Throughout his Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser depicts himself as a “poet magus” who can peer behind the veil of Nature in order to discover a “secret teaching” of ethical and political virtue that he will impart to his readers. His readers are thus tasked with the chore of reforming the fallen world through the creation of an empire under Elizabeth. However, in “The Two Cantos of Mutabilitie,” Spenser seems to relinquish this vision. Indeed, Mutabilitie, on one level serves as a mirroring figure of Spenser’s own ambitions. Mutabilitie’s claims for the fragility and mutability of (temporal) existence are prefigured throughout The Faerie Queene, but in “The Two Cantos,” they take center stage. Spenser’s depiction of Nature’s triumph over Mutabilitie provides a lesson for Spenser himself, and he appears to reject his bombastic claims of knowledge as well as his projected imperial vision for a position of humble supplication before God, whose Providence is the ultimately the most powerful force in The Faerie Queene.

中文翻译：

---

埃德蒙·斯宾塞的结局感

贯穿他的仙后在《埃德蒙·斯宾塞》中，埃德蒙·斯宾塞将自己描绘成一位“诗人魔术师”，他可以透过自然的面纱来发现他将传授给读者的道德和政治美德的“秘密教导”。因此，他的读者肩负着通过在伊丽莎白领导下创建帝国来改革堕落世界的苦差事。然而，在《可变性的两首诗》中，斯宾塞似乎放弃了这一愿景。事实上，从某种意义上说，Mutabilitie 反映了斯宾塞自己的野心。Mutabilitie 对（暂时）存在的脆弱性和可变性的主张自始至终都得到了预示。仙后，但在《两首诗》中，它们占据了舞台的中心。斯宾塞对自然战胜可变性的描述为斯宾塞本人提供了一个教训，他似乎拒绝接受他对知识的夸夸其谈的主张，也拒绝他在上帝面前谦卑恳求的帝国愿景，上帝的普罗维登斯最终是世界上最强大的力量。仙后。