The Faerie Queene, Book III, Canto VI

By Edmund Spenser

2017-04-29

THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QUEENE

Contayning

THE LEGENDE OF BRITOMARTIS

OR OF CHASTITIECANTO VI

The birth of faire Belphoebe and

Of Amoret is told.

The Gardins of Adonis fraught

With pleasures manifold.

Well may I weene, faire Ladies, all this while

Ye wonder, how this noble Damozell

So great perfections did in her compile,

Sith that in salvage forests she did dwell,

So farre from court and royall Citadell,

The great schoolmistresse of all curtesy:

Seemeth that such wild woods should far expell

All civill usage and gentility,

And gentle sprite deforme with rude rusticity.

But to this faire Belphoebe in her berth

The heavens so favourable were and free,

Looking with myld aspect upon the earth,

In th'Horoscope of her nativitee,

That all the gifts of grace and chastitee

On her they poured forth of plenteous horne;

Jove laught on Venus from his soveraigne see,

And Phoebus with faire beames did her adorne,

And all the Graces rockt her cradle being borne.

iii

Her berth was of the wombe of Morning dew,

And her conception of the joyous Prime,

And all her whole creation did her shew

Pure and unspotted from all loathly crime,

That is ingenerate in fleshly slime.

So was this virgin borne, so was she bred,

So was she trayned up from time to time,

In all chast vertue, and true bounti-hed

Till to her dew perfection she was ripened.

Her mother was the faire Chrysogonee,

The daughter of Amphisa, who by race

A Faerie was, yborne of high degree,

She bore Belphoebe, she bore in like cace

Faire Amoretta in the second place:

These two were twinnes, and twixt them two did share

The heritage of all celestiall grace.

That all the rest it seem'd they robbed bare

Of bountie, and of beautie, and all vertues rare.

It were a goodly storie, to declare,

By what straunge accident faire Chrysogone

Conceiv'd these infants, and how them she bare,

In this wild forrest wandring all alone,

After she had nine moneths fulfild and gone:

For not as other wemens commune brood,

They were enwombed in the sacred throne

Of her chaste bodie, nor with commune food,

As other wemens babes, they sucked vitall blood.

But wondrously they were begot, and bred

Through influence of th'heavens fruitfull ray,

As it in antique bookes is mentioned.

It was upon a Sommers shynie day,

When Titan faire his beames did display,

In a fresh fountaine, farre 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 flowres, that in the forrest grew.

vii

Till faint through irkesome wearinesse, adowne

Upon the grassie ground her selfe she layd

To sleepe, the whiles a gentle slombring swowne

Upon her fell all naked bare displayd;

The sunne-beames bright upon her body playd,

Being through former bathing mollifide,

And pierst into her wombe, where they embayd

With so sweet sence and secret power unspide,

That in her pregnant flesh they shortly fructifide.

viii

Miraculous may seeme to him, that reades

So straunge ensample of conception;

But reason teacheth that the fruitfull seades

Of all things living, through impression

Of the sunbeames in moyst complexion,

Doe life conceive and quickned are by kynd:

So after Nilus inundation,

Infinite shapes of creatures men do fynd,

Informed in the mud, on which the Sunne hath shynd.

Great father he of generation

Is rightly cald, th'author of life and light;

And his faire sister for creation

Ministreth matter fit, which tempred right

With heate and humour, breedes the living wight.

So sprong these twinnes in wombe of Chrysogone,

Yet wist she nought thereof, but sore affright,

Wondred to see her belly so upblone,

Which still increast, till she her terme had full outgone.

Whereof conceiving shame and foule disgrace,

Albe her guiltlesse conscience her cleard,

She fled into the wildernesse a space,

Till that unweeldy burden she had reard,

And shund dishonor, which as death she feard:

Where wearie of long travell, downe to rest

Her selfe she set, and comfortably cheard;

There a sad cloud of sleepe her overkest,

And seized every sense with sorrow sore opprest.

