Читать книгу History of English Literature (Vol. 1-3) - Taine Hippolyte - Страница 46

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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 independent 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 unreasoning 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 imagery. 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 medley of imaginary creatures, of superhuman exploits and splendid follies, were grouped around a unique conception, exalted and sublime love, like courtiers prostrated at the feet of their king. It was an ample and buoyant subject-matter, from which the great artists of the age, Ariosto, Tasso, Cervantes, Rabelais, had hewn their poems. But they belonged too completely to their own time, to admit of their belonging to one which had passed.[360] 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 sceptic 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 loves 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 species of exact common-sense which was to found and cramp the whole modern civilization. In his heart he inhabits the poetic and shadowy land from which men were daily drawing farther and farther away. He is enamored of it, even to its very language; he revives the old words, the expressions of the Middle Ages, the style of Chaucer, especially in the "Shepherd's Calendar." He enters straightway upon the strangest dreams of the old story-tellers, without astonishment, like a man who has still stranger dreams of his own. Enchanted castles, monsters and giants, duels in the woods, wandering ladies, all spring up under his hands, the mediæval fancy with the mediaeval generosity; and it is just because this world is unreal that it so suits his humor.

Is there in chivalry sufficient to furnish him with matter? That is but one world, and he has another. Beyond the valiant men, the glorified images of moral virtues, he has the gods, finished models of sensible beauty; beyond Christian chivalry he has the pagan Olympus; beyond the idea of heroic will which can only be satisfied by adventures and danger, there exists calm energy, which, by its own impulse, is in harmony with actual existence. 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 heaven, 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, "That suited"; and there could be no better. Under the glossy-leaved oaks, by the old trunk so deeply rooted in the ground, he can see two knights cleaving each other, and the next instant a company of Fauns who came there to dance. The beams of light which have poured down upon the velvet moss, the green turf of an English forest, can reveal the dishevelled locks and white shoulders of nymphs. Do we not see it in Rubens? And what signify discrepancies in the happy and sublime illusion of fancy? Are there more discrepancies? Who perceives them, who feels them? Who does not feel, on the contrary, that to speak the truth, there is but one world, that of Plato and the poets; that actual phenomena are but outlines—mutilated, incomplete and blurred outlines—wretched abortions scattered 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 fulfilment 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.

The reader will feel that it is impossible to give in full the plot of such a poem. In fact, there are six poems, each of a dozen cantos, in which the action is ever diverging and converging again, becoming confused and starting again; and all the imaginings of antiquity and of the Middle Ages are, I believe, combined in it. The knight "pricks along the plaine," among the trees, and at a crossing of the paths meets other knights with whom he engages in combat; suddenly from within a cave appears a monster, half woman and half serpent, surrounded by a hideous offspring; further on a giant, with three bodies; then a dragon, great as a hill, with sharp talons and vast wings. For three days he fights them, and twice overthrown, he comes to himself only by aid of "a gracious ointment." After that there are savage tribes to be conquered, castles surrounded 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 endless 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 comes upon them so naturally that he makes them natural; he defeats the miscreants, as if 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 for you; and are you not instantly in it with him Beech trees with their silvery stems, "loftie trees iclad with sommers pride, did spred so broad, that heavens light did hide"; rays of light tremble on the bark and shine on the ground, on the reddening ferns and low bushes, which, suddenly smitten with the luminous track, glisten and glimmer. Footsteps are scarcely heard on the thick beds of heaped leaves; and at distant intervals, on the tall herbage, drops of dew are sparkling. Yet the sound of a horn reaches us through the foliage; how sweetly yet cheerfully it falls on the ear, amidst this vast silence! It resounds more loudly; the clatter of a hunt draws near; "eft through the thicke they heard one rudely rush;" a nymph approaches, the most chaste and beautiful in the world. Spenser sees her; nay more, he kneels before her:

"Her face so faire, as flesh it seemed not,

But hevenly pourtraict of bright angels hew,

Cleare as the skye, withouten blame or blot,

Through goodly mixture of complexions dew;

And in her cheekes the vermeill red did shew

Like roses in a bed of lillies shed,

The which ambrosiall odours from them threw,

And gazers sence with double pleasure fed,

Hable to heale the sicke and to revive the ded.

