Spenser Quotes

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Thankfulness is the tune of angels. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
All the books were beginning to turn against me. Indeed, I must have been blind as a bat not to have seen it long before, the ludicrous contradiction between my theory of life and my actual experiences as a reader. George MacDonald had done more to me than any other writer; of course it was a pity that he had that bee in his bonnet about Christianity. He was good in spite of it. Chesterton has more sense than all the other moderns put together; bating, of course, his Christianity. Johnson was one of the few authors whom I felt I could trust utterly; curiously enough, he had the same kink. Spenser and Milton by a strange coincidence had it too. Even among ancient authors the same paradox was to be found. The most religious (Plato, Aeschylus, Virgil) were clearly those on whom I could really feed. On the other hand, those writers who did not suffer from religion and with whom in theory my sympathy ought to have been complete -- Shaw and Wells and Mill and Gibbon and Voltaire -- all seemed a little thin; what as boys we called "tinny". It wasn't that I didn't like them. They were all (especially Gibbon) entertaining; but hardly more. There seemed to be no depth in them. They were too simple. The roughness and density of life did not appear in their books. ~ C.S. Lewis
Spenser quotes by C.S. Lewis
We have then, in the first part of The Faerie Queene, four of the seven deadly sins depicted in the more important passages of the four several books; those sins being much more elaborately and powerfully represented than the virtues, which are opposed to them, and which are personified in the titular heroes of the respective books. The alteration which made these personified virtues the centre each of a book was probably part of the reconstruction on the basis of Aristotle Ethics.
The nature of the debt to Aristotle suggests that Spenser did not borrow directly from the Greek, but by way of modern translations. ~ Janet Spens
Spenser quotes by Janet Spens
This iron world bungs down the stoutest hearts to lowest state; for misery doth bravest minds abate. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Good Hobbinoll, what garres thee greete?
What! hath some wolfe thy tender lambes ytorne?
Or is thy bagpype broke, that soundes so sweete?
Or art thou of thy loved lasse forlorne? ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Yet nothing did he dread, but euer was ydrad. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Hard it is to teach the old horse to amble anew. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
If you read only the best, you will have no need of reading the other books, because the latter are nothing but a rehash of the best and the oldest. To read Shakespeare, Plato, Dante, Milton, Spenser, Chaucer, and their compeers in prose, is to read in condensed form what all others have diluted. ~ Anna Brackett
Spenser quotes by Anna Brackett
And thus of all my harvest-hope I have Nought reaped but a weedye crop of care. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Has anyone ever told you," I said, "that you coalesce reality?"
"No. They only say that I'm good in the sack."
"They are accurate but limited," I said. "And if you give me their names I'll kill them. ~ Robert B. Parker
Spenser quotes by Robert B. Parker
For evil deeds may better than bad words be borne. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds; ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
It is the mind that maketh good of ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
I learned have, not to despise,What ever thing seemes small in common eyes. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Then came October, full of merry glee. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
For deeds to die, however nobly done, And thoughts of men to as themselves decay, But wise words taught in numbers for to run, Recorded by the Muses, live for ay. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Foul jealousy! that turnest love divine to joyless dread, and makest the loving heart with hateful thoughts to languish and to pine. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Be bold, and everywhere be bold. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
After long stormes and tempests sad assay, Which hardly I endured heretofore: in dread of death and daungerous dismay, with which my silly barke was tossed sore: I doe at length descry the happy shore, in which I hope ere long for to arryue: fayre soyle it seemes from far and fraught with store of all that deare and daynty is alyue. Most happy he that can at last atchyue the ioyous safety of so sweet a rest: whose least delight sufficeth to depriue remembrance of all paines which him opprest. All paines are nothing in respect of this, all sorrowes short that gaine eternall blisse. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat? ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
For easy things, that may be got at will, Most sorts of men do set but little store. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
For next to Death is Sleepe to be compared;
Therefore his house is unto his annext:
Here Sleepe, ther Richesse, and hel-gate them both betwext. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Much can they praise the trees so straight and high, The sailing pine,the cedar proud and tall, The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry, The builder oak, sole king of forests all, The aspin good for staves, the cypress funeral, The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage, the fir that weepest still, The yew obedient to the bender's will, The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill, The myrrh sweet-bleeding in the bitter wound, The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill, The fruitful olive, and the platane round, The carver holm, the maple seldom inward sound. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
And he that strives to touch the stars
Oft stumbles at a straw. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
O happy earth, Whereon thy innocent feet doe ever tread! ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Vain-glorious man, when fluttering wind does blow
In his light wing's, is lifted up to sky;
The scorn of-knighthood and true chivalry.
To think, without desert of gentle deed
And noble worth, to be advanced high,
Such praise is shame, but honour, virtue's meed,
Doth bear the fairest flower in honourable seed. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
The whiles some one did chaunt this louely lay;
Ah see, who so faire thing doest faine to see,
In springing flowre the image of thy day;
Ah see the Virgin Rose, how sweetly shee
Doth first peepe forth with bashfull modestee,
That fairer seemes, the lesse ye see her may;
Lo see soone after, how more bold and free
Her bared bosome she doth broad display;
Loe see soone after, how she fades, and falles away.

