sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation."

"A gentle knight was pricking on the plain,
Yclad in mightie arms and silver shield,
Wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain,
The cruel marks of many a bloodie field;
Yet arms till that time did he never wield:
His angry steed did chide his foaming bit,
As much disdaining to the curb to yield:
Full jolly knight he seem'd, and fair did sit,
As one for knightly jousts and fierce encounters fit.
"But on his breast a bloody cross he bore,

The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead (as living) ever him ador'd:
Upon his shield the like was also scor'd,

For sovereign hope, which in his help he had:
Right faithful true he was in deed and word;
But of his cheer did seem too solemn sad;
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.

THE RED CROSS KNIGHT.

From the first Edition of the "Faerie Queene" (Books I., II., III.), 1530.

"Upon a great adventure he was bond
That greatest Gloriana to him gave,
That greatest glorious queen of fairy lond,
To win him worship, and her grace to have,
Which of all earthly things he most did crave;
And even as he rode, his heart did earn 1
To prove his puissance in battle brave
Upon his foe, and his new force to learn;
Upon his foe, a dragon horrible and stearn."

! Earn, yearn.

The steed ridden by the knight represents the human passions and desires which carry us well on our way when under due restraint; and in this sense skill in horsemanship ranks high among the attainments of a faerie knight. The dragon against which the Red Cross Knight has undertaken that chief enterprise in pursuit of which he meets with all the others, is called in the twentieth chapter of Revelation "the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil." In this enterprise the faerie knight is champion of Truth, lowly and pure, patient of desire, dispassionate and slow of pace, wherefore she has a snow-white ass for "palfrey slow." She is the guide and companion of Innocence, typified by a milk-white lamb, herself as guileless, and descended from the angels who knew man in Paradise. She is not named until a counterfeit image is made to supplant her, and then (in the 45th stanza) she is first called, because truth is simple and single, Una :

"A lovely lady rode him fair beside,

Upon a lowly ass more white than snow;
Yet she much whiter, but the same did hide
Under a veil, that wimpled was full low,
And over all a black stole she did throw,
As one that inly mourn'd: so was she sad,
And heavie sat upon her palfrey slow.
Seeméd in heart some hidden care she had,
And by her in a line a milk-white lamb she lad.

"So pure an innocent as that same lamb
She was in life and every virtuous lore,

And by descent from royal lynage came

Of ancient kings and queens, that had of yore
Their sceptres stretcht from east to western shore,
And all the world in their subjection held;
Till that infernal fiend with foul uprore
Forwasted all their land, and them expelled:
Whom to avenge, she had this knight from far com-
pelled."

The dwarf that follows, lagging far behind the spiritual part, represents the flesh and its needs: when the allegory is read as personal, the dwarf represents simply the flesh of man; when it is read as national, the dwarf stands for the body of the people :

"Behind her far away a dwarf did lag, That lazy seem'd in being ever last,

Or weariéd with bearing of her bag

Of needments at his back. Thus as they past,
The day with clouds was sudden overcast,
And angry Jove 3 an hideous storm of rain
Did pour into his leman's lap so fast,

That every wight to shroud it did constrain, And this fair couple eke to shroud themselves were fain."

The day being thus troubled, they seek shelter in a wood; the wood of the world, as the wood is at the opening of Dante's "Divine Comedy," as the

2 Forwasted, utterly wasted.

3 Jove, Jupiter, god of the upper air, here represents the sky, as when in Shakespeare's "Coriolanus" Menenius Agrippa, throwing his cap into the air, says, "Take my cap, Jupiter!" (act ii., scene 1).

wood is in Milton's "Comus." There is a catalogue of trees, typical of the uses of life by sea and land, "the sailing pine, the cedar proud and tall," at all stages of life: infancy that needs support, "the vineprop elm ;" youth full of the fresh sap of life, "the poplar never dry;" man in mature strength at home as master in the world, "the builder-oak, sole king of forests all;" age needing a staff until the grave is ready, "the aspen good for staves, the cypress funeral." These lines open the thought, and the trees in the next stanza proceed to suggest glory and tears, arts of war, and arts of peace, healing of wounds, and war again, all uses of life, and that which is for us to mould, and that which we may seek in vain to mould, for it is often rotten at the core. Losing themselves among the pleasant ways of the world, they take the most beaten path, which brings them to the cave of Error. Truth warns the knight of his peril; the dwarf (the flesh) flinches, the knight (the spirit) is eager, and by the light of his spiritual helps (a light the brood of Error cannot bear, nor Error herself, for light she hated as the deadly bale) the knight can see the monster as she is:

"This is the wandring wood, this Error's den,
A monster vile, whom God and man does hate;
Therefore I rede,' beware. Fly, fly,' quoth then
The fearful dwarf, this is no place for living men.'

