But if sadde winters wrath, and season chill, COL. Thenot, to that I chose thou doest mee tempt; Let streaming teares be powred out in store; "Shepheards, that by your flocks of Kentish downes abyde, Waile ye this woefull waste of Natures warke; O heavie herse! Breake we our pipes, that shrild as lowde as larke; "Why doe we longer live, (ah! why live we so long?) Nowe is time to die: nay, time was long ygoe: "Whence is it, that the flowret of the field doth fade, O heavie herse! [quaile; The branch once dead, the bud eke needes must "The water nymphs, that wont with her to sing And for her girlond olive braunches beare, She, while she was, (that was, a wofull word to Now bringen bitter eldre braunches feare; "O trustlesse state of earthly things, and slipper hope Of mortall men, that swincke and sweate for nought, O heavie herse! Yet saw I on the beere when it was brought; O carefull verse! "But maugre Death, and dreaded Sisters deadly spight, And gates of Hell, and fyrie furies force, She hath the bonds broke of eternall night, Cease now, my Muse, now cease thy sorrowes sourse, "Why waile we then? why wearie we the gods with plaintes, As if some evill were to her betight? I see thee, blessed soule! I see Walk in Elisian fieldes so free. O happie herse! Might I once come to thee, (O that I might!) "Unwise and wretched men, to weete what's good or ill, Wee deeme of death as doome of ill desert; But knewe wee, fooles, what it us bringes untill, Make haste, yee shepheards, thether to revert. THE SHEPHEARDS CALENDER. DECEMBER. AEGLOGA DUODECIMA. ARGUMENT. This aeglogue (even as the first began) is ended with a complaint of Colin to god Pan; wherein, as wearie of his former waies, he proportioneth his life to the foure seasons of the yeare; comparing his youth to the spring time, when hee was fresh and free from loves follie. His manhood to the sommer, which, he saith, was consumed with great heate and excessive drouth, caused through a comet or blazing starre, by which hee meaneth love; which passion is commonly compared to such flames and immoderate heate. His ripest yeares he resembleth to an unseasonable harvest, wherein the fruits fall ere they be ripe. His latter age to winters chill and frostie season, now drawing neere to his last ende. THE gentle shepheard sat beside a springe, That Colin hight, which well coulde pype and singe, "O soveraigne Pan! thou god of shepheardes all, "I thee beseeche (so be thou deigne to hear As it with pleasaunce mought thy fancie feede,) "Dido is gone afore; (whose turne shall be the The rurall song of carefull Colinet. Dext?) There lives shee with the blessed gods in blisse, Cease now, my song, my woe now wasted is; THE. Ay, franck shepheard, how bene thy verses With dolefull pleasaunce, so as I ne wotte [meint Whether reioyce or weepe for great constraint! Thine be the cossette, well hast thou it gotte. Up, Collin up, ynough thou morned hast; Now ginnes to mizzle, bye we homeward fast. COLINS EMBLEME. La mort ny morde "Whilome in youth, when flowrd my ioyfull spring, Like swallow swift I wandred here and there; For heate of heedlesse lust ine so did sting, That I oft doubted daunger had no feare: I went the wastefull woodes and forrest wide, Withouten dread of wolves to bene espide. "I wont to raunge amid the mazie thicket, And gather nuttes to make my Christmas-game, And ioyed oft to chace the trembling pricket, Or hunt the hartlesse hare till she were tame. What wreaked I of wintrie ages waste?→ Tho deemed I my spring would ever last. "How often have I scaled the craggie oke, All to dislodge the raven of her nest? How have I wearied, with many a stroke, The stately walnut-tree, the while the rest Under the tree fell all for nuttes at strife? For like to me was libertie and life. "And for I was in thilke same looser yeeres, (Whether the Muse so wrought me from my byrth, Or I too much beleev'd my shepheard peeres,) Somedele ybent to song and musickes mirth, A good old shepheard, Wrenock was his name, Made me by arte more cunning in the same. "Fro thence I durst in deering to compare With shepheardes swayne whatever fed in field; And, if that Hobbinoll right judgement bare, To Pan his own selfe pype I need not yield: For, if the flocking nymphes did follow Pan, The wiser Muses after Colin ran. "But, ah! such pride at length was ill repayde; The shepheards god (perdie god was he none) My hurtlesse pleasaunce did me ill upbraide, My freedome lorne, my life he left to mone. Love they him called that gave me check-mate, But better mought they have behote him Hate. "Tho gan my lovely spring bid me farewell, And sommer season sped him to display (For Love then in the Lyons house did dwell) The raging fire that kindled at his ray. A comet stird up that unkindly heate, That reigned (as men said) in Venus seate. "Forth was I ledde, not as I wont afore, When choise I had to choose my wandring way. But whether Luck and Loves unbridled lore Would lead me forth on Fancies bitte to play: The bush my bed, the bramble was my bowre, The woodes can witnesse many a wofull stowre. "Where I was wont to seeke the honie bee, Working her formall rownes in wexen frame, The grieslie todestoole growne there mought I see, And loathed paddockes lording on the same: And, where the chaunting birds luld me asleepe, The ghastly owle her grievous ynne doth keepe. "Then as the spring gives place to elder time, And bringeth forth the fruite of sommers pride; All so my age, now passed youthly prime, To things of riper season selfe applied, And learnd of lighter timber cotes to frame, Such as might save my sheepe aud me fro shame. "To make fine cages for the nightingale, And baskets of bulrushes, was my wont: Who to entrap the fish in winding sale Was better seene, or hurtfull beastes to hont? I learned als the signs of Heaven to ken, How Phœbe failes, where Venus sits, and