It fortuned, faire Venus having lost

Her little sonne, the winged god of love,

Who for some light displeasure, which him crost,

Was from her fled, as flit as ayerie Dove,

And left her blisfull bowre of joy above,

(So from her often he had fled away,

When she for ought him sharpely did reprove,

And wandred in the world in strange aray,

Disguiz'd in thousand shapes, that none might him bewray.)

xii

Him for to seeke, she left her heavenly hous,

The house of goodly formes and faire aspects,

Whence all the world derives the glorious

Features of beautie, and all shapes select,

With which high God his workmanship hath deckt;

And searched every way, through which his wings

Had borne him, or his tract she mote detect:

She promist kisses sweet, and sweeter things

Unto the man, that of him tydings to her brings.

xiii

First she him sought in Court, where most he used

Whylome to haunt, but there she found him not;

But many there she found, which sore accused

His falsehood, and with foule infamous blot

His cruell deedes and wicked wyles did spot:

Ladies and Lords she every where mote heare

Complayning, how with his empoysned shot

Their wofull harts he wounded had whyleare,

And so had left them languishing twixt hopt and feare.

xiv

She then the Citties sought from gate to gate,

And every one did aske, did he him see;

And every one her answerd, that too late

He had him seene, and felt the crueltie

Of his sharpe darts and whot artillerie;

And every one threw forth reproches rife

Of his mischievous deedes, and said, That hee

Was the disturber of all civill life,

The enimy of peace, and author of all strife.

Then in the countrey she abroad him sought,

And in the rurall cottages inquired,

Where also many plaints to her were brought,

How he their heedlesse harts with love had fyred,

And his false venim through their veines inspyred;

And eke the gentle shepheard swaynes, which sat

Keeping their fleecie flockes, as they were hyred,

She sweetly heard complaine, both how and what

Her sonne had to them doen; yet she did smile thereat.

xvi

But when in none of all these she him got,

She gan avize, where else he mote him hyde:

At last she her bethought, that she had not

Yet sought the salvage woods and forrests wyde,

In which full many lovely Nymphes abyde,

Mongst whom might be, that he did closely lye,

Or that the love of some of them him tyde:

For thy she thither cast her course t'apply,

To search the secret haunts of Dianes company.

xvii

Shortly unto the wastefull woods she came,

Whereas she found the Goddesse 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 offtheir dainty limbes the dustie sweat,

And soyle which did deforme their lively hew;

Others lay shaded from the scorching heat;

The rest upon her person gave attendance great.

xviii

She having hong upon a bough on high

Her bow and painted quiver, had unlaste

Her silver buskins from her nimble thigh,

And her lancke 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.

xix

Soone as she Venus saw behind her backe,

She was asham'd to be so loose surprized,

And woxe halfe wroth against her damzels slacke,

That had not her thereof before avized,

But suffred her so carelesly disguized

Be overtaken. Soone her garments loose

Upgath'ring, in her bosome she comprized,

Well as she might, and to the Goddesse rose,

Whiles all her Nymphes did like a girlond her enclose.

Goodly she gan faire Cytherea greet,

And shortly asked her, what cause her brought

Into that wildernesse for her unmeet,

From her sweete bowres, and beds with pleasures fraught:

That suddein change she strange adventure thought.

To whom halfe weeping, she thus answered,

That she her dearest sonne Cupido sought,

Who in his frowardnesse from her was fled;

That she repented sore, to have him angered.

xxi

Thereat Diana gan to smile, in scorne

Of her vaine plaint, and to her scoffmg sayd;

Great pittie sure, that ye be so forlorne

Of your gay sonne, that gives ye so good ayd

To your disports: ill mote ye bene apayd.

But she was more engrieved, and replide;

Faire sister, ill beseemes it to upbrayd

A dolefull heart with so disdainfull pride;

The like that mine, may be your paine another tide.

xxii

As you in woods and wanton wildernesse

Your glory set, to chace the salvage beasts,

So my delight is all in joyfulnesse,

In beds, in bowres, in banckets, and in feasts:

And ill becomes you with your loftie creasts,

To scorne the joy, that Jove is glad to seeke;

We both are bound to follow heavens beheasts,

And tend our charges with obeisance meeke:

Spare, gentle sister, with reproch my paine to eeke.

xxiii

And tell me, if that ye my sonne have heard,

To lurk emongst your Nymphes in secret wize;

Or keepe their cabins: much I am affeard,

Lest he like one of them him selfe disguize,

And turne his arrowes to their exercize:

So may he long himselfe full easie hide:

For he is faire and fresh in face and guize,

As any Nymph (let not it be envyde.)

