The Faerie Queene

The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books I to III were first published in 1590, and then republished in 1596 together with books IV to VI. The fragmentary Book VII was first published in 1609.

Quotations



 * The general end therefore of all the book is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline.
 * "A letter of the author's expounding his whole intention in the course of this work" (Edmund Spenser's letter to Walter Raleigh, appended to the 1590 edition of The Faerie Queene)

Book I

 * Fierce wars and faithful loves shall moralize my song.
 * Introduction, stanza 1


 * A gentle knight was pricking on the plain.
 * Canto I, stanza 1

The dear remembrance of his dying Lord.
 * But on his breast a bloody cross he bore,
 * Canto I, stanza 2

Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.
 * But of his cheer did seem too solemn sad;
 * Canto I, stanza 2

The vine-prop elm; the poplar, never dry; The builder oak, sole king of forests all; The aspen, good for staves; the cypress, funeral; The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage; the fir, that weepeth still; The willow, worn of forlorn paramours; The yew, obedient to the binder's will; The birch, for shafts; the sallow, for the mill; The myrrh, sweet bleeding in the bitter wound; The warlike beech; the ash, for nothing ill; The fruitful olive, and the plantane round; The carver holm; the maple, seldom inward sound.
 * The sailing pine; the cedar, proud and tall;
 * Canto I, stanzas 8–9


 * Oft fire is without smoke.
 * Canto I, stanza 12


 * Virtue gives herself light through darkness for to wade.
 * Canto I, stanza 12


 * The noblest mind the best contentment has.
 * Canto I, stanza 35

Great Gorgon, prince of darkness and dead night.
 * A bold bad man, that dared to call by name
 * Canto I, stanza 37

His sevenfold team behind the steadfast star.
 * The northern wagoner had set
 * Canto II, stanza 1


 * Will was his guide, and grief led him astray.
 * Canto II, stanza 12


 * Better new friend than an old foe.
 * Canto II, stanza 27

As the great eye of heaven, shined bright, And made sunshine in the shady place'''; Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace.
 * '''Her angel's face,
 * Canto III, stanza 4

And greatly shunned manly exercise; For every work he challenged essoin, For contemplation sake. Yet otherwise His life he led in lawless riotise, By which he grew to grievous malady; For in his lustless limbs through evil guise A shaking fever reigned continually. Such one was Idleness.
 * From worldly cares himself he did esloin,
 * Canto IV, stanza 1



Which cunningly was without mortar laid, Whose walls were high, but nothing strong, nor thick, And golden foil all over them displayed, That purest sky with brightness they dismayed.
 * A stately palace built of squared brick,
 * Canto IV, stanza 4

Were ruinous and old, but painted cunningly.
 * And all the hinder parts, that few could spy,
 * Canto IV, stanza 5


 * Idleness, the nurse of Sin.
 * Canto IV, stanza 18

Deformed creature, on a filthy swine'''; His belly was up-blown with luxury; And eke with fatness swollen were his eyne.
 * '''And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony,
 * Canto IV, stanza 21

Upon a camel loaden all with gold; Two iron coffers hung on either side, With precious metal full as they might hold; And in his lap a heap of coin he told; For of his wicked pelf his god he made, And unto hell himself for money sold: Accursed usury was all his trade; And right and wrong alike in equal balance weighed. His life was nigh unto death's door y-placed, And thread-bare coat and cobbled shoes he ware, Nor scarce good morsel all his life did taste; But both from back and belly still did spare, To fill his bags, and riches to compare; Yet child nor kinsman living had he none To leave them to; but thorough daily care To get, and nightly fear to lose his own, He led a wretched life unto himself unknown. Most wretched wight, whom nothing might suffice, Whose greedy lust did lack in greatest store, Whose need had end, but no end covetise, Whose wealth was want, whose plenty made him poor, Who had enough, yet wished ever more.
 * And greedy Avarice by him did ride
 * Canto IV, stanzas 27–29

And him no less, that any like did use, And who with gracious bread the hungry feeds, His alms for want of faith he doth accuse; So every good to bad he doth abuse: And eke the verse of famous poets' wit He does backbite, and spiteful poison spews From leprous mouth on all that ever writ. Such one vile Envy was, that first in row did sit.
 * He hated all good works and virtuous deeds,
 * Canto IV, stanza 32

Abhorred bloodshed and tumultuous strife, Unmanly murder and unthrifty scath, Bitter despite, with rancour's rusty knife, And fretting grief, the enemy of life; All these and many evils more haunt ire, The swelling spleen and frenzy raging rife, The shaking palsy and Saint Francis' fire: Such one was wrath, the last of this ungodly tire.
 * Full many mischiefs follow cruel wrath;
 * Canto IV, stanza 35

And is with child of glorious, great intent, Can never rest until it forth have brought The eternal brood of glory excellent.'''
 * '''The noble heart, that harbours virtuous thought,
 * Canto V, stanza 1

Of greatest heaven 'gan to open fair, And Phoebus, fresh as bridegroom to his mate, Came dancing forth, shaking his dewy hair, And hurles his glistering beams through gloomy air.
 * At last the golden oriental gate
 * Canto V, stanza 2

Which in false grief hiding his harmful guile, Doth keep full sore, and sheddeth tender tears.
 * A cruel crafty crocodile,
 * Canto V, stanza 18

That Phoebus' cheerful face dares never view, And in a foul black pitchy mantle clad, She finds forth coming from her darksome mew, Where she all day did hide her hated hue: Before the door her iron chariot stood, Already harnessed for journey new; And coal-black steeds yborn of hellish brood, That on their rusty bits did champ, as they were wood.
 * Where grisly Night, with visage deadly sad,
 * Canto V, stanza 20

Or break the chain of strong necessity?
 * But who can turn the stream of destiny,
 * Canto V, stanza 25

That sudden cold did run through every vein, And stony horror all her senses filled, With dying fit, that down she fell for pain.
 * That cruel word her tender heart so thrilled
 * Canto VI, stanza 37

To thunder blows, and fiercely to assail Each other, bent his enemy to quell, That with their force they pierced both plate and mail, And made wide furrows in their fleshes frail, That it would pity any living eye. Large floods of blood adown their sides did rail; But floods of blood could not them satisfy: Both hungered after death; both chose to win, or die.
 * Therewith they 'gan, both furious and fell,
 * Canto VI, stanza 43

