Complaints.
Edmund Spenser
A Note on the Renascence Editions
text:
This html etext of the Complaints
was prepared from Alexander B. Grosart's The Complete Works in
Verse and Prose of Edmund Spenser [1882] and from Ernest de
Sélincourt's Spenser's Minor Poems [Oxford, 1910]
by Risa S. Bear at the University of
Oregon. The text is in the public domain. Coding is copyright
© The University of Oregon, February 1996.
![[Title Page from Complaints]](./gifs/complaints.gif)
Complaints.
Containing
sundrie
small Poemes of the
Worlds Va-
nitie.
VVhereof the next Page
maketh menti-
on.
By Ed. Sp.
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LONDON.
Imprinted for VVilliam
Ponsonbie, dwelling in Paules
Churchyard at the signe of
the Bishops head.
1591.
A note
of the sundrie Poemes contained
in this Volume.
The Ruines of
Time.
The
Teares of the Muses.
Virgils
Gnat.
Prosopopoia,
or Mother Hubberds Tale.
The
Ruines of Rome: by Bellay.
Muiopotmos,
or The
Tale of the Butterflie.
Visions of
the Worlds vanitie.
Bellayes
visions.
Petrarches
visions.
Gentle Reader
INCE my late
setting foorth of the Faerie Queene,
finding that it hath found a fauourable passage amongst you; I haue
sithence endeuoured by all good meanes (for
the better encrease and accomplishment of your delights,) to get into
my handes such smale Poemes of the same Authors; as I heard were
disperst abroad in sundrie hands, and not easie to bee come by, by
himselfe; some of them hauing bene diuerslie imbeziled and purloyned
from him, since his departure ouer Sea. Of the which I haue by good
meanes gathered togethaer these fewe parcels present, which I haue
caused to bee imprinted altogeather, for that they al seeme to containe
like matter of argument in them: being all complaints and meditations
of the worlds vanitie; verie graue and profitable. To which effect I
vnderstand that he besides wrote sundrie others, namelie Ecclesiastes,
& Canticum canticorum translated, A senights slumber,
The hell of louers, his Purgatorie, being all dedicated to Ladies;
so as it may seem he ment them all to one volume. Besides some other
Pamphlets looselie scattered abroad: as The dying Pellican, The
howers of the Lord, The sacrifice of a sinner, The seuen Psalmes,
&c. which when I can either by himselfe, of otherwise attaine too,
I meane likewise for your fauour sake to set foorth. In the meane time
praying you gentlie to accept of these, & graciouslie to entertaine
the new Poet, I take leaue.
Continue on to The Ruines of
Time.
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![[Renascence Editions]](./gifs/ren.gif)