So passeth, in the passing of a day,
Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre,
Ne more doth flourish after first decay,
That earst was sought to decke both bed and bowre,
Of many a Ladie, and many a Paramowre:
Gather therefore the Rose, whilest yet is prime,
For soone comes age, that will her pride deflowre:
Gather the Rose of love, whilest yet is time,
Whilest louing thou mayst loued be with equall crime. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
What then? Are we only to buy the books that we read? The question has merely to be thus bluntly put, and it answers itself. All impassioned bookmen, except a few who devote their whole lives to reading, have rows of books on their shelves which they have never read, and which they never will read. I know that I have hundreds such. My eye rests on the works of Berkeley in three volumes, with a preface by the Right Honourable Arthur James Balfour. I cannot conceive the circumstances under which I shall ever read Berkeley; but I do not regret having bought him in a good edition, and I would buy him again if I had him not; for when I look at him some of his virtue passes into me; I am the better for him. A certain aroma of philosophy informs my soul, and I am less crude than I should otherwise be. This is not fancy, but fact.

[…..]

"Taking Berkeley simply as an instance, I will utilise him a little further. I ought to have read Berkeley, you say; just as I ought to have read Spenser, Ben Jonson, George Eliot, Victor Hugo. Not at all. There is no 'ought' about it. If the mass of obtainable first-class literature were, as it was perhaps a century ago, not too large to be assimilated by a man of ordinary limited leisure _in_ his leisure and during the first half of his life, then possibly there might be an 'ought' about it. But the mass has grown unmanageable, even by those robust professional readers who can 'grapple with whole libraries.' And I am not a prof ~ Arnold Bennett
Spenser quotes by Arnold Bennett
My Love Is Like To Ice, And I To Fire
My love is like to ice, and I to fire;
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolv'd through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not delay'd by her heart-frozen cold;
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold!
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice;
And ice, which is congeal'd with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device!
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Go little book, thy self present, As child whose parent is unkent: To him that is the president Of noblesse and of chivalry, And if that Envy bark at thee, As sure it will, for succour flee. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
But angels come to lead frail minds to rest in chaste desires, on heavenly beauty bound. You frame my thoughts, and fashion me within; you stop my tongue, and teach my heart to speak. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
For take thy ballaunce if thou be so wise, And weigh the winds that under heaven doth blow; Or weigh the light that in the east doth rise; Or weigh the thought that from man's mind doth flow. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Belson came into the apartment with some crime-scene people and two homicide detectives.

"This guy," Charlie said, and looked at his notebook, "Spenser. He was impersonating a police officer."

