Читать книгу The Faerie Queene - The Original Classic Edition - Спенсер Эдмунд - Страница 2

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

EVENTS IN SPENSER'S LIFE Birth of Edmund Spenser (about)

A.D.

1552

CONTEMPORARY EVENTS Birth of Sir Walter Raleigh

1553 Death of Edward VI; Mary crowned.

1554 Mary marries Philip of Spain.

1558 Death of Mary; Elizabeth crowned.

1560 Charles IX, king of France.

1568 Council of Trent.

Visions of Bellay, published, 1569

Sonnets of Petrarch, published, 1569

Enters Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, 1569

1572 Gregory XIII, Pope of Rome.

1572 Massacre of St. Batholomew.

1574 Henry III, king of France.

Received M.A., leaves Cambridge, 1576 Rudolph II, emperor. Leaves Lancashire, 1578 Elizabeth aids the Netherlands.

Visits Lord Leicester, 1579

The Shepheards Calender, 1579

Goes to Ireland, 1580 Massacre of Smerwick.

1581 Tasso's Jersalem Delivered.

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Lord Grey's return to England, 1582

1584 Assassination of William the Silent.

1585 Sixtus V, Pope. Drake's voyage.

1585 Leicester goes to the Netherlands.

1586 Death of Sir Philip Sidney.

First marriage (before) 1587 Execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

Clerk to the Council of Munster, 1588 Defeat of Spanish Armada. Death of Leicester.

Visits England with Raleigh, 1589 Assassination of Henry III; Henry IV crowned.

The Faerie Queene,, Books I, II, III, 1590 Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost.

Mother Hubberds Tale, Tears of the Muses, Ruines of Time, Daphnaida, The Visions, 1591 Shakespeare's Comedy of

Errors, Henry VI.

1591 Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, trans.

1593 Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.

1593 Richard III.

Second marriage, 1594 Shakespeare's Richard II

Colin Clout's Come Home Again, 1595 Shakespeare's King John.

Amoretti, Epithalamion, Hymns, 1595 Johnston's Seven Champions of Christendom. Astrophel, Prothalamion, 1596 Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.

The Faerie Queene, Books I-VI, 1596 Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour. Vision of the Present State of Ireland, 1598 Edict of Nantes, Philip III crowned. Death of Spenser, 1599 Revolt of Irish. Expedition of Essex to Ireland.

THE FAERIE QUEENE

LETTER TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH

A LETTER of the Authors expounding his whole intention in the course of this worke;1 which, for that it giveth great light to the

reader, for the better understanding is hereunto annexed. TO THE RIGHT NOBLE AND VALOROUS

SIR WALTER RALEIGH, KNIGHT.

Lo: Wardein of the Stanneries, and her majesties lieutenaunt of the countie of Cornewayll. SIR,

Knowing how doubtfully all Allegories may be constructed, and this booke of mine, which I have entituled The Faery Queene, be-ing a continued Allegorie, or darke conceit, I have thought good, as well for avoyding of jealous opinions and misconstructions, as also for your better light in reading thereof, (being so, by you commanded) to discover unto you the generall intention and meaning, which in the whole course thereof I have fashioned, without expressing of any particular purposes, or by-accidents therein occasioned. The generall end therefore of all the booke, is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline. Which for that I conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, beeing coloured with an historicall fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for varietie of matter than for profit of the ensample: I chose the historie of king Arthure, as most fit for the excellencie of his person, beeing made famous by many mens former workes, and also furthest from the danger

of envie, and suspicion of present time. In which I have followed all the antique poets historicall: first Homer, who in the persons

of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governour and a vertuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis: then Virgil, whose like intention was to doe in the person of AEneas: after him Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando: and lately Tasso dissevered them againe, and formed both parts in two persons, namely, that part which they in philosophy call Ethice, or vertues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo: the other named Politice, in his Godfredo. By ensample of which excellent Poets,

I laboure to pourtraict in Arthure, before he was king, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private morall vertues, as Aristotle hath devised: which if I find to be well accepted, I may be perhaps encoraged to frame the other part of pollitike vertues in his person, after he came to bee king.

To some I know this Methode will seem displeasant, which had rather have good discipline delivered plainly in way of precepts, or sermoned at large, as they use, then thus clowdily enwrapped in Allegoricall devises. But such, mee seeme, should be satisfied with the use of these dayes, seeing all things accounted by their showes, and nothing esteemed of, that is not delightfull and pleasing to common sense. For this cause is Xenophon preferred before Plato, for that the one, in the exquisite depth of his judgement, formed a Commune-wealth, such as it should be; but the other, in the person of Cyrus and the Persians, fashioned a government, such as

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might best be: So much more profitable and gracious is doctrine by ensample then by rule. So have I laboured to do in the person of Arthure: whom I conceive, after his long education by Timon (to whom he was by Merlin delivered to be brought up, so soone as he was borne of the Lady Igrayne) to have seen in a dreame or vision the Faerie Queene, with whose excellent beautie ravished,

hee awaking, resolved to seek her out: and so, being by Merlin armed, and by Timon throughly instructed, he went to seeke her forth in Faery land. In that Faery Queene I mean Glory in my generall intention: but in my particular I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faery land. And yet, in some places else, I doe otherwise shadow her. For considering shee beareth two persons, the one of a most royall Queene or Empresse, the other of a most vertuous and beautifull lady, this latter part in some places I doe expresse in Belphoebe, fashioning her name according to your owne excellent conceipt of Cynthia,2 (Phoebe and Cynthia being both names of Diana). So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette forth magnifi-cence in particular, which vertue, for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest, and containeth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the deeds of Arthure appliable to the vertue, which I write of in that booke. But

of the twelve other vertues I make XII other knights the patrons, for the more varietie of the historic: Of which these three bookes containe three. The first, of the Knight of the Red crosse, in whom I expresse Holinesse: the second of Sir Guyon, in whome I set foorth Temperance: the third of Britomartis, a Lady knight, in whom I picture Chastitie. But because the beginning of the whole worke seemeth abrupt and as depending upon other antecedents, it needs that yee know the occasion of these three knights severall adventures. For the Methode of a Poet historicall is not such as of an Historiographer. For an Historiographer discourseth of affaires orderly as they were done, accounting as well the times as the actions; but a Poet thrusteth into the middest, even where it most concerneth him, and there recoursing to the things forepast, and divining of things to come, maketh a pleasing analysis of all. The beginning therefore of my historie, if it were to be told by an Historiographer, should be the twelfth booke, which is the last; where I devise that the Faery Queene kept her annuall feast twelve daies; uppon which twelve severall dayes, the occasions of the twelve severall adventures hapned, which being undertaken by XII severall knights, are in these twelve books severally handled and discoursed.

The first was this. In the beginning of the feast, there presented him selfe a tall clownish younge man, who falling before the Queene

of Faeries desired a boone (as the manner then was) which during that feast she might not refuse: which was that hee might have the atchievement of any adventure, which during that feast should happen; that being granted, he rested him selfe on the fioore, unfit through his rusticitie for a better place. Soone after entred a faire Ladie in mourning weedes, riding on a white Asse, with a dwarfe behind her leading a warlike steed, that bore the Armes of a knight, and his speare in the dwarfes hand. She falling before the Queene of Faeries, complayned that her father and mother, an ancient King and Queene, had bene by an huge dragon many yeers shut up in a brazen Castle, who thence suffered them not to issew: and therefore besought the Faery Queene to assigne her some one of her knights to take on him that exployt. Presently that clownish person upstarting, desired that adventure; whereat the