“And though he do not win his wish to end,
Yet thus farre happie he him selfe doth weene,
That heavens such happie grace did to him lend,
No thing on earth so heavenly, to have seene,
His harts enshrined saint, his heavens queene,
Fairer then fairest, in his fayning eye,
Whose sole aspect he counts felicitye.”
(ll. 214–220.)
Because of this love of beauty, Spenser was able to find more material in the Renaissance criticism of Platonic æsthetics for his “Hymne in Honour of Beautie” than in the corresponding hymn on love. Besides the conception of the creative power of love, his “Hymne in Honour of Love” draws upon a few suggestions which could dignify the power of the passion. The saying of Diotima to Socrates in the “Symposium,”—“Marvel not then at the love which all men have of their offspring; for that universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality” (208)—is made to do service in differentiating the passion of love in men from that in beasts. By satisfying physical desire beasts
“all do live, and moved are