28 Yet since she saw the streight extremitie,
In which his life unluckily was layd,
It was no time to scan the prophecie,
Whether old Proteus true or false had sayd,
That his decay should happen by a Mayd;
(It's late, in death, of daunger to advize1;
Or love forbid him, that is life denayd2;)
But rather gan in troubled mind devize
How she that ladies libertie might enterprize.

29 To Proteus selfe to sew she thought it vaine,
Who was the root and worker of her woe;
Nor unto any meaner to complaine;

But unto great King Neptune selfe did goe,
And, on her knee before him falling lowe,
Made humble suit unto his Maiestie

To graunt to her her sonnes life, which his foe,
A cruell tyrant, had presumpteouslie

By wicked doome condemn'd a wretched death to die.

30 To whom God Neptune, softly smyling, thus:

Daughter, me seemes of double wrong ye plaine, Gainst one that hath both wronged you and us : For death t' adward I ween'd did appertaine

To none but to the seas sole soveraine :

Read, therefore, who it is which this hath wrought, And for what cause; the truth discover plaine: For never wight so evill did or thought,

But would some rightfull cause pretend, though rightly nought."

1 Advize, consider.

2 Denayd, denied.

8 Enterprize, undertake, achieve.

31 To whom she answerd: "Then it is by name
Proteus, that hath ordayn'd my sonne to die;
For that a waift,1 the which by fortune came
Upon your seas, he claym'd as propertie:
And yet nor his, nor his in equitie,
But yours the waift by high prerogative:
Therefore I humbly crave your Maiestie
It to replevie,2 and my sonne reprive3:
So shall you by one gift save all us three alive."

32 He graunted it: and streight his warrant made, Under the Sea-gods seale autenticall,

Commaunding Proteus straight t' enlarge the mayd Which, wandring on his seas imperiall,

He lately tooke, and sithence kept as thrall. Which she receiving with meete thankefulnesse, Departed straight to Proteus therewithall: Who, reading it with inward loathfulnesse, Was grieved to restore the pledge he did possesse.

33 Yet durst he not the warrant to withstand,
But unto her delivered Florimell:

Whom she receiving by the lilly hand,
Admyr'd her beautie much, as she mote well,
For she all living creatures did excell,-
And was right ioyous that she gotten had

So faire a wife for her sonne Marinell.

So home with her she streight the virgin lad, And shewed her to him, then being sore bestad.*

1 Waift, waif.

2 Replevie, reclaim for your own.

8 Reprive, rescue.

4 I. e. in a sad plight.

34 Who soone as he beheld that angels face
Adorn'd with all divine perfection,

His cheared heart eftsoones away gan chace
Sad death, revived with her sweet inspection,
And feeble spirit inly felt refection;

As withered weed through cruell winters tine,1
That feeles the warmth of sunny beames reflection,
Liftes up his head that did before decline,
And gins to spread his leafe before the faire sunshine.

35 Right so himselfe did Marinell upreare,

When he in place his dearest Love did spy ;
And though his limbs could not his bodie beare,
Ne former strength returne so suddenly,
Yet chearefull signes he shewed outwardly.
Ne lesse was she in secret hart affected,
But that she masked it with modestie,

For feare she should of lightnesse be detected:
Which to another place I leave to be perfected.

1 Tine, injury, violence.

THE FIFTH BOOKE

OF

THE FAERIE QUEENE,

CONTAYNING

THE LEGEND OF ARTEGALL, OR OF IUSTICE.

1 So oft as I with state of present time The image of the antique world compare, When as mans age was in his freshest prime, And the first blossome of faire vertue bare; Such oddes I finde twixt those, and these which are, As that, through long continuance of his course, Me seemes the world is runne quite out of square From the first point of his appointed sourse; And, being once amisse, growes daily wourse and

wourse:

2 For from the golden age, that first was named, It's now at earst1 become a stonie one;

And men themselves, the which at first were

framed

Of earthly mould, and form'd of flesh and bone,

1 I. e. at length.

Are now transformed into hardest stone; Such as behind their backs (so backward bred) Were throwne by Pyrrha and Deucalione: And if then those may any worse be red, They into that ere long will be degendered.

3 Let none then blame me, if, in discipline
Of vertue and of civill uses lore,

I doe not forme them to the common line
Of present dayes, which are corrupted sore,
But to the antique use1 which was of yore,
When good was onely for itselfe desyred,

And all men sought their owne, and none no more; When Iustice was not for most meed out-hyred, But simple Truth did rayne, and was of all admyred.

4 For that which all men then did vertue call, Is now cald vice; and that which vice was hight, Is now hight vertue, and so us'd of all :

Right now is wrong, and wrong that was is right;
As all things else in time are chaunged quight:
Ne wonder; for the heavens revolution

Is wandred farre from where it first was pight,2
And so doe make contrárie constitution

Of all this lower world toward his dissolution.

5 For whoso list into the heavens looke, And search the courses of the rowling spheares,

1 Use, custom.

2 Pight, placed.

V. 1. For whoso list, &c.] In this and the succeeding stanza, the effects of the precession of the equinoxes are correctly stated.