208 haply seem tedious and confused. So, humbly craving the
haply > perhaps
209 continuance of your honourable favour towards me, and the 210 eternal establishment of your happiness, I humbly take leave. 211 23 January, 1590
1590 > (New Style: before the Gregorian calendar was adopted in England and Scotland in 1751, the new year began not on 1 January but on 25 March)
212 213 Yours most humbly affectionate, 214 Edmund Spenser 215 216 217 218 219 220 A Vision vpon this conceipt of the 221 Faery Queene. 222 223 ME thought I saw the graue, where Laura lay, 224 Within that Temple, where the vestall flame 225 Was wont to burne, and passing by that way, 226 To see that buried dust of liuing fame, 227 Whose tombe faire loue, and fairer vertue kept, 228 All suddenly I saw the Faery Queene: 229 At whose approch the soule of Petrarke wept, 230 And from thenceforth those graces were not seene. 231 For they this Queene attended, in whose steed 232 Obliuion laid him downe on Lauras herse: 233 Hereat the hardest stones were seene to bleed, 234 And grones of buried ghostes the heauens did perse. 235 Where Homers spright did tremble all for griefe, 236 And curst th'accesse of that celestiall theife. 237 216 217 218 COMMENDATORY VERSES 219 220 _A vision upon this conceit of the
conceit > conception
221 Faery Queen_ 222 223 I thought I saw the grave where Laura lay,
Laura > (Immortalized by Petrarch in his odes and sonnets, To Laura)
224 Within that temple where the Vestal flame
Vestal flame > (The sacred fire brought by Aeneas from Troy; it was kept burning by the Vestals, virgin priestesses officiating at the temple at Rome dedicated to Vesta, goddess of the hearth and domestic life. If the flame went out, it was believed that the state would fall)