Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 41

28. =shend.= Outs.h.i.+ne, shame, disgrace. From A.-S. _scendan_.

29. =my most kyndly nurse.= Although born in London, the poet was "descended from the ancient and honourable family of Spencer, of Althorpe in Northamptons.h.i.+re."

30. "When the order of the Knights Templar was suppressed in Edward the Second's reign, their London estate on the bank of the Thames was given over to the Knights of St. John; by these it was leased to the students of the Common Law, who, not finding a home at Cambridge or Oxford, were at that time in want of a habitation."--_Hales._

31. =stately place.= This stood in the gardens where the Outer Temple should have been. In 1580 it was occupied by the Earl of Leicester, and here Spenser was for a time entertained, as he a.s.serts in the following line. The great lord whom he mentions was Leicester.

32. "The want of whom I feel too well in my present friendless condition."

33. =fits not well.= It is not proper.

34. =n.o.bler peer.= The Earl of Ess.e.x.

35. Macaulay says of Lord Ess.e.x's expedition against Spain, in 1596, that it was "the most brilliant military exploit that was achieved on the Continent by English arms during the long interval which elapsed between the battle of Agincourt and that of Blenheim."

36. =Hercules two Pillors.= The rocky capes on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar. It was said that Hercules erected them to mark the western limit of his wanderings.

37. =Hesper.= Hesperus was the evening star, also sometimes regarded as the morning star, and hence called by Homer the bringer of light. See note on Lucifer, page 80 and page 189.

38. =Twins of Iove.= Castor and Pollux. Two heroic brothers who as a reward of their devotion to each other were placed among the stars in the constellation Gemini.

39. =bauldricke.= Belt, girdle, or sash. The "bauldricke of the heavens"

is the zodiac.

40. =Which.= In early English this p.r.o.noun was very commonly used instead of _who_ when referring to persons.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

EDMUND SPENSER was born in London about the year 1552. He was educated at Merchant Taylor's school, and in 1569 went to Cambridge University, where he entered Pembroke Hall as a sizar. In the same year his first poetical performances--translations from Petrarch and Du Bellay--were published in a miscellaneous collection without the name of the author.

At the University he was zealously devoted to the study of Latin and Greek literature, and there he made the acquaintance of several students who afterwards became men of note. In 1579 he visited Sir Philip Sidney at Penshurst, with whom he afterwards spent some time in London at the house of Sidney's uncle, the Earl of Leicester. In 1580 was published, but without his name, his first considerable poem, "The Shepheards Calendar"; and in the autumn of the same year he went to Ireland as secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, the new Lord Lieutenant. With the exception of a few brief visits made to England, the remainder of his life was spent partly in Dublin and partly at Kilcolman Castle on a grant of forfeited land in the county of Cork. Between 1580 and 1589 he wrote the first three books of "The Faerie Queene," and in 1590 they were published in London, through the influence of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had recently visited the poet in Ireland. In the summer of 1594 he married a lady named Elizabeth, probably the daughter of some English settler in Ireland; and in the following year he carried to London and published the second three books of "The Faerie Queene." At about the same time were published his "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," and his "Amoretti Sonnets," and an "Epithalamium" relating to his courts.h.i.+p and marriage. Returning to Ireland, he resumed his labor upon the half-completed "Faerie Queene," but it was rudely interrupted by the breaking out of an insurrection among the Irish. In 1598 Spenser's house was sacked and burned by the rebels, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he and his family escaped with their lives. Indeed, it is stated, on the authority of Ben Jonson, that one little child perished in the flames. Spenser returned to London in poverty and great distress, and on the 16th of January, 1599, he died in King Street, Westminster. He was buried in the Abbey.

Spenser has been very appropriately named "the poets' poet." "For," says Leigh Hunt, "he has had more idolatry and imitation from his brethren than all the rest put together. The old undramatic poets, Drayton, Browne, Drummond, and Giles and Phineas Fletcher, were as full of him as the dramatic were of Shakespeare. Milton studied and used him, calling him 'sage and serious Spenser'; and adding that he 'dared be known to think him a better teacher than Scotus and Aquinas.' Cowley said he became a poet by reading him. Dryden claimed him for a master. Pope said he read him with as much pleasure when he was old as when he was young.