So saying every Nymph full narrowly she eyde.

xxiv

But Phoebe therewith sore was angered,

And sharply said; Goe Dame, goe seeke your boy,

Where you him lately left, in Mars his bed;

He comes not here, we scorne his foolish joy,

Ne lend we leisure to his idle toy:

But if I catch him in this company,

By Stygian lake I vow, whose sad annoy

The Gods doe dread, he dearely shall abye:

Ile clip his wanton wings, that he no more shall fly.

xxv

Whom when as Venus saw so sore displeased,

She inly sory was, and gan relent,

What she had said: so her she soone appeased,

With sugred words and gentle blandishment,

Which as a fountaine from her sweet lips went,

And welled goodly forth, that in short space

She was well pleasd, and forth her damzels sent,

Through all the woods, to search from place to place,

If any tract of him or tydings they mote trace.

xxvi

To search the God of love, her Nymphes she sent

Throughout the wandring forrest every where:

But after them her selfe eke with her went

To seeke the fugitive, both farre and nere.

So long they sought, till they arrived were

In that same shadie covert, whereas lay

Faire Crysogone in slombry traunce whilere:

Who in her sleepe (a wondrous thing to say)

Unwares had borne two babes, as faire as springing day.

xxvii

Unwares she them conceiv'd, unwares she bore:

She bore withouten paine, that she conceived

Withouten pleasure: ne her need implore

Lucinaes aide: which when they both perceived,

They were through wonder nigh of sense bereaved,

And gazing each on other, nought bespake:

At last they both agreed, her seeming grieved

Out of her heavy swowne not to awake,

But from her loving side the tender babes to take.

xxviii

Up they them tooke, each one a babe uptooke,

And with them carried, to be fostered;

Dame Phoebe to a Nymph her babe betooke,

To be upbrought in perfect Maydenhed,

And of her selfe her name Belphoebe red:

But Venus hers thence farre away convayd,

To be upbrought in goodly womanhed,

And in her litle loves stead, which was strayd,

Her Amoretta cald, to comfort her dismayd.

xxix

She brought her to her joyous Paradize,

Where most she wonnes, when she on earth does dwel.

So faire a place, as Nature can devize:

Whether in Paphos, or Cytheron hill,

Or it in Gnidus be, I wote not well;

But well I wote by tryall, that this same

All other pleasant places doth excell,

And called is by her lost lovers name,

The Gardin of Adonis, farre renowmd by fame.

xxx

In that same Gardin all the goodly flowres,

Wherewith dame Nature doth her beautifie,

And decks the girlonds of her paramoures,

Are fetcht: there is the first seminarie

Of all things, that are borne to live and die,

According to their kindes. Long worke it were,

Here to account the endlesse progenie

Of all the weedes, that bud and blossome there;

But so much as doth need, must needs be counted here.

xxxi

It sited was in fruitfull soyle of old,

And girt in with two walles on either side;

The one of yron, the other of bright gold,

That none might thorough breake, nor over-stride:

And double gates it had, which opened wide,

By which both in and out men moten pas;

Th'one faire and fresh, the other old and dride:

Old Genius the porter of them was,

Old Genius, the which a double nature has.

xxxii

He letteth in, he letteth out to wend,

All that to come into the world desire;

A thousand thousand naked babes attend

About him day and night, which doe require,

That he with fleshly weedes would them attire:

Such as him list, such as eternall fate

Ordained hath, he clothes with sinfull mire,

And sendeth forth to live in mortall state,

Till they againe returne backe by the hinder gate.

xxxiii

After that they againe returned beene,

They in that Gardin planted be againe;

And grow afresh, as they had never seene

Fleshly corruption, nor mortall paine.

