THE POETICAL WORKS OF
EDMUND SPENSER
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOLUME II
SPENSER’S
FAERIE QUEENE
EDITED BY
J. C. SMITH
VOLUME I: BOOKS I-III
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
_Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4_
GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA
CAPE TOWN SALISBURY NAIROBI IBADAN ACCRA
KUALA LUMPUR HONG KONG
FIRST PUBLISHED 1909
REPRINTED LITHOGRAPHICALLY IN GREAT BRITAIN
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD
FROM SHEETS OF THE FIRST IMPRESSION
1961, 1964
INTRODUCTION.
I.
In these volumes I seek to present a true text of the _Faerie Queene_,
founded upon a fresh collation of the Quartos of 1590 and 1596 and the
Folio of 1609. I shall call these editions by their dates for short.
The fragmentary Seventh Book appeared first in 1609: for the rest the
text is based on 1596. Some typographical peculiarities--long s, &, ô,
and superscribed m and n (e.g. frõ, whẽ)--have not been reproduced, but
noted only where they first occur. With these exceptions, the readings
of 1596 if not adopted in the text are recorded in the notes; so that
text and notes together amount, in effect, to a complete reprint of
1596. No such completeness has been attempted in recording variants
from 1590 and 1609. But all verbal differences are recorded, and all
differences of punctuation that imply a different view of the meaning.
Mere changes of spelling that answer to no change of pronunciation are,
as a rule, ignored; but I have recorded such differences of spelling as
seemed likely to interest students of Elizabethan phonology, grammar,
and usage. The evidence of these variants must be used with caution in
view of Spenser’s deliberate archaism. Yet I believe that they have
some value. I give one instance in each kind:--
1. A fluid _e_-sound is indicated by the variants ‘seeldome’ 1590,
‘seldome’ 1596, ‘sildom’ 1609, at I. iv. 23, l. 5.
2. Syllabic _-es_ in possessives and plurals, which still lingered in
the early fifteen-nineties, has grown quite strange to the editor of
1609. To this point I shall return.
3. The conjunctions ‘since’ and ‘sith’ are used indifferently in 1590
and 1596, choice of one or other form being determined by euphony
alone. But 1609 makes a deliberate, though not quite consistent,
attempt to appropriate ‘since’ to the temporal, ‘sith’ to the causal
sense. The attempt unfortunately did not avail to save the more
primitive form.
I have departed from the punctuation of 1596 only where it seemed
likely to puzzle or mislead a modern reader. These departures, which
are all recorded, are not very numerous. Spenser’s punctuation, though
by no means sacrosanct, is less arbitrary than might at first appear;
but, as Mr. Gregory Smith says of the punctuation of Addison, it has a
rhetorical rather than a logical value. We feel its force best when we
read the poem aloud. Two peculiarities are so common that the reader
may be warned of them here. One is the absence of punctuation with
vocatives: the other is the single comma after qualifying phrases. With
this warning I leave these peculiarities, as a rule, unchanged.
In the treatment of capitals and in the distribution of roman and
italic type I have followed the same principle of adhering, wherever
possible, to the original text.
I have regularized the spelling of proper names wherever the variation
seemed to be due to the printer rather than the poet. And this is
generally the case with double letters. But for many variations in
proper names Spenser was himself responsible. He varied them sometimes
for the sake of the metre, as _Serena_, _Serene_; or of the rhyme,
as _Florimell_, _Florimele_. In two instances he seems actually to
have wavered or changed his mind. _Braggadocchio’s_ name is generally
spelt thus in Book II; in Books III and IV it varies; in V. iii it is
regularly _Braggadochio_. So we generally find _Arthegall_ in Book
III, but _Artegall_ regularly in Book V; 1609, however, returns to
_Arthegall_.
II.
Aiming not at a reprint but a true text, I have not hesitated to depart
from 1596 wherever I believed it to be in error and the error the
printer’s. But it is no part of an editor’s duty to correct, though he
may indicate, mistakes made by the author himself. There are many such
in the _Faerie Queene_.
