Spencer’s Sleeping Knight — Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto 8

Knighty knight.

It’s been a while (again) since I did a post on The Faerie Queene. The book has (seemingly permanent) residence on my desk, and so it hurry it back to its location on my shelves, I really need to get this blog post out. It’s not that I haven’t read Book 2, Canto 8, I have. I read it, started writing, and put it aside.

When I was an undergrad, one of my professors commented that “‘it bored me to tears’ is always a perfectly reasonable critical response.” It bored me to tears. This suggestion comes too late for Edmund Spenser, but perhaps it will save someone else: don’t put your protagonist into a deep slumber. Sure, it worked for Sleeping Beauty, but face it, that story is really about the prince (who has a thing for comatose women).

Like the sleeping princess, stuff happens around Sir Guyon while he’s asleep, but he’s really not involved in any of it. I’m not looking to Elizabethan poetry for white-knuckled excitement, but at least if we had shifted our focus to another character, we wouldn’t have Spenser reminding us, “that guy is sleeping through all of this.” I blame Edmund Spenser for the tardiness of this post.

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Mad Money — Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto 7

I could take it that way, but
couldn't you just write me a check?

It’s been a while since I last dipped into The Faerie Queene. Initially, I figured I’d treat it like a class assignment and rip through it, but it didn’t work that way. I am still intent to get to the end of this work. Equally, though, I am insisting that this should be a pleasure, not a burden. After a month’s delay (not a single post on this subject in November), I return to the poem.

I’ve been doing some other stuff with some tight deadlines, and let me be blunt (as I frequently am about this): these pages don’t get a lot of traffic. In the last ten days, five Faerie Queene posts have been read, one each, from a four locations. You people might want to get together. Since I was in the midst of something with fixed deadlines, I cut back on the posting, and let my copy of The Faerie Queene gather (metaphoric) dust.

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The Lady in the Boat — Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto 6

Phædria is said to
pilot a "Gondelay."
So here's an idle
gondolier.

I start this post with the now customary apology for infrequent writing. I’ve actually been doing a lot of writing, just not on The Faerie Queene. Likewise, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, though (once again) not The Faerie Queene. I’ve ben reading (a few pages every day) Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending, which keeps making me think I should pull the Frank Kermode book of the same title out of storage. I’m certain Barnes knows of the earlier work, but whether Kermode’s criticism is somehow involved or just was too great a title to pass up, I don’t know.

Looking at my shelves of criticism, I see a few things that would make a good title for a novel, one way or another. Mimesis might have to be a science fiction novel, though I suppose a novel in which the protagonist is seized by doubts of inauthenticity (merely the simulacrum of a person) would work. If one were going to name a contemporary novel The Faerie Queene, would that lock the writer into high fantasy?

One thing I’ve noticed about The Sense of an Ending (the novel, not the work of criticism) is that Barnes does not spend a lot of time describing anything. He’s keeping any sort of visual information tamped down. Characters have come and gone without the slightest bit of description. Tall or short? Dark or fair? Thin or plump? Who knows? The same is true of the places the protagonist inhabits.

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Fighting Fire with Fire — Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto 5

We're looking for fire imagery

Remember Acrasia? When I started this canto, my first thought was that Spenser had somehow forgotten her. The action picks up with the arrival of Pyrochles, whose varlet carried the shield reading “Bunrt I doe burn.” Just in case we didn’t get it from the name and shield, Spenser is quick to load on the words to remind us. Pyrochles is in “bright armes” off which “the Sunny beames do glaunce and glide,” and the sun throws forth “sparkling fire, That seem him to enflame.” And that’s just in the second stanza.

Pyrocles rides a steed that is “bloody red,” and that steed is soon going to be bloodier. Guyon is on foot, since he lost his horse in the second canto. Here we have a great moment of medieval warfare: a armored knight on horseback charging a swordsman on foot. Usually, the guy on horseback wins this sort of thing, but not in Canto V.

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Hit the Woman First — Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto 4

This canto tells of a
who could have used
a sword.

I return to my dilatory reading of The Faerie Queene.[1] I’d rather post these at intervals instead of rushing through because I “have to” finish a Faerie Queene post. Sir Guyon seems to have a knack for attracting all those who, for no readily apparent reason, want to attack a noble and virtous knight. The allegorical figures are just laying in for him.

