Part 10 (1/2)

And in the thickest covert of that shade There was a pleasaunt arber, not by art But of the trees owne inclination made, Which knitting their rancke braunches part to part, With wanton yvie-twine entrayld athwart, And eglantine and caprifole emong, Fas.h.i.+oned above within their inmost part, That neither Phoebus beams could through them throng, Nor Aeolus sharp blast could worke them any wrong.

And all about grew every sort of flowre, To which sad lovers were transformde of yore, Fresh Hyacinthus, Phoebus paramoure And dearest love; Foolish Narcisse, that likes the watry sh.o.r.e; Sad Amaranthus, made a flowre but late, Sad Amaranthus, in whose purple gore Me seemes I see Amintas wretched fate, To whom sweet poet's verse hath given endlesse date.

_Fairie Queene, Book III. Canto VI_.

I must here give a few stanzas from Spenser's description of the _Bower of Bliss_

In which whatever in this worldly state Is sweet and pleasing unto living sense, Or that may dayntiest fantasy aggrate Was poured forth with pleantiful dispence.

The English poet in his Fairie Queene has borrowed a great deal from Ta.s.so and Ariosto, but generally speaking, his borrowings, like those of most true poets, are improvements upon the original.

THE BOWER OF BLISS.

There the most daintie paradise on ground Itself doth offer to his sober eye, In which all pleasures plenteously abownd, And none does others happinesse envye; The painted flowres; the trees upshooting hye; The dales for shade; the hilles for breathing-s.p.a.ce; The trembling groves; the christall running by; And that which all faire workes doth most aggrace, The art, which all that wrought, appeared in no place.

One would have thought, (so cunningly the rude[039]

And scorned partes were mingled with the fine,) That Nature had for wantonesse ensude Art, and that Art at Nature did repine; So striving each th' other to undermine, Each did the others worke more beautify; So diff'ring both in willes agreed in fine; So all agreed, through sweete diversity, This Gardin to adorn with all variety.

And in the midst of all a fountaine stood, Of richest substance that on earth might bee, So pure and s.h.i.+ny that the silver flood Through every channel running one might see; Most goodly it with curious ymageree Was over-wrought, and shapes of naked boyes, Of which some seemed with lively iollitee To fly about, playing their wanton toyes, Whylest others did themselves embay in liquid ioyes.

Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound, Of all that mote delight a daintie eare, Such as attonce might not on living ground, Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere: Right hard it was for wight which did it heare, To read what manner musicke that mote bee; For all that pleasing is to living eare Was there consorted in one harmonee; Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters all agree:

The ioyous birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade, Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet; Th' angelicall soft trembling voyces made To th' instruments divine respondence meet; The silver-sounding instruments did meet With the base murmure of the waters fall; The waters fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.

_The Faerie Queene, Book II. Canto XII._

Every school-boy has heard of the gardens of the Hesperides. The story is told in many different ways. According to some accounts, the Hesperides, the daughters of Hesperus, were appointed to keep charge of the tree of golden apples which Jupiter presented to Juno on their wedding day. A hundred-headed dragon that never slept, (the offspring of Typhon,) couched at the foot of the tree. It was one of the twelve labors of Hercules to obtain possession of some of these apples. He slew the dragon and gathered three golden apples. The gardens, according to some authorities, were situated near Mount Atlas.

Shakespeare seems to have taken _Hesperides_ to be the name of the garden instead of that of its fair keepers. Even the learned Milton in his _Paradise Regained_, (Book II) talks of _the ladies of the Hesperides_, and appears to make the word Hesperides synonymous with ”Hesperian gardens.” Bishop Newton, in a foot-note to the pa.s.sage in ”Paradise Regained,” asks, ”What are the Hesperides famous for, but the gardens and orchards which _they had_ bearing golden fruit in the western Isles of Africa.” Perhaps after all there may be some good authority in favor of extending the names of the nymphs to the garden itself. Malone, while condemning Shakespeare's use of the words as inaccurate, acknowledges that other poets have used it in the same way, and quotes as an instance, the following lines from Robert Greene:--

Shew thee the tree, leaved with refined gold, Whereon the fearful dragon held his seat, That watched _the garden_ called the _Hesperides_.

_Robert Greene_.

For valour is not love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?

_Love's Labour Lost_.

Before thee stands this fair Hesperides, With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touched For death-like dragons here affright thee hard.

_Pericles, Prince of Tyre_.

Milton, after the fourth line of his Comus, had originally inserted, in his ma.n.u.script draft of the poem, the following description of the garden of the Hesperides.

THE GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES

Amid the Hesperian gardens, on whose banks Bedewed with nectar and celestial songs Eternal roses grow, and hyacinth, And fruits of golden rind, on whose fair tree The scaly harnessed dragon ever keeps His uninchanted eye, around the verge And sacred limits of this blissful Isle The jealous ocean that old river winds His far extended aims, till with steep fall Half his waste flood the wide Atlantic fills; And half the slow unfathomed Stygian pool But soft, I was not sent to court your wonder With distant worlds and strange removed climes Yet thence I come and oft from thence behold The smoke and stir of this dim narrow spot

Milton subsequently drew his pen through these lines, for what reason is not known. Bishop Newton observes, that this pa.s.sage, saved from intended destruction, may serve as a specimen of the truth of the observation that

Poets lose half the praise they should have got Could it be known what they discreetly blot.