Belson glanced at him. "We all thought that," Belson said, "when he was a cop. ~ Robert B. Parker
Spenser quotes by Robert B. Parker
But Justice, though her dome doom she doe prolong,Yet at the last she will her owne cause right. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
For that which all men then did virtue call, Is now called vice; and that which vice was hight, Is now hight virtue, and so used of all: Right now is wrong, and wrong that was is right ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
They that haue much, feare much to loose thereby,
And store of cares doth follow riches store. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Here haue I cause, in men iust blame to find,
That in their proper prayse too partiall bee,
And not indifferent to woman kind,
To whom no share in armes and cheualrie
They do impart, ne maken memorie
Of their brave gestes and prowess martiall;
Scarse do they spare to one or two or three,
Rowme in their writs; yet the same writing small
Does all their deeds deface, and dims their glories all,
But by record of antique times I find,
That women wont in warres to beare most sway,
And to all great exploits them selues inclind:
Of which they still the girlond bore away,
Till enuious Men fearing their rules decay,
Gan coyne straight laws to curb their liberty;
Yet sith they warlike armes haue layd away:
They haue exceld in artes and policy,
That now we foolish men that prayse gin eke t'enuy. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Yet is there one more cursed than they all,
That canker-worm, that monster, jealousie,
Which eats the heart and feeds upon the gall,
Turning all love's delight to misery,
Through fear of losing his felicity. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Much more profitable and gracious is doctrine by example than by rule. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
But O the exceeding grace
Of highest God, that loves his creatures so,
And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels, he sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
There is nothing lost, but may be found, if sought.
(No hay nada perdido, que no pueda encontrarse, si se lo busca) ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Laws ought to be fashioned unto the manners and conditions of the people whom they are meant to benefit, and not imposed upon them according to the simple rule of right. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
All sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring
In goodly colours gloriously arrayed;
Go to my love, where she is careless laid ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd, No arborett with painted blossoms drest And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
There's no justice for the back seat. ~ Jax Spenser
Spenser quotes by Jax Spenser
Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. ~ Spenser ~ Robert B. Parker
Spenser quotes by Robert B. Parker
Hark, how the cheerful birds do chaunt their lays, and carol of love's praise. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
In one consort there sat cruel revenge and rancorous despite, disloyal treason and heart-burning hate. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
He oft finds med'cine, who his griefe imparts;
But double griefs afflict concealing harts,
As raging flames who striveth to supresse. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Fondnesse it were for any being free,
To covet fetters, though they golden bee. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
So passeth, in the passing of a day,
Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Waking love suffereth no sleepe:
Say, that raging love dothe appall the weake stomacke:
Say, that lamenting love marreth the musicall. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
I read Parker's Spenser series in college. When it comes to detective novels, 90 percent of us admit he's an influence, and the rest of us lie about it. ~ Harlan Coben
Spenser quotes by Harlan Coben
Even the best critical writing on Emily Dickinson underestimates her. She is frightening. To come to her directly from Dante, Spenser, Blake, and Baudelaire is to find her sadomasochism obvious and flagrant. Birds, bees, and amputated hands are the dizzy stuff of this poetry. Dickinson is like the homosexual cultist draping himself in black leather and chains to bring the idea of masculinity into aggressive visibility. ~ Camille Paglia
Spenser quotes by Camille Paglia
Why then should witless man so much misweene
That nothing is but that which he hath seene? ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Pour out the wine without restraint or stay,
Pour not by cups, but by the bellyful,
Pour out to all that wull. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
The ever-whirling wheele Of Change, to which all mortal things doth sway. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Make haste therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime,
For none can call again the passed time. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Yeah. Floyd is his batman."
His what?"
Batman, like in the British army, each officer had a batman, a personal servant."
You spend too much time reading, Spenser. You know more stuff that don't make you money than anybody I know. ~ Robert B. Parker
Spenser quotes by Robert B. Parker
The nightingale is sovereign of song. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
What, then, can Shakespearean tragedy, on this brief view, tell us about human time in an eternal world? It offers imagery of crisis, of futures equivocally offered, by prediction and by action, as actualities; as a confrontation of human time with other orders, and the disastrous attempt to impose limited designs upon the time of the world. What emerges from Hamlet is--after much futile, illusory action--the need of patience and readiness. The 'bloody period' of Othello is the end of a life ruined by unseasonable curiosity. The millennial ending of Macbeth, the broken apocalypse of Lear, are false endings, human periods in an eternal world. They are researches into death in an age too late for apocalypse, too critical for prophecy; an age more aware that its fictions are themselves models of the human design on the world. But it was still an age which felt the human need for ends consonant with the past, the kind of end Othello tries to achieve by his final speech; complete, concordant. As usual, Shakespeare allows him his tock; but he will not pretend that the clock does not go forward. The human perpetuity which Spenser set against our imagery of the end is represented here also by the kingly announcements of Malcolm, the election of Fortinbras, the bleak resolution of Edgar.