In terms of narrative, this is somewhat strange, because as the canto opens, all he’s doing is looking for his horse (which Sir Braggachio made off with). Clearly, at some point, Sir Guyon and Sir Braggachio are going to meet. For that matter, the Book clearly has to end with Sir Guyon encountering Acrasia. but not yet.

Spenser starts us off with a brief (one stanza) digression on the difference between the low- and high-born, with the suggestion that the nobility are simply naturally better at some things, such as feats of arms and love of entertainment. Even horseback riding

seemes a science
Proper to gentle blood;

although Spenser doesn’t prove this. It’s ironic because our noble knight has lost his horse anyway, so it doesn’t matter if he’s naturally good at horse riding, given that he does’t have a horse. Then again, he would have had to dismount anyway to help the man he sees in the third stanza.

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A Braggart, A Horse, A Deceiver, and A Woman — Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto 3

This is actually Justice,
but you try finding pictures
of armed women.

I really should be more diligent about reading and commenting on The Faerie Queene. First, I want to get this done. Second, according to the blog stats, someone actually found a Faerie Queene post through a search. I hope he or she didn’t go away disappointed. So, I’m back. I've been somewhat busy lately, but I do want to continue to make time to get through the poem.

In Book II, Canto II, Sir Guyon tried to wash the blood off the hands of child of the couple who died due to Acrasia’s evil doings (in Book II, Canto I), but found that the spring they were near was too pure to allow itself to be contaminated with blood. It seems that the blood isn’t coming off by any means, because he leaves the kid with Medina (who doesn’t seem to have volunteered), and the kid’s hands are still bloody. But now he gets a name: Ruddymane, that is to say “bloody hands.” I’d wear gloves.

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The Unhappy House of Medina — Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto 2

The Knight of the Dish
(Is that shield a pink triangle?)

Back to The Faerie Queene. I’m still trying to finish a canto each day (although I’m beginning to contemplate taking the weekend off). I keep giving myself these writing assignments for the blog, but they can get in the way of other things I need to write and do. It feels really good to be sitting at the computer and writing. It feels really good to be reading an Elizabethan poem and jotting down my thoughts on it. Can I stand this much pleasure?

One of the pleasures of the text is that it is a tough one. This is tougher than reading an uncorrected Shakespeare text. Part of the problem is that the edition I’m using has really bad layout. In order to get two columns of text, long lines are often wrapped (in a bracket) either above or below the line they continue. Total pain. Probably adds to the confusion.

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Damsels, Distressed and Not — Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto 1

Have a good knight

Onward with Sir Guyon, the allegory of Temperance (so it’s rather fitting that my earlier post today dealt with just that). We have a new hero! We may have a new hero, but we get the same old villain, the Archimage, at least at the beginning. And the Archimage is at the very beginning of the canto, getting the first four stanzas all to himself, with Sir Guyon showing up at the end of the fifth:

A goodly knight, all arms in harness meet,
That from his head no place appeared to his feete.

He’s well armored. That gives the Archimage an idea, though how he prepared for this one, the poem doesn’t make clear. Okay, he tells Sir Guyon that he saw a fair maiden attacked by a knight.

When that lewd rybauld, with vyle lust advaunst,
Laid first his filthie hands on virgin cleene.

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A Return to the Faerie Queene

Was this a
temperate
knight?

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged about Edmund Spencer’s Faerie Queene. I left off on May 23rd, with the last canto of the first book. So, my intention to blog through the book carried me for just under two weeks. Since then, I’ve kept The Faerie Queene in mind, intending to returning to it.[1] Several things kept me from going back:

1. Travel. They’re tough pieces to write when away from my normal routine, even though all I use is the text itself. I’m done with travel for a bit.
2. Response. In those early days of the blog, the Faerie Queene posts were guaranteed to get fewer readers than anything else. People voted with their clicks, and I wanted to give them what they wanted.[2]
3. Scheduling. For a while, I was writing and publishing, writing and publishing. I’m breaking that cycle. By the end of a day, when I had tried to fill the blog with things people might actually read, I was either done with writing for the day, or had gone on to other things.[3]

After months of “I will return to the Faerie Queene tomorrow,” that day has come. I’m easing myself in gently, since each book starts off with just a few stanzas in prologue.[4]

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Blaming the Messenger - Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 12

The dragon is killed! Bring on the dancing girls!

