Works about women

"Kristen Bell - Veronica Mars"

"Teddy Dunn - Duncan Kane"

"Jason Dohring - Logan Echolls"

"Francis Capra - Eli "Weevil" Navarro"

"Percy Daggs III - Wallace Fennel"

"Enrico Colantoni - Keith Mars"

"Amanda Seyfried - Lilly Kane"

"Kyle Secor - Jake Kane"

"Lisa Thornhill - Celeste Kane"

"Harry Hamlin - Aaron Echolls"

"Lisa Rinna - Lynn Echolls"

"Charisma Carpenter - Kendall Casablancas"

"Alyson Hannigan - Trina Echolls"

"Christian Clemenson - Abel Koontz"

"Corinne Bohrer - Lianne Mars"

"Sydney Tamiia Poitier - Mallory Dent"

"Ryan Hansen - Dick Casablancas"

"Kyle Gallner - Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas"

"Tessa Thompson - Jackie Cook"

"Tina Majorino - Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie"

"Alona Tal - Meg Manning"

"Julie Gonzalo - Parker Lee"

"Chris Lowell - Stosh "Piz" Piznarski"

"Michael Muhney - Sheriff Don Lamb"

"Sad list, isn't it? Further proof of what I have always said: too many (male) writers seem able to think of only two things to do with female characters -- rape 'em or knock 'em up. The dead ones might be the lucky ones. At least I made Wonder Woman MORE powerful. That's one ..."

"As for some characters being dead and then alive again -- that happens to both genders in comics. Look at Wonder Man. The thing that, to my mind, separates the male and female characters are the sex crimes. Only the female characters are victims of sex crimes; male characters are never subjected to that. (There may be one or two exceptions when the male character was sexually abused as a child, but that's about it.) It is the number and frequency of THAT which troubles me. (...) A female soldier in battle may suffer wounds; that's different than a woman being stalked, kidnapped, and having violence done to her in civilian life. The former incurs the physical damage because of her occupation; the latter, strictly because of her gender. A female cop may be shot because she is a cop, not because she is a female. That, to me, is part of the difference."

"It's a pretty scary list, scary mostly for what it says about (male) comics creators. What I think about this is the guys have good intentions, to use more female characters, and they try consciously to make them strong and positive role models and all that good stuff, but unconsciously it's very hard for many men to see women as something other than victims. (...) And where it comes from in many men is that men are real and women are vehicles for men's needs. One of those needs is to feel strong emotions such as grief, anger, pain, maturity. There are any number of movies and books in which a weak man becomes a hero, or faces up to life, because a woman has been raped or murdered or has committed suicide. Did the writer realize he was (once more) victimizing women? (...) I just checked out the web site after all, to see the reactions of (some of) the other creators. It was interesting to see how many of the men felt called on to defend (or apologize for) their own murdered female characters. You know, I assume, of the point made by people like Trina Robbins that the powers of female characters in the '60s showed a good deal about the male creators-- a "girl" who turns invisible, another who makes herself tiny and buzzes around men annoyingly (when she's not shopping)..."

"I think it's sad and terrible. I think that too many creators got on the "Bad Girl" bandwagon and did nothing but pander and exploit their own creations. To be honest, many creators that I've talked to solely created those characters to be exploited and exploitative. Now mind you I don't see this as a gender thing as much as I see it as a genre thing. Everybody is out for the quick buck and too many are too lazy to try to come up with something original. I know it's scary but if tomorrow's hot comics are about one-legged Mongolian dwarfs, than you can be sure that more than one respected creator will be jumping all over the concept but will claim to be giving it "their spin." (...) The worst news is that it's a million times worse in other parts of the entertainment field, mainly because there is more money involved and fewer morals."

"I'd chalk most of what's on your list up to lame writing. In desperate search of drama, and unable to obtain it any other way, some writers will resort to obvious emotional triggers/easy pickin's. You can always get a bang by killing Aunt May, or for that matter, Superman. The biggest crime is that many of these stories are unfolded badly, baldly and pathetically, by writers who don't have a clue. People looking for Freudian motives, i.e., hatred of Mother, etc., are wasting their time. Most of these writers sweated cannonballs trying to think of something SO SHOCKING that it would evoke a response from readers, and violence to women was the most horrifying thing they could come up with. Usually, the response to these badly told tales is boredom. Sometimes, they succeed in mobilizing folks like you, who wonder if these writers are sick. Nah. They just suck."

"There's the famous--and true--anecdote of the Hellcat story that consists mostly of her being beaten to a pulp by a man, a story that BY THE *WILDEST* COINCIDENCE was written by a man in the middle of harsh divorce proceedings. (...) I'm responsible for the death of Ice. My call, my worst mistake in comics, my biggest regret. I remember hearing myself ask the editor, "Who's the JLAer whose death would evoke the most fierce gut reaction from readers?" What a dope. Mea culpa. But I've learned my lesson. In fact, one of the only reasons I still hang on to FLASH is because I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the moment I walk, the next guy's gonna drop a safe on Linda Park's head before my last voucher's been paid."

"I think it generally means killing female heroes is supposed to elicit more emotions from readers than killing male readers. (...) I think the wholesale slaughter is because there's a lot of writers who think all major character motivation is made by killing folk and women characters are easier to kill than male characters since so few of them are major heroes on their own. (...) I fear, that most boys want to read stories about big muscled guy heroes showing off than gal heroes. They want the girl heroes there in the background, and even important to books, but they rarely if ever buy a book starring a female. Younger boys I think are frightened to some degree by the overly muscled women even while they may find a sexual delight in them."

"Having always created lots of female characters, and doing some good work on them, I think, by making them all individuals (whether someone liked the Titans or not, Starfire, Wonder Girl and Raven were not in any way the same person in different latex costumes), I find most female heroes that other writers do are simply cookie-cut outs. Since a very few of these are anything special, it's easy to knock them off. Acknowledging that does not condone it. It merely explains it."

"As regards the female characters thing, I'm afraid I think it's giving male creators a bum deal. The list does read pretty shocking at first until you think of everything the male heroes have gone through, too, in terms of deaths/mutilations/etc. Granted, the female stuff has more of a sexual violence theme and this is something people should probably watch out for, but rape is a rare thing in comics and is seldom done in an exploitative way."

"Before being able to comment on the tragedies which have befallen only female comic characters as any kind of a trend, I would need to see a similar list of the kinds of tragedies which have befallen MALE characters in direct proportion to the number of female characters vs. male which exist throughout the entire industry. (...) As a writer with at least over 500 story credits (I stopped counting. Math isn't my strong suit), I will say that professionally speaking, I believe in treating ALL my characters, male, female, black, white or Kryptonian with equal measure respect and abuse. Basically, you have to respect them enough to abuse them in order to see how they will handle the adversity. Remember, monthly comics publishing is akin to a soap opera with more punches thrown. Characters HAVE to be made to endure both physical and emotional adversity in order for the lifeblood of the genre -- i.e. MONTHLY serial stories -- to work. When you've done more work on the subject, I'd be glad to discuss your results."

"I reserve the right to refuse to like a comic just because there is a girl/woman in it, or someone's decided to take a limp stab at marketing it to girls/women. (...) Push past those posters of giant titties and that one of the impossible pose where some gal is displaying her butt, crotch AND breasts, and that one where the girl looks like she's been oiled up and spanked. Push past all that, my sisters! (...) There, my sisters, under all those eye lemons and tree-killers are comics you will like. Don't hold it against your retailer if he or she is keeping the store going with chromium multi-variant oops-my-tittie-fell-out 1-to-4 short-packed speculator specials — get in there and grab that Previews and you will find something for you, and by God order it and get all your girlfriends to do the same and your store will still be in business after the superhero readers turn 18 and start reading the Mangerotica books and the speculators have left to sell their Beanie Babies to pay the rent! (...) Of course, always give your business to the store that makes it easy to get what you want, and doesn't offended your eyeballs with faux-core (as opposed to soft core) porn. Thank you."

"Season 1; Season 2; Season 3; Season 4; Season 5; Season 6; Season 7"

"Sometimes when you've read the novel, it gets in the way of the images on the screen. You keep remembering how you imagined things. That didn't happen with me during Sophie's Choice, because the movie is so perfectly cast and well-imagined that it just takes over and happens to you. It's quite an experience. … The movie, like the book, is told with two narrators. One is Stingo, who remembers these people from that summer in Brooklyn, and who also remembers himself at that much earlier age. The other narrator, contained within Stingo's story, is Sophie herself, who remembers what happened to her during World War II, and shares her memories with Stingo in a long confessional. Both the book and the movie have long central flashbacks, and neither the book nor the movie is damaged by those diversions, because Sophie's story is so indispensable to Stingo's own growth, from an adolescent dreamer to an artist who can begin to understand human suffering."

"We almost don't notice, at first, as Stingo's odyssey into adulthood is replaced, in the film, by Sophie's journey back into the painful memories of her past. The movie becomes an act of discovery, as the naive young American, his mind filled with notions of love, death, and honor, becomes the friend of a woman who has seen so much hate, death, and dishonor that the only way she can continue is by blotting out the past, and drinking and loving her way into temporary oblivion. … Sophie's Choice is a fine, absorbing, wonderfully acted, heartbreaking movie. It is about three people who are faced with a series of choices, some frivolous, some tragic. As they flounder in the bewilderment of being human in an age of madness, they become our friends, and we love them."

"Meryl Streep as Zofia "Sophie" Zawistowska"

"Kevin Kline as Nathan Landau"

"Peter MacNicol as Stingo"

"Rita Karin as Yetta Zimmerman"

"Stephen D. Newman as Larry Landau"

"Josh Mostel as Morris Fink"

"No one dies but some one is glad of it."

"Joy and sorrow are the inseparable companions of death."

"The good and the generous action of which we feel incapable is a reproach when done by another."

"Our own faults are those we are the first to detect, and the last to forgive, in others."

"Nothing more indicates those tastes and habits which go so far towards both making and showing the character — as a person's sitting-room."

"When we trace to their source the most important circumstances of our life, in what trifles have they originated! — a look, a word, are the ministers of fate."

"There is a mania in every class to be mistaken for what it is not. Many things innocent, nay, even graceful in themselves, become injurious and awkward by unseasonable imitation. We follow, we copy; first comfort goes, and then respectability. A false seeming is mistaken for refinement, and half life is thrown away in worthless sacrifices to a set of hollow idols called appearances."