(1) There are mistakes of fact, of literary allusion, of quantity
in classical names, hardly to be avoided by a poet writing far from
libraries.
(2) There are confusions of personages, or of names of personages,
within the poem itself. Sir _Guyon_ is confused with the _Redcrosse
Knight_ in III. ii. 4, and with Prince _Arthur_ in II. viii. 48 (but
not in 1609); _Æmylia_ with _Pœana_ in IV. ix. Arg.; _Calepine_ with
_Calidore_ in VI. vi. 17; while over _Serena_ Spenser’s confusion
becomes comical--he calls her _Crispina_ in VI. iii. 23,[1] and
_Matilda_ in VI. v. Arg.
(3) Some lines are hypermetrical; some are short by a foot; and there
are two or three broken lines. One of these last (III. iv. 39, l. 7)
is certainly intentional, and all may be so; the supposed example of
Virgil may have influenced Spenser in this.
(4) Imperfect rhymes and concords are numerous, especially in Books IV,
V, and VI.
(5) There is one form of imperfect rhyme so singular as to deserve a
fuller discussion. Its nature will be best seen in an example:--
‘Like two faire marble pillours they were seene,
Which doe the temple of the Gods support, (2)
Whom all the people decke with girlands greene,
And honour in their festiuall resort; (4)
Those same with stately grace, and princely port (5)
She taught to tread, when she her selfe would grace,
But with the wooddie Nymphes when she did play, (7)
Or when the flying Libbard she did chace,
She could them nimbly moue, and after fly apace.’
(II. iii. 28.)
Here ‘play’ in l. 7 is rhymed to ‘support’, ‘resort’, ‘port’: ‘sport’
is the obvious correction. There are, in all, nine instances of this
singularity in the _Faerie Queene_. I subjoin them all, citing the
rhyme-words only: the number following each word shows the line that it
ends:--
1. day (2), dismay (4), way (5), chace (7) (II. ii. 7)
2. make (6), bold (8), told (9) (II. ii. 42)
3. support (2), resort (4), port (5), play (7) (II. iii. 28)
4. leaue (2), cleaue (4), bereaue (5), vpreare (7) (II. viii. 29)
5. spyde (6), law (8), draw (9) (III. vi. 40)
6. enclose (2), plaine (4), Maine (5), complaine (7) (III. vii. 34)
7. times (6), equipage (8), parentage (9) (IV. xi. 17)
8. place (2), aread (4), dread (5), read (7) (V. Proem 11)
9. desyre (2), entyre (4), yre (5), meed (7) (V. xi. 61)
In every case the correction is obvious: ‘chace’ should be ‘pray’
(i.e. prey); ‘make’, ‘hold’; ‘play’, ‘sport’; ‘vpreare’, ‘vpheaue’;
‘spyde’, ‘saw’; ‘enclose’, ‘containe’; ‘times’, ‘age’; ‘place’, ‘stead’
(as in 1609); ‘meed’, ‘hyre’. The phenomenon may now be described
in general terms: in these nine places Spenser substitutes for a
rhyming word a metrically equivalent synonym which does not rhyme.
Our analysis shows further that, the rhyme-scheme of the Spenserian
stanza being _ababbcbcc_, this substitution occurs only in the first
or last of the _b_-group, or in the first of the _c_-group. It seems
as if, borne along on the swell of his metre and the easy flow of his
imagination, two words identical in sense and metre but different in
sound rose to the poet’s mind almost simultaneously; and the one which
he meant to reject slipped nevertheless from his pen, having been (we
infer) the first to occur. This explains why this phenomenon always
occurs either in the first word of a rhyme-group, where the rhyme is
still undetermined; or, if in the last, then only in the last of the
_b_-group, where the ear has already been satisfied with as many as
three rhymes; and why it never occurs in the _a_-group, where two
rhymeless endings would at once have alarmed the ear. I have dwelt
on this phenomenon at some length because it is, so far as I know,
peculiar to Spenser.[2]
(6) I must glance at another, though a rare, source of error. Our sage
and serious Spenser was a thoughtful, even a philosophic writer; but
his thought is large, simple, contemplative, not acute and analytic.