As to descry the crafty cunning train By which Deceit doth mask in visor fair, And cast her colours, dyed deep in grain, To seem like Truth, whose shape she well can feign, And fitting gestures to her purpose frame, The guiltless man with guile to entertain?
 * What man so wise, what earthly wit so ware,
 * Canto VII, stanza 1

Can heart, so plunged in sea of sorrows deep, And helped with so huge misfortunes, reach? The careful cold beginneth for to creep, And in my heart his iron arrow steep, Soon as I think upon my bitter bale.
 * What world's delight, or joy of living speech,
 * Canto VII, stanza 39

For to unfold the anguish of your heart: Mishaps are mastered by advice discrete, And counsel mitigates the greatest smart.
 * Let me you entreat,
 * Canto VII, stanza 40

The righteous man, to make him daily fall!'''
 * '''Ay me, how many perils do enfold
 * Canto VIII, stanza 1

An old, old man, with beard as white as snow, That on a staff his feeble steps did frame, And guide his weary gait both to and fro, For his eyesight him failed long ago; And on his arm a bunch of keys he bore, The which, unused, rust did overgrow: Those were the keys of every inner door, But he could not them use, but kept them still in store. But very uncouth sight was to behold How he did fashion his untoward pace: For as he forward moved his footing old, So backward still was turned his wrinkled face, Unlike to men, who ever, as they trace, Both feet and face one way are wont to lead. This was the ancient keeper of that place, And foster father of the giant dead; His name Ignaro did his nature right aread.
 * With creeping crooked pace forth came
 * Canto VIII, stanzas 30–31


 * Entire affection hateth nicer hands.
 * Canto VIII, stanza 40

And naught but pressed grass where she had lain, I sorrowed all so much as erst I joyed, And washed all her place with watery eyne.
 * When I awoke and found her place devoid,
 * Canto IX, stanza 15

As if his fear still followed him behind'''; Also flew his steed, as he his bands had burst, And with his winged heels did tread the wind, As he had been a foal of Pegasus his kind.
 * '''Still, as he fled, his eye was backward cast,
 * Canto IX, stanza 21

That cursed man, low sitting on the ground, Musing full sadly in his sullen mind.
 * That darksome cave they enter, where they find
 * Canto IX, stanza 35

Were shrunk into his jaws, as he did never dine.
 * His raw-bone cheeks, through penury and pine,
 * Canto IX, stanza 35

And lays the soul to sleep in quiet grave? '''Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, Ease after war, death after life, does greatly please.'''
 * Is not short pain well borne that brings long ease
 * Canto IX, stanza 40

Nor may a man prolong nor shorten it: The soldier may not move from watchful stead, Nor leave his stand, until his captain bid." "Who life did limit by almighty doom," Quoth he, "knows best the terms established; And he, that points the sentinel his room, Doth license him depart at sound of morning drum."
 * "The term of life is limited,
 * Canto IX, stanza 41


 * Death is the end of woes: die soon, O fairy's son.
 * Canto IX, stanza 47

And tremble like a leaf of aspen green, And troubled blood through his pale face was seen ... As it a running messenger had been.
 * His hand did quake,
 * Canto IX, stanza 51


 * Where justice grows, there grows eke greater grace.
 * Canto IX, stanza 53


 * Each goodly thing is hardest to begin.
 * Canto X, stanza 6

His dainty corse, proud humours to abate, And dieted with fasting every day, The swelling of his wounds to mitigate, And made him pray both early and eke late. And ever as superfluous flesh did rot, Amendment ready still at hand did wait, To pluck it out with pincers fiery hot, That soon in him was left no one corrupted jot.
 * In ashes and sackcloth he did array
 * Canto X, stanza 26

His fiery face in billows of the west, And his faint steeds watered in ocean deep, Whiles from their journal labours they did rest.
 * Now 'gan the golden Phoebus for to steep
 * Canto XI, stanza 31

And yield his room to sad succeeding night, Who with her sable mantle 'gan to shade The face of earth and ways of living wight, And high her burning torch set up in heaven bright.
 * By this the drooping daylight 'gan to fade
 * Canto XI, stanza 49

Book II
By trial of his former harms and cares, That he descried, and shunned still, his slight: The fish that once was caught, new bait will hardly bite.
 * But now so wise and wary was the knight,
 * Canto I, stanza 4

She wilfully her sorrow did augment, And offered hope of comfort did despise; Her golden locks most cruelly she rent, And scratched her face with ghastly dreriment; Ne would she speak, ne see, ne yet be seen, But hid her visage and her head down bent, Either for grievous shame, or for great teen, As if her heart with sorrow had transfixed been.
 * Which when she heard, as in despightful wise,
 * Canto I, stanza 15

And take away this long lent loathed light: Sharp be thy wounds, but sweet the medicines be That long captived souls from weary thraldom free.
 * Come then, come soon; come, sweetest death, to me,
 * Canto I, stanza 36

And feeble nature clothed with fleshly tire, When raging passion with fierce tyranny Robs reason of her due regality, And makes it servant to her basest part: The strong it weakens with infirmity, And with bold fury arms the weakest heart; The strong through pleasure soonest falls, the weak through smart.
 * Behold the image of mortality,
 * Canto I, stanza 57


 * So double was his pains, so double be his praise.
 * Canto II, stanza 25

And of himself great hope and help conceived, That puffed up with smoke of vanity, And with self-loved personage deceived, He 'gan to hope of men to be received For such as he him thought, or fain would be. But for in court gay portaunce he perceived And gallant show to be in greatest gree, Eftsoons to court he cast t' advance his first degree.
 * Now 'gan his heart all swell in jollity,
 * Canto III, stanza 5

In his light wings, is lifted up to sky; The scorn of knighthood and true chivalry, To think, without desert of gentle deed And noble worth, to be advanced high: Such praise is shame; but honour, virtue's meed, Doth bear the fairest flower in honourable seed.
 * Vainglorious man, when fluttering wind does blow
 * Canto III, stanza 10