"It is a notable fact that we keep ourselves most in the dark about ourselves."

"Once set a strong mind thinking, and you have done all that it needs for its education."

"Every one considers the world as made especially for their own purposes."

"Nothing deceives its possessor like vanity."

"Modern history might be told by a succession of dinners."

"The first love-letter is an epoch in love's happy season — it makes assurance doubly sure — that which has hitherto, perhaps, only found utterance in sweet and hurried words, now seems to take a more tangible existence. A love-letter is a proof of how dearly, even in absence, you are remembered."

"Every age has its characteristic, and our present one is not behind its predecessors in that respect; it is the age of systems, every system enforced by a treatise."

"Conjugal government requires its treatises. A young woman setting out in life lacks a printed guide. Her cookery-book, however, may afford some useful hints till one be actually directed to the important subject just mentioned. Many well-known receipts are equally available for a batterie de cuisine or du cœur. Your roasted husband is subdued by the fire of fierce words and fiercer looks — your broiled husband, under the pepper and salt of taunt and innuendo — your stewed husband, under the constant application of petty vexations — your boiled husband dissolves under the watery influences — while your confectionized husband goes through a course of the blanc mange of flattery, or the preserves and sweets of caresses and smiles."

"Hope and experience take two different sides of an argument."

"Whether wealth bring the curse of selfishness along with it, or that the leaven was in our nature, only dormant till called forth by circumstances, we are only too apt to misuse it, even as others have done before us."

"Best intentions are not the best things in the world to marry upon."

"While bills are being brought into the House of Commons to regulate every thing, from the sweeps crying "sweep," to "emancipation, vote by ballot, and free trade," is there no county member whose "time and talents" are devoted to "domestic policy," who will bring in a bill "for the better regulation of the marriage ceremony," and put the canonical hours later in the day? at all events, could there not be a special clause in favour of London? A spring morning there is the very reverse of Thomson's description; for "delicious mildness" read "a cutting east wind;" and for "veiled in roses" substitute "smoke and fog." The streets are given up to the necessities of life — to the milkman with his cans, the butcher with his tray, the baker with his basket; all belong to the material portion of existence. Now, marriage is (or ought to be) an affair of affections, sentiments, &c. The legislature ought to give it the full benefit of moonlight and wax-candles."

"Nothing is too unreasonable nor too unkind for selfishness, acted upon by vanity."

"Those who have all their lives been accustomed to a cheerful and happy home, can scarcely understand the extent to which domestic tyranny is sometimes carried."

"Now there is nothing that puts people out of their way more than a change from their usual sitting-room ; it is almost as bad as moving to a new house."

"-- shopping ! one of the pleasant necessities in a young lady's case who is about to change her condition, filled up the morning."

"But Mr. Gooch liked bright colours; and, without going the length of kindling yellow, most gentlemen like them too. I think it is the mere preference of personal vanity, on the principle of contrast, their taste is dictated by self-consideration; a woman in sombre hues does not sufficiently throw out their own dark dress."

"... the horizon of matrimony is only seen through a glass, and that darkly, if the experience of others be the glass by which we make our observations."

"And no ring, if it does wither its circle, withers so utterly as a golden one. With only the false criterion of courtship to judge by, the wedded pair expect too much from each other ; and those who should make the most, make the least allowance. Tastes differ, tempers jar, trifles become important — as the grain of sand, which, nothing in itself, yet, gathered together, sweeps over the fertile plain, leaving no sign that there ever was blossom or fruit. The scar, which would soon pass, did distance or time intervene, can not heal from hourly irritation, One quarrel brings the memory of its predecessor, and grievances and mortifications are treasured up for perpetual reference. Too late, each finds out how utterly unsuited either is to the other ; they have not a feeling, a taste, or an opinion in common."

"The power of young Joy, like that of young Love, does not travel far on the dusty road of life in general."

"Alas! how seldom are any of us quite happy at the passing moment."

"It is a very difficult thing for the most cunning, when they say one thing and mean another, to hide their wishes from one as practised as themselves ; and an awkward thing to commit yourselves in writing at all where a secret or a scheme is concerned."

"The free pen, prone to pour out the suggestions of artless affection, vivid imagination, or domestic anecdote, is as much woman's especial instrument as the needle."

"... a disgust for political and fashionable society (which is, in fact, very generally to be found in those who are engaged in public offices, conscious that they do the work for which others are paid)"

"What a life for a free man, born to the use of dogs and horses, pure air, and wide-spreading moors! — no wonder that, although junior partner, and as modest as he was high-spirited, he trod his counting-house floor with a step vigorous and springy as the young captain of a man-of-war, for he felt that he was an emancipated slave; nay, more, a British merchant. If not "monarch of all he surveyed," he was certainly monarch of all he desired, which is probably more than any one of those mighty personages who rule mankind could have honestly asserted."

"No person of fashion ever laughs out from the impulse of the heart,"

"The possession of beauty leads to an overweening admiration of it, and wealth gives a power of preserving this boon of nature in a manner forbidden to the poor, which will account fully for the extreme and perhaps blameable solicitude a few continue to feel on the subject."

"... everybody was much more pleased than people are in general with any lions, who are also exotics, to whom they condescend to be attentive, but refuse to be friendly; rejoicing when any little conventional informality reduces the genius, whose patent of nobility the Creator himself has bestowed, below the level of fashion, and substituting ridicule for admiration, the smile of the scorner for the approval of veneration."

"... old bachelors are fond of young girls, under the idea that they can manage them the best"

"Strangely enough, the swan dive was invented before the swan."

"And Engor called it Firee, which was his word for Fire."

"Savage! Primitive! Deadly!"

"Laurette Luez — Tigri"

"Allan Nixon — Engor"

"Joan Shawlee — Lotee"

"Judy Landon — Eras"

"Wondering if you're happy is a great shortcut to just being depressed."

"Men always feel that they have to fix things for women, but they're not doing anything. Some things just can't be fixed. Just be there, somehow that's hard for all of you."

"Whatever you think your life is going to be like, just know, it's not gonna be anything like that."

"Annette Bening - Dorothea Fields"

"Greta Gerwig - Abigail "Abbie" Porter"

"Elle Fanning - Julie Hamlin"

"Lucas Jade Zumann - Jamie Fields"

"Billy Crudup - William"

"Alia Shawkat - Trish"

"Darrell Britt-Gibson - Julian"

"Thea Gill - Abbie's Mother"

"Laura Wiggins - Lynette Winters"

"Nathalie Love - Cindy"

"Waleed Zuaiter - Charlie"

"Alison Elliott - Julie's Mother"

"Finn Roberts - Tim Drammer"

"Kirk Bovill - Dorothea's Dinner Guest"

"The generall end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline."

"So you great Lord, that with your counsell sway The burdeine of this kingdom mightily, With like delightes sometimes may eke delay, The rugged brow of carefull Policy."

"Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall moralize my song."

"A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine."

"And on his brest a bloodie Crosse he bore, The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore."

"But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad; Yet nothing did he dread, but euer was ydrad."

"And all within were pathes and alleies wide, With footing worne, and leading inward farr."

"And foorth they passe, with pleasure forward led, Ioying to heare the birdes sweete harmony, Which therein shrouded from the tempest dred, Seemd in their song to scorne the cruell sky. Much can they praise the trees so straight and hy, The sayling Pine, the Cedar proud and tall, The vine-propp Elme, the Poplar neuer dry, The builder Oake, sole king of forrests all, The Aspine good for staues, the Cypresse funerall.'The Laurell, meed of mightie Conquerours And Poets sage, the Firre that weepeth still, The Willow worne of forlorne Paramours, The Eugh obedient to the benders will, The Birch for shaftes, the Sallow for the mill, The Mirrhe sweete bleeding in the bitter wound, The warlike Beech, the Ash for nothing ill, The fruitfull Oliue, and the Platane round, The caruer Holme, the Maple seeldom inward sound."

"Oft fire is without smoke, And perill without show."

"Vertue giues her selfe light, through darkenesse for to wade."

"His glistring armor made A litle glooming light, much like a shade."

"God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endlesse traine."

"Add faith vnto your force, and be not faint: Strangle her, els she sure will strangle thee."

"For what so strong, But wanting rest will also want of might? The Sunne that measures heauen all day long, At night doth baite his steedes the Ocean waues emong."

"The noblest mind the best contentment has."

"A bold bad man, that dar'd to call by name Great Gorgon, prince of darknes and dead night."

"The Northerne wagoner had set His seuenfold teme behind the stedfast starre."

"Will was his guide, and griefe led him astray."

"Better new friend then an old foe."

"Her angels face As the great eye of heauen shyned bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place; Did neuer mortall eye behold such heauenly grace."

"O how can beautie maister the most strong, And simple truth subdue auenging wrong?"

"One louing howre For many yeares of sorrow can dispence: A dram of sweete is worth a pound of sowre."

"A stately Pallace built of squared bricke, Which cunningly was without morter laid, Whose wals were high, but nothing strong, nor thick And golden foile all ouer them displaid, That purest skye with brightnesse they dismaid."

"And all the hinder partes, that few could spie, Were ruinous and old, but painted cunningly."

"Idlenesse the nourse of sin."

"From worldly cares himselfe he did esloyne, And greatly shunned manly exercise, From euerie worke he chalenged essoyne, For contemplation sake: yet otherwise, His life he led in lawlesse riotise; By which he grew to grieuous malady; For in his lustlesse limbs through euill guise A shaking feuer raignd continually: Such one was Idlenesse."

"And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony, Deformed creature, on a filthie swyne, His belly was vpblowne with luxury; And eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne."

"And greedy Auarice by him did ride, Vppon a Camell loaden all with gold; Two iron coffets hong on either side, With precious metall full, as they might hold, And in his lap an heap of coine he told; For of his wicked pelpe his God he made, And vnto hell him selfe for money sold; Accursed vsury was all his trade, And right and wrong ylike in equall ballaunce waide.'His life was nigh vnto deaths dore yplaste, And thred-bare cote, and cobled shoes hee ware, Ne scarse good morsell all his life did taste, But both from backe and belly still did spare, To fill his bags, and richesse to compare; Yet childe ne kinsman liuing had he none To leaue them to; but thorough daily care To get, and nightly feare to lose his owne, He led a wretched life vnto him selfe vnknowne.'Most wretched wight, whom nothing might suffise, Whose greedy lust did lacke in greatest store, Whose need had end, but no end couetise, Whose welth was want, whose plēty made him pore, Who had enough, yett wished euer more."

