In all that rowme was nothing to be seene But huge great yron chests, and coffers strong, All bard with double bends, that none could weene Them to efforce by violence or wrong: On every side they placed were along; But all the grownd with sculs was scattered, And dead mens bones, which round about were flong; Whose lives, it seemed, whilome{34} there were shed, And their vile carcases now left unburied. NOTES. This is a selection from Spenser's great poem, "The Faerie Queene," being a part of the seventh canto of book second. "The Faerie Queene" was published in 1590, and comprises six books of twelve cantos each. The first book is the Legend of the Red Cross Knight, or Holiness; the second, of Sir Guyon, or Temperance; the third, of Britomartis, or Chastity; the fourth, of Cambel and Triamond, or Friendship; the fifth, of Artegall, or Justice; the sixth, of Sir Calidore, or Courtesy. It was Spenser's design that the complete work should contain twelve books, but of the remaining part only a fragment of one book, the "Legend of Constance," is in existence. The versification of the "Faerie Queene" is based upon the _ottava rima_, made so popular in Italian poetry by Tasso and Ariosto. Instead of eight lines to a stanza, however, there are nine. The first eight lines are iambic pentameters, and the ninth a hexameter, the stanza thus closing with a lingering cadence which adds greatly to the melody of the verse. This is the "Spenserian stanza," a form of versification very popular with many of our later poets. "If you love poetry well enough to enjoy it for its own sake," says Leigh Hunt, "let no evil reports of his _allegory_ deter you from an acquaintance with Spenser, for great will be your loss. His allegory itself is but one part allegory and nine parts beauty and enjoyment; sometimes an excess of flesh and blood. His wholesale poetical belief, mixing up all creeds and mythologies, but with less violence, resembles that of Dante and Boccaccio. His versification is almost perpetual honey." 1. =delve.= Dell. From A.-S. _delfan_, delve, to dig. Each canto of the "Faerie Queene" is introduced by a four-line doggerel like this, containing the argument, or a brief summary of the narrative,--in imitation, probably, of Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso." 2. =hore.= Sordid, miserly. Probably from A.-S. _harian_, to become mouldy or musty. The word _hoard_ may be traced to a similar root. 3. =stedfast starre.= The pole-star. See "Faerie Queene," I, ii, 1: "By this the northerne wagoner had set His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre That was in ocean waves yet never wet, But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre." 4. =yblent.= Blinded. 5. =dreriment.= Darkness. 6. =firmes.= Fixes, makes firm. 7. =yode.= Went. The past participle of the old verb _yede_, from A.-S. _gangead_, to go, to proceed.