In the ‘January,’ a monologue, Spenser, under the disguise of Colin Clout, laments the ill-success of his love for Rosalind, who meets his advances with scorn.  He also alludes to his friendship with Harvey, who is introduced throughout under the name of Hobbinol.  The ‘February’ is a disputation between youth and age in the persons of Cuddie and Thenot.  It introduces the fable of the oak and the briar, in which, since he ascribes it to Tityrus, a name he transferred from Vergil to Chaucer, Spenser presumably imagined he was imitating that poet, though it is really no more in the style of Chaucer than is the roughly accentual measure in which the eclogue is composed.  For the ‘March’ Spenser recasts in English surroundings Bion’s fantasy of the fight with Cupid, without however achieving any conspicuous success.  In the April eclogue Hobbinol recites to the admiring Thenot Colin’s lay

      Of fayre Eliza, Queene of shepheardes all,
    Which once he made as by a spring he laye,
      And tuned it unto the Waters fall.

This lay is in an intricate lyrical stanza which Spenser shows considerable skill in handling.  The following lines, for instance, already show the musical modulation characteristic of much of his best work: 

    See, where she sits upon the grassie greene,
      (O seemely sight!)
    Yclad in Scarlot, like a mayden Queene,
      And ermines white: 
    Upon her head a Cremosin coronet,
    With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set: 
      Bay leaves betweene,
      And primroses greene,
    Embellish the sweete Violet.

In the ‘May’ we return to the four-beat accentual measure, this time applied to a discussion by the herdsmen Palinode and Piers of the lawfulness of Sunday sports and the corruption of the clergy.  Here we have a common theme treated from an individual point of view.  The eclogue is interesting as showing that the author, whose opinions are placed in the mouth of the precise Piers; belonged to what Ben Jonson later styled ’the sourer sort of shepherds.’  A fable is again introduced which is of a pronounced Aesopic cast.  In the ‘June’ we return to the love-motive of Rosalind, which, though alluded to in the April eclogue, has played no prominent part since January.  It is a dialogue between Colin and Hobbinol, in which the former recounts his final defeat and the winning of Rosalind by Menalcas.  This eclogue contains Spenser’s chief tribute to Chaucer: 

    The God of shepheards, Tityrus, is dead,
    Who taught me homely, as I can, to make;
    He, whilst he lived, was the soveraigne head
    Of shepheards all that bene with love ytake: 
    Well couth he wayle his Woes, and lightly slake
    The flames which love within his heart had bredd,
    And tell us mery tales to keepe us wake
    The while our sheepe about us safely fedde.