When he has to deal with a subtle or complex situation he sometimes
involves himself inextricably. If any lover of Spenser resent this
judgement, let him apply his devotion to explain or emend II. v. 12,
ll. 8 and 9; V. vi. 5, ll. 6 and 7; V. vi. 26, ll. 5 and 6: to me these
passages appear incorrigible.
III.
The first mention of the _Faerie Queene_ occurs in a letter of
Spenser’s to Gabriel Harvey, dated _Quarto Nonas Aprilis_ 1580. ‘I wil
in hande forthwith,’ he writes, ‘with my _Faery Queene_, whyche I praye
you hartily send me with al expedition: and your frendly Letters, and
long expected Judgement wythal.’ ‘I haue nowe sent hir home at the
laste,’ writes Harvey in reply. These phrases show that the parcel of
the _Faerie Queene_ had been in Harvey’s hands for some considerable
time. The poem must therefore have been begun not later than 1579. Now
in 1579 Spenser was an inmate of Leicester House, and the constant
associate of Sir Philip Sidney. There is therefore no reason to doubt
the assertion of W. L. in his commendatory verses that by Sidney the
poem was originally inspired.
Harvey’s long-expected judgement, when it came, was far from
favourable. But the poet was not discouraged, and doubtless took the
manuscript with him when he went to Ireland with Lord Grey in August,
1580. Though he afterwards spoke of the poem as ‘wilde fruit which
salvage soyl hath bred’, there is some reason to think that he had
actually written as much as a book and a half before he left England.
For though allusions to Ireland are not rare in the _Faerie Queene_,
the first of them occurs in II. ix. 16.[3] Moreover, the industry of
commentators has discovered in Book I only one imitation of Tasso’s
_Gierusalemme Liberata_, and that doubtful[4] (I. vii. 31); undoubted
imitations begin to appear in II. v, vi, vii, viii, and II. xii
blazes with spoils from the Garden of Armida. Now the _Gierusalemme
Liberata_ was published in 1581; an imperfect edition had been issued
surreptitiously in 1580.
Our next glimpse of the _Faerie Queene_ we owe to Lodovick Bryskett,
whose _Discourse of Civill Life_, though not published till 1606,
purports to record a conversation held in his cottage near Dublin as
early, it would seem, as the spring of 1583. Spenser is one of the
interlocutors. He is made to say that he has already undertaken a work
‘which is in _heroical verse_ under the title of a _Faerie Queene_’;
which work he has ‘already well entered into’. The company express an
‘extreme longing’ after this _Faerie Queene_, ‘whereof some parcels had
been by some of them seene’.
Parcels of the _Faerie Queene_ had been seen, it appears, not only
by Spenser’s friends in Dublin, but by his literary contemporaries
in London. I. v. 2 is imitated in Peele’s _David and Bethsabe_ (date
unknown, but probably before 1590). I. vii. 32 and I. viii. 11 are
imitated in Act IV, Sc. 4 and Act IV, Sc. 3 respectively of the second
part of Marlowe’s _Tamburlaine_ (published 1590, but acted some years
earlier). Finally, Abraham Fraunce in his _Arcadian Rhetorike_ (1588)
quotes Spenser ‘in his _Fairie Queene_, 2 booke, cant. 4’. Fraunce’s
quotation is the more interesting inasmuch as it shows that by 1588[5]
the _F. Q._ had not only been composed, but disposed into its present
arrangement of books and cantos so far at least as II. iv. It is worth
remarking that all these imitations of and quotations from _F. Q._
before it was published are from that part of the poem which we have
seen some reason to think was written before Spenser left England.
Allusions in the poem shed no certain light on the progress of its
composition.