Some thousand yeares so doen they there remaine;

And then of him are clad with other hew,

Or sent into the chaungefull world againe,

Till thither they returne, where first they grew:

So like a wheele around they runne from old to new.

xxxiv

Ne needs there Gardiner to set, or sow,

To plant or prune: for of their owne accord

All things, as they created were, doe grow,

And yet remember well the mightie word,

Which first was spoken by th'Almightie lord,

That bad them to increase and multiply:

Ne doe they need with water of the ford,

Or of the clouds to moysten their roots dry;

For in themselves eternall moisture they imply.

xxxv

Infinite shapes of creatures there are bred,

And uncouth formes, which none yet ever knew,

And every sort is in a sundry bed

Set by it selfe, and ranckt in comely rew:

Some fit for reasonable soules t'indew,

Some made for beasts, some made for birds to weare,

And all the fruitfull spawne of fishes hew

In endlesse rancks along enraunged were,

That seem'd the Ocean could not containe them there.

xxxvi

Daily they grow, and daily forth are sent

Into the world, it to replenish more;

Yet is the stocke not lessened, nor spent,

But still remaines in everlasting store,

As it at first created was of yore.

For in the wide wombe of the world there lyes,

In hatefull darkenesse and in deepe horrore,

An huge eternall Chaos, which supplyes

The substances of natures fruitfull progenyes.

xxxvii

All things from thence doe their first being fetch,

And borrow matter, whereof they are made,

Which when as forme and feature it does ketch,

Becomes a bodie, and doth then invade

The state of life, out of the griesly shade.

That substance is eterne, and bideth so,

Ne when the life decayes, and forme does fade,

Doth it consume, and into nothing go,

But chaunged is, and often altred to and fro.

xxxviii

The substance is not chaunged, nor altered,

But th'only forme and outward fashion;

For every substance is conditioned

To change her hew, and sundry formes to don,

Meet for her temper and complexion:

For formes are variable and decay,

By course of kind, and by occasion;

And that faire flowre of beautie fades away,

As doth the lilly fresh before the sunny ray.

xxxix

Great enimy to it, and to all the rest,

That in the Gardin of Adonis springs,

Is wicked Time, who with his scyth addrest,

Does mow the flowring herbes and goodly things,

And all their glory to the ground downe flings,

Where they doe wither, and are fowly mard:

He flyes about, and with his flaggy wings

Beates downe both leaves and buds without regard,

Ne ever pittie may relent his malice hard.

Yet pittie often did the gods relent,

To see so faire things mard, and spoyled quight:

And their great mother Venus did lament

The losse of her deare brood, her deare delight;

Her hart was pierst with pittie at the sight,

When walking through the Gardin, them she saw,

Yet no'te she find redresse for such despight.

For all that lives, is subject to that law:

All things decay in time, and to their end do draw.

xli

But were it not, that Time their troubler is,

All that in this delightfull Gardin growes,

Should happie be, and have immortall blis:

For here all plentie, and all pleasure flowes,

And sweet love gentle fits emongst them throwes,

Without fell rancor, or fond gealosie;

Franckly each paramour his leman knowes,

Each bird his mate, ne any does envie

Their goodly meriment, and gay felicitie.

xlii

There is continuall spring, and harvest there

Continuall, both meeting at one time:

For both the boughes doe laughing blossomes beare,

And with fresh colours decke the wanton Prime,

And eke attonce the heavy trees they clime,

Which seeme to labour under their fruits lode:

The whiles the joyous birdes make their pastime

Emongst the shadie leaves, their sweet abode,

And their true loves without suspition tell abrode.

xliii

Right in the middest of that Paradise,

There stood a stately Mount, on whose round top

A gloomy grove of mirtle trees did rise,

Whose shadie boughes sharpe steele did never lop,

Nor wicked beasts their tender buds did crop,

But like a girlond compassed the hight,

And from their fruitfull sides sweet gum did drop,

That all the ground with precious deaw bedight,

Threw forth most dainty odours, and most sweet delight.

xliv

And in the thickest covert of that shade,

There was a pleasant arbour, not by art,

But of the trees owne inclination made,

Which knitting their rancke braunches part to part,

With wanton yvie twyne entrayld athwart,

And Eglantine, and Caprifole emong,

Fashiond above within their inmost part,

That neither Phoebus beams could through them throng,

Nor Aeolus sharp blast could worke them any wrong.

xlv

And all about grew every sort of flowre,

To which sad lovers were transformd of yore;