In apocalypse there are two orders of time, and the earthly runs to a stop; the cry of woe to the inhabitants of the earth means the end of their time; henceforth 'time shall be no more.' I ~ Frank Kermode
Spenser quotes by Frank Kermode
There is a knife blade in the grass," I said. "And a tiger lies just outside the fire." "My God, Spenser, that's bathetic. Either tell me about what hurts or don't. But for crissake, don't sit here and quote bad verse at me." "Oh damn," I said. "I was just going to swing into Hamlet." "You do and I'll call the cops." "Okay," I said. "You're right. But bathetic? That's hard, Suze. ~ Robert B. Parker
Spenser quotes by Robert B. Parker
from Arlington Street and onto the bridge. He had his hands in his coat pockets. "You Spenser?" he said. "Yes. ~ Robert B. Parker
Spenser quotes by Robert B. Parker
Full many mischiefs follow cruel wrath;
Abhorred bloodshed and tumultuous strife
Unmanly murder and unthrifty scath,
Bitter despite, with rancor's rusty knife;
And fretting grief the enemy of life;
All these and many evils more, haunt ire. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
What franticke fit (quoth he) hath thus distraught
Thee, foolish man, so rash a doome to give?
What justice ever other judgement taught,
But he should die, who merites not to live?
None else to death this man despayring drive,
But his owne guiltie mind deserving death.
Is then unjust to each his due to give?
Or let him die, that loatheth living breath?
Or let him die at ease, that liveth here uneath?

Who travels by the wearie wandring way,
To come unto his wished home in haste,
And meetes a flood, that doth his passage stay,
Is not great grace to helpe him over past,
Or free his feet, that in the myre sticke fast?
Most envious man, that grieves at neighbours good,
And fond, that joyest in the woe thou hast,
Why wilt not let him passe, that long hath stood
Upon the banke, yet wilt thy selfe not passe the flood?

He there does now enjoy eternall rest
And happie ease, which thou doest want and crave,
And further from it daily wanderest:
What if some litle paine the passage have,
That makes fraile flesh to feare the bitter wave?
Is not short paine well borne, that brings long ease,
And layes the soule to sleepe in quiet grave?
Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life does greatly please.

[...]

