proximoception

The Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto 12 is a favorite for anyone getting that far in. It's by far the longest Canto in the poem, among the most inspired in fancy and phrase--many of both influential on later poets, like Coleridge, Keats and Tennyson--, and both the most abrupt and overstuffed (at one point there's a catalogue of huge sea-monsters suddenly menacing our protagonist's boat, uncountable serpents, whales, God-knows-whats--cousin to the sublime rogue's gallery in "Duck Twacy"); it reminds me of when you reach the right margin earlier than you'd expected, when writing, and crowd all your letters in tight to fit. One or two either get pressed to illegibility or knocked down below the others, often a g or a y trailing ivily down. I wonder if that may even have been the case, that he suddenly found himself at 12 with only half the thing related. The speed and variety make it a sort of epitome of the whole Faerie Queene, though also unlike the other cantos. The headlong rush slows suddenly at the payoff, the three Bower of Bliss scenes, though these are connected abruptly; the effect highlights the deep and lavish languor described. Odd how Spenser tangles and diffuses to the point you're never sure what's unprecedented artistic perfection and what's pretty accident. In others (like about eight hundred 20th century poets) the marriage to chaos serves to hide flaws and staple on unearned profundities; with Spenser it's something unique, and breathtaking, his art somehow reproducing the haphazard glories of wilderness, dream and life. How humble he is to do that, to make you so happy and so convinced it's a happening and not a gift, and hence happier still.
As he says of his Bower: "that, which all faire workes doth most aggrace,
The art, which all that wrought, appeared in no place."

Come to think of it the sea change of Canto 12 is also like the ninth line of Spenser's stanza, where the extra foot changes the movement: sometimes to a French-style Alexandrine, good for sententious finality; but more often to a rather wild, fast, upwardly roller-coasting sky-shot, through three or four stress levels (duh DAH duhdahduh DAH duhdahduh !DAH!-duh-dah). If that was intentional...imagine what Book 12 would have been like.

There's birds, beasts, mermaids, lascivious boys, whirlpools and skinnydipping bisexuals elsewhere, but here's a fun snippet, exemplary of this hurtling through a night bazaar of marvels and challenges:

So forth they rowed, and that Ferryman
With his stiffe oares did brush the sea so strong,
That the hoare waters from his frigot ran,
And the light bubbles daunced all along,
Whiles the salt brine out of the billowes sprong.
At last farre off they many Islands spy,
On euery side floting the floods emong:
Then said the knight, Loe I the land descry,
Therefore old Syre thy course do thereunto apply.

That may not be, said then the Ferryman
Least we vnweeting hap to be fordonne:
For those same Islands, seeming now and than,
Are not firme land, nor any certein wonne,
But straggling plots, which to and fro do ronne
In the wide waters: therefore are they hight
The wandring Islands. Therefore doe them shonne;
For they haue oft drawne many a wandring wight
Into most deadly daunger and distressed plight.

Yet well they seeme to him, that farre doth vew,
Both faire and fruitfull, and the ground dispred
With grassie greene of delectable hew,
And the tall trees with leaues apparelled,
Are deckt with blossomes dyde in white and red,
That mote the passengers thereto allure;
But whosoeuer once hath fastened
His foot thereon, may neuer it recure,
But wandreth euer more vncertein and vnsure.

They to him hearken, as beseemeth meete,
And passe on forward: so their way does ly,
That one of those same Islands, which doe fleet
In the wide sea, they needes must passen by,
Which seemd so sweet and pleasant to the eye,
That it would tempt a man to touchen there:
Vpon the banck they sitting did espy
A daintie damzell, dressing of her heare,
By whom a litle skippet floting did appeare.

She them espying, loud to them can call,
Bidding them nigher draw vnto the shore;
For she had cause to busie them withall;
And therewith loudly laught: But nathemore
Would they once turne, but kept on as afore:
Which when she saw, she left her lockes vndight,
And running to her boat withouten ore,
From the departing land it launched light,
And after them did driue with all her power and might.

Whom ouertaking, she in merry sort
Them gan to bord, and purpose diuersly,
Now faining dalliance and wanton sport,
Now throwing forth lewd words immodestly;
Till that the Palmer gan full bitterly
Her to rebuke, for being loose and light:
Which not abiding, but more scornefully
Scoffing at him, that did her iustly wite,
She turnd her bote about, and from them rowed quite.