The Shorter Poems Read online

  PENGUIN ENGLISH POETS

  GENERAL EDITOR: CHRISTOPHER RICKS

  EDMUND SPENSER: THE SHORTER POEMS

  EDMUND SPENSER was born in London, probably in 1552, and was educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School, from which he proceeded to Pembroke College, Cambridge. There he met Gabriel Harvey, scholar and University Orator, who exerted a considerable influence on his first important poem, The Shepheardes Calender (1579) and with whom he collaborated on a volume of familiar letters (1580). He graduated BA in 1573 and proceeded MA in 1576. By 1578 he was employed as secretary to John Young, Bishop of Rochester, formerly Master of Pembroke College. He may have also served briefly in the household of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, where it is commonly assumed that he met the Earl’s nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, to whom The Shepheardes Calender is dedicated. In 1580 he went to Ireland as Secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, Lord Deputy of Ireland, and stayed there for much of the remainder of his life, eventually becoming an undertaker in the Plantation of Munster. While at Kilcolman, his estate in County Cork, he met or reacquainted himself with his neighbour, Sir Walter Ralegh, with whom he travelled to London in 1589 to present the first three books of The Faerie Queene (1590) to its dedicatee, Queen Elizabeth, who rewarded him with an annual pension of fifty pounds. 1591 saw the publication of Complaints and Daphnaïda, the former exciting political controversy owing to the criticism of Lord Burghley contained in Mother Hubberds Tale. Spenser’s marriage to Elizabeth Boyle was celebrated in his Amoretti and Epithalamion (1595), and his pastoral eclogue, Colin Clovts Come Home Againe, appeared in the same year. In 1596 he brought out the second three books of The Faerie Queene as well as his Fowre Hymnes and Prothalamion. In 1598 his estate was burned during the Tyrone rebellion, and he fled to Cork and thence to London, where he died in 1599. He was buried in Westminster Abbey and posthumously celebrated as the ‘Prince of Poets’. In 1609 a folio edition of The Faerie Queene appeared, including the previously unpublished ‘Mutabilitie Cantos’, followed, in 1611, by a folio edition of the complete poetical works. A View of the Present State of Ireland, written in 1596, was published by Sir James Ware in 1633.

  RICHARD A. McCABE is a Fellow of Merton College and Reader in English at Oxford University. He was formerly Drapers’ Research Fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. His publications include, Joseph Hall: A Study in Satire and Meditation (1982), The Pillars of Eternity: Time and Providence in ‘The Faerie Queene’ (1989), Incest, Drama and Nature’s Law (1993) and Presenting Poetry: Composition, Publication, Reception (1995), co-edited with Howard Erskine-Hill.

  EDMUND SPENSER

  The Shorter Poems

  Edited by RICHARD A. McCABE

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England

  Published in Penguin Books 1999

  9

  Editorial material copyright © Richard A. McCabe, 1999

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the editor has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 9781101492093

  CONTENTS

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  CHRONOLOGY

  INTRODUCTION

  FROM A THEATRE FOR WORLDLINGS

  Epigrams

  Sonets

  THE SHEPHEARDES CALENDER

  Januarye

  Februarie

  March

  Aprill

  Maye

  June

  Julye

  August

  September

  October

  Nouember

  December

  FROM LETTERS (1580)

  COMPLAINTS

  The Ruines of Time

  The Teares of the Muses

  Virgils Gnat

  Prosopopoia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale

  Ruines of Rome: by Bellay

  Mviopotmos

  Visions of the Worlds Vanitie

  The Visions of Bellay

  The Visions of Petrarch

  DAPHNAÏDA

  COLIN CLOVTS COME HOME AGAINE

  Colin Clovts Come Home Againe

  Astrophel

  Dolefull Lay of Clorinda

  AMORETTI AND EPITHALAMION

  Amoretti

  Anacreontics

  Epithalamion

  FOWRE HYMNES

  An Hymne in Honovr of Love

  An Hymne in Honovr of Beavtie

  An Hymne of Heavenly Love

  An Hymne of Heavenly Beavtie

  PROTHALAMION

  COMMENDATORY SONNETS

  ATTRIBUTED VERSES

  NOTES

  Abbreviations

  GLOSSARY OF COMMON TERMS

  TEXTUAL APPARATUS

  FURTHER READING

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  All of the illustrations are by courtesy of the Bodleian Library with the exception of those from Daphnaïda and Amoretti and Epithalamion which are reproduced by permission of the British Library. Details of the editions used are supplied in the Textual Apparatus.