Is not his deed, what ever thing is donne,
In heaven and earth? did not he all creat ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
He that strives to touch the starts, oft stumbles at a straw. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
You ask whether I have ever been in love: fool as I am, I am not such a fool as that. But if one is only to talk from first-hand experience, conversation would be a very poor business. But though I have no personal experience of the things they call love, I have what is better - the experience of Sappho, of Euripides, of Catallus, of Shakespeare, of Spenser, of Austen, of Bronte, of anyone else I have read. ~ C.S. Lewis
Spenser quotes by C.S. Lewis
Nothing under heaven so strongly doth allure the sense of man, and all his mind possess, as beauty's love. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Natalie Spenser was giving a dinner. She was not an easy hostess. ~ Mary Roberts Rinehart
Spenser quotes by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Wrath, gealosie, griefe, loue do thus expell:
Wrath is a fire, and gealosie a weede,
Griefe is a flood, and loue a monster fell;
The fire of sparkes, the weede of little seede,
The flood of drops, the Monster filth did breede:
But sparks, seed, drops, and filth do thus delay;
The sparks soone quench, the springing seed outweed,
The drops dry vp, and filth wipe cleane away:
So shall wrath, gealosie, griefe, loue dye and decay. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
We split a bottle of Norman cider. Not everybody sells Norman cider by the bottle.
"Has a European feel" Susan said.
"That sounds terrific" I said. "Can I have one?"
Susan grinned at me. "How did you ever get to be so big without growing up?" she said.
"Iron self-control" I said. ~ Robert B. Parker
Spenser quotes by Robert B. Parker
English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake Poets - Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, included - breathes no quite fresh and, in this sense, wild strain. It is an essentially tame and civilized literature, reflecting Greece and Rome. ...
Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature?
...
I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild.
...
The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine having yielded their crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate, the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. ~ Henry David Thoreau
Spenser quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Hasty wrath and heedless hazardy do breed repentance late and lasting infamy. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Later these tales would be retold and embellished by the genius of Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson. ~ Winston S. Churchill
Spenser quotes by Winston S. Churchill
Men call you fayre, and you doe credit it,
For that your self ye daily such doe see:
But the trew fayre, that is the gentle wit,
And vertuous mind, is much more praysd of me.
For all the rest, how ever fayre it be,
Shall turne to nought and loose that glorious hew:
But onely that is permanent and free
From frayle corruption, that doth flesh ensew.
That is true beautie: that doth argue you
To be divine and borne of heavenly seed:
Deriv'd from that fayre Spirit, from whom al true
And perfect beauty did at first proceed.
He onely fayre, and what he fayre hath made,
All other fayre lyke flowres untymely fade. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
For love is a celestial harmony
Of likely hearts compos'd of stars' concent,
Which join together in sweet sympathy,
To work each other's joy and true content,
Which they have harbour'd since their first descent
Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see
And know each other here belov'd to be. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
With golden giftes and many a guilefull word
Entyced her, to him for accord.
O who may not with gifts and words be tempted? ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Lastly came Winter cloathed all in frize, Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill; Whilst on his hoary beard his breath did freese, And the dull drops, that from his purpled bill As from a limebeck did adown distill: In his right hand a tipped staffe he held, With which his feeble steps he stayed still; For he was faint with cold, and weak with eld; That scarce his loosed limbes he hable was to weld. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
So Orpheus did for his owne bride,
So I unto my selfe alone will sing,
The woods shall to me answer and my Eccho ring. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Fly from wrath; sad be the sights and bitter fruits of war; a thousand furies wait on wrathful swords. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
So furiously each other did assayle,
As if their soules they would attonce haue rent
Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle
Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent;
That all the ground with purple bloud was sprent,
And all their armours staynd with bloudie gore,
Yet scarcely once to breath would they relent,
So mortall was their malice and so sore,
Become of fayned friendship which they vow'd afore. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
We have, then, three Books wholly and one partially written before, and two after, the Preface; and only one of the first four is consistent with it, while the two later are entirely in agreement with it. In the first group, the adventure which fits into the scheme in the Letter is the first of all, which is a significant fact. If Spenser were somewhat hastily reconstructing his scheme he would naturally test its coherence with what he had already written in the first Book and perhaps re-write certain passages. He may have forgotten the details of Books II and III or Raleigh's urgency may have left no time for the adjustment of the details.

