134 riods Instead of compressing, Le expands. To bear this ample thought and its accompanying train, he requires a long stanza, ever renewed, long alternate verses, reiterated rhymes, whose uniformity and fulness recall the majestic sounds which undulate eternally through the woods and the fields. To unfold these epic faculties, and to display them in the sublime region where his soul is naturally borne, he requires in ideal stage, situated beyond the younds of reality, with personages who could hardly exist, and in a world hich could never be. * He made many miscellaneous attempts in sonnets, elegies, pastorals, hymns of love, little sparkling word pictures; they were but essays, incapable for the most part of supporting his genius. Yet already his magnificent imagination appeared in them; gods, men, landscapes, the world which They gathered some; the violet, pallid blew To deck their bridegroomes posies With that I saw two Swannes of goodly hewa The snow, which doth the top of Pindas Did never whiter shew... So purely white they were, That even the gentle stream, the which hera bare, Seem'd foule to them, and bad his billowe And marre their beauties bright, Against their brydale day, which was no Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song!"* "The gods, which all things see, this same be. And, pittying this paire of lovers trew, he sets in motion is a thousand miles If he bewails the death of Sidney, Sid from that in which we live. His Shep-ney becomes a shepherd; he is slain herd's Calendar † is a thought-inspir- like Adonis; around him gather weeping and tender pastoral, full of delicate ing nymphs: loves, noble sorrows, lofty ideas, where no voice is heard but of thinkers and poets. His Visions of Petrarch and Du Bellay are admirable dreams, in which palaces, temples of gold, splendid landscapes, sparkling rivers, marvellous birds, appear in close succession as in an Oriental fairy-tale. If he #ings a "Prothalamion," he sees two beautiful swans, white as snow, who come softly swimming down amidst the songs of nymphs and vermeil roses, while the transparent water kisses their silken feathers, and murmurs w th joy : l'here, in a meadow, by the river's side, flocke of Nymphes I chaunced to espy, And each one had a little wicker basket, And with fine fingers cropt full feateously Of every sort, which in that meadow grew, The Shepherd's Calendar, Amoretti, Sonnets, Prothalamion, Epithalamion, Muiopotmos, Virgil's Gnat, The Ruines of Time, The Teares of the Muses, etc. + Published in 1589; dedicated to Philip Sid wey. Like Astrophel, which thereinto was made. And all the day it standeth full of deow, His most genuine sentiments become + Astrophel, l. 18 -192. We emerald. This unconscious toil of and blood, and that all these brilliant mind is like the slow crystallizations phantoms are phantoms, and nothing of nature. A moist twig is cast into more. We take pleasure in their the bottom of a mine, and is brought brilliancy, without believing in their out again a hoop of diamonds. substantiality; we are interested in their doings, without troubling our selves about their misfortunes. know that their tears and cries are not real. Our emotion is purified and raised. We do not fall into gross illusion; we have that gentle feeling of knowing ourselves to be dreaming We, like him, are a thousand leagues from actual life, beyond the pangs of painful pity, unmixed terror, violent and bitter hatred. We entertain only refined sentiments, partly formed, arrested at the very moment they were about to affect us with too sharp a stroke. They slightly touch us, and we find ourselves happy in being extricated from a belief which was begin ning to be oppressive. At last he finds a subject which suits him, the greatest joy permitted to an artist. He removes his epic from the common ground which, in the hands of Homer and Dante, gave expression to a living creed, and depicted national heroes. He leads us to the summit of fairy land, soaring above history, on tha extreme verge where objects varsh and pure idealism begins: "I have undertaken a work," he says, "to represent all the moral vertues, assigning to every vertue a knight to be the patron and defender of the same; in whose actions and feats of armes and chivalry the operations of that vertue, whereof he is the protector, are to be expressed, and the vices and unruly appetites that oppose themselves against the same, to be beaten downe and overcome." * In fact, he gives us an allegory as the foundation of his poem, not that he dreams of becoming a wit, a preacher of moralities, a propounder of riddles. He does not subordinate image to idea; he is a seer, not a philosopher. They are living men and actions which he sets in moion; only from time to time, in his poem, enchanted palaces, a whole train of splendid visions trembles and divides like a mist, enabling us to catch a glimpse of the thought which raised and arranged it. When in his Garden of Adonis we see the countless forms of all living things arranged in due order, in close compass, awaiting life, we conceive with him the birth f universal love, the ceaseless fertility of the great mother, the mysterious swarm of creatures which rise in succession from her "wide wombe of the world." When we see his Knight of the Cross combating with a horrible woman-serpent in defence of his belovel lady Una, we dimly remember that, if we search beyond these two figures, we shall find behind one Truth, benind the other, Falsehood. We perceive that his characters are