At length within the yvie todde
(There shrowded was the little god)
I heard a busie bustling;
I bent my bolt against the bush,
Listning if anie thing did rush,
But then heard no more rustling.
Tho, peeping close into the thicke,
Might see the moving of some quicke,
Whose shape appearèd not;
But were it faerie, feend, or snake,
My courage yearn’d it to awake,
And manfully thereat shotte:
With that sprang forth a naked swayne,
With spotted winges like peacock’s trayne,
And, laughing, lope to a tree;
His gylden quiver at his back;
And silver bowe, which was but slacke,
Which lightly he bent at me:
That seeing, I leveld againe,
And shot at him with might and mayne,
As thick as it had hayled:
So long I shott, that all was spent;
The pumie-stones I hastily hent,
And threw; but nought avayled:
He was so nimble and so wight,
From bough to bough he leppèd light,
And oft the pumies latchèd.
—Shepherd’s Calendar, March, v. 67.
Latched, is caught; and pumies, and pumie-stones, are pumice-stones, a very light mineral. The fowler is considerate, and would not break the bird’s head. This passage is one of the least obsolete in its style of all the Shepherd’s Calendar; yet what a pity to see it deformed with words requiring explanation, such as latched for caught, tho for then, lope for leaped, &c. With the like needless perversity, forgetful of his elevated calling, Spenser, in his pastoral character, delights to designate himself as “Colin Clout,” as though he were nothing better than a patch in the very heels of clodhopping. And yet, under this name, he sees the Nymphs and Graces dancing round his shepherdess upon Mount Acidale! The passage, otherwise, is one of his most elegant pieces of invention; and with the Grecian topography, may be said to exhibit the very highest region and crown of the pastoral side of Parnassus. Sir Calidore, the Knight of Courtesy (for thus does he mix up the classical and romantic grounds; but no matter for that, since they are both in the regions of imagination), hears a noise of music and dancing as he is approaching the top of Mount Acidale. Upon looking amongst the trees, when he reaches it, he sees a shepherd piping to his love, in the midst of
An hundred naked maidens, lily-white,
All rangèd in a ring, and dancing in delight.
But we must not lose the description of the place itself:—
It was an hill, plaiste in an open plaine,
That round about is border’d with a wood
Of matchless hight, that seem’d th’ earth to disdaine,
In which all trees of honour stately stood,
And did all winter as in summer bud,
Spredding pavillions for the birds to bowre,
Which in their lower braunches sang aloud;
And in their tops the soring hawk did towre,
Sitting like king of foules in majesty and powre:
And at the foote thereof a gentle flud
His silver waves did softly tumble down,
Unmar’d with ragged mosse or filthy mud;
Ne mote wild beastes, ne mote the ruder clowne,
Thereto approach; ne filth mote therein drowne:
But Nymphs and Faeries by the bancks did sit
In the wood’s shade, which did the waters crowne,
Keeping all noysome things away from it,
And to the water’s fall tuning their accents fit.
And on the top thereof a spacious plaine
Did spred itselfe, to serve to all delight,
Either to daunce, when they to daunce would faine
Or else to course about their bases light;
Ne ought there wanted, which for pleasure might
Desirèd be, or thence to banish bale;
So pleasantly the hill with equall hight
Did seem to overlooke the lowly vale;
Therefore it rightly cleepèd was Mount Acidale.[6]
They say that Venus, when she did dispose
Herselfe to pleasaunce, usèd to resort
Unto this place, and therein to repose
And rest herself, as in a gladsome port;
Or with the Graces, there to play and sport;
That even her own Cytheron, though in it
She usèd most to keep her royall court,
And in her soveraine majesty to sit,
She, in regard thereof, refusde and thought unfit.
Unto this place when as the elfin knight
Approacht, him seemèd that the merry sound
Of a shrill pipe he playing heard on hight,
And many feete fast thumping th’ hollow ground,
That through the woods their echo did rebound.
He hither drew, to weete what mote it be:
There he a troupe of ladies dauncing found
Full merrily, and making gladfull glee,
And in the midst a shepherd piping he did see.
He durst not enter into th’ open greene,
For dread of them unawares to be descryde,
For breaking of their daunce, if he were seene;
But in the covert of the wood did byde,
Beholding all, yet of them unespyde:
There he did see, that pleased much his sight,
That even he himself his eyes envyde,
An hundred naked maidens, lilly white,
All raungèd in a ring and dauncing in delight.
In the middle of this orb of fair creatures, the beauty of which there is nothing of the sort to equal, (unless it be those circles of lily-white stamens which, with such exquisite mystery, adorn the commonest flower-cups—so profuse of her poetry is Nature!), Sir Calidore sees “three other ladies,” both dancing and singing—to wit, the Graces; and in the midst of “those same three” was yet another lady, or rather “damsel” (for she was of rustic origin), crowned with a garland of roses, and so beautiful, that she was the very gem of the ring, and “graced” the Graces themselves. The hundred nymphs, as they danced, threw flowers upon her; the Graces endowed her with the gifts which she reflected upon them, enhanced; and a shepherd sat piping to them all.
Never, surely, was such deification of a “country lass;” and well might the poet hail his spectacle in a rapture of self-complacency, and encourage his pipe to play on:—
Pype, jolly shepheard! pype thou now apace
Unto thy love, that made thee low to lout.
(He has raised her from the condition to which he stooped to obtain her.)
Thy love is present there with thee in place—