[489.] a goodly Citie, the Celestial City, Heaven. The description is suggested by that in Revelation, xxi, 10 seq.
[515.] That great Cleopolis, London, "the city of glory."
[519.] Panthea, probably Westminster Abbey, in which Elizabeth's ancestors were buried.
[524.] for earthly frame, for an earthly structure.
[549.] Saint George of mery England. St. George became the patron Saint of England in 1344, when Edward III consecrated to him the Order of the Garter. Church and Percival say that merry means pleasant and referred originally to the country, not the people. Cf. Mereweather.
[lxii.] Observe that lines 1, 2, 5, 6 are spoken by the Knight, the rest by Contemplation.
[565.] bequeathed care, the charge intrusted to thee (by Una).
[579.] and many bloody battailes, etc., and fought many bloody pitched battles.
[585.] Chaungelings. The belief in the power of fairies to substitute their elf-children for human babies is frequently referred to in writers of Spenser's time. In the Seven Champions the witch Kalyb steals away St. George, the son of Lord Albert of Coventry, soon after his birth.
[591.] Georgos, from the Greek γεωργός, an earth tiller, farmer. Spenser borrows the story in this stanza from that of Tages, son of Earth, who was similarly found and brought up. Ovid's Metamorphoses, xv, 553.