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

Chapter 34: 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.

And that, which more then all the rest may sway, lv
Late dayes ensample, which these eyes beheld,
In the last field before Meneuia
Which Vther with those forrein Pagans held,
I saw a Saxon Virgin, the which feld
Great Vlfin thrise vpon the bloudy plaine,
And had not Carados her hand withheld
From rash reuenge, she had him surely slaine,
Yet Carados himselfe from her escapt with paine.
Ah read, (quoth Britomart) how is she hight? lvi
Faire Angela (quoth she) men do her call,
No whit lesse faire, then terrible in fight:
She hath the leading of a Martiall
And mighty people, dreaded more then all
The other Saxons, which do for her sake
And loue, themselues of her name Angles call.
Therefore faire Infant her ensample make
Vnto thy selfe, and equall courage to thee take.
Her harty words so deepe into the mynd lvii
Of the young Damzell sunke, that great desire
Of warlike armes in her forthwith they tynd,
And generous stout courage did inspire,
That she resolu’d, vnweeting[930] to her Sire,
Aduent’rous knighthood on her selfe to don,
And counseld with her Nourse, her Maides attire
To turne into a massy habergeon,
And bad her all things put in readinesse anon.
Th’old woman nought, that needed, did omit; lviii
But all things did conueniently[931] puruay:
It fortuned (so time their turne did fit)
A band of Britons ryding on forray
Few dayes[932] before, had gotten a great pray
Of Saxon goods, emongst the which was seene
A goodly Armour, and full rich aray,
Which long’d to Angela, the Saxon Queene,
All fretted round with gold, and goodly well beseene.

The same, with all the other ornaments, lix
King Ryence caused to be hanged by
In his chiefe Church, for endlesse moniments
Of his successe and gladfull victory:
Of which her selfe auising readily,
In th’euening late old Glauce thither led
Faire Britomart, and that same Armory
Downe taking, her therein appareled,
Well as she might, and with braue bauldrick garnished.
Beside those armes there stood a mighty speare, lx
Which Bladud made by Magick art of yore,
And vsd the same in battell aye to beare;
Sith which it had bin here preseru’d in store,
For his great vertues proued long afore:
For neuer wight so fast in sell could sit,
But him perforce vnto the ground it bore:
Both speare she tooke, and shield, which hong by it:
Both speare and shield of great powre, for her purpose fit.
Thus when she had the virgin all arayd, lxi
Another harnesse, which did hang thereby,
About her selfe she dight, that the young Mayd
She might in equall armes accompany,
And as her Squire attend her carefully:
Tho to their ready Steeds they clombe full light,
And through back wayes, that none might them espy,
Couered with secret cloud of silent night,
Themselues they forth conuayd, and passed forward right.
Ne rested they, till that to Faery lond lxii
They came, as Merlin them directed late:
Where meeting with this Redcrosse knight, she fond
Of diuerse things discourses to dilate,
But most of Arthegall, and his estate.
At last their wayes so fell, that they mote part:[933]
Then each to other well affectionate,
Friendship professed with vnfained hart,
The Redcrosse knight diuerst, but forth rode Britomart.

FOOTNOTES:

[904] Arg. 2 Arthegall 1590

[905] i 1 Most] Oh 1609

[906] iv 3 Thou 1590

[907] 7 auncestie 1596

[908] 8 pretence 1596, 1609

[909] xv 3 to om. 1609

[910] 6 let 1590, 1596

[911] xvi 8 remedee, 1590 &c.

[912] xix 1 longer 1609

[913] xxii 9 Greece 1596, 1609

[914] xxv 5 partake 1590

[915] xxix 1 With] Where 1596, 1609

[916] xxxiv 6 autrage 1596

[917] xxxv 1 thy] the 1596, 1609

[918] xxxvi 6 hire 1596

[919] xxxvii 7 their] the 1596, 1609

[920] xliii 9 from th’earth 1590 &c.: corr. F. E.

[921] xliv 5 yeares om. 1596, 1609: shall be full supplide 1609

[922] 6 to] vnto their 1590

[923] xlv 7 th’olde 1609

[924] xlvi 4 outronne] ouerronne 1596

[925] l 9 Shee 1590 &c.: corr. F. E.

[926] <as earst> om. 1590, 1596: add. 1609

[927] li 9 disguise] deuise 1596, 1609

[928] liii 3 (need makes good schollers) teach 1590

[929] liv 3 came: 1590 &c.

[930] lvii 5 vnmeeting 1596

[931] lviii 2 conuiently 1596

[932] 5 dryes 1596

[933] lxii 6 part 1596