Th' infernal fiends with it he can assuage,
And Orcus tame, whom nothing can persuade,
And rule the furies when they most do rage:
Such virtue in his staff had eke this palmer sage.
Thence passing forth, they shortly do arrive
Whereat the Bower of Bliss was situate;
A place pick'd out by choice of best alive,
That Nature's work by art can imitate:
In which whatever in this worldly state
Is sweet and pleasing unto living sense,
Or that may daintiest fantasy aggrate,
Was poured forth with plentiful dispense,
And made there to abound with lavish affluence.
Goodly it was, enclosed round about,
As well their enter'd guests to keep within,
As those unruly beasts to hold without;
Yet was the fence thereof but weak and thin;
Nought fear'd they force that fortilage to win,
But Wisdom's power, and Temperance's might,
By which the mightiest things efforced been:
And eke the gate was wrought of substance light,
Rather for pleasure than for battery or fight.
It framed was of precious ivory,
That seem'd a work of admirable wit,
And therein all the famous history
Of Jason and Medea was ywrit;
Her mighty charms, her furious loving fit,
His goodly conquest of the Golden Fleece,
His falsed faith, and love too lightly flit,
The wondered Argo, which, in venturous peace,
First through the Euxine seas bore all the flower of
Greece.
Ye might have seen the frothy billows fry
Under the ship, as thorough them she went,
That seem'd the waves were into ivory,
Or ivory into the waves, were sent;
And otherwhere the snowy substance sprent
With vermell, like the boy's blood therein shed,
A piteous spectacle did represent;
And otherwhiles, with gold besprinkled,
It seem'd th' enchanted flame which did Creusa wed.
All this, and more, might in that goodly gate
Be read, that ever open stood to all
Which thither came; but in the porch there sat
A comely personage, of stature tall,
And semblance pleasing, more than natural,
That travellers to him seem'd to entice;
His looser garment to the ground did fall,
And flew about his heels in wanton wise,
Not fit for speedy pace or manly exercise.
They in that place him Genius did call;
Not that celestial power to whom the care
Of life, and generation of all
That lives, pertains in charge particular,
Who wond'rous things concerning our welfare,
And strange phantoms, doth let us oft foresee,
And oft of secret ills bids us beware,
That is ourself, whom though we do not see,
Yet each doth in himself it well perceive to be:
Therefore a god him sage antiquity
Did wisely make, and good Agdistes call;
But this same was to that quite contrary,
The foe of life, that good envies to all;
That secretly doth us procure to fall
Through guileful semblance, which he makes us see.
He of this garden had the governale,
And Pleasure's porter was devis'd to be,
Holding a staff in hand for more formality."
With divers flowers he daintily was deck'd
And strewed round about, and by his side
A mighty mazer bowl of wine was set,
As if it had to him been sacrified,
Wherewith all new-come guests he gratified;
So did he eke Sir Guyon passing by:
But he his idle courtesy defied,
And overthrew his bowl disdainfully,
And broke his staff, with which he charged semblants sly.
Thus being enter'd, they behold around
A large and spacious plain, on every side
Strewed with pleasances; whose fair grassy ground,
Mantled with green, and goodly beautified
With all the ornaments of Flora's pride,
Wherewith her mother Art, as half in scorn
Of niggard Nature, like a pompous bride,
Did deck her, and too lavishly adorn,
When forth from virgin bow'r she comes in th' early
There with the heavens, always jovial,
Look'd on them lovely, still in stedfast state,
Ne suffer'd storm nor frost on them to fall,
Their tender buds or leaves to violate;
Nor scorching heat, nor cold intemperate,
T' afflict the creatures which therein did dwell;
But the mild air, with season moderate,
Gently attemper'd, and disposed so well,
That still it breathed forth sweet spirit and wholesome smell.
More sweet and wholesome than the pleasant hill
Of Rhodope, on which the nymph, that bore
A giant babe, herself for grief did kill;
Or the Thessalian Tempe, where of yore
Fair Daphne Phoebus' heart with love did gore;
Or Ida, where the gods lov'd to repair
Whenever they their heavenly bowers forlore;
Or sweet Parnasse, the haunt of muses fair;
Or Eden self, if aught with Eden mote compare.
Much wonder'd Guyon at the fair aspect
Of that sweet place, yet suffer'd no delight
To sink into his sense, nor mind affect;
But passed forth, and look'd still forward right,
Bridling his will, and mastering his might,
Till that he came unto another gate;
No gate, but like one, being goodly dight
With boughs and branches, which did broad dilate
Their clasping arms, in wanton wreathings intricate.
So fashioned a porch with rare device,
Arch'd over head with an embracing vine,
Whose bunches hanging down seem'd to entice
All passers by to taste their luscious wine,
And did themselves into their hands incline,
As freely offering to be gathered;
Some deep empurpl'd as the hyacine,
Some as the rubine, laughing sweetly red,
Some like fair emeraudes not yet well ripened:
And them amongst some were of burnish'd gold,
So made by art to beautify the rest,
Which did themselves amongst the leaves enfold,
As lurking from the view of covetous guest,
That the weak boughs, with so rich load oppress'd,
Did bow adown as overburthened.
Under that porch a comely dame did rest,
Clad in fair weeds, but foul disordered,
And garments loose, that seem'd unmeet for woman'head':
In her left hand a cup of gold she held,
And with her right the riper fruit did reach,
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