That all this other worldes worke doth excell,
And likest is unto that heavenly towre
That God hath built for his owne blessed bowre.
Therein were divers rowmes, and divers stages;
But three the chiefest and of greatest powre,
In which there dwelt three honorable sages,
The wisest men, I weene, that lived in their ages.
Not he, whom Greece, the Nourse of all good arts,
By Phœbus doome the wisest thought alive,
Might be compar’d to these by many parts:
Nor that sage Pylian syre, which did survive
Three ages, such as mortall men contrive,
By whose advise old Priams cittie fell,
With these in praise of pollicies mote strive.
These three in these three rowmes did sondry dwell,
And counselled faire Alma how to governe well.
The first of them could things to come foresee;
The next could of thinges present best advize;
The third things past could keep in memoree:
So that no time nor reason could arize,
But that the same could one of these comprize.
Forthy the first did in the forepart sit,
That nought mote hinder his quicke prejudize:
He had a sharpe foresight and working wit
That never idle was, ne once would rest a whit.
His chamber was dispainted all within
With sondry colours, in the which were writ
Infinite shapes of thinges dispersed thin;
Some such as in the world were never yit,
Ne can devized be of mortall wit;
Some daily seene and knowen by their names,
Such as in idle fantasies do flit;
Infernall Hags, Centaurs, feendes, Hippodames,
Apes, Lyons, Aegles, Owles, fooles, lovers, children, Dames.
And all the chamber filled was with flyes
Which buzzed all about, and made such sound
That they encombred all mens eares and eyes;
Like many swarmes of Bees assembled round,
After their hives with honny do abound.
All those were idle thoughtes and fantasies,
Devices, dreames, opinions unsound,
Shewes, visions, soothsayes, and prophesies;
And all that fained is, as leasings, tales, and lies.
Emongst them all sate he which wonned there,
That hight Phantastes by his nature trew,
A man of yeares yet fresh, as mote appere,
Of swarth complexion, and of crabbed hew,
That him full of melancholy did shew;
Bent hollow beetle browes, sharpe staring eyes,
That mad or foolish seemd: one by his vew
Mote deeme him borne with ill-disposed skyes,
When oblique Saturne sate in th’house of agonyes.
Whom Alma having shewed to her guestes,
Thence brought them to the second rowme, whose wals
Were painted faire with memorable gestes
Of famous Wisards; and with picturals
Of Magistrates, of courts, of tribunals,
Of commen-wealthes, of states, of pollicy,
Of lawes, of judgementes, and of decretals,
All artes, all science, all Philosophy,
And all that in the world was ay thought wittily.
Of those that rowme was full; and them among
There sate a man of ripe and perfect age,
Who did them meditate all his life long,
That through continuall practise and usage
He now was growne right wise and wondrous sage:
Great pleasure had those straunger knightes to see
His goodly reason and grave personage,
That his disciples both desyrd to bee;
But Alma thence them led to th’hindmost rowme of three.
That chamber seemed ruinous and old,
And therefore was removed far behind,
Yet were the wals, that did the same uphold,
Right firme and strong, though somwhat they declind;
And therein sat an old old man, halfe blind,
And all decrepit in his feeble corse,
Yet lively vigour rested in his mind,
And recompenst them with a better scorse:
Weake body wel is chang’d for minds redoubled forse.
This man of infinite remembraunce was,
And things foregone through many ages held,
Which he recorded still as they did pas,
Ne suffred them to perish through long eld,
As all things els the which this world doth weld;
But laid them up in his immortall scrine,
Where they for ever incorrupted dweld:
The warres he well remembred of king Nine,
Of old Assaracus, and Inachus divine.
The yeares of Nestor nothing were to his,
Ne yet Mathusalem, though longest liv’d;
For he remembred both their infancis:
Ne wonder then, if that he were depriv’d
Of native strength now that he them surviv’d.
His chamber all was hangd about with rolls
And old records from auncient times derivd,
Some made in books, some in long parchment scrolls,
That were all worm-eaten and full of canker holes.
Amidst them all he in a chaire was sett,
Tossing and turning them withouten end;
But for he was unhable them to fett,
A litle boy did on him still attend
To reach, when ever he for ought did send;
And oft when thinges were lost, or laid amis,
That boy them sought and unto him did lend:
Therefore he Anamnestes cleped is;
And that old man Eumnestes, by their propertis.
The knightes there entring did him reverence dew,
And wondred at his endlesse exercise:
Then as they gan his Library to vew,
And antique Regesters for to avise,
There chaunced to the Princes hand to rize
An auncient booke, hight Briton Moniments,
That of this lands first conquest did devize,
And old division into Regiments,
Till it reduced was to one mans governements.
Sir Guyon chaunst eke on another booke,
That hight Antiquitee of Faery lond:
In which whenas he greedily did looke,
Th’ofspring of Elves and Faeryes there he fond,
As it delivered was from hond to hond:
Whereat they, burning both with fervent fire
Their countreys auncestry to understond,
Crav’d leave of Alma and that aged sire
To read those bookes; who gladly graunted their desire.
Canto X
A chronicle of Briton Kings,
From Brute to Uthers rayne.
And rolls of Elfin Emperours,
Till time of Gloriane.
Who now shall give unto me words and sound
Equall unto this haughtie enterprise?
Or who shall lend me wings, with which from ground
My lowly verse may loftily arise,
And lift it selfe unto the highest skies?
More ample spirit then hitherto was wount
Here needes me, whiles the famous auncestries
Of my most dreaded Soveraigne I recount,
By which all earthly
