought
Of merchants far for profits therein praised;
But was all desolate, and of some thought

By sea to have been from the Celtic mainland brought.

1 Herald, messenger.

2 Prince Arthur and Sir Guyon, in the course of their wanderings, visit the Lady Alma, and are shown by her over her castle, the House of Temperance, where, in a half ruined upper-chamber they discover Eumnestes, the "man of infinite remembrance." He is "an old, old man, half blind," sitting among his worm-eaten books and parchments, "tossing and turning them withouten end," and waited upon by a little boy called Anamnestes, who brings him the books he cannot reach. The knights come upon two ancient books in this library, both of which are of surpassing interest to them. The name of that selected by Prince Arthur is Briton Moniments, “a chronicle of Briton kings, from Brute to Uther's rayne, ," and Sir Guyon's is called Antiquitee of Faery Lond, containing the "rolls of the Elfin Emperours, till time of Gloriane. It is from the first of these that the account of primeval Britain is supposed to have been taken. Spenser's Chronicle is, in fact, a versified reduction from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History

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