ABSTRACT
The opening stanza of Spenser's The Faerie Queene combines two very different models.! Lines 1-4 clearly imitate the probably spurious lines appended to the beginning of the Aeneid in Renaissance editions, drawing attention to the Virgilian nature of Spenser's own progression from pastoral to epic:
ille ego, qui quondam gracili modulatus avena carmen, et egressus silvis vicina coegi ut quamvis avido parerent arva colono, gratum opus agricolis; at nunc horrentia Martis.