"He hated all good workes and vertuous deeds, And him no lesse, that any like did vse, And who with gratious bread the hungry feeds, His almes for want of faith he doth accuse; So euery good to bad he doth abuse: And eke the verse of famous Poets witt He does backebite, and spightfull poison spues From leprous mouth on all, that euer writt: Such one vile Enuy was, that first in row did sitt."

"Full many mischiefes follow cruell Wrath; Abhorred bloodshed, and tumultuous strife, Vn manly murder, and vnthrifty scath, Bitter despight, with rancours rusty knife, And fretting griefe the enemy of life; All these, and many euils moe haunt ire, The swelling Splene, and Frenzy raging rife, The shaking Palsey, and Saint Fraunces fire: Such one was Wrath, the last of this vngodly tire."

"The noble hart, that harbours vertuous thought, And is with childe of glorious great intent, Can neuer rest, vntill it forth haue brought Th'eternall brood of glorie excellent."

"At last the golden Orientall gate Of greatest heauen gan to open fayre, And Phoebus fresh, as brydegrome to his mate, Came dauncing forth, shaking his deawie hayre:, And hurls his glistring beams through gloomy ayre."

"A cruell craftie Crocodile, Which in false griefe hyding his harmefull guile, Doth weepe full sore, and sheddeth tender teares."

"Where griesly Night, with visage deadly sad, That Phoebus chearefull face durst neuer vew, And in a foule blacke pitchy mantle clad, She findes forth comming from her darksome mew, Where she all day did hide her hated hew. Before the dore her yron charet stood, Already harnessed for iourney new; And coleblacke steedes yborne of hellish brood, That on their rusty bits did champ, as they were wood."

"But who can turne the streame of destinee, Or breake the chayne of strong necessitee."

"That cruell word her tender hart so thrild, That suddein cold did ronne through euery vaine, And stony horrour all her sences fild With dying fitt, that downe she fell for paine."

"Therewith they gan, both furious and fell, To thunder blowes, and fiersly to assaile Each other, bent his enimy to quell, That with their force they perst both plate & maile, And made wide furrowes in their fleshes fraile, That it would pitty any liuing eie. Large floods of blood adowne their sides did raile; But floods of blood could not them satisfie: Both hongred after death: both chose to win, or die."

"What man so wise, what earthly witt so ware, As to discry the crafty cunning traine, By which deceipt doth maske in visour faire, And cast her coulours died deepe in graine, To seeme like truth, whose shape she well can faine, And fitting gestures to her purpose frame; The guiltlesse man with guile to entertaine?"

"Who hath endur'd the whole, can beare ech part."

"What worlds delight, or ioy of liuing speach Can hart, so plungd in sea of sorrowes deep, And heaped with so huge misfortunes, reach? The carefull cold beginneth for to creep, And in my heart his yron arrow steep, Soone as I thinke vpon my bitter bale."

"let me you intrete, For to vnfold the anguish of your hart: Mishaps are maistred by aduice discrete, And counsell mitigates the greatest smart."

"O but (qd. she) great griefe will not be tould, And can more easily be thought, then said."

"Ay me, how many perils doe enfold The righteous man, to make him daily fall, Were not that heauenly grace doth him vphold, And stedfast truth acquite him out of all."

"As when in Cymbrian plaine An heard of Bulles, whom kindly rage doth sting, Doe for the milky mothers want complaine, And fill the fieldes with troublous bellowing."

"At last with creeping crooked pace forth came An old old man, with beard as white as snow, That on a staffe his feeble steps did frame, And guyde his wearie gate both too and fro; For his eye sight him fayled long ygo, And on his arme a bounch of keyes he bore, The which vnused rust did ouergrow: Those were the keyes of euery inner dore, But he could not them vse, but kept them still in store.'But very vncouth sight was to behold, How he did fashion his vntoward pace, For as he forward mooud his footing old, So backward still was turnd his wrincled face, Vnlike to men, who euer as they trace, Both feet and face one way are wont to lead. This was the auncient keeper of that place, And foster father of the Gyaunt dead; His name Ignaro did his nature right aread."

"Entire affection hateth nicer hands."

"When I awoke, and found her place deuoyd, And nought but pressed gras where she had lyen, I sorrowed all so much, as earst I ioyd, And washed all her place with watry eyen."

"True Loues are oftẽ sown, but seldom grow on grownd."

"Still as he fledd, his eye was backward cast, As if his feare still followed him behynd; Als flew his steed, as he his bandes had brast, And with his winged heeles did tread the wynd, As he had beene a fole of Pegasus his kynd."

"That darkesome caue they enter, where they find That cursed man, low sitting on the ground, Musing full sadly in his sullein mind."

"His raw-bone cheekes through penurie and pine, Were shronke into his iawes, as he did neuer dyne."

"Is not short payne well borne, that bringes long ease, And layes the soule to sleepe in quiet graue? Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life does greatly please."

"The terme of life limited, Ne may a man prolong, nor shorten it; The souldier may not moue from watchfull sted, Nor leaue his stand, vntill his Captaine bed. Who life did limit by almightie doome, (Quoth he) knowes best the termes established; And he, that points the Centonell his roome, Doth license him depart at sound of morning droome."

"Death is the end of woes: die soone, O faries sonne."

"His hand did quake, And tremble like a leafe of Aspin greene, And troubled blood through his pale face was seene To come, and goe with tidings from the heart, As it a ronning messenger had beene."

"Where iustice growes, there grows eke greter grace, The which doth quench the brond of hellish smart."

"Each goodly thing is hardest to begin."

"O happy earth, Whereon thy innocent feet do ever tread!"

"In ashes and sackcloth he did array His daintie corse, proud humors to abate, And dieted with fasting euery day, The swelling of his woundes to mitigate, And made him pray both earely and eke late: And euer as superfluous flesh did rott Amendment readie still at hand did wayt, To pluck it out with pincers fyrie whott, That soone in him was lefte no one corrupted iott."

"Saint George shalt called bee, Saint George of mery England, the signe of victoree."

"Dazed were his eyne, Through passing brightnes, which did quite cõfound His feeble sence, and too exceeding shyne. So darke are earthly thinges compard to things diuine."

"Now gan the golden Phoebus for to steepe His fierie face in billowes of the west; And his faint steedes watred in Ocean deepe, Whiles from their iournall labours they did rest."

"By this the drouping day-light gan to fade, And yied his rowme to sad succeeding night, Who with her sable mantle gan to shade The face of earth, and wayes of liuing wight, And high her burning torch set vp in heauen bright."

"Now strike your sailes yee iolly Mariners, For we be come vnto a quiet rode, Where we must land some of our passengers, And light this weary vessell of her lode."

"Why then should witlesse man so much misweene That nothing is but that which he hath seene?"

"But now so wise and wary was the knight By tryall of his former harmes and cares, That he descryde, and shonned still his slight: The fish that once was caught, new bait wil hardly byte."

"Which when she heard, as in despightfull wise, She wilfully her sorrow did augment, And offred hope of comfort did despise: Her golden lockes most cruelly she rent, And scratcht her face with ghastly dreriment, Ne would she speake, nesee, ne yet be seene, But hid her visage, and her head downe bent, Either for grieuous shame, or for great teene, As if her hart with sorow had transfixed beene."

"Come then, come soone, come sweetest death to me, And take away this long lent loathed light: Sharpe be thy wounds, but sweete the medicines be, That long captiued soules from weary thraldome free."

"Behold the ymage of mortalitie, And feeble nature cloth'd with fleshly tyre When raging passion with fierce tyranny Robs reason of her dew regalitie, And makes it seruaunt to her basest part, The strong it weakens with infirmitie: And with bold furie armes the weakest hart; The strong through pleasure soonest falles, the weake through smart."

"Death is an equall doome To good and bad, the commen In of rest."

"Such is the state of men!"

"So double was his paines, so double be his praise."

"Now gan his hart all swell in iollity, And of him selfe great hope and help conceiu'd, That puffed vp with smoke of vanity, And with selfe-loued personage deceiu'd, He gan to hope, of men to be receiu'd For such, as he him thought, or faine would bee: But for in court gay portaunce he perceiu'd, And gallant shew to be in greatest gree, Eftsoones to court he cast t'aduaunce his first degree."

"Vaineglorious man, when fluttring wind does blow In his light winges, is lifted vp to skye: The scorne of knighthood and trew cheualrye, To thinke without desert of gentle deed, And noble worth to be aduaunced hye: Such prayse is shame; but honour vertues meed Doth beare the fayrest flowre in honourable seed."

"Her face so faire as flesh it seemed not, But heuenly pourtraict of bright Angels hew, Cleare as the skye, withouten blame or blot, Through goodly mixture of complexions dew."

"In her faire eyes two liuing lamps did flame, Kindled aboue at th'heuenly makers light, And darted fyrie beames out of the same, So passing persant, and so wondrous bright, That quite bereau'd the rash beholders sight."

"And when she spake, Sweete wordes, like dropping honny she did shed, And twixt the perles and rubins softly brake A siluer sound, that heauenly musicke seemd to make."

"Vpon her eyelids many Graces sate, Vnder the shadow of her euen browes."

"Who so in pompe of prowd estate (qd. she) Does swim, and bathes him selfe in courtly blis, Does waste his dayes in darke obscuritee, And in obliuion euer buried is."

"Loue that two harts makes one, makes eke one will."

"And therein sate a Ladie fresh and faire, Making sweet solace to her selfe alone; Sometimes she sung, as loud as larke in aire, Sometimes she laught, as nigh her breth was gone, Yet was there not with her else any one, That might to her moue cause of meriment: Matter of merth enough, though there were none She could deuise, and thousand waies inuent, To feede her foolish humour, and vaine iolliment."

"No dainty flowre or herbe, that growes on grownd, No arborett with painted blossomes drest, And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd To bud out faire, & throwe her sweete smels al arownd."

"Yet nether spinnes nor cards, ne cares nor fretts, But to her mother Nature all her care she letts."

"The fields did laugh, the flowres did freshly spring, The trees did bud, and early blossomes bore, And all the quire of birds did sweetly sing, And told that gardins pleasures in their caroling."

"His yron cote all ouergrowne with rust, Was vnderneath enueloped with gold, Whose glistring glosse darkned with filthy dust, Well yet appeared, to haue beene of old A worke of rich entayle, and curious mould, Wouen with antickes and wyld ymagery: And in his lap a masse of coyne he told, And turned vpside downe, to feede his eye And couetous desire with his huge threasury."