  A THEATRE FOR WORLDLINGS, title-page

  Epigram 1

  Epigram 2

  Epigram 3

  Epigram 4

  Epigram 5

  Epigram 6

  Sonet 2

  Sonet 3

  Sonet 4

  Sonet 5

  Sonet 6

  Sonet 7

  Sonet 8

  Sonet 9

  Sonet 10

  Sonet 11

  Sonet 12

  Sonet 13

  Sonet 14

  Sonet 15

  THE SHEPHEARDES CALENDER, title-page

  Januarye

  Februarie

  March

  Aprill

  Maye

  June

  Julye

  August

  September

  October

  Nouember

  December

  LETTERS (1580), title-page

  COMPLAINTS, title-page

  The Teares of the Muses, title-page

  Prosopopoia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale, title-page

  Mviopotmos, title-page

  DAPHNAÏDA, title-page

  COLIN CLOVTS COME HOME AGAINE, title-page

  Astrophel, title-page

  AMORETTI AND EPITHALAMION, title-page

  Epithalamion, title-page

  FOWRE HYMNES, title-page

  PROTHALAMION, title-page

  CHRONOLOGY

  1547

  Death of Henry VIII. Accession of Edward VI.

  1552?

  Birth of Spenser in London (but the date is uncertain and may be as late as 1554).

  1553

  Death of Edward VI. Accession of Mary Tudor.

  1554

  Birth of Sir Philip Sidney. Mary weds the future Philip II of Spain.

  1556

  Accession of Philip II to the Spanish throne.

 
1558

  Death of Mary Tudor. Accession of Elizabeth I.

  1561–9

  Spenser attends the Merchant Taylors’ School under Richard Mulcaster.

  1564

  Birth of Shakespeare and Marlowe.

  1566

  Birth of James VI of Scotland.

  1567

  Revolt of the Low Countries.

  1568

  Mary Queen of Scots flies to England.

  1569

  Publication of A Theatre for Worldlings with translations by Spenser. Spenser matriculates at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge.

  1570

  Excommunication of Elizabeth I.

  1572

  Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day in France.

  1573

  Spenser graduates BA.

  1576

  Spenser proceeds MA.

  1578

  Spenser acts as secretary to John Young, Bishop of Rochester.

  1579

  Publication of The Shepheardes Calender. Spenser is believed to have wed his first wife, Maccabaeus Chylde on 27 October. Outbreak of the Desmond Rebellion in Munster.

  1580

  Publication of the Spenser–Harvey Letters. Spenser travels to Ireland as secretary to Lord Arthur Grey, the newly appointed Lord Deputy. Massacre of foreign mercenaries at Smerwick.

  1581

  Publication of the second quarto of The Shepheardes Calender. Famine in Munster.

  1582

  Lord Grey is recalled to England.

  1583

  Death of the Earl of Desmond.

  1585

  The Earl of Leicester campaigns in the Low Countries.

  1586

  Publication of the third quarto of The Shepheardes Calender. Death of Sir Philip Sidney at Zutphen.

  1587

  Execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

  1588

  Defeat of the Spanish Armada. Death of the Earl of Leicester.

  1589

  Spenser travels to England with Sir Walter Ralegh in October. Accession of Henry IV of France.

  1590

  Publication of The Faerie Queene, I–III. Spenser receives the royal grant of his estate at Kilcolman.

  1591

  Publication of Complaints, Daphnaïda and the fourth quarto of The Shepheardes Calender. Spenser is granted an annual pension of fifty pounds. He returns to Ireland.

  1593

  Henry IV of France converts to Roman Catholicism.

  1594

  Spenser marries Elizabeth Boyle on 11 June. Beginning of the Nine Years’ War in Ireland.

  1595

  Publication of Colin Clovts Come Home Againe (with Astrophel) and Amoretti and Epithalamion.

