I.

Y me! how many perils doe enfold
The righteous man, to make him daily
fall,

Were not that heavenly grace doth him
uphold,

And ftedfaft truth acquite him out at all.
Her love is firme, her care continuall,
So oft as he, thorough his own foolish pride
Or weaknes, is to finfull bands made thrall:

Els fhould this Redcroffe knight in bands have dyde, For whofe deliverance fhe this Prince doth thether guyd.

2.

They fadly traveild thus, untill they came

Nigh to a caftle builded ftrong and hye:

Then cryde the Dwarfe, "Lo! yonder is the fame, In which my Lord, my liege, doth luckleffe ly

Who flayes the Gyaunt.] It is "that Gyaunt" in the 4to. 1590, but an erratum directs us to read "the Gyaunt," as in our text. Todd and others differ about what, in fact, is too clear for doubt. C.

Thrall to that Gyaunts hatefull tyranny:
Therefore, deare Sir, your mightie powres affay."
The noble knight alighted by and byb
From loftie steed, and badd the Ladie stay,
To see what end of fight should him befall that day.
3.

So with his Squire, th' admirer of his might,

He marched forth towardes that caftle wall;
Whofe gates he fownd fast shutt, ne living wight
To warde the fame, nor anfwere commers call.
Then tooke that Squire an horne of bugle small,
Which hong adowne his fide in twisted gold.
And taffelles gay. Wyde wonders over all
Of that fame hornes great virtues weren told,
Which had approved bene in uses manifold.

4.

Was never wight that heard that fhrilling fownd,
But trembling feare did feel in every vaine:
Three miles it might be eafy heard arownd,
And Ecchoes three aunswer'd it selfe againe :
No false enchauntment, nor deceiptfull traine,
Might once abide the terror of that blast,
But presently was void and wholly vaine:
No
gate so strong, no locke so firme and fast,
But with that percing noise flew open quite, or braft.

5.

The fame before the Geaunts gate he blew,

That all the castle quaked from the grownd,
And every dore of freewill open flew.
The Gyaunt felfe, dismaied with that fownd,
Where he with his Dueffa dalliaunce fownd,
In haft came rushing forth from inner bowre,

b alighted by and by.] Equivalent to immediately, or presently, as it was formerly understood; viz. at that present time. C.

With staring countenance sterne, as one aftownd, And staggering fteps, to weet what fuddein ftowre Had wrought that horror ftrange, and dar'd his dreaded

powre.

6.

And after him the proud Dueffa came,

High mounted on her many headed beast ; And every head with fyrie tongue did flame, And every head was crowned on his creaft, And bloody mouthed with late cruell feast. That when the knight beheld, his mightie fhild Upon his manly arme he foone addrest, And at him fierfly flew, with corage fild, And eger greedinesse through every member thrild. 7.

Therewith the Gyant buckled him to fight,

Inflamd with scornefull wrath and high disdaine,
And lifting up his dreadfull club on hight,
All armd with ragged fnubbes and knottie graine,
Him thought at first encounter to have flaine.
But wife and wary was that noble Pere;
And, lightly leaping from so monstrous maine,
Did fayre avoide the violence him nere:

It booted nought to thinke such thunderbolts to beare.

8.

Ne shame he thought to shonne so hideous might:
The ydle stroke, enforcing furious way,
Miffing the marke of his misaymed fight,
Did fall to ground, and with his heavy fway

But wife and wary.] It is "wift and wary" in the oldest impression, but the lift of errata teaches us to read as in our text. C.

d Did fall to ground, &c.] Such is the unavailing blow of the giant, levelled at Graunde Amoure, from which, as we have just seen, he lept afide:

fo that the ftroke withall

"In the grounde lighted, befide a stone wall,

So deepely dinted in the driven clay,

That three yardes deepe a furrow up did throw. The fad earth, wounded with fo fore afsay, Did grone full grievous underneath the blow, And trembling with ftrange feare did like an erthquake show.

9.

As when almightie Jove, in wrathfull mood,
To wreake the guilt of mortall fins is bent,
Hurles forth his thundring dart with deadly food'
Enrold in flames, and smouldring dreriment,
Through riven cloudes and molten firmament;
The fiers threeforked engin, making way,

Both loftie towres and highest trees hath rent,
And all that might his angry paffage stay;

And, shooting in the earth, castes up a mount of clay.

IO.

His boyftrous club, so buried in the grownd,

He could not rearen up againe fo light,

"Thre fote and more; and anon then I

"Did lepe vnto him, ftrikyng full quickely."

A fruitless stroke of the fame kind, aimed at Gerard by a giant, is thus well described in "Hist. de tres-noble et chevaleureux Prince Gerard, Comte de Nevers," &c. Par. 1520. "Se Gerard ne fe fuft deftourné, moult grant dommaige lui euft fait pour le coup qui estoit moult grant & pefant, fi vint defcendant comme la fouldre plus d'ung grant pied dedans la terre." Ch. xiii. P. 2nd. TODD.

* As when, &c.] Longinus would have written a whole chapter on the boldness and fublimity of the thoughts and terrible images in this fimilitude. Compare this fimile with that in F. Q. iv. vi. 14. See also what Pope has obferved on Homer, Il. xiv. 480. UPTON.

f Hurles forth his thundring dart with deadly food.] Food is Spenfer's way of fpelling feud, which fignifies an irreconcileable hatred. So all the editions, except Hughes's fecond edition, which here alters the spelling to feud. CHURCH. Spelman translates the A. S. fehth, inimicitia; and foe is fuppofed to be derived from the fame word: "feud " rather means hoftility, the confequence of hatred, than hatred itself. Spenfer here does not fpell it "food" for the fake of the rhyme with "mood," because in a fubfequent Canto (B. ii. C. i. St. 3,) where it occurs in the middle of a line, it also stands “food.” C.

But that the Knight him at advantage fownd; And, whiles he strove his combred clubbe to quight Out of the earth, with blade all burning bright He fmott of his left arme," which like a block Did fall to ground, depriv'd of native might: Large ftreames of blood out of the truncked stock Forth gushed, like fresh water streame from riven rocke.

II.

Difmayed with fo defperate deadly wound,

And eke impatient of unwonted payne,

He lowdly brayd with beaftly yelling fownd,
That all the fieldes rebellowed againe.

As great a noyfe, as when in Cymbrian plaine
An heard of bulles, whom kindly rage doth fting,"
Doe for the milky mothers want complaine,

And fill the fieldes with troublous bellowing:

The neighbor woods arownd with hollow murmur ring.i

12.

That when his deare Dueffa heard, and faw

The evil ftownd that daungerd her estate,
Unto his aide she hastily did draw

Her dreadfull beast; who, fwolne with blood of late, Came ramping forth with proud prefumpteous gate, And threatned all his heades like flaming brandes. But him the Squire made quickly to retrate,

He fmott of his left arme.] i. e. fmote off: nothing was much more common of old than to print off" of," as here: in the fol. 1611 it stands, "He fmote off his left arme." "" C.

h whom kindly rage doth fting.] "Kindly" is according to kind, or nature. The bulls (as Church justly explains it, in oppofition to Jortin's notion of a fuppofed catachrefis) roared after their kind with the want of the milky mothers: it was not the calves who bleated for their daily nutriment. The use of kind and kindly in this way was practised by nearly all the poets of Spenfer's day. C.

66

i with hollow murmur ring.] In the errata we are told to read murmur ring" as two words, and not murmuring, as it stands, not only in the 4to. 1590, but in the fol. 1611. The printer of that edition did not introduce the alteration.

C.