up the old song of Epicurus and of Omar:

Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time.

The following scenes in the Bower of Bliss were plainly suggested
by the Palace of Circe, in the _Odyssey_; but where Homer is
direct, simple, forceful, Spenser revels in luxuriant details. He
charms all Guyon's senses with color, perfume, beauty, harmony;
then he remembers that he is writing a moral poem, and suddenly his
delighted knight turns reformer. He catches Acrasia in a net woven
by the Palmer, and proceeds to smash her exquisite abode with
puritanic thoroughness:

But all those pleasaunt bowers and palace brave
Guyon brake down with rigour pitilesse.

As they fare forth after the destruction, the herd of horrible
beasts is again encountered, and lo! all these creatures are men
whom Acrasia has transformed into brutal shapes. The Palmer
"strooks" them all with his holy staff, and they resume their human
semblance. Some are glad, others wroth at the change; and one named
Grylle, who had been a hog, reviles his rescuers for disturbing
him; which gives the Palmer a final chance to moralize:

Let Grylle be Grylle and have his hoggish mind;
But let us hence depart while weather serves and wind.

[Sidenote: OTHER STORIES]

Such is Spenser's story of Sir Guyon, or Temperance. It is a long story,