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Famous Edmund Spenser Quotes
Canto 12, stanza 34
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book IV
“And all for love, and nothing for reward.”
Canto 8, stanza 2
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book II
“The noblest mind the best contentment has.”
Canto 1, stanza 35
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book I
Source: The Faerie Queene, Book Five
Edmund Spenser Quotes about love
“Ah! when will this long weary day have end,
And lende me leave to come unto my love?
- Epithalamion”
Source: Amoretti and Epithalamion
“I hate the day, because it lendeth light
To see all things, but not my love to see.”
Daphnaida, v. 407; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: Prothalamion (1596), Line 37
“And is there care in Heaven? And is there love
In heavenly spirits to these Creatures bace?”
Canto 8, stanza 1
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book II
“Fierce warres and faithfull loves shall moralize my song.”
Introduction, stanza 1
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book I
Edmund Spenser: Trending quotes
“How oft do they their silver bowers leave
To come to succour us that succour want!”
Canto 8, stanza 2
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book II
Amoretti (1595), Sonnet XVIII https://www.bartleby.com/358/784.html
“Sweete Themmes runne softly, till I end my Song.”
The last line of each stanza
This is often attributed to T. S. Eliot, who does indeed quote it in The Waste Land
Prothalamion (1596)
Edmund Spenser Quotes
“Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound.”
Canto 12, stanza 70
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book II
“Ay me, how many perils doe enfold
The righteous man, to make him daily fall!”
Canto 8, stanza 1
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book I
“And in his hand a sickle he did holde,
To reape the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold.”
Canto 7, stanza 30
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book VII
“But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad;
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.”
Canto 1, stanza 2
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book I
Introduction, stanza 1
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book V
Canto 8, stanza 11
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book I
“I trow that countenance cannot lie,
Whose thoughts are legible in the eie.”
An Elegie, or Friends Passion, for his Astrophill (1586), line 108
Epithalamion, line 223; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Canto 11, stanza 54
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book III
An Hymne in Honour of Beautie (1596), line 127
“For all that Nature by her mother-wit
Could frame in earth.”
Canto 10, stanza 21
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book IV
Mother Hubberds Tale, line 895; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Tell her the joyous Time will not be staid,
Unlesse she doe him by the forelock take.”
Amoretti, lxx; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“A bold bad man, that dar'd to call by name
Great Gorgon, Prince of darknesse and dead night.”
Canto 1, stanza 37
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book I
Lines on his Promised Pension; reported in Thomas Fuller, Worthies of England, vol ii, page 379, and in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
The Shepheardes Calender, July, line 97; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Canto 6, stanza 12
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book II
“Her berth was of the wombe of morning dew,
And her conception of the joyous Prime.”
Canto 6, stanza 3
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book III
“I learned have, not to despise,
What ever thing seemes small in common eyes.”
Visions of the Worlds Vanitie (1591), line 69
“Roses red and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowres that in the forrest grew.”
Canto 6, stanza 6
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book III
“Death slue not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies.”
Another [Epitaph] of the Same (1586), line 20
Canto 5, stanza 32
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book III
Canto 9, stanza 40
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book I
“A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine.”
Canto 1, stanza 1
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book I
“But Justice, though her dome [doom] she doe prolong,
Yet at the last she will her owne cause right.”
Canto 11, stanza 1
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book V
“Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,
On Fames eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.”
Canto 2, stanza 32
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book IV
“A monster, which the Blatant beast men call,
A dreadfull feend of gods and men ydrad.”
Canto 12, stanza 37
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book V
“Who will not mercie unto others show,
How can he mercy ever hope to have?”
Canto 2, stanza 42
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book V
Canto 3, stanza 1; Spenser here is referencing and paraphrasing a statement from the "Wife of Bath's Tale" of Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer: "he is gentil that doth gentil dedis."
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book VI
“Through thicke and thin, both over banke and bush
In hope her to attaine by hooke or crooke.”
Canto 1, stanza 17
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book III
“Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.”
Canto 2, stanza 43
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book V
“For all that faire is, is by nature good;
That is a signe to know the gentle blood.”
An Hymne in Honour of Beautie, line 139
“O happy earth,
Whereon thy innocent feet doe ever tread!”
Canto 10, stanza 9
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book I
“As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place.”
Canto 3, stanza 4
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book I
Muiopotmos: or, The Fate of the Butterflie, line 209; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Canto vi, stanza 33
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book VII
Canto 9, stanza 35
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book I