There is no reason to suppose that Spenser composed the whole of the
_F. Q._ in the order in which he gave it to the world. It is more
likely that he worked up many incidents and episodes as they occurred
to him, and afterwards placed them in the poem. We know that the
_Wedding of Thames and Medway_, which now forms IV. xi, is a redaction
of an _Epithalamium Thamesis_ which he originally undertook as an
experiment in quantitative metre before April, 1580. And it seems
probable that the _Legendes_ and _Court of Cupid_ mentioned by E. K. in
his preface to the _Shepheards Calender_, as well as the _Pageaunts_[6]
mentioned in the Glosse on _June_, were similarly worked over and
incorporated in the _F. Q._
Combining these pieces of evidence, we receive the impression that for
some time after he came to Ireland Spenser worked but intermittently
on the _F. Q._, resuming the regular composition and arrangement of
the poem about the time when he ceased to reside in Dublin.[7] By
1588--the date of Fraunce’s quotation--he may have already been settled
at Kilcolman. There, at least, Raleigh found him in 1589, and was shown
the poem; with the result that in the autumn of that year Spenser
accompanied Raleigh to London, and set about the publication of Books
I-III. The volume was licensed to William Ponsonbye on Dec. 1, 1589.
Spenser’s explanatory letter to Raleigh bears date Jan. 23, 1589 (i. e.
1590 N. S.). In the course of 1590, but not before March 25, the volume
was published. The printing shows some signs of haste; there is a long
list of errata or ‘Faults Escaped in the Print’. This list, though not
itself faultless, is of paramount authority in determining the text of
Books I-III; it is cited in the notes as _F. E._
In 1591 Spenser returned to Ireland, a disappointed man. I fear that
Burleigh had taken occasion of the Milesian tone of certain episodes
in Book III to stir the ashes of an old resentment: the second part
of _F. Q._ begins and ends with complaints of misconstruction by that
‘mighty Pere’. But once back at Kilcolman he resumed his task. At first
the stream of poetry flows languidly. The fable rambles, dispersing its
force in many channels, like a river choked with sand; the verse flags;
the play of alliteration is fitful; and Spenser essays a new, but to
my ear an unhappy, variation in the form of a feminine ending.[8] But
presently he gathers strength again under some new influence, which
one would fain associate with his courtship of Elizabeth Boyle. The
treatment of _Britomart_ in Book V has strong, dramatic touches beyond
anything in the earlier books; and in the lovely pastoral episodes of
Book VI the poet lives once more in Arcadia. But positive indications
of date are very rare. Book V Canto xi must be later than July 25,
1593, when Henri IV heard that mass which was the price of Paris: the
singular dislocation of the Argument to Canto xii--half of which refers
to the incidents of Canto xi--suggests that this _Burbon_ episode was
an afterthought; that it was inserted after Book V had been disposed
into Cantos; and that Spenser meant it to form part of Canto xii. On
the ordinary interpretation of the _Amoretti_,[9] all these books
were finished before, but not long before, his wedding on June 11,
1594 (_v. Sonnet_ 80); and on any interpretation they must have been
finished by 1595, when Sir Robert Needham brought the manuscript of the
_Amoretti_ to London. Yet Spenser may have added and retouched up to
the date of publication. For, in spite of _Sonnet_ 80, I have fancied
that when he wrote certain descriptions in Books V and VI Spenser was
not only a husband but a father. See especially V. v. 53 (simile of the
nurse and infant); V. vi. 14 (the child crying in the night); VI. iv.
18, 23, 24 (_Calepine’s_ treatment of the foundling, which should be
compared with _Guyon’s_ behaviour in a similar situation, II. ii. 1);
also VI. iv. 37, particularly line 8. Now Spenser’s eldest child was
born in 1595. This may be fanciful. What is certain is that towards the
close of 1595 Spenser followed Needham to London with the manuscript
of the second part of _F. Q._ It was licensed to Ponsonbye on Jan.
20, 1596, and published by autumn of that year. James VI took offence
at the treatment of _Duessa_, and had to be appeased by the English
Ambassador, whose letter detailing the incident is dated Nov. 12, 1596.
The new edition was in two volumes, the first being a reprint, with
alterations, of 1590.
