TWO CANTOS

OF MUTABILITIE:

WHICH, BOTH FOR FORME AND MATTER,

Appeare to be parcell of fome following Booke of

THE FAERIE QUEENE,

UNDER THE

LEGEND OF CONSTANCIE.

CANTO VI.

Proud Change (not pleafd in mortall things
Beneath the moone to raigne)
Pretends, as well of gods as men,
To be the foveraine.

I.

WHAT man that fees the ever-whirling wheele Of Change, the which all mortall things doth

fway,

But that thereby doth find, and plainly feele, How Mutability in them doth play Her cruell fports to many mens decay? Which that to all may better yet appeare, I will rehearse, that whylome I heard fay, How the at first herfelfe began to reare Gainft all the gods, and th' empire fought from them to beare.

I. 9.

note, F. Q. iii. iii. 45. is used for gain, win.

to beare.] See the

But I now think beare, in both places, See ft. 4. CHURCH.

But firft, here falleth fittest to unfold

Her antique race and linage ancient,

As I have found it registred of old
In Faery Land mongst records perman
She was, to weet, a daughter by defcer
Of those old Titans that did whylome
With Saturnes fonne for heavens regim
Whom though high love of kingdom
deprive,

Yet

many of their stemme long after did fu

III.

And many of them afterwards obtain'd
Great power of love, and high author
As Hecate, in whofe almighty hand
He plac't all rule and principality,
To be by her disposed diversly
To gods and men, as fhe them lift divi
And drad Bellona, that doth found on

II. 5. She was, &c.] Spenfer here makes Hec daughter of the Titans. Authors differ about the pa of Hecate. Onomacritus calls her, Argon. v. 975. Ta Exaln. The Titans were indeed thrown into Tartarus could not be concluded from thence that the Titan Hecate's parents; although this, I prefume, is the be ment our author could have offered for his genealogy. stanza Bellona is likewife feigned to be the offspring Titans ; but Bellona was the fifter of Mars, who was Jupiter and Juno; or, as Ovid reports, of Juno alone T. WAR III. 3. As Hecate, &c.] Hefiod, Theog. 411. Εκάτην τέκε, τὴν περὶ πάλων Ζεὺς Κρονίδης τίμησε πόρεν δέ οἱ ἀγλαὰ δῶρα, Μοῖραν ἔχειν γαίης κ. τ. λ. JORTIN.

Warres and allarums unto nations wide, That makes both heaven and earth to tremble

at her pride.

IV.

So likewife did this Titaneffe afpire

Rule and dominion to herfelfe to gaine; That as a goddeffe men might her admire, And heavenly honours yield, as to them

twaine :

And firft, on earth fhe fought it to obtaine; Where he fuch proofe and fad examples fhewed

Of her great power, to many ones great paine, That not men onely (whom the foone fub

dewed)

But eke all other creatures her bad dooings

rewed.

V.

For the the face of earthly things fo changed,
That all which Nature had establisht first
In good eftate, and in meet order ranged,
She did pervert, and all their statutes burst:
And all the worlds faire frame (which none yet
durft

IV. 6.

1751 and Tonfon's in 1758 read examples. TODD.

V. 4.

rather read,

example] The edition of

and all their ftatutes burst:] I would

" and all her ftatutes burft:

That is, Nature's. So below, ft. 6. "She brake the laws of Nature." UPTON.

Of gods or men to alter or misguide)

She alter'd quite; and made them all accurft That God had bleft, and did at first provide In that still happy state for ever to abide.

VI.

Ne fhee the lawes of Nature onely brake,

But eke of Iuftice, and of Policie ;

And wrong of right, and bad of good did

make,

And death for life exchanged foolishlie :

Since which, all living wights have learn'd to die,

And all this world is woxen daily worse.

O pittious worke of Mutabilitie,

By which we all are fubiect to that curfe,

And death, in ftead of life, have fucked from

our nurse !

VII.

And now, when all the earth fhe thus had

brought

To her beheft and thralled to her might, She gan to caft in her ambitious thought T'attempt the empire of the heavens hight,

V.7.

and made them &c.] That is, and brought a curse upon those things which God had blessed, and intended, at first, that they thould always have continued in a state of happiness. So Milton, Par. L. B. x. 617.

66

" which I

"So fair and good created, and had still
Kept in that state, had not the folly of man &c."
CHURCH.

And love himfelfe to shoulder from his right,
And firft, fhe past the region of the ayre
And of the fire, whofe fubftance thin and
flight

Made no refiftance, ne could her contraire, But ready paffage to her pleasure did prepaire.

VIII.

Thence to the circle of the Moone fhe clambe, Where Cynthia raignes in everlasting glory, To whose bright fhining palace straight she

came,

All fairely deckt with heavens goodly story; Whofe filver gates (by which there fate an hory

Old aged Sire, with hower-glaffe in hand, Hight Tyme,) the entred, were he liefe or fory;

Ne ftaide till she the highest stage had fcand, VII. 8. contraire,] Fr. contrarier, to contrarie, croffe, thwart, &c. Cotgrave, in V.

TODD.

-Stage] Mr. Upton

VIII. 8. is of opinion that Spenfer wrote fiege, au old word for feat, and generally ufed for a feat of dignity. See the notes on F. Q. ii. ii. 39. And he contends that Cynthia did not fit on a stage, but on a fiege royal or fovereign feat, agreeably to the custom of the gods having their proper thrones, as in Ovid, Met. i. 174, Hom. Il. á. 606, and Milton, Par. L. B. i. 796. But the old reading, ftage, may be defended. Cotgrave interprets eftage, "a ftorie, ftage, loft, or height of a houfe, &c." And thus the palace at Theobald's is divided into stages, in 1583. See Murdin's State-Papers, p. 378. "For the fourth STAGE: A fingle chamber in the turrett, &c." TODD.

fcand,] Climbed