These discrepancies are all connected with the twelve days' Feast and Gloriana's appointment of the knights, and this part may well have been suggested by Raleigh. He probably intended the poem not only to make Spenser's fortune at court but also to reinstate himself in the Queen's favour. In the circumstances he would wish to make the reference to the Queen as clear and as flattering as possible. ~ Janet Spens
Spenser quotes by Janet Spens
In a letter, once, he drew me a picture, or allegorical diagram, imitated from the well-known frontispiece of Hobbes's Leviathan, which showed a Leviathan of human values. In the head there stood a figure labeled SAINT. In the heart, a figure labeled HERO. Twittering round the huge figure there was an insect-like object dressed as a man of fashion of the seventeenth century and labeled GENTLEMAN; from its mouth there issued a balloon in which was written in tiny letters: 'and where do I come in?'. Mirabel, he went on to say, was no part of the Everlasting Gospel, a phrase of Blake's that he had his own meaning for. Perhaps the hunger for magnitude that made him admire Gilgamesh and the Edda, and made Spenser and Milton his favourites, disabled him from an appreciation, which I could not deny, for a world of elegant cuckoldry and cynic wit, so seemingly heartless, a trifler's scum of humanity that sought to be taken for its cream. ~ Jocelyn Gibb
Spenser quotes by Jocelyn Gibb
After a while I got hungry and went to the kitchen. There was nothing to eat. I drank another beer and looked again, and found half a loaf of whole wheat bread behind the beer in the back of the refrigerator ... ~ Robert B. Parker
Spenser quotes by Robert B. Parker
Beauty is not, as fond men misdeem, an outward show of things that only seem. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Together linkt with adamantine chains. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Ah! when will this long weary day have end,
And lende me leave to come unto my love?
- Epithalamion ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
I don't even think my children are aware of what I've done. When somebody will ask me for my autograph, Spenser-Margaret will say, 'You must watch 'Charlie's Angels.' You know, that's like all I've done to them. ~ Jaclyn Smith
Spenser quotes by Jaclyn Smith
Her angel's face, As the great eye of heaven shined bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
All for love, and nothing for reward. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
he gave an account of the Spenserian world that championed its ethical attitudes as well as their fairy-tale terms, with a rich joy in the defeat of dragons, giants, sorcerers, and sorceresses by the forces of virtue; it was a world he could inhabit and believe in as one inhabits and believes a dream of one's own; its knights, dwarfs, and ladies were real to him...he rejoiced as much in the ugliness of the giants and in the beauty of the ladies as in their spiritual significances, but most of all in the ambience of the faerie forest and plain that, he said, were carpeted with a grass greener than the common stuff of ordinary glades; this was the reality of grass, only to be apprehended in poetry: the world of the imagination was nearer to the truth than the world of the senses, notwithstanding its palpable fictions, and Spenser transcended sensuality by making use of it ~ Jocelyn Gibb
Spenser quotes by Jocelyn Gibb
The sin of Book I is at first sight more obscure, but it is particularly significant. We have seen that there appear to be two very important episodes showing the Red-Crosse a prey to Despair. When we find, further, that of the three Paynim Brethren, Sansfoy, Sansloi and Sansjoy, it is the last who is the Red-Crosse's most formidable enemy, we are driven to assume that there is some special significance in this stressing of a tendency to melancholy. Such a tendency is not now regarded as a serious sin, but in mediaeval times melancholy leading to inertia and in extreme cases to suicide was under the name of accidie one of the recognized Deadly Sins. By Elizabeth's day the much less pregnant term Sloth had been substituted in the usual catalogue, and Spenser nowhere uses the word accidie. But the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were much preoccupied with the subject. They regarded the sufferers from it as at once in a highly dangerous spiritual state and as intensely interesting. It was the favourite pose of fashionable young men. Hamlet is the supreme treatment of it in literature, but most of the dramatists of the day are interested in it. I suggest that the first Book of the original Faerie Queene treated of the sin of accidie. ~ Janet Spens
Spenser quotes by Janet Spens
Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, Ease after war, death after life does greatly please. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
O Who can tell
The hidden power of herbes, and might of Magick spell? ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
It is the mynd, that maketh good or ill,
That maketh wretch or happie, rich or poore:
For some, that hath abundance at his will,
Hath not enough, but wants in greatest store;
And other, that hath litle, askes no more,
But in that litle is both rich and wise.
For wisedome is most riches; fooles therefore
They are, which fortunes doe by vowes deuize,
Sith each vnto himselfe his life may fortunize. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Fierce warres and faithfull loves shall moralize my song. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Where justice grows, there grows eke greater grace. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
Fresh spring the herald of love's mighty king. ~ Edmund Spenser
Spenser quotes by Edmund Spenser
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