Late in 1596, or early in 1597, Spenser returned to Ireland. In 1598
Tyrone’s rebellion broke out. In October the rebels attacked and burned
Kilcolman Castle. Spenser fled to Cork, whence in December he made
his way to London; and there, on Jan. 16, 1599, he died. Ten years
after his death a folio edition of _F. Q._ was published by Mathew
Lownes, which added to the six books already published two Cantos
of _Mutabilitie_, ‘which, both for Forme and Matter, appeare to be
parcell of some following Booke of the _Faerie Queene_, vnder the
Legend of _Constancie_.’ These two cantos, with two stanzas of a third,
are all that remain of the third part of _F. Q._ Whether Spenser wrote
more is unknown. But the fact that the two cantos are numbered vi and
vii makes it fairly certain that he had at least sketched the whole
Seventh Book. I cannot accept the view that these two cantos are an
independent poem, in the sense that they were not designed to form part
of _F. Q._ The lines (VII. vi. 37)--
‘And, were it not ill fitting for this file,
To sing of hilles and woods, mongst warres and Knights’--
show clearly that they were so designed. That they may have been
written independently, in the sense in which the _Wedding of Thames
and Medway_ was written independently, I am not concerned to deny. The
view that these cantos are spurious is unworthy of serious discussion.
If they are spurious, there must have been living in 1609 an unknown
poet who could write the Spenserian style and stanza as well as Spenser
at his best. For there is nothing of its kind in _F. Q._ superior
to the pageant[10] of the months and seasons; and no one who really
knows Spenser can doubt that the two stanzas which alone remain of the
‘vnperfite’ eighth canto came from his heart.
IV.
The chief critical problem that confronts an editor of _F. Q._ concerns
the text of Books I-III. Should the text of these books be based on
1590 or on 1596? I have chosen the latter. And I have done so, in the
main, for a quite general reason. 1596 was produced under Spenser’s
eye and by his authority. That authority must be held to cover both
volumes, not the second only. Behind this we cannot go. The case is
quite different with the later quartos of the _Shepheards Calender_,
which were produced in Spenser’s absence.
This general position is confirmed by a minute comparison of 1590
and 1596. To take the more massive changes first: in 1 596 Spenser
completely remodelled the conclusion of Book III. Instead of bringing
_Scudamour_ and _Amoret_ together, as in 1590, he left them still
parted, hoping thus to prolong the interest of their story into Book
IV, and so to form a link between the two volumes, which he desired to
be read as one continuous poem. For this he sacrificed five glorious
stanzas, one of them the most rapturous that he ever wrote. The
three stanzas which he substituted are far inferior, as he must have
known; but they served his purpose. He also added a new stanza at I.
xi. 3. He rewrote single lines, in the interests of sound or sense;
he altered single words or phrases; and he made--what is even more
significant--several minute changes of order designed to improve the
rhythm. Let me add that most of these changes are more happily inspired
than the second-thoughts of poets have sometimes been.
I hasten to make two admissions. The first volume of 1596 was not
reset afresh from Spenser’s manuscript. It was printed from a copy of
1590. In the nature of the case, while it escapes some of the blunders
of its original, it reproduces others, and perpetrates some new. Nor
did Spenser do more than glance at the proof. The 1596 volumes, as we
have seen, were printed rapidly; the poet was busy,[11] and such time
as he had for proof-reading was given to the new books. I infer that
the alterations which he made in 1590 were made not on the proof, but
on the copy. In no other way can we account for that combination of
author’s corrections with printer’s errors which marks the first volume
of 1596. And this conclusion is strengthened by another consideration.
It is one of the worst faults of 1596 that it so often ignores _F.
E._ But the significance of the fault has been overlooked. Making
corrections on the copy, Spenser did not trouble himself about errors
that he had already noted in _F. E._; had he made his corrections on
the proof, they could not have escaped him.
I believe this to be a true account of the relations of these two
texts. But when all is said there remain many places where we cannot
pronounce on mere inspection whether an alteration is the author’s or
the printer’s, but must be guided by a calculation of probabilities,
inclining (e. g.) to the author where there is clear evidence of his
hand in the neighbourhood of the vexed passage, to the printer where
the _ductus litterarum_ in both readings is suspiciously alike. The
most important of these places are discussed in the Critical Appendix
to Vol. III.
