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8703540

Fadley, Ann M iller

"IN LOUES AND GENTLE IOLLITIES", A STUDY OF EXEMPLAR-LOVERS AND HEROISM IN "THE FAERIE QUEENE"

The Ohio Stale University Ph.D. 1986

University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb R o a d , Ann Arbor, Ml 48106

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University Microfilms International

"IN LOUES AND GENTLE IOLLITIES"i A STUDY OF

EXEMPLAR-LOVERS AND HEROISM IN THE FAERIE QUEENE

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of the Ohio State University

By

Ann Miller Fadley, B.A., M.A.

* # # # »

The Ohio State University 1986

Dissertation Committeei Approved by

David 0. Frantz 'i Rolf Soellner

Phoebe Spinrad Advisej Department or"Ehgiishjr'Engl is Copyright by

Ann Miller Fadley 1986 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank Dr. David 0. Frantz for his continuing guidance and patience throughout the extensive researching and writing of this study. Thanks go also to the other members of my advisory committee* to Dr. Phoebe Spinrad for her helpful editorial suggestions and to Dr. Rolf-Soellner for his support. I express sincere appreciation to Dr.

Robert Jones for his encouragement in the first several chapters. VITA

November 22, 1933 ...... Born - Seattle, Washington 1951-1953 ...... Attended Denison University, Granville, Ohio

1 9 7*)...... B.A., cum laude. The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1 9 7 5 - 1 9 7 7...... Graduate Administrative Associate, Creative Writing Department, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1 9 7 6 ...... M.A., Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1978-1981 ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University 1981-1984...... Lecturer, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1984-Present ...... Instructor, Department of English, Ohio Dominican College, Columbus, Ohio

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field1 English Studies in English Renaissance, Dr, David 0. Frantz Restoration and Eighteenth-century, Dr. Wallace Maurer Drama, Dr. Robert Jones Creative Writing, Dr. Robert Canzoneri

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... ii

VITA ...... iii

INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Notes ...... • 10

CHAPTER

I. "Fierce warres and faithfull loues"; A STUDY OF LOVE IN THE EPIC ...... 11 Notes ...... 37

II. Una and "her owne deare loued knight"» HUMAN LOVE IN THE NARRATIVE OF BOOK I OF THE FAERIE QUEENE ...... M Notes ...... 79 III. "Dye rather, dy, then euer loue disloyally"i TIMIAS AND BELPHOEBE...... 83 Notes ...... 122

IV. "Whose euer be the shield, faire Amoret be his"i AMORET AND SCUDAMOUR ...... 126 Notes ...... 176

V. "Where he her spous'd and made his ioyous bride"; FLORIMEX'L AND MARI NELL ...... 179 Notes ...... 232

VI. "Well worthy stock, from which the branches sprong"; THE MAJOR EXEMPLAR-LOVERS, BRITOMART AND ARTEGALL ...... 2 3 6 Notes ...... 309

CONCLUSION ...... 314

WORKS...... CITED ...... 3I8 iv INTRODUCTION

One of the most important themes throughout Edmund

Spenser's The Faerie Queene. published in 1590 and 1596, is the primacy of love as a universal force for good. Through his investigation of love between exemplar-couples, Spenser asserts that concord and love should be man's ultimate goal.

Of utmost importance, the exemplar-lovers' attempts to achieve virtuous union lead to a marked reinterpretation of epic heroism. The epic hero has always been understood to be a man of preeminent courage, battle prowess, strength, and/or cunning.

Perhaps descended from a god, the hero remains mortal. Great­ ly human, he is larger than life in his abilities and flaws.

The Homeric hero most values personal glory. His primary aim is to win honor through great achievements and be remembered for them after death. The Virgilian heroic ideal changes to a desire for his society's glory. Aeneas, for example, sym­ bolizes the Roman virtues, and he willingly sacrifices him­ self for Rome's future greatness. Spenser's heroes and her­ oines are also preeminent, but they represent particular areas of evolving virtues. Like previous classical heroes,

1 his remain immersed in the active life. They make choices and are responsible for their actions. Yet, for Spenser, the redeeming capability of human sexual love and marriage creates a new epic hero and heroine and a new heroic ideal.

Man's heroic nature is best shown through inner virtue and his performance of duty on a more homely level. Spenser's heroes and heroines seek a moral order and find cases of isolated human goodness that can rally to oppose evil and, at least temporarily, conquer evil. Spenser redefines the epic hero or heroine as a virtuous lover who is willing to live within the here and now. His or her primary aim is to win personal honor through virtuous love and fertile mar­ riage. Marriage thereby stands as a metaphor for the best way to bring justice and peace to the world and as a sug­ gestion for the most practical way to live on this earth.

The life of the lover, like the life of the just man, in­ sists we reach for holiness and, with forethought, incor­ porate it within love and justice to bring peace. Thus,

Spenser redefines epic heroism as an active quest for concord and love that can bring justice and peace to both present and future societies.

The virtuous lovers' search for union is a heroic test­ ing of life itself and how best it can be lived. Within that testing ground, the terms of love and friendship in Books III and IV proffer a fitting respect for self that entails human­ ism's respect for all mankind. The greatest good to be found 3 is not Homer's heroic assertion of self, nor is it Virgil's proposal that man lose himself or give himself over to the future of his society. Spenser's hero will not deny his Di­ do, for Spenser's heroine will not threaten to keep her hero from his duty. The heroic ideal is not to seek an afterlife of the soul and earthly fame or to seek diffusion from self to society. The heroic ideal is to seek proper integration of self with world, in an active encounter with it.

For Spenser, the heroic ideal contains a satisfaction that there can be the attainment of love here and now. The reality might not come about, but the hope is kept. Love can lead the way. In Ariosto's Italian romance-epic, Orlando

Furioso. the men and women who quest for love and honor “are individuals in a slaughterhouse about to be abandoned, half the time mad with jealousy or love." * Orlando rages mad­ ly, finding no safety within love and no safe way out. Like

Ariosto's, Tasso's heroes in Gerusalemme Liberata fail be­ cause, despite their strength of will, love causes them to give in to their passions. Love is pitted against the hero's duty to his king. While Ariosto's heroes have little hope in this life, Tasso's must keep their hopes on salvation. Any loves or rewards attained in this life mean little in com­ parison with heavenly recompense.

Spenser's ideals of heroism are quite different. The lives his exemplar-lovers endure can have meaning here and now. Rewards can be attained within the society of this world. Spenser's heroes must depend upon physical prowess because the world is fallen, but they depend even more on reason and on moral strength. Their fortitude is not just

in battlej it is displayed in many of the smaller depart­ ments of life. For, as Milton interpreted Spenser, he was

"the first epic poet to inquire, on sound principles, how a

“vertuous and noble person' (Spenser's 'Letter to Raleigh') 2 is to separate error from truth." The heroic quest for love is a moral quest for truth, a truth minutely examined that can bring justice and peace to the world.

In reinterpreting epic heroism, Spenser deals with love

as expressing different courses of thought and action within

the world. Except for the "lovers" Timias and Belphoebe, the females are invariably the ones to love steadfastly and vir­

tuously. They are the ones who quest most strongly to find

the beloved. Within their pursuits, we can see love itself

as an active questing force. Spenser generates much of his narrative by driving his lovers apart so that their heroic

efforts to find virtuous union are their ultimate heroic en­

deavor. Through their endeavors, the reader studies the paradox of action and thought, emotion and reason, despair

and hope. The heroic ordeal of love helps formulate princi­ ples of justice, temperance, mercy, equity, and their

combined outcomes the hope of peace. Each pair of lovers

implies a heroic acting within the worlds 5 (1) Redcrosse Knight and Una travel individually, un­ certainly, with Una trying to rejoin her beloved and lead him toward truth and faith. Her search is portrayed in the narrative as a lover's quest for the beloved and in terms of human love. The two are to complete the task of finding spiritual faith that gives causality for earthly action.

Through these first lovers, Spenser introduces love as a worthy quest, for they love both spiritually and physically.

(2) Belphoebe and Timias travel on different planes of meaning and existence but remain true to those ideals they hold. For Timias, to see the Good which he perceives as

Belphoebe is to try to live it, even though he knows its impossibility. His greatness comes from his attempt to over­ go his own human shortcomings, not the achievement. Bel­ phoebe 's ideal remains forever great but also forever stark and sterile once it is compared with the warmth of human love.

(3) Amoret and Scudamour love in a world where love can­ not be properly perceived until human experience gives re­ liable knowledge that love can be trusted. When Scudamour brings her out from the Temple of Venus into the world for himself, he, in fact, brings Amoret (Love) out for all man­ kind's future.

(4) Florimell and Marinell are the only major exemplar- lovers to marry and join within the completed poem. Flori­ mell 's need for Marinell forms a clear, narrative thread that runs throughout the middle books and joins Chastity and

Friendship as one unit promising that love and concord can overcome chaos. Their love story serves also to join Books

III and IV with Book V, Justice, as their love connects the fecundity of the sea with the lands England.

(5) Britomart and Artegall are the synthesis of lovers within the poem. Through them, the greatness of love and of

England's hopes join in the heroic endeavor to find love,

justice, and mercy that can bring peace. Britomart's arduous quest for Artegall and their desire for virtuous,.fruitful union in the active world take on a vision of public life and politics that points to the active political life and the state itself as potential agencies of moral perfection.

Their love suggests how best to attain that highest goods the good life that brings happiness. Through them, the myth­ ic and historic combine to form England's national greatness.

In the five couples Spenser examines, there is a heroic attempt for each couple to find an acceptable way to live.

Taken together, they reveal the human condition and argue that we must face life with hope, fortitude, reason, and love. Human beings may be imperfect and may fail, but from their circumstances and questings they gain majesty. Through his exemplar-lovers, Spenser reaffirms even as he widens man's vision of human worth. Only mankind's human love, re­ flecting Sod's, can resolve and bring the discordant elements of life within harmony and order.

In considering the epic as genre, probably the only universally accepted qualifying words are "long" and “narra­ tive." It is also a poem that we consider "great" within the context of the epic's superiority to most other forms of literature. The epic is vast in scope and size. It covers great areas of space and time. It tends to define a world and to satisfy current cultural expectations of patriotic endeavor. The scope of its subject deals with the beginning or ending of a society. The epic encompasses nobility, brav­ ery, and a sense of man's high purpose. The epic hero has great horizons before him, and he must have the endurance to overcome them. Importantly, each epic is organically re­ lated to those epics before it. The epic poet is prodded by the high level of superiority that preceded him and was relevant to that poem's own time and needs. Each epic poet rediscovers the needs of his particular society, and he helps answer them, much as Virgil, in the Aeneid. offers themes of piety and mission. In theme, the epic almost in­ variably is concerned with the necessity of exile and return.

Woman is in some way central, whether as goal or obstacle.

For example, Eve, in Milton's Paradise Lost, is both reason for exile and the one with whom a new home is begun. The

Odyssey's Penelope waits for years and is the reason for

Odysseus's return. In scope, Spenser's The Faerie Queene is the longest 8 poem in the English language. Its boundaries are limited only by the imagination. It is the world of Faerie rather than of historical reality. Yet this Faerieland is reflective of Britain's greatness and potential. Spenser's epic is also an allegory. Each allegorical hero explores part of the human experience. There is the human mind at work, the hid­ den urges springing from within and without ourselves. The heroic endeavor consists of all mankind's perseverance, of which the knight's endeavor is the ultimate "darke conceit," a continued metaphor "which the vehicle (narrative) illumin­ ates." ^ Rather than one or two primary epic heroes around whom the story evolves, Spenser's heroes are exempla of individual virtues generally accepted by his Christian Human- k ist, English Protestant audience. These exempla are in the process of evolving into their virtues as they move throughout their books' worlds of everyday experience where giants, castles, and woods represent areas of good and evil.

Spenser's epic, after all, is didactics it is also a book of

conduct, for Spenser's outlook is social and practical. To illustrate, Redcrosse Knight might consider a life of con­ templative religious seclusion, but as a good Protestant, he knows he must select the active life of human trial. Brito­ mart might represent the virtue, Chastity, but she is to evolve into a sexual woman who can meet her beloved Artegall within the human terms of love and marriage.

Spenser's heroic exemplar-lovers are expected to love on a personal level and also to care for the spiritual and political arenas of the world. Spenser's theme offers the idea of virtuous married love as the place of return for hero and heroine. Woman not only represents hearth and home, but she also actively seeks the male in vigilant fertility and procreative need that can overcome the deterioration of the world. In choosing to display positive faith in the efficacy of moral precepts and human love, Spenser displays a disciplined, realistic maturity that creates a new kind of epic, one that I find both moving and a viable, accurate, and hopeful witness for his age and our own. NOTES

* John Arthos, On the Poetry of Spenser and the Form of Romances (Londom Allen, 1956) 129.

2 Gordon Teskey, "Prom Allegory to Dialectic* Imagin­ ing Error in Spenser and Milton," PMLA 101 (1986)* 9*

^ Thomas P. Roche, Jr., The Kindly Flame* A Study of the Third and Fourth Books of Spenser's "Faerie Queene" (Princeton* Princeton UP, 196*0 U,

^ Refer to Douglas Bush, Prefaces to Renaissance Lit­ erature (New York* Norton, 1965) 98-99*

10 CHAPTER I

"Fierce warres and faithfull loues"i

A STUDY OF LOVE IN THE EPIC

From the beginning of The Faerie Queene. Spenser stresses the importance of human love. Like no epic poet be­ fore him, he posits love as a heroic ideal with a different center of values. In doing this, he departs radically from earlier epics in an age that particularly valued imitation and reworking of the classics. Yet in many ways, Spenser carefully adheres to epic tradition. He follows the hierar­ chical concept of literary genres and learns his craft be­ fore he aspires to the epic. * Like Virgil, Spenser first writes pastoral poetry. In the "October Eclogue" of The

Sheoheardes Calender, he wraps himself carefully in Virgil's heroic mantle to point toward his own heroic poem. His guide is "the Romish Tityrus /Virgil7," who "left his Oaten reeds," to "sing of warres and deadly drede." Spenser ad­ vises his own “perfecte paterne of a Poete," Cvddie. also to

"Lyft vp thy selfe out of the lowly dusti/ And sing of 2 bloody Mars, of wars, of giusts."

To carry the comparison further, Spenser begins The

Faerie Queene squarely in the Virgilian tradition. The epic

11 12 poet announcesi Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske, As time he taught, in lowly Shepheards weeds, Am now enforst a far vnfitter taske, For trumpets steme to chaunge mine Oaten reeds. (I.Pr.l)

His sophisticated audience would recognize a close version of the first four lines of the Aeneid as the Renaissance knew it. ^ A sixteenth century version begins*

ille ego qui quondam gracili modulatus avena carmina et egressus silvis vicina coegi ut auamvis avido parerent arva colono. gratum opus agricolis. at nunc horrentia Martis. . , /f am the man who once made music with a slender oat pipe and, leaving the woods, compelled the nearby fields to obey even the most eager tiller of the soil, a work that was pleasing to farmers, but now Mars's fearful . .

Yet, where Virgil continues, "arms and the man I sing,"

Spenser changes his meaning. Spenser ends his Proem's first stanza with "Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall moralize my song." In this celebration of a different cen­ ter of values, he aligns himself firmly with Ariosto and his opening of the Orlando Furiosoi "Of loves and ladies, knights and arms, I sing,/ Of courtesies, and many a daring II feat." *

Spenser might wrap himself in the idea of classical epic, but for him, Renaissance heroic tradition was also made up of the Italian Renaissance epics of Boiardo, Ari­ osto, Tasso, and others. Spenser clearly senses no dis­

junction between the classical and romance epic poets or within the underlying order of celebrating Venus’s power as well as Aeneas's arms. The later epics reflect both their

classical antecedents and, in emphasizing amorous sentiment and high adventure, a continuous tradition handed down from the medieval romances of Arthur and Charlemagne. Spenser man­

ifests this tradition in his letter to Ralegh. He explains,

"I chose the historye of king Arthure, as most fitte,H and

states his intention to follow Homer, Virgil, Ariosto, and

Tasso in creating the heroic ideali

I haue followed all the antique Poets historicall, ^ first Homere, who in the Persons of Agamemnon and Vlysses hath ensampled a good gouernour and a vertu- ous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseiss then Virgil, whose like intention was to doe in the person of Aeneasi after him Ariosto com­ prised them both in his Orlandoi and lately Tasso disseuered them againe, and formed both parts in two persons, namely that part which they in Phil- osphy call Ethice or vertues of a priuate man, coloured in his Rinaldoi The other named Politice in his Godfredo. (407)

The letter to Ralegh leaves no doubt of love's impor­

tance to Spenser. He states clearly that Prince Arthur saw

"in a dream of vision the Faery Queen, with whose excellent

beauty rauished, he awaking resolued to seeke her out."

Armed by Merlin and instructed by Timon, Arthur "went to

seeke her forth in Faerye land" (407). Love is not just a

theme to be celebrated in epic song but a force that begins

Arthur's quest. ^

Spenser's choice of love as a principal theme in the

epic is not new but follows accepted Renaissance tradition.

By the time The Faerie Queene was written, love was nearly

as conventional an epic-romance subject as martial prowess 1^ and valor. ^ The celebration of love as a heroic theme worthy of important treatment reflects an unbroken tradition from the older romance cycles. As a point of fact, the Ren­ aissance's heroic tradition inherited far more from the medieval romances, which continued into the Middle Ages with love as a major motif of prose and verse, than from the clas­ sical epics. Since Renaissance heroic tradition consisted of both romance (with its medieval literary roots of chival- ric love) and classical epic (which dealt also with love), love as a heroic motif worthy of heroic action gained still O greater significance.

This traditional joining of love and heroism was sup­ ported further by the belief that the hero was etymological- ly the lover. The word "heros" was thought to have "been derived from eros." ^ "Early Latin translators of Greek manuscripts connected the Greek word eros with the Latin words herus and heros. and consequently believed that their authors meant to associate love with heroism and magnanim­ ity." By the Middle Ages, the concept of hero as lover suffering from melancholy was explicit in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. ** By the Renaissance, the condition "'hero- ical love'3* was considered "a disorder obviously appropriate 12 to an epic hero." The lover's sufferings, sighs, sorrows, sleeplessness that were long expressed in Provencal love- poetry became the amor nobills of medieval science. As

Burton states, it was "named by our Physicians Heroical Love, 15 and a more honourable title put upon it, Noble Love." This happens because "Noble men and women make a common practice of it, and are so ordinarily affected with it." ^

The etymological link of the hero and lover is further carried out in the amour courtois of medieval literaturei

"the hero who serves for love" is "the primary and invari- 1 ij, able motif from which erotic fantasy will always start."

The Christian chivalric traits of compassion, fidelity, and sacrifice are ethically and religiously based and, simul­ taneously, are erotic. The hero's sensuality is transformed into action and a craving for self-sacrifice that can ade­ quately display his courage. This belief about love did not, however, derive wholly from a semantic interpretation or from a desire for self-sacrifice. Heroic noblemen and other generous spirits were more than just possessed by love or a desire to serve for love.