"Before the dore sat selfe-consuming Care, Day and night keeping wary watch and ward, For feare least Force or Fraud should vnaware Breake in, and spoile the treasure there in gard: Ne would he suffer Sleepe once thether-ward Approch, albe his drowsy den were next; For next to death is Sleepe to be compard: Therefore his house is vnto his annext; Here Sleep, ther Richesse, & Helgate thē both betwext."

"Some thought to raise themselues to high degree, By riches and vnrighteous reward, Some by close shouldring, some by flatteree; Others through friendes, others for base regard; And all by wrong waies for themselues prepard. Those that were vp themselues, kept others low, Those that were low themselues held others hard, Ne suffred them to ryse or greater grow, But euery one did striue his fellow downe to throw."

"And is there care in heauen? and is their loue In heauenly spirits to these creatures bace, That may compassion of their euilles moue? There is: else much more wretched were the cace Of men then beasts. But O th'exceeding grace Of highest God, that loues his creatures so, And all his workes with mercy doth embrace, That blessed Angels, he sends to and fro, To serue to wicked man, to serue his wicked foe.'How oft do they, their siluer bowers leaue, To come to succour vs, that succour want, How oft do they with golden pineons, cleaue The flitting skyes, like flying Pursuiuant, Against fowle feendes to ayd vs militant: They for vs fight, they watch and dewly ward, And their bright Squadrons round about vs plant, And all for loue, and nothing for reward: O why should heuenly God to men haue such regard."

"Gold al is not, that doth golden seeme."

"Of all Gods workes, which doe this world adorne, There is no one more faire and excellent, Then is mans body both for powre and forme, Whiles it is kept in sober gouernment."

"And through the Hall there walked to and fro A iolly yeoman, Marshall of the same, Whose name was Appetite; he did bestow Both guestes and meate, when euer in they came, And knew them how to order without blame."

"The wretched man gan then auise to late, That loue is not, where most it is profest."

"What warre so cruel, or what siege so sore, As that, which strong affections doe apply Against the forte of reason euermore, To bring the sowle into captiuity."

"Slaunderous reproches, and fowle infamies, Leasinges, backbytinges, and vaineglorious crakes, Bad counsels, prayses, and false flatteries, All those against that fort did bend their batteries."

"As pale and wan as ashes was his looke, His body leane and meagre as a rake, And skin all withered like a dryed rooke, Thereto as cold and drery as a Snake, That seemd to tremble euermore, and quake."

"Suddeine they see from midst of all the Maine, The surging waters like a mountaine rise, And the great sea puft vp with proud disdaine, To swell aboue the measure of his guise, As threatning to deuoure all, that his powre despise."

"O turne thy rudder hetherward a while: Here may thy storme-bett vessell safely ryde; This is the Port of rest from troublous toyle, The worldes sweet In, frō paine & wearisome turmoyle."

"Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound, Of all that mote delight a daintie eare, Such as attonce might not on liuing ground, Saue in this Paradise, be heard elswhere: Right hard it was, for wight, which did it heare, To read, what manner musicke that mote bee: For all that pleasing is to liuing eare, Was there consorted in one harmonee, Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree.'The ioyous birdes shrouded in chearefull shade, Their notes vnto the voice attempred sweet; Th'Angelicall soft trembling voyces made To th'instruments diuine respondence meet: The siluer sounding instruments did meet With the base murmure of the waters fall: The waters fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, vnto the wind did call: The gentle warbling wind low answered to all."

"So passeth, in the passing of a day, Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre, Ne more doth florish after first decay, That earst was sought to deck both bed and bowre, Of many a Lady, and many a Paramowre: Gather therefore the Rose, whilest yet is prime, For soone comes age, that will her pride deflowre: Gather the Rose of loue, whilest yet is time, Whilest louing thou mayst loued be with equall crime."

"But all those pleasaunt bowres and Pallace braue, Guyon broke downe, with rigour pittilesse; Ne ought their goodly workmanship might saue Them from the tempest of his wrathfulnesse, But that their blisse he turn'd to balefulnesse: Their groues he feld, their gardins did deface, Their arbers spoyle, their Cabinets suppresse, Their banket houses burne, their buildings race, And of the fayrest late, now made the fowlest place."

"The donghill kinde Delightes in filth and fowle incontinence: Let Gryll be Gryll, and haue his hoggish minde."

"For who can shun the chance, that dest'ny doth ordaine?"

"Through thicke and thin, both ouer banck and bush In hope her to attaine by hooke or crooke."

"Like dastard Curres, that hauing at a bay The saluage beast embost in wearie chace, Dare not aduenture on the stubborne pray, Ne byte before, but rome from place to place, To get a snatch, when turned is his face."

"For shee was full of amiable grace, And manly terror mixed therewithall, That as the one stird vp affections bace, So th'other did mens rash desires apall, And hold them backe, that would in error fall; As hee, that hath espide a vermeill Rose, To which sharpe thornes and breres the way forstall, Dare not for dread his hardy hand expose, But wishing it far off, his ydle wish doth lose."

"Shee greatly gan enamoured to wex, And with vaine thoughts her falsed fancy vex: Her fickle hart conceiued hasty fyre, Like sparkes of fire, that fall in sclender flex, That shortly brent into extreme desyre, And ransackt all her veines with passion entyre."

"Nought so of loue this looser Dame did skill, But as a cole to kindle fleshly flame, Giuing the bridle to her wanton will, And treading vnder foote her honest name."

"His feeling wordes her feeble sence much pleased, And softly sunck into her molten hart; Hart that is inly hurt, is greatly eased With hope of thing, that may allegge his smart, For pleasing wordes are like to Magick art, That doth the charmed Snake in slomber lay:"

"Dischord ofte in Musick makes the sweeter lay."

"But as it falleth, in the gentlest harts Imperious Loue hath highest set his throne, And tyrannizeth in the bitter smarts Of them, that to him buxome are and prone:"

"Sad, solemne, sowre, and full of fancies fraile She woxe; yet wist she nether how, nor why, She wist not, silly Mayd, what she did aile, Yet wist, she was not well at ease perdy, Yet thought it was not loue, but some melancholy."

"Ne ought it mote the noble Mayd auayle, Ne slake the fury of her cruell flame, But that shee still did waste, and still did wayle, That through long languour, & hart-burning brame She shortly like a pyned ghost became."

"Most sacred fyre, that burnest mightily In liuing brests, ykindled first aboue, Emongst th'eternall spheres and lamping sky, And thence pourd into men, which men call Loue."

"For Merlin had in Magick more insight, Then euer him before or after liuing wight.'For he by wordes could call out of the sky Both Sunne and Moone, and make them him obay: The Land to sea, and sea to maineland dry, And darksom night he eke could turne to day: Huge hostes of men he could alone dismay, And hostes of men of meanest thinges could frame, When so him list his enimies to fray: That to this day for terror of his fame, The feends do quake, whē any him to them does name."

"Whereof she seemes ashamed inwardly."

"Where is the Antique glory now become, That whylome wont in wemen to appeare? Where be the braue atchieuements doen by some? Where be the batteilles, where the shield & speare, And all the conquests, which them high did reare, That matter made for famous Poets verse, And boastfull men so oft abasht to heare? Beene they all dead, and laide in dolefull herse? Or doen they onely sleepe, and shall againe reuerse?"

"She shortly thus; Fly they, that need to fly; Wordes fearen babes. I meane not thee entreat To passe; but maugre thee will passe or dy."

"But ah, who can deceiue his destiny, Or weene by warning to auoyd his fate?"

"But well I wote, that to an heauy hart Thou art the roote and nourse of bitter cares, Breeder of new, renewer of old smarts: In stead of rest thou lendest rayling teares, In stead of sleepe thou sendest troublous feares, And dreadfull visions, in the which aliue The dreary image of sad death appeares: So from the wearie spirit thou doest driue Desired rest, and men of happinesse depriue."

"Vnder thy mantle black there hidden lye, Light-shonning thefte, and traiterous intent, Abhorred bloodshed, and vile felony, Shamefull deceipt, and daunger imminent; Fowle horror, and eke hellish dreriment."

"Whether yt diuine Tobacco were, Or Panachaea, or Polygony, Shee fownd, and brought it to her patient deare."

"Thus warred he long time against his will, Till that through weakness he was forced at last To yield himself unto the mighty ill, Which, as a victor proud, 'gan ransack fast His inward parts and all his entrails waste, That neither blood in face nor life in heart It left, but both did quite dry up and blast: As piercing levin, which the inner part Of everything consumes and calcineth by art."

"Little she weened that love he close concealed; Yet still he wasted as the snow congealed, When the bright sun his beams thereon doth beat."

"So all did make in her a perfect complement."

"Her birth was of the womb of morning dew, And her conception of the joyous prime."

"Roses red and violets blue And all the sweetest flowers that in the forest grew."

"All that in this delightful garden grows Should happy be and have immortal bliss."

"There is continual spring, and harvest there Continual, both meeting at one time: For both the boughs do laughing blossoms bear And with fresh colours deck the wanton prime, And eke at once the heavy trees they climb, Which seem to labour under their fruits' load; The whiles the joyous birds make their pastime Amongst the shady leaves, their sweet abode, And their true loves without suspicion tell abroad."

"And in the thickest covert of that shade There was a pleasant arbour, not by art But of the trees' own inclination made, Which knitting their rank branches part to part, With wanton ivy twine entrailed athwart, And eglantine and caprifole among, Fashioned above within their inmost part, That neither Phoebus' beams could through them throng, Nor Aeolus' sharp blast could work them any wrong."

"With that, adown out of her crystal eyne Few trickling tears she softly forth let fall, That like to orient pearls did purely shine Upon her snowy cheek."

"Hard is to teach an old horse amble true."

"A fool I do him firmly hold That loves his fetters, though they were of gold."

"Mans wretched state, That floures so fresh at morne, & fades at euening late."

"A famous history to be enrolled In everlasting monuments of brass."

"And otherwhiles with amorous delights And pleasing toys he would her entertain, Now singing sweetly to surprise her sprites, Now making lays of love and lovers' pain, Bransles, ballads, virelays and verses vain; Oft purposes, oft riddles he devised, And thousands like which flowed in his brain, With which he fed her fancy and enticed To take to his new love and leave her old despised."

"Yet can he never die, but dying lives, And doth himself with sorrow new sustain, That death and life at once unto him gives, And painful pleasure turns to pleasing pain."