Has 1609 any independent authority? In the main a reprint of 1596, it
is certainly a respectable piece of work, in punctuation especially
far more logical and consistent than either of the quartos: the
editor seldom fails to show exactly how he understands his text. Our
respect for 1609 would be enhanced if we could believe that the editor
was Gabriel Harvey, as Todd at one time fancied. But that notion is
untenable, and Todd himself abandoned it. We may go further: the editor
of 1609 did not belong to the generation of Harvey and Spenser. For
this conclusion I will adduce only one piece of evidence, but it is
decisive. In the last decade of the sixteenth century syllabic _-es_ in
possessives and plurals still lingered even in verse not deliberately
archaic. But it was strange to the editor of 1609. Sometimes he remarks
it, and signalizes his discovery by printing it _-ez_, as ‘woundez’,
‘beastez’, ‘clothez’. Sometimes he fails to remark it, and fills up the
syllable by conjecture: thus ‘_Nightes_ children’ becomes ‘_Nights_
drad children’ (I. v. 23); ‘th’Earthes gloomy shade’ becomes ‘the
Earthes gloomy shade’ (III. x. 46). He seems, moreover, to have made
little or no use of 1590. When, as sometimes happens, a word has been
dropped in 1596, he emends by conjecture: thus at I. ii. 29:--
‘For the coole shade him thither hastly got’ 1590;
‘For the coole shade thither hastly got’ 1596;
‘For the coole shadow thither hast’ly got’ 1609.
Cf. also III. ix. 13, l. 9, III. xi. 26, l. 7, &c. The few instances
in which 1590 and 1609 agree as against 1596 may fairly be set down to
coincidence.
Yet I am disposed to assign some independent authority to 1609.[12] The
grounds for this view are slight, and may be stated in full:--
(1) At I. x. 20, l. 5, 1609 adds the missing line, ‘Dry-shod to passe,
she parts the flouds in tway.’
(2) At II. viii. 48, l. 8, it corrects ‘Sir _Guyon_’ to ‘Prince
_Arthur_’.
(3) At III. iii. 50, l. 9, it completes the imperfect Alexandrine by
adding ‘as earst’.
(4) At III. vi. 45, l. 4, it adds a broken line, ‘And dearest loue,’
to an eight-line stanza.
(5) At IV. xii. 13, ll. 1, 2, 1596 reads:--
‘Thus whilst his stony heart with tender ruth
Was toucht, and mighty courage mollifide’;
1609 reads:--
‘Thus whilst his stony heart was toucht with tender ruth,
And mighty courage something mollifide.’
(6) At V. Proem 11, l. 2, it reads ‘stead’ for the non-rhyming ‘place’.
Of these changes, (2) and (3) are not beyond the capacity of an
ordinary editor; yet it is worth noting that 1609 does not correct
other confusions of names almost as obvious as (2). Even the missing
line (1), Spenserian as it sounds, might conceivably be editorial. But
to add a _broken_ line, like (4), seems to me a touch beyond an editor.
And (5) is most easily explained by supposing that Spenser altered
the text, meaning to omit ‘tender’, but left that word standing. (6)
is an instance of a phenomenon that has already been discussed. The
significant point is that this is the only instance of that phenomenon
which is corrected in 1609. An editor who corrected one of these
mistakes might be expected to correct others; but the author who
perpetrated these non-rhymes would more easily overlook them.
The addition of the _Mutabilitie_ cantos in 1609 must be allowed to
create a prejudice in favour of the view for which I argue. The editor
who recovered so much of Spenser’s manuscript may have recovered more:
parcels of _F. Q._, as we have seen, were handed about in London in
Spenser’s absence. Or--and the form of the variants at IV. xii. 13
makes this the more probable hypothesis--the editor of 1609 may have
had a copy of 1596 with some corrections by the author. Finally, it
is not impossible that these corrections were actually embodied in
exemplars of 1596 which no longer survive. Elizabethan writers were
in the habit of correcting sheets as they passed through the press:
in _F. Q._ itself I have noted more than a score of places in which
the readings of the copies used for this edition differ from those
of other copies in the Bodleian or the British Museum, or of copies
used by previous editors; and the notes of Church, Upton, and Todd
show that they had seen copies which differ in minute points from any
now available. As the sheets were probably bound indiscriminately, it
is possible that no two exemplars exactly correspond. The charges of
careless collation freely bandied among Spenser’s editors are sometimes
due to this cause.
