That Mantuane Poets incompared spirit,
Whose girland now is set in highest place,
Had not Mecaenas, for his worthy merit,
It first advaunst to great Augustus grace,
Might long perhaps have lien in silence bace,
Ne bene so much admir’d of later age.
This lowly Muse, that learns like steps to trace,
Flies for like aide unto your Patronage,
That are the great Mecaenas of this age,
As wel to al that civil artes professe,
As those that are inspir’d with Martial rage,
And craves protection of her feeblenesse:
Which if ye yield, perhaps ye may her rayse
In bigger tunes to sound your living prayse.
Sonnet XIII
To the right noble Lord and most valiaunt Captaine, Sir John Norris, knight, Lord president of Mounster.
Who ever gave more honourable prize
To the sweet Muse then did the Martiall crew,
That their brave deeds she might immortalise
In her shril tromp, and sound their praises dew?
Who then ought more to favour her then you,
Moste noble Lord, the honor of this age,
And Precedent of all that armes ensue?
Whose warlike prowesse and manly courage,
Tempred with reason and advizement sage,
Hath fild sad Belgicke with victorious spoile;
In Fraunce and Ireland left a famous gage;
And lately shakt the Lusitanian soile.
Sith, then, each where thou hast dispredd thy fame,
Love him that hath eternized your name.
Sonnet XIV
To the right noble and valorous knight, Sir Walter Raleigh, Lo. Wardein of the Stanneryes, and lieftenaunt of Cornewaile.
To thee, that art the sommers Nightingale,
Thy soveraine Qoddesses most deare delight,
Why doe I send this rusticke Madrigale,
That may thy tunefull eare unseason quite?
Thou onely fit this Argument to write,
In whose high thoughts Pleasure hath built her bowre,
And dainty love learnd sweetly to endite.
My rimes I know unsavory and sowre,
To tast the streames that, like a golden showre,
Flow from thy fruitfull head, of thy love’s praise;
Fitter, perhaps, to thonder Martiall stowre,
When so thee list thy lofty Muse to raise:
Yet, till that thou thy Poeme wilt make knowne,
Let thy faire Cinthias praises be thus rudely showne.
Sonnet XV
To the right honourable and most vertuous Lady the Countesse of Penbroke.
Remembraunce of that most Heroicke spirit,
The hevens pride, the glory of our daies,
Which now triumpheth, through immortall merit
Of his brave vertues, crown’d with lasting baies
Of hevenlie blis and everlasting praies;
Who first my Muse did lift out of the flore,
To sing his sweet delights in lowlie laies;
Bids me, most noble Lady, to adore
His goodly image, living evermore
In the divine resemblaunce of your face;
Which with your vertues ye embellish more,
And native beauty deck with heavenlie grace:
For his, and for your owne especial sake,
Vouchsafe from him this toke in good worth to take.
Sonnet XVI
To the most vertuous and beautifull Lady, the Lady Carew.
Ne may I, without blot of endlesse blame,
You, fairest Lady, leave out of this place;
But with remembraunce of your gracious name,
Wherewith that courtly garlond most ye grace
And deck the world, adorne these verses base.
Not that these few lines can in them comprise
Those glorious ornaments of hevenly grace,
Wherewith ye triumph over feeble eyes,
And in subdued harts do tyranyse;
For thereunto doth need a golden quill,
And silver leaves, them rightly to devise;
But to make humble present of good will:
Which, whenas timely meanes it purchase may,
In ampler wise it selfe will forth display.
Sonnet XVII
To all the gratious and beautifull Ladies in the Court.
The Chian Peinter, when he was requirde
To pourtraift Venus in her perfect hew,
To make his worke more absolute, desird
Of all the fairest Maides to have the vew.
Much more me needs, to draw the semblant trew
Of beauties Queene, the worlds sole wonderment,
To sharpe my sence with sundry beauties vew,
And steale from each some part of ornament.
If all the world to seeke I overwent,
A fairer crew yet no where could I see
Then that brave court doth to mine eie present;
That the worlds pride seemes gathered there to bee.
Of each a part I stole by cunning thefte:
Forgive it me, faire Dames, sith lesse ye have not lefte.
A Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh
A Letter of the Authors,
Expounding his whole intention in the course of this work; which, for that it giveth great light to the reader, for the better understanding is hereunto annexed.
To the Right Noble and Valorous
Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight,
Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and her Majesty’s Lieutenant of the county of Cornwall.
Sir, knowing how doubtfully all allegories may be construed, and this book of mine, which I have entitled the Faerie Queene, being a continued allegory, or dark conceit, I have thought good, as well for avoiding of jealous opinions and misconstructions, as also for your better light in reading thereof, (being so by you commanded,) to discover unto you the general intention and meaning, which in the whole course thereof I have fashioned, without expressing of any particular purposes, or by accidents, therein occasioned. The general end therefore of all the book is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline. Which for that I conceived should be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historical fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for variety of matter than for profit of the ensample, I chose the history of King Arthur, as most fit for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many men’s former works, and also furthest from the danger of envy, and suspicion of present time. In which I have followed all the antique poets historical; first Homer, who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governour and a virtuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis: then Virgil, whose