"Foul Jealousy, that turnest love divine To joyless dread, and makest the loving heart With hateful thoughts to languish and to pine And feed itself with self-consuming smart: Of all the passions in the mind thou vilest art."

"Life is not lost, (said she) for which is bought Endlesse renowm."

"And as she looked about, she did behold How over that same door was likewise writ, Be bold, be bold, and everywhere Be bold, That much she mused, yet could not construe it By any riddling skill or common wit. At last she spied at that room's upper end Another iron door, on which was writ, Be not too bold."

"Next him was Fear, all armed from top to toe, Yet thought himself not safe enough thereby, But feared each shadow moving to and fro; And his own arms when glittering he did spy Or clashing heard, he fast away did fly, As ashes pale of hue and wingy-heeled; And evermore on danger fixed his eye, 'Gainst whom he always bent a brazen shield, Which his right hand unarmed fearfully did wield."

"With him went Hope in rank, a handsome maid, Of cheerful look and lovely to behold; In silken samite she was light arrayed, And her fair locks were woven up in gold; She always smiled, and in her hand did hold A holy-water sprinkle dipped in dew, With which she sprinkled favours manifold On whom she list, and did great liking show; Great liking unto many, but true love to few."

"He lowered on her with dangerous eye-glance, Showing his nature in his countenance; His rolling eyes did never rest in place, But walked each where for fear of hid mischance, Holding a lattice still before his face, Through which he still did peep as forward he did pace."

"Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled, On Fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be filed."

"Born of one mother in one happy mould, Born at one burden in one happy morn."

"And with unwearied fingers drawing out The lines of life, from living knowledge hid."

"That cruell Atropos eftsoones vndid, With cursed knife cutting the twist in twaine: Most wretched men, whose dayes depend on thrids so vaine."

"Sweete is the loue that comes alone with willingnesse."

"Rude was his garment, and to rags all rent, Ne better had he, ne for better cared: With blistred hands emongst the cinders brent, And fingers filthie, with long nayles vnpared, Right fit to rend the food, on which he fared. His name was Care; a blacksmith by his trade, That neither day nor night from working spared, But to small purpose yron wedges made; Those be vnquiet thoughts, that carefull minds inuade."

"What equal torment to the grief of mind, And pining anguish hid in gentle heart, That inly feeds itself with thoughts unkind, And nourisheth her own confusing smart? What medicine can any leech's art Yield such a sore, that doth her grievance hide, And will to none her malady impart?"

"All she did was but to wear out day. Full oftentimes she leave of him did take; And oft again devised somewhat to say, Which she forgot, whereby excuse to make: So loath she was his company for to forsake."

"Yet was he but a squire of low degree."

"A foul and loathly creature sure in sight, And in conditions to be loathed no less: For she was stuffed with rancour and despite Up to the throat, that oft with bitterness It forth would break and gush in great excess, Pouring out streams of poison and of gall 'Gainst all that truth or virtue do profess; Whom she with leasings lewdly did miscall And wickedly backbite; her name men Slander call."

"For like the stings of Aspes, that kill with smart, Her spightfull words did pricke, & wound the inner part."

"From that day forth, in peace and joyous bliss They lived together long without debate; Nor private jar, nor spite of enemies, Could shake the safe assurance of their state."

"Faint friends when they fall out most cruel foemen be."

"True he it said, whatever man it said, That love with gall and honey doth abound; But if the one be with the other weighed, For every dram of honey therein found A pound of gall doth over it redound."

"His name was Doubt, that had a double face, The one forward looking, the other backward bent, Therein resembling Janus ancient, Which had in charge the ingate of the year: And evermore his eyes about him went, As if some proved peril he did fear, Or did misdoubt some ill, whose cause did not appear."

"For all that nature by her mother-wit Could frame in earth."

"And her against sweet Cheerfulness was placed, Whose eyes, like twinkling stars in evening clear, Were decked with smiles that all sad humours chased, And darted forth delights the which her goodly graced."

"Nor less was she in secret heart affected, But that she masked it with modesty, For fear she should of lightness be detected."

"Me seems the world is run quite out of square From the first point of his appointed source; And, being once amiss, grows daily worse and worse."

"For that which all men then did virtue call, Is now called vice; and that which vice was hight, Is now hight virtue, and so used of all; Right now is wrong, and wrong that was is right."

"Nought is more honourable to a knight, Nor better doth beseem brave chivalry, Than to defend the feeble in their right And wrong redress in such as wend awry."

"For whatsoever from one place doth fall Is with the tide unto another brought: For there is nothing lost that may be found if sought."

"He maketh kings to sit in sovereignty; He maketh subjects to their power obey; He pulleth down, he setteth up on high; He gives to this, from that he takes away: For all we have is his: what he list do, he may."

"For take thy balance, if thou be so wise, And weigh the wind that under heaven doth blow; Or weigh the light that in the east doth rise; Or weigh the thought that from man's mind doth flow."

"Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small."

"After long storms and tempests overblown, The sun at length his joyous face doth clear; So whenas fortune all her spite hath shown, Some blissful hours at last must needs appear; Else would afflicted wights oft-times despair."

"All suddenly inflamed with furious fit, Like a fell lioness at him she flew, And on his head-piece him so fiercely smit, That to the ground him quite she overthrew, Dismayed so with the stroke that he no colours knew."

"A sordid office for a mind so braue. So hard it is to be a womans slaue."

"Nought is on earth more sacred or divine, That gods and men do equally adore, Than this same virtue, that doth right define; For the heavens themselves, whence mortal men implore Right in their wrongs, are ruled by righteous lore Of highest Jove, who doth true justice deal To his inferior gods, and evermore Therewith contains his heavenly commonweal: The skill whereof to princes' hearts he doth reveal."

"Nought under heaven so strongly doth allure The sense of man, and all his mind possess, As Beauty's lovely bait, that doth procure Great warriors oft their rigour to repress, And mighty hands forget their manliness; Drawn with the power of an heart-robbing eye, And wrapped in fetters of a golden tress, That can with melting pleasance mollify Their hardened hearts, inured to blood and cruelty."

"Some clerks do doubt, in their deviceful art, Whether this heavenly thing whereof I treat, To weeten mercy, be of justice part, Or drawn forth from her by divine extreat: This well I wot, that sure she is as great, And meriteth to have as high a place, Sith in the Almighty's everlasting seat She first was bred and born of heavenly race; From thence poured down on men by influence of grace."

"It often falls, in course of common life, That right, long time, is overborne of wrong, Through avarice, or power, or guile, or strife, That weakens her, and makes her party strong; But Justice, though her doom she do prolong, Yet, at the last, she will her own cause right."

"Dearer is love than life, and fame than gold; But dearer than them both, your faith once plighted hold."

"O sacred hunger of ambitious minds And impotent desire of men to reign, Whom neither dread of God, that devils binds, Nor laws of men, that commonweals contain, Nor bands of nature, that wild beasts restrain, Can keep from outrage and from doing wrong, Where they may hope a kingdom to obtain. No faith so firm, no trust can be so strong, No love so lasting then, that may enduren long."

"And made to fly like doves, whom the eagle doth affray."

"Her hands were foul and dirty, never washed In all her life, with long nails over-raught, Like puttock's claws with the one of which she scratched Her cursed head, although it itched naught; The other held a snake with venom fraught, On which she fed and gnawed hungrily, As if that long she had not eaten aught; That round about her jaws one might descry The bloody gore and poison dropping loathsomely."

"Her face was ugly, and her mouth distort, Foaming with poison round about her gills, In which her cursed tongue (full sharp and short) Appeared like asp's sting, that closely kills Or cruelly does wound whomso she wills; A distaff in her other hand she had, Upon the which she little spins, but spills; And fains to weave false tales and leasings bad, To throw amongst the good, which others had disprad."

"A monster, which the Blatant Beast men call, A dreadful fiend, of gods and men ydrad."

"Yet is that glass so gay that it can blind The wisest sight, to think gold that is brass."

"But Virtue's seat is deep within the mind, And not in outward shows but inward thoughts defined."

"No greater shame to man than inhumanity."

"In vain he seeketh others to suppress Who hath not learned himself first to subdue."

"Who will not mercy unto others show, How can he mercy ever hope to have?"

"True is, that whilom that good poet said, The gentle mind by gentle deeds is known: For man by nothing is so well bewrayed As by his manners, in which plain is shown Of what degree and what race he is grown."

"Such is the weakness of all mortal hope; So tickle is the state of earthly things; That, ere they come unto their aimed scope, They fall too short of our frail reckonings, And bring us bale and bitter sorrowings, Instead of comfort which we should embrace."

"Ill seems," said he, "if he so valiant be, That he should be so stern to stranger wight: For seldom yet did living creature see That courtesy and manhood ever disagree."

"Moss bestrowed Must be their bed; their pillow was unsewed."

"Therein he them full fair did entertain, Not with such forged shows, as fitter been For courting fools that courtesies would feign, But with entire affection and appearance plain."

"No wound, which warlike hand of enemy Inflicts with dint of sword, so sore doth light As doth the poisonous sting which infamy Infixeth in the name of noble wight: For by no art, nor any leach's might, It ever can recured be again; Nor all the skill, which that immortal spright Of Podalirius did in it retain, Can remedy such hurts; such hurts are hellish pain."

"Give salves to every sore, but counsel to the mind."

"For we by conquest of our sovereign might, And by eternal doom of Fates' decree, Have won the empire of the heavens bright."

"Thereto, when needed, she could weep and pray, And when her listed she could fawn and flatter; Now smiling smoothly, like to summer's day, Now glooming sadly, so to cloak her matter; Yet were her words but wind, and all her tears but water."

"Through thick and thin, through mountains and through plains."

"Ye gentle ladies, in whose sovereign power Love hath the glory of his kingdom left, And the hearts of men, as your eternal dower, In iron chains, of liberty bereft, Delivered hath into your hands by gift; Be well aware how ye the same do use, That pride do not to tyranny you lift; Lest, if men you of cruelty accuse, He from you take that chiefdom which ye do abuse."

"Then to the rest his wrathful hand he bends; Of whom he makes such havoc and such hew, That swarms of damned souls to hell he sends; The rest, that scape his sword and death eschew, Fly like a flock of doves before a falcon's view."

"It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor: For some that hath abundance at his will Hath not enough, but wants in greatest store; And other that hath little asks no more, But in that little is both rich and wise; For wisdom is most riches; fools therefore They are which fortunes do by vows devise, Since each unto himself his life may fortunize."

