A Biography of Edmund Spenser | Page 9

Colin be ashamed to have her made known by his verses, nor
Hobbinol be greved that so she should be commended to immortalitie
for her rare and singular virtues.' Whoever this charming lady was, and
whatever glen she made bright with her presence, it 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