  1596

  Publication of The Faerie Queene, IV–VI with the second edition of Books I–III. The work is banned in Scotland by James VI. Publication of Fowre Hymnes with the second edition of Daphnaïda. Publication of Prothalamion.

  1597

  Publication of the fifth quarto of The Shepheardes Calender.

  1598

  A Vewe of the Present State of Ireland is entered in the Stationers’ Register. Kilcolman is sacked by Celtic forces. Spenser travels to London.

  1599

  Death of Spenser in London on 13 January.

  1601

  The Earl of Tyrone is defeated at the Battle of Kinsale. Execution of the Earl of Essex.

  1603

  Death of Elizabeth I. Accession of James I.

  1607

  The Flight of the Earls breaks Celtic power in Ulster.

  1609

  Publication of the first folio of The Faerie Queene containing the ‘Mutabilitie Cantos’. The Plantation of Ulster begins.

  1611

  Publication of the first folio of Spenser’s Works.

  1617

  Publication of the second folio of Spenser’s Works.

  1620

  Monument erected to Spenser in Westminster Abbey by Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset.

  1633

  Publication of A Vewe of the Present State of Ireland.

  1679

  Publication of the third folio of Spenser’s Works.

  INTRODUCTION: ‘OPPOSD REFLEXION’

  Spenser is most commonly celebrated as the author of The Faerie Queene yet had he written nothing other than the works collected in the present volume he would still rank amongst the foremost of English poets. His shorter poems are arguably as essential to the comprehension of his epic verse as are the Eclogues and Georgics to Virgil’s Aeneid but, like their Virgilian counterparts, their primary importance lies in their intrinsic literary merit. They are no mere adjuncts to the epic project but integral components of a wider canon which acknowledges and explores both the strengths and limitations of the heroic outlook. Read in conjunction with, rather than in subordination to, The Faerie Queene they reveal the intellectual range and aesthetic diversity of a singularly complex and frequently dichotomous world view. To an even greater extent than the epic poetry they demonstrate Spenser’s generic and stylistic versatility, his remarkable linguistic virtuosity and mastery of complex metrical forms. Here he adopted the conflicting, if oddly complementary, personae of satirist and eulogist, elegist and lover, polemicist and prophet and, in the process, radically transformed the classical and medieval genres he employed. The impact upon succeeding generations of poets from Shakespeare to Yeats was tremendous. Originality, bred by tradition, fostered the renewal of tradition. Long before the term ‘Spenserian’ passed into common critical usage the concept was well understood and the practice widely imitated.

  The publication of The Shepheardes Calender in 1579 marked a crucial turning point in English literary history. The ‘new Poete’ introduced to, and concealed from, the reading public, by the mysterious ‘E. K.’ – a literary agent too ideal to be other than fictitious – issued a manifesto for a new poetics premised upon an aggressive confidence in the English language, ‘which truely of it self is both ful enough for prose and stately enough for verse’. By appropriating to his yet anonymous cause the illustrious names of Virgil and Chaucer, he nominated himself as their successor, arrogantly proclaiming his talent even as he pretended to disclaim ‘vaunted titles’ and ‘glorious showes’. For the contemporary reader the shock of the new entailed a startling accommodation with the old. The Calender’s archaic diction articulated its claims to kinship with Chaucer by lending ‘great grace, and as one would say, auctoritie to the verse’. On behalf of the nation the new poet ‘hath laboured to restore, as to theyr rightfull heritage such good and naturall English words, as haue ben long time out of vse and almost cleare disherited’. The matter was politically charged: at a time when ‘fayre Elisa’, the Queen whose unsullied virginity had come to symbolize the country’s territorial and spiritual integrity, was preparing to wed the ‘alien’, Catholic and French-speaking Duc d’Alençon, the preface assailed those ‘whose first shame is, that they are not ashamed, in their own mother tonge straungers to be counted and alienes’. ‘Why a Gods name’, Spenser asked the following year, ‘may not we… haue the kingdome of our owne Language?’ (cf. Prose, 16). From the outset linguistic and political sovereignty go hand in hand, and the political import of the Calender is most potently conveyed through the assurance of its wordplay. To write good English verse was to assert true English identity, to oppose the linguistic miscegenation of those who ‘made our English tongue, a gallimaufray or hodgepodge of al other speches’. The play on ‘gall’ in ‘gallimaufray’ is a shrewd hit for as The Faerie Queene reminds us ‘old Gall… now is cleeped France’ (4. 11. 16). Apropos the French match we learn that, ‘Of Hony and of Gaule in loue there is store: / The Honye is much, but the Gaule is more’ (March, 122–3). Never had mere orthography been so politically loaded; Elizabeth’s ‘Gaule’ was England’s ‘gall’ and the ‘natural speach’ of all true Englishmen, ‘which together with their Nources milk they sucked’, proclaimed its antipathy to the proposed misalliance.