No joke. The kingdom of Eden holds a big celebration over been freed from the dragon. And there are dancing girls.

Soone after them, all dauncing on a row.
The comely virgins came, with girlands dight.
As fresh as flowres in medow ne doe grow
When morning deaw upon their leaves doth light;  
And in their handes sweet Timbrels all upheld on hight.

I was expecting something more restrained. The people of Eden are curious about the knight, but wary of the dragon, even though it is dead, assuming it is still dangerous. Then off to the feast, though it probably isn't as good as the one catered by Gluttony, back in Canto 4. It's not too shabby though:

What needes me tell their feast and goodly guize,
In which was nothing riotous nor vaine?

and there are

meates and drinkes of every kinde.

So it's doubtless a wonderful feast, and the food isn't that overly rich stuff that leaves you queasy the next day.

The Ancient Rules are in full sway: Kill the dragon, get the princess. However, the knight has already pledged six years of service to the Faerie Queene after slaying the dragon. Hell of a thing to bring up right before the wedding. Since I'm aware that this is an unfinished poem, with only six books out of a projected twelve finished, I'm going to hazard a guess that miss out on a triumphant final canto in which the Faerie Queene reunites the Redcross Knight with Una (I'll go a step further and assume this pattern of rescue and marry the maiden then return to the court of the Faerie Queen is going to repeat itself).

Then there's another wrinkle. A messenger shows up with a note from Fidessa, claiming that she's the Redcrosse Knight's wife. We didn't really think Duessa was going to give up, did we? Falsehood has actually proven the most persistent of the allegorical personages the Redcross Knight has faced, although she doesn't appear personally this time.

The king and queen are certainly eager to believe the knight. We know that Duessa is lying, but they only have the knight's word. "Oh, no! I never betrothed myself to Duessa," although I suppose we might give some extra credence to someone we know to have been purged of evil and who slew the dragon of sin. He admits to knowing Duessa, just not in that way.

'Of this false woman that Fidessa hight,
Fidessa hight the falsest Dame on grownd,  
Most false Duessa, royall richly dight;
That easy was t' inveigle weaker sight:
Who by her wicked arts and wylic skill,
Too false and strong for earthly skill or might,
Unwares me wrought unto her wicked will,
And to my foe betrayd when least I feared ill.’

Una actually figures out who the messenger is.

Of this false footman, clokt with simplenesse,
Whome if ye please for to discover plaine,
Ye shall him Archimago find, I ghesse,  
The falsest man alive: who tries, shall had no lesse.’

It's ironic that the Archimago (the Enchanter, earlier) gets punished not for his own deceptions, but for participating in one of Duessa's. Is this an allegory of those who make themselves servants of falsehood? I'm sure she told him they would reward him handsomely for letter. You just can't trust her.

Although, it's been established that the Enchanter is protean and can assume or cause something to assume another's shape, they don't actually confirm this before throwing the guy in the dungeon. Medieval justice, I guess. Still, when you have the allegorical personification of Truth making a claim, I guess you have to believe her. Una's probably incapable of telling a lie.  One of the recurrent antagonists has been dealt with, although this does leave Duesssa still running around, presumably in her natural and hideous shape.

Yet we don't end with a happily ever after. The knight is steadfast to his oath to return to the court of the Faerie Queene. Una's not happy about this, as she is described as being "left to mourne."

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The Inevitable Dragon - Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 11

Now we get a dragon.

Now that the Redcrosse Knight has been identified with Saint George, I suppose we must have a dragon. When I finished reading canto 10, I didn't think we were going to see a dragon fight, even though I did include a photo of a statue of St. George fighting a dragon. Now we get the fight.

The. Obvious. Allegory.

There was a moment at stanza 30 where I actually groaned. Oh, Spenser, you're usually more subtle than this. In stanza 29, the knight reaches a "springing well," which is "full of great vertues, and for med'cine good." But there's more:

For unto life the dead it could restore,
And guilt of sinfull crimes clenne wash away;
Those that with sicknesse were infected sore
It could recure; and aged long decay
Renew as one were borne that very day.

And just in case you didn't get it, Spenser notes that "both Silo this, and Jordan, did excel." Hmm… better than the waters of the Jordan. Really?

