第30页

注释：
4 dead as liuing euer: cf. Rev. 1.18 on John’s vision of the resurrected Christ who tells him ‘[I] am aliue, but I was dead: and beholde, I am aliue for euermore’. The pointing may be either ‘dead, as liuing euer’, or ‘dead, as liuing, euer’. Nelson 1963:147 notes that the paradox, ‘Christ dead is Christ living’, is the principal subject of Bk I.

为什么‘Christ dead is Christ living’是book I的主题？不懂。

注释：
7 Right faithfull true: cf. Rev. 19.11: ‘And I sawe heauen open, and beholde a white horse, and he that sate vpon him, was called, Faithful and true’, which the Geneva Bible glosses: ‘He meaneth Christ’. Right: upright, righteous (cf. Ps. 51.10); or it may function as an adverb. ‘The faithfull knight’ is his common tag, as in Arg. to cantos iv, v, and x.

注意这里与圣经的互文。

注释：
8 too solemne sad: too grave or serious; cf. Guyon who is ‘Still solemne sad’ (II vi 37.5) when he avoids pleasure in order to pursue his quest; and Arthur, ‘somwhat sad, and solemne eke in sight’ (II ix 36.8) in his desire for glory; and Una who is ‘sad’ (4.6) in mourning.

第一版的注释里提到“The mood marks man's settled fallen state in contrast to the sanguine temperament of unfallen man”, 第二版被删掉了。是否注释者觉得这样有点“阐释过度”的嫌疑？

3

Vpon a great aduenture he was bond,

That greatest Gloriana to him gaue,

That greatest Glorious Queene of Faery lond,

To winne him worshippe, and her grace to haue,

Which of all earthly thinges he most did craue;

And euer as he rode his hart did earne,

To proue his puissance in battell braue

Vpon his foe, and his new force to learne;

Vpon his foe, a Dragon horrible and stearne.

第五句里的“earthly”这个词很有意思，注释里：
5 earthly: as distinct from his hope in Christ (2.6). 

由此可见，斯宾塞还是把“仙后”当成人世间的queen，直接与伊丽莎白女王相对照。

关于第8句里“new force”的注释也很有意思：
8 his new force: either the force of the armour newly given him, or his unproven power in wielding that armour. The phrasing is scriptural: e.g. Col. 3.10.

最重要的是这里的“The phrasing is scriptural”，圣经的写作方法。


关于stanza 4的总体注释值得注意：
Stanza 4
Until she is named at 45.9, Una is associated by the lowly Asse with Christ’s humility (Matt. 21.5–6, from Zech. 9.9); by more white then snow with truth (in Ripa 1603:501, Verità is vestita di color bianco) and with faith (cf. x 13.1); and by her vele with the truth that remains veiled to the fallen. White and black are the colours of perpetual virginity and hence the Queen’s personal colours (Strong 1977:71, 74). While the lambe associates her with innocence and with the sacrificial lamb of John 1.29, the king’s daughter leading the lamb bound by her girdle is a traditional item in the legend of St George; see ‘Una’s Lamb’ in the SEnc. Una riding an ass is a familiar Renaissance emblem, asinus portans mysteria, which symbolizes the true church; see Steadman 1979:131–37. As an allegorical enigma, see Nohrnberg 1976:151, 207–08, 268. On Una as Holy Church in relation to Elizabeth, see Perry 1997. 

第一版在后面还有两个象征的评论，也需要注意。

关于stanza 4 第一句的注释

“1 louely: also ‘loving’ and ‘worthy of love’. him faire beside: as she is fair and rides becomingly by his side. beside: indicating one meaning of her name, Lat. una (together), because her ‘wondrous faith’ is ‘firmest fixt’ (ix 17.4–5) in her knight; see 45.9n. Her place is taken by Duessa who rides ‘together’ with him at ii 28.1.”

这里关于“beside”的注释设计到拉丁语中对una名字的关联。值得注意。