* * * * *
It remains for me to acknowledge with gratitude the unwearied help
that I have received in preparing this edition, first, from my wife,
who read 1609 with me twice; next, from my friend Dr. Soutar, of
University College, Dundee, who revised the difficult proofs of Books
I-III; last, from an unknown coadjutor, Mr. Ostler of the Clarendon
Press, to whose skill and vigilance above all I owe whatever measure
of accuracy has been secured. An edition like this has little claim to
any higher virtue; yet perfect accuracy, even, is too much to hope for
in the reproduction, by ordinary typography, of the original spelling
and punctuation of a poem which runs to more than 35,000 lines. In
the Critical Appendix I have called attention to one or two places in
which I have noted what now seem to me to be errors, or on which I have
changed my mind since the sheets were printed.
I have also to thank Sir James Murray, Dr. Bradley, and Dr. Craigie for
information on points of lexicography; and Mr. Charles Cannan for the
protracted loan of his copy of the first folio.
J. C. SMITH.
ST. ANDREWS,
_September, 1909_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] But this was corrected as the sheet passed through the press. See
note _ad loc._ in the Critical Appendix.
[2] The peculiarity consists not in the occasional occurrence of a
rhymeless line--a thing that can easily be paralleled from Shelley or
any poet of equal fluency--but in the fact that the right word is in
every case so obvious that we cannot but believe it to have been in
Spenser’s mind.
[3] This argument loses some of its weight from the likelihood that
Spenser had been in Ireland before 1580. In his _View of the Present
State of Ireland_, Irenæus, who is Spenser’s mouthpiece, speaks of
himself as an eyewitness of the execution of Murrogh O’Brien, which
took place at Limerick in July, 1577. The statement, of course, is
not conclusive, as it would be if made in Spenser’s own person. Yet
Spenser’s account of this hideous incident has the stamp of personal
observation, and, taken with the evidence of Phillips’s _Theatrum
Poetarum Anglicorum_, points to the conclusion that in 1577 Spenser had
been sent to Ireland by Leicester with letters to Sir Henry Sidney. His
visit, however, must have been brief, and may well have left no trace
in his poetry.
Upton believed that the _Ruddymane_ episode in II. ii referred to the
O’Neills, whose badge was a bloody hand (_v._ the _View of the Present
State of Ireland_). If there be anything in this, it makes against
the view that a book and a half had been written by August, 1580; for
Spenser is not likely to have known the O’Neill ‘badge’ till he settled
in Ireland.
[4] The passage in Tasso (_G. L._ ix. 25) is itself an imitation of
Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 785. Yet the ‘greedie pawes’ and ‘golden wings’ of
Spenser’s picture seem due to Tasso’s ‘Sù le zampe s’inalza, e l’ali
spande.’
Both these arguments, then, are indecisive; and in the absence of
decisive proof I find it hard to believe that Harvey, who though a
pedant was no fool, can have seen anything like the whole of Book I
without recognizing its superlative merits.
[5] Fraunce’s book was licensed on June 11.
[6] From these _Pageaunts_ E. K. quotes a line:
‘An hundred Graces on her eyelidde sate,’
which appears, slightly altered, in _F. Q._ II. iii. 25.
[7] The ‘fennes of Allan’ (II. ix. 16) would be near New Abbey in Co.
Kildare, where Spenser seems to have occasionally resided in the years
1582-4.
[8] In the whole of Books I-III there is only one feminine ending, viz.
in II. ix. 47. In Books IV-VI such endings abound.
[9] ‘On the ordinary interpretation,’ I say; for an attempt has
recently been made (_Mod. Lang. Rev._ 1908) to prove that the lady of
the _Amoretti_ and the ‘countrey lasse’ of _F. Q._ VI was not Elizabeth
Boyle, but Lady Elizabeth Carey.