The knight is having a tough time against this dragon before the "springing well." The dragon is a pretty formidable opponent, described over the course of 8 stanzas, each one making him seem more unstoppable. While both knight and dragon are wounded in the battle, once the dragon has driven the knight into the well, the dragon assumes victory.

When that infemall Monster, having kest
His wearie foe into that living well,
Gan high advaunce his broad discoloured brest
Above his wonted pitch, with countenance fell,
And clapt his yron wings as victor he did dwell.

Not so fast, dragon.

In the morning, the battle begins afresh. But the knight,

So new this new-borne knight to battell new 'd rise.

A bit of a surprise for the dragon.

No wonder if he wondred at the sight,
And doubted whether his late enimy
It were, or other new supplied knight. 

The battle rages on, but the knight still isn't successful. As chance would have it, the (baptized) knight and Sin (that dragon, that is) end up at the Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden. Like I said, this time, the allegory is pretty obvious.

There grew a goodly tree him faire beside,
Loaden with fruit and apples rosy redd,
As they in pure vermilion had been dide,
Whereof great vertues over-all were redd;
For happy life to all which thereon fedd,
And life eke everlasting did befall:
Great God it planted in that blessed stedd
With his Almighty hand. and did it call
The tree of life, the crime of our first fathers fall.

The tree is important because,

From that first tree forth flowd, as from a wel ,
A trickling streams of Balme.

First we had baptism, now we have the anointing with holy oil. Our knight, though an Elf, is also a Christian. Once anointed (by Una), the knight is

All healed of his hurts and woundes wide,
And did himselfe to battaile ready dight ; 

And quite able to kill the dragon in two more stanzas on the third day.

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In the House of Holiness - Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 10

Speranza's poems

Oscar Wilde's mother was born Jane Frances Elgee, though she later morphed her middle name into Francesca. As a poet, before her marriage, she adopted the pen name "Speranza." More than just some vague personification of Hope, I suspect the future Lady Wilde was thinking of The Faerie Queene when she took her pseudonym.

In canto 9, Spenser lays on the allegorical personages thickly. There's never a doubt about who an individual might be. Una takes the knight to the house of Cælia, with her daughters the Graces, Fidelia, Speranza, and Charissa (Faith, Hope, and Charity).

Then we meet the various servants who attend on Heaven: Humilitá, Zele, Reverence (Humility, Zeal, Reverence). But the real journey in this part of the poem, where—finally—no one is in peril, is the education of the Redcrosse Knight, who (though our allegory of the soul seeking holiness) needs to be prepared. In a way, this is the didactic poem I feared.

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Despair! But the Lady Rescues - Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 9

In a way, canto 9 was somewhat appropriate for me today. I was feeling a depressed. Various things aren't going well in my life. My hopes of an increasing blog readership are being met with really sorry blog stats. In this canto, we meet Despair, who furnishes the means to kill yourself and then convinces you to do so.

Before we do so, Arthur (not yet king) tells his background, as much as he knows it, since Merlin would only tell him that he "was sonne and heire unto a king." What Una wants to know is

what adventure. or what high intent,
Hath brought you hither into Faery land,

We've been told a few times that the Redcrosse Knight is an elf, but despite the sorcerers, monsters, and allegorical personages that have been wandering about, I think this is our first confirmation that we are not in the everyday world. Moreover, it's clear that Arthur belongs to our world, not to Faery land, as comfortable as he may be in the world of the poem.

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Ugly Falsehood - Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 8

Arthur to the rescue! There's a sort of comic element to the fight as Arthur vanquishes both Orgoglio and the monster that Duessa rides. First Arthur cuts the giant's arm off,

He smott off his left arme, which like a block
Did fall to gound, depriv'd of native might:

although that doesn't actually finish things. But before Arthur can finish the job, Duessa comes out of the castle on her monster. Arthur's squire intervenes, and is keeping the monster at bay, until

Then tooke the angrie witch her golden cup,
Which still she bore, replete with magick artes;
Death and despeyre did many therof sup,
And secrete poyson through their inner partes,
Th' eternall bale of heavie wounded harts:
Which after charmes and some enchauntments said,
She lightly sprinkled on his weaker partes:
Therewith his sturdie corage was soon quay'd,
And all his senses were with suddein dread dismayd.