Kindled above, at the heavenly Maker's light, And darted fiery beams out of the same, So passing piersant, and so wondrous bright, That quite bereaved the rash beholder's sight.
 * In her fair eyes two living lamps did flame,
 * Canto III, stanza 23

Sweet words, like dropping honey, she did shed; And 'twixt the pearls and rubies softly brake A silver sound, that heavenly music seemed to make.
 * And when she spake,
 * Canto III, stanza 24

Under the shadows of her even brows.
 * Upon her eyelids many graces sate,
 * Canto III, stanza 25

"Does swim, and bathes himself in courtly bliss, Does waste his days in dark obscurity, And in oblivion ever buried is."
 * "Whoso in pomp of proud estate," quoth she,
 * Canto III, stanza 40


 * Love, that two hearts makes one, makes eke one will.
 * Canto IV, stanza 19

Making sweet solace to herself alone: Sometimes she sung as loud as lark in air, Sometimes she laughed that nigh her breath was gone; Yet was there not with her else any one That might to her move cause of merriment: Matter of mirth enough, though there were none, She could devise, and thousand ways invent To feed her foolish humour and vain jolliment.
 * And therein sat a lady fresh and fair,
 * Canto VI, stanza 3

No arboret with painted blossoms dressed And smelling sweet, but there it might be found To bud out fair, and her sweet smells throw all around.
 * No dainty flower or herb that grows on ground,
 * Canto VI, stanza 12

The trees did bud and early blossoms bore, And all the quire of birds did sweetly sing, And told that garden's pleasures in their caroling.
 * The fields did laugh, the flowers did freshly spring,
 * Canto VI, stanza 24

Was underneath enveloped with gold, Whose glistering gloss, darkened with filthy dust, Well it appeared to have been of old A work of rich entail and curious mold, Woven with antiques and wild imagery. And in his lap a mass of coin he told And turned upside down, to feed his eye And covetous desire with his huge treasury.
 * His iron coat, all overgrown with rust,
 * Canto VII, stanza 4

By riches and unrighteous reward; Some by close shouldering; some by flattery; Others through friends; others for base regard; And all by wrong ways for themselves prepared: Those that were up themselves kept others low, Those that were low themselves held others hard, Nor suffered them to rise or greater grow, But every one did drive his fellow down to throw.
 * Some thought to raise themselves to high degree
 * Canto VII, stanza 47

In heavenly spirits to these creatures base That may compassion of their evils move? There is; else much more wretched were the case Of men than beasts. But O the exceeding grace Of highest God! that loves His creatures so, And all His works with mercy doth embrace, That blessed angels He sends to and fro To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe! How oft do they their silver bowers leave To come to succour us that succour want? How oft do they with golden pinions cleave The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant, Against foul fiends to aid us militant? They for us fight, they watch and duly ward, And their bright squadrons round about us plant, And all for love and nothing for reward: O why should heavenly God to men have such regard?
 * And is there care in heaven? and is there love
 * Canto VIII, stanzas 1–2


 * Gold all is not that doth golden seem.
 * Canto VIII, stanza 14

There is no one more fair and excellent Than is man's body, both for power and form, Whiles it is kept in sober government.
 * Of all God's works, which do this world adorn,
 * Canto IX, stanza 1

That love is not where most it is professed.
 * The wretched man 'gan then avise too late
 * Canto X, stanza 31

As that which strong affections do apply Against the fort of reason, evermore To bring the soul into captivity!
 * What war so cruel, or what siege so sore,
 * Canto XI, stanza 1

Leasings, backbitings, and vain-glorious crakes, Bad counsels, praises, and false flatteries; All those against that fort did bend their batteries.
 * Slanderous reproaches and foul infamies,
 * Canto XI, stanza 10

His body lean and meager as a rake, And skin all withered like a dried rook; Thereto as cold and dreary as a snake, That seemed to tremble evermore and quake.
 * As pale and wan as ashes was his look:
 * Canto XI, stanza 22

The surging waters like a mountain rise, And the great sea puffed up with proud disdain, To swell above the measure of his guise, As threatening to devour all that his power despise.
 * Sudden they see, from midst of all the main,
 * Canto XII, stanza 21

Here may thy stormbeat vessel safely ride; This is the port of rest from troublous toil, The world's sweet inn from pain and wearisome turmoil.
 * O turn thy rudder hitherward awhile:
 * Canto XII, stanza 32

Of all that mote delight a dainty ear, Such as at once might not on living ground, Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere: Right hard it was for wight which did it hear, To read what manner music that mote be; For all that pleasing is to living ear Was there consorted in one harmony— Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree. The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful shade, Their notes unto the voice attempered sweet; The angelical soft trembling voices made To the instruments divine respondence meet; The silver-sounding instruments did meet With the base murmur of the water's fall; The water's fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.
 * Eftsoons they heard a most melodious sound,
 * Canto XII, stanzas 70–71

Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower, Nor more doth flourish after first decay, That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower Of many a lady, and many a paramour. Gather therefore the rose whilst yet is prime, For soon comes age that will her pride deflower; Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time, Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime.'''
 * '''So passeth, in the passing of a day,
 * Canto XII, stanza 75

Guyon broke down, with rigour pitiless; Nor aught their goodly workmanship might save Them from the tempest of his wrathfulness, But that their bliss he turned to balefulness: Their groves he felled, their gardens did deface, Their arbors spoiled, their cabinets suppress, Their banquet-houses burn, their buildings raze, And of the fairest late now made the foulest place.
 * But all those pleasant bowers and palace brave
 * Canto XII, stanza 83

Delights in filth and foul incontinence; Let Grill be Grill and have his hoggish mind.
 * The dunghill kind
 * Canto XII, stanza 87

Book III
In hope her to attain by hook or crook.
 * Through thick and thin, both over bank and bush,
 * Canto I, stanza 17

The salvage beast, embossed in weary chase, Dare not adventure on the stubborn prey, Nor bite before, but roam from place to place To get a snatch when turned is his face.
 * Like dastard curs that having at a bay
 * Canto I, stanza 22

