“The lenger life, I wote* the greater sin, (know)
The greater sin, the greater punishment:
All those great battels, which thou boasts to win,
Through strife, and bloud-shed, and avengement,
Now praysd*, hereafter deare* thou shalt repent: (praised; expensively, heavily, bitterly)
For life must life, and bloud must bloud repay.
Is not enough thy evill life forespent*? (already spent)
For he, that once hath missed the right way,
The further he doth goe, the further he doth stray.
“Then do no further goe, no further stray,
But here lie downe, and to thy rest betake,
Th’ill to prevent, that life ensewen may*. (To prevent the evil that will ensue in the rest of your life)
For what hath life, that may it loved make,
And gives not rather cause it to forsake?
Feare, sicknesse, age, losse, labour, sorrow, strife,
Paine, hunger, cold, that makes the hart* to quake; (heart)
And ever fickle fortune rageth rife*, (widely)
All which, and thousands mo* do make a loathsome life.” (more)
The Faerie Queene Book 1 Canto 9 Stanza 43-44
Spencer’s verse is magnificent. I hated adding those ugly brackets but for readability sake I’ve kept them to a minimum so you can see and hear the original. (Most notes from the Norton Anthology 10th edition.)
This is Despair arguing the case for suicide. I was surprised by the persuasiveness of it all. The longer you live, the more you do wrong and sin. The more you sin, the greater punishment you’ll receive. Have you not done enough evil in your life so far? Once you missed the correct way, the further you go, the further you stray. Therefore, do no further go, no further stray. Stop doing more evil, end your life right here.
Lie down and die, because you have done enough evil.
Think of the fear, sickness, aging, loss and grief, hardship, sorrow, strife, pain, hunger and cold that have plagued your life so far and will fill the rest. Does your heart not shudder and quake?
Lie down and die, because life is loathsome.
Why do you want to drag it on? Misadventures might befall you (stanza 45). Guilt of sin might rack your conscience (stanza 46). “Why then doest thou, O man of sin, desire to draw thy dayes forth to their last degree?” Instead, suicide is “short paine well borne, that brings long ease, and layers the soule to sleepe in quiet grave”. It is “sleepe after toyle (toil), port after stormie sea, ease after warre”.
Lie down and die, because death is peace and rest.
Allegedly Goethe caused a wave of teenage suicide when The Sorrow of Young Werther was published. I don’t think my humble blog will have that power. But just to be clear, I do not endorse suicide.
Despair’s argument is convincing because it speaks of truth, but part, twisted truth, like the Serpent in Genesis chapter 3. You’ll be in heaven after death, where all toil and pain cease – fear no more the heat of the sun, says Shakespeare. But our protagonist, the Everyman Redcross Knight makes a very good point, “The souldier may not move from watchfull sted, nor leave his stand, untill his Captaine bed (commands)” (stanza 41). Before God releases you of your duty and takes you home, men as soldiers may not abandon their posts in life.
Among all the cantos I read in book 1, this section stands out to me most. I feel the weight of the argument between the lines. It reminds me of John Donne who lived about the same era, and his contemplation on the same subject.
Was Spencer playing the devil’s advocate? Or did he consider it personally when he lived in Ireland, far from home and the centre of it all?
A Day of Small Things 