Transcriber’s note
In the HTML version the stanza numbers (indicated by Roman numerals) arein the left margin. In the EPUB3, EPUB, and Kindle versions,they are located on the right side after the firstline ends.
THE POETICAL WORKS OFEDMUND SPENSER
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOLUME II
SPENSER’S
FAERIE QUEENE
EDITED BY
J. C. SMITH
VOLUME I: BOOKS I-III
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4
GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA
CAPE TOWN SALISBURY NAIROBI IBADAN ACCRA
KUALA LUMPUR HONG KONG
FIRST PUBLISHED 1909
REPRINTED LITHOGRAPHICALLY IN GREAT BRITAIN
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD
FROM SHEETS OF THE FIRST IMPRESSION
1961, 1964
[Pg v]
INTRODUCTION.
I.
In these volumes I seek to present a true text ofthe Faerie Queene, founded upon a fresh collation of theQuartos of 1590 and 1596 and the Folio of 1609.I shall call these editions by their dates for short.
The fragmentary Seventh Book appeared first in 1609:for the rest the text is based on 1596. Some typographicalpeculiarities—long s, &, ô, and superscribed m and n(e.g. frõ, whẽ)—have not been reproduced, but noted onlywhere they first occur. With these exceptions, the readingsof 1596 if not adopted in the text are recorded in thenotes; so that text and notes together amount, in effect, toa complete reprint of 1596. No such completeness hasbeen attempted in recording variants from 1590 and 1609.But all verbal differences are recorded, and all differences ofpunctuation that imply a different view of the meaning.Mere changes of spelling that answer to no change ofpronunciation are, as a rule, ignored; but I have recordedsuch differences of spelling as seemed likely to intereststudents of Elizabethan phonology, grammar, and usage.The evidence of these variants must be used with cautionin view of Spenser’s deliberate archaism. Yet I believe thatthey have some value. I give one instance in each kind:—
1. A fluid e-sound is indicated by the variants‘seeldome’ 1590, ‘seldome’ 1596, ‘sildom’ 1609, at I. iv.23, l. 5.
2. Syllabic -es in possessives and plurals, which stilllingered in the early fifteen-nineties, has grown quite strangeto the editor of 1609. To this point I shall return.
[Pg vi]
3. The conjunctions ‘since’ and ‘sith’ are used indifferentlyin 1590 and 1596, choice of one or other formbeing determined by euphony alone. But 1609 makesa deliberate, though not quite consistent, attempt to appropriate‘since’ to the temporal, ‘sith’ to the causal sense.The attempt unfortunately did not avail to save the moreprimitive form.
I have departed from the punctuation of 1596 only whereit seemed likely to puzzle or mislead a modern reader.These departures, which are all recorded, are not verynumerous. Spenser’s punctuation, though by no meanssacrosanct, is less arbitrary than might at first appear; but,as Mr. Gregory Smith says of the punctuation of Addison,it has a rhetorical rather than a logical value. We feel itsforce best when we read the poem aloud. T