"Old love is little worth when new is more preferred."

"Which to recure, no skill of Leaches art Mote him auaile, but to returne againe To his wounds worker, that with louely dart Dinting his brest, had bred his restlesse paine, Like as the wounded Whale to shore flies fro the maine."

"The gentle heart scorns base disparagement."

"The joys of love, if they should ever last Without affliction or disquietness That worldly chances do amongst them cast, Would be on earth too great a blessedness, Liker to heaven than mortal wretchedness: Therefore the winged god, to let men weet That here on earth is no sure happiness, A thousand sours hath tempered with one sweet, To make it seem more dear and dainty, as is meet."

"And therein were a thousand tongues empight Of sundry kinds and sundry quality; Some were of dogs, that barked day and night, And some of cats, that wrawling still did cry, And some of bears, that groined continually, And some of tigers, that did seem to gren And snarl at all that ever passed by; But most of them were tongues of mortal men, Which spake reproachfully, not caring where nor when.And them amongst were mingled here and there The tongues of serpents, with three-forked stings, That spat out poison, and gore-bloody gear, At all that came within his ravenings; And spake licentious words and hateful things Of good and bad alike, of low and high; Nor kaisers spared he a whit nor kings, But either blotted them with infamy, Or bit them with his baneful teeth of injury."

"What man that sees the euer-whirling wheele Of Change, the which all mortall things doth sway, But that therby doth find, & plainely feele, How MVTABILITY in them doth play Her cruell sports, to many mens decay?"

"Warres and allarums vnto Nations wide."

"Good on-set boads good end."

"So, forth issew'd the Seasons of the yeare; First, lusty Spring, all dight in leaues of flowres That freshly budded and new bloosmes did beare (In which a thousand birds had built their bowres That sweetly sung, to call forth Paramours): And in his hand a iauelin he did beare, And on his head (as fit for warlike stoures) A guilt engrauen morion he did weare; That as some did him loue, so others did him feare."

"Then came the iolly Sommer, being dight In a thin silken cassock coloured greene, That was vnlyned all, to be more light: And on his head a girlond well beseene He wore, from which as he had chauffed been The sweat did drop; and in his hand he bore A boawe and shaftes, as he in forrest greene Had hunted late the Libbard or the Bore, And now would bathe his limbes, with labor heated sore."

"Then came the Autumne all in yellow clad, As though he ioyed in his plentious store, Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad That he had banisht hunger, which to-fore Had by the belly oft him pinched sore. Vpon his head a wreath that was enrold With eares of corne, of euery sort he bore: And in his hand a sickle he did holde, To reape the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold."

"Lastly, came Winter cloathed all in frize, Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill, Whil'st on his hoary beard his breath did freese; And the dull drops that from his purpled bill As from a limbeck did adown distill. In his right hand a tipped staffe he held, With which his feeble steps he stayed still: For, he was faint with cold, and weak with eld; That scarse his loosed limbes he hable was to weld."

"First, sturdy March with brows full sternly bent, And armed strongly, rode vpon a Ram, The same which ouer Hellespontus swam: Yet in his hand a spade he also hent, And in a bag all sorts of seeds ysame, Which on the earth he strowed as he went, And fild her womb with fruitfull hope of nourishment."

"Iolly Iune, arrayd All in greene leaues, as he a Player were."

"Next was Nouember, he full grosse and fat, As fed with lard, and that right well might seeme; For, he had been a fatting hogs of late."

"And after all came Life, and lastly Death; Death with most grim and griesly visage seene, Yet is he nought but parting of the breath; Ne ought to see, but like a shade to weene, Vnbodied, vnsoul'd, vnheard, vnseene."

"But Times do change and moue continually."

"For, all that moueth, doth in Change delight: But thence-forth all shall rest eternally With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight: O! that great Sabbaoth God, grant me that Sabaoths sight."

"A continued allegory or dark conceit."

"I know not what more excellent or exquisite poem may be written."

"Spenser's noble book."

"There is no uniformity in the design of Spenser: he aims at the accomplishment of no one action; he raises up a hero for every one of his adventures, and endows each of them with some particular moral virtue, which renders them all equal, without subordination or preference. Every one is valiant in his own legend; only we must do him the justice to observe, that magnanimity, which is the character of Prince Arthur, shines throughout the whole poem, and succours the rest when they are in distress. The original of every knight was then living in the court of Queen Elizabeth; and he attributed to each of them that virtue which he thought was most conspicuous in them; an ingenious piece of flattery, though it turned not much to his account. Had he lived to finish his poem in the six remaining legends, it had certainly been more of a piece; but could not have been perfect, because the model was not true. But Prince Arthur, or his chief patron, Sir Philip Sidney, whom he intended to make happy by the marriage of his Gloriana, dying before him, deprived the poet both of means and spirit to accomplish his design. For the rest, his obsolete language, and ill choice of his stanza, are faults both of the second magnitude; for notwithstanding the first, he is still intelligible, at least after a little practice, and for the last he is more to be admired, that labouring under such a difficulty, his verses are so numerous, so various, and so harmonious, that only Virgil, whom he has professedly imitated, has surpassed him among the Romans, and only Mr. Waller among the English."

"Old Spenser next, warmed with poetic rage, In ancient tales amused a barbarous age; An age that, yet uncultivate and rude, Where'er the poet's fancy led, pursued, Through pathless fields and unfrequented floods, To dens of dragons and enchanted woods. But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore, Can charm an understanding age no more: The long-spun allegories fulsome grow, While the dull moral lies too plain below. We view well-pleased at distance all the sights Of arms and palfreys, battles, fields, and fights, And damsels in distress, and courteous knights. But when we look too near, the shades decay, And all the pleasing landscape fades away."

"After reading a canto of Spenser two or three days ago to an old lady, between seventy and eighty years of age, she said that I had been showing her a gallery of pictures.—I don't know how it is, but she said very right: there is something in Spenser that pleases one as strongly in one's old age, as it did in one's youth. I read the Faerie Queene when I was about twelve, with infinite delight; and I think it gave me as much, when I read it over about a year or two ago."

"I don't wonder that you are in such raptures with Spenser! What an imagination! What an invention! What painting! What colouring displayed throughout the works of that admirable author! and yet, for want of time, or opportunity, I have not read his Fairy Queen through in series, or at a heat, as I may call it."

"Though the Faerie Queene does not exhibit that economy of plan and exact arrangement of parts which epic severity requires, yet we scarcely regret the loss of these while their place is so amply supplied by something which more powerfully attracts us, as it engages the affection of the heart, rather than the applause of the head; and if there be any poem whose graces please, because they are situated beyond the reach of art, and where the faculties of creative imagination delight us, because they are unassisted and unrestrained by those of deliberate judgment, it is in this of which we are now speaking. To sum up all in a few words; though in the Faerie Queene we are not satisfied as critics, yet we are transported as readers."

"In every poem there ought to be simplicity and unity; and in the epic poem the unity of the action should never be violated by introducing any ill-joined or heterogeneous parts. This essential rule Spenser seems to me strictly to have followed; for what story can well be shorter or more simple than the subject of this poem? A British prince sees in a vision the Fairy Queen, and he falls in love, and goes in search after this unknown fair; and at length finds her. This fable has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning is, the British prince saw in a vision the Fairy Queen, and fell in love with her; the middle, his search after her, with the adventures that he underwent; the end, his finding whom he sought."

"Spenser, and the same may be said of Ariosto, did not live in an age of planning. His poetry is the careless exuberance of a warm imagination and a strong sensibility. It was his business [in his Faerie Queen] to engage the fancy, and to interest the attention by bold and striking images, in the formation and the disposition of which little labour or art was applied."

"Allegorical poetry, through many gradations, at last received its ultimate consummation in the Fairy Queen."

"It is scarcely possible to accompany Spenser's allegorical heroes to the end of their excursions. They want flesh and blood—a want for which nothing can compensate. The personification of abstract ideas furnishes the most brilliant images of poetry; but these meteor forms, which startle and delight us when our senses are flurried by passion, must not be submitted to our cool and deliberate examination."

"But Spenser I could have read forever. Too young to trouble myself about the allegory, I considered all the knights and ladies and dragons and giants in their outward and exoteric sense, and God only knows how delighted I was to find myself in such society. As I had always a wonderful facility in retaining in my memory whatever verses pleased me, the quantity of Spenser's stanzas which I could repeat was really marvellous."

"Without being insensible to the defects of the Fairy Queen, I am never weary of reading it."

"I have finished the 'Faerie Queene.' I never parted from a long poem with so much regret. He is a poet of a most musical ear—of a tender heart—of a peculiarly soft, rich, fertile, and flowery fancy. His verse always flows, with ease and nature, most abundantly and sweetly; his diffusion is not only pardonable, but agreeable. Grandeur and energy are not his characteristic qualities. He seems to me a most genuine poet, and to be justly placed after Shakspeare and Milton, and above all other English poets."

"Spenser's poetry is all fairy-land. [...] The poet takes and lays us in the lap of a lovelier nature, by the sound of softer streams, among greener hills and fairer valleys. He paints nature not as we find it, but as we expected to find it, and fulfils the delightful promise of our youth. He waves his wand of enchantment, and at once embodies airy beings, and throws a delicious veil over all actual objects. The two worlds of reality and of fiction are poised on the wings of his imagination."

"Some people will say [...] that they cannot understand [the Faery Queen] 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 pikestaff."

"You will take especial note of the marvellous independence and true imaginative absence of all particular space or time in the "Faery Queene." It is in the domains neither of history or geography; it is ignorant of all artificial boundary, all material obstacles; it is truly in land of Faery, that is, of mental space. The poet has placed you in a dream, a charmed sleep, and you neither wish, nor have the power, to inquire where you are, or how you got there."

"No young lady of the present generation falls to a new novel of Sir Walter Scott's with keener relish than I did that morning to the Faery Queen."

"Even Spenser himself, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting. It was in vain that he lavished the riches of his mind on the House of Pride and the House of Temperance. One unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen. We become sick of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the persons who read the first Canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the First Book, and not one in a hundred perseveres to the end of the poem. Very few and very weary are those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. If the last six books, which are said to have been destroyed in Ireland, had been preserved, we doubt whether any heart less stout than that of a commentator would have held out to the end."

