The Canterbury tales and Faerie queene &c., &c., &c., ed. for popular perusal with current illustrations and explanatory notes, by D. Laing Purves.

46o0 TH FAERIE QUEEr. [BOOK IV.
That at the.length unto a bay he brought her,1 A hardy heart; and his wide mouth did gape
So. assghe to his speeches'was content With huge great teeth, like to a tuskid boar;
To lend an ear, and softly to relent. For he liv'd all on ravin7 and on rape
At last, through many vows which forth he Of men and beasts; and fed on fleshly gore,
pour'd, The sign whereof yet stain'd his bloody lips
And many oaths, she yielded her consent afore.
To be his. love, and take him for her lord, Hias not like man nor beast,
His nether lip was not like man nor beast,
Till they with marriage meet might finish that But like a wide deep poke 8 down hanging low,
accord. In which he wont the relics of his feast
At last Artegall saw that it was time to And cruel spoil, which he had spar'd,9 to stow:
depart on a hard adventure yet before him, and And over it his huge great nose did grow,
came to take leave of her; but he found his Full dreadfully empurpled all with blood;
mistress full loth to let him go, and could And downboth sides two wide long ears did glow,
appease her only by the promise to return in And raughtl0 down to hiswaistwhen up he stood,
three months. So, early on the morrow, the More great than th' ears of elephants by Indus
Knight rode forth, unattended save by his lady, flood.
who rode with him a while.
His waist was with a wreath of ivy green
And by the way she sundry purpose 3 found Engirt about, nor other garment wore;
Of this or that, the time for to delay, For all his hair was like a garment seen;
And of the perils whereto he was bound, And in his hand a tall young oak hetbore,
The fear whereof seem'd much her to affray: Whose knotty snags were sharpen'd all afore,
But all she did was but to wear out day. And bath'd in fire for steel to be instead.
Full oftentimes she leave-of him did take; But whence he was, or of what womb y-bore,"
And eft 4 again devis'd somewhat to say, Of beasts, or of the earth, I have not read;
Which she forgot, whereby excuse to make: But certes was with milk of wolves and tigers
So loth she was his company for to forsake. fed.
At last, when all her speeches she had spent, This ugly creature in his arms her snatch'd,
And new occasion fail'd her more to find, And through the forest bore her quite away
She left him to his fortune's government, With briers and bushes allto-rent and scratch'd;
And back returned with right heavy mind Nor care he had, nor pity of the prey,
To Scudamour, whom she had left behind; Which many a knight had sought for many a
With whom she went to seek fair Amoret, day:
Her second care, though in another kind: He stayed not, but, in his arms her bearing,
Forvirtue's only sake, which doth beget Ran till he came to th' end of all his way,
True love and faithful friendship, she by her Unto his cave, far from all people's hearing,
did set.5 And there he threw her in, naught feeling, nor
naught fearing.
Awaking from her swoon, Amoret heard,
through the darkness and dread horror of the
place, some one sighing and sobbing sore; and
CANTO VII. inquired where she was and what would become
of her. The sad voice foreshadowed a fate worse
Amoret rapt by greedy Lust than death:
Belphoebe saves from dread: i
The Squire her loves; and, being blam'd, Ths dismal y ath thee a captive made
His days in dole doth lead. And vassal to the vilest wretch alive;
Whose curs6d usage and ungodly trade
TAKING up the story of Amoret, the poet re- The heav'ns abhor, and into darkness drive:
lates that she and Britomart, after leaving the For on the spoil of women he doth live,
tournament for beauty's prize, travelled long, Whose bodies chaste, whenever in his pow'r
and at last alighted to rest in a forest. Sleep He may them catch, unable to gainstrive,12
surprised the eyelids of Britomart, while fair He with his shameful lust doth first deflow'r,
Amoret walked unsuspectingly through the And afterwards themselves doth cruelly devour.
wood. Suddenly one who rushed forth out of
"Now twenty days, by which the sons of men
tEhe thickest weed, snatched- her up from the
the thickest weed, snatched her up from the Divide their works, have pass'd through heaven
ground, and bore her off, shrieking too feebly to hen13
break the slumber of the British Ma1id.'sheeni
Since I was brought into this doleful den;
It was, to wit, a wild and salvage man; During which space these sorry eyes have seen
Yet was no man, but only like in shape, Sev'n women by him slain and eaten clean:14
And eke in stature higher by a span; And now no more for him but I alone,
All overgrown with hair, that could awhape a And this old woman, here remaining be'n,
1 He brought her to bay, or constrained her to sur- 7 Plunder. 8 Sack.
render. 2 Agreement. 9 Saved. 0l Reached.
3 Conversation. 4 Soon. 11 Born. 12 Resist, strive against him.
5 Set any value by her. 6 Terrify. 13'Bright. 14 Entirely.