The very act of being in love was itself considered proof of a profound spirit and natural nobility. Castiglio- ne's Courtier not only deals with love as an essential part of any gentleman's experience but debates just how the gen­ tleman should best love. While only a gentleman is capable of truly loving, Cupid always holds the power to metamorphose the lowest of men into a gentleman capable of love. He is through that means transformed into a gentleman. In just this way Boccaccio's Decameron tells of Galeus, described as

"well nigh an idiot," who is transformed through love into 16

Cimon, a philosopher, musician, and knighti the most gentle­ man-like youth in Cyprus. Love's power to transform this wretch into a gentleman carries the insistence that love can be defended as the highest of virtues since it is the high­ est stimulant to virtue. This same conception of love as causing virtuous ac­ tions carries throughout Spenser's epic as evidenced in these liness

For it of honor and all vertue is The roote, and brings forth glorious flowres of fame, That crowne true louers with immortall blis, The meed of them that loue, and do not H u e amisse. (IV.Pr.2)

Love in this imperfect world, however, is never quite the noble passion we might wish it to be. Purity of ideal is too often smirched through sensuality. The gap between dreams of noble heroic love and the actualworld of licen­ tiously brutal behavior is too great. The amor-motif has two sides. Love can be a heroic virtue, or bestial passion.

It can raise man to spiritual zealousness and charity or lower him to lust, slavery, and comic stupidity. It can in­ spire him to truth and faith or incite him to self-deception, acceptance of duplicity, and the horns of cuckoldry. As eas­ ily as Boccaccio or Chaucer praise love as a virtue, they ridicule its comic blindness. They put down the perfection of romantic fervor as bringing violence and cloaking reality.

In the former's story of Alatiel, her beauty invariably drives men to lust and murder. Having sexually pleased nine 17 men (thereby benefitting herself somehow), she poses as a virgin and, finally, marries the King of Algarve. He accepts her pose of virginity (the appearance of the romantic idea) and, refusing any common sense appraisal of her situation, 16 lives happily with her ever after. The classical epic, like the romance epic, treats love as a passion that incites martial enterprise or delays it.

In the classical epic, however, love plays a subordinate role to the heroic endeavor. Love, of course, sometimes brings forth heroic exploits in Homer's and Virgil's great works. For example, just as war destroys Troy and thereby brings about the building of Rome, Paris's passion for Helen begins that war and thereby, indirectly, the founding of

Rome. More often than not, though, love (as lust) is the very force that thwarts the classical poems' heroic enter­ prises. True love is kept virtuous, and often relatively un­ interesting, by representing it within marriage.

In the opposition between holy wedlock and illicit pas­ sion, love and marriage represent the dynastic principle and 17 the hero's responsibilities to home, state, and offspring. '

Since adulterous passion runs counter to the dynastic prin­ ciple, such passion is invariably detrimental to the hero's responsibilities to hearth and home. Thus the marriages of

Odysseus and Penelope and of Aeneas and Lavinia involve fi­ delity to the dynastic principle and the protection of home and posterity. Circe's seductive wiles are antithetical to 18

Odysseus's dutyi his return to Penelope so he can restore order and protect his family and household. In the Aeneid,

Dido's love for Aeneas is technically not adulterous since his wife, Creusa, is dead. It is, however, extramatramonial and illicit passion in that Dido has broken her vow to re­ main faithful to her dead husband. More important to the

Greek and Latin epics' portrayals of love, Dido's love for

Aeneas threatens the dynastic principle and his eventual founding of Latium. In the Italian Renaissance epics, love is all important.

Love is a decisive causal factor in the heroes' actions.

Rather than extraneous temptations to be overcome by the hero, love and the lovers' stories are woven into the action as important components. Love is expected to incite valorous knightly exploits or cause disasters.

In Boiardo's idealized world of the Orlando Innamorato. love is a virtuous, ennobling, and exalting passion. Beauti­ ful ladies and knights engage in battles and passionate loves. Love is viewed "as the universal and unifying force in life (I.xxviii, 1-3).M Boiardo's essential ideal of love is probably best extracted from this selection!

For Love is that which gives glory And which makes men worthy and honorable, Love is that which gives victory And gives ardor to the armed knight. *

This chivalric ideal, however, is impossible to reconcile with the realities of life, even for the idealistic Boiardo. 19

His Innamorato means to entertain the court with a delight­ ful world, but it differs so greatly from the conniving court and brutal world about him that he cannot reconcile 20 the differencesj he leaves the poem unfinished.

Ariosto, intending to finish Boiardo's epic tale of

Roland in love, rejects the earlier poet's ideals of virtu­ ous love. The Orlando Furioso's light-hearted irony instead points out the ridiculousness of life and love. His poem may not actually be against life itself, but it refuses to idealize the topic. The knights' chivalric values of fight­ ing to gain honor and glory for themselves and their king are shown up as increasingly deficient. Yet Oriosto offers no better alternatives.

In the Furioso. love brings disaster. Ariosto picks up the stories of boudoir and battlefield, but this Roland has been stricken by love's passion to the point of insanity.

He travels to the moon because of his sensual, unrequited love for Angelica. This Roland gains no glory from love, nor is he made worthy or more honorable by it. His erotic quest displays a jealous passion that destroys his reason and, thus, his humanity. Throughout the poem, love is a powerful distracting force that dominates the private lives of both

Christian and pagan, almost invariably to their detriment.

Often, the Furioso's light-heartedness changes to an ironic disillusionment with the whole of life. Love reflects human folly and the disintegration of morality. Orlando seeks delusion, as when he is challenged to drink from a magic cup in order to test his lady's faithfulness.

Orlando deliberates, cup poised, and decides not to drink.

He explains, "thusi 'When finding what we seek/ Displeases, this 'tis folly to explore,'" the knight chooses to remain 21 in blissful ignorance and continue his illusions. Appear­ ance becomes reality and reality, appearance. As in Boccac= cio's tale of Alatiel and the King of Algarve, delusions must be kept at all costs. Ariosto's version of willing il­ lusion, however, goes beyond Boccaccio's. To expect a woman, or love, to be honorable or faithful goes beyond reasonable bounds in the Furioso. There can be no faith, no trust in love. The ramifications of such expectations continuei since love offers no meaningful patterns of human behavior, to love and have faith in that love is the height of, folly. Any attempt to love is to enter a spiritual impasse from which there is no escape.

The madness and cruelty of the chivalric world is re­ flected in the stories of various lovers. Even virtuous lovers can expect no happiness in Ariosto's world. To il­ lustrate, the good and true lovers, Zerbino and Isabella, both meet violent deaths. Zerbino is slain in front of Isa­ bella, whereupon, no longer protected by him, she is cap­ tured by the lusting Rodomont. Distraught at her beloved's death, she chooses also to die rather than submit to Rodo­ mont 's advanced, and she tricks him into beheading her. 21

Ariosto, true to his ironic view of love, refuses to hope for a better world. He ends their love story with an ironic, macabre description of her severed head bounding three times 22 and then calling Zerbino's name. Where Ariosto sees little hope for betterment in this world, Tasso places his hopes upon a better future in heaven.

His purpose is the Cross.- His subject is the first Crusade when the Christians deliver the Holy Land from the infidels.

The Catholic Tasso focusses his ideals in heaven rather than

on earth. His opening lines to his poem sing of

The sacred armies and the godly knight That the great sepulchre of Christ did free. 3 Tasso means to teach, to inspire others to religion. His

chivalric knights may fight for their King Godfrey, but

their only true mission is to regain the sepulchre. Their

quest has a single causei religion. Hell and its pagan

knights will be opposed until they are reduced to peace,

God*8 world is redeemed, and man's soul is blessed.

For Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberat a. the passion of love

is a reflection of the fallen worlds which is miserable

cause of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden. Lacking God's

sanctification, love correlates with fallen man's suffering

and is catastrophic. There are at least three important love

affairs in the Liberata. The poem is filled with lovers in

various conditions of sexual love. For instance, there are

the main lovers, Rinaldo and Armida. Then there are Tancredi

and the pagan virago, Clorinda, Tancredi and the unfortunate 22

Erminia, and the Christian martyrs, Olindo and Sofronia. All are filled with human suffering and weakness. None of the lovers can achieve a satisfactory reciprocal passion, either in physical fulfillment or in spiritual sublimation. Al­ though their loves are finally "legalized or spiritualized," their stories express either "unreciprocated devotion" or

"frustrated physical desire— a mysterious fated power that

oIl cannot be resisted." The passion devouring Tasso's heroes and heroines ap­ pears to be a supernatural force imposing its demands to­ ward sin or salvation, with little thought to a comfortable life on earth. Love, unblessed by God, holds only wretched sinfulness. Yet, through God's providence, love also holds the potential to bring the loved one to holiness. Tasso shows Clorinda baptized before her death and Armida redeemed by Rinaldo once his passion has been spiritualized through his return to duty, confession and absolution. ^ The greatness of Armida's misdeeds as a witch only adds to the glory of her conversion. She exemplifies evil overcome by the passion of human love as put to God's end. Thus Tasso uses his chivalric love stories to show the triumph of

Christianity to bring salvation over the forces of evil.

While love can be seen as a force to bring man to God, love works even more stro;,gly to separate man from God. The main evil to be seen within love is its relationship with religion. If one can be a servant to Christ one moment and 23

a slave to love the next, then love becomes an evil force wooing the knight from his religious avowals. This view­ point comes to life when the forces of Hell gather and the

enchantress, Armida, is called forth by her uncle to wreak

havoc among the Christians. Through seductive wiles and mag­

ical arts, she captures "A thousand souls of young and lusty

knights." Unsuspecting, "these true champions of the Lord 26 Above" become "thralls to beauty, yielden slaves to love."

Spenser's epic poem is distinguished from those of his predecessors in that he argues that hope and wholeness

can be achieved in society by bringing together the loving male and female. To love is continually to hope. Spenser may point out some of the ludicrous areas of chivalry, love,

and war, but he does not, like Ariosto, view all life with

disillusionment. Nor does Spenser concentrate upon the dis­

integration of all chivalric idealism. While Ariosto gauges

the follies of human love's madness against the foolishness

of hoping for anything in this life, Spenser offers love as

an epic goad. The stories of Spenser’s exemplar-lovers re­

flect their attempts to overcome the madness and cruelty

of their chivailric world. Virtuous lovers can hope for hap­ piness and cam expect someday to join virtuous union with the beloved.

Spenser aims eventuailly to join God, but his ideal

strongly includes the need to find a satisfactory way of 24 life on earth. Unlike Tasso, Spenser never considers this life's attainments as negligible. His world of chivalry pre­ sents a human struggle toward an ideal in this world, not the next one. The knight'6 or lady's pilgrimage to universal truth and salvation simultaneously tests the heroic lover for now and later, even as it shows love to be an ennobling force that offers a means by which to live happily.

The passion of love that drives Spenser’s exemplar- lovers to achieve union is a natural force. This passion may come from God’s reciprocal love for man, but, even in

Book I, Spenser presents love on a natural, human level as well as on an allegorical one. It is within man's nature to love, and love is the desired end. Spenser shifts Tasso's focus from heaven to earthi love is no longer a supernatural force whose final end is damnation or salvation. Armida's conversion, coming at the end of Tasso's poem, may focus on defeating the forces of damnation, but Spenser's en­ chanters and witches are evils to be met and defeated on a human psychological and physical level. Spenser's en­ chantresses are not to be changed by love and saved. The

Duessas and Acrasias remain as temptations. The force of their evil is distinct and apart from mankind's love and

God's salvation.

Faerieland may reflect a deteriorating world of iron, but people can still love virtuously in it. The exemplar- lover Artegall is left by Astraea to keep the world from deteriorating further. Scudamour can bravely bring his be­ loved Amoret out from the Temple of Venus. The reader is led to "feel" that the two married lovers will eventually be re­

joined once they come to understand their own sexuality.

For Spenser, man's natural instincts are best carried out in marriage, with its fruitful consequences. For only through human love can mankind achieve wholeness and the importance that procreative love brings into being. Spenser's hero and heroine are to live their ideal of love, not reject it for some future society or higher spiritual realm. The well-ordered relationship between a man and woman is the rational nucleus of communal life that can diminish the problems in our fallen world. Physical desire within love can find its reward in a just and ordered society that helps ensure life's plentitude. Each person's heroic imperative is to choose wisely the best way to live so justice and peace

can prevail.

Human love, for Spenser, is a microcosm of that great universal love that brought the world into being and contin­ ually replenishes it. The bringing forth of life in all its varieties and its continuance is based upon the harmony of elements through love. Just so, the bringing forth of child­ ren and a line of descendants is yet another manifestation of God's ordering and creating. Man's and woman's love for

one another and the creating of children within the sanctity of marriage are the closest emulation of God's creating power that mankind can achieve.

Throughout his heroic poem, Spenser offers examples of love as both "a spiritual activity" and a "primary function 27 of the animate universe, essential to its continuance."

The instinctive movement of mind and body toward truth and

love confirms the reality of love as "Lord of truth and loialtie" (HL 1?6). In most of his poetry, Spenser clearly

defines love as a union of the spiritual and the physical.

In his Easter sonnet from the Amoretti. his persona speaks

of Christ’s triumph over sin and death and of God’s redeem­

ing love, then closes with the plea*

So let vs loue, deare loue, lyke as we ought, loue is the lesson which the Lord vs taught. (A LXVIII)

The two complementary principles of love as spiritual activi­

ty and "love as a motivating force for the creation of the 28 world" are reconciled by Spenser through Christian mar­

riage, as defined in the "Solempnizacion of Matrimonye" in

the Church of England's Prayer-Book.

Spenser shows human sexual love as ennobling. Redcrosse

Knight learns how to attain faith and salvation because of

Una's faithful love and direction. Her love is spiritualized

and physical. As the narrative argues, she loves her knight

in human fashion. She continually points out to him that he must learn to discern reality from appearance. The first

spoken words in the poem are hers when she saysi "Be well

aware," against "The danger hid, the place vnknowne and 27 wilde." Do not be too rash, she counsels, for "Oft fire is

without smoke,/ And perill without show" (I.i.12). Red-

crosse's quest is to learn not merely how to conquer in bat­

tle but how to attain faith and God's mercy. He learns them

through Una and only because of her.

Spenser restricts the pejorative consequences of love

largely to those who are evil or unworthy of better. This pageant of love is double-edged, depending on how love is perceived in "diuerse minds." Lust may force submission to

carnality, moral weakness, or betrayal of self, but love

does not. Only the "baser wit" is stirred into "sensuall de­

sire,/ And in lewd slouth to wast his carelesse day" (III. v.l). The degenerative side of love can cause loss of self

and metamorphosis into something less than man, but those who are permanently changed into swine choose to remain that way. They are creatures already of a baser sort.

Within the truly virtuous mind, reason need not submit

to passion, despite all its temptations. The love Spenser presents is powerful enough to call forth strength within good and true lovers so they can overcome the negative areas of lovei sensual desire and lewd sloth. Love in Spenser's epic always carries at least the potential of heroic action and ennoblement. In "braue sprite it kindles goodly fire,/

That to all high desert and honour doth aspire" (III.v.l).

Love does not allow "vncomely idlenesse" or "thought of vn- gentlenesse" long to remain (III.v.2). By restricting the 28 permanently debilitating areas of love to the forces of evil and lowly louts, Spenser leaves himself scope enough to emphasize the positive areas of love and of virtuous friend­ ship, chastity, and merciful justice.

Man's heroism must include an active moral struggle against the forces of corruption. The heroic endeavor must continually be alert against the desire to put aside duty, whether it appears as self-indulgent sloth, which Spenser usually equates with love's nemesis, lust, or as Phaedria's insidiously lulling hopes for peace and love. The hero must learn to recognize the artifice behind those false attempts to surpass the edenic existence of innocent sexuality.

Phaedria attempts to lure the knights from duty in a debased extreme of unproductive sensuality and subserviance to Acra- sia. She uses an overly simplistic algebraic formula of a + b = c in her sophistic argumenti Debatefull strife, and cruell enmitie The famous name of knighthood fowly shendj But louely peace, and gentle amitie, And in Amours the passing houres to spend, The mightie martiall hands doe most commend; Of loue they euer greater glory bore, Then of their armesi Mars is Cupidoes frend, And is for Venus loues renowraed more, Then all his wars and spoiles, the which he did of (II.vi.35) yore* Heroic action must oppose Phaedria's easy answer to "make love not war" and take on the complex problem of how best to live peacefully together. Phaedria's offer of "louely peace, and gentle amitie" would unman Mars. The final results of her blandishments could be described as one of the 29 seven deadly sinsi "Idlenesse the nourse of* sin" who is either "drownd in sleepe, and most of his dayes ded" or steeped "in lawlesse riotise" (I.iv.18,19>20). The sin has lost the ability to discern true from false* for he "knew not, whether right he went, or else astray" (I.iv.l9). The ultimate symbol of slothful lust is Verdant*s shield that hangs rusting while he lies bemused by the Circian Acrasia.

Love necessarily involves an active encounter with life and its dangers. Florimell's flight from safety to find

Marinell must be judged an act of great heroism in that, unprotected, she risks everything for one ideal* the pursuit of love. Britomart wisely dons armor when she adventures out to seek her Artegall. Her initial task is a dangerous discovery of her own physical nature. She must free herself from preconceived sexual fears and undue notions of romantic love. Early in Book V, Artegall exceeds other "great Heroes"

(V.ii.l). He already wanders from place to place protecting innocent damsels and orphans. His task is to learn to temper his pragmatice cruel justice with mercy. To do this, he must be assisted by Britomart's love. The desire for peace cannot come about through love's escape from the heroic en­ deavor but through love's encounter with heroic action.

Through love, or through its opposition of lust and sloth, Spenser probes the continual human dilemma that comes from our physical need to labor and to relax. Probably the most appealing yet dangerous temptation the poem 30 presents is the desire to rest, to relax one's guard and lay- down arms. There is the temptation to exult over one's victory, to overestimate one's strength and merits, to*cease fighting, to stop, even momentarily, the heroic quest. It is there in Britomart's desire to sleep while in Malecasta's castle, and in other knights when they desire to pause and refresh themselves. The necessity to persevere, the ability to withstand the onslaught of man's frailty and persist un­ til the heroic quest is completed, is all but impossible.

Yet it must- be judged as true heroism.

To be sure, Spenser is too sophisticated to present only this persevering side of heroism. Where the realms of Homer's Circe, Virgil's Dido, Tasso's Armida, and Spen­ ser's Acrasia or Duessa are antithetical to heroic action, the brief respite Britomart offers Artegall before he re­ sumes his quest to restore justice is both necessary and rejuvenating. Una's Eden and Pastorella's natural world offer the knights a temporary surcease from activity and the healing powers of woman's love. For Spenser, true love does not seduce the knight from his duty as Phaedria would argue. His respite allows him to renew his corporeal and spiritual selves and then return to society with a revital­ ized idea of service to mankind.

Spenser takes the hero a revolutionary step further« love is the beginning and end of the long and painful

journey. Love begins the heroic quest and causes the overall heroic action. Arthur's desire, rather than any ethical concept of love, begins his quest. In Spenser's lexicography of the lover's quest, base desire apparently is needed for the process of love to begin. This energetic impulse then draws the lover toward an ethical concept of love and union. The erotic force emanating from Gloriana cannot be denied. And the beginning of Arthur's desire is necessary even for the poem's beginning, according to the

Proem. For only after Cupid has completed his task of cre­ ating love in "that good knight" may he put aside his

"deadly Heben bow" and help inspire Spenser's writing of

The Faerie Queene. In all aspects of creating, whether the knights' quests for love or the poet’s inspiration, Cupid is necessary, for he symbolizes love in all its generative and regenerative power*

And thou most dreaded impe of highest loue. Faire Venus sonne, that with thy cruell dart At that good knight so cunningly didst roue, That glorious fire it kindled in his hart, Lay now thy deadly Heben bow apart, And with thy mother milde come to mine ayde* Come both, and with you bring triumphant Mart. In loues and gentle iollities arrayd, After his murdrous spoiles and bloudy rage allayd. (I.Pr.3) There must be no misunderstanding about the absolute need for the sexual impulse within the martial spirit. In the absence of love there is murderous chaos. The poetic commentary on this human condition is instructive. The stanza's alexandrine* "After his murdrous spoiles and 32 bloudy rage allayd," ends on a note of past horrors. If and when Mars doffs his "loues and gentle iollities" to resume his natural, irascible bent, there will be future horrors.