"But full of fire and greedy hardiment,

The youthful knight could not for aught be stayed, But forth unto the darksome hole he went, And looked in his glistring armour made A little glooming light, much like a shade, By which he saw the ugly monster plain, Half like a serpent horribly displayed, But th' other half did woman's shape retain, Most loathsome, filthy, foul, and full of vile disdain.

"And as she lay upon the dirty ground,

Her huge long tail her den all overspred,
Yet was in knots and many boughts 2 upwound,
Pointed with mortal sting. Of her there bred
A thousand young ones, which she daily fed,
Sucking upon her poisonous dugs, each one
Of sundry shapes, yet all ill favoured:

Soon as that uncouth 3 light upon them shone,
Into her mouth they crept, and sudden all were gone."

The battle with this monster is the typical adventure that in each book opens its subject. In his combat with the monster, and encircled by her huge train-"God help the man so wrapt in Error's endless train!"-Truth cries to the knight, "Add faith upon your force, and be not faint," and this represents what is a main feature in the larger allegory, need of the help of God through which alone the strength of man can finally prevail. Prince Arthur represents this in the plan of the whole poem. It is he who bears the irresistible shield of the grace of God.

1 Rede, counsel.

2 Boughts, bends, folds, from "bugan," to bend; whence also the geographical term "bight."

3 Uncouth, unknown, unaccustomed.

"Arrivéd there, the little house they fill,

Ne look for entertainment where none was: Rest is their feast, and all things at their will: The noblest mind the best contentment has. With fair discourse the evening so they pass; For that old man of pleasing words had store, And well could file his tongue as smooth as glass; He told of saints and popes, and evermore He strowed an Ave-Mary after and before."

During the night, Archimago sent a lying spirit to bring from Morpheus-god of the unsubstantial life of dreams-" a fit false dream, that can delude the sleeper's sent."1 Another lying spirit Archimago fashioned in the shape of Una, to be a deceiving semblance of pure truth. Both appealed coarsely to the senses; and the Devil, Archimago, is thus made the author of a false and sensuous show of religion. The Red Cross Knight was dismayed, misdoubted the corrupt lady that yet feigned to be his, and missed the firm voice of his guide and comforter:

2 Fit, thrust, from the Italian "fitta," a thrust or stab; probably formed from "figgere," to pierce. A fit in disease is from another root, Old French "fiede," intermittent; a fit or fytte, meaning song, is from First-English "fyttian," to sing. Fit in the sense of fit of clothes, fit and proper, is from the Latin "factus."

3 Forwarned, completely defended ("for," intensive prefix, as in "forlorn "); "wæ'ran," to defend,

He plucks a bough to make her a garland. Blood then flows from the broken branch, and the tree speaks. It is transformed Fradubio, who is bidden. tell how he became thus misshapen :

"He oft finds medicine who his grief imparts, But double griefs afflict concealing hearts." Fradubio (whose name means, between doubt) was happy in love of Fralissa till Duessa came into his keeping. Both seemed fair; but when he would decide which was the fairer, Duessa, herself really foul but seeming fair, by her witchcraft caused Fralissa, really fair, to appear foul. Fradubio then turned wholly to Duessa, and Fralissa was transformed into the tree now by his side. Fradubio was happy, till on a day he chanced to see Duessa in her proper shape. He loathed her then, and was by her joined to the fate of Fralissa :

"Where now inclosed in wooden walls full fast,

Banished from living wights our weary days we waste.
But how long time,' said then the elfin knight,
Are you in this misformed house to dwell?'
'We may not change,' quoth he, this evil plight
Till we be bathéd in a living well.'"

