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

Chapter 41: 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.

Still fled he forward, looking backward still, lvi
Ne stayd his flight, nor fearefull agony,
Till that he came vnto a rockie hill,
Ouer the sea, suspended dreadfully,
That liuing creature it would terrify,
To looke adowne, or vpward to the hight:
From thence he threw himselfe dispiteously,
All desperate of his fore-damned spright,
That seem’d no helpe for him was left in liuing sight.
But through long anguish, and selfe-murdring thought lvii
He was so wasted and forpined quight,
That all his substance was consum’d to nought,
And nothing left, but like an aery Spright,
That on the rockes he fell so flit and light,
That he thereby receiu’d no hurt at all,
But chaunced on a craggy cliff to light;
Whence he with crooked clawes so long did crall,
That at the last he found a caue with entrance small.
Into the same he creepes, and thenceforth there lviii
Resolu’d to build his balefull mansion,
In drery darkenesse, and continuall feare
Of that rockes fall, which euer and anon
Threates with huge ruine him to fall vpon,
That he dare neuer sleepe, but that one eye
Still ope he keepes for that occasion;
Ne euer rests he in tranquillity,
The roring billowes beat his bowre so boystrously.
Ne euer is he wont on ought to feed, lix
But toades and frogs, his pasture poysonous,
Which in his cold complexion do breed
A filthy bloud, or humour rancorous,
Matter of doubt and dread suspitious,
That doth with curelesse care consume the hart,
Corrupts the stomacke with gall vitious,
Croscuts the liuer with internall smart,
And doth transfixe the soule with deathes eternall dart.

Yet can he neuer dye, but dying liues, lx
And doth himselfe with sorrow new sustaine,
That death and life attonce vnto him giues.
And painefull pleasure turnes to pleasing paine.
There dwels he euer, miserable swaine,
Hatefull both to him selfe, and euery wight;
Where he through priuy griefe, and horrour vaine,
Is woxen so deform’d, that he has quight
Forgot he was a man, and Gealosie is hight.

FOOTNOTES:

[1090] ii 2 griuously 1590

[1091] v 2 Melbeccoes 1596

[1092] viii 9 to] with 1590

[1093] x 5 Peace 1596

[1094] xiii 8 would] did 1590

[1095] xviii 4 Then] So 1590

[1096] xix 2 seach 1596

[1097] xxi 9 yearned 1609

[1098] xxiv 6 thou 1590 &c.

[1099] xxvii 2 Since 1609

[1100] xxix 2 threasure 1609

[1101] 6 thy 1590, 1596

[1102] xxx 4 grounded 1596

[1103] xxxi 3 with thy] that with 1590

[1104] 7 vertues] vertuous 1590

[1105] pray] pay 1609

[1106] xxxii 1 more] mote 1590

[1107] xxxix 7 ame 1590

[1108] xl 1 They] The 1596

[1109] 3 wastefull] faithfull 1590

[1110] 7 avise 1609

[1111] xli 4 you 1590, 1596

[1112] xlii 9 did, 1596

[1113] xlv 8 fed. 1596

[1114] xlvi 6 the Earthes 1609

[1115] xlvii 1 his] the 1609

[1116] 2 hand 1596

[1117] xlviii 9 oft] ought 1609

[1118] lii 1 day springs 1596

[1119] liii 5 emongst 1609