"The noblest allegorical poem in our own language,—indeed, the noblest allegorical poem in the world,—is Spenser's "Faerie Queene;" at the same time, it is probable, that if it had not been allegorical at all, it would have been a far more felicitous and attractive work of imagination."

"No allegorical poem, either previous or succeeding, has approached the Faerie Queen within half the diameter of the earth."

"The "Faerie Queen," like Dante's "Paradise," is only half estimated, because few persons take the pains to think out its meaning."

""Much depends," says Charles Lamb, "upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Fairy Queen for a stop-gap?" Select rather a June morning, when the brilliant white clouds are sailing slowly through a blue sky, a grassy bank under a tree, looking down a long valley with broken hills in the distance; let mind and body both be at ease, and both disposed to dream, but not to sleep, and when the influences of nature have had their due effect, open, if you please, at the middle of the Legend of Sir Guyon."

"No man can read the "Faery Queen" and be anything but the better for it. Through that rude age, when maids of honor drank beer for breakfast and Hamlet could say a gross thing to Ophelia, he passes serenely abstracted and high, the Don Quixote of poets. Whoever can endure unmixed delight, whoever can tolerate music and painting and poetry all in one, whoever wishes to be rid of thought and to let the busy anvils of the brain be silent for a time, let him read in the "Faery Queen." There is the land of pure heart's ease, where no ache or sorrow of spirit can enter."

"I have at last come to the end of the Faerie Queene: and though I say 'at last,' I almost wish he had lived to write six books more as he hoped to do so much have I enjoyed it."

"[Mr. John Bailey] related a story of an officer who read the Faerie Queene to his men when they were in a particularly difficult situation. The men did not understand the words, but the poetry had a soothing influence upon them. Nothing better could be said of poetry than that."

"Who, except scholars, and except the eccentric few who are born with a sympathy for such work, or others who have deliberately studied themselves into the right appreciation, can now read through the whole of The Faerie Queene with delight?"

"I am reading The Faery Queen—with delight. [...] I can't think out what I mean about conception: the idea behind F.Q. How to express a kind of natural transition from state to state. And the air of natural beauty."

"The things we read about in [The Faerie Queene] are not like life, but the experience of reading it is like living."

"Beyond all doubt it is best to have made one's first acquaintance with Spenser in a very large—and, preferably, illustrated—edition of The Faerie Queene, on a wet day, between the ages of twelve and sixteen."

"It is not, perhaps, absolutely necessary to have a large edition in fact; but it is imperative that you should think of The Faerie Queene as a book suitable for reading in a heavy volume, at a table—a book to which limp leather is insulting—a massy, antique story with a blackletter flavour about it—a book for devout, prolonged, and leisurely perusal."

"The Faery Queen, it is said, has never been read to the end."

"The first essential is, of course, not to read The Faery Queen."

"I never meet a man who says that he used to like the Faerie Queene."

"From the time of its publication down to about 1914 it was everyone's poem—the book in which many and many a boy first discovered that he liked poetry; a book which spoke at once, like Homer or Shakespeare or Dickens, to every reader's imagination. Spenser did not rank as a hard poet like Pindar, Donne, or Browning. How we have lost that approach I do not know. And unfortunately The Faerie Queene suffers even more than most great works from being approached through the medium of commentaries and "literary history." These all demand from us a sophisticated, self-conscious frame of mind. But then, when we have used all these aids, we discover that the poem itself demands exactly the opposite response. Its primary appeal is to the most naïve and innocent tastes: to that level of our consciousness which is divided only by the thinnest veil from the immemorial lights and glooms of the collective Unconscious itself. It demands of us a child's love of marvels and dread of bogies, a boy's thirst for adventures, a young man's passion for physical beauty. If you have lost or cannot re-arouse these attitudes, all the commentaries, all your scholarship about "the Renaissance" or "Platonism" or Elizabeth's Irish policy, will not avail. The poem is a great palace, the door into it is so low that a Spenserian you must stoop to go in. No prig can be a fairy-tale. But it is unless we can enjoy it as a fairy-tale first of all, we shall not really care for it."

"The Faerie Queene is perhaps the most difficult poem in English. Quite how difficult, I am only now beginning to realize after forty years of reading it."

"Adverse criticism of the stories in The Faerie Queene is usually based on a false expectation. Both the complaints against "faceless knights" and those against "characters with no insides" come alike from readers who are looking for a novelistic-like interest. But it is quite wrong to approach the poem with this demand; for Spenser never meant to supply it. Occasionally, of course, he makes a very brief approach to the kind of fiction now valued in the novel. [...] We should never concentrate, however, on passages such as these. It is always a great mistake to value a work of one kind for its occasional slight approximations to some other kind which happens to be preferred. If we can't learn to like a work of art for what it is, we had best give it up. There is no point in trying to twist it or force it into a form it was never meant to have. And certainly to read The Faerie Queene as a novel is perverse and unrewarding enough. It is like going to a Mozart opera just for the spoken bits."

"The Faerie Queene is the most extended and extensive meditation on sex in the history of poetry."

"There has been and continue to be controversy about the nature and status of to be sex in The Faerie Queene. Most criticism assumes that what Spenser says is what he means. But a poet may not always be master of his own poem, for imagination can overwhelms moral intention. Some of the poetically strongest and most fully realized material in The Faerie Queene is pornographic. Like Blake's Milton, Spenser may be one of the devil's party without knowing it. In a paradox cherished by Sade and Baudelaire, the presence of moral sexual law and taboo intensifies the luxury of evil. A great poet always has profound ambivalences and obscurities whose motivation criticism has scarcely begun to study in this case. The Faerie Queene is didactic but also self-pleasuring. Not despite the complexity of erotic response, Spenser was a sexual psychologist of the first rank, surpassed only by Freud and Shakespeare. His treatment of erotic archetype, and perversion, dream, civilization, fantasy, obsession, and sacrifice lifts The Faerie Queene out of national into world literature."

"The Faerie Queene (1st ed., 1590; 2nd ed., 1596; 3rd ed., 1609)"

"Spenser's Faerie Queene. A New Edition with a Glossary, And Notes explanatory and critical, ed. John Upton, Vols. I–II (London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson, 1758)"

"Spenser and his Poetry, by George Lillie Craik, Vols. I–III (London: Charles Knight & Co., 1845)"

"The Canterbury Tales and Faerie Queene, with other poems of Chaucer and Spenser, edited for popular perusal, with current illustrative and explanatory notes, by D. Laing Purves (Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1874)"

"A Complete Dictionary of Poetical Quotations, ed. Sarah Josepha Hale (Philadelphia: E. Claxton & Co., 1881)"

"Familiar Quotations, ed. John Bartlett, 9th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1895)"

"The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations, ed. Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, a new edition, revised, corrected and enlarged (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1896)"

"A Popular Manual of English Literature, by Maude Gillette Phillips, Vol. I (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1897)"

"The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ed. Elizabeth M. Knowles, 5th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)"

"Grassroots feminists continue to be undermined by single-issue liberals who believe that by breaking a class-entitled glass ceiling—'beating the boys at their own game'—there is some kind of "trickle down" effect on the actual lives of workingclass and poor women and children. This is the same "trickle down" of our share of corporate profit, secured by tax benefits for the wealthy, that has yet to land on our kitchen tables, our paychecks, or our children's public school educations. Social change does not occur through tokenism or exceptions to the rule of discrimination, but through the systemic abolishment of the rule itself."

"It is inappropriate for progressive or liberal white people to expect warriors in brown armor to eradicate racism. There must be co-responsibility from people of color and white people to equally work on this issue."

"The relationship between mother and daughter stands in the center of what I fear most in our culture. Heal that wound and we change the world. A revolution capable of healing our wounds. If we're the ones who can imagine it, if we're the ones who dream about it, if we're the ones who need it most, then no one else can do it. We're the ones."

"For a woman to be a lesbian in a male-supremacist, capitalist, misogynist, racist, homophobic, imperialist culture, such at that of North America, is an act of resistance."

"Why am I compelled to write? Because the writing saves me from this complacency I fear. Because I have no choice. Because I must keep the spirit of my revolt and myself alive. Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appease my appetites and hunger. I write to record what others erase when I speak, to rewrite the stories others have miswritten about me, about you."

"In a uniquely distinct way, Audre Lorde's and Toni Cade Bambara's presence in Bridge also impacted Bridge's success. Audre and Toni were exemplary sister-writers, emblematic of that great surge of Black feminist writing spilling into our hands in 1970s and 80s. As "sisters of the yam"... they stood up in unwavering solidarity with the rest of us "sisters of the rice, sisters of the corn, sisters of the plantain" and that mattered. It helped put Bridge, coedited by two "unknown" Chicana writers, on the political-literary map. All in all, it was a brave moment in feminist history."

"Haciendo Caras is more of a bridge to other racial and ethnic groups and does not address white people or try to educate them as much as Bridge does."

"Persephone Press developed an impressive booklist consisting of anthologies, fiction, and poetry. Its 1981 anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa, a groundbreaking collection of writings from Chicanas, black women, and Asian and Native Americans, challenged racism within radical feminism; it remains one of the most cited books of feminist theorizing. Nice Jewish Girls similarly used the anthology format to examine contested issues within feminism, exposing multiple viewpoints of grassroots activists, writers, and scholars. Like Bridge, it enjoyed a breakthrough success, becoming an organizing tool for Jewish lesbian feminists."

"In an interview, Irena Klepfisz and Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz acknowledged that in books such as This Bridge Called My Back, "women of color laid the groundwork" for bringing cultural differences to the forefront of the feminist movement, inspiring Jewish women to explore such topics as anti-Semitism and internal oppression."

"Women of color may join together in struggle with white women against their common oppression as women. However, the racism embedded in white women's cultures may operate to silence women of color, to erase, subjugate, colonize their independent voice. The book This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color was, in part, impelled by this reality."

"This Bridge Called My Back...dispels all doubt about the power of a single text to radically transform the terrain of our theory and practice. Twenty years after its publication, we can now see how it helped to untether the production of knowledge from its disciplinary anchors-and not only in the field of women's studies. This Bridge has allowed us to define the promise of research on race, gender, class and sexuality as profoundly linked to collaboration and coalition-building. And perhaps most important, it has offered us strategies for transformative political practice that are as valid today as they were two decades ago."

"My own book Women, Race and Class was one of many that were published during that era, including, to name only a few, This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherrie Moraga, the work of bell hooks and Michelle Wallace, and the anthology All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies. So behind this concept of intersectionality is a rich history of struggle. A history of conversations among activists within movement formations, and with and among academics as well."