"In her faire eyes two living lamps did flame,

Kindled above at th' Hevenly Makers light,

And darted fyrie beames out of the same;

So passing persant, and so wondrous bright,

That quite bereav'd the rash beholders sight:

In them the blinded god his lustfull fyre

To kindle oft assayd, but had no might;

For, with dredd maiestie and awfull yre,

She broke his wanton darts, and quenched bace desyre.

"Her yvorie forhead, full of bountie brave,

Like a broad table did itselfe dispred,

For Love his loftie triumphes to engrave,

And write the battailes of his great godhed:

All good and honour might therein be red;

For there their dwelling was. And, when she spake

Sweete wordes, like dropping honny, she did shed;

And 'twixt the perles and rubins softly brake

A silver sound, that heavenly musicke seemd to make.

"Upon her eyelids many Graces sate,

Under the shadow of her even browes,

Working belgardes and amorous retrate;

And everie one her with a grace endowes,

And everie one with meekenesse to her bowes:

So glorious mirrhour of celestiall grace,

And soveraine moniment of mortall vowes,

How shall frayle pen descrive her heavenly face,

For feare, through want of skill, her beauty to disgrace.

"So faire, and thousand thousand times more faire,

She seemd, when she presented was to sight;

And was yclad, for heat of scorching aire,

All in a silken Camus lilly whight,

Purfled upon with many a folded plight,

Which all above besprinckled was throughout

With golden aygulets, that glistred bright,

Like twinckling starres; and all the skirt about

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

With curious antickes, and full fayre aumayld.

Before, they fastned were under her knee

In a rich iewell, and therein entrayld

The ends of all the knots, that none might see

How they within their fouldings close enwrapped bee.

"Like two faire marble pillours they were seene,

Which doe the temple of the gods support,

Whom all the people decke with girlands greene,

And honour in their festivall resort;

Those same with stately grace and princely port

She taught to tread, when she herselfe would grace;

But with the woody nymphes when she did play,

Or when the flying libbard she did chace,

She could them nimbly move, and after fly apace.

"And in her hand a sharpe bore-speare she held,

And at her backe a bow and quiver gay,

Stuft with steel-headed dartes wherewith she queld

The salvage beastes in her victorious play,

Knit with a golden bauldricke which forelay

Athwart her snowy brest, and did divide

Her daintie paps; which, like young fruit in May,

Now little gan to swell, and being tide

Through her thin weed their places only signifide.

"Her yellow lockes, crisped like golden wyre,

About her shoulders weren loosely shed,

And, when the winde emongst them did inspyre,

They waved like a penon wyde dispred

And low behinde her backe were scattered:

And, whether art it were or heedlesse hap,

As through the flouring forrest rash she fled,

In her rude heares sweet flowres themselves did lap,

And flourishing fresh leaves and blossomes did enwrap."[361] "The daintie rose, the daughter of her morne, More deare than life she tendered, whose flowre The girlond of her honour did adorne; Ne suffered she the middayes scorching powre. Ne the sharp northerne wind thereon to showre; But lapped up her silken leaves most chayre, Whenso the froward skye began to lowre; But, soone as calmed was the cristall ayre, She did it fayre dispred, and let to flourish fayre."[362]

He is on his knees before her, I repeat, as a child on Corpus Christi day, among flowers and perfumes, transported with admiration, so that he sees a heavenly light in her eyes, and angel's tints on her cheeks, even impressing into her service Christian angels and pagan graces to adorn and await upon 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 beamës did display,

In a fresh fountaine, far from all mens vew,

She bath'd her brest the boyling heat t' allay;

She bath'd with roses red and violets blew,

And all the sweetest flowers that in the forrest grew.

Till faint through yrkesome wearines adowne

Upon the grassy ground herselfe she layd

To sleepe, the whiles a gentle slombring swowne

Upon her fell all naked bare displayd."[363]

The beams played upon her body, and "fructified" her. The months rolled on. Troubled and ashamed, she went into the "wildernesse," and sat down, "every sence with sorrow sore opprest." Meanwhile Venus, searching for her boy Cupid, who had mutinied and fled from her, "wandered in the world." She had sought him in courts, cities, cottages, promising "kisses sweet, and sweeter things, unto the man that of him tydings to her brings."