Fresh Hyacinthus, Phoebus paramoure,

And dearest love,

Foolish Narcisse, that likes the watry shore,

Sad Amaranthus, made a flowre but late,

Sad Amaranthus, in whose purple gore

Me seemes I see Amintas wretched fate,

To whom sweet Poets verse hath given endlesse date.

xlvi

There wont faire Venus often to enjoy

Her deare Adonis joyous company,

And reape sweet pleasure of the wanton boy;

There yet, some say, in secret he does ly,

Lapped in flowres and pretious spycery,

By her hid from the world, and from the skill

Of Stygian Gods, which doe her love envy;

But she her selfe, when ever that she will,

Possesseth him, and of his sweetnesse takes her fill.

xlvii

And sooth it seemes they say: for he may not

For ever die, and ever buried bee

In balefull night, where all things are forgot;

All be he subject to mortalitie,

Yet is eterne in mutabilitie,

And by succession made perpetuall,

Transformed oft, and chaunged diverslie:

For him the Father of all formes they call;

Therefore needs mote he live, that living gives to all.

xlviii

There now he liveth in eternall blis,

Joying his goddesse, and of her enjoyd:

Ne feareth he henceforth that foe of his,

Which with his cruell tuske him deadly cloyd:

For that wilde Bore, the which him once annoyd,

She firmely hath emprisoned for ay,

That her sweet love his malice mote avoyd,

In a strong rocky Cave, which is they say,

Hewen underneath that Mount, that none him losen may.

xlix

There now he lives in everlasting joy,

With many of the Gods in company,

Which thither haunt, and with the winged boy

Sporting himselfe in safe felicity:

Who when he hath with spoiles and cruelty

Ransackt the world, and in the wofull harts

Of many wretches set his triumphes hye,

Thither resorts, and laying his sad darts

Aside, with faire Adonis playes his wanton parts.

And his true love faire Psyche with him playes,

Faire Psyche to him lately reconcyld,

After long troubles and unmeet upbrayes,

With which his mother Venus her revyld,

And eke himselfe her cruelly exyld:

But now in stedfast love and happy state

She with him lives, and hath him borne a chyld,

Pleasure, that doth both gods and men aggrate,

Pleasure, the daughter of Cupid and Psyche late.

Hither great Venus brought this infant faire,

The younger daughter of Chrysogonee,

And unto Psyche with great trust and care

Committed her, yfostered to bee,

And trained up in true feminitee:

Who no lesse carefully her tendered,

Then her owne daughter Pleasure, to whom shee

Made her companion, and her lessoned

In all the lore of love, and goodly womanhead….

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6.1.In the book of Chastity, the climactic adventure is

the rescue of Amoret ("th' ensample of true love" and

"feminitee") from the House of Busirane (courtly lust) by

Britomart (Chastity). Belphoebe, who resembles the virgin

Diana the huntress and is also a "mirror" of the "rare

chastitee" of Queen Elizabeth, is worshipped by Arthur's

squire Timias. In this canto Spenser not only accounts

for the qualities of Belphoebe and Amoret but creates a

cosmological myth of generation.

6.i.3.compile: acquire.

6.ii.9.Graces. "three sisters, the daughters of Jupiter (whose

names are Aglaia, Thalia, Euphrosyne . . .), otherwise called

Charites, that is thanks. Whom the Poets feyned to be the

Goddesses of al bountie and comelines'' (E.K.). Cf. "Aprill,"

line 109, and VI, x, xxii-xxiii.

6.iii.2.Prime: sunrise.

6.iii.8.bounti-hed: generosity.

6.iv.1.Chrysogonee: "golden-horn."

6.iv.2.Amphisa: "double nature," i.e., both mortal and

supernatural.

6.viii.

This stanza is a paraphrase of Ovid, Metamorphoses,

I, 417-31.6.ix.3.his faire sister: the moon. Plutarch, in his essay on

Isis and Osiris, calls the moon the mother of the world.

6.ix.4-5.tempred right/With heate and humour: "ubi temperiem

sumpsere umorque calorque concipiunt" (Ovid,

Metamorphoses, I, 430).

6.xi.9.bewray: find out.

