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The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto 1
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15. FOR SOVERAINE HOPE, as a sign of the supreme hope.
20. GREATEST GLORIANA, Queen Elizabeth. In other books of The Faerie Queene she is called Belphoebe, the patroness of chastity, and Britomart, the military genius of Britain.
27. A DRAGON, “the great dragon, that old serpent, called the devil,” Revelation, xii, 9, also Rome and Spain. Cf. legend of St. George and the dragon, and Fletcher’s Purple Island, vii seq.
28. A LOVELY LADIE, Una, the personification of truth and true religion. Her lamb symbolizes innocence.
46. A DWARFE, representing prudence, or common sense; according to Morley, the flesh.
56. A SHADIE GROVE, the wood of Error. “By it Spenser shadows forth the danger surrounding the mind that escapes from the bondage of Roman authority and thinks for itself.”–Kitchin. The description of the wood is an imitation of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, i, 37, Chaucer’s Assembly of Foules, 176, and Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, iii, 75. Morley sees in this grove an allegory of man’s life, the trees symbolizing trade, pleasure, youth, etc.
69. THE SAYLING PINE. Ships were built of pine.
70. THE LOPLAR NEVER DRY, because it grows best in moist soil.
71. THE BUILDER OAKE. In the Middle Ages most manor houses and churches were built of oak.
72. THE CYPRESSE FUNERALL, an emblem of death among the ancients, and sacred to Pluto. Sidney says that they were wont to dress graves with cypress branches in old times.
73. THE LAURELL. Victors at the Pythian games and triumphing Roman generals were crowned with laurel. It was also sacred to Apollo, the god of poetry, hence “meed of poets sage.”
74. THE FIRRE THAT WEEPETH STILL. The fir exudes resinous substance.
75. THE WILLOW. “Willows: a sad tree, whereof such who have lost their love make their mourning garlands.”–Fuller’s Worthies, i, 153. Cf. Heywood’s Song of the Green Willow, and Desdemona’s song in Othello, IV, iii, 39.
76. THE EUGH. Ascham in his Toxophilus tells us that the best bows were made of yew.
78. THE MIRRHE, the Arabian myrtle, which exudes a bitter but fragrant gum. The allusion is to the wounding of Myrrha by her father and her metamorphosis into this tree.
79. THE WARLIKE BEECH, because lances and other arms were made of it. THE ASH FOR NOTHING ILL. “The uses of the ash is one of the most universal: it serves the souldier, the carpenter, the wheelwright, cartwright, cooper, turner, and thatcher.”–Evelyn’s Sylva. The great tree Igdrasil in the northern mythology was an ash.
81. THE CARVER HOLME, or evergreen oak, was good for carving.
106. SHAME WERE TO REVOKE, etc., it would be cowardly not to go forward for fear of some suspected unseen danger.
114. THE WANDRING WOOD, i.e. which causes men to go astray.
123. MONSTER. The description of the monster Error, or Falsehood, is based on Hesiod’s Echidna, Theog. 301, and the locusts in Revelation, ix, 7-10. She is half human, half serpent, because error is partly true and partly false. Dante’s Fraud and Milton’s Sin are similar monsters.
126. FULL OF VILE DISDAINE, full of vileness that bred disgust in the beholder.
130. OF HER THERE BRED, etc., of her were born a thousand young ones. Her offspring are lies and rumors of many shapes.
141. ARMED TO POINT, completely armed. Cf. Fr. a point, to a nicety.
145. THE VALIANT ELFE, because he was the reputed son of an Elfin or Faerie, though really sprung from “an ancient race of Saxon kings.” Three kinds of elves are mentioned in the Edda: the black dwarfs, and brownies, who both dwelt under ground, and the fair elves, who dwelt in Fairyland or Alfheim. “The difference between Spenser’s elves and these Teutonic elves shows how he perverts Fairy mythology in the same way as he does Classical myths.”–Percival.
168. HIS GALL DID GRATE FOR GRIEFE, his anger was aroused on account of pain. In the old anatomy anger had its seat in the gallbladder. See Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, I, i, 2.
177. HER VOMIT FULL OF BOOKES, etc. From 1570, when Pope Sixtus V issued his bull of deposition against Queen Elizabeth, to 1590, great numbers of scurrilous pamphlets attacking the Queen and the Reformed church had been disseminated by Jesuit refugees.