My pretty light fantastic maid,
I here invoke thee to my aid,
Then may I speak what thou hast said
In numbers smoothly swelling."
The consequent poem is too long to be given in these pages as a whole. It has been frequently reprinted, and is no doubt accessible to most members of the F. L. S. I shall therefore only quote in full such passages of it as are of special interest to us and to men like-minded, shall connect them by a slender thread of narrative "transposed," and duly—I pray not unduly—test the patience of the reader by sundry notes and comments. Let me premise that Drayton's fairies are true Teutonic tinies, and not the full-sized supernatural creatures of classic poets, or the enchanted quasi-human beings[1] of mediæval romance.
The abode of the Fairy King is ingeniously described, though it may be observed that its site is no longer in the subterranean region where King Arthur is said to have been feasted by the fairy[2]—
"This palace standeth in the air,
By necromancy placed there.
That it no tempests need to fear
Which way soe'er it bloweth.
And somewhere southward tow'rd the noon,
Which lies away up to the moon,
And thence the fairy can as soon
Pass to the earth below it.
The walls of spiders' legs were made.
Well mortised and finely laid.
He was the master of his trade,
That curiously it builded:
The windows are the eyes of cats,
And for the roof instead of slats
Is covered with the skins of bats,
With moonshine that are gilded."
- ↑ The "fay" of Pol. iv. [ii. 735], is, of course, Vivien: an enchantress, but not an elf.
- ↑ I find it useful to remember the four senses in which, as Mr. Keightley pointed out, the word "faerie" has been used: i. Illusion, enchantment; ii. The land of illusions, the country of the faés; iii. The people of fairyland collectively, the faerie; iv. A denizen of fairyland, size being put out of the question. Use of the word with this meaning arose after Chaucer and before Spencer; later on all distinctions were ignored, and the name fay or fairy given to elves.—Fairy Mythology (Bohn's edition), pp. 8-11.
