The whiles the Nymphs sit all about him round,
Lamenting his mishap and heavy plight;
And oft his mother, viewing his wide wound,
Cursed the hand that did so deadly smite
Her dearest son, her dearest heart's delight:
But none of all those curses overtook

The warlike Maid, the ensample of that might;
But fairly well she thrived, and well did brook

Her noble deeds, ne her right course for ought forsook.
Book III. Canto IV.

FLORIMEL IN THE WITCH'S HUT.

So long she travelled, till at length she came
To an hill-side, which did to her bewray1

A little valley subject to the same,

All covered with thick woods that quite it overcame.

Through the tops of the high trees she did descry
A little smoke, whose vapour thin and light
Reeking aloft uprollèd to the sky :

Which cheerful sign did send unto her sight
That in the same did won2 some living wight.3
Eftsoons her steps she thereunto applied,
And came at last in weary wretched plight
Unto the place to which her hope did guide,
To find some refuge there, and rest her weary side.

There in a gloomy hollow glen she found
A little cottage, built of sticks and reeds
In homely wise, and walled with sods around;
In which a Witch did dwell, in loathly weeds
And wilful want, all careless of her needs;
So choosing solitary to abide

Far from all neighbours, that her devilish deeds
And hellish arts from people she might hide,
And hurt far off unknown whom-ever she envied.

The Damsel there arriving entered in ;
Where sitting on the floor the Hag she found
Busy (as seemed) about some wicked gin :4
Who, soon as she beheld that sudden stound,5
Lightly upstarted from the dusty ground,
And with fell look and hollow deadly gaze
Stared on her a while, as one astound,

1 Betray. 2 Dwell. 3 Being. 4 Snare. 5 Disturbance. 6 Astounded.

Ne had one word to speak for great amaze,1

But shewed by outward signs that dread her sense did daze.

At last, turning her fear to foolish wrath,
She asked what devil had her thither brought,
And who she was, and what unwonted path
Had guided her, unwelcomèd, unsought?
To which the Damsel, full of doubtful thought,
Her mildly answered: "Beldame, be not wroth
With silly virgin, by adventure brought

Unto your dwelling, ignorant and loth,

That crave but room to rest while tempest overblowth."

With that, adown out of her crystal eyne
Few trickling tears she softly forth let fall,
That like to orient pearls did purely shine
Upon her snowy cheek; and therewithal
She sighed soft, that none so bestial

Nor salvage heart but ruth of her sad plight
Would make to melt, or piteously appal;
And that vile Hag, all2 were her whole delight
In mischief, was much movèd at so piteous sight;

And gan recomfort her in her rude wise,
With womanish compassion of her plaint,
Wiping the tears from her suffused eyes,
And bidding her sit down, to rest her faint
And weary limbs a while. She, nothing quaiņt3
Nor 'sdainful of so homely fashion,

Sith brought she was now to so hard constraint,
Sate down upon the dusty ground anon,

As glad of that small rest as bird of tempest gone.5

Thogan she gather up her garments rent,
And her loose locks to dight' in order due
With golden wreath and gorgeous ornament;
Whom such when-as the wicked Hag did view,
She was astonished at her heavenly hue,
And doubted her to deem an earthly wight,
But or some Goddess, or of Dian's crew,
And thought her to adore with humble spright : 10
To adore thing so divine as beauty were but right.

This wicked woman had a wicked son,
The comfort of her age and weary days,

A lazy loord,1 for nothing good to done,2 ·
But stretched forth in idleness always,
Ne ever cast his mind to covet praise,
Or ply himself to any honest trade,
But all the day before the sunny rays
He used to slug, or sleep in slothful shade:
Such laziness both lewd and poor at once him made.

He, coming home at undertime, there found
The farest creature that he ever saw
Sitting beside his mother on the ground;
The sight whereof did greatly him adaw,
And his base thought with terror and with awe
So inly smote that, as one which hath gazed
On the bright sun unwares doth soon withdraw
His feeble eyne, with too much brightness dazed,
So stared he on her, and stood long while amazed.

