“Yet oft it falles, that many a gentle mynd
Dwels in deformed tabernacle drownd,
Either by chaunce, against the course of kynd,
Or through unaptnesse in the substance sownd,
Which it assumed of some stubborne grownd,
That will not yield unto her formes direction,
But is perform’d with some foule imperfection.”
(ll. 144–150.)
After an exhortation to the “faire Dames” to keep their souls unspotted (ll. 165–200), Spenser outlines the true manner of love and in the course of his poem he accounts for that manifestation of power which the beloved’s beauty has over the mind of the lover. According to Ficino, true lovers are those whose souls have departed from heaven under the same astral influences and who, accordingly, are informed with the same idea in imitation of which they frame their earthly bodies. (VI. 6.) Thus Spenser writes that love is not a matter of chance, but a union of souls ordained by heaven.
“For Love is a celestiall harmonie,