not flesh Words_attributed to him by Lodowick Bryskett, Discourse of Civil Life, ed. 1606 26. VII What world could furnish materials to so elevated a fancy? One only that of chivalry; for none is so far from the actual. Alone and indepen、 dent in his castle, freed from all the ties which society, family, toil, usually impose on the actions of men, the feudal hero had attempted every kind of adventure, but yet he had done less than he imagined; the boldness of his deeds had been exceeded by the madness of his dreams. For want of useful employment and an accepted rule his brain had labored on an unreason ing and impossible track, and the urgency of his wearisomeness had increased beyond measure his craving for excitement. Under this stimulus his poetry had become a world of im agery. Insensibly strange conceptions had grown and multiplied in his brains, one over the other, like ivy woven round a tree, and the original trunk had disappeared beneath their rank growth and their obstruction. The delicate fancies of the old Welsh poetry, the grand ruins of the German epics, the marvellous splendors of the conquered East, all the recollections which four centuries of adventure had scattered among the minds of men, had become gathered into one great dream; and giants, dwarfs, monsters, the whole cause this world is unreal that it se suits his humor. Is there in chivalry sufficient to furnish him with matter? That is but one world, and he has another. Be heroic will which can only be satisfied by adventures and danger, there exists calm energy, which, by its own im pulse, is in harmony with actual exist ence. For such a poet one ideal is not enough; beside the beauty of effort he places the beauty of happiness; he couples them, not deliberately as a philosopher, nor with the design of a scholar like Goethe, but because they are both lovely; and here and there, amid armor and passages of arms, he distributes satyrs, nymphs, Diana, Venus, like Greek statues amid the turrets and lofty trees of an English park. There is nothing forced in the union ; the ideal epic, like a superior heav en, receives and harmonizes the two worlds; a beautiful pagan dream carries on a beautiful dream of chivalry; the link consists in the fact that they are both beautiful. At this elevation the poet has ceased to observe the differences of races and civilizations. He can introduce into his picture whatever he will; his only reason is, medley of imaginary creatures, of superhuman exploits and splendid follies, were grouped around an unique conception, exalted and sublime love, like courtiers prostrated at the feet of their king. It was an ample and buoy-yond the valiant men, the glorified im ant subject matter, from which the ages of moral virtues, he has the gods, great artists of the age, Ariosto, Tasso, finished models of sensible beauty Cervantes, Rabelais, had hewn their beyond Christian chivalry he has the poems. But they belonged too complete-pagan Olympus; beyond the idea of ly to their own time to admit of their belonging to one which had passed.* They created a chivalry afresh, but it was not genuine. The ingenious Ariosto, an ironical epicurean, delights his gaze with it, and grows merry over it, like a man of pleasure, a skeptic who rejoices doubly in his pleasure, because it is sweet, and because it is forbidden. By his side poor Tasso, inspired by a fanatical, revived, factitious Catholicism, amid the tinsel of an old school of poetry, works on the same subject, in sickly fashion, with great effort and scant success. Cervantes, himself a knight, albeit he .oves chivalry for its nobleness, perceives its folly, and crushes it to the ground with heavy blows, in the mishaps of the wayside inns. More coarsely, more openly, Rabelais, a rude commoner, drowns it with a burst of laughter, in his merriment and nastiness. Spenser alone takes it seriously and naturally. He is on the level of so much nobleness, dignity, reverie. He is not yet settled and shut in by that"That suited; " and there could be no species of exact common sense which better. Under the glossy-leaved oaks, was to found and cramp the whole by the old trunk so deeply rooted in modern civilization. In his heart he the ground, he can see two knights inhabits the poetic and shadowy land cleaving each other, and the next infrom which men were daily drawing stant a company of Fauns who came further and further away. He is en- there to dance. The beams of light amored of it, even to its very language; which have poured down upon the he revives the old words, the expres- velvet moss, the green turf of an Eng sions of the middle age, the style of lish forest, can reveal the dishevelled Chaucer, especially in the Shepherd's locks and white shoulders of nymphs Calendar. He enters straightway upon Do we not see it in Rubens? the strangest dreams of the old story- what signify discrepancies in the happy ellers, without astonishment, like a and sublime illusion of fancy? man who has still stranger dreams of there more discrepancies? Who perhis own. Enchanted castles, monsters ceives them, who feels them? Who and giants, duels in the woods, wan- does not feel, on the contrary, that to dering ladies, all spring up under his speak the truth, there is but one world hands, the medieval fancy with the that of Plato and the poets; that ac mediæval generosity; and it is just ce- tual phenomena are but outlines *Ariosto, 1474-1533. Tasso, 1544-1595. Cer-mutilated, incomplete and blurred out vantes, 1547-1616. Rabelais, 1483-1553. wretched