[139.] One knocked at the dore, Kirkrapine, the plunderer of the Church. Spenser represents in him the peculiar vices of the Irish clergy and laity.
[166.] stay him to advize, stop to reflect.
[172.] him booteth not resist, it does him no good to resist. This whole passage refers, perhaps, to Henry VIII's suppression of the monasteries and convents in 1538-39.
[185.] that long wandring Greeke. Ulysses, or Odysseus, the hero of Homer's Odyssey, who wandered ten years and refused immortality from the goddess Calypso in order that he might return to Penelope.
[xxii.] Note the rhymes deare, heare, and teare (air). This 16th century pronunciation still survives in South Carolina. See Ellis's Early English Pronunciation, III, 868. This stanza reads like the description of an Irish wake.
[238.] Or ought have done, or have done something to displease you.
[239.] That should as death, etc., that should settle like death, etc.
[248.] And chose in Faery court. See Spenser's letter to Sir W. Raleigh, p. 6.
[250.] her kindly skill, her natural power.
[276.] fierce Orions hound, Sirius, the Dog-star, the brightest of the fixed stars. The constellation Orion was named from a giant hunter who was beloved by Aurora and slain by Diana.