Epic Poetry

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Spenser's noble book."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"A continued allegory or dark conceit."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"Warres and allarums vnto Nations wide."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"Good on-set boads good end."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"The gentle heart scorns base disparagement."

"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."

"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."

"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)"

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

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