And manly terror mixed therewithal, That as the one stirred up affections base, So the other did men's rash desires appal, And hold them back that would in error fall: As he that hath espied a vermeil rose, To which sharp thorns and briars the way forestall, Dare not for dread his hardy hand expose, But, wishing it far off, his idle wish doth lose.
 * For she was full of amiable grace,
 * Canto I, stanza 46

And with vain thoughts her falsed fancy vex: Her fickle heart conceived hasty fire, Like sparks of fire which fall in slender flex, That shortly burnt into extreme desire, And ransacked all her veins with passion entire.
 * She greatly 'gan enamoured to wax,
 * Canto I, stanza 47

But as a coal to kindle fleshly flame, Giving the bridle to her wanton will, And treading under foot her honest name.
 * Nought so of love this looser dame did skill,
 * Canto I, stanza 50

And softly sunk into her molten heart; Heart that is inly hurt is greatly eased With hope of thing that may allay his smart; For pleasing words are like to magic art That doth the charmed snake in slumber lay.
 * His feeling words her feeble sense much pleased,
 * Canto II, stanza 15


 * Discord oft in music makes the sweeter lay.
 * Canto II, stanza 15

Imperious Love hath highest set his throne, And tyrannizeth in the bitter smarts Of them that to him buxom are and prone.
 * But, as it falleth, in the gentlest hearts
 * Canto II, stanza 23

She wox, yet wist she neither how nor why; She wist not, silly maid, what she did ail, Yet wist she was not well at ease, perdy, Yet thought it was not love, but some melancholy.
 * Sad, solemn, sour, and full of fancies frail
 * Canto II, stanza 27

Nor slake the fury of her cruel flame, But that she still did waste, and still did wail, That through long languor and heart-burning brame She shortly like a pined ghost became.
 * Nor ought it mote the noble maid avail,
 * Canto II, stanza 52

In living breasts, ykindled first above Amongst the eternal spheres and lamping sky, And thence poured into men, which men call love.
 * O sacred fire that burnest mightily
 * Canto III, stanza 1

Both sun and moon, and make them him obey; The land to sea, and sea to mainland dry, And darksome night he eke could turn to day; Huge hosts of men he could, alone, dismay, And hosts of men of meanest things could frame, When so him list his enemies to fray: That to this day, for terror of his fame, The fiends do quake when any him to them does name.
 * For he by words could call out of the sky
 * Canto III, stanza 12


 * Whereof she seems ashamed inwardly.
 * Canto III, stanza 20

That whilom wont in women to appear? Where be the brave achievements done by some? Where be the battles, where the shield and spear, And all the conquests which them high did rear, That matter made for famous poets' verse, And boastful men so oft abashed to hear? Been they all dead and laid in doleful hearse? Or do they only sleep and shall again reverse?
 * Where is the antique glory now become
 * Canto IV, stanza 1

Words fearen babes. I mean not thee entreat To pass, but maugre thee will pass or die."
 * She shortly thus: "Fly they that need to fly;
 * Canto IV, stanza 15

Or ween by warning to avoid his fate?
 * But ah, who can deceive his destiny,
 * Canto IV, stanza 27

Thou art the root and nurse of bitter cares, Breeder of new, renewer of old smarts; Instead of rest thou lendest railing tears, Instead of sleep thou sendest troublous fears And dreadful visions, in the which alive The dreary image of sad death appears; So from the weary spirit thou dost drive Desired rest, and men of happiness deprive.
 * But well I wote that to an heavy heart
 * Canto IV, stanza 57

Light-shunning theft and traitorous intent, Abhorred bloodshed and vile felony, Shameful deceit and danger imminent, Foul horror and eke hellish dreariment.
 * Under thy mantle black there hidden lie
 * Canto IV, stanza 58

Or panachaea, or poligony, She found and brought it to her patient dear.
 * Whether it divine tobacco were,
 * Canto V, stanza 32

Till that through weakness he was forced at last To yield himself unto the mighty ill, Which, as a victor proud, 'gan ransack fast His inward parts and all his entrails waste, That neither blood in face nor life in heart It left, but both did quite dry up and blast: As piercing levin, which the inner part Of everything consumes and calcineth by art.
 * Thus warred he long time against his will,
 * Canto V, stanza 48

Yet still he wasted as the snow congealed, When the bright sun his beams thereon doth beat.
 * Little she weened that love he close concealed;
 * Canto V, stanza 49

And her conception of the joyous prime.
 * Her birth was of the womb of morning dew,
 * Canto VI, stanza 3

And all the sweetest flowers that in the forest grew.
 * Roses red and violets blue
 * Canto VI, stanza 6

Should happy be and have immortal bliss.
 * All that in this delightful garden grows
 * Canto VI, stanza 41

Continual, both meeting at one time: For both the boughs do laughing blossoms bear And with fresh colours deck the wanton prime, And eke at once the heavy trees they climb, Which seem to labour under their fruits' load; The whiles the joyous birds make their pastime Amongst the shady leaves, their sweet abode, And their true loves without suspicion tell abroad.
 * There is continual spring, and harvest there
 * Canto VI, stanza 42

There was a pleasant arbour, not by art But of the trees' own inclination made, Which knitting their rank branches part to part, With wanton ivy twine entrailed athwart, And eglantine and caprifole among, Fashioned above within their inmost part, That neither Phoebus' beams could through them throng, Nor Aeolus' sharp blast could work them any wrong.
 * And in the thickest covert of that shade
 * Canto VI, stanza 44

Few trickling tears she softly forth let fall, That like to orient pearls did purely shine Upon her snowy cheek.
 * With that, adown out of her crystal eyne
 * Canto VII, stanza 9


 * Hard is to teach an old horse amble true.
 * Canto VIII, stanza 26

That loves his fetters, though they were of gold.
 * A fool I do him firmly hold
 * Canto IX, stanza 8

And pleasing toys he would her entertain, Now singing sweetly to surprise her sprites, Now making lays of love and lovers' pain, Bransles, ballads, virelays and verses vain; Oft purposes, oft riddles he devised, And thousands like which flowed in his brain, With which he fed her fancy and enticed To take to his new love and leave her old despised.
 * And otherwhiles with amorous delights
 * Canto X, stanza 8