Not just a good reminder that Duessa is a witch, but something that raises a question for which I have no answer. Just what exactly are the squire's "weaker parts"? The only potential answer that comes to my mind is that she has enchanted his genitals. In any case, this leaves him vulnerable to the beast, until Arthur appears and cuts one of the beast's heads off.

A brief allegorical digression.
I'm still puzzling over the beast the Falsehood rides. Gossip?
End of digression.

Back to the action. The giant shows up to help Duessa, but attacks Arthur by striking his shield.

And in his fall his shield, that covered was,
Did loose his vele by chaunce, and open flew:
The light whereof, that hevens light did pas,
Such blazing brightnesse thorugh the ayer threw,
They eye mote not the same enrure to vew.

Arthur's shiny shield save the day. If I could tell what, allegorically, Arthur is, I might have a chance at guessing what the light of his (formerly obscured) shield is. Holy wisdom? Pure love? No idea. In any case, Arthur chops the giant's right leg off (which I found reminiscent of the Black Knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail). This isn't just a "flesh wound," but instead,

But soone as breath out of his brest did pas,
That huge great body , which the Gyaunt bore,
Was vanisht quite; and of that monstrous mas
Was nothing left, but like an emptie blader was.

So that last cut popped him like a balloon.

Meanwhile, in the castle, the Redcrosse Knight has been made a prisoner of Ignorance. While any humor I might have found in the fight with the giant was wholly personal, this seems like a deliberate joke. Ignaro, the giant's step father, has a name that "did his nature right aread," because his answer to every question is "I can not tell."

His answere likewise was, he could not tell.
Whose sencelesse speach, and doted ignorance

So Arthur just takes his keys, looks through the castle without any guidance, and determination overcomes ignorance. After rescuing the knight, who has suffered greatly while imprisoned by Ignorance, there's one last thing to do: strip Duessa.

Once stripped of her finery, the see "the face of falsehood." And it gets worse:

That her misshaped parts did them appall,
A loathly, wrinckled hag, ill favoured, old,
Whose secret filth good manners biddeth not be told.

Good manners may say that her further appearance shouldn't be described, but Spenser tells us anyway.

Her crafty head was altogether bald,
And as in hate of honorable eld,
Was overgrowne with scurfe and filthy scald;
Her teeth out of her rotten gummes were feld,
And her sowre breath abhominably smeld;
Her dried dugs, like bladders lacking wind,
Hong downe, and filthy matter from them weld;
Her wrizled skin as rough, as maple rind,
So scabby was, that would haue loathd all womankind.

Her neather parts, the shame of all her kind,
My chaster Muse for shame doth blush to write ;
But at her rompe she growing had behind
A foxes taile, with dong all fowly dight;
And eke her feete most monstrous were in sight;
For one of them was like an Eagles claw,
With griping talaunts armd to greedy fight,
The other like a Beares uneven paw:
More ugly shape yet neuer liuing creature saw.

No wonder Fradubio was so bothered.

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Horrid all with gold - Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 7

King Arthur shows up! It just took seven cantos to go from mere chivalric romance to Arthurian romance!

I'm going to hazard an allegorical reading here. As Duessa is the daughter of Deceit and Shame, I'm assuming that she's Duplicity. Certainly that fits in with her actions. And so Duplicity puts the soul into peril. Again.

Duessa leads the knight to a fountain that saps the strength. where he is attacked by

An hideous Geunt, horrible and hye,
That with his tallnesse seemd to threat the skye;

As he has drunk from the fountain, he's no match for the Giant, who the poem makes a pretty fierce opponent as it is. Luckily (I guess) for the Redcrosse Knight, Duessa pleads for his life suggesting tha that Orgoglio not kill the knight but,

But vanquisht thine eternall bondslave make

Which is a better than being

pouldred all as thin as flowre.

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Everyone wants Una, or Bestial lust in the forest - Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 6

And with canto 6, we return to the trials and tribulations of Unu, our personification of Truth. But despite the attempts of Sansloy, Truth will not be swayed by Lawlessness (okay, that's an allegory). If I put on my allegorical reading glasses, is Spenser suggesting that pagans desire Truth, but they don't know how to treat her?