Collins and Gray loved him. Thomson, Shenstone, and a host of inferior writers expressly imitated him. Burns, Byron, Sh.e.l.ley, and Keats made use of his stanza. Coleridge eulogized him."

Hazlitt says, "Of all the poets, Spenser is the most poetical." And Taine declares that no modern is more like Homer than he.

With reference to the peculiar forms of language--comparatively obsolete even when "The Faerie Queene" was composed--which are so marked a characteristic of Spenser's poetry, Hales says: "The subject he chose for his great work drew him into the midst of the old times of chivalry, and the literature that belonged to them. With such a subject the older forms of the language seemed to consort better. To him, too, perhaps, as to Virgil, the older words and word-forms seemed to give elevation and dignity. Moreover, an older dialect was probably to some extent his vernacular, as he had probably pa.s.sed his youth in Lancas.h.i.+re. Lastly, the only great poet who had preceded him, his great model, the t.i.tyrus of whom he 'his songs did lere,' was Chaucer. To him Chaucer's language may have seemed the one language of English poetry."

REFERENCES: Warton's _History of English Poetry_; Hazlitt's _Lectures on the English Poets_; Craik's _Spenser and his Poetry_; Morley's _English Writers_.

Thomas Wyatt.

A LOVE SONG.

THE LOVER COMPLAINETH OF THE UNKINDNESS OF HIS LOVE.

My lute, awake! perform the last Labor that thou and I shall waste; And end that I have now begun: And when this song is sung and past, My lute! be still, for I have done.

As to be heard where ear is none; As lead to grave in marble stone, My song may pierce her heart as soon; Should we then sing, or sigh, or moan?

No, no, my lute! for I have done.

The rock doth not so cruelly, Repulse the waves continually, As she my suit and affection: So that I am past remedy; Whereby my lute and I have done.

Proud of the spoil that thou hast got Of simple hearts thorough Love's shot, By whom, unkind, thou hast them won; Think not he hath his bow forgot, Although my lute and I have done.

Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain, That makest but game of earnest pain; Trow not alone under the sun Unquit to cause thy lovers plain, Although my lute and I have done.

May chance thee lie withered and old In winter nights, that are so cold, Plaining in vain unto the moon; Thy wishes then dare not be told: Care then who list, for I have done.

And then may chance thee to repent The time that thou hast lost and spent, To cause thy lovers sigh and swoon: Then shalt thou know beauty but lent, And wish and want, as I have done.

Now cease, my lute! This is the last Labor that thou and I shall waste; And ended is that we begun: Now is thy song both sung and past; My lute, be still, for I have done.

THE COURTIER'S LIFE.

In court to serve, decked with fresh array, Of sugared meats feeling the sweet repast; The life in banquets and sundry kinds of play, Amid the press of worldly looks to waste: Hath with it joined oft times such bitter taste, That whoso joyes such kind of life to hold, In prison joyes, fettered with chains of gold.

The Earl of Surrey.

FROM THE FOURTH BOOK OF VIRGIL'S "aeNEID."

--At the threshold of her chamber door The Carthage lords did on the Queen attend: The trampling steed, with gold and purple trapped, Chewing the foaming bit there fiercely stood.

Then issued she, awaited with great train, Clad in a cloak of Tyre embroidered rich.

Her quiver hung behind her back, her tress Knotted in gold, her purple vesture eke b.u.t.toned with gold. The Trojans of her train Before her go, with gladsome Iulus.

aeneas eke, the goodliest of the rout, Makes one of them, and joineth close the throng.

Like when Apollo leaveth Lycia, His wint'ring place, and Xanthus, stood likewise, To visit Delos his mother's mansion, Repairing eft and furnis.h.i.+ng her quire.

The Candians and the folk of Driopes, With painted Agathyrsi shout and cry, Environing the altars round about, When that he walks upon Mount Cynthus' top, His sparkled tress repressed with garlands soft Of tender leaves, and trussed up in gold, His quiver and darts clattering behind his back-- So fresh and l.u.s.ty did aeneas seem.

But to the hills and wild holts when they came From the rock's top the driven savage rose.