when. "And tryed time yet taught me greater thinges; The sodain rising of the raging seas, The soothe of byrdes by beating of theyr winges, The powre of herbes, both which can hurt and ease, And which be wont t' enrage the restlesse sheepe, And which be wont to worke eternall sleepe. "But, ah! unwise and witlesse Colin Cloute, That kydst the hidden kindes of many a weede, Yet kydst not ene to cure thy sore heart-roote, Whose ranckling wound as yet does rifely bleede. Why livest thou still, and yet hast thy deaths wound? Why dyest thou still, and yet alive art found? "Thus is my sommer worne away and wasted, "My boughs with bloosmes that crowned were at And promised of timely fruite such store, [first, Are left both bare and barrein now at erst; The flattering fruite is fallen to ground before, And rotted ere they were halfe mellow ripe; My harvest wast, my hope away did wipe. "The fragrant flowres, that in my garden grewe, Bene withered, as they had bene gathered long; Theyr rootes bene dryed up for lack of dewe, Yet dewed with teares they han be ever among. Ah! who has wrought my Rosalind this spight, To spill the flowres that should her girlond dight? "And I, that whilome wont to frame my pype Unto the shifting of the shepheards foote, Sike follies now have gathered as too ripe, And cast hem out as rotten and unsoote. The loser lasse I cast to please no more; One if I please, enough is me therefore. "And thus of all my harvest-hope I have Nought reaped but a weedie crop of care; Which, when I thought have thresht in swelling sheave, Cockle for corn, and chaffe for barley, bare: Soon as the chaffe should in the fan be fynd, All blown away was of the wavering wynd. "So now my yeere drawes to his latter terme, My spring is spent, my sommer burnt up quite; My harvest hastes to stirre up winter sterne, And bids him clayme with rigorous rage his right: So now he stormes with many a sturdy stoure; So now his blustring blast eche coast doth scoure. "The carefull cold hath nipt my rugged rynd, And in my face deepe furrowes eld hath pight: My head besprent with hoarie frost I finde, And by myne eye the crowe his clawe doth wright: Delight is layd abedd; and pleasure, past; No sunne now shines; clouds han all overcast. "Now leave, ye shepheards boyes, your merry glee; My Muse is hoarse and wearie of this stound: Here will I hang my pype upon this tree, Was never pype of reede did better sound: Winter is come that blowes the bitter blast, And after winter dreerie death does hast. "Gather together ye my little flocke, My little flocke, that was to me so liefe; Let me, ah! let me in your foldes ye lock, Ere the breme winter breede you greater griefe. Winter is come, that blows the balefull breath, And after winter commeth timely death. "Adieu, delightes, that lulled me asleepe; THE FAERIE QUEENE, DISPOSED INTO TWELVE BOOKES, FASHIONING XII MORALL VERTUES. TO THE MOST HIGH MIGHTIE AND MAGNIFICENT RENOWMED FOR PIETIE VERTVE AND ALL ELIZABETH BY THE GRACE OF GOD QUEENE OF ENGLAND HER MOST HUMBLE SERVAUNT EDMVND SPENSER DOTH IN ALL HUMILITIE THESE HIS LABOVRS TO LIVE WITH THE ETERNITIE OF HER FAME '. tinued allegory, or darke conceit, I haue thought good as well for auoyding of jealous opinions and misconstructions, as also for your better light in reading thereof, (being so by you commanded) to discouer unto you the general intention and meaning, which in the whole course thereof I haue fashioned, without expressing of any particular purposes, or by-accidents, therein occasioned. The general end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline: which for that I conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historical fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for variety of matter then for profite of the ensample, I chose the historye of king Arthure, as most fitte for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many mens former workes, and also furthest from the daunger of enuy, and suspition of present time. In which I haue followed all the antique poets historicall; first Homere, who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good gouernour and a vertuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis; then Virgil, whose like intention was to doe in the person of Æneas; after him Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando; and lately Tasso disseuered them again, and formed both parts in two persons, namely, that part which they in philosophy call ethice, or vertues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo; the other named politice in his Godfredo. By ensample of which excellente poets, I labour to pourtraict in Arthure, before he was king, the image of a braue knight, perfectly in the twelve priuate morall vertues, as Aristotle hath deuised; the which is the purpose of these first twelue bookes: which if I finde to be well accepted, I may be perbaps encoraged to frame the other part of polliticke vertues in his person, after that hee came to be king. To some I know this methode will seem displeasaunt, which had rather haue good discipline deliuered plainly in way of precepts, or sermonThis is the dedication of the edition of 1596. ed at large, as they use, then thus clowdily enTo the edition of 1590 the following brief compli-wrapped in allegorical deuises. But such, me ment only is prefixed. "To the most mightie and magnificent empresse Elizabeth by the grace of God queene of England France and Ireland defender of the faith &c. Her most humble servant Ed. Spenser." Todd. LETTER OF THE AUTHORS, Expounding his whole intention in the course of this TO THE RIGHT NOBLE AND VALOROUS LO. WARDEIN OF THE STANNERYES AND HER MAIESTIES SIR, knowing how doubtfully all allegories may be construed, and this booke of mine, which I haue entituled The Faerie Queene, being a con seeme, should be satisfide with the use of these |