...Spenser celebrates Elisa as a principle of harmony in the April eclogue of The Shepheardes Calender. ...links Elisa to Apollo, the muses, the Graces, ...the natural world,... relationship both to the higher world of mythic beings, or cosmic forces, and to the natural world of particular English flowers and landscape. 75
 

From the reality of her person...and from the poet’s celebration of them, the order of society proceeds. 75
 

...the ideals of English Protestantism in the early period of her reign when speakers addressed Elizabeth as an English Solomon whose virtue and wisdom had created a pastoral paradise. 75
 

...not only to Solomon, but to the pure bride of the song of Solomon. 75
 

...extraordinary tributes to the queen as the cause of England’s good fortunes...awareness of national destiny...Richard Grafton...Chronicle...1562...English history evolves to Elizabeth, who represents a type of historic fulfillment of its...struggles...John Foxe’s...God’s goodness in providing a ruler who unites its past and present glory. ...sense of historical grace... Accession Day... began about 1570. 76
 

...tensions and problems perhaps reinforced Protestant England’s sense of itself as an elect nation. 77
 

The identification of Elizabeth and the English church formally began with her coronation procession... In one of the pageants of the procession, Truth gave a book to a child, who then presented it to Elizabeth. The book was, of course, the Bible in English, and Elizabeth symbolically linked herself with the Englsih church by kissing the book and vowing to cherish it forever. The sign for the final pageant read, “Debora the iudge and restorer of the house of Israel,” a rubric which likened both Elizabeth and her people to the elect of God. 77
 

...translators of the Geneva Bible...exhort Elizabeth to become a second and better Solomon by building the spiritual temple in England. 78
 

...Elizabeth had continued the work of her “father David” by carrying out his plan for the house of God. The analogy between Elizabeth and Solomon thus rienforced England’s sense of election – a people in exile have returned home, have found a ruler, and now worship God in a special sense and in a special place. 78
 

...Edmund Bunny... “any state that followeth the same, may conceive of the undoubted protection of God, which being alreadie freely performed in Iesus Christ, the more that we find among ourselves his kingdom aduanced, and the ruines of his Temple repaired: (the which God be thanked, by the gouernement that nowe is established, we finde to bee done in comfortable manner).”...sense of grace in having Elizabeth as a ruler. 79
 

The Song of Solomon was traditionally interpreted as an epithalamium celebrating the marriage between God and the soul and or the church, an itnerpretation that remained common during the Renaissance. ...Luther rejected...and substituted a political reading: ... “an encomium of the political order,: that celebrated the perfect harmony of Solomon’s reign. For England, Elizabeth was both virgin and queen, mystically linked with both deity and country, and the metaphors of spiritual mariage were thus applied to her person and situation. Thomas Bentley in The Monument of Matrones ...refers to Elizabeth as Solomon... bride of Christ ...church. ...addresses as elect nation of Israel, espoused of God ...pastoral ...describe Elizabeth ...peace, tranquility, and fruitfulness ...signs of her election. 79 ...providing them ...a new convenant and a golden age.
 

...Frances Yates ...golden age ...seen as a type of spiritual state. 81
 

To borrow the metaphors of Elizabethan England, God in his grace had given England a new Solomon whose wisdom was visibly manifest in peace and plenty, who had, in fact, made the land fruitful. Solomon’s own pastoral language described both queen and country: as a woman and a virgin, she resides in the garden as the daughter of God, or bride; and, as a queen, she fructifies the land, creating a garden. The garden becomes an emanation of the queen’s spiritual properties and cannot be separated form her figure. The language of what was considered a biblical epithalamium was a fit vehicle for the ideals of English Protestantism, especially because the ideals of the biblical poem were considered spiritual. The garden is a metaphor for spiritual harmony, and England’s outward peace and prosperity were therefore visible signs of an invisible peace. In his April eclogue, Spenser uses the metaphor of the garden to describe the spiritual harmony contained in ... emanating from Elizabeth. 81
 

In Colin’s “laye,” ...reinforces the theme of the golden age ...linking Eliza with the pastoral harmony of true marriage, an ideal which was most notably found in SS. 82
 

E. K.’s gloss...tells the story of Pan and Syrinx in a way that suggests Elisa’s relation to the harmony of music.... E.K. continues ...Pan not only designates Henry VIII, but “kings and mighty Potentates... Christ himselfe... 83
 

...Spenser is addressing Elizabeth as bride and daughter of God. The way in which he describes her virginity and her origins links her with the allegorical birde of Solomon’s song. 83
 

If Spenser also had in mind the conventional Renaissance interpretation of Pan as the universal efficacy of nature ...association with the bride, or daughter of God, inevitably links her with grace. ...embodies the evolution from nature to grace... harmonizes the realm of nature with that of grace. 83
 

...Spenser is ...praising her as a bride ...first part of the Epithalamion, which resonates with the language of the SS. ...celebrates ...harmony of marriage ...that of the universe ...captured on earth by music... 84
 

The Epithalamion celebrates a real marriage as a manifestation of cosmic harmony: marriage is both actual and metaphoric. ...in presenting Elisa as bride, ...manifestation of natural and cosmic harmony ...ideal of fruitful love. ...the “end” of marriage is children, signs of Christian futurity. ...emblems for “Aprill” link Elisa with Venus, as Edgar Wind has pointed out. 85
 

...love for Rosalind and praise for Elisa appear mutually exclusive. The one destroys verse, the other inspires it; the one is the work of Cupid “with a deadly darte,” the other brings recognition of the divine Venus. ...suggests that Elisa is the remedy for ...folly ...of the shepherds. ...harmony ...implied by the composition of the woodcut. 86
 

... E.K.’s  ...Graces ... “they make three ...” 87
 

...Colin “gives” the song to Elizabeth; she receives, and gives back again the gracious harmony of her rule and love. 87 n47 For a similar “motion” of thankfulness, also associated with the queen and a poet praising her, see eglog 111 in Drayton’s Idea, The Shepheards Garland. After Rowland’s praise of Beta, Perken thanks him for the Roundelay and blesses Beta. Rowland “requites” Perkin’s thanks by promisig Beta his first lamb, or his “first-fruit.” The eglog ends with harmony between the two shepherds, united by their mutual love of Beta, or Elizabeth. 89
 

... “Januarye” ....[Hobbinol gives Colin gifts] “Colin them gives to Rosalinde againe,” who scorns all –gifts, poetry, and love.”... “Aprill” ...Elisa/Elizabeth would restore the world to itself again. 87
 

Colin, or any citizen, can break the triadic motion of true liberality by refusing to accept the harmony of Elizabeth and thereby not return again. 88
 

...Elizabeth as the glorious bride of SS and as an English Solomon who decked the bride, England, and turned a barren land into the fruitful garden. However, ...contains discord, misdirected love, self-interest, and death – all forces that threaten the golden age. ...only valid in the inhabitants ...choose to use it. 88