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Spenser's Faerie Queene, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Chapter 16: FOOTNOTES:
By Edmund Spenser
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About This Book

A lengthy allegorical epic in Spenserian stanza unfolds through a sequence of chivalric episodes in which knights and maidens travel across enchanted realms, facing monsters, temptations, and deceptive enchantments that personify moral qualities. Each quest dramatizes a particular virtue and the trials that test it, combining courtly romance, classical allusion, and pastoral description. The diction favors archaisms and rich imagery, and the poem alternates narrative adventure with reflective digression and moral meditation.

The knight himselfe euen trembled at his fall, lv
So huge and horrible a masse it seem’d;
And his deare Ladie, that beheld it all,
Durst not approch for dread, which she misdeem’d,
But yet at last, when as the direfull feend
She saw not stirre, off-shaking vaine affright,
She nigher drew, and saw that ioyous end:
Then God she praysd, and thankt her faithfull knight,
That had atchieu’d so great a conquest by his might.

FOOTNOTES:

[361] i 1 faire] fayre 1590: faire 1596

[362] ii 4 at] it 1590: corr. F. E.

[363] iii om. 1590

[364] 3 be 1596

[365] 4 far, appeare 1596

[366] iv 5 stretcht] stretch 1596

[367] side, 1590, 1596

[368] v 1 his] this 1590 &c.: corr. F. E.

[369] vi 5 asswage; 1609

[370] 6 sound, 1609

[371] 9 scared] feared 1590 &c.: corr. F. E.

[372] viii 7 vaste 1590: wast 1596

[373] ix 4 swerd 1590

[374] x 4 bynd 1596

[375] 5 lynd] kynd 1590

[376] xi 4 slack. 1590: slacke. 1596: slack; 1609

[377] 5 as] all 1590 &c.: corr. F. E.

[378] xii 6 tell, 1590, 1596

[379] xxiii 8 off] of 1590

[380] xxv 1 wroth 1590, 1609

[381] xxvi 6 swinged] singed 1609

[382] xxvii 2 vaunt] daunt 1596, 1609

[383] xxx 5 one] it 1590 &c.: corr. F. E.

[384] xxxiv 8 merueiles 1590

[385] xxxvii 2 yelded] yelled 1609

[386] xxxix 4 sting] string 1596, 1609

[387] 7 string] sting 1596, 1609

[388] 8 in sunder 1609

[389] xl 8 fall, 1590, 1596

[390] xli 4 Nor 1609: For 1590, 1596

[391] 6 strength, 1590, 1596

[392] xliii 1 shield 1590, 1596

[393] xlvi 9 The tree of life, 1590, 1596. But cf. xxix 9

[394] xlviii 7 heale 1596

[395] xlix 6 rowme 1590

[396] li 2 the] her 1596, 1609

[397] 7 spred; 1590 &c.

[398] 8 darke, 1590 &c.

[399] lii 2 woundez 1609