"Shortly unto the wastefull woods she came,

Whereas she found the goddesse (Diana) with her crew,

After late chace of their embrewed game,

Sitting beside a fountaine in a rew;

Some of them washing with the liquid dew

From off their dainty limbs the dusty sweat

And soyle, which did deforme their lively hew;

Others lay shaded from the scorching heat,

The rest upon her person gave attendance great.

She, having hong upon a bough on high

Her bow and painted quiver, had unlaste

Her silver buskins from her nimble thigh,

And her lanck loynes ungirt, and brests unbraste,

After her heat the breathing cold to taste;

Her golden lockes, that late in tresses bright

Embreaded were for hindring of her haste,

Now loose about her shoulders hong undight,

And were with sweet Ambrosia all besprinckled light."[364]

Diana, surprised thus, repulses Venus, "and gan to smile, in scorne of her vaine playnt," swearing that if she should catch Cupid, she would clip his wanton wings. Then she took pity on the afflicted goddess, and set herself with her to look for the fugitive. They came to the "shady covert" where Chrysogone, in her sleep, had given birth "unawares" to two lovely girls, "as faire as springing day." Diana took one, and made her the purest of all virgins. Venus carried off the other to the Garden of Adonis, "the first seminary of all things, that are borne to live and dye"; where Psyche, the bride of Love, disports herself; where Pleasure, their daughter, wantons with the Graces; where Adonis, "lapped in flowres and pretious spycery, liveth in eternal bliss," and came back to life through the breath of immortal Love. She brought her up as her daughter, selected her to be the most faithful of loves, and after long trials, gave her hand to the good knight Sir Scudamore.

That is the kind of thing we meet with in the wondrous forest. Are you ill at ease there, and do you wish to leave it because it is wondrous? At every bend in the alley, at every change of the light, a stanza, a word, reveals a landscape or an apparition. It is morning, the white dawn gleams faintly through the trees; bluish vapors veil the horizon, and vanish in the smiling air; the springs tremble and murmur faintly amongst the mosses, and on high the poplar leaves begin to stir and flutter like the wings of butterflies. A knight alights from his horse, a valiant knight, who has unhorsed many a Saracen, and experienced many an adventure. He unlaces his helmet, and on a sudden you perceive the cheeks of a young girl:

"Which doft, her golden lockes, that were upbound

Still in a knot, unto her heeles downe traced,

And like a silken veile in compasse round

About her backe and all her bodie wound;

Like as the shining skie in summers night,

What time the dayes with scorching heat abound,

Is creasted all with lines of firie light,

That it prodigious seemes in common peoples sight."[365]

It is Britomart, a virgin and a heroine, like Clorinda or Marfisa,[366] but how much more ideal! The deep sentiment of nature, the sincerity of reverie, the ever-flowing fertility of inspiration, the German seriousness, reanimate in this poem classical or chivalrous conceptions, even when they are the oldest or the most trite. The train of splendors and of scenery never ends. Desolate promontories, cleft with gaping chasms; thunder-stricken and blackened masses of rocks, against which the hoarse breakers dash; palaces sparkling with gold, wherein ladies, beauteous as angels, reclining carelessly on purple cushions, listen with sweet smiles to the harmony of music played by unseen hands; lofty silent walks, where avenues of oaks spread their motionless shadows over clusters of virgin violets, and turf which never mortal foot has trod; to all these beauties of art and nature he adds the marvels of mythology, and describes them with as much of love and sincerity as a painter of the Renaissance or an ancient poet. Here approach on chariots of shell, Cymoënt and her nymphs:

"A teme of dolphins raunged in aray

Drew the smooth charett of sad Cymoënt;

They were all taught by Triton to obay

To the long raynes at her commaundëment:

As swifte as swallowes on the waves they went,

That their brode flaggy finnes no fome did reare,

Ne bubling rowndell they behinde them sent;

The rest, of other fishes drawen weare;

Which with their finny oars the swelling sea did sheare."[367]

Nothing, again, can be sweeter or calmer than the description of the palace of Morpheus:

"He, making speedy way through spersed ayre,

And through the world of waters wide and deepe.

To Morpheus house doth hastily repaire.

