Birds, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree.
The joyous birdes shrouded in chearefull shade
Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet:
The angelical soft trembling voices made
To th’ instruments divine respondence meet.
The silver sounding instruments did meet With the base murmur of the water’s fall; The water’s fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.”
The remainder of the passage has all that voluptuous pathos, and languid brilliancy of fancy, in which this writer excelled:
“The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay;
Ah! see, whoso fayre thing dost fain to see,
In springing flower the image of thy day!
Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly she
Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty,
That fairer seems the less ye see her may!
Lo! see soon after, how more bold and free
Her bared bosom she doth broad display;
Lo! see soon after, how she fades and falls away!
So passeth in the passing of a day
Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower;
Ne more doth flourish after first decay,
That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower
Of many a lady and many a paramour!
Gather therefore the rose ’whilst yet is prime,
For soon comes age that will her pride deflower;
Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time,
Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime.[124] He ceased; and then gan all the quire of birds Their divers notes to attune unto his lay, As in approvance of his pleasing wordes. The constant pair heard all that he did say, Yet swerved not, but kept their forward way Through many covert groves and thickets close, In which they creeping did at last display[125] That wanton lady with her lover loose, Whose sleepy head she in her lap did soft dispose. [Pg 25] Notes Upon a bed of roses she was laid As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin; And was arrayed or rather disarrayed, All in a veil of silk and silver thin, That hid no whit her alabaster skin, But rather shewed more white, if more might be: More subtle web Arachne cannot spin; Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see Of scorched dew, do not in the air more lightly flee. Her snowy breast was bare to greedy spoil Of hungry eyes which n’ote therewith be fill’d. And yet through languor of her late sweet toil Few drops more clear than nectar forth distill’d, That like pure Orient perles adown it trill’d; And her fair eyes sweet smiling in delight Moisten’d their fiery beams, with which she thrill’d Frail hearts, yet quenched not; like starry light, Which sparkling on the silent waves does seem more bright.”
The finest things in Spenser are, the character of Una, in the first book; the House of Pride; the Cave of Mammon, and the Cave of Despair; the account of Memory, of whom it is said, among other things,
“The wars he well rember’d of King Nine,
Of old Assaracus and Inachus divine;”
the description of Belphœbe; the story of Florimel and the Witch’s son; the Gardens of Adonis, and the Bower of Bliss; the Mask of Cupid; and Colin Clout’s vision, in the last book. But some people will say that all this may be very fine, but that they cannot understand it on account of the allegory. They are afraid of the allegory, as if they thought it would bite them: they look at it as a child looks at a painted dragon, and think it will strangle them in its shining folds. This is very idle. If they do not meddle with the allegory, the allegory will not meddle with them. Without minding it at all, the whole is as plain as a[Pg 26] Notes pikestaff. It might as well be pretended that we cannot see Poussin’s pictures for the allegory, as that the allegory prevents us from understanding Spenser. For instance, when Britomart, seated amidst the young warriors, lets fall her hair and discovers her sex, is it necessary to know the part she plays in the allegory, to understand the beauty of the following stanza?
“And eke that stranger knight amongst the rest
Was for like need enforc’d to disarray.
Tho when as vailed was her lofty crest.
Her golden locks that were in trammels gay
Upbounden, did themselves adown display,
And raught unto her heels like sunny beams
That in a cloud their light did long time stay;
Their vapour faded, shew their golden gleams.
And through the persant air shoot forth their azure streams.”
Or is there any mystery in what is said of Belphœbe, that her hair was sprinkled with flowers and blossoms which had been entangled in it as she fled through the woods? Or is it necessary to have a more distinct idea of Proteus, than that which is given of him in his boat, with the frighted Florimel at his feet, while
“—the cold icicles from his rough beard
Dropped adown upon her snowy breast!”
Or is it not a sufficient account of one of the sea-gods that pass by them, to say—
“That was Arion crowned:—
So went he playing on the watery plain.”
Or to take the Procession of the Passions that draw the coach of Pride, in which the figures of Idleness, of Gluttony, of Lechery, of Avarice, of Envy, and of Wrath speak, one should think, plain enough for themselves; such as this of Gluttony:
“And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony,
Deformed creature, on a filthy swine;
His belly was up blown with luxury;
And eke with fatness swollen were his eyne;
And like a crane his neck was long and fine,
With which he swallowed up excessive feast,
For want whereof poor people oft did pine.
In green vine leaves he was right fitly clad;
For other clothes he could not wear for heat;
And on his head an ivy garland had,
From under which fast trickled down the sweat:
Still as he rode, he somewhat still did eat,
And in his hand did bear a bouzing can,
Of which he supt so oft, that on his seat
His drunken corse he scarce upholden can;
In shape and life more like a monster than a man.”
Or this of Lechery:
“And next to him rode lustfull Lechery
Upon a bearded goat, whose rugged hair
And whaly eyes (the sign of jealousy)
Was like the person’s self whom he did bear:
Who rough and black, and filthy did appear.
Unseemly man to please fair lady’s eye:
Yet he of ladies oft was loved dear,
When fairer faces were bid standen by:
O! who does know the bent of woman’s fantsay?
In a green gown he clothed was full fair,
Which underneath did hide his filthiness;
And in his hand a burning heart he bare,
Full of vain follies and new fangleness;
For he was false and fraught with fickleness;