The Faerie Queene · Book I · Canto 1 8 (2/2)

Therewith an hollow, dreary, murmuring voyce

These pitteous plaintes and dolours did resound:

“O! who is that, which bringes me happy choyce

Of death, that here lye dying every stound,

Yet live perforce in balefull darkenesse bound?

For now three Moones have changed thrice their hew,

And have been thrice hid underneath the ground,

Since I the heavens chearefull face did vew.

O! welcome thou, that doest of death bring tydings trew.”

Which when that Champion heard, with percing point

Of pitty deare his heart was thrilled sore;

And trembling horrour ran through every joynt,

For ruth of gentle knight so fowle forlore:

Which shaking off, he rent that yron dore

With furious force and indignation fell;

Where entred in, his foot could find no flore,

But all a deepe descent, as darke as hell,

That breathed ever forth a filthie banefull smell.

But nether darkenesse fowle, nor filthy bands,

Nor noyous smell, his purpose could withhold,

(Entire affection hateth nicer hands)

But that with constant zele and corage bold,

After long paines and labors manifold,

He found the meanes that Prisoner up to reare;

Whose feeble thighes, unable to uphold

His pined corse, him scarse to light could beare;

A ruefull spectacle of death and ghastly drere.

His sad dull eies, deepe sunck in hollow pits,

Could not endure th’unwonted sunne to view;

His bare thin cheekes for want of better bits,

And empty sides deceived of their dew,

Could make a stony hart his hap to rew;

His rawbone armes, whose mighty brawned bowrs

Were wont to rive steele plates, and helmets hew,

Were clene consum’d; and all his vitall powres

Decayd, and al his flesh shronk up like withered flowres.

Whome when his Lady saw, to him she ran

With hasty joy: to see him made her glad,

And sad to view his visage pale and wan,

Who earst in flowres of freshest youth was clad.

Tho, when her well of teares she wasted had,

She said; “Ah dearest Lord! what evill starre

On you hath frownd, and pourd his influence bad,

That of your selfe ye thus berobbed arre,

And this misseeming hew your manly looks doth marre?

“But welcome now, my Lord in wele or woe,

Whose presence I have lackt too long a day:

And fie on Fortune, mine avowed foe,

Whose wrathful wreakes them selves doe now alay;

And for these wronges shall treble penaunce pay

Of treble good: good growes of evils priefe.”

The chearelesse man, whom sorrow did dismay,

Had no delight to treaten of his griefe;

His long endured famine needed more reliefe.

“Faire Lady,” then said that victorious knight,

“The things, that grievous were to doe, or beare,

Them to renew, I wote, breeds no delight,

Best musicke breeds delight in loathing eare:

But th’only good that growes of passed feare

Is to be wise, and ware of like agein.

This daies ensample hath this lesson deare

Deepe written in my heart with yron pen,

That blisse may not abide in state of mortall men.

“Henceforth, Sir knight, take to you wonted strength,

And maister these mishaps with patient might.

Loe! where your foe lies strecht in monstrous length;

And loe! that wicked woman in your sight,

The roote of all your care and wretched plight,

Now in your powre, to let her live, or die.”

“To doe her die,” (quoth Una) “were despight,

And shame t’avenge so weake an enimy;

But spoile her of her scarlot robe, and let her fly.”

So, as she bad, that witch they disaraid,

And robd of roiall robes, and purple pall,

And ornaments that richly were displaid;

Ne spared they to strip her naked all.

Then, when they had despoyld her tire and call,

Such as she was their eies might her behold,

That her misshaped parts did them appall:

A loathly, wrinckled hag, ill favoured, old,

Whose secret filth good manners biddeth not be told.

Her crafty head was altogether bald,

And, as in hate of honorable eld,

Was overgrowne with scurfe and filthy scald;

Her teeth out of her rotten gummes were feld,

And her sowre breath abhominably smeld;

Her dried dugs, lyke bladders lacking wind,

Hong downe, and filthy matter from them weld;

Her wrizled skin, as rough as maple rind,

So scabby was that would have loathd all womankind.

Her neather parts, the shame of all her kind,

My chaster Muse for shame doth blush to write;

But at her rompe she growing had behind

A foxes taile, with dong all fowly dight;

And eke her feete most monstrous were in sight;

For one of them was like an Eagles claw,

With griping talaunts armd to greedy fight;

The other like a beares uneven paw.

More ugly shape yet never living creature saw.

Which when the knights beheld amazd they were,

And wondred at so fowle deformed wight.

“Such then,” (said Una,) “as she seemeth here,

Such is the face of falshood: such the sight

Of fowle Duessa, when her borrowed light

Is laid away, and counterfesaunce knowne.”

Thus when they had the witch disrobed quight,

And all her filthy feature open showne,

They let her goe at will, and wander waies unknowne.

Shee, flying fast from heavens hated face,

And from the world that her discovered wide,

Fled to the wastfull wildernesse apace,

From living eies her open shame to hide,

And lurkt in rocks and caves, long unespide.

But that faire crew of knights, and Una faire,

Did in that castle afterwards abide,

To rest them selves, and weary powres repaire;

Where store they fownd of al that dainty was and rare.