abortions scattered lines And Are here and there on Time's track, like fragments of clay, half moulded, then cast aside, lying in an artist's studio; that, after all, invisible forces and ideas, which forever renew the actual existences, attain their fulfi ment only in imaginary existences; and that the poet, in order to express nature in its entirety, is obliged to embrace in his sympathy all the ideal forms by which nature reveals itself? This is the greatness of his work; he has succeeded in seizing beauty in its fulness, because he cared for nothing but beauty. comes upon them so naturally, thai he makes them natural; he defeats the miscreants, as if he he had done nothing else all his life. Venus, Diana, and the old deities, dwell at his gate and enter his threshold without his taking any heed of them. His serenity becomes ours. We grow credulous and happy by contagion, and to the same extent as he. How could it be otherwise? Is it possible to refuse credence to a man who paints things for us with such accurate details and in such lively colors ? Here with a dash of his pen he describes a forest The reader will feel that it is impos- for you; and are you not instantly in sible to give in full the plot of such a it with him? Beech trees with their poem. In fact, there are six poems, silvery stems, "loftie trees iclad with each of a dozen cantos, in which the sommers pride, did spred so broad, action is ever diverging and converg- that heavens light did hide; rays of ing again, becoming confused and light tremble or the bark and shine on starting again; and all the imaginings the ground, on the reddening ferns and of antiquity and of the middle age are, low bushes, which, suddenly smitten I believe, combined in it. The knight with the luminous track, glisten and "pricks along the plaine," among the glimmer. Footsteps are scarcely heard trees, and at a crossing of the paths on the thick beds of heaped leaves; meets other knights with whom he en- and at distant intervals, on the tall hergages in combat; suddenly from with-bage, drops of dew are sparkling. Yet in a cave appears a monster, half wo- the sound of a horn reaches us through man and half serpent, surrounded by a the foliage; how sweetly yet cheerfully hideous offspring; further on a giant, it falls on the ear amidst this vast with three bodies; then a dragon, silence! It resounds more loudly; the great as a hill, with sharp talons and clatter of a hunt draws near; vast wings. For three days he fights through the thicke they heard one him, and twice overthrown, he comes rudely rush; a nymph approaches, to himself only by aid of "a gracious the most chaste and beautiful in the ointment." After that there are sav-world. Spenser sees her; nay, more age tribes to be conquered, castles sur- he kneels before her: rounded by flames to be taken. Meanwhile ladies are wandering in the midst of forests, on white palfreys, exposed to the assaults of miscreants, now guarded by a lion which follows them, now delivered by a band of satyrs who adore them. Magicians work manifold charms; palaces display their festivities; tilt-yards provide interminable tournaments; sea-gods, nymphs, fairies, kings, intermingle in these feasts, surprises, dangers. You will say it is a phantasmagoria. What matter, if we see it? And we do see it, for Spenser does. His sincerity communicates itself to us. He is so much at home in this world, that we end by finding ourselves at home in it too. He shows no appearance of astonishment at astonishing events; he "eft "Her face so faire, as flesh it seemed not, Like roses in a bed of lillies shed, The which ambrosiall odours from them And gazers sence with double pleasure fed, ded. In her faire eyes two living lamps did flame, Her yvorie forhead, full o bountie brave, For Love his lofne triumphes to engrave, Sweete wordes, like dropping honny, she did And 'twixt the perles and rubins softly brake Upon her eyelids many Graces sate, jo glorious mirrhour of celestiall grace, For feare, through want of skill, her beauty So faire, and thousand thousand times more She seemd, when she presented was to sight; Was hemd with golden fringe. Below her ham her weed did somewhat trayne, And her streight legs most bravely were embayld In gilden buskins of costly cordwayne, All bard with golden bendes, which were entayld Athwart her snowy brest, and did divide Now little gan to swell, and being tide Her yellow lockes, crisped like golden wyre, They waved like a penon wyde dispred And flourishing fresh leaves and blossomes The daintie rose, the daughter of her morne The girlond of her honour did adorne; powre. Ne the sharp northerne wind thereon to But lapped up her silken leaves most chayre He is on his knees before her, I repeat, With curious antickes, and full fayre au-pagan graces to adorn and wait upon mayld: Before, they fastned were under her knee her; it is love which brings such visions before him; "Sweet love, that doth his golden wings embay In blessed nectar and pure pleasures well.' Whence this perfect beauty, this modest and charming dawn, in which he assembles all the brightness, all the sweetness, all the virgin graces of the full morning? What mother begat her, what marvellous birth brought to light such a wonder of grace and purity? One day, in a sparkling, solitary fountain, where the sunbeams shone Chrysogone was bathing with roses and violets. "It was upon a sommers shinie day, When Titan faire his beams did display, The Faerie Queene, îì. c. 3, st. 28-9Q. + Ibid. iii. c. 5. st. 51. |