THE FAERIE QUEENE by Edmund Spenser TO The ... - Planet.ee

www.TaleBooks.comThat never idle was, ne once would rest a whit.L. His chamber was dispainted all withinWith sondry colours, in the which were writInfinite shapes of thinges dispersed thin;Some such as in the world were never yit,Ne can devized be of mortall wit;Some daily seene and knowen by their names,Such as in idle fantasies do flit;Infernall Hags, Centaurs, feendes, Hippodames,Apes, Lyons, Aegles, Owles, fooles, lovers, children,Dames.LI. And all the chamber filled was with flyesWhich buzzed all about, and made such soundThat they encombred all mens eares and eyes;Like many swarmes of Bees assembled round,After their hives with honny do abound.All those were idle thoughtes and fantasies,Devices, dreames, opinions unsound,Shewes, visions, sooth-sayes, and prophesies;And all that fained is, as leasings, tales, and lies.LII. Emongst them all sate he which wonned there,That hight Phantastes by his nature trew;A man of yeares yet fresh, as mote appere,Of swarth complexion, and of crabbed hew,That him full of melancholy did shew;Bent hollow beetle browes, sharpe staring eyes,That mad or foolish seemd: one by his vewMote deeme him borne with ill-disposed skyes,When oblique Saturne sate in th' house of agonyes.LIII. Whom Alma having shewed to her guestes,Thence brought them to the second rowme, whose walsWere painted faire with memorable gestesOf famous Wisards; and with picturalsOf Magistrates, of courts, of tribunals,Of commen-wealthes, of states, of pollicy,Of lawes, of judgementes, and of decretals,All artes, all science, all Philosophy,And all that in the world was ay thought wittily.LIV. Of those that rowme was full; and them amongThere sate a man of ripe and perfect age,Who did them meditate all his life long,That through continuall practise and usageHe now was growne right wise and wondrous sage:Great pleasure had those straunger knightes to seeHis goodly reason and grave personage,That his disciples both desyrd to bee;But Alma thence them led to th' hindmost rowme of three.LV. That chamber seemed ruinous and old,And therefore was removed far behind,Page 217 , Faerie Queene, The - Edmund Spenser