"A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse—a well of living waters," says the Song of Solomon ; then applied as a song to the true Church of God. "The Lord Jehovah," says Isaiah, "is my strength and my song, he also is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings among the people." Fradubio was not in doubt between the true faith and the false. The true faith could not have been called Fralissa (frail), and could not have been doomed to vegetative life until it had been bathed in itself. But there was a faith of the old world-a Fralissa true as Una, though in her own weaker way: the faith of Socrates and Plato; faith in immortality, devotion to high effort towards spiritual life; in Spenser's eyes more truly beautiful than that with which the Pope supplanted it. Fradubio is Platonist turned Roman Catholic, detecting the imposture of the faith that had supplanted his philosophy, and driven back upon himself to live beside his loved philosophy a vegetative life that cannot become again a moving working energy for man until it be imbued with Christian truth. Platonism, as ally of the Church reformers of the sixteenth century, was Fralissa, and each Christian Platonist was a Fradubio bathed in the living well :-

"The false Duessa, now Fidessa hight,

Heard how in vain Fradubio did lament, And knew well all was true. But the good knight, Full of sad fear and ghastly dreriment, When all this speech the living tree had spent, The bleeding bough did thrust into the ground, That from the blood he might be innocent, And with fresh clay did close the wooden wound: Then turning to his lady, dead with fear her found.

"Her seeming dead he found with feignéd fear,
As all unweeting of that well she knew,
And pain'd himself with busy care to rear
Her out of careless swoon. Her eyelids blue
And dimméd sight with pale and deadly hue,
At last she up gan lift: with trembling cheer
Her up he took, too simple and too true,
And oft her kiss'd. At length, all passéd fear,
He set her on her steed, and forward forth did bear."

Meanwhile Una (forsaken Truth) is left to the waste places of the earth. In the next canto, the third, "far from all people's press, as in exile,” she seeks her knight. Truth is not swift of travel, but wherever she may be, her face will make a sunshine in the shady place:

"One day, nigh weary of the irksome way,
From her unhasty beast she did alight,
And on the grass her dainty limbs did lay
In secret shadow, far from all men's sight:
From her fair head her fillet she undight,
And laid her stole aside. Her angel's face,
As the great eye of heaven shinéd bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place;
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace.

"It fortunéd out of the thickest wood
A ramping lion rushéd suddenly,
Hunting full greedy after salvage blood.
Soon as the royal virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily,
To have at once devour'd her tender corse:
But to the prey when as he drew more nigh,
His bloody rage assuaged with remorse,

And with the sight amaz'd, forgat his furious force.
"Instead thereof he kiss'd her weary feet,
And lick'd her lily hands with fawning tongue.
As he her wrongéd innocence did weet,
Oh! how can beauty master the most strong,
And simple Truth subdue avenging Wrong!
Whose yielded pride, and proud submission,
Still dreading death, when she had marked long,
Her heart gan melt in great compassion,
And drizzling tears did shed for pure affection."

It was a romance doctrine that the lion would not hurt a pure maiden, and in the "Seven Champions of Christendom," a romance of Spenser's time, St. George recognised the virginity of Sabra by two lions fawning on her. But the lion that now comes into the allegory and attaches himself to Una with "yielded pride and proud submission," represents Reason before the Reformation become the ally of religious Truth. The quickening of intellectual energies by those new conditions that produced the revival of learning, not only added to the strength and courage of man's intellect, but brought it in aid of the reaction, by doing what the lion in the allegory does-forcing the closed door of Ignorance and Superstition, and so opening the way to Truth :—

"The lion would not leave her desolate,
But with her went along, as a strong guard
Of her chaste person, and a faithful mate
Of her sad troubles and misfortunes hard :

"Which when none yielded, her unruly page
With his rude claws the wicket open rent,
And let her in; where of his cruel rage
Nigh dead with fear and faint astonishment,
She found them both in darksome corner pent,
Where that old woman day and night did pray
Upon her beads devoutly penitent;
Nine hundred Pater-nosters every day,
And thrice nine hundred Aves she was wont to say.

"And to augment her painful penance more,
Thrice every week in ashes she did sit,

And next her wrinkled skin rough sackcloth wore, And thrice three times did fast from any bit:

1 Abessa as a name for ignorance was taken, I think, from the Italian "bessa," meaning foolish, doltish, silly, in fact expressing what is meant; a being prefixed for the sake of a resemblance to the word "abbess."

2 Corceca, the name for superstition; Italian "cuore ceco," or Latin "cor cœcum," blind heart; the heart in ancient times being taken to represent the mind or understanding.

3 Whereas, to where.

♦ Aldebaran, a Tauri, is the eye of the Bull, one of the twelve constellations in the region of the ecliptic; and Cassiopeia, or the Chair or the Throne, is one of the constellations placed by Ptolemy in the Northern Hemisphere. Aldebaran is one of four bright stars that divide the heavens into four almost equal parts, have been called royal stars, and were the four guardians of heaven according to the ancient Persians. Aldebaran was then in the vernal equinox, and guardian of the east.