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I'm continuing on with The Faerie Queene
and I've reached Book IV. I admit to occasional bouts of eye-glazing and reaching the end of a string of verses every now and then and realizing I have no idea what they were about or what happened. But equally as often I am entranced by the beauty of the language or the message it contains. This evening I was gifted with one of those moments. Here is Book IV, Canto I, Verse 25, describing the grounds outside of the evil Ate's dwelling place:Such was her house within; but all without,
The barren ground was full of wicked weedes,
Which she her selfe had sowen all about,
Now growen great, at first of little seedes,
The seedes of euill wordes, and factious deedes;
Which when to ripeness due they growen arre,
Bring foorth an infinite increase, that breedes
Tumultuous trouble and contentious iarre,
The which most often end in bloudshed and in warre.
Awesome. Those are the kinds of jewels that keep a person going in a difficult read. Now to go check out my reading guide regarding what the heck was going on in the rest of the Canto! :-)
13 comments:
This is one that I really want to try and read soon. This is a great passage. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who glazes over at times when reading difficult books. :)
Lisa ~ You're totally not alone on the glazing over thing. I sometimes glaze over even when I *like* what I'm reading, but I've had to think just a little too hard for a little too long. That's why Tristram Shandy is getting a break. :-) I hope you enjoy The Faerie Queene if you get to it. It really is worth all the trouble!
Lezlie
So awesome that you're reading this! I felt the same way about Paradise Lost: some passages just jumped out at me as I was reading. Even though it was hard, it was definitely worth it!
Rebecca ~ Thanks! This one will be worth it, too. It already is! Do you have your thoughts on Paradise Lost posted on your blog? I'll have to check. It is definitely on my "someday" list, as is The Divine Comedy, but I'll be giving the hard poetry a break for a while after this one. :-)
Lezlie
Lezlie, No, I haven't written about it on my blog -- I read Paradise Lost for a Milton class in college about five years ago. I intend to reread it in the next year. That's how much I enjoyed it.
Rebecca ~ At least this time around you can read it without worry about having to maybe write a paper on it. :-) Maybe I'll push it up the queue just a little bit. . .
Lezlie
Yes, quotes like that will keep you going, I agree. Thanks for sharing!
I really admire you for sticking with this one. I pulled out my big Norton Anthology the other day looking for some Arthurian stuff and flipped past this one. One day I'll get back to it, but not today. :) But I agree it is passages like the one you posted that make me want to pull out that big fat book again.
Literary Feline ~ I'm hoping to show people it's no as scary as they think. :-)
Trish ~ I think when people study the poem in school, they often only read the first book. So far, that has been the best one. Maybe just try that one sometime. It's much less intimidating than thinking about the whole thing!
Lezlie
According to my little notes in ole Norton, looks like we just read the first book. It's been so long that I can barely remember.
Trish ~ Funny! We must have been posting at the same time! :-)
Lezlie
This sounds like something I would love to listen to instead of read...
Ladytink ~ If you find an audio version, please let me know! I think it would be beautiful to listen to!
Lezlie
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