Mars's "bloudy rage allayd" is linked by rhyme with the phrases "come to mine ayde" (the poet's plea to Cupid) and in "loues and gentle iollities arrayd" (the description of

Mars in love and subdued from contentiousness). The effect is a plea for Cupid to "come to my ayde" in order to keep 30 Mars's "bloudy rage allayd.48 J

Spenser uses none of the anti-climactical "smiling irony" at Mars' "gentle iollities" that Ariosto might em­ ploy as a deflating comment with the last two lines of his ottava stanza. Spenser's final line emphasizes Mars's atroc­ ities. It is "the final pressure of earnest persuasive- 31 ness" J arguing that without Venus's mitigating and ameli­ orating power there is the other potentiali "murdrous spoiles and bloudy rage." Venus has subdued the worst part of Mars through love. She exemplifies not only the hope that love is stronger than strife, but also that "the goodness of grace and amiability" is superior in strength to "the god of war." In other wordsi "Omnia vincit amor." ^

Mythologically, and in Spenser's use of love through­ out the poem, the union of Mars and Venus must remain bal­ anced. When Venus is dominant, she is destructive. Love's

"gentle iollities" can degenerate away from natural pleas­ ures into a revelling of sensual physical sensations for their own sake. At this point love overcomes all rational

considerations of work and duty. This destructive element

within love shows no ameliorative tempering or proper

balance but is heavily weighted toward an artificial stim­

ulation of the senses, such as in Acrasia's Bower of Bliss.

When Guyon tears down the bower, he rids the soul "of its

subservience to sexual excitement" and reduces "that impulse

to its proper place in the order of things." J Guyon’s

action is not a negation of all desire or of all human love.

As C.S. Lewis reminds us, in Botticelli's Mars and Venus.

Mars's deep sleep and Venus's "waking tranquility" set forth

all of "gratified desirei not their desire only but desire

itself, the desire of all creation." This area of Venus's

power is explored by Spenser as the nature of generation it­

self. The paradoxes and conflicts within love are manifested

within the martial pursuit of love and the heroic action

begun by love.

Within woman's search for man (and his for her) is the premise that she can overcome the destructive forces of

chaos. If man's love for Eve caused his Fall, his recipro­

cal love for woman can also bring about his recovery of

Paradise. With his better nature awakened by woman's tender­ ness, man can master his passions and take the initiative in restoring at least a partial replication of God's loving harmony. Spenser was not alone in using the idea of love as

a way to avoid chaos, but his continual use, throughout the 3^ poem, of a conception of love as a simultaneously sexual and great and final need for joining is revolutionary in its epic proportions. To combat the forces of history that pulled down the

Roman Empire, Spenser offers his own version of Virgil's arts necessary "to teach the ways of peace to those you conquer,/ to spare defeated people, tame the proud."

Within Spenser's patriotic, Protestant work, the six virtues and his exemplar-lovers "teach the ways of peace" and equitable justice. In addition, they celebrate a concept of love that becomes an integral part of each virtue. Rather than follow Ariosto's idea of love, which turns into un­ faithfulness or its appearance and makes fools of its participants, Spenser's love is itself virtuous and a vir­ tue. Those who love enter a region that perhaps betters man's original state of innocence. The love mortals hold for one another and for God, and that God first held for them, is no longer separate but joins reciprocally. This union, a oneness in constancy, combines with each virtue to join all virtues. Each virtue, loving those other virtues, becomes more than just a theoretical ideal to assist man in living.

Holiness takes on living force. Chastity and Friendship join fertile possibility with physical reality. Justice, which all virtues love, becomes more than a set of blind, arbi­ trary scales. Once Britomart's virtuous constancy to love joins with Artegall's virtuous sternness in justice, we can 35 see the moral qualities and dilemmas of heroic justice carried out. If not the actual accomplishment, we see the hope of a new Golden Age in Faerieland and in Britain. All mankind will someday love virtue, and the unwritten precepts of natural justice will be alive in men's hearts.

Despite this significant attitude of hope, Spenser, like epic poets before him, deals with the hero's knowledge of his own flawed mortality in a flawed world. Throughout the poem, each hero has his or her individualized failings.

No one can remain the perfected virtue momentarily attained.

Spenser's use of history suggests societal improvements! the

Briton's chronicle that Arthur reads in Book II and the

British mythic history that Britomart relates in Book IV propose the mistakes previous societies made will not neces­ sarily be repeated. Yet an ideal society remains unattain­ able.

Although Spenser praises Faerieland and Britain, he also acknowledges their extreme vulnerability to moral and social attack. He questions the values that are held and disallows a sense of continuing triumph. In Book VI, es­ pecially, Spenser undercuts assumptions about the heroic en­ deavor. Battle prowess seems to be less needed than moral action and self control. The Knight of Courtesy, Calidore, is ineffective in his quest to trap the Blatant Beast, which represents Slander. The Beast cannot be killedi it can be tied up only temporarily. As the book ends, it remains at large. Human communication is corrupted within their fallen world. One never knows why some are attacked and others are not. Timias is bitten for no apparent reason, but Arthur is safe. Yet the hermit teaches that men and women can heal their wounds by restraining their passions.

Physical prowess is still required in The Faerie Queene. but it is not the final answer. To be heroic, Spenser's exemplar-lovers must accept life in a world that may not improve. They must be brave enough to live passionately yet maintain control of themselves. They must have the endurance to become moral citizens who honor a common sense adherence to a code of behavior that seeks life rather than death. They must have the conviction to love, the passion to create, and the control to build and maintain their world. NOTES

1 Veselin Kostic, Spenser’s Sources in Italian Poetry» A Study in Comparative Literature (Beograd> Beogradskog UM, 1969) 118-37.

2 Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender. Spensers Poetical Works, ed. J.C. Smith and E. De Selincourt (1912; Londons Oxford UP, 1970) "October," 55-60, "Argvment," 1-2, "October," 38-39. Quotations from and line references to The Faerie Queene and all other works by Spenser in this study are based on this text.

^ Zailig Pollock, The Sacred Nursery of Virtues The Pastoral Book of Courtesy and the Unity of "The Faerie Queene" (n.p.s Norwood, 1976) 4 2 - 4 3 . As Pollock points out, these lines began the Aeneid in many of the sixteenth century editions of Virgil’s Opera. They supposedly formed the open­ ing of the Aeneid but were deleted by editors appointed by Augustus after Virgil's death. These lines are rejected by modern editors.

** Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso. trans. William Stewart Rose, ed. Stewart A. Baker and A. Bartlett Giamatti (New Yorks Bobbs, I9 6 8) 1.1.

^ "Historicall" epics traditionally show passionate love as detrimental to the heroic mission. The classical epic does, however, claim to relate "history."

^ Britomart's quest also begins with a dream-vision of her beloved Artegall.

^ John M. Steadman, Milton and the Renaissance Hero (Oxfords Clarendon, I9 6 7) ToS. O Steadman 109» C.P. Brand, Torquato Tassos A Study of The Poet and of His Contribution to~English Literature (Cam~ bridges Cambridge UP, 1965) 105-0?.

37 38

^ Steadman 112.

10 Mark Rose, Heroic Lovet Studies in Sidney and Spen­ ser (Cambridgei Harvard UP, I9 6 8) 11.

11 Thomas E. Maresca, Three English Epics1 Studies of "Troilus and Criseyde." "The Faerie Queene." and “Paradise Lost” (Lincoln1 Nebraska UP, 1979) l?4-77• Rather than terming Troilus's extreme lethargy and passivity "melan­ choly," Marasca deals with Troilus as an anti-hero.

12 Rose 11.

Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. Floyd Dell and Paul Jordan-Smith (New Yorki Tudor, 1938) 657j on 6 k 3 Burton calls "love" "heroical, or Love-Melancholy."

J.^han/ Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages 192*)-» New Yorkt Doubleday, T s W T W *

^ Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron. The Modern Li­ brary, trans. John Payne (New Yorki Random, n.d.) V.l.

Boccaccio II.7.

^ Steadman 111-12.

A. Bartlett Giamatti, Introduction, Orlando Furioso. By Ludovico Ariosto, trans. William Stewart Rose xxviii.

^ Giamatti xxviii.

20 Giamatti xxi.

21 Ariosto XLIII. 7-8.

22 Ariosto XXIX. xxv-xxvij Refer also to Rudolf Got­ tfried, Introduction, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. trans. Sir John Harington (Bloomington1 Indiana UP, 1 9 6 3) 19-20. Haring- ton's translation ironically undercuts what could easily have been treated with tragic involvement.

2^ Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, trans. Edward Fairfax (New Yorki Capricorn, n.d.; I.i. 39

2^ C.P. Brand 102. Love, being the height of virtue or the excess of vice, fights hard in the lovers* divided souls.

2 5 Brand 106.

2^ Tasso IV.xcvi.

2 7 W.L. Renwick, Edmund Spenser1 An Essay on Renais­ sance Poetry (London1 Arnold, 1925) L67 1 also consult Ros- witha Mayr, The Concept of Love in Sidney and Spenser, Eliz­ abethan & Renaissance Studies, ed. Dr. James Hogg, 70 (Salzburgi U Salzburg, 1978) 93*

2® Rosamond Tuve, "A Mediaeval Commonplace in Spenser's Cosmology" Essays by Rosemond Tuvei Spenser. Herbert. Milton, ed. Thomas P. Roche, Jr. (Princeton* Princeton UP, 1970) 49. Tuve's summary of Spenser's cosmic idealogy of love as used in his works is comprehensively placed within one telling paragraph.

2^ Renwick 1 6 7.

3® Note that the preposition, "After," is unnecessary with the past participle, "allayd" (other than to create the necessary twelve syllables). Spenser seems to have added it mainly to stress the past tense, thereby adding to Mars's potential for danger and his unacceptability to Venus dur­ ing that time of "bloudy rage."

3* D.G. Rees, "Italian and Italianate Poetry," Eliza­ bethan Poetry, eds. John Russell Brown and Bernard Harris, Stratford-Upon-Avon Studies 2 (London! Arnold, i9 6 0) 6 9. I have used his comparison of Ariosto's stanza form with Spen­ ser's in order to point better to Spenser's meaning in this stanza. Rees comments! Spenser's alexandrine, "linked by rhyme to the body of the stanza, far from expressing detach­ ment, proclaims emphasized commitment, the final pressure of earnest persuasiveness."

32 Edgar Wind. Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New Havem Yale UP, 19587 * ^

33 Wind 87.

John Erskine Hankins, Source and Meaning in Spen­ ser's Allegoryi A Study of "The Faerie Queene" (Oxford! ko

Clarendon, 1971) 135*

35 c.S. Lewis, Spenser*s Images of Life, ed. Alastair Fowler (Cambridge! Cambridge UP, 1967) 26.

Virgil, The Aeneid of Virgil, trans. Allen Mandel- baum (New Yorki Bantam, 1972) VI. 852-53 (1136-37). CHAPTER II

Una and "her owne deare loued knight"i

HUMAN LOVE IN THE NARRATIVE OP BOOK I

OF THE FAERIE QUEENE

Book I is an allegory of holiness and faith. Redcrosse

Knight's quest to slay the dragon threatening Eden can si­ multaneously be interpreted as the allegorical experience of a soul's questing for salvation, of all mankind's strug­ gling for redemption, and of the English church's struggling in the sixteenth century against Catholicism. Allegorically,

Una symbolizes truth. She is holder of the true faith, and her quest is to bring her champion from Faerie Court to slay the dragon that ravages her homeland. Una's journey, however, also becomes something else. Once she and Redcrosse are separated early in canto ii, her search for him becomes an active pursuit to rejoin her beloved knight which takes the form of a heroic quest for love. Thus, the structure of the book does not end with the slaying of the dragon but with the betrothal/spousal of Redcrosse and Una.

If Spenser'8 only aim were to relate the slaying of the dragon, Book I would end with that all important event. In­ stead, Spenser ends with Una's being restored to her land kl 42 and parents. Justice is upheldi Duessa/ Fidessa is renounced as false, and Archimago is bound and imprisoned. Much of canto xii is devoted to Una and Redcrosse's "betrothal," which is described in terms of a wedding ceremony. Although

Book I is a Christian allegory, it is also an epic romance, which deals with human love. .

Book I establishes the basic form that Spenser will follow for the next five books. He posits discords and di­ visions in the first cantos and resolves them in canto xii.

The final canto is one of restitution and redemption! of be­ trothal, spousal, rescue, and restoration of rights and jus­ tice. For instance, in Book II's canto xii, Guyon destroys the Bower of Blissi in Ill's canto xii, Britomart rescues Amoret from Busyrane's House. * In all six books, the twelfth canto reveals the deepest undercurrent running throughout that book. This sense of correction and reconciliation with­ in the self and between the individual and community forms an integral theme running throughout the poem. This achieved integration is often best expressed through uniting the male and female in yirtuous marriage. Thus, the betrothal/spous­ al of Una and Redcrosse represents a bringing together of the male and female to form a necessary human wholeness, a theme which emerges full blown in the middle books.

The descriptions throughout Book I of Una and Redcrosse as human lovers makes human love a primary concern from the beginning of The Faerie Queene. not just in Books III and IV kj where critics usually associate the poem with love. Although such love must be read allegorically, it has a strongly lit­ eral. human sense as well. Una's and Redcrosse's love serves to enhance the allegorical readings even as it introduces the argument that virtuous sexual love is highly acceptable to God and is comcomitant with spiritual love for God.

Within Una's and Redcrosse's romance is the implicit argument that earthly love should not be rejected to attain the “higher" form of love for God. Prom the poem’s inception,

Una and Redcrosse's love for one another is present. The passion of love comes from God in His love for mankind, and it is presented on a natural level as within man's nature to love. Their human love for each other begins and fortifies

Spenser's contention within the middle books that human love is the highest representation of God's divine love and that procreation within marriage reflects God's first love which, having created the universe, continues to replenish it.

The very abstraction of Redcrosse's and Una's charac­ ters helps to join love with Christianity. Their quests are to culminate,in a betrothal/wedding. In canto xii, Una's father, the King, promisesi "The marriage to accomplish vowd betwixt you twain" (I.xii.l9). Allegorically, Una and her kingdom will be Redcrosse's and her own reward for their heroic endeavors, making love the highest award for attaining the soul's search for salvation. When the King tells the knight, as "dew desert of noble cheualree,/ Both daughter k k and eke kingdome, lo I yield to thee" (I.xii.20), its sym­ bolism is drawn from the Song of Solomon, which is the yearn­ ing of the bride of Christ for her spouse. Marriage, then, is the allegorical symbol for the soul's salvation. Taken one step further, as the church is a safe spiritual home in

England, marriage is a safe earthly home. Thereby, humanity can transcend itself in its own flesh. Una's father offers no hint of grudgingly given “heroic spoile." There is, instead, bountiful grace within deserved reward. The two lovers are mutually to possess the promise of full enjoyment of one an­ other. This reward of Una and kingdom irrevocably joins the spiritual and physical in love and makes that love the heroic endeavor of "noble cheualree."

Spenser continually measures the virtue of human love against the traditional virtues of the epic hero. Prom the poem's beginning, love causes Mars to set aside "his mur- drous spoiles and bloudy rage" (I.Pr.3). That disordered rage once set aside, it never again becomes an efficacious factor for virtuous heroic action, even when, at times, it is shown necessary to defeat rampant evil. This point is stressed before Redcrosse's fight with the dragon when the poet invokes his Muse for inspiration. He asks her to come gently, without the "mighty rage" that "thou doest infest" the "harts of great HeroVs" and "martiall troupes" (I.xi.6).

He asks her to "lay that furious fit aside," and

But now a while let downe that haughtie string, And to my tunes thy second tenor rayse, 45

That I this man of God his godly armes may blaze. (I.xi.7) In asking his Muse to "let downe that haughtie string," Spen­ ser denies the fitness of such high flights of heroic style that are used to describe "that furious fit" of battle lust.

He implies something far more important than the heroic ideal of fame and glory brought about through "that mighty rage." The poet's invocation declares a new affirmation of life that supersedes the old-line heroic ideal. The narra­ tive will extoll Redcrosse's defeat of the dragon and then the redeeming wholeness of virtuous lovers within the pas­ toral Garden of Eden. The epic concerns of physical prowess are made to seem rather hollow in relationship with the good­ ness of love,

A close examination of those lines or sections that explicitly use terms of love will point up how strongly

Spenser stresses human love throughout the narrative. Note that Redcrosse and Una are never shown as falling in love.

They just immediately love. In Una, especially, love becomes a vigorous search for her beloved knight. Redcrosse, howev­ er, is in the early stages of his virtue's development. He has much to learn spiritually and morally as a virtuous lover. Early in Book I, he does not understand trust and faithfulness in love. Lacking the wholeness of faith, Red­ crosse deludes himself that he can be self-sufficient, which kS is impossible. He has yet to learn that the inner wholeness of the Christian man is dependent upon the integrity of his relationship with Una, the female.

When the enchanter, Archimago, wishes to drive Una and

Redcrosse apart, he plays upon Redcrosse's sexual desire for

Una that he cannot suppress. Thus, those passions which most closely join Redcrosse with Una become the tools by which

Archimago divides them. Redcrosse's weaknesses and lusts are symbolized in the evil sprite whom Archimago brings from hell to bathe Redcrosse's "manly hart" "in wanton blis and wicked ioy" (I.i.^7). In an erotic dream-vision at Archimago's house,

Redcrosse believes the evil sprite is Una and "his Lady by _ 2 him lay" (i.i.4?). The phenomena of the dream represent his own passions, and he simply lacks the necessary experi­ ence to recognize his own sexuality as natural but as some­ thing to be controlled. Rather than trust in Una's virtue,

Redcrosse is willing to believe the worst about her. Only after he gains the needed experience thht can overcome his own weaknesses can he conquer his own passions. There is something in Redcrosse's male nature that, at this early stage of his learning, fears woman— even Una~-and associ­ ates her with magic, lack of v.irtue, and his own sexual pas­ sion. Redcrosse would rather blame and leave Una than face his own repressive dreams or try to understand his own psychological motivations, fears, and passions that intrude themselves between them. Redcrosse*s dream discloses his own sexual nature, which

he does not as yet understand but cannot repress. He can

admit his sexual love for Una and begin to understand his

own sexuality only after he hears of Arthur's dream-vision

of Gloriana. For Redcrosse's "great passion of vnwonted

lust" (I.i.4>9) can be pacified only in the sanctity of his

future wedding bed. His dream with the evil sprite from hell

serves as a predictive vision of what truly will come about

with the real Una. With the sprite, Redcrosse believesi

she her selfe of beautie soueraigne Queene, Faire Venus seemde vnto his bed to bring Her, whom he waking euermore did weene To be the chastest flowre, that ay did spring On earthly braunch, the daughter of a king, Now a loose Leman to vile seruice boundi And eke the Graces seemed all to sing, Hvmen Iff Hymen, dauncing all around, While freshest Flora her with Yuie girlond crownd. (I.i.^8 )

Satisfaction, however, cannot come with a flawed Venus of

Pleasure, who is crowned with an "Yuie girlond" while the

graces sing a wedding song for a mock ceremony. It must come

with Una as a Venerian Diana of Virtue in a true paradisial garden of innocence.

Redcrosse's predicaments hint at problems that Spenser

will make overt with later exemplar-lovers in the middle

books. Spenser later will investigate the idea that knowledge

of one's sexuality is necessary to achieve wholeness of self.