Because while Sanloy (the last of the Sans brothers) has "fawning words," through which

he countered her a while:
And, looking lovely and oft sighing sore,
Her contant hart did tempt with diverse guile:

His intentions are purely bad.

With beastly sin thought to have her defilde,
And made the vassal of his pleasures vilde.

Happily for Una, her noise draws the attention of a group of fauns and satyrs; they frighten Sansloy away. They become another group that wants truth. At least they're not trying to defile her. Instead, they

all prostate upon the lowly playne,
Doe kisse her feete, and fawne on her with count'nance fayne,

But though they have a "barbarous truth,"she is still wary of them. But they

Do worship her as Queene with olive girlond cround.

And worship her as Goddess of the wood:

So she warms up to them and

During which time her gentle wit shy plyes
To teach them truth, which worshipt her in vaine,
But then their bootless zeale she did restrayne
From her own worship, they her Asse would worship fayn.

The savages make a goddess out of Truth, and are just as happy to worship a donkey. Ouch.

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Spenser's Inferno - Faerie Queene - Book 1, Canto 5

It was obvious at the end of the last canto who was going to win the joust. It's not much of a story if the evil Saracen Sansjoy wins. In this canto, we get another reminder of Dante. It makes me wonder if The Divine Comedy was known in Elizabethan England.

The Redcrosse Knight is seriously wounded in battle, but is accorded the winner when Sansjoy vanishes.

when lo! a darkesome clowd
Upon him fell: he no where doth appeare,
But vanisht is.

He's been saved by Duessa from being killed by the Redcrosse Knight. Is that cheating? Duessa actually cries over the wounds that the Redcrosse Knight received, though Spenser does tell us that she's faking it, comparing her to

a cruell craftie Crocodile,
Which, in false grief hyding his harmful guile,
Doth weep full sore, and sheddeth tender teares;

We also find that Duessa is herself an allegorical personification (well, because everyone in this poem is). Her parents are Deceit and Shame (probably not the best couple to invite to a party).

Duessa enlists Pride's help in getting to hell, as Pride is part of the local royalty there. Unlike Dante, of course, this is not going to be a voyage of moral development. The daughter of Deceit and Shame is not heading anywhere near Dante's Paradiso.

For that matter, this is pagan hell, not Dante's. While there are some correspondences, such as Cerebus and the Furies, if memory serves me, here they are both drawing from Virgil (I don't have my copy of the The Aneid at hand). Their goal is to find Aesculapius, who is reluctant but heals Sansjoy.

There's an allegory here; I can smell it. I'm doing this without looking at any notes or commentaries, though I realize that in trying to read naively, I'm somewhat handicapping myself. Spenser's original audience would have been much more attuned to puzzling out allegories. We just don't read them much anymore.

Yet other parts are less subtle. When Duessa returns to the House of Pride, she finds that the Redcrosse Knight has gone. The Knight has discovered the dungeons in which Pride makes prisoners out of those who fall fall prey to her snares. I'm going to try my hand at unravelling an allegory: the good soul is delivered from pride by the knowledge of its consequences.

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The Knight in the Hellish Court - Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 4

The Seven Deadly Sins

The Redcrosse Knight is a bit of a sap. First he gets duped twice by the Enchanter, now in the fourth canto, we learn that he's being lead astray by Duessa. It's a good thing his armor is enchanted to protect him for harm or he'd be in real trouble.

Duessa takes him to the house of Pride. She is chief among the Seven Deadly Sins, the rest of whom are her courtiers. The classic list of the sins from Pope Gregory I runs in this order:

• Lust
• Gluttony
• Avarice
• Sloth
• Wrath
• Envy
• Pride

But Spenser has his own sequence. He starts with Pride, who rides in a carriage drawn by peacocks. Each of the other six rides on a symbolic beast. Spenser puts them in this order:

• Pride - carriage drawn by peacocks
• Idleness - rides an ass
• Gluttony - rides a pig
• Lechery - rides a goat
• Avarice - rides a camel
• Envy - rides a wolf
• Wrath - rides a lion

At the end of this little parade, comes Satan himself. For that matter, Pride is described as the daughter "of griesly Pluto" and "sad Proserpina, the Queene of hell," and gets the name "Lucifera." But with the exception of Pride, who is described as "wondrous faire, as any living wight," the rest of the court is described as being (not to overuse the word) monstrous.

