By asking the question about "maske," I was not questioning the Virgilian
origins of Spenser's passage. In Spenser's day and beyond, the Aeneid was
commonly begun with four lines now considered spurious:
Ille ego, qui quondam gracili modulatus avena
Carmen; & egressus sylvis, vicina coegi,
Vt quamvis avido parerent arva colono;
Gratum opus agricolis: at nunc horrentia Martis
Arma virumque cano . . . .
I quote from a 1650 Amsterdam edition, which Spenser, of course, could
never have seen, but which retains the spurious lines that -- we assume --
Spenser would have known as the first lines of the Aeneid.
Even so, I think we can still ask in what senses Spenser's Muse "did Maske"
in "lowly Shepheardes weeds." And when Spenser invokes his muse, is he
really invoking his own verse -- as Roger Kuin seems to believe?
Yours, Bill Godshalk
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* W. L. Godshalk *
* Professor, Department of English *
* University of Cincinnati *
* Cincinnati OH 45221-0069 * Stellar Disorder
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