41 66 'I never saw anything like this funeral dirge,' says Charles Lamb, 'except the ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the element which it contemplates.' 43 70 Paraphrased from an Italian madrigal ... Non so conoscer poi Se voi le rose, o sian le rose in voi. 44 72 _crystal_: fairness. 45 73 _stare_: starling. -- 74 This 'Spousal Verse' was written in honour of the Ladies Elizabeth and Katherine Somerset. Nowhere has Spenser more emphatically displayed himself as the very poet of Beauty: The Renaissance impulse in England is here seen at its highest and purest. The genius of Spenser, like Chaucer's, does itself justice only in poems of some length. Hence it is impossible to represent it in this volume by other pieces of equal merit, but of impracticable dimensions. And the same applies to such poems as the _Lover's Lament_ or the _Ancient Mariner_. 46 -- _entrailed_: twisted. Feateously: elegantly. 48 -- _shend_: shame. 49 -- _a noble peer_: Robert Devereux, second Lord Essex, then at the height of his brief triumph after taking Cadiz: hence the allusion following to the Pillars of Hercules, placed near Gades by ancient legend. -- -- _Elisa_: Elizabeth. 50 -- _twins of Jove_: the stars Castor and Pollux: _baldric_, belt; the zodiac. 52 79 This lyric may with very high probability be assigned to Campion, in whose first Book of Airs it appeared (1601). The evidence sometimes quoted ascribing it to Lord Bacon appears to be valueless. _Summary of Book Second._