Page:The Shepheardes Calender - Spenser (1579).djvu/47

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Aprill.
fol. 16

returneth all the thanck of hys laboure to the excellencie of her Maiestie.

When Damsins) A base reward of a clownish giuer.

Yblent) Y, is a poeticall addition. blent blinded.

Embleme.

This Poesye is taken out of Virgile, and there of him vsed in the person of Æneas to his mother Venus, appearing to him in likenesse of one of Dianess damosells: being there most divinely set forth. To which similitude of diuinitie Hobbinoll comparing the excelency of Elisa, and being through the worthynes of Colins song, as it were ouercome with the hugenesse of his imagination, brusteth out in great admiration, (O quam te memoré virgo?) being otherwise vnhable, then by soddein silence, to expresse the worthinesse of his conceipt. Whom Thenot answereth with another part of the like verse, as confirming by his graunt and approuaunce, that Elisa is nowhit inferiour to the Maiestie of her, of whome that Poete so boldly pronounced, O dea certe.

Maye.

Ægloga Quinta

ARGVMENT

Jn this firste Æglogue, vnder the persons of two shepheards, Piers & Palinodie, be represented two formes of pastoures or Ministers, or the protestant and the Catholique: whose chiefe talke standeth in reasoning, whether the life of the one must be like the other, with whom hauing showed, that it is daungerous to mainteine any felowship, or giue too much credit to their co-

lourable