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The Lady and the Lion - Faerie Queene - Book 1, Canto 3

After I published my post on the second canto of The Faerie Queene, I realized I forgot to mention one other monstrosity. Poor Fradubio himself, the tree that cries and bleeds, has been turned into a monster by the wicket Duessa.

I found myself hoping that we weren't going for more monstrous women in the third canto. I got my wish. And, since Spenser had left the fate of Una up in the air, resolves some of that dramatic tension, by turning to the fair Lady who got largely ignored in canto 2.

Our synopsis:

Forsaken Truth long seeks her love,
and makes the Lyon mylde;
Marres blind Devotions mart, and falls
In hand of leach our vylde.

So Una is looking for the Redcrosse Knight when all of a sudden "out of thickest wood" comes "a ramping Lyon." Happily, instead of the expected great peril (I was wondering if someone noble would come up and rescue her), it turn out that the lion becomes her protector. She then sees a woman carrying water "on her shoulders sad." Spenser makes the woman carrying water deaf, mute, and lacking understanding ("she could not heare, nor speak, nor understand). I'm making note of this only because feels significant at the moment.

Una follows the woman, seeking lodging for the night, but theman carrying water deaf, mute, and lacking understanding ("she could not heare, nor speak, nor understand). But when you have a lion with you, a barred door isn't that much of a trouble. And there she finds Devotion, as promised in the quatrain.

Shee found them both in darksome corner pent;
Where that old woman day and night did pray
Upon her beads, devoutly penitent:
Nine hundred Pater noshers every day,
And thrise nine hundred Aves she was wont to say.

We recently watched the film Don Jon, in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a man with a steady diet of online porn and casual sex. In his weekly confession, he tallies up each to the priest who gives him a few recitations "Our Father" and "Hail Mary." In one scene, he is irritated that a week of premarital sex without porn doesn't actually offer him much reduction in the prayers. Gorden-Levitt's character was given prayers in sets of ten, twenty, or so.

But Devotion says the "Our Father" nine hundred times a day and two thousand seven hundred times for "Hail Mary." I doubt she has time for much else. As her daughter is a deaf mute, Devotion is blind. But Spenser doesn't make Devotion a nice character. She is not to be confused with piety. Devotion and her daughter live off the earnings of the thief. Worse, he is

Wont to robbe churches of their ornaments.
And poore mens boxes of their due reliefe,

He robs churches, even taking the vestments from the priests and statutes of the saints. His name is the quite appropriate "Kirkrapine." He gives this plunder to the younger woman, now identified as Abesssa, so that he can have sex with her.
With whom he whoredome usd
Unfortunately for the thief, Devotion, and Abessa (undoubtably meant to slander Catholic nuns from Elizabeth's Protestant court), there is a lion outside the door, which kills the thief.  By that point, Una and the lion have left, and so the two women pursue her. When they catch her,

Shamefully at her railing all the way,
And accusing her of dishonesty,

Which is sort of ironic, given that they live off of stolen goods that have been transferred to them. And she is rescued, or she thinks, by the Redcrosse Knight, except it's really the Enchanter.

From our point of view, it's handy when Sans Loy shows up. We know it's him, because he has his name written on his shield "in bloody lines." He's quite angry with the Redcrosse Knight, even though he's now facing the counterfeit one.

Life from Sansfoy thou tookst, Sansloy shall from thee take.

Too late Sansloy sees who he has struck, and leaves the Enchanter with "the cloudes of death" in his eyes. That leaves the lion as the lady's last (and true) protector, but the beast is not able to withstand Sansloy who takes the lady off.

We have our break from the monstrous, in that our beast is quite gentle to the lady. She is, as a good heroine of a chivalric romance, dependably in peril as we close the canto.

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Many a knight and more ladies fair and monstrous - Faerie Queene - Book 1, Canto 2

In case you were curiass

Spenser continues with themes of duplication, dissimulation, and transformation in the second canto. We've got four knights and three ladies, except that one of the knights is a fake, as are two of the ladies. Just for balance, we have something that looks like a false squire.

We get some clues in the introductory quatrain. Spenser says,

The guileful great Enchaunter parts
The Redcrosse Knight from Truth :
Into whose stead faire falsehood steps,
And works him woefull ruth.