Amid the bowels of the earth full steepe,

And low, where dawning day doth never peepe

His dwelling is; there Tethys his wet bed

Doth ever wash, and Cynthia still doth steepe

In silver deaw his ever-drouping hed,

Whiles sad Night over him her mantle black doth spred.

And, more to lulle him in his slumber soft,

A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe

And ever-drizzling raine upon the loft,

Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne

Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne.

No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,

As still are wont t' annoy the walled towne,

Might there be heard: but careless Quiet lyes,

Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes."

Observe also in a corner of this forest, a band of satyrs dancing under the green leaves. They come leaping like wanton kids, as gay as birds of joyous spring. The fair Hellenore, whom they have chosen for "May-lady," "daunst lively" also, laughing, and "with girlonds all bespredd." The wood re-echoes the sound of their "merry pypes. Their horned feet the greene gras wore. All day they daunced with great lustyhedd," with sudden motions and alluring looks, while about them their flock feed on "the brouzes" at their pleasure. In every book we see strange processions pass by, allegorical and picturesque shows, like those which were then displayed at the courts of princes; now a masquerade of Cupid, now of the Rivers, now of the Months, now of the Vices. Imagination was never more prodigal or inventive. Proud Lucifera advances in a chariot "adorned all with gold and girlonds gay," beaming like the dawn, surrounded by a crowd of courtiers whom she dazzles with her glory and splendor: "six unequall beasts" draw her along, and each of these is ridden by a Vice. Idleness "upon a slouthfull asse... in habit blacke... like to an holy monck," sick for very laziness, lets his heavy head droop, and holds in his hand a breviary which he does not read; Gluttony, on "a filthie swyne," crawls by in his deformity, "his belly... upblowne with luxury, and eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne; and like a crane his necke was long and fyne," dressed in vine-leaves, through which one can see his body eaten by ulcers, and vomiting along the road the wine and flesh with which he is glutted. Avarice seated between "two iron coffers, upon a camell loaden all with gold," is handling a heap of coin, with threadbare coat, hollow cheeks, and feet stiff with gout. Envy "upon a ravenous wolfe still did chaw between his cankred teeth a venemous tode, that all the poison ran about his chaw," and his discolored garment "ypainted full of eies," conceals a snake wound about his body. Wrath, covered with a torn and bloody robe, comes riding on a lion, brandishing about his head "a burning brond," his eyes sparkling, his face pale as ashes, grasping in his feverish hand the haft of his dagger. The strange and terrible procession passes on, led by the solemn harmony of the stanzas; and the grand music of oft-repeated rhymes sustains the imagination in this fantastic world, which, with its mingled horrors and splendors, has just been opened to its flight.

Yet all this is little. However much mythology and chivalry can supply, they do not suffice for the needs of this poetical fancy. Spenser's characteristic is the vastness and overflow of his picturesque invention. Like Rubens, whatever he creates is beyond the region of all traditions, but complete in all parts, and expresses distinct ideas. As with Rubens, his allegory swells its proportions beyond all rule, and withdraws fancy from all law, except in so far as it is necessary to harmonize forms and colors. For, if ordinary minds receive from allegory a certain weight which oppresses them, lofty imaginations receive from it wings which carry them aloft. Freed by it from the common conditions of life, they can dare all things, beyond imitation, apart from probability, with no other guides but their inborn energy and their shadowy instincts. For three days Sir Guyon is led by the cursed spirit, the tempter Mammon, in the subterranean realm, across wonderful gardens, trees laden with golden fruits, glittering palaces, and a confusion of all worldly treasures. They have descended into the bowels of the earth, and pass through caverns, unknown abysses, silent depths. "An ugly Feend... with monstrous stalke behind him stept," without Guyon's knowledge, ready to devour him on the least show of covetousness. The brilliancy of the gold lights up hideous figures, and the beaming metal shines with a beauty more seductive in the gloom of the infernal prison.

"That Houses forme within was rude and strong,

Lyke an huge cave hewne out of rocky clifte,

From whose rough vaut the ragged breaches hong

Embost with massy gold of glorious guifte,

And with rich metall loaded every rifte,

That heavy ruine they did seeme to threatt;

And over them Arachne high did lifte

Her cunning web, and spred her subtile nett,

Enwrapped in fowle smoke and clouds more black than iett.