And doth himself with sorrow new sustain, That death and life at once unto him gives, And painful pleasure turns to pleasing pain.
 * Yet can he never die, but dying lives,
 * Canto X, stanza 60

To joyless dread, and makest the loving heart With hateful thoughts to languish and to pine And feed itself with self-consuming smart: Of all the passions in the mind thou vilest art.
 * Foul Jealousy, that turnest love divine
 * Canto XI, stanza 1

How over that same door was likewise writ, Be bold, be bold, and everywhere Be bold''', That much she mused, yet could not construe it By any riddling skill or common wit. '''At last she spied at that room's upper end Another iron door, on which was writ, Be not too bold.'''
 * '''And as she looked about, she did behold
 * Canto XI, stanza 54

Yet thought himself not safe enough thereby, But feared each shadow moving to and fro; And his own arms when glittering he did spy Or clashing heard, he fast away did fly, As ashes pale of hue and wingy-heeled; And evermore on danger fixed his eye, 'Gainst whom he always bent a brazen shield, Which his right hand unarmed fearfully did wield.
 * Next him was Fear, all armed from top to toe,
 * Canto XII, stanza 12

Of cheerful look and lovely to behold; In silken samite she was light arrayed, And her fair locks were woven up in gold; She always smiled, and in her hand did hold A holy-water sprinkle dipped in dew, With which she sprinkled favours manifold On whom she list, and did great liking show; Great liking unto many, but true love to few.
 * With him went Hope in rank, a handsome maid,
 * Canto XII, stanza 13

Showing his nature in his countenance; His rolling eyes did never rest in place, But walked each where for fear of hid mischance, Holding a lattice still before his face, Through which he still did peep as forward he did pace.
 * He lowered on her with dangerous eye-glance,
 * Canto XII, stanza 15

Book IV
On Fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be filed.'''
 * '''Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled,
 * Canto II, stanza 32


 * Sweet is the love that comes alone with willingness.
 * Canto V, stanza 25

Ne better had he, ne for better cared: With blistered hands amongst the cinders brent, And fingers filthy, with long nails unpared, Right fit to rend the food on which he fared. His name was Care; a blacksmith by his trade, That neither day nor night from working spared, But to small purpose iron wedges made; Those be unquiet thoughts that careful minds invade.
 * Rude was his garment, and to rags all rent;
 * Canto V, stanza 35

And pining anguish hid in gentle heart, That inly feeds itself with thoughts unkind, And nourisheth her own confusing smart? What medicine can any leech's art Yield such a sore, that doth her grievance hide, And will to none her malady impart?
 * What equal torment to the grief of mind,
 * Canto VI, stanza 1

Full oftentimes she leave of him did take; And oft again devised somewhat to say, Which she forgot, whereby excuse to make: So loath she was his company for to forsake.
 * All she did was but to wear out day.
 * Canto VI, stanza 45

And in conditions to be loathed no less: For she was stuffed with rancour and despite Up to the throat, that oft with bitterness It forth would break and gush in great excess, Pouring out streams of poison and of gall 'Gainst all that truth or virtue do profess; Whom she with leasings lewdly did miscall And wickedly backbite; her name men Slander call.
 * A foul and loathly creature sure in sight,
 * Canto VIII, stanza 24

They lived together long without debate; Nor private jar, nor spite of enemies, Could shake the safe assurance of their state.
 * From that day forth, in peace and joyous bliss
 * Canto IX, stanza 16


 * Faint friends when they fall out most cruel foemen be.
 * Canto IX, stanza 27

That love with gall and honey doth abound; But if the one be with the other weighed, For every dram of honey therein found A pound of gall doth over it redound.
 * True he it said, whatever man it said,
 * Canto X, stanza 1

The one forward looking, the other backward bent, Therein resembling Janus ancient, Which had in charge the ingate of the year: And evermore his eyes about him went, As if some proved peril he did fear, Or did misdoubt some ill, whose cause did not appear.
 * His name was Doubt, that had a double face,
 * Canto X, stanza 12

Could frame in earth.'''
 * '''For all that nature by her mother wit
 * Canto X, stanza 21

Whose eyes, like twinkling stars in evening clear, Were decked with smiles that all sad humours chased, And darted forth delights the which her goodly graced.
 * And her against sweet Cheerfulness was placed,
 * Canto X, stanza 50

But that she masked it with modesty, For fear she should of lightness be detected.
 * Nor less was she in secret heart affected,
 * Canto XII, stanza 35

Book V


From the first point of his appointed source; And, being once amiss, grows daily worse and worse.
 * Me seems the world is run quite out of square
 * Proem, stanza 1

Is now called vice; and that which vice was hight, Is now hight virtue, and so used of all; Right now is wrong, and wrong that was is right.
 * For that which all men then did virtue call,
 * Proem, stanza 4

Nor better doth beseem brave chivalry, Than to defend the feeble in their right And wrong redress in such as wend awry.
 * Nought is more honourable to a knight,
 * Canto II, stanza 1


 * For there is nothing lost that may be found if sought.
 * Canto II, stanza 39


 * Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.
 * Canto II, stanza 43

The sun at length his joyous face doth clear; So whenas fortune all her spite hath shown, Some blissful hours at last must needs appear; Else would afflicted wights oft-times despair.
 * After long storms and tempests overblown,
 * Canto III, stanza 1

Like a fell lioness at him she flew, And on his head-piece him so fiercely smit, That to the ground him quite she overthrew, Dismayed so with the stroke that he no colours knew.
 * All suddenly inflamed with furious fit,
 * Canto IV, stanza 39

That gods and men do equally adore, Than this same virtue, that doth right define; For the heavens themselves, whence mortal men implore Right in their wrongs, are ruled by righteous lore Of highest Jove, who doth true justice deal To his inferior gods, and evermore Therewith contains his heavenly commonweal: The skill whereof to princes' hearts he doth reveal.
 * Nought is on earth more sacred or divine,
 * Canto VII, stanza 1

The sense of man, and all his mind possess, As Beauty's lovely bait, that doth procure Great warriors oft their rigour to repress, And mighty hands forget their manliness; Drawn with the power of an heart-robbing eye, And wrapped in fetters of a golden tress, That can with melting pleasance mollify Their hardened hearts, inured to blood and cruelty.
 * Nought under heaven so strongly doth allure
 * Canto VIII, stanza 1

