A Biography of Edmund Spenser | Page 9

appears that she did not reciprocate the devoted affection of the studious young Cambridge graduate who, with probably no apparent occupation, was loitering for a while in her vicinity. It was some other--he is called Menalacas in one of his rival's pastorals--who found favour in her eyes. The poet could only wail and beat his breast. Eclogues I. and VI. are all sighs and tears. Perhaps in the course of time a copy of the Faerie Queene might reach the region where Menalcas and Rosalind were growing old together; and she, with a certain ruth perhaps mixed with her anger, might recognise in Mirabella an image of her fair young disdainful self{4}. The poet's attachment was no transient flame that flashed and was gone. When at the instance of his friend he travelled southward away from the scene of his discomfiture, he went weeping and inconsolable. In the Fourth Eclogue Hobbinol is discovered by Thenot deeply mourning, and, asked the reason, replies that his grief is because
. . . the ladde whome long I loved so deare Nowe loves a lasse that all his love doth scorne; He plongd in payne, his tressed locks dooth teare.
Shepheards delights he dooth them all forsweare; Hys pleasant pipe, whych made us meriment, He wylfully hath broke, and doth forbeare His wonted songs, wherein he all outwent.
. . . . .
Colin thou kenst, the Southerne shepheardes boye; Him Love hath wounded with a deadly darte. &c.
The memory of Rosalind, in spite of her unkindness, seems to have been fondly cherished by the poet, and yielded to no rival vision--though there may have been fleeting fits of passion--till some fourteen years after he and she had parted--till the year 1592, when, as we shall see, Spenser, then living in the south of Ireland, met that Elizabeth who is mentioned in the sonnet quoted above, and who some year and a half after that meeting became his wife. On the strength of an entry found in the register of St. Clement Danes Church in the Strand--'26 Aug. [1587] Florenc Spenser, the daughter of Edmond'--it has been conjectured that the poet was married before 1587. This conjecture seems entirely unacceptable. There is nothing to justify the theory that the Edmund Spenser of the register was the poet. It is simply incredible that Spenser, one who, as has been said, poured out all his soul in his poems, should have wooed and won some fair lady to his wife, without ever a poetical allusion to his courtship and his triumph. It is not at all likely, as far as one can judge from their titles, that any one of his lost works was devoted to the celebration of any such successful passion. Lastly, besides this important negative evidence, there is distinct positive testimony that long after 1587 the image of Rosalind had not been displaced in his fancy by any other loveliness. In Colin Clouts Come Home Again, written, as will be seen, in 1591, though not published until 1595, after the poet has 'full deeply divined of love and beauty,' one Melissa in admiration avers that all true lovers are greatly bound to him--most especially women. The faithful Hobbinol says that women have but ill requited their poet:--
'He is repayd with scorne and foule despite, That yrkes each gentle heart which it doth heare.' 'Indeed,' says Lucid, 'I have often heard Faire Rosalind of divers fowly blamed For being to that swaine too cruell hard.
Lucid however would defend her on the ground that love may not be compelled:--
'Beware therefore, ye groomes, I read betimes How rashly blame of Rosalind ye raise.'
This caution Colin eagerly and ardently reinforces, and with additions. His heart was still all tender towards her, and he would not have one harsh word thrown at her:--
Ah! Shepheards, then said Colin, ye ne weet How great a guilt upon your heads ye draw To make so bold a doome, with words unmeet, Of thing celestiall which ye never saw. For she is not like as the other crew Of shepheards daughters which emongst you bee, But of divine regard and heavenly hew, Excelling all that ever ye did see; Not then to her that scorned thing so base, But to myselfe the blame that lookt so hie, So hie her thoughts as she herselfe have place And loath each lowly thing with lofty eie; Yet so much grace let her vouchsafe to grant To simple swaine, sith her I may not love, Yet that I may her honour paravant And praise her worth, though far my wit above. Such grace shall be some guerdon for the griefe And long affliction which I have endured; Such grace sometimes shall give me some reliefe And ease of paine which cannot be recured. And ye my fellow shepheards,