"This Bridge Called My Back...has served as a significant rallying call for women of color for a generation, and this new edition keeps that call alive at a time when divisions prove ever more stubborn and dangerous. A much-cited text, its influence has been visible and broad both in academia and among activists. We owe much of the sound of our present voices to the brave scholars and feminists whose ideas and ideals crowd its pages.'"

"When This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, erupted in feminist circles in 1981, it became a primary text for feminist writers and thinkers of color."

"Within Gay culture the same excellent use of separatism is happening with people of color, and people of differing ethnicities. We can thank separately founded institutions such as Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, and various Black journals, Hispanic anthologies, Jewish magazines, and most notably the anthology This Bridge Called My Back for the increasingly strong multicultural voices now gathering and being heard."

"This Bridge Called My Back, the groundbreaking collection"

"This Bridge Called My Back, I mean, that was just started by two or three people. You know, and it’s sort of amazing what happened. And who would have predicted it? They didn’t predict it, they just wanted to do it! They wanted to publish something and so they did."

"Cherríe Moraga's first book, co-edited with Gloria Anzaldúa, was This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, and it made history when published by Kitchen Table Press in 1981. The two pioneering lesbian authors passionately celebrated relationships between women, and their dream, as they said in their foreword to the second edition, was of "a unified Third World feminist movement in this country." Up until then you heard little, if anything, spoken publicly in Chicana/o circles about feminism, much less lesbianism. Such taboos weakened as Chicana feminism evolved in its varying forms and different camps."

"An encouraging number of anthologies of writings by women of color have appeared in recent years, with This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherrie Moraga, leading the way. That development ended decades of invisibility. Now comes Jennifer Browdy's book, offering new reasons to celebrate."

"On the strength of what happened with This Bridge, I was suddenly credentialed. Suddenly I had the authority to speak about my own life and get paid a lot of money by a university to do so. Because that book had broken into — had been picked up by women’s studies all over the country and was being taught."

"I remember that there was some resentment about the success of the book. From women of color...who saw publishing with a white women’s press or publishing and becoming famous in itself is a sort of abandonment."

"I feel This Bridge has that quality of accessibility, also. Many grassroots organizations and people who have used it seem to feel that way too. I think they are very different books because they come out of very different visions. Home Girls was originally a third world women's issue of Conditions magazine. Therefore it had, from its inception, a different, much broader focus than This Bridge, which was conceived as a collection of writing by radical women of color. So they served different kinds of functions."

"Persephone Press was an important and successful white, lesbian, radical feminist press, founded in 1976 in Watertown, Massachusetts. The publication of This Bridge Called My Back with Persephone was made possible by the support of two key white lesbian feminist writers. Sally Gearhart, the lesbian activist and educator, had published Wanderground with Persephone Press in 1978 and brought This Bridge Called My Back (under a different title at the time) to the press's attention. Sally had been my mentor, teacher, and advisor at San Francisco State when I was in graduate school there. Around the same time, Adrienne Rich had read my essay "La Güera," which I had sent to her as the first essay written for our women-of-color collection. At this time, Rich had just written the foreword to The Coming Out Stories, to be published by Persephone in 1980 and edited by Julia Penelope and Susan Wolfe. She recommended "La Güera" for inclusion in the anthology, and also encouraged Bridge's publication with Persephone. With the support of these two writers, Bridge found a viable publisher with national distribution, and the book was published in 1981. By 1983, however, Persephone abruptly disbanded and was sold to Beacon Press. Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press (which I co-founded with Barbara Smith, Audre Lorde, Hattie Gossett, and others) was established, in part, to reissue the collection through an autonomous women-of-color enterprise. Since that time and with the closure of Kitchen Table Press, Bridge has gone in and out of print."

"White feminists have read and taught from the anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, yet often have perceived it simply as an angry attack on the white women's movement. So white feelings remain at the center. And, yes, I need to move outward from the base and center of my feelings, but with a corrective sense that my feelings are not the center of feminism."

"The pivotal anthology This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, is replete with painful, searing tales of encounters between feminists of color and Anglo liberationists."

"This book is a manifesto-the 1981 declaration of a new politics 'US Third World Feminism.' No great de-colonial writer, from Fanon, Shaarawi, Blackhawk, or Sartre, to Mountain Wolf Woman, de Beauvoir, Saussure, or Newton could have alone proclaimed this 'politic born of necessity.' This politic denies no truths: its luminosities drive into and through our bodies. Writers and readers alike become shape-shifters, are invited to enter the shaman/witness state, to invoke power differently. 'US Third World Feminism' requires a re-peopling: the creation of planetary citizen-warriors. This book is a guide that directs citizenry shadowed in hate, terror, suffering, disconnection, and pain toward the light of social justice, gender and erotic liberation, peace, and revolutionary love. This Bridge transits our dreams, and brings them to the real."

"For all its fantastical trappings, WandaVision is perhaps the Marvel project most rooted in reality. Its depictions of trauma, of grief and loss — filtered through a mystery-laden, superpower-driven plot, natch — are moving and resonant. Wanda built walls — a contained world, really — so she could drone out her searing pain with laugh tracks and pratfalls. Watching her slowly start to break them down has been cathartic for audiences living through a year of relentless loss."

"Let’s put it this way: She only saw Avengers: Endgame in theaters once. So she didn’t think much of it when she posted what she thought was an innocuous tweet to her 800 or so followers, praising a line from Marvel’s latest hit show, WandaVision. In one scene, a character suggests to another, "But what is grief, if not love persevering?" When she heard it, she muttered an expletive under her breath. As both a screenwriter and a casual fan, the line struck her as a standout. "Sometimes you hear a line, and you can tell it would be remembered," she said. So on Saturday, intending to poke fun at her "screenwriter self," she tweeted a photo with the line as the caption, adding, "Do you hear that sound? It’s every screenwriter in the world whispering a reverent 'F---' under their breath." That evening, she went to bed, pleased with the 100 likes it received. Little did she know that tweet would become a symbol of the almost hyperbolic feelings the MCU inspires online — from both fans and detractors. And how the earnestness of fans of a popular, Disney-controlled product can clash with the cynicism of a place like Twitter. The next morning, Hatfield’s tweet had 10,000 likes."

"Vision knows his time is almost up but before he goes he wants to know how he came to be. Wanda reveals he is part of the Mind Stone that has lived inside her since her initial contact with it. They share one last kiss and then Vision, and the house Wanda built for them, are gone. The only thing remaining is the empty plot of land that was the genesis of the emotional breakdown that led to Wanda casting such a heartbreaking spell to begin with. A spell that was doomed to fail at some point if Wanda were to reclaim her compassion and humanity. Which she did. So what about the controversy of WandaVision director Matt Shakman saying he was worried some fans might be "disappointed" in the finale? The only explanation for that is the unlimited amount of rumors and theories that WandaVision spawned online. All of which fell flat on their face. WandaVision put such a spell on us over these last nine weeks, the internet had many of us believing and hoping that the show was a portal to satisfying the hopes and dreams of Marvel Studios fandom."

"The series works because it proves an important point: By telling its story in a way that reaches beyond the typical comic fan/superhero movie universe, WandaVision pulls in even those who tend to turn their noses up at capes and cowls and supervillains, while also becoming a TV-sized embodiment of all the best storytelling devices from decades of comic books. Talk about revenge of the nerds. WandaVision's success proves that high quality superhero storytelling is just great storytelling. Period.… WandaVision has redefined what a small screen superhero series can be in an important and pioneering way. And this particular comic book nerd can't wait to see how Marvel's other Disney+ series — and the rest of the TV universe — builds on the ground they've broken."

"It's unlikely that this show, with this focus, could ever have been successful without Elizabeth Olsen's indelible central performance. Asked to be a sitcom wife, a sitcom mom, a superhero, a witch, a legend, and a woman whose grief was so overwhelming that she broke the whole world, she never wavered. That's what allows her to carry off those cute, quotable Marvel lines without tearing the audience completely away from the story. (Lines like "Boys, handle the military. Mommy will be right back.") The very last scene in the finale illustrated what the show wrestled with for nine episodes: that there are two Wandas. There is the mythical, legendary, super-real Witchy Wanda, floating and glowing. There is also the deeply human, traumatized, lonely Sweatpants Wanda, drinking tea and trying to figure out what happens next now that she's alone again. Even if you don't much care about the former, Olsen's work kept the latter visible and unforgettable throughout."

"Elizabeth Olsen - Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch"

"Paul Bettany - Vision"

"Debra Jo Rupp - Sharon Davis"

"Fred Melamed - Todd Davis"

"Kathryn Hahn - Agatha Harkness"

"Teyonah Parris - Monica Rambeau"

"Randall Park - Jimmy Woo"

"Kat Dennings - Darcy Lewis"

"Evan Peters - Ralph Bohner"

"It's simple. You shower Don with love. Peggy's smart. She makes him reach for it."

"Gay! Gossipy! Hilarious!"

"Mary Astor as Mrs. Nancy Gibson"

"Robert Ames as Donald Gibson"

"John Halliday as Sir Guy Harrington"

"as Billy Ross"

"Ruth Weston as Mrs. Sally Gibson Ross"

"as Peggy Preston"

"as Mrs. Preston"

"Alfred Cross as Brooks the Butler"

"as Mrs. Windleweaver"

"Bill Elliott as Reporter on Ship (uncredited)"

"Harold Miller as Deck Lounger (uncredited)"

"as Passenger Departing Ship (uncredited)"

"Pearl Varvalle as Helen, Gibson's maid (uncredited)"

"Louise Lasser as Mary Hartman (née Shumway)"

"Greg Mullavey as Tom Hartman"

"Claudia Lamb as Heather Hartman"

"Mary Kay Place as Loretta Haggers"

"Graham Jarvis as Charlie Haggers"

"Dody Goodman as Martha Shumway"

"Philip Bruns as George Shumway"

"Debralee Scott as Cathy Lorraine Shumway"

"Victor Kilian as Grandpa Raymond Larkin"

"Samantha Harper as Roberta Wolashek"

"Salome Jens as Mae Olinski"

"Bruce Solomon as Sgt. Dennis Foley"

"Laurence Haddon as Ed McCullough"

"Beeson Carroll as Howard McCullough"

"Vivian Blaine as Betty McCullough"

"Doris Roberts as Dorelda Doremus"

"Dinah Shore as herself"