Whether this heavenly thing whereof I treat, To weeten mercy, be of justice part, Or drawn forth from her by divine extreat: This well I wot, that sure she is as great, And meriteth to have as high a place, Sith in the Almighty's everlasting seat She first was bred and born of heavenly race; From thence poured down on men by influence of grace.
 * Some clerks do doubt, in their deviceful art,
 * Canto X, stanza 1

That right, long time, is overborne of wrong, Through avarice, or power, or guile, or strife, That weakens her, and makes her party strong; But justice, though her doom she do prolong, Yet, at the last, she will her own cause right.
 * It often falls, in course of common life,
 * Canto XI, stanza 1

But dearer than them both, your faith once plighted hold.
 * Dearer is love than life, and fame than gold;
 * Canto XI, stanza 63

And impotent desire of men to reign, Whom neither dread of God, that devils binds, Nor laws of men, that commonweals contain, Nor bands of nature, that wild beasts restrain, Can keep from outrage and from doing wrong, Where they may hope a kingdom to obtain. No faith so firm, no trust can be so strong, No love so lasting then, that may enduren long.
 * O sacred hunger of ambitious minds
 * Canto XII, stanza 1

In all her life, with long nails over-raught, Like puttock's claws with the one of which she scratched Her cursed head, although it itched naught; The other held a snake with venom fraught, On which she fed and gnawed hungrily, As if that long she had not eaten aught; That round about her jaws one might descry The bloody gore and poison dropping loathsomely.
 * Her hands were foul and dirty, never washed
 * Canto XII, stanza 30

Foaming with poison round about her gills, In which her cursed tongue (full sharp and short) Appeared like asp's sting, that closely kills Or cruelly does wound whomso she wills; A distaff in her other hand she had, Upon the which she little spins, but spills; And fains to weave false tales and leasings bad, To throw amongst the good, which others had disprad.
 * Her face was ugly, and her mouth distort,
 * Canto XII, stanza 36

A dreadful fiend, of gods and men ydrad.'''
 * 'A monster, which the Blatant Beast'' men call,
 * Canto XII, stanza 37

Book VI
The wisest sight, to think gold that is brass.
 * Yet is that glass so gay that it can blind
 * Proem, stanza 5


 * No greater shame to man than inhumanity.
 * Canto I, stanza 26

Who hath not learned himself first to subdue.
 * In vain he seeketh others to suppress
 * Canto I, stanza 41

How can he mercy ever hope to have?'''
 * '''Who will not mercy unto others show,
 * Canto I, stanza 42. Compare: "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." Matthew 5:7 KJV.

'''The gentle mind by gentle deeds is known: For man by nothing is so well bewrayed As by his manners''', in which plain is shown Of what degree and what race he is grown.
 * True is, that whilom that good poet said,
 * Canto III, stanza 1. Compare: "He is gentle that does gentle deeds", Geoffrey Chaucer, Wife of Bath's Tale, line 1170.

So tickle is the state of earthly things; That, ere they come unto their aimed scope, They fall too short of our frail reckonings, And bring us bale and bitter sorrowings, Instead of comfort which we should embrace.
 * Such is the weakness of all mortal hope;
 * Canto III, stanza 5

That he should be so stern to stranger wight: For seldom yet did living creature see That courtesy and manhood ever disagree."
 * "Ill seems," said he, "if he so valiant be,
 * Canto III, stanza 40

Not with such forged shows, as fitter been For courting fools that courtesies would feign, But with entire affection and appearance plain.
 * Therein he them full fair did entertain,
 * Canto V, stanza 38

Inflicts with dint of sword, so sore doth light As doth the poisonous sting which infamy Infixeth in the name of noble wight''': For by no art, nor any leach's might, It ever can recured be again; Nor all the skill, which that immortal spright Of Podalirius did in it retain, Can remedy such hurts; such hurts are hellish pain.
 * '''No wound, which warlike hand of enemy
 * Canto VI, stanza 1


 * Give salves to every sore, but counsel to the mind.
 * Canto VI, stanza 5

And when her listed she could fawn and flatter; Now smiling smoothly, like to summer's day, Now glooming sadly, so to cloak her matter; Yet were her words but wind, and all her tears but water.
 * Thereto, when needed, she could weep and pray,
 * Canto VI, stanza 42

Love hath the glory of his kingdom left, And the hearts of men, as your eternal dower, In iron chains, of liberty bereft, Delivered hath into your hands by gift; Be well aware how ye the same do use, That pride do not to tyranny you lift; Lest, if men you of cruelty accuse, He from you take that chiefdom which ye do abuse.
 * Ye gentle ladies, in whose sovereign power
 * Canto VIII, stanza 1

Of whom he makes such havoc and such hew, That swarms of damned souls to hell he sends; The rest, that scape his sword and death eschew, Fly like a flock of doves before a falcon's view.
 * Then to the rest his wrathful hand he bends;
 * Canto VIII, stanza 49

That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor: For some that hath abundance at his will Hath not enough, but wants in greatest store; And other that hath little asks no more, But in that little is both rich and wise; For wisdom is most riches; fools therefore They are which fortunes do by vows devise, Since each unto himself his life may fortunize.
 * It is the mind that maketh good or ill,
 * Canto IX, stanza 30


 * Old love is little worth when new is more preferred.
 * Canto IX, stanza 40

Without affliction or disquietness That worldly chances do amongst them cast, Would be on earth too great a blessedness, Liker to heaven than mortal wretchedness: Therefore the winged god, to let men weet That here on earth is no sure happiness, A thousand sours hath tempered with one sweet, To make it seem more dear and dainty, as is meet.
 * The joys of love, if they should ever last
 * Canto XI, stanza 1

Of sundry kinds and sundry quality; Some were of dogs, that barked day and night, And some of cats, that wrawling still did cry, And some of bears, that groined continually, And some of tigers, that did seem to gren And snarl at all that ever passed by; But most of them were tongues of mortal men, Which spake reproachfully, not caring where nor when. And them amongst were mingled here and there The tongues of serpents, with three-forked stings, That spat out poison, and gore-bloody gear, At all that came within his ravenings; And spake licentious words and hateful things Of good and bad alike, of low and high; Nor kaisers spared he a whit nor kings, But either blotted them with infamy, Or bit them with his baneful teeth of injury.
 * And therein were a thousand tongues empight
 * Canto XII, stanzas 27–28