[10] The occurrence of feminine endings makes it very unlikely that
this was among the _Pageaunts_ mentioned by E. K. The greater part of
the _Mutabilitie_ cantos was certainly written in Ireland, probably in
1597-8.
[11] The scene of the dialogue on the _Present State of Ireland_ is
laid in England; so that, unless this is a mere literary device, the
tract must have been written, or at least begun, during this visit in
1596.
[12] No such authority, I think, belongs to the ‘Second Folio’, though
it sometimes corrects printer’s errors. In the Critical Appendix I have
cited some of its characteristic variants in support of this view.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
Of the copies collated for this edition, three are in the Bodleian,
viz.:--
(1) Malone 615, Books I-III, 1590.
(2) Malone 616, Books IV-VI, 1596.
(3) 4^o Art. Seld. S. 22, Books I-VI, 1596 (collated for Books I-III).
For 1609 I have used (4) a copy belonging to Mr. Charles Cannan.
The following copies, though not collated _verbatim_, have been
examined for variants:--
(5) Malone 7, 1609 }
(6) M. 4. 5 Art. { Books I-III, 1611 }
{ Books IV-VII, 1612 } in the Bodleian.
(7) Douce S. 817 { Books I-III, 1609 }
{ Books IV-VII, 1613 }
(8) G. 11535, 6 { Books I-III, 1590 }
{ Books IV-VI, 1596 }
(9) C. 12. h. 17, 18 { Books I-III, 1590 }
{ Books IV-VI, 1596 }
(10) 686 g. 21, 22, 1596 }
(11) G. 11537, 1596 } in the British Museum.
(12) C. 57. f. 6, 1609 }
(13) 78 g. 13 { Books I-III, 1609 }
{ Books IV-VII, 1613 }
(14) 79 h. 23 { Books I-III, 1611 }
{ Books IV-VII, 1613 }
The bibliographical note on Spenser in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_ appears to ignore 4^o Art. Seld. S. 22.
The 1590, 1596, 1609 editions of _F. Q._ have been described already.
In 1611 Lownes (the publisher of the 1609 _F. Q._) set about a complete
edition of Spenser’s poems. But having on hand unsold copies of 1609,
he incorporated parts of these under the new title-page.[13] This has
happened to (6), the first part of which is identical with 1609, except
for the title-page and dedication. The genuine 1611 edition of _F. Q._
I-III is represented by the first part of (14). The second part of
(6), bearing date 1612, has been reset: it is identical with the second
parts of (7), (13), (14), which bear date 1613. No 1611 edition of _F.
Q._ IV-VII is known to me. But in the footnotes I have followed the
custom of citing this ‘Second Folio’ as 1611, except where readings
not found by me in editions prior to 1612-13 have been attributed to
1609 by previous editors, misled perhaps by the omission from the
British Museum catalogue of the second title to (13). In the Critical
Appendix on Books IV-VII I cite this Second Folio (for these Books) as
16(11)-12-13.
* * * * *
Subsequent editions of Spenser’s works:--The folios of 1617, 1679 (the
latter said to have been overseen by Dryden); ed. J. Hughes, 1715; H.
J. Todd, 1805; F. J. Child, 1855; J. P. Collier, 1862; R. Morris, 1869;
A. B. Grosart, 1882-4.
Separate editions of _Faerie Queene_:--ed. J. Upton, 1758; R. Church,
1758-9; Kate M. Warren, 1897-1900.
Commentaries:--_Remarks on Spenser’s Poems_, by J. Jortin, 1734.
_Observations on the Faerie Queene_, by T. Warton,
1754.
[For the matter of this note I am largely indebted to Mr. Ostler and
Mr. Percy Simpson.]
FOOTNOTES:
[13] From a MS. note of Malone’s I learn that Ponsonbye had played the
same trick in 1596; and even of the 1617 folio Church avers that some
copies are made up with sheets of the old 1611.
CONTENTS.
THE FAERIE QVEENE.
PAGE
DEDICATION TO QVEEN ELIZABETH 2
BOOK I.
THE LEGENDE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE RED CROSSE, OR OF
HOLINESSE 3