Britomart, especially, must mature and discover her own sex­ uality before she can achieve her own human wholeness needed to join Artegall in fertile wedlock. Redcrosse is

incredibly naive about his sexuality in the early cantos.

His allegorical quest is to destroy the dragon and win sal­ vation for himself. To do this he must overcome the Seven

Deadly Sins, especially Pride that leads the procession in

Lucifera's House. Yet, in terms of a human love story. Red­

crosse falls victim to his own lust and inabilities to judge

false from true love. He must learn to discern false Duessa who poses as Fidessa. Among other things, he must learn that

human love can hold licentiousness within bounds and can

have faith in the beloved. As a signal that Redcrosse has

surmounted his limited understanding of love and faith, he will later be able to recognize that Duessa posed as Fidessa

to dupe him and to explain away his seeming guilt to Una's

father, the King, at the betrothal/spousal. Redcrosse justi­ fies himselfi

There did I find, or rather I was found Of this false woman, that Fidessa hight, Fidessa hight the falsest Dame on ground, Most false Duessa. royall richly dight, • • • Vnwares me wrought vnto her wicked will, And to my foe betrayd, when least I feared ill. (I.xii,32)

Redcrosse*s growing sense of self as a human lover runs as an undercurrent throughout Book I, until his limited under­ standing flowers within Una's reality of love, and he can

correct the wrong choices made in the early cantos. ^ Meanwhile, thinking the evil sprite is Una, Redcrosse Zj-9 professes his love for heri "I deeme your loue, and hold me to you bound" (I.i.5^). His declaration is an ironic profes­ sion of bondage to evil illusion. Archimago then creates a second evil vision of Una and a squire locked "In wonton lust and lewd embracement" (I.ii.v). Redcrosse reacts with lustful jealousy at Una's supposed betrayal. Without giving

Una a chance to explain, Redcrosse deserts her.

Una, too, is continually cast in the terminology of human lover. Discovering that Redcrosse, "whom she loued best" (l.ii.8 ), has deserted her, Una sets out to find him with a love that forgives all faults. While Redcrosse, heed­ less of her safety, dallies with the evil witch, Fidessa/

Duessa, Una searches for him. The narrator clarifies Una's human dilemma. She is "from her knight diuorced in despaire/

And her due loues deriu'd to that vile witches share" (I. iii.2 ).

In having Una search after Redcrosse, Spenser changes the stereotypic male/female relationship where the male dominates, and particularly the typical classical epic pat­ tern of the male's aggressive, focused search. Spenser's males, like Redcrosse, wander aimlessly from one misadventure to another, depending upon happenstance for direction. The ideal of the female's searching after the male takes prece­ dence. This feminine aggressiveness will suggest organic and spontaneous growth. The Venus in the Garden of Adonis will be "the patroness of generation, who initiates action"i 50 within her Garden, Venus "takes her pleasure of Adonis, not the other way around." ** The spontaneous generation in

Venus's garden, where the power and beauty of human love as a life-force influences all of nature, and which will be suggested in Britomart's mythic-historic search for Artegall and England's destiny, is prefigured in Una's search for

Redcrosse.

Una's feminine love must defeat the divisive forces of evil. Thus, Spenser stresses Una's role reversal with Odys­ seus, the most famous heroic quester after hearth and home.

The poet calls forth all of Odysseus's travails and tempta­ tions overcome in order to return to his wife Penelope. Only this comparison is deemed worthy of Una's labors to rejoin

Redcrosse. Her suffering, greater than Odysseus's, and her desire to be united with her beloved are examples of her love as surpassing that great epic hero's. Una travels

In wayes vnknowne, her wandring knight to seeke. With paines farre passing that long wandring Greeke. That for his loue refused deitiei Such were the labours of this Lady meeke, Still seeking him, that from her still did flie. (I.iii.2 1)

Spenser firmly places Una within the context of questing, like Odysseus, after hearth and home, rather than waiting there like Penelope. Una will, furthermore, bring Redcrosse to hearth and home.

Spenser carefully does not relate Una’s problems as originating with the dragon and her attempt to regain Eden. Rather, her troubles are insistently spoken of in terms of her great love for her knight. Love is a force that causes

Una to quest after Redcrosse once he deserts heri

And after him she rode with so much speede As her slow beast could make* but all in vainei

I • i Yet she her weary limbes would neuer rest, But euery hill and dale, each wood and plaine Did search, sore grieued in her gentle brest, He so vngently left her, whom she loued best. (I.ii.8 )

The narrator explainsi

But for his loue, and for her owne selfe sake, She wandred had from one to other Ynd. Him for to seeke, ne euer would forsake. (I.vi.2 )

Joining in virtuous union with the beloved is a neces­ sity of life. When Una sees Redcrosse's discarded armor and believes him dead, she falls to the ground, mournings

Sith cruell fates the carefull threeds vnfould, The which my life and loue together tyde? Now let the stony dart of senselesse cold Perce to my hart, and pas through euery side, And let eternall night so sad sight fro me hide. (I.vii.2 2)

In the second line, “The which my life and loue together tyde," Una clearly equates love with life, since the previous line alludes to the Fates' determining the threads of life.

She will be joined with her beloved in life, or she will join him in death.

Spenser shows Una as seeing with the flawed eyes of love that can forgive all faults. She desires so strongly to see her beloved Redcrosse that she is unable to discern the enchanter Archimago's illusion when he disguises himself as 52

Redcrosse. She believes "Before her stands her knight, for whom she toyld so sore" (I.iii.3 0). The apparent disjunction

between what she believes she sees and reality is simultane­

ously explained and countered by her "true loue" (I.iii.3 0).

Her perceptions may be severely flawed, but her inner sight remains true. Within the few lines her sight is described

in the chronological past and present of infinite lovei

She has forgot, how many a wofull stowre For him she late endur'd* she speakes no more Of past* true is, that true loue hath no powre To looken backej his eyes be fixt before. Before her stands her knight, for whom she toyld so (I.iii.30) sore>

Rather than looking backwards to resentment, Una looks for­ ward. Beyond all reason, her tribulations become worthwhile once she believes she has found her knight. Rather than ridicule the idea of love's blindness, as have previous writers, Spenser notes its occurrence but then stresses the merciful forgiveness of "true loue," even in Una's dangerous situation. Archimago has no power of evil strong enough to turn Una from her quest to find Redcrosse.

Una continually reacts in terms of human fallible love even as she displays a love that has no room for jealousy or reproach. When Una hears her dwarf's report of the way

Redcrosse dallied with Fidessa/ Duessa before he was taken prisoner, she laments. There is a strong hint that Una's mourning is excessive. Certainly, her suffering is described as human sorrows 53 Which greater grew, the more she did contend, And almost rent her tender hart in tway; And loue fresh coles vnto her fire did layi For greater loue, the greater is the losse. Was neuer Ladie loued dearer day, Then she did loue the knight of the Redcrosse; For whose deare sake so many troubles her did tosse. (I.vii.2?)

Yet, Una spends no time reproaching her knight's lascivious behavior and thinking he got what he deserved. She merely loves, forgives, and mourns his loss.

Even Una's "eyewitness" account of Redcrosse's valor in battle seems to be accurate and objective, but is not»

Yet of his prowesse proofe he since hath made (I witnesse am) in many a cruell fightj The groning ghosts of many one dismaide Haue felt the bitter dint of his auenging blade.

And ye the forlorne reliques of his powre, His byting sword, and his deuouring speare, Which haue endured many a dreadfull stowre, Can speake his prowesse, that did earst you beare, And well could rule. (I.vii.J*7-W)

Having followed Redcrosse right along, we readers might question all those heroic battles. We missed the "many a cruell fight" and the "groning ghosts of many one dismaide."

Una saw Redcrosse defeat Errour, but she could not have wit- nesed others, as she says, since the two were separated af­ ter canto one. Her dwarf, Dony, could have told her, but that still does not make Una a "witnesse” as she swears. As the symbol of truth, she should be a pervasively honest, trust­ worthy narrator. Furthermore, she correctly interprets those other events that took place in her absence i Redcrosse's temptation by Duessa and his incarceration in Orgoglio's dungeon. Why the inaccuracies in telling about her knight's heroic exploits'1 The fact is, Spenser wishes to stress that Una reacts in terms of her human, fallible love that sees things as she would desire them to be, as she accepted Archimago for Red­ crosse because she wanted him to be. Una wants her beloved

Redcrosse to be the greatest warrior in the land. Most im­ portant, Spenser wishes to stress that love sees good in the loved one. Una's knight will do all those feats she describes.

For now, though, her knight is but a potential product of her faith in the future. Una's love coalesces time and space so that her objectivity and accuracy are not entirely impaired.

Redcrosse's heroic exploits just have not yet taken place. So far, he has been neither wholly good, nor bad. He has not acted shamefully, but he has not yet shown himself unstint- ingly heroic. Like Britomart's early hopes for Artegall, Una's hopes for her knight exist within her affections. While Archi- raago's, the evil sprite's, and Duessa's inaccuracies are slanderous attempts to destroy those who are good and, es­ pecially, to keep Redcrosse and Una apart, Una's inaccuracies relate her hopes for her knight and desires for reunion with him. Una never wanes into jealous pettiness but waxes into inescapable human love that can redeem her knight from prison. She looks upon a life fallen below its ideality and describes her beloved in terms of his potential. 55

Una is very human in finding excuses for her knight.

She justifies his misdirected actions« "An Enchaunter" "made him to misdeeme/ My loyalty, not such as it did seeme” (I. vii.49). She swears her innocence and great lovei "How I him lou’d, and loue with all my might,/ So thought I eke of him, and thinke I thought aright" (l.vii.^9). She might have lit­ tle evidence to back up her sureness, but she uses terms of the rational mind, "thought" and "thinke," to express her sureness in his love once he is freed from his unvirtuous illusions and passions.

Una's love provides the directional force that saves

Redcrosse from Orgoglio's prison. She provides the impetus to lead Arthur toward Redcrosse so he can be freed from the imprisonment of his own weaknesses. The stanza presents Red­ crosse 's physical predicament as one extended to all of righteous mankind's in a moral aphorism that promises all will be helped through a source other than their own efforts.

Aid comes in the form of "heauenly grace" and "stedfast" truth (I.viii.l). One would expect the poetic answer to be

Arthur's saving grace, but it is not. The answer is put in terms of Una's lovet

Ay me, how many perils doe enfold The righteous man, to make him daily fall? Were not, that heauenly grace doth him vphold, And stedfast truth acquite him out of all. Her loue is firme, her care continuall, So oft as he through his owne foolish pride, Or weaknesse is to sinfull bands made thralls 56

Else should this Redcrosse knight in bands haue dyde, For whose deliuerance she this Prince doth thither (I.viii.l) «uide-

The traditional perspective of grace as all-saving provides for the coming transformation in Redcrosse. It allows for that leap of faith necessary for "deliuerance" from sin and death. The profound nature of Una's love for Redcrosse force­ fully combines God's spiritual love and Una's earthly love.

Once Redcrosse is rejoined with Una in virtuous whole­ ness, goodness prevails over the divisive forces for the re­ mainder of the book. Human love is shown as an active force

that begins the heroic quest, thwarts death, and regenerates hope. Redcrosse must learn that the powerful force of physi­ cal love can be a force for good. Arthur, having acted as an agent of Una's and God's love, relates how the human love he envisioned in Gloriana began his quest. He describes his dream-vision of Gloriana as the strong sexual attraction of

"a royall Mayd" who lay "Her daintie limbes full softly down" beside him (I.ix.13). This dream begins his extensive search for the Queene of Faeries, since it calls for union with the beloved. Its force is placed in counterpoint to

Redcrosse's earlier, lustful dreams of the evil sprite, which were aimed at Redcrosse®s prurient impulses. Rather than an evil dream dividing a couple, Arthur's dream breeds total commitment to find "So faire a creature" (I.ix.13). For the first time, Redcrosse is exposed to an idea of love as 57 a sexual life-force that begins Arthur's quest and furthers

Una's search for him (Redcrosse). Such love is explained in the middle books as of honor and all vertue is The roote, and brings forth glorious flowres of fame, That crovme true louers with immortall blis, The meed of them that loue, and do not liue amisse. (IV.Pr.2)

Such love is a “kindly flame" that melts away evil opposition and burns with irresistible heat.

Una and Redcrosse both respond to Arthur's passion. Una, who herself loves, calls his love a blessing for the Queen.

The reader senses the correspondence of human love between

Arthur and Gloriana and between Redcrosse and Una. Redcrosse acknowledges the goodness of such “True Loues" (I.ix.16) as

Una discusses. Redcrosse accepts the concept of love as in­ viting love to be returned. Through Una's happy reaction to

Arthur's tale that Gloriana bade him to "loue her deare,/

For dearely sure her loue was to me bent" (I.ix.13) and his vow never "to rest, till her I find" (I.ix.l5)» Redcrosse begins to appreciate the natural sexuality within passion. He begins to understand the extent of Una's love. Her "wondrous faith" makes its own unceasing call to him, and he answers

(I.ix.17). Because of Arthur's revelation of sexual love,

Redcrosse can at last acknowledge the sexuality of his own feelings toward Una. They are not evil and need not remain as subliminal yearnings expressed only in the unrepressive dream-state with the evil sprite. He can accept Arthur's 58

sexual love for Gloriana as honorable. Redcrosse can admit

his sexual love for Una instead of fearing and being ashamed

of his "great passion of vnwonted lust" (I.i.4-9). He can

openly express his love. The three can pass the night as com­

rades "diuersly discoursing of their loues" (I.ix,18),

Una's active human love also rescues Redcrosse from the

spiritually debilitating temptation of Despaire. While Una

must, of course, be interpreted allegorically, the narrative

also clearly describes her in terms of a human lover. When

her knight succumbs to Despaire's lulling denial of God's mercy and tries to kill himself, Una snatches away the knife

and throws it to the ground. She is effective because of her

no-nonsense, quick actions an active force of love thwarting

death and regenerating hope in her beloved Redcrosse. Here­

tofore, Una has unstintingly praised and forgiven Redcrosse

all his faults. Now she takes harsher measures and chides

him to remember his sworn duty. Like a loving female who

acts in her male's best interest, she shames himt

Fie, fie, faint harted knight, What meanest thou by this reprochfull strife? Is this the battell, which thou vauntst to fight With that fire-mouthed Dragon, horrible and bright? (I.ix.5 2)

Una reminds him, first, of his knightly duties and, second,

of his assurance of heavenly justice and mercy1 "Where ius-

tice growes, there grows eke greater grace" (I.ix.5 3). She assures Redcrosse that God's mercy can be grasped if he but respond with faith and reason, and she does it in practical, 59 human terms. She will then lead him to the House of Holiness

and the Mount of Contemplation so he can learn for himself

about God's loving grace. Because God loves Redcrosse, He sent Una to woo him to­ ward salvation. Because He sent her, Una is God's assurance

that He loved Redcrosse first. Her presence, love, and en­

couragement have been there from the beginning of the poem.

Una's love, which Redcrosse now properly reciprocates, of­

fers at least three aspects of love to Redcrosse t She loves

him (1) as a man, (2) as his potential to become Saint

George, and (3) as he refers back to his still more lovely

Creator. Redcrosse and Una extend beyond allegorical figures

of holiness to become flesh-and-blood, earthly lovers. Their

love for each other is sexual, for they will eventually marry.

It, however, remains chaste and virtuous, natural and legiti­ mate.

To save her beloved Redcrosse from Despaire and to in­

struct him in God's grace, Una takes him to the House of Hol­

iness where he meets the three theological virtues« Fidelia

(Faith), Speranza (Hope), and Charissa (Charity). Fidelia is

the oldest sisterj Charissa, the youngest. Their presence

recalls St. Paul's letter (I Corinthians 13* 13) espousing

love as the foremost and crowning gracei "’And now abideth

faith, hope, & love, even these threi but the chiefest of

these is love.'" 5 Spenser's representations fit the Geneva

gloss's statement that love "'serve th bothe here & in the 60 life to comej but faith and hope apperteine onely to this life."' ^ Fidelia and Speranza are only betrothed, indicat­ ing that they “belong solely to this life, the earthly pil­ grimage.” Charissa, the youngest and “greatest virtue," is 7 married* she fulfills “now and also in the after life."

Charissa's delineation looks forward to the fecundity of Venus in the middle books. She is described in terms of the many breasted Venus (goddess of pleasure) with her life- giving propensities. Even before Charissa appears, her function is defined* she "of late is lightned of her wombe," and "thankt be God," let "her encrease so euermore" (I.x.16).

Wearing the yellow robes and gold crown of Venus, Charissa sits on a Venerian "yuorie chaire" with Venus's doves "by Q her side" (I.x.31). "Late in child-bed brought," she now is "woxen strong, and left her fruitfull nest" (l.x.2 9).

"Full of great loue" and "chast in worke and will," she greets Una and Redcrosse Knight as a representative of fecund love whose many babes "sucke their fill" from her bared breasts (I.x.3 0).

Charissa's almost continual childbearing and many babes further the idea of her as rerum omnium procreatrix. This idea of procreation also flows strongly throughout Venus's

Garden of Adonis where lies "the first seminarie/ Of all things" (III.vi.30). There is the process of growth, regen­ eration, and departure within Charissa's care of her babes while they are young but then casting them "forth still, as 61 they wexed old" (I.x.31). It is paralleled in Charissa's

"holy Hospitall," whose Guardian gives "entertainement/ And lodging, vnto all that came, and went" (I.x.36,37)*

The idea of fecund growth, healing, and departure is repeated in the Garden of Adonis where Amoret is raised. A guardian, Genius, is also there "to whom the care/ Of life, and generation of all/ That liues, pertaines in charge par­ ticular" (II.xii.^7). Genius

letteth in, he letteth out to wend, All that to come into the world desire; A thousand thousand naked babes attend About him day and night, which doe require, That he with fleshly weedes would them attire* Such as him list, such as eternall fate Ordained hath, he clothes with sinfull mire, And sendeth forth to liue in mortall state, Till they againe returne backe by the hinder gate. (III.vi.32)

The Christian context of Charissa's babes, her hospital of saving grace, and the seven Bead-men who serve there, are the seeds (and the seed-imagery) of the pagan, natural growth within Venus's Garden. Babes, hospital, Bead-men, and Venus's

Garden represent the creating forces of love which necessari­ ly synthesize into the all-powerful creating force of God.

To be sure, one is Christian, the other pagan; but in both are the cosmic principle of the fertile seed, mutability and return, generation and growth* the fertility of nature and the world. For also in the Garden of Adonis, their first de­ cree "was spoken by th'Almightie lord,/ That bad them to in­ crease and multiply" (III.vi.3*0. Charissa fosters the Christianized love that is present­ ed again in the mythology of Venus's Garden and Temple. In place of Cupid, "A flocke of litle loues" fly about Venus's

"necke and shoulders" (IV.x.^2). Venus's little "sports, and ioyes" are strongly reminiscent of the many babes that "hong" about Charissa, "Playing their sports, that ioyed her to be­ hold" (IV.x.42; I.x.31). In turn, when Charissa is described as "Full of great loue, but Cupids wanton snare/ As hell she hated" (I.x.30), she anticipates Cupid's absence in Venus's

Temple, where only "good" love is present. Charissa, as the poem's earliest allegorical presentation of spiritual and fecund earthly love, presents the general truth that love is the most important and powerful controlling force in both

Christian and pagan worlds.

Spenser establishes that Redcrosse is not to leave Una behind for God's "higher" love. The knight is to have his be­ loved on this earth just as he is to carry out his duty here.

Having been instructed in the necessary steps toward salva­ tion, he envisions the New Jerusalem. Awe-struck, he asks o Contemplation if he must abjure his heroic duties and lovei 7

But deeds of armes must I at last be faine, And Ladies loue to leaue so dearely bought?

