in my particular I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of
our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faery Land. And yet,
in some places els, I doe otherwise shadow her. For considering she
beareth two persons, the one of a most royall queene or empresse, the
other of a most vertuous and beautifull lady, this latter part in some
places I doe expresse in Belphoebe, fashioning her name according to
your owne excellent conceipt of Cynthia, (Phaebe and Cynthia being
both names of Diana.) So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette
forth magnificence in particular, which vertue, for that (according
to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest, and
conteineth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the
deedes of Arthure applyable to that vertue which I write of in that
booke. But of the xii. other vertues I make xii. other knights the
patrones, for the more variety of the history: of which these three
bookes contayn three. The first of the Knight of the Redcrosse, in
whome I expresse holynes: The seconde of Sir Guyon, in whome I sette
forth temperaunce: The third of Britomartis, a lady knight, in whome I
picture chastity. But because the beginning of the whole worke seemeth
abrupte and as depending upon other antecedents, it needs that ye
know the occasion of these three knights severall adventures. For the
methode of a poet historical is not such as of an historiographer. For
an historiographer discourseth of affayres orderly as they were donne,
accounting as well the times as the actions; but a poet thrusteth into
the middest, even where it most concerneth him, and there recoursing
to the thinges forepaste, and divining of thinges to come, maketh a
pleasing analysis of all.

The beginning therefore of my history, if it were to be told by an
historiographer, should be the twelfth booke, which is the last; where
I devise that the Faery Queene kept her annuall feaste xii. dayes,
uppon which xii. severall dayes, the occasions of the xii. several
adventures hapned, which being undertaken by xii. severall knights,
are in these xii. books severally handled and discoursed. The first
was this. In the beginning of the feast, there presented him selfe
a tall clownish younge man, who, falling before the Queen of Faries,
desired a boone (as the manner then was) which during that feast she
might not refuse: which was that hee might have the atchievement of
any adventure, which during that