"Both roofe, and floore, and walls, were all of gold,

But overgrowne with dust and old decay,

And hid in darknes, that none could behold

The hew thereof; for vew of cheerfull day

Did never in that House itselfe display,

But a faint shadow of uncertein light;

Such as a lamp; whose life does fade away;

Or as the moone, cloathed with dowdy night,

Does show to him that walkes in feare and sad affright.

"In all that rowme was nothing to be seene

But huge great yron chests and coffers strong,

All bard with double bends, that none could weene

Them to enforce by violence or wrong;

On every side they placed were along.

But all the grownd with sculs was scattered

And dead mens bones, which round about were flong;

Whose lives, it seemed, whilome there were shed,

And their vile carcases now left unburied....

"Thence, forward he him ledd and shortly brought

Unto another rowme, whose dore forthright

To him did open as it had beene taught:

Therein an hundred raunges weren pight,

And hundred fournaces all burning bright;

By every fournace many Feends did byde,

Deformed creatures, horrible in sight;

And every Feend his busie paines applyde

To melt the golden metall, ready to be tryde.

"One with great bellowes gathered filling ayre,

And with forst wind the fewell did inflame;

Another did the dying bronds repayre

With yron tongs, and sprinckled ofte the same

With liquid waves, fiers Vulcans rage to tame,

Who, maystring them, renewd his former heat:

Some scumd the drosse that from the metall came;

Some stird the molten owre with ladles great:

And every one did swincke, and every one did sweat...

"He brought him, through a darksom narrow strayt,

To a broad gate all built of beaten gold:

The gate was open; but therein did wayt

A sturdie Villein, stryding stiffe and bold,

As if the Highest God defy he would:

In his right hand an yron club he held,

But he himselfe was all of golden mould,

Yet had both life and sence, and well could weld

That cursed weapon, when his cruell foes he queld....

"He brought him in. The rowme was large and wyde,

As it some gyeld or solemne temple weare;

Many great golden pillours did upbeare

The massy roofe, and riches huge sustayne;

And every pillour decked was full deare

With crownes, and diademes, and titles vaine,

Which mortall princes wore whiles they on earth did rayne.

"A route of people there assembled were,

Of every sort and nation under skye,

Which with great uprore preaced to draw nere

To th' upper part, where was advaunced hye

A stately siege of soveraine maiestye;

And thereon satt a Woman gorgeous gay,

And richly cladd in robes of royaltye,

That never earthly prince in such aray

His glory did enhaunce, and pompous pryde display....

"There, as in glistring glory she did sitt,

She held a great gold chaine ylincked well,

Whose upper end to highest heven was knitt.

And lower part did reach to lowest hell."[368]

No artist's dream matches these visions: the glow of the furnaces beneath the vaults of the cavern, the lights flickering over the crowded figures, the throne, and the strange glitter of the gold shining in every direction through the darkness. The allegory assumes gigantic proportions. When the object is to show temperance struggling with temptations, Spenser deems it necessary to mass all the temptations together. He is treating of a general virtue; and as such a virtue is capable of every sort of resistance, he requires from it every sort of resistance alike; after the test of gold, that of pleasure. Thus the grandest and the most exquisite spectacles follow and are contrasted with each other, and all are supernatural; the graceful and the terrible are side by side—the happy gardens close by with the cursed subterranean cavern.

"No gate, but like one, being goodly dight

With bowes and braunches, which did broad dilate

Their clasping armes in wanton wreathings intricate:

"So fashioned a porch with rare device,

Archt over head with an embracing vine,

Whose bounches hanging downe seemed to entice

All passers-by to taste their lushious wine,

And did themselves into their hands incline,

As freely offering to be gathered;

Some deepe empurpled as the hyacine,

Some as the rubine laughing sweetely red,

Some like faire emeraudes, not yet well ripened....

"And in the midst of all a fountaine stood,

Of richest substance that on earth might bee,

So pure and shiny that the silver flood

Through every channell running one might see;

Most goodly it with curious ymageree

Was over-wrought, and shapes of naked boyes,

Of which some seemed with lively iollitee

To fly about, playing their wanton toyes,

Whylest others did themselves embay in liquid ioyes.