The holy man answers with contemptus mundis

What need of armes, where peace doth ay remaine, (Said he) and battailes none are to be fought? As for loose loues are vaine, and vanish into nought. (I.x.6 2) Redcrosse misses Contemplation's point that only after "peace doth ay remaine" will there no longer be a need for arms. He seeks to join God at oncet

0 let me not (quoth he) then turne againe Backe to the world, whose ioyes so fruitlesse are» But let me here for aye in peace remaine, Or streight way on that last long voyage fare, That nothing may my present hope empare.

His plea, however, is roundly rejectedt

That may not be (said he) ne maist thou yit Forgo that royall maides bequeathed care, Who did her cause into thy hand commit, Till from her cursed foe thou haue her freely quit. (I.x.6 3)

The worth of worldly matters such as arms, battles, and love is asserted as necessary, yet placed in a position which must, finally, be judged as inferior. Although the battles of this world are necessary, as judged within themselves they are more evil than good. As Contemplation explains 1 "For bloud can nought but sin, and wars but sorrowes yield" (I.x.6 0).

The vision of a permanent discontinuance of warfare is shown as possible only within the New Jerusalem. The Faerie

Queene's realm, "Cleopolis for earthly frame,/ The fairest peece, that eye beholden can" (I.x.5 9), depends upon heroic warriors, epic battles, and love to continue its existence.

There must be good reason for battle1 when necessary, it must not be refused or chaos and injustice will return to this imperfect earth. While on this sublunary world, good and evil are necessarily in conflict. For now, the love that

Una offers is the highest order of perfection that can bring peace and overcome dissention. 6**

The love Contemplation disparages is not the abiding love that Redcrosse and Una display. Theirs is a combination of the sensual and spiritual which Spenser continually praises throughout his poetry as an ennobling lovei a “gentle

Loue, that loiall is and trew," as opposed to "Disloiall lust, faire beauties foulest blame" (HB 176,170). Lust lacks any connection with heaven and with valorous deeds. "Loose loues" are clearly those "which doth base affections moue/

In brutish minds, and filthy lust inflame" (III.iii.1). They are not the loyal love of "Most sacred fire, that burnest mightily/ In liuing brests," that is "ykindled first aboue" to be "pourd into men" as

that sweet fit, that doth true beautie loue, And choseth vertue for his dearest Dame, Whence spring all noble deeds and neuer dying fame. (III.iii.1)

Redcrosse must not give up the vita activa. His wish to retreat from the world's fruitless joys and "in peace remaine"

(I.x.6 3) within continual contemplation is a temptation to give up action which is the substance of a great life. His wish is not necessarily a sign of his spiritual strength. To the Protestant Spenser, "retirement from the world in order to enjoy the vision of Qod, could be as reprehensible as the desire to enjoy a mistress, since it could spring from spir­ itual pride and the desire for self enhancement." Although promised sanctification as Saint George, Redcrosse still must earn his desired state of "so great grace" and "glory" through heroic battle (I.x.62). His yearning for heavenly

contemplation and spiritual immortality must wait for more pressing mattersi he must conquer the dragon and, eventually marry Una. In repetition of Christ's triumph over the dragon of hell, Redcrosse must destroy the dragon keeping Una's homeland captive, "raise Eden in the wilderness and restore

England to the status of Eden. ” **

Una's virtuous love extends beyond the heroic virtues that seek only fame and glory through heroic exploits.

Through Una, Redcrosse will slowly change the aim with which he begins his questi "To winne him worship, and her /^Glori- ana's7 grace to haue,/ Which of all earthly things he most did craue." He sets out yearning "To proue his puissance in battell braue/ Vpon his foe" (I.i.3). Redcrosse must learn not just how to overcome his enemies through physical strength but how to love, conquer despair, and be rescued by

God's mercy and grace. Redcrosse, as with exemplar-lovers of other books, starts imperfectly and is educated in the true nature of his particular virtue as the heroic quest continues

The fame that Redcrosse seeks might begin his quest, but de­ sire for fame and glory must not remain the primary aim. The

Christian virtue Holiness must transcend the disordered rage of an Achilles, whose epic aim is prideful fame and glory in battle. Redcrosse, who participates in "Fierce warres and faithfull loues, " must understand Contemplation's advice that these wars are for goodness in heaven and to make earth 66 habitable. These "faithfull loues" are, for him, one love while on this earth« Una's human love. In combining this idea of wars and loves, Redcrosse is the first of Spenser's exemplar-virtues and lovers who combine the perpetual strife 12 of the battleground with the ideal harmony of human love.

Spenser's Eden exemplifies his implicit argument that earthly love should not be rejected to attain the "higher" form of love for God. It contains neither saint-like contem­ plation nor sterile perfection, other than the serious nature of the King’s and Queen's garments and the "sage and sober

Peres" surrounding them (I.xii.5)» Once freed from the dragon's sinful domination, all Eden rejoices. In festal celebration, young men bear laurel branches and cast them at

Redcrosse's feet. "Comely virgins" with "girlands dight" and

"sweet Timbrels" held high approach Una in a Biblical victory dance (I.xii.6). Even the children join in«

And them before, the fry of children young Their wanton sports and childish mirth did play, And to the May dens sounding tymbrels sung In well attuned notes, a ioyous lay, And made delightfull musicke all the way, Vntill they came, where the faire virgin stood» As faire Diana in fresh sommers day Beholds her Nymphes, enraung'd in shadie wood, Some wrestle, some do run, some bathe in christall (I.xii.7) riood'

The stanzaic form seems to encourage the children's "wanton sports and childish mirth" in the first two lines to join Diana's nymphs in the last two. They wrestle and run, until 67 all Christian and pagan nature celebrates with festive activ­ ities and "delightfull musicke" in the core of the stanza.

This Eden is described in terms of virginal promise, fecund reality, and light-hearted excitement. Its paradisial volup­ tuousness promises the pleasures of human sexuality combined with the spiritual as the poem continues. It is a place where

Redcrosse Knight can regain "his own generic childhood."

The reader is being led to accept Una as less and less a veiled figure of virginal asceticism and more and more a beautiful and desirable woman who, like Florimell at the end of Book IV and Britomart in Book V, "is on the threshold of marriage." jn comparing the Christian Una with the gen­ tled, pagan Diana, Spenser begins to link God's love and

Una's human love for Redcrosse with the non-Christian, myth­ ic world of love in Books III and IV. Heretofore, to stress the spiritual nature of the quest, Spenser has drawn most of his imagery for Book I from the Bible. But in canto xii, wliich could easily continue the Biblical imagery, he changes to the realm of myth in comparing Una with "faire Diana."

This is a Diana who beneficiently overlooks her nymphs at play and encourages the serious world of the hunt to relax into a celebration of games.

The essential features of the Diana with whom Una is compared appear to be drawn from the second half of the fa­ mous "Homeric Hymn XXVII," when Artemis goes to Apollo's temple at Delphi. She hangs up her bow and arrows and 68 arranges the "dance of the Muses and Graces," which she then leads. ^ The Muses and Graces join in praise for Leto and

Zeus (Diana's parents) and their children (Aphrodite and

Apollo). Within their song of fruitfulness, they unite the graces' psychic invention with physical creation. This Diana of the Homeric Hymn presents a positive ideal of dynamic chastity that surrounds Una once she regains her homeland.

In Eden and no longer subjected to the dangers of her wander­ ings throughout Faerieland, Una can safely become more woman­ ly. She can meet Redcrosse halfway in a better balance of human requirements. She can escape the one-sidedness of the coldly virginal Diana of Virtue who opposes the Venus of

Pleasure. "In other words, for Spenser the Christian way is that in which pleasure and virtue meet, and Una herself must allow for the human need which gives Duessa her eternal h 18 appeal."

The act of crowning Una "a goodly maiden Queene" symbol­ izes her victory over evil enchantressesi Archimago's sprite from hell, Duessa/Fidessa, and Lucifera. Una's royal virgin­ ity is crowned by the natural beauty of nature's garland. It is not the "Yuie girlond" that crowns the sprite from hell in Redcrosse*s lustful dream-vision (I.i.48). Una's garland of simple, natural integrity defeats the garland that Red­ crosse plucks for Fidessa/Duessa's "dainty forehead" (I.ii.

30). Fidessa' s garland and the tree from which is is plucked drip blood from Fidessa/Duessa's previous victim. Una is 69 as she seems» a true "goodly maiden Queene" of her homeland.

She is no pretend Fidessa or the "mayden Queene," Lucifera, who "made her selfe a Queene, and crownd to be,/ Yet right- full kingdome she had none at all" (I.iv.8 ,1 2).

When Una removes her veil, her true beauty metaphorical­ ly defeats prideful pretense. The veil has protected her while she was in the fallen world. But now "The blazing brightnesse of her beauties beame,/ And glorious light of her sunshyny face" extend beyond the poet's descriptive powers

(I.xii.23). Her purity reflects the divine nature of the sun. Her "blazing brightnesse" offers the sun's lifegiving healing and nurturing. It dims Lucifera's "bright blazing beautie," which offers only a hellish fire that would pride- fully emulate the sun (I.iv.8 ) as well as Lucifera *s blazing splendor of gold, representing materialistic pride.

As I stated earlier, Spenser does not end the book with the slaying of the dragon as he easily could have. Since

Book II ends with the destruction of Acrasia's Bower and

Book III with the destruction of Busyrane's artifice, we can conclude that Spenser considers evil overcome as a suitable ending. That Spenser chooses to describe the happy ceremony and, especially, the father's blessing is surely indicative of the great importance he intends to give the union ©f the two lovers. The gloss to canto xii calls the ceremony a be­ trothal , yet throughout the canto Spenser clearly draws from sources that refer to husband, wife, and marriage. Although 70

a betrothal had the binding force of a wedding in Spenser's

day, he evidently wishes to encourage the sensation that a

spousal is indeed being performed. The unveiled Una is de­

scribed*

As bright as doth the morning starre appeare Out of the East, with flaming lockes bedight, To tell that dawning day is drawing neare, And to the world does bring long wished light; So faire and fresh that Lady shewed her selfe in sight. (I.xii.2 1)

The lines are clearly from the sensuous Song of Solomon 6 .

1 0, where the bride's beauty is portrayed as "she that look- 19 eth forth as the morning, . . . pure as the sunne." z When

Una doffs her "widow-like sad wimple"

And on her now a garment she did weare, All lilly white, withoutten spot, or pride, (I.xii.2 2)

Spenser again draws from the Song of Solomon 4.7* "Thou art 20 all faire, my loue, and there is no spot in thee." Surely

he expects his readers to remember the song's ending* the

bride sensuously pleads for the husband to enter his garden and partake of its pleasant fruits.

This same idea of spotlessness repeats a phrase in the rites of matrimony from The Prayer-Book of Queen Elizabeth when the priest charges* "Y husbandes loue your wiues,"

even as Christ loued the Churche, . . a glorious congregacioun, not hauyng spot or wrincle. or any suche thyng, but that it should be holy and blameles. So men are bounde to loue their owne wyues, as their owne bodies. ** 71 Prom the Epithalamion. we know that Spenser connects

the idea of spotlessness with the bridal bed. The groom asksi

Eternally bind thou this louely band. And all thy blessings vnto vs impart. And thou glad Genius, in whose gentle hand, The bridale bowre and geniall bed remaine, Without blemish or staine. 2 2

The man describes the "inward beauty" of his bride«

There dwels sweet loue and constant chastity, Vnspotted fayth and comely womanhood, Regard of honour and mild modesty, There vertue raynes as Queene in royal throne. (396- 400, 191-94) Redcrosse and Una are to be interpreted as simultane­

ously spiritual and human lovers. For that reason Spenser

uses the description of spotlessness, which runs throughout

much of his poetry, especially in the Epithalamion and the

betrothal/spousal of Redcrosse and Una. We recognize the

Amoretti as a progression of sonnets leading to the Epitha­

lamion. Just so, the marriage song relates the progression

of romantic love to the wedding day, with the conjugal bed

as its climax. The bridegroom in the Epithalamion considers 23 his wedding "as a holy event, pleasing to God and Man." J

On the wedding night and in the nuptial bed, he takes time

to regard "himself and his bride as part of a larger whole 2h which includes both earth and heaven." Such spiritual

and physical love implies innocence from sin even as it

accepts the reality of strong physical desire.

A circle of archetypal references to sacramental bles­ sings is drawn about the people in the ceremony. Una 72

approaches her father and blows low with "humble reuerence."

He, "with great wisedome, and graue eloquence," prepares to

speak (I.xii.24). "And to the knight his daughter deare he

tyde,/ With sacred rites and vowes for euer to abyde" (I.xii.

3 6). As her father he makes sure the ritualistic ceremony is properly carried out. As King/Father, the figurative associ­ ations implied within the Fatherhood of Eden are carried for­ ward in the ritual when

His owne two hands the holy knots did knit, That none but death for euer can deuidei His owne two hands, for such a turne most fit, The housling fire did kindle and prouide, And holy water theron sprinckled wide. (I.xii.37) The hands of the father explicate the supporting power of

God's loving blessing even as they stress the human blessing inherent within an actual father's physically handing over his daughter with the charge of safekeeping to the future husband. ^

Spenser ritually banishes all evil spirits and sounds of mourning— anything that might hinder the festive mood— in a separation of festival and fast, celebration and mourning. The poet banishes Melancholy;

Then gan they sprinckle all the posts with wine, And made great feast to solemnize that day; They all perfumde with frankincense diuine, And precious odours fetcht from far away, That all the house did sweat with great aray. (I.xii.3 8 )

The bridegroom in the Epithalamion exults in a similar ritual1 73 This day for euer to me holy is, Poure out the wine without restraint or stay, Poure not by cups, but by the belly full, Poure out to all that wull, And sprinkle all the postes and wals with wine, That they may sweat, and drunken be withall. (2^9-5^)

In terms of the ceremonial preparations, Redcrosse is

a flesh and blood man receiving a promised consummation with

his future wife. At midpoint, stanza 37 harks back to Catul­

lus's famous wedding song in which young men carry burning 26 torches while revellers sing, "0 Hymen Hymenaee." The

stanza seems to lead Redcrosse and Una into the bedchamber as

the bushy Teade a groome did light, And sacred lampe in secret chamber hide, Where it should not be quenched day nor night. For feare of euill fates, but burnen euer bright. (I.xii.37) The last stanzas of Book I are filled with sensuous

rather than ethereal terms. Of all who hear the heavenly music throughout the palace,

eachone felt secretly Himselfe thereby reft of his sences meet, And rauished with rare impression in his sprite. (I.xii.39) Although these words alone could be misconstrued as some sort

of religious ecstasy, the rest of the poem does not bear it

out. The music, "Like as it had bene many an Angels voice,/

Singing before th'eternall maiesty" (I.xii.39), blesses and

encourages the ravishment of senses within physical true love. Redcrosse now possesses Una's "hart and hand." He is continually susceptible to Una's physical beauty and rendered all but helpless. Redcrosse's innocent, sensuous delight 74 in Una represents his escape from the evil illusions that attempted to trap him in "wicked enuie" and "vile gealosy"

(I.xii.41) when he lusted after the evil sprite and Duessa/

Pidessa. Spenser is all but saying that it is correct for

Redcrosse to enjoy himself within the bands he has vowed with

Una. With her, "euer, when his eye did her behold,/ His heart did seeme to melt in pleasures manifold" (I.xii.40).

Her ioyous presence and sweet company In full content he there did long enioy, Ne wicked enuie, ne vile gealosy His deare delights were able to annoy. (I.xii.41)

Spenser carefully leaves ambiguous the phrase, "In full con­ tent." Although the stress mark in the second line of the passage probably falls on the second syllable of the word, con-tent. Redcrosse can be fully con-tent within Una's com­ pany. He enjoys all, or the full extent (the con-tent). of her "ioyous presence and sweet company" as he swims "in that sea of blisfull ioy" of sinless sexuality (I.xii.41). Spenser carefully creates an earthly paradise and a philosophy of love that accepts bodily union within its spiritual and eth­ ical standards. Spenser's Eden reflects the ultimate inno­ cence of physical love as natural instinct.

Within the paradise, the purity and innocence of human physical love reflects the purity within God the Creator who first creates and then continually replenishes Eden and the world. Throughout, Spenser's poetry creates special para­ disiacal areas where he portrays lovers as frankly 75 appreciative of physical desire and innocent of sin. There is the sinlessness of lovers within at least three placest (1) the Paradise of An Hymne in Honovr of Love; (2) the "ioyous

Paradize" of the Garden of Adonis, where Venus takes Amoret to be raised (III.vi.2 9)j and (3) the "second paradise" of lovers in the Temple of Venus's gardens (IV.x.23). All are surely intended to recall that first Eden where Redcrosse and Una enjoy each other. Throughout these gardens of "spot- lesse pleasures" (IV.x.26), we see truth and loyalty and the ennobling power of love.

Even Eden, however, is not protected from evil intru­ sion. Archimago, as a messenger with letters, breaks into the hallowed circle of the betrothal/spousal ceremony. His entrance violates their ritual and profanes their sacramen­ tal world, almost as if the priest had askedi "Therefore if any man can shewe any iust cause, why thei may not lawfully be ioyned together let hym now speake, or els hereafter for 27 euer holde his peace." '

Duessa and Archimago join forces in a renewed attempt to divide Redcrosse and Una. Duessa's letter, in an ironic pretense at truth, uses canon law for her own ends. She of­ fers false testimony that she and the "False erraunt knight, infamous and forswore" are already betrothed (I.xii.27). She states that he swore before "burning Altars" and asks for judgment against her own sworn "affiaunced," Redcrosse (I. xii.27). Since she alludes to a specific impediment within 76 canon law, any contract Redcrosse might make with Una would be nullified if the charges were true. Duessa*s plea

"t'auenge this shamefull iniury" before “thou thy daughter linck in holy band/ Of wedlocke to that new vnknowen guest” is valid within the law (I.xii.27,26). But Duessa has no substantive proof. The King questions Redcrosse and believes his and Una’s pleas that Duessa is at fault and he, the in­ nocent victim.

Spenser thus introduces the idea of justice supporting love and an ordered society. As in Book IV*s ending when

Marinell's mother pleads before Neptune to free Florimell so she can marry Marinell, justice is brought to bear (IV.xii.

