第29页

关于canto的注释：
Book I Canto i
Canto: Ital. ‘song’ used, e.g. by Ariosto; here first used in English for the twelve divisions of a book, the usual epic division from Homer (24) by way of Virgil (12). Drayton 1931–41:2.5 comments: ‘The Italians use Canto’s; and so our first late great Reformer, Master Spenser’.

又是斯宾塞第一个用在英语文学里。注意从荷马到维吉尔这条线
Canto. I.

The Patrone of true Holinesse,

Foule Errour doth defeate:

Hypocrisie him to entrappe,

Doth to his home entreate.
关于patron这个词的注释：
 Patrone: protector and defender (from Lat. patronus); hence Guyon is addressed as one ‘that for that vertue [temperance] fights’ (II xii 1.6). Bryskett 1970:22 records that S. told him that he had undertaken a work ‘to represent all the moral vertues, assigning to every vertue, a Knight to be the patron and defender of the same’, and in whose actions we see the operation of the virtue ‘whereof he is the protector’; see LR 41. Only the Red Cross Knight is so called. Morgan 1986a:830–31 suggests ‘pattern’ or ‘model’, citing the account of Blanche in Chaucer, Book of the Duchess 910–11, as Nature’s ‘chef patron of beaute | And chef ensample of al hir werk’.

这里提到“to represent all the moral vertues, assigning to every vertue, a Knight to be the patron and defender of the same”，《仙后》的主旨。

这里第二版增加了与乔叟《duchess》的互文。需要特别注意。
Stanzas 1–6
On the legend of St George with the maiden and her lamb, see ‘George, St’ in the SEnc; on his cult in England, see Bengston 1997. In his note to Drayton’s reference to St George as England’s patron, Selden records the story of the knight’s delivery of the king’s daughter from the dragon and adds: ‘Your more neat judgements, finding no such matter in true antiquity, rather make it symbolicall then truely proper. So that some account him an allegory of our Saviour Christ; and our admired Spencer hath made him an embleme of Religion’ (1931–41:4.85). Lydgate 1911:145 offers two interpretations of the name: ‘the first of hoolynesse, | And the secound of knighthood and renoun’. Cf. de Malynes, Saint George for England 1601: ‘vnder the person of the noble champion Saint George our Sauiour Christ was prefigured, deliuering the Virgin (which did signifie the sinfull soules of Christians) from the dragon or diuels power’ (Sp All 84). On the knight’s armour, see ‘armor of God’ in the SEnc.

这里关于Red Cross Knight名字由来与象征值得注意。



canto 1 stanza1 第2句 注释：
siluer shielde: the ‘shield of faith’ (Eph. 6.16). The silver shield with its cross of blood was known as St George’s arms, as ii 11.9 indicates. Hardyng 1812:84 records that they were given to Arviragus when Joseph converted him to Christianity ‘long afore sainct George was gotten or borne’. 

这里的引文和故事需要注意。

注释：
3 dints: dents, a S. neologism that combines the blow (‘dint’ OED 1), and its effect. The knight’s unproven role corresponds to David’s when he ‘girded … his sworde vpon his rayment and began to go: for he neuer proued it’ (1 Sam. 17.39). Unlike David who doffs his armour to prove his God, Una’s knight wears her armour to prove himself worthy of it. 

应该注意这里与圣经情节的对比。