Book VII


Of Change, the which all mortal things doth sway, But that thereby doth find, and plainly feel, How Mutability in them doth play Her cruel sports to many men's decay?'''
 * '''What man that sees the ever-whirling wheel
 * Canto VI, stanza 1


 * Wars and alarums unto nations wide.
 * Canto VI, stanza 3

First, lusty Spring, all dight in leaves of flowers That freshly budded and new blooms did bear (In which a thousand birds had built their bowers That sweetly sung to call forth paramours); And in his hand a javelin he did bear, And on his head (as fit for warlike stoures) A gilt-engraven morion he did wear; That as some did him love, so others did him fear.
 * So forth issued the seasons of the year.
 * Cantos VII, stanza 28

In a thin silken cassock coloured green That was unlined all, to be more light, And on his head a garland well beseen He wore, from which as he had chafed been, The sweat did drop; and in his hand he bore A bow and shafts, as he in forest green Had hunted late the libbard or the boar, And now would bathe his limbs, with labour heated sore.
 * Then came the jolly Summer, being dight
 * Cantos VII, stanza 29

As though he joyed in his plenteous store, Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad That he had banished hunger, which before Had by the belly oft him pinched sore; Upon his head a wreath, that was enrolled With ears of corn of every sort, he bore, And in his hand a sickle he did hold, To reap the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold.
 * Then came the Autumn, all in yellow clad,
 * Cantos VII, stanza 30

Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill, Whilst on his hoary beard his breath did freeze, And the dull drops that from his purpled bill, As from a limbeck, did adown distill; In his right hand a tipped staff he held, With which his feeble steps he stayed still: For he was faint with cold and weak with eld, That scarce his loosed limbs he able was to weld.
 * Lastly came Winter, clothed all in frieze,
 * Cantos VII, stanza 31

And armed strongly, rode upon a ram, The same which over Hellespontus swam; Yet in his hand a spade he also hent, And in a bag all sorts of seeds ysame, Which on the earth he strewed as he went, And filled her womb with fruitful hope of nourishment.
 * First, sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent
 * Canto VII, stanza 32

All in green leaves, as he a player were.
 * Jolly June, arrayed
 * Canto VII, stanza 35

As fed with lard, and that right well might seem; For he had been a-fatting hogs of late.
 * Next was November; he full gross and fat
 * Canto VII, stanza 40



Death with most grim and grisly visage seen, Yet is he nought but parting of the breath; Nor ought to see, but like a shade to ween, Unbodied, unsouled, unheard, unseen.
 * And after all came Life; and lastly Death:
 * Cantos VII, stanza 46


 * But times do change and move continually.
 * Canto VII, stanza 47

But thenceforth all shall rest eternally With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight: O that great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabaoth's sight.
 * For all that moveth doth in change delight;
 * Canto VIII, stanza 2

Quotations about The Faerie Queene


In ancient tales amused a barbarous age; An age that, yet uncultivate and rude, Where'er the poet's fancy led, pursued Through pathless fields and unfrequented floods, To dens of dragons and enchanted woods. But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore, Can charm an understanding age no more: The long-spun allegories fulsome grow, While the dull moral lies too plain below. We view well-pleased at distance all the sights Of arms and palfreys, battles, fields, and fights, And damsels in distress, and courteous knights. But when we look too near, the shades decay, And all the pleasing landscape fades away.
 * Old Spenser next, warmed with poetic rage,
 * Joseph Addison, "An Account of the Greatest English Poets" (1694), lines 17–31
 * Cf. Alexander Pope's commentary on these lines: "The character [Addison] gives of Spenser is false [...] and I have heard him say that he never read Spenser till fifteen years after he wrote it." As reported in Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters, of Books and Men (1820) by Joseph Spence, p. 150.


 * There is no uniformity in the design of Spenser: he aims at the accomplishment of no one action; he raises up a hero for every one of his adventures, and endows each of them with some particular moral virtue, which renders them all equal, without subordination or preference. Every one is valiant in his own legend; only we must do him the justice to observe, that magnanimity, which is the character of Prince Arthur, shines throughout the whole poem, and succours the rest when they are in distress. The original of every knight was then living in the court of Queen Elizabeth; and he attributed to each of them that virtue which he thought was most conspicuous in them; an ingenious piece of flattery, though it turned not much to his account. Had he lived to finish his poem in the six remaining legends, it had certainly been more of a piece; but could not have been perfect, because the model was not true. But Prince Arthur, or his chief patron, Sir Philip Sidney, whom he intended to make happy by the marriage of his Gloriana, dying before him, deprived the poet both of means and spirit to accomplish his design. For the rest, his obsolete language, and ill choice of his stanza, are faults both of the second magnitude; for notwithstanding the first, he is still intelligible, at least after a little practice, and for the last he is more to be admired, that labouring under such a difficulty, his verses are so numerous, so various, and so harmonious, that only Virgil, whom he has professedly imitated, has surpassed him among the Romans, and only Mr. Waller among the English.
 * John Dryden, The Satires (1693), Dedication, p. viii
 * Cf. Edmond Malone's commentary: "The language of The Fairy Queen was the poetical language of the age in which [Spenser] lived; and, however obsolete it might appear to Dryden, was, I conceive, perfectly intelligible to every reader of poetry in the time of Queen Elizabeth, though The Shepherd's Calender was not even then understood without a commentary." In The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, Vol. III (1800), footnote on p. 94.