29-33)• Injustices are corrected and lovers' unions are encouraged. Redcrosse sums up the situation, showing that he recognizes he has been entrapped by Duessa, posing as Fides- sa. He statesi her "wicked arts and wylie skill" go beyond

earthly skill or might, Vnwares me wrought vnto her wicked will, And to my foe betrayd, when least I feared ill. (I.xii.32) Una recognizes Redcrosse's innocence and previous naivetej she prostrates herself before her father to intercede. She explains how the evil Duessa hopes with the letters to create

"new woe" "By breaking of the band betwixt vs twaine" (I. xii.3^). Thus, Archimago’s sacrilege is recognized and punished. Justice is carried out when he is bound hand and foot and thrown into the dungeon. Evil in the world is abated, at least in Book I, and true love is supported by 77 the stability of justice in that the King hears both sides before he decides. His governance cannot be long subverted when the unvirtuous attempt to misuse the power of law for their own ends. Spenser stresses the idea of justice support­ ing love through the juxtaposition of Archimago’s imprison­ ment in a "dungeon deepe" and the King's renewing the "sacred rites and vowes fore euer to abyde" between Redcrosse and

Una (I.xii.3 6). Yet, as early as Book I, Spenser introduces the tempor­ ary quality of knightly victory's ability to overcome evil for long. Battle prowess cannot bring any kind of lasting accomplishmenti Redcrosse must leave his place of happiness and safety with Una to involve himself again in bloodshed and violence. Those concerns of the temporary nature of all matter which traditionally darken the epic and with which

Spenser deals in Books V and VI also concern Redcrosse. His moment of unity with Una is transitory. Their experiences throughout Faerieland have made possible their betrothal/ spousal, and they have learned to assist each other. But Red­ crosse Knight, like Odysseus, cannot stay to enjoy his achieved wholeness. Una's land is redeemed and returned to its rightful condition, but Redcrosse must leave to carry out his promise to his queen. He must serve in "warlike wize" in her battle against the wicked, "proud Paynim king" (I. xii.18). 78

The ideal of Redcrosse and Una’s union within marriage, the spirit of their continual reconciliation, is powerful and crucial. The force of virtuous human love has prevailed over all the forces that tried to keep the lovers apart. Yet, there are far too many obstacles blocking the lovers' perma­ nent retirement from the active life. Redcrosse cannot re­ main for long with Una in the "ease and euerlasting rest” of

Eden (I.xii.17). Having achieved that "sense of truth" within

Redcrosse and Una's betrothal/spousal, Spenser imparts a

"striking validity." upon the reader that leaves him feeling what has just taken place has "the 'conclusiveness,' the set- pg tied finality, of apparently self-evident truth." There is a dramatic propriety in Redcrosse's leaving to resume his knightly quest for justice and peace in a world where evil cannot be continually subdued and which, at least temporarily, depends upon bloody battles to keep Queen Gloriana's paynim enimies at bay. Until evil, like Eden's dragon, is permanently overcome through love, the only force powerful enough final­ ly to subdue its rampant activity, Redcrosse must continue his earthly quest. NOTES

In Book IV, Florimell is freed from Proteus's dun­ geon and betrothed to Marinellj in Book V, Artegall rescues Irena and partially restores justice in her kingdomj and in Book VI, Pastorella is restored to her parents while Calidore temporarily restrains the Blatant Beast. 2 Judith Anderson, "Redcrosse and the Descent into Hell," ELH 3 6 (1969)« 470-92. She discusses the psychological areas of Redcrosse's dream-vision.

^ Maurice Evans, Spenser's Anatomy of Heroismi A Com­ mentary on "The Faerie Queene" (Cambridge! Cambridge UP. 1970) 91* Evans briefly discusses Redcrosse as encompassing the Trinity of Christian virtues. Redcrosse's faith is in his heart so he wears the bloody cross. The same cross on his shield symbolizes the hope that springs from faith. "The third of the trinity of Christian virtues, love, is not di­ rectly mentioned, but it is implied in the conventional de­ scription of Red Cross as the faithful lover in the next line— 'Right faithfull true he was in deede and word!" (I.i. 2). Thus, Redcrosse is the natural'target for'the three vices1 Sans Foy, Sans Joy, and Sans Loy. 4 Humphrey Tonkin, "Spenser's Garden of Adonis and Britomart's Quest," PMLA 88 (1973)* 412.

^ Douglas Brooks-Davies. Spenser's "Faerie Queene"« A Critical Commentary on Books l aid II (Manchestert Manchester UP, 1977) 92.

^ Brooks-Davies 93.

^ Brooks-Davies 9 3. Q Brooks-Davies 97-98.

^ Hallett Smith, Elizabethan Poetryi A Study in

79 80 Conventions. Meaning and Expression (Cambridge! Harvard UP, 324. Smith discusses 1.x.62-63,

Enid Welsford, Spenser Fowre Hymnes Epithalamion! A Study of Edmund Spenser*s Doctrine of Love (New Yorki Barnes. 1967) 84.

** Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism! Four Essays (Princeton1 Princeton UFi 1957) 1 9 see also 195*

*2 Joan Malory Webber, Milton and His Epic Tradition (Seattlei U c*■ Washington P, 1979) 33, 96-97* I am indebted to Webber for her concept of Redcrosse as beginning a group of lovers who search for wholeness. Her study of the epic tradition and references to Spenser's work helped reinforce ideas that I had strongly felt were there.

^ Naseeb Shaheen, Biblical References in "The Faerie Queene" (Memphis1 Memphis State UP, 1976) 98-99* In listing Spenser's Biblical references, Shaheen uses the Geneva ver­ sion of 1582, except for the Psalms for which he uses the Prayer Book Psalter of the Anglican Church. For I.xii.6, see Ex. 15-20, Judges 11.34, I Sam. 18.6, Ps. 68.25, Matt. 21.8, John 12.13.

^ James Nohrnberg, The Analogy of "The Faerie Queene" (Princeton1 Princeton UP, 197^) 197*

Evans 108. Evans compares only Britomart with Una's change from an "ascetic virgin" to a "more fruitful virgin," but I believe this two-way comparison should also include several other characters' fertile development.

A.S.P. Woodhouse, "Nature and Grace in The Faerie Queene." Critical Essays on Spenser from ELH (Baltimore! Johns Hopkins UP, i970; 38*

^ Homer, "The Homeric Hymns" and "The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice." trans. Daryl Hine (New Yorki Atheneum. 1972) 78. Refer also to Mark P.O. Morford and Robert J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology (New Yorki McKay, 1971) 119. The authors consider "The Homeric Hymn to Artemis," XXVII, as drawing "the essential features of her character."

Evans 108.

Shaheen 98-99. Una is linked also with the allegor­ ical marriage of the Lamb. As in Revelation 19.79, “The 81 marriage of the Lambe is come, and his wife hath made her selfe readie. . . . aried with pure fine linen" (99)•

20 Shaheen 99* Eph. 5*27, Rev. 21.2.

2* The Prayer-Book of Queen Elizabeth, 1559 (The Boke of Common Praier, the Churche of England) (1559« Edinburgh! John Grant, 1911) 12?. Italics mine.

o o My emphasis. Also my emphasis in Eg 191-94 and in I.xii.37, on page 7 2 of my dissertation.

23 Welsford 8 3 .

24 Welsford 8 3 .

23 Note also in the phrase "His owne two hands," Spenser implies that the King joins the couple within marriage bands that correspond to the "holy knots" knit within marriage. The contemporary reader of Spenser's poetry would be hard pressed not to remember the knitting of knots used in Sonnet VI of the Amoretti. The man is trying to woo his beloved from "her rebellious pride." He states» such loue not lyke to lusts of baser kynd, the harder wonne, the firmer will abide. • • • Then thinke not long in taking litle paine, to knit the knot, that euer shall remaine.(my emphasis) These last lines seem to refer to the longed for wedding, as borne out by the Epithalamion. In this beautiful wedding song, the bride stands before the alter, listening as "the holy priest" speaks to her "And blesseth her with his two happy hands" (224-2 5s my emphasis). The phrase is repeated after Una and Redcrosse's ceremony in the rejoicing during a "solemne feast proclaimd throughout the land" within "The vsuall ioyes at knitting of loues band" (I.xii.40; my empha­ sis) . 26 Catullus, Select Poems of Catullus, ed. Francis P. Simpson (Londoni Macmillan, 1965) 22-27. In lines 79 and 9 8 , Catullus refers to the torches carried by the young men as the bride is led to the groom's home and the bedchamber. Redcrosse's earlier sexual dream with the sprite and its song, "Hymen Hymen" surely alerted the Renaissance reader to Catullus's xwo wedding songs, which repeatedly use a version of that refraini LXI, LXII. Other classical writers have also used the refrains for instance, Horace and Ovid. 82

Prayer-Book 122.

2® Barbara Herrstein Smith, Poetic Closure« A Study of How Poems End (Chicagoi U of Chicago P, 1968) 152. CHAPTER III

"Dye rather, dy, then euer loue disloyally"i

TIMIAS AND BELPHOEBE

In the Timias and Belphoebe story, Spenser investi­ gates the consequences of a life denied virtuous sexual love. To Timias, Belphoebe represents the positive force of man's ideality and compulsion toward ascetic purity. To love her is to follow moral integrity in a quest to find the ul ­ timate explanation of his place in an ordered universe.

While Belphoebe's appeal is often sensuous, she simultaneous­ ly insists that man reject the sexual impulse that leads to procreation and for which other exemplar-lovers in the middle books quest. To stay with Belphoebe, Timias must deny his sexual nature, reject that impulse which is part of his man­ hood, and forgo virtuous, sexual union with his beloved. Tim­ ias, unfortunately, never quite understands the demands of his own loving nature. Nor does he accept the naturalness of sexual desire. He may hunt with Belphoebe and subdue those beasts ranging freely in her woods, but he cannot forever subdue his own passions that join him with them. Lacking Bel- phoebe's love, Timias never attains that self-knowledge which all epic heroes must attain in order to be successful and 83 8^

which is achieved by the other exemplar-lovers. He remains

a victim of love’s force, which cannot be denied. His situ­

ation is tragic because, no matter how hard he tries, he

cannot long hold to his ideal. Yet Timias strives heroically to live a life that he knows is all but impossible for him.

His greatness comes within his perception of the ideal and

his willingness to follow it though he die in the attempt.

When Timias pursues the lustful Foster, in Book III, he

enters the world of the middle books as a heroic test of the

virtuous man's ability to deny the frailty of his sensuous

nature.

Spenser stresses Timias's worthiness as an exemplary

hero through Arthur's estimation of his squire, by Timias's

battle equipment, and by his success in battle. In the first

two books, Timias is shown as accompanying Prince Arthur and

assisting him in battle. Indeed, Timias's actions even within

Book III, although brief, are more successful and valorous

than any other male knight's, save perhaps Sir Satyrane's.*

Arthur's role is diminished in Book IIIi in every book ex­

cept the third, Arthur comes to the aid of a knight who rep­ resents that particular books' virtue. Arthur lacks this

"saving" quality in III. Marinell, in fear of women, lives apart from others and is felled by Britomarti Scudamour can­ not save his beloved wife Amoret from the enchanter but must leave the task to Britomart. Artegall, although described as the most noble of knights, does not appear within that book. 85 Timias's worth is supported throughout the poem by Ar­ thur’s high regard and great love for his squire. When they are separated in Book III, Arthur grows pensive; he mourns

Timias*s lossi For him he loued aboue all mankind, Hauing him trew and faithfull euer tride, And bold, as euer Squire that waited by knights side. (III.v.12)

Timias even briefly replaces Gloriana in Arthur's thoughts.

Arthur apparently forgets his original quest and wanders

"through the endlesse world," seeking Timias "euermore, yet no where him descride" (IV.viii.18). The prince apparently needs something of the idealistic nature that causes Timias to pursue the grisly Foster attempting to rape Florimell.

When Arthur finds Timias again, the prince embraces him as he asks,

My liefe, my lifes desire, Why haue ye me alone thus long yleft? Tell me what worlds despight, or heauens yre Hath you thus long away from me bereft? Where haue ye all this while bin wandring, where bene (VI.v.23) weft?

Spenser describes their riding together in "a comely couple- ment" (VI.v.24).

Arthur has good reason to miss his squire, who has been his right hand man and a brave warrior. When Duessa rushes out on her monstrous beast, with "heads like flaming brands," to attack Arthur, Timias gives battle "with single sword in hand,/ And twixt him and his Lord did like a bulwarke stand" 86

(I.viii.12). Spenser repeats the description of Timias's bravery in the next stanza« But nathemore would that courageous swayne To her /Duessa7yeeld passage, gainst his Lord to goe, But with outrageous strokes did him restraine, And with his bodie bard the way atwixt them twaine. (I.viii.13) In his willingness to give his life for his prince against

Duessa and her dragon, Timias becomes a capsule summary of

Christian love and honorable heroic action. His stand pres­ ages Redcrosse's more successful one against his famous dragon. That Timias is eventually caught between the dragon's claws and must be rescued by Arthur does not deny Timias's bravery. The prince, except in Book III, goes also to the aid of every books' exemplar-virtue in canto viii. Because

Timias establishes his own frailty through his failure against Duessa's "charmes" and "enchauntments," which caused his capture (I.viii.l^), Timias can save Arthur later from the vices of Impotence and Impatience. Timias can hold them off as he, in turn, was saved from the dragon's claws. Spenser again shows that a dependency upon military strength and valor, even in Arthur's magnificent figure, can­ not be the final ideal within the heroic endeavor. Arthur is saved by Timias, who represents "the helpe of weaker hand"

(II.xi.3 0), and who does not succumb to the vices of Impo­ tence and Impatience. The prince would have been slain "Had not his gentle Squire beheld his paine,/ And commen to his reskew, ere his bitter bane" (II.xi.29). Arthur would have 87 died from his wounds after battling Maleger if Timias had

not, like the angel who protected Guyon until help came, as­

sisted him and led him to Alma's House of Temperance.

In a poem that stresses the symbolism of a knight's

weaponry, Spenser surrounds Timias with exceptional weapons.

In addition to "His speare of heben wood," "Whose harmefull

head, thrice heated in the fire,/ Had riuen many a brest" (I.

vii.37), 2 Timias carries a horn whose magical strength

carries connotations of both biblical and chivalric exploits.

The small, brightly tassled hornss "shrilling sound" brings

"trembling feare" to evil doers (I.viii.4). With it, Timias.

opens the doors of Orgoglio's castle to free Redcrosse.

Like Joshua, who brings down the walls of Jericho, Timias

causes "all the castle" to quake "from the.ground,/ And euery

door of freewill" to fly open (I.viii.5). ^ Unlike Roland, who repeatedly fails to blow his horn when the occasion

clearly demands it, Timias accepts his miraculous horn as a tool provided by God which is to be used when needed. ^

Timias's horn prevents excessive bloodshed in that it allows ready access to the castle.

Once Timias enters the middle books, however, he becomes unable to protect himself. He leaves behind the comforting, ordered world where passions fit into neat categories of good or badi staunchly virginal and good (like Belphoebe) or blatantly sensual sued evil (like Acrasia). In the middle books, the romantic world of lovers holds sway. Cupid reigns 88 all powerful, and Venus and Mars must find some way to recon­

cile each other's dominant characteristics so they can meet

on amicable grounds of friendship and trusts Here, Timias

becomes a victim of love. He is repeatedly wounded, whether

by the wicked Poster, the dart from Belphoebe's eyes, or the

bite of the Blatant Beast. Timias, heretofore a valiant sup­

porter of his prince, seems inherently incapable of warding

off the type of dangers he encounters within the romantic

world of the middle books and love.

When Florimell, in flight, bursts upon the group of

knights, Guyon and Arthur quickly follow her. They respond

to the powerful pull of "beauty and the lust inspired by

it." ^ Their impulsive chase is described in terms of win­

ning her as booty for their adventure. Their attempt "to win

thereby/ Most goodly meede, the fairest Dame aliue" suggests

a deterioration of knightly values (III.i.18). Timias, in­

stead, follows "the foule foster" (III.i.18).

A.C. Hamilton surely misinterprets Spenser's intention when he explains that Timias follows the "Foster rather than

Florimell" because "he seeks lust rather than love." ^ Tim­

ias's impulses to protect virginity against lust, to keep in­ tact that innocence at the core of human love, instead dis­ play his innate gentleness and goodness. ^ Spenser's wording - throughout the episode leaves no doubt that the Foster is

"fowle," and his "outrageous wrong" must be corrected (III. v.13). Timias's attempt to avenge the lady and stop the 89 villain from future atrocities manifests Timias's Continual chivalric idealism. In guarding the realm against present and future evil, Timias acts heroically. For only Timias's actions, not the other knights', are directed toward halting the Foster's "bad deeds, which dayly he increast,/ Ne ceased not" (III.v.14). Timias's heroic impulses are vindicated within the narrative as more honorable and reasonable than the other males'.

Having shown Timias. as a brave and suitable squire to his prince, Spenser shows Timias entering a world where he can never quite succeed. The physical urges are increas­ ingly harmful to Timias. In attempting to ford a stream, he is ambushed by the Foster and his evil brothers. The damage from their weapons is precisely described in a scene of peri­ lous reality. The dimensionality of the three villains hover­ ing above the "deepe ford," battering Timias back as he tries to scale "the high banke" shows his danger (III.v.19). He is wounded by a long "bore-speare" whose "cruell shaft, /Ts7 headed with deadly ill" (III.v.20).

Timias eventually reaches the bank and dispatches the churls' souls to hell. "They three" are pronounced "dead with shame, the Squire" alive "with renowne" (III.v.25). Tim­ ias, however, cannot appreciate the fruits of his heroism.

He is desperately wounded in the left thigh (usually a sign of lust) and falls from his horse in a deadly swoon to lie "wallowd all in his owne gore" (III.v.26). 90

Timias's swoon is meant to arouse sympathy and respect for a bravery that carries him to the edge of death (III.v.

26). The narrator pleads for God's continual safekeepingi

Now God thee keepe, thou gentlest Squire aliue, Else shall thy louing Lord thee see no more, But both of comfort him thou shalt depriue, And eke thy selfe of honour, which thou didst atchiue. (III.v.26)

The plea echoes earlier stanzas of God’s love for mankind and the angels He sends to protect Guyon. This plea for Tiraias, however, is couched in practical terms. It reminds the reader of Timias's faithful service to Arthur and of their continual O search for personal honor and societal glory. The wording is prophetically ironic in that Timias will survive, but his absence will be a deprivation for his "louing Lord" since he will neither attempt to join Arthur again nor seek any of the honor bestowed by Gloriana's court for his heroic battles.

The next stanza reiterates the idea of providential grace and raises the moral dilemma of love versus duty. The poet reminds us that

Prouidence heauenly passeth liuing thought, And doth for wretched mens reliefe make way; For loe great grace or fortune thither brought Comfort to him, that comfortlesse now lay. (III.v.27) Thus, Belphoebe's entrance is analogous to an angel's leav­ ing its world of aevum to enter the world of man. Spenser, in repeating the word "comfort," emphasizes the point that the comfort Belphoebe brings Timias will deprive Arthur of the "comfort" previously brought him by Timias. The two 91

stanzas serve thereby to summarize Timias's heroic endeavor

and his new moral dilemma.

Timias's love and allegiance to Belphoebe will neces­

sarily exclude his love and service to Arthur. Just so,

later, in Book IV, Timias's attentions to the wounded Amoret

will cause his exclusion from Belphoebe's presence because

the twins cannot be loved or followed simultaneously. Timias

cannot hold an idealized allegiance to both Arthur and Bel­

phoebe. Nor can he hold to the ideals of virtuous love and

vigorous abstinence. His ideals of heroism and honor are

about to be drastically tested and revised. This foreshadow­

ing of separation and loss is not readily apparent at this

point in the narrative, though, and the stanza concludes on

a strong note of hope for Timias's rescue.

In Book II, Belphoebe presents a potent and positive

figure. Although the vigor of her hunt is never moderate, she

represents the temperate restraint of an unchanging nature

continually at war with lewdness, sloth, and faulty honor.

Throughout Books II, III, and IV, Spenser treats her unchang­

ing nature as a worthy ideal. Yet, in Books III and IV, whose virtues are societal rather than personal, Spenser

diverges in his treatment of Belphoebe. He invites us also

to judge the nature of Belphoebe*s relationships with others as limited. That is, while we are to consider Belphoebe as a worthy ideal, we are also to consider her as unthinkingly rigid and unknowingly cruel. Spenser appears to be arguing

that any form of tyranny, even the most benevolent, makes

any relationship all but impossible. Belphoebe's virginal

nature causes pain without knowing it. Thus, we are not to

judge Belphoebe wrong, but we are asked to judge the nature

of her unbending virginity when it is brought within the

middle books where virtuous sexual desire demands fulfill­

ment and wholeness with the beloved. On one hand, we are to

find Belphoebe admirable; on the other hand, inequality in

love, where love is needed, is to be found wrong. Spenser's

text, which causes Belphoebe to appear in quite a different

light in the middle books, determines the controversial

character of Belphoebe's actions toward Timias.