Softly at last he gan his mother ask

What mister wight that was, and whence derived,
That in so strange disguisement there did mask,
And by what accident she there arrived?
But she, as one nigh of her wits. deprived,
With nought but ghastly looks him answerèd ;
Like to a ghost, that lately is revived
From Stygian shores where late it wanderèd :
So both at her, and each at other wondered.

But the fair Virgin was so meek and mild
That she to them vouchsafèd to embase8
Her goodly port,9 and to their senses vild 10
Her gentle speech applied, that in short space
She grew familiar in that desert place.
During which time the Churl, through her so kind
And courteis 11 use, conceived affection base,
And cast 12 to love her in his brutish mind:

Oft from the forest wildings 13 he did bring,
Whose sides empurpled were with smiling red;
And oft young birds, which he had taught to sing,
His maistress' praises sweetly carollèd :

Garlands of flowers sometimes for her fair head
He fine would dight; 14 sometimes the squirrel wild
He brought to her in bands,15 as conquerèd

To be her thrall,1 his fellow-servant vild :2

All which she of him took with countenance meek and mild.

But, past a while,3 when she fit season saw
To leave that desert mansión, she cast
In secret wise herself thence to withdraw,
For fear of mischief, which she did forecast
Might by the Witch or by her son come past.
Her weary palfrey, closely as she might,
Now well recovered after long repast,

In his proud furnitures she freshly dight,

His late miswandered ways now to remeasure right;
And early, ere the dawning day appeared,
She forth issued, and on her journey went.

Book III. Canto VII.

ATÈ, MOTHER OF DEBATE.

Hard by the gates of Hell her dwelling is;
There, whereas all the plagues and harms abound
Which punish wicked men that walk amiss :
It is a darksome delve far under ground,
With thorns and barren brakes environed round,
That none the same may easily out-win :7
Yet many ways to enter may be found,
But none to issue forth when one is in ;
For discord harder is to end than to begin.

And all within the riven walls were hung
With ragged monuments of times forepast,
All which the sad effects of discord sung:
There were rent robes and broken sceptres placed ⚫
Altars defiled, and holy things defaced;
Disshivered spears, and shields ytorn in twain;
Great cities ransacked, and strong castles rased;
Nations captívèd, and huge armies slain :

Of all which ruins there some relics did remain. . . .

Her face most fowl and filthy was to see,
With squinted eyes contráry ways intended,
And loathly mouth, unmeet a mouth to be,
That nought but gall and venom comprehended,
And wicked words that God and man offended.

1 Slave.
6 Hole.

2 Vile.

3 After a time. 4 Secretly.
7 Get out.

5 Where.

Her lying tongue was in two parts divided,

And both the parts did speak, and both contended;
And as her tongue so was her heart discided,1,
That never thought one thing, but doubly still was guided.

Als as she double spake, so heard she double,
With matchless3 ears deformèd and distort,
Filled with false rumours and seditious trouble,
Bred in assemblies of the vulgar sort,
That still are led with every light report:
And as her ears, so eke her feet were odd,
And much unlike; the one long, the other short,

And both misplaced: that, when the one forward yode,
The other back retirèd and contráry trode.

Likewise unequal were her handès twain ;
That one did reach the other pushed away;
That one did make the other marred again,
And sought to bring all things unto decay;
Whereby great riches, gathered many a day,
She in short space did often bring to nought,
And their possessors often did dismay :
For all her study was and all her thought

How she might overthrow the things that Concord wrought.

Book IV. Canto I.

ENVY.

Tho, as he back returnèd from that land,
And there arrived again whence forth he set,
He had not passèd far upon the strand
When-as two old ill-favoured Hags he met,
By the wayside being together set;

Two griesly creatures: and, to that their faces
Most foul and filthy were, their garments yet,
Being all ragged and tattered, their disgraces
Did much the more augment, and made most ugly cases.

The one of them, that elder did appear,
With her dull eyes did seem to look askew,
That her mis-shape much helped; and her foul hear
Hung loose and loathsomely: thereto her hue

Was wan and lean, that all her teeth arew,9