"And over all of purest gold was spred

A trayle of yvie in his native hew;

For the rich metall was so coloured,

That wight, who did not well avis'd it vew,

Would surely deeme it to bee yvie trew;

Low his lascivious armes adown did creepe,

That themselves dipping in the silver dew

Their fleecy flowres they fearfully did steepe,

Which drops of christall seemd for wantones to weep.

"Infinit streames continually did well

Out of this fountaine, sweet and faire to see,

The which into an ample laver fell,

And shortly grew to such great quantitie,

That like a little lake it seemd to bee;

Whose depth exceeded not three cubits hight,

That through the waves one might the bottom see,

All pav'd beneath with jaspar shining bright,

That seemd the fountaine in that sea did sayle upright....

"The ioyes birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade,

Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet;

Th' angelicall soft trembling voyces made

To th' instruments divine respondence meet;

The silver-sounding instruments did meet

With the base murmur of the waters fall;

The waters fall with difference discreet.

Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call;

The gentle warbling wind low answered to all....

"Upon a bed of roses she was layd,

As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin;

And was arayd, or rather disarayd,

All in a vele of silke and silver thin,

That hid no whit her alabaster skin,

But rather shewd more white, if more might bee:

More subtile web Arachne cannot spin;

Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see

Of scorched deaw, do not in th' ayre more lightly flee.

"Her snowy brest was bare to ready spoyle

Of hungry eies, which n' ote therewith be fild;

And yet, through languour of her late sweet toyle,

Few drops, more cleare then nectar, forth distild,

That like pure orient perles adowne it trild;

And her faire eyes, sweet smyling in delight,

Moystened their fierie beames, with which she thrild

Fraile harts, yet quenched not, like starry lights

Which sparckling on the silent waves, does seeme more bright."[369]

Do we find here nothing but fairy land? Yes; here are finished pictures true and complete, composed with a painter's feeling, with choice of tints and outlines; our eyes are delighted by them. This reclining Acrasia has the pose of a goddess, or of one of Titian's courtesans. An Italian artist might copy these gardens, these flowing waters, these sculptured loves, those wreaths of creeping ivy thick with glossy leaves and fleecy flowers. Just before, in the infernal depths, the lights, with their long streaming rays, were fine, half smothered by the darkness; the lofty throne in the vast hall, between the pillars, in the midst of a swarming multitude, connected all the forms around it by drawing all looks towards one centre. The poet, here and throughout, is a colorist and an architect. However fantastic his world may be, it is not factitious; if it does not exist, it might have been; indeed, it should have been; it is the fault of circumstances if they do not so group themselves as to bring it to pass; taken by itself, it possesses that internal harmony by which a real thing, even a still higher harmony, exists, inasmuch as, without any regard to real things, it is altogether, and in its least detail, constructed with a view to beauty. Art has made its appearance; this is the great characteristic of the age, which distinguishes the "Faërie Queene" from all similar tales heaped up by the Middle Ages. Incoherent, mutilated, they lie like rubbish, or rough-hewn stones, which the weak hands of the trouvères could not build into a monument. At last the poets and artists appear, and with them the conception of beauty, to wit, the idea of general effect. They understand proportions, relations, contrasts; they compose. In their hands the blurred vague sketch becomes defined, complete, separate; it assumes color—is made a picture. Every object thus conceived and imaged acquires a definite existence as soon as it assumes a true form; centuries after, it will be acknowledged and admired, and men will be touched by it; and more, they will be touched by its author; for, besides the object which he paints, the poet paints himself. His ruling idea is stamped upon the work which it produces and controls. Spenser is superior to his subject, comprehends it fully, frames it with a view to its end, in order to impress upon it the proper mark of his soul and his genius. Each story is modulated with respect to another, and all with respect to a certain effect which is being worked out. Thus a beauty issues from this harmony—the beauty in the poet's heart—which his whole work strives to express; a noble and yet a cheerful beauty, made up of moral elevation and sensuous seductions, English in sentiment, Italian in externals, chivalric in subject, modern in its perfection, representing a unique and wonderful epoch, the appearance of paganism in a Christian race, and the worship of form by an imagination of the North.