In Book II, Temperance, where sexual desire is shown

only as debilitating lust, Belphoebe is the one forceful

factor that supports Guyon's destruction of Acrasia's Bower

of Bliss. She is the only real counterbalance to the false

ideals of concupiscent ease and falsified honor. This desire to escape from the heroic effort is reflected primarily

through the subverted knightly forms of love and honor that become victims of the Circean Acrasia and her maid, Phaedria.

For example, in the story of Mordant, we see a knight who

does not fulfill his familial obligations or work honestly

and industriously. Instead, he seeks the quick thrill of ad­ venture and personal glory. He soon falls "drunken mad" under the "pleasure and delight" of Acrasia's spell (II.i.52). The sorceress represents Mordant's own lust and faulty honor,

which are turned back upon him. Desire for fame and glory

leads to erotic excess, sexual submission, then finally

physical death in the nymph's fountain when he drinks its

waters. ^ Her maidservant, Phaedria, relies upon man's natur­

al desire to escape the toils and horrors of the world to live

in "louely peace, and gentle amitie" (II.vi.35)* Phaedria

would argue that Antony's heroic passion for Cleopatra

brings the lovers "euer greater glory" (II.vi.35)* She ne­

glects to mention its aftermathi Antony's passion tears a-

part his empire and destroys them both. Phaedria's "greater

glory" in the name of Venus's love offers only extreme sen­

suality and ruin. Her way, like her mistress's, would destroy

all peaceful government and civilization.

To the exempla of dishonor in Book II, Spenser contrasts

the ideal of Belphoebe, whose descriptive icon superbly fits

Harry Berger's famous designation of "conspicuous irrele­ vance." She is not, however, irrelevant in her stance of

continual activity and labor. Against the urge to rest, Bel­ phoebe offers the need to persevere. Against the desire to lust, she offers the ideals of virginity, temperance, and honor* the life of the eternal hunt. She confronts man with the need for decisions. He must choose an active engagement with life over passive sensuality or be consumed by his own obscured discernment and passions. In Belphoebe's only appearance in Book II, she teaches 94 the way to win honor. The man who "bathes himselfe in court­ ly blis" or who "moulds in idle cell" will be buried in ob­ livion rather than raised to honor (II.iii.40,41). Honor will be found, instead, in "Sweat" and "wakefull watches" by that person who busies his "limbs with labours, and his minc(/ Behaues with cares" (II.iii.41,40). Honor lies

Abroad in armes, at home in studious kind Who seekes with painfull toile, shall honor soonest find. In woods, in waues, in warres she wonts to dwell, And will be found with perill and with paine. (II.iii.40-41)

Belphoebe espouses an ideal of continuous toil and effort.

Her ideal offers specific action under specified conditions and an old-line perspective toward heroic endeavor that re­ fuses all softening influences or vices. If Spenser is discreetly tongue in cheek in his hyper­ bolic encomium of her corporis bona (II.iii.21-31) and gently undercutting Belphoebe's ideal of perfection, he is equally careful never to blur the ideal of her natural beauty. Her naturalness exposes the artfulness within the evil forces of intemperance. Her golden hair falls freely down her back, blowing in the wind. The flowers in her hair innocently blend art and nature (II.iii.30). They undermine Acrasia's deceit­ ful sensuality and the seductive mockery of nature in Acra­ sia's Bower where gold lasciviously pretends to be "yuie trew" (ll.xii.6l) and where men are changed willingly to swine. 95

The severity of Belphoebe is impregnable. Yet her elab­

orately detailed description, the sensual blazon, her intro­

ductions of dea certe, which echo Aeneas's greeting to his

mother Venus, who appears disguised as Diana (II.iii.33i39;

III.v.35), join the attributes of Diana and Venus in a way

that Belphoebe has no capacity to understand. The description

in Book II looks ahead "to the great theme of the central

books, the reconciliation of the cycle of generation with

heroic action through the person of Britomart.” In the

central books, where virtuous love and friendship join to

hope for fertile union, the severity of Belphoebe's martial

pursuits cannot be reconciled with the complexity of

mankind's sexual nature when it is presented as virtuous

rather than merely lustful. While Belphoebe's unchanging nature is shown as a continually worthy ideal, its sterile,

lonely perfection is also incompatible with the cycle of

generation. Belphoebe's superb ideal must also be perceived

as lacking that love upon which mankind depends to re-create itself.

Part of the pathos surrounding Timias is that his es­

sential goodness causes him to become Belphoebe's follower.

In attempting to follow that ideal which mankind often loudly praises but seldom in fact attempts, he chooses the all-but- impossible-to-attain. Timias invites his own downfall when he becomes Belphoebe's worshipper, for, by choice, he places himself under her domination. There is a hint that Timias attempts to reach too high. Certainly he never quite under­

stands his own inability to transcend mankind's essential nature, to free himself from his own sexuality through wor­

shiping Belphoebe. Yet, there can be no censure of Timias's

attempt to live up her ideal of active and total continence.

To love Belphoebe is to renounce sexual love, even the virtu­

ous sexual love represented by Amoret, her twin, or by Brit- omart, who searches for Artegall, marriage, and kingly prog­ eny. Belphoebe's rejection of Timias, later, when she finds him comforting the wounded Amoret is a statement of the real­ ity that the twins "must be loved in different ways, and love 12 of one excludes love of the other."

It is foolish for Timias to love Belphoebe if one judges on practical terms, but Timias's course is impractical on a magnificent level. Belphoebe represents Timias's ultimate hope to attain the perfected ideal of all his imaginings and spiritual yearnings. His tragic situation is that the ideal of Belphoebe cannot be fully attained in fallen man as long as he retains his natural animal appetite. Timias is caught between his longing for an idealized life of honor within the framework of a contemplated spiritual love and his actual need for sexual fulfillment. He cannot continually deny his own sexuality. Yet his inability to attain the ideal of a contemplated spiritual dimension does not diminish the heroic stature of his attempt. Nor does his unrequited love and un­ equal relationship diminish the heroic ideal of a spiritual 97 love which Belphoebe represents. The reader is invited to

explore areas of honorable action, relationships between loving friends, and inequities within absolute control of

one over the other, but the reader is never encouraged to think of Timias's stay with Belphoebe as less than admirable.

Traditionally, the epic hero is to enter areas of the unknown where he can explore and discover himself. The character of exploration is itself spiritually fulfilling and its own rewarding ideal. The poem stresses that, for Timias, there is no real desertion of duty to Arthur, but a call to an even higher duty and ideal that Timias instinctively recognizes as an embodiment of perfection. To attend Belphoebe, he must live by her terms of honor, which is active, virginal chastity. He never contemplates leaving her and refuses to dishonor her.

Honor in the Timias and Belphoebe story has been covered by so many critics, especially Roche, that it seems superflu­ ous to attempt further discussion other than warn the reader 13 not to assign too narrow a meaning to that honor. J Timias's search for honor must be equated with a simultaneous and in­ clusive search for the ultimate Good. As Aristotle explains* But honour after all seems too superficial to be the Good for which we are seeking* since it appears to depend on those who confer it more than on him upon whom it is conferred,... Moreover men's motive in pursuing honour seems to be to assure themselves of their own merit* at least they seek to be honour­ ed by men of judgement and by people who know them, that is, they desire to be honoured on the ground of virtue. It is clear therefore that in the opin­ ion at all events of men of action* virtue is a greater good than honour* . . . ** 98

That certain virtue which Aristotle calls the greater Good is closer to what Timias seeks in his ideal of following Bel­ phoebe. After all, he has already won "honour, which thou didst atchiue" by defeating the forsters (III.v.26). If he were searching just for honor, he could best win it by con­ tinuing to follow Arthur.

When Belphoebe finds Timias and takes him to her bower, she inadvertantly causes a love that is specifically sexual in nature. Her heroic mind may remain steadfastly grounded in the "grace, and goodly modesty,” and "stedfast chastity" of abstinence (III.v.55)» yet, in curing Timias's first wound by the foster, she wounds him with the dart of love.

Her pavillion presages the fulfillment of the happy and blameless sensuality within the Garden of Adonis even while her virginal nature denies its acceptability. Timias, who comes to love Belphoebe sensually and honorably, can expect no reciprocal devotion. Rather, she will allow his love only on her terms.

Through Cupid's arrows and darts, through Belphoebe*s paradisial bower where the myrtle trees of Venus grow along­ side the laurels of chastity and honorable achievement, Spen­ ser signals that Belphoebe, continually the virgin huntress, also potentially holds the sensuousness of her twin, Amoret.

When Timias awakens from his faint, one of the first things he sees are "Her bow and gilden quiuer lying him beside” (III.v.3^). Spenser is signalling the knowledgeable reader

that Belphoebe carries the same golden arrows as the not-to-

be-denied golden arrow of Cupid. Belphoebe's pavillion

has too many sexual overtones to be ignored. It is one of

those paradisial areas where "birds song many a louly lay/

. . , of their loues sweet teene" and where a "little riuer"

gently murmurs (III.v.4-0,39) • The pleasant glade is "Planted

with mirtle trees and laurels greene" (III.v.^0). As we well

know, the "myrtle" is "sacred to Venus," the "laurel" is "the meed of heroes." Spenser carefully correlates the use of myrtle with Venusi in the midst of the Garden of Adonis, the

Mount of Venus is planted with a "groue of mirtle trees" (III. vi.43). Thus, Diana's grove merges the idea of Venus's type of love and honor.

Belphoebe's ministrations to Timias are described in sensuous wording. In a different context, the scene could be interpreted as extremely sexual. Belphoebe herself is pierced with a dart. Although it does not bring passionate

Venerian love, it at least softens her unbending, pristine coldness into "soft passion" (III.v.30). Belphoebe's first response at finding Timias is in terms of tender womanlinessi she grows "Full of soft passion and vnwonted smarti/ The point of pitty perced through her tender hart" (III.v.30). The de­ scriptions of her reactions to Timias and her succoring of him are hardly that of the vigilant Belphoebe of Book II . They are more suitable to Britomart's softness at seeing 100

Artegall. Belphoebe views Timias "with melting eyes." She

bows down "Meekely" to see if he is alive. (The term "Meek-

ely" is never again applied to this dominant female.) She un­

does his heavy armor in an attempt "to comfort him"; she

rubs "his temples and eaclvtrembling vaine" (III.v.30,31).

She leaves Timias only long enough to search throughout na­

ture for herbs to cure him, and then with her own skilled

hands prepares them. "Atweene her lilly handes twaine," she

squeezes the healing juice into his wound. The words carry

overtones of great sexualityi

And round about, as she could well it vze, The flesh therewith she suppled and did steepe, T*abate all spasme, and soke the swelling bruze, And after hauing searcht the intuse deepe, She with her scarfe did bind the wound from cold to (III.v.33) keePe< Although Belphoebe is never aware of her own Venerian sexuality and appeal, and is in no way to be faulted for it, the reality of the situation is that she begins a sexual hold over Timias that seems to promise sexual fulfillment and equality of friendship rather than sexual abstinence and unequal dominance. Timias reacts to the woman who is softly feminine and sexually alluring, not to some pristine vision of eternal vigilence, as we saw in Book II. When he awakens and asks if she is "Angell, or Goddesse," she calls herself "the Mayd,/ And daughter of a woody Nymphe" (III.v.

35»36). Although her answer follows the formulaic dea certe of Aeneas's meeting with his mother, Venus, Belphoebe takes the denial one step further. In using the word "we" she seems 101 to classify herself as one who joins with rather than stays apart from humanity when she answersi "We mortall wights" are alligned "with commun bond of frailtee" to help others in distress (III.v.3 6). She presents herself far differently from the visionary being of Book II whose hunting horn seems to rend the air and fracture reality. We neither see her in

"frailtee" or as joining the rest of humanity. With Timias in this episode, however, she presents herself as an angel of mercy, the tender female who readily inspires love in the responding male. That her actions are out of the ordinary is shown by her faithful followers who "wondred much" at the desperately wounded Timias and her tender succoring (III.v.

3 8 ). Her chastity contains love and charity but lacks the necessary virtuous sexuality that all the other exemplar- lovers desperately need. Those lovers of the middle books must also unite in an equality in love and an equality within their relationship, so that no partner dominates the other.

In response to Belphoebe's tendering of mercy, her excellence of beauty, her senuous overtones, Timias begins passionately to love her. Spenser follows Castiglione's formula of the beginning of love as entering through the eyes in appreciation of the woman's exterior beauty1

when her excellencies he did vew, Her soueraigne bounty, and celestiall hew, The same to loue he strongly was constraind. (III.v.^4) Spenser, however, carefully mixes Timias's observation of Belphoebe's beauty with her ministering to his physical 102

woundsi Still as his wound did gather, and grow hole, So still his hart woxe sore, and health decaydi Madnesse to saue a part, and lose the whole. Still whenas he beheld the heauenly Mayd, Whiles dayly plaisters to his wound she layd, So still his Malady the more increast, The while her matchlesse beautie him dismayd. (III.v.43)

In the world of the middle books, love is never arrived at

easily. Timie after time it is equated with man's fallen

state and with suffering. Belphoebe's consistently tendsr

care of Timias's physical body seems to cause his passionate love. As his body has need for physical wholeness, so, too,

does his entire being need virtuous physical love.

Although Spenser's epic shows females flourishing in

strong roles, yet it also seems to be saying that the female

should not dominate. As the male's and female's love is re­ ciprocated equally, their strengths are balanced and they form an equality of position! i.e., they are equals. We see the paradigm of equality when Britomart, after saving Artegall from Radigund's tyranny, returns him to his place of domin­ ance. Since Timias's sexual love is not reciprocated, he can find no successful life of equality with Belphoebe. Timias attempts to restrain his passion "With reason dew" but can­ not (III.v.44). He cannot deny what the narrator explains must happen* "Ah God, what other could he do at least,/ But loue so faire a Lady, that his life releast?" (III.v.43). His sexual drive cannot be contained through reason because reason cannot cope with love's force. His rational nature cannot I03

subjugate his passionate nature to deny itself, no matter

how hard he tries. Only if Timias can control his natural

sexual drive, yet find that necessary outlet for it, can b e

hope to find a successful life with Belphoebe. Yet only a prop­

er joining of fertile chastity with friendship and affection

can lead to happiness. That proper joining will also i ead

to a proper balancing of position between the male and female.

Timias may enter Belphoebe's bower, symbolizing Venus's non-

artful, "good" bower where she guards Adonis, and Belphoebe may care tenderly for him there. The love-stricken squire, however, does not receive her "sweet Cordiall, which can re- store/ A loue-sick hart" (III.v.50). Given Belphoebe's nature, which is eternally virginal, Timias can have no hope of achieved wholeness, reciprocative balance, or success.

As with other Spenserian epic heroes, Timias is to learn and to test his identity in relation to the opposite sex. He acknowledges his difference from and need for Belphoebe and her ideal, but he fails to define himself correctly. To succeed in the world of the middle books, Timias must seek; an extension of self in the female. To become whole, he must r e ­ store to himself his feminine counterparti his own opposite qualities reinterpreted within the female. A proper relation­ ship with the female is essential to self-knowledge and seif_ fulfillment. Thus, the Circean female must be rejected on one side. The admirable ideal of Belphoebe, if unattainable, and it is for Timias, must also be let go and another ideal lok

sought in order for wholeness to be achieved.

Timias's aspirations of love toward one so "heauenly

borne, and of celestiall hew" (III.v.^7) are doomed to fail

because of Belphoebe's virginal nature and his bodily needs

that demand sexual wholeness with his beloved. Timias's

hopes correspond with the Amoretti's Sonnet LXI where the

lover worships his lady, whom he calls

diuinely wrought, and of the brood of Angels heauenly borne« and with the crew of blessed Saynts vpbrought.

Transcending the merely human, she is herself heavenlyi

The glorious image of the makers beautie, My souerayne saynt, the I doll of my thought.

The lover asks whether

she should scorne base things that to her loue to bold aspire? Such heauenly formes ought rather worshipt be, then dare .be lou'd be men of meane degree.

The distanced sonneteer honors his beloved, whom he judges a saint far above him. Yet the next sonnet brings a new year and renewed hope. His beloved has been sanctified through im­ aging the Creator, but she is still within earthly reach. The wedding and the Epithalamion will will some day arrive.

For Timias, however, no such hope exists. As with the lover in the Amoretti. Timias needs more than what Belphoebe offers, or allows. Try though he may to deny his sexual nature, it de­ mands sexual union with his beloved.

The description of Timias's willingness to die for love follows the courtly/chivalric convention of dying for love. 105 The convention may be outworn, but we are to respect Timias's

heroic attempt to transcend himself even while we see his

inability to define himself while he attends Belphoebe.

Spenser stresses Timias's attempt to follow an embodiment of perfection. When Timias declaresi "Dye rather, dy, then euer loue disloyally" and "Dye rather, dye, then euer so faire loue forsake,” he means to abide by that decision (III.v.

^5»^7)« Throughout the first two books, Timias willingly would have died for Arthur and his ideal of knighthood. Now,

Timias offers his devoted loyalty to a far more personal ideal of virginal virtue.

Timias's protestations of death-rather-than-dishonor- to-Belphoebe follow conventional Petrarchan protestations of love. They are cliches stuffed with hyperbole, yet they carry a retrospective dimension of irony in that his willing­ ness to die is the cause of his tragic situation*

Dye rather, dye, and dying do her serue, Dying her serue, and liuing her adore; Thy life she gaue, thy life she doth deserue* Dye rather, dye, then euer from her seruice swerue. • • • And doth not highest God vouchsafe to take The loue and seruice of the basest crew? If she will not, dye meekly for her sake; Dye rather, dye, then euer so faire loue forsake. (III.v.^6,47)

Timias battles aginst his own human nature until "through weaknesse he was forst at last,/ To yield himselfe vnto the mighty ill" (III.v.^8 ). He sickens until . His inwfurd parts, and all his entrayles wast, That neither bloud in face, nor life in hart 106

It left, but both did quite drye vp, and blast; As percing leuin, which the inner part Of euery thing consumes, and calcineth by art. (III.v.^8 )

Timias presents both commitment and devotion to Belphoebe.

He has found a higher ideal than battle with Arthur; but un­ fortunately for Timias, the ideal of Belphoebe does not offer the virtuous sexual love and loving friendship of equals that he needs to find fulfillment of self.

The reader should not believe Timias's passion is on a single, simplistic level imitating the Petrarchan conventions of love. Timias's vows to die for Belphoebe present a picture of an individual's questioning himself and affinning his deci­ sion. His terms of self-description are self-effacing when he calls himself "Vnthankfull wretch,” "foolish boy," "a mean® Squire, of meeke and lowly place” (III.v.^5»^7) • They contain a youthful, colloquial clumsiness that shows a lack of sophistication and an emotion that goes beyond the con­ ventional desire to die for love. Timias's earnestness counters, even as it must be interpreted in light of, Male- casta's courly pleas of love to Britomarti if "he" does not offer comfort, "she ^alecasta7 mote algates dye" (Ill.i.

53) • Like Malecasta, Paridell pleads to Hellenore for sexual satisfaction in order to allav death (III.x.7). These pleas are altogether different from Timias's honorable vows of virginal devotion. Timias's despairing love for Belphoebe 107 may exhibit a voluptuous nature checked by tender devotion,

but it is checked, at least for as long as he is capable of

altering his natural sexuality. His passion remains unselfish

in his attempt to accept continence as a necessity within

their relationship. Timias's youthful unsophistication and

idealism are too seldom seen in a world of chivalry that

finds the best of knighthood battling for the honor of Flori- mell's golden girdle and the possession of False Florimell.