6.xvii.3.embrewed: blood-stained.

6.xviii.4.lancke: slender.

6.xix.

The picture of Diana surprised and angry is a

reminiscence of the story of Actaeon, who, coming upon

the virgin-huntress bathing, was turned into a stag and

hunted to death by his own hounds.

6.xix.7.comprized: drew together.

6.xx.1.Cytherea. Venus is so called because she had an

important sanctuary in Cythera.

6.xxi.5.ill mote ye bene apayd: ill may you be requited.

6.xxiv.3.in Mars his bed: a reference to the notorious love

of Venus and Mars.

6.xxiv.7.Stygian lake: in Hades.

6.xxvii.4.Lucinaes aide: Lucina is the name for Juno in

her aspect as goddess of childbirth.

6.xxviii.5.red: called.

6.xxix.2.wonnes: lives.

6.xxix.4-5.Paphos, Cythera, and Gnidos were sanctuaries

of the love-goddess.

6.xxx.4.seminarie: seed-place.

6.xxxi.2-7.The walls and gates are conventional features of

"earthly paradises" in classical and mediaeval tradition\;

the "gold" and "iron" may possibly refer to the first and

last ages of man. The common source for the "double

gates" and for the whole idea of a place of passage is

the vision of Er in Plato's Republic, X.

6.xxxi.8.Genius. See notes to F.Q., II, xii, xlvii.

6.xxxiii.5.Cf. Virgil, Æ\;niad, VI, 743-51, where

some few of the souls in Elysium "abide in the joyous

fields" but most, "when they have rolled time's wheel

through a thousand years," return to bodies. Spenser also

has in mind the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration,

as set forth by Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV, 165-72.6.xxxiv.4-6.See Genesis 1:28.6.xxxiv.9.imply: contain.

6.xxxvi.8.Chaos: the rude unordered mass (rudis indigestaque

moles), which Ovid (Metamorphoses, l, 5-9)

describes as the primal condition of matter.

6.xxxviii.l-2."Nothing perishes in the whole universe\; it does but

vary and renew its form." Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV, 254-55.6.x1.3.their great mother Venus: here the creator and

preserver of all living things\; this conception of Venus

comes from a number of sources, but directly from Natalis

Comes, Mythologiae.

6.xli.7.Each lover openly enjoys his beloved.

6.xlii.4.the wanton Prime: the lush springtime.

6.xliii.2.a stateIy Mount. The Garden is the Earthly Paradise,

with its mountain, a blend of the Garden of Eden with

various classical elysiums, as described by Natalis Comes,

Mythologiae, 3, 19.6.xliv.6.Caprifole: honeysuckle.

6.xliv.9.Aeolus: god of the winds.

6.xlv.1-6.The myths of Hyacinthus, beloved of Apollo, who

was killed accidentally by a discus, and of Narcissus, who

fell in love with his own reflection in water, pined away,

and died, are recounted by Ovid, Metamorphoses,

X, 162 ff. and III, 402 ff. Amaranthus means "unfading," hence a symbol of immortality.

6.xlv.7.purple gore. The plant love-lies-a-bleeding, of the

genus amaranthus, has a purple-red bloom.

6.xlv.8-9.probably a reference to Thomas Watson's (the

"sweet Poet") paraphrase of Tasso's Aminta (1585).

6.xlvi.

The myth of Venus' love for the youth Adonis,

who was killed by a boar (xlviii, 5, below) is related

by Ovid, Metamorphoses, X, 524 ff. Adonis,

from whose blood the goddess caused the anemone to

spring, was primarily a fertility-god, and his festival

was celebrated by songs of mourning (cf. Ezekiel 8:14,

where Adonis=Thammuz, and Milton, Paradise

Lost, III, 446-52), and by the setting out of pots

of rapidly withering plants, called ''the gardens of Adonis.''

6.l.

The story of Cupid and Psyche, as told by

Apuleius, Metamorphoses ("The Golden Ass"),

IV-VI, and here curtly summarized, was usually

allegorized as the trials of the soul (psyche) and her

union with pure love to produce "eternal joy and gladness."

6.l.3.upbrayes: reproaches.

6.l.8.aggrate: gratify.