From whom does the Redcrosse Knight become separated? The lovely Lady, and it the quatrain is an indication, she is Truth. No wonder she so quickly recognized and disliked Erreur. We even get a name for her, which had been mentioned before. Her name is Una of the

black stole, most like to seem for Una fit

in the 15th stanza of the first canto. And due to the Enchanter's arts, we soon have

Una wandring in woods and forrests

The two get separated. After Enchanter failed to divide the knight from his lady by lust, he makes a squire for the false lady (which seems to make her fair Falsehood of the quatrain), and alerts the knight so that the he will see how they have "knit themselves in Venus shameful chaine."

It works. He's off with his sword and his "eie of rason was with rage yblent." The Enchanter stopped the knight from killing Falsehood. Instead, he leaves at morning light with the dwarf. The Enchanter's real goal seems to be to attack the lady,

For he hated her as the hissing snake,
And in her many troubles did most pleasure take.

The ladies are clearly important. The Enchanter, after some thought, takes the form of the Redcrosse Knight and goes off to find the lady. This is a matter for another canto, because we catch back up with the Redcrosse Knight. (I'm sure we're going to see the Enchanter in the form of the Redcrosse Knight again, as well as Una, though in the remainder of this canto, we don't.)

I really liked the name of the next night we meet: Sans Foy. Sir Faithless. And he has brothers. The middle child is "the bloudy bold Sans loy," or Sir Lawless; the youngest is Sans Joy, and Sir Joyless is probably no fun at parties. Spenser makes Sans Foy (and presumably his brothers) Saracens, which is to say, not Christian. They are the stock villains of heroic romance. Sans Foy attacks the Redcrosse Knight, but the cross on his curiass prevents Sans Foy from wounding him.  Sans Foy is not so lucky and seems to do himself in with his own helmet. Oops.

We have our third knight (Redcrosse, Enchanter in the form of Redcrosse, and Sans Foy), and now we get our third Lady (the first two being the lovely Lady and her false double made from a spirit). Just as the Redcrosse Knight was traveling with Lady and Dwarf, Sans Foy gets his entourage too.

Hee had a faire companion of his way,
A goodly Lady clad in scarlot red,
Purled with gold and pearle of rich assay;
And like a Persian mitre on her hed
Shee wore

In keeping the Saracen knight, here we have a woman in Middle-Eastern garb. Much more elaborate than the Lady who wears a veil and a black stole. Her name is Fidessa, well, kinda.

The Redcrosse Knight and Fidessa seek some shade and here we get our next transformation. The knight breaks a branch off a tree and it starts to bleed and cry. The tree is a man named Fradubio (our fourth knight) who has been enchanted into the form of a tree by Duessa, a sorceress. Like the Enchanter, Duesssa does transformations too, or at least that's what Fradubio tells us.

Fradubio had been in love with Fraelissa when he met Duessa. He dumped Fraelissa because Duessa seemed prettier. but then he found that Duessa wasn't so pretty after all. Okay, so she let herself go a little after she got married, and Fradubio accused her of being an enchantress whose former lovely form was a counterfeit. What an asshole! No wonder she turned him into a tree.

Or, if we believe Fradubio on this, Duessa made Fraeliss seem ugly by an enchantment,

a dull blast, that breathing on her face
Dimmer her former beauties shining ray,
And with foul ugly forme did her disgrace 

But then (too late), Fradubio seems Duessa in "her proper hew," and her own shape is "misshapen, monstrous."

more foule and hideous,
Than woman's shape man would believe to bee

Given that the women's shapes in Elizabeth England were fairly well concealed, though the mind does boggle at the thought of an Elizabethan man so benighted that he's not quite sure what's under that dress. It's too late, since Fraelissa is already "turnd to treen mold." For Duessa has transformed Fradubio right at the spot that Fraelissa has died.

It's Arthurian Romance; there's a way of breaking the spell, though probably not for Fraelissa. Now the bad news for the Redcrosse Knight:

The false Duessa, now Fidessa hight,
Heard how in vain Fradubio did lament,
And knew well all was true.

The Redcross Knight has gone from being accompanied by Lady Truth to being in the company of an hideous old hag in the form of a lovely lady. There are clearly problems ahead.

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