Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
I haue seldome seene an honest woman to haue many frinds that wil take hir part … You may quickely ghesse a Strumpet by her multitude of friendes.
Barnabe Riche, Favltes Favlts, G4v–rA wind fane changabil huf puffe
Always is a woomman.
Virgil, Thee First Fovre Bookes (trans. Stanyhurst), 81In a relatively minor passage from The Faerie Queene's Book IV, Spenser gives us a haunting description of Amoret as she recovers from a swoon to find herself in the “darknesse and dread horrour” of Lust's cave:
She waked out of dread
Streight into griefe, that her deare hart nigh swelt,
And eft gan into tender teares to melt.
Then when she lookt about, and nothing found
But darknesse and dread horrour, where she dwelt,
She almost fell againe into a swound,
Ne wist whether aboue she were, or vnder ground.
With that she heard some one close by her side
Sighing and sobbing sore, as if the paine
Her tender hart in peeces would diuide:
Which she long listning, softly askt againe
What mister wight it was that so did plaine?
To whom thus aunswer'd was: Ah wretched wight
That seekes to know anothers griefe in vaine,
Vnweeting of thine owne like haplesse plight:
Selfe to forget to mind another, is ouersight.
Aye me (said she) where am I, or with whom?
(IV.vii.9–11)To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.