 * Who, except scholars, and except the eccentric few who are born with a sympathy for such work, or others who have deliberately studied themselves into the right appreciation, can now read through the whole of The Faerie Queene with delight?
 * T. S. Eliot, 'Charles Whibley' (1931), in Selected Essays: 1917–1932 (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1932), p. 405


 * It is scarcely possible to accompany Spenser's allegorical heroes to the end of their excursions. They want flesh and blood—a want for which nothing can compensate. The personification of abstract ideas furnishes the most brilliant images of poetry; but these meteor forms, which startle and delight us when our senses are flurried by passion, must not be submitted to our cool and deliberate examination.
 * George Ellis, Specimens of the Early English Poets (1801), p. 203


 * Spenser's poetry is all fairy-land. [...] The poet takes and lays us in the lap of a lovelier nature, by the sound of softer streams, among greener hills and fairer valleys. He paints nature not as we find it, but as we expected to find it, and fulfils the delightful promise of our youth. He waves his wand of enchantment, and at once embodies airy beings, and throws a delicious veil over all actual objects. The two worlds of reality and of fiction are poised on the wings of his imagination.
 * William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Poets (1818), p. 68


 * Some people will say [...] that they cannot understand [the Faery Queen] on account of the allegory. They are afraid of the allegory, as if they thought it would bite them: they look at it as a child looks at a painted dragon, and think it will strangle them in its shining folds. This is very idle. If they do not meddle with the allegory, the allegory will not meddle with them. Without minding it at all, the whole is as plain as a pikestaff.
 * William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Poets (1818), p. 74


 * Spenser's noble book.
 * Ben Jonson, Underwoods (1640)


 * The things we read about in [The Faerie Queene] are not like life, but the experience of reading it is like living.
 * C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936), p. 358


 * Beyond all doubt it is best to have made one's first acquaintance with Spenser in a very large—and, preferably, illustrated—edition of The Faerie Queene, on a wet day, between the ages of twelve and sixteen.
 * C. S. Lewis, 'Edmund Spenser', from Fifteen Poets (London: Oxford University Press, 1941); in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, ed. Walter Hooper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), p. 146; quoted in ‎Roy Maynard's Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves: Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 1999), Introduction, p. 9.


 * It is not, perhaps, absolutely necessary to have a large edition in fact; but it is imperative that you should think of The Faerie Queene as a book suitable for reading in a heavy volume, at a table—a book to which limp leather is insulting—a massy, antique story with a blackletter flavour about it—a book for devout, prolonged, and leisurely perusal.
 * C. S. Lewis, 'Edmund Spenser', from Fifteen Poets (London: Oxford University Press, 1941); in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, ed. Walter Hooper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), pp. 146–147


 * I never meet a man who says that he used to like the Faerie Queene.
 * C. S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), p. 393


 * The Faerie Queene is perhaps the most difficult poem in English. Quite how difficult, I am only now beginning to realize after forty years of reading it.
 * C. S. Lewis, Spenser's Images of Life (1967), ed. Alastair Fowler, Introduction


 * Even Spenser himself, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting. It was in vain that he lavished the riches of his mind on the House of Pride and the House of Temperance. One unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen. We become sick of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the persons who read the first Canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the First Book, and not one in a hundred perseveres to the end of the poem. Very few and very weary are those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast.
 * Thomas Babington Macaulay, 'Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim's Progress ', in The Edinburgh Review, Vol. LIV (1831), p. 452
 * Note: The Blatant Beast does not die in the poem. C. A. Patrides comments: "Macaulay himself, it is clear, did not persevere to the end." In Figures in a Renaissance Context, eds. Claude J. Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989), p. 35. Quoted in Hazel Wilkinson's Edmund Spenser and the Eighteenth-Century Book (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), Introduction, p. 1.


 * I know not what more excellent or exquisite poem may be written.
 * Francis Meres, Palladis Tamia (1598)


 * The noblest allegorical poem in our own language,—indeed, the noblest allegorical poem in the world.
 * James Montgomery, Lectures on Poetry and General Literature (1833), p. 169


 * The Faerie Queene is the most extended and extensive meditation on sex in the history of poetry.
 * Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae (1990), p. 188


 * After reading a canto of Spenser two or three days ago to an old lady, between seventy and eighty years of age, she said that I had been showing her a gallery of pictures.—I don't know how it is, but she said very right: there is something in Spenser that pleases one as strongly in one's old age, as it did in one's youth. I read the Faerie Queene when I was about twelve, with infinite delight; and I think it gave me as much, when I read it over about a year or two ago.
 * Alexander Pope, as quoted in Joseph Spence's Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men, ed. S. W. Singer (1820), pp. 296–297


 * I don't wonder that you are in such raptures with Spenser! What an imagination! What an invention! What painting! What colouring displayed throughout the works of that admirable author! and yet, for want of time, or opportunity, I have not read his Fairy Queen through in series, or at a heat, as I may call it.
 * Samuel Richardson, letter to Susanna Highmore (22 June 1750), in The Correspondence of Richardson, Vol. II (1804), p. 245


 * The "Faerie Queen," like Dante's "Paradise," is only half estimated, because few persons take the pains to think out its meaning.
 * John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, Vol. II (1853), p. 326


 * Without being insensible to the defects of the Fairy Queen, I am never weary of reading it.
 * Robert Southey, letter to Walter Savage Landor (11 January 1811), in The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, Vol. III (1850), p. 295


 * I am reading The Faery Queen—with delight. [...] I can't think out what I mean about conception: the idea behind F.Q. How to express a kind of natural transition from state to state. And the air of natural beauty.
 * Virginia Woolf, diary entry on 23 January 1935, in The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. IV: 1931–1935, eds. Anne Olivier Bell and ‎Andrew McNeillie (London: Hogarth Press, 1982), p. 275


 * The Faery Queen, it is said, has never been read to the end.
 * Virginia Woolf, "The Faery Queen", in The Moment and Other Essays (1947)


 * The first essential is, of course, not to read The Faery Queen.
 * Virginia Woolf, "The Faery Queen", in The Moment and Other Essays (1947); quoted in Reading and Not Reading The Faerie Queene by Catherine Nicholson (Princeton University Press, 2020), p. 1


 * [Mr. John Bailey] related a story of an officer who read the Faerie Queene to his men when they were in a particularly difficult situation. The men did not understand the words, but the poetry had a soothing influence upon them. Nothing better could be said of poetry than that.
 * At a General Meeting of the English Association (25 May 1917), as reported in The Journal of Education, Vol. XLIX (1917), p. 438; quoted in Brian Doyle's English and Englishness (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), p. 28.