  The Shepheardes Calender serves not merely as a precursor to The Faerie Queene but as a pre-emptive strike in defence of the beleaguered ‘faery’ mythology, which would later inform it. For this reason Spenserian pastoral is confrontational rather than escapist and more inclined to chart the landscape of wish-frustration than that of wish-fulfilment. As the ‘envoy’ indicates, the poetry is acutely responsive to the ‘ieopardee’ of the moment and draws nervous energy from the sense of peril. Just a few months previously John Stubbs had lost his right hand for penning the notorious anti-Alençon tract, The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf Whereinto England is like to be Swallowed (1579). His printer was Hugh Singleton, the printer of the Calender, and Spenser took a considerable risk in echoing Stubbs’s condemnation of those who ‘gape for greedie governaunce / And match them selfe with mighty potentates’ (Februarie, 121–2). The overt target is the pride of worldly prelates but the play on ‘match’, in such close conjunction with the Stubbsian ‘gape’, is unmistakable. Even in the Aprill eclogue, at the height of apparently seamless panegyric, the choice of Virgilian emblems pulls the ragged threads of discontent: ‘O quam te memorem virgo? / O dea certe’. In the first book of the Aeneid Venus appears to her son disguised as a nymph of Diana. Both he, and the epic’s subsequent Christian interpreters, are puzzled by her identity: does she represent chastity, or licence disguised as chastity? Is she really a virgin (virgo) or a goddess (dea) ? Should the first emblem be translated as ‘what shall I call you, maiden?’ or ‘shall I call you maiden?’: the ‘vision’ is strongest at the point at which it threatens, like Virgil’s Venus, to evaporate into thin air. The ‘pastoral of power’ feeds upon the anxieties of impotence.

  In the aptly entitled collection of Complaints published in 1591 vision and satire coalesce. That the volume should have appeared shortly after the first instalment of The Faerie Queene should occasion little surprise since it illustrates the adverse circumstances in which Spenser’s more idealized aspirations struggle for survival. The label of ‘court’ poet so often attached to him is grossly misleading for, as Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1595) powerfully demonstrates, he was more of an outsider than a laureate. Consigned to the ‘waste’ landscape of Elizabethan Ireland with its ‘griesly famine’ and ‘outlawes fell’ (314–19), he wrote from the margins not the centre. While Virgil is frequently invoked as the model for his career, the despondent ghost of Ovid, driven into exile by Virgil’s imperial patron, echoes in the subtextual background. Colin’s voyage from Ireland to England is ironically replete with echoes of Ovid’s Tristia thereby enforcing the ambiguity of the poem’s title. Like Ovid, Spenser seldom played safe. The Shepheardes Calender risked prosecution, Mother Hubberds Tale was called in, the first instalment of The Faerie Queene gave offence to Lord Burghley, and the second was banned in Scotland by James VI. Spenser’s famous assertions of epic weariness, so publicly canvassed in the Amoretti (sonnets 33 and 80), gesture towards the most poignant Ovidian expression of despair: ‘think not all my work is trivial; oft have I set grand sails upon my bark. Six books of Fasti and as many more have I written… This work did I recently compose Caesar, under thy name, dedicated to thee, but my fate has broken it off’ (Tristia, 2. 547–52). Whereas Ovid suggests that all twelve books have at least been drafted, Spenser indefinitely defers the great project in honour of his ‘dear dred’ – an oxymoron which perfectly conveys the ambivalence of his attitude towards one of the primary sources of his inspiration.