Few in that chivalric society would ever decide to "Dye rather, dy, then euer loue disloyally" (III.v.45). Timias

stays with Belphoebe on her terms for as long as humanly pos­

sible. They hunt the metaphorically lustful "Libbards" and

"Beares" in her "wild woods" (IV.vii.2 3) until Amoret arrives and Belphoebe rejects him.

Amoret, Belphoebe's twin, presents the catalyst that causes Timias's temporary first expulsion from the sexless

Eden of Belphoebe's presence. Amoret has wandered away from her protectress, Britomart, been seized by the monster, Lust, and thrown down into his cave from which she has escaped. Tim­ ias, hunting apart from Belphoebe, sees Lust pursue and cap­ ture Amoret. The "gentle Squire" attacks but is embroiled in a baffling and frustratingly long battle that he cannot win.

The Timias who was a bulwark of strength in support of Prince

Arthur cannot defeat the beast that represents man's own passions. Timias and Amoret are both innocent of evil sexual intent, and yet they are sexually involved in that they 108

cannot remain safe against the power of Lust. As James

Bednarz comments, "Amoret and Lust are pressed together so closely that an assailant cannot attack one without affect- 18 ing the other." As William Oram points out, "The reflex­ ive quality of the fighting" tends to make "the two antagon­ ists begin to mirror one another." When Timias succeeds in wounding Lust, the wording ’"That at the last he did himselfe attaine,'. . makes it sound as if Timias has wounded him- 19 self." Timias, unfortunately, wounds the lady whom he is trying to defend. Yet Timias is not shown voluntarily lustful since "when he would strike," he would "forbeare" rather than injure Amoret. Lust fights cannily, keeping her between them and "did him encumber much" in a frustrating stalemate (IV. vii.2 7). Timias appears to be fighting against his own in­ stincts when he eventually wounds Lust. He cannot kill the monster, of course, for that would come at the cost of kill­ ing himself. He is caught in a no-win situation, for when he wounds Lust the blood gushes out onto Amoret« she becomes bathed in Lust's blood. Their natural instincts and sexuality are shown stronger than their rational intelligence, yet they never totally succumb to Lust. Both continue to fight the monster for as long as they are able.

Yet he /Timias7 his hand so carefully did beare, That at the last he did himselfe attaine, And therein left the pike head of his speare. A streame of coleblacke bloud thence gusht amaine, That all her silken garments did with bloud bestaine. (IV.vii.2?)

Timias's wounding the beast causes him to throw down Amoret 109 to battle fiercely with Timias until Belphoebe fortunately arrives. Lust recognizes her as "his deaths sole instrument" and attempts to flee but cannot escape (IV.vii.29). The virgin huntress is the only person throughout "the poem for whom Lust is not a possible temptation," and she easily 20 destroys him after a short chase. Her wondering inspection of his body with its obscene sexual appendages explicates how surprising and foreign Lust is to her.

While Belphoebe is gone, Timias ministers to Amoret.

She has been badly bruised by Lust, but Timias finds that

"Als of his owne rash hand one wound was to be seene" (IV. vii.3 5). His aid to the swooning Amoret is analogous to Bel­ phoebe *s aid to him. Again there is a distinct yet subtle sexuality to the scene. Indeed, it appears to be such to

Belphoebe's eyes, for she returns to find Timias "by that new louely mate" (IV.vii.3 5). He wipes "the deawy wet" from

Amoret*s eyes and cradles her swooning body in his arms (IV. vii.35). Timias cannot help being affected by Belphoebe's "new louely" twin, who represents Love and in all likely- hood closely resembles Belphoebe. The sexuality that Belphoebe unknowingly exudes is openly present in Amoret. Timias cannot resist his own passionate nature, even if it is expressed as mercy and empathy rather than licentiousness.

Belphoebe, however, recognizes the erotic nature of the innocent scene as'a betrayel to her cause of active virginity. His devotion to Belphoebe must never waver. Timias must never 110 express his sexual nature, even with Belphoebe's alter-self, with whom it is natural for him to feel a strong emotional

bond. Belphoebe's wrath is similar to that of Diana's, her foster-mother's, when she turns the tired nymph into a magic fountain whose ennervating waters unman Redcrosse and when

she has a nymph killed by crushing and then ruins the sur­ rounding countryside (I.vii.5, VII,vi.23-25)• Belphoebe comes

close to killing Amoret and Timias. "Fild/ With deepe disdaine,

and great indignity," Belphoebe says, "Is this the faith," turns on her heel, and leaves (IV.vii.3 6). In Belphoebe's

eyes, Timias has betrayed her trust. She refuses to accept any excuses or reasons for his actions. He simply may no long­ er attend her.

One could hardly deal with the Timias/Belphoebe story without at least touching upon its historical allegory. Bel­ phoebe, as we know, is at least partially Queen Elizabeth.

Spenser was, of course, flattering Elizabeth when he praised

Belphoebe and the virtue of virginity on which Elizabeth so obviously prided herself. Above all else in her rule, Eliz­ abeth remained the ultimate "Virgin Queen mystically married

(in the words of a broadsheet of 1571) to 'My dear lover Eng­ land.'" 21 Certainly, through Belphoebe's rage at Timias and

Amoret, we are reminded of Sir Walter Ralegh and his wife,

Elizabeth Throckmorton, who were banished by Queen Elizabeth. The Timias and Belphoebe story may not have begun as historical allegory, but it is generally attributed as such in

in Book IV. Ralegh had seduced and impregnated Throckmorton,

one of Queen Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting. Given the deli­

cacy of the situation, Ralegh could hardly ask the queen for permission to wed. She was jealous of all her favorites, male 22 and female, and especially of her ladies in waiting. In

November of 1591. Ralegh secretly wed Elizabeth Throckmorton.

She then slipped away to bear a baby boy. When she returned

to court in April, news leaked out. The next month, Ralegh 23 was arrested. He and his wife were imprisoned in the Tower

from July until September, subsequently released, and then

banished from court. He was not restored to the Queen's

favor until 1 5 9 7. five years later, after the second section Oil of The Faerie Queene was published.

It appears likely that Spenser considered Belphoebe’s/

Queen Elizabeth's actions as exhibiting a lack of understand­ ing and mercy. Spenser's love for the queen supposedly in­

spired him to write his epic. Yet, in real life, he apparently found Elizabeth and her court far from perfect. Spenser's dis­ enchantment with the aging queen can be seen throughout the second installment of his poem, published in 1596. While the queen is praised conspicuously in the first three books, en­ comiums of the queen become far less evident in the last half. ^ By Book VI, the' unknown country lass to whom Colin

pipes is exalted in phrases previously allocated to Queen

Elizabeth. The country lass, not the queen, is equated with x 26 the Graces (VI.x.28). Furthermore, in Book V, Gloriana 112 changes her mind, perhaps because of Artegall's detractors, and calls him back from Irene's kingdom, to all intents re­ voking "His course of Iustice" (V.xii.2 7). One suspects, as

H.S.V. Jones does, that the crux of this conflict lies in

Spenser's belief that Elizabeth (Gloriana) showed herself less than just in dealing with Lord Grey (whom Artegall personates). ^7 One further suspects that Spenser believed

Elizabeth (in her other person, Belphoebe) unfairly banished

Ralegh (Timias). from her presence.

Thus, when Spenser restores Timias to Belphoebe's favor through the faithful turtledove, Spenser in all likelihood is exhorting Queen Elizabeth to rectify the situation of

Ralegh's long banishment. She is to be merciful to Ralegh and to reward him for his many accomplishments in her honor by forgiving him after he has done penance and restoring him to his merited position. For to Timias/Ralegh, the "dis;- pleasure of the mighty" Belphoebe/ Elizabeth is "more dread and desperate" than "death it selfe" (IV.viii.l).

All those forces that later work against Timias to sep­ arate him from his beloved Belphoebe and to keep him contin­ ually ashamed should be seen in relationship with the de­ lightful story of the gentle dove whose unifying imagery represents faithful love and "widowed fidelity." 2® The touching natural sympathy which rises between Timias and the dove expresses the natural affinity of mutual loss. It joins man and dove as true friends in a sense of mutual experience 113 and friendship that Timias could never share with Belphoebe.

The dove understands man's need to love and offers a real friendship between equals in suffering. Only the widowed dove can understand Timias's need for wholeness with his beloved, which necessarily includes virtuous sexual love and a joining of equals within that love. Whether Belphoebe should bend and be wooed by Timias is not the issue, because by her very nature she cannot changei she is the eternally virginal hunt­ ress who alone can slay Lust. Yet her relationships with others are sadly limited* Arthur does not recognize her name when he sees it written on trees. Amoret, her twin, is in a swoon and does not even see her. Belphoebe lacks that under­ standing of humanity and its needs that leads to real friend­ ship and is shown necessary in the Book of Friendship.

The story of Timias's placing the ruby heart and ribbon around his little friend, the dove, has a gentle quality of nostalgia for lost loves rather than a sense of extreme suf­ fering. The heart is "a iewell rich," an amulet described as

a Ruby of right perfect hew, Shap'd like a heart, yet bleeding of the wound,

(One cannot help remembering Amoret's suffering heart.)

And with a litle golden chaine about it bound. (IV.viii.6) Like Timias, the dove mourns a lost love, yet she alone understands that to reconcile Timias with Belphoebe neces­ sarily includes appealing to Belphoebe's sense of aggression and ownership— her irascible impulses of the hunt. 114

Belphoebe recognizes her "precious iuell" about the dove's breast and tries "With ready hand it to haue reft away" (IV. viii.10). Enticing her, the dove flits "a litle forward," waiting for Belphoebe "againe it to assay," making itself

Belphoebe's "pray" (IV.viii.11,10). The strategy is to wait

Till she drew neare, and then againe remoue; So tempting her still to pursue the pray, And still from her escaping soft away. (IV.viii.11)

Belphoebe is eventually led to Timias, whose suffering over her has altered his appearance to that of a pitiful wretch. Unable to recognize him, Belphoebe pities him. She asks how she can allay his suffering, upon which Timias says that Belphoebe's own "high displesure, through misdeeming bred," caused it. Timias seeks "redresse," which she allows

(IV.viii.12). At Timias's "ruefull plight," Belphoebe begins to "abate" her "inburning wrath" and receives him "againe to former fauours state" where he may follow her in "An happie life with grace and good accord" (IV.viii.1?,18). Timias is forgiven and allowed to return to his former level as follower.

Although Belphoebe shows mercy and a "mild regard" for Timias's pitiful state (IV.viii.1?), she appears to have learned little about Timias and the human condition. Her world of the continual hunt is forever apart from mankind. Her purity of mind encompasses no shadings or complexity of relationships.

Her vigilance lacks the warmth of humanity's needs. Yet her way of life, although limited, is right for her. As a queen allows her loyal subject to assist her, she allows Timias 115 to rejoin her hunt for the lusts of the forest.

To love Belphoebe, Timias must have no thoughts about societal reality and obligations or his own safety. As long as he is with Belphoebe, he feels protected from his own mortality* he is "Nether of enuy, nor of chaunge afeard,/

Though many foes did him maligne therefore" (VI.v.12). In

Spenser, however, there is always the danger of being oversure, of trusting in anything other than God's providence.2^ Tim- ias's foes, Despetto, Decetto, and Defetto, have failed to destroy Timias through force or entrapment within a treason­ able act. Counting upon Timias's own fearlessness "of for­ tunes chaunge or enuies dread," they call in the Blatant Beast

(Slander) "To worke his utter shame" and "draw him from his dear beloued dame" (VI.viii.18; VI.v.14,15). With no thought of personal danger, Timias gives headlong chase to the beast, apparently forcing the beast to flee. Instead, the beast leads him away from Belphoebe's woods and then turns around to bite him. When Timias stops to rest in a woody glade, he is set upon by the three villains. The tiring Timias is still fighting fiercely when Arthur appears and the villains of the court are forced to retreat.

Arthur's loving relationship with and lack of condemna­ tion for Timias are stressed. Spenser does hot invite the reader to ponder on any possibility of dereliction of duty as Arthur lovingly questions his squire (VI.v.23). Paradoxi­ cally, Timias just sighs, sheds tears, and shuts "vp all his plaint in priuy paine" (VI.v.24). Other conventions of knightly friendship and respect continue, nonetheless, as the two exchange gracious speeches and entertain each other courteously before they mount their steeds to ride forth "a comely couplement" once more (VI.v.24).

Meanwhile, the Blatant Beast's diseased bite rankles within Timias. To be cured, he must learn self-control, whic is the reason Timias and Serena, who has also been wounded by the beast, enter the Hermit's cottage. The wise man diag­ noses their wounds as "past helpe of surgery." Nor does the beast's venom allow natural, medicinal curatives. Instead, one must learn "To rule the stubborne rage of passion blinde

(VI.vi.5). The hermit teaches the virtues of prudence and temperancei inner virtues to cure inner wounds. "For in your selfe your onely helpe doth lie,/ To heale your selues" (VI. vi.7). To be free from attack, Serena and Timias must avoid even the appearance of guilt. They must exercise all their willpower to allay their burning passions and "auoide the occasion of the ill" (VI.vi.14). When the cause is re­ moved, the effect cannot take place. The Hermit advises them to restrict themselves severely» "Subdue desire, and bridle loose delight, . . , Shun secresie, and talke in open sight"

(VI.vi.l4). Mankind's cure comes only through self-knowledge and the ability to conquer that untamed beast within himself The distracting enemies of temperance block out the self- knowledge that Serena and Timias must have of themselves. 117

At the Hermit's last words, the two grow strong enough to leave the hermitage. Timias, however, apparently never quite masters the

Hermit’s advice. This is perhaps because his cure is imprac­ tical if not impossible for most in the world at large. Nei­ ther has Belphoebe’s similar teaching helped Timias learn to define himself or to understand and accept his own loving nature. .He may hunt the beasts of her woods, but he cannot destroy his own physical nature* his male need for sexual love and wholeness with his beloved. Timias’s continuing lack of self-knowledge is manifested in his inability cor­ rectly to interpret the situations of others he counters.

Timias misinterprets Serena's being protected by the Saluage man as being held captive and attacks her savage protector to rescue her. Seeing Calapine's knightly armor on the ground,

Timias believes'the savagte has despoiled it. In both cas­ es, Timias judges wrongly and cannot carry out his intentions. Just so, in his first act after leaving the hermitage, he rashly attacks Disdain and Scorn, who turn out to be the en­ voys of Cupid's just punishment upon Mirabella. She is a woman who, refusing to acknowledge the importance of love, scorns and ridicules her lovers. ^

Again, Timias acts from the highest of heroic motives.

Again, Spenser describes him in terms of gentleness and the knightly desire to save a fair maiden from harm and redress evildoing. When he sees them beating the lady, Timias attacks 118 and fights valiantly, but "his foote slipt (that slip he

dearely rewd)'' (VI. vii .4-8). He is bound fast and led by a rope and extricated by Prince Arthur.

Timias never truly understands Cupid's power. Conse­ quently, he suffers Scorn's and Disdain's "bitter mockes and mowes," a scorn "that to his gentle mynd/ Was much more

grieuous, then the others blowes." For "Words sharpely wound, but greatest griefe of scorning growes" (VI.vii.^9)* Upon

seeing Arthur, Timias does not greet him joyfully as his rescuer but is much asham'd, that with an hempen cord He like a dog was led in captiue case, And did his head for bashfulnesse abuse, As loth to see, or to be seene at alii Shame would be hid. (VI.viii.5) Although rescued by his prince, Timias hangs back, unwilling to be recognized. Arthur, nevertheless, is exceedingly de-’ lighted once he recognizes "the gentle Squire, . ,/ And him

did oft embrace, and oft admire,/ Ne could with seeing sat-

isfie his great desire" (VI. viii.2 7).

Timias is allegorically joined in bondage with Mirabel- la, the archetype of the cruel, vainglorious mistress who is deservedly punished by Cupid. While she gathers her tears of contrition as "repentaunce for things past and gon" (VI. viii.24), however, Timias has no such evildoing against love for which to atone. His "crime," rather, is in choosing a beloved who cannot return his love in like manner. His 119 "crime" is one of imprudence in trying to deny his own sex­ uality. Belphoebe remains a worthy ideal, but throughout the poem, Timias suffers because he does not understand the severe limitations within that ideal. Following the wrong idea, he consequently fails to find the reciprocative human love that allows virtuous union and brings wholeness to the individual, which in turn brings self-knowledge.

In the Book of Courtesy, where great discourtesies ex­ ist and where civilized behavior is often corrupt, Timias shows himself attempting to carry out his knightly duties to the best of his ability. Yet it is a world made all but im­ possible to judge correctly what one sees and hears: the

Blatant Beast cannot be held captive for long. In such a world, Timias inexplicably feels self-scorn. The reader needs to be reminded that all knights are pledged to defend the

Faerie Queene's kingdom and heroic order itself. Yet these same knights fight in Satyrane's tournament for Florimell's golden girdle in Book IV. They subject themselves to unknown, disguised adversaries, to continuing warfare, and to unfor- seeable reversals of fortune. Timias has but absented himself from their vain, chivalric duels to seek the ideal of Bel­ phoebe and a relationship for which he is willing to die.

True, he has also absented himself from service to Arthur.

But in such a world where Ate reigns, is such absence alto­ gether wrong? Part of the epic hero's journey invariably con­ sists of his ceasing arduous endeavors for a while and 120 entering the pastoral world to seek self-knowledge. This knowledge of self must include the examination of relation­ ships, which cannot come about without separation of self from society. We must remember the differences between Tim- ias's feeling of self-scorn, the act of scorning, the receiv­ ing of others' scorn, and the state of being actually guilty and deserving of such scorn.

Arthur's lack of censure and loving forgiveness to Tim­ ias are signals that Timias is innocent of actual crime. Even so, he feels guilt and shame. His conscience manufactures a subjective guilt of mankind's sexuality that is independent of moral sinfulness or innocence. Yet there were no overt sexual actions toward Belphoebe— or, for that matter, toward

Amoret. Rather, there were deep yearnings and thoughts of sexuality. Hence, the imponderability of the world of love and of self-scorn that Spenser presents through Timias only hints at what is truly right or wrong, or what judgment should take place in the reader's mind toward Timias's sense of shame.

Timias has man's positive impulses to protect the weak and to make orderly those disorderly forces within himself.

Even thus, he is caught in the dialectic struggle of warlike expertise and gentleness, of overt selfish sexuality and sub­ limation. He serves as the hero made ever more weakly human.

Potentially the ultimate hero in his attempt to follow the ideal of Belphoebe, Timias is caught and continually wounded. 121

In the world of The Faerie Queene, the concupiscible impulse in the form of virtuous, unselfish love leads man to the irascible impulse and heroic action. In such a world, the

"gentle Squire" is a failure.

Throughout his poetry, Spenser advocates the goodness of passionate, virtuous love. In Spenser's world, as opposed to the earlier epic romances, failure to find love is to invite defeat. For man to find self-knowledge and self- acceptance, he must join in wholeness with his beloved.

Where Ariosto, in Orlando Furioso. shows Orlando's seeking the false paradise'of love as a'willed oblivion of madness,

Spenser, in his epic, shows Timias's failure to find love as inviting madness and detraction. Where Tasso's knights, in Gerusalemme Liberata, are distracted by love from their mission to recapture the holy city, Spenser's Timias is dis­ tracted from his mission because of Belphoebe's lack of reciprocal love for him. In Spenser's world, virtue and pleasure must join in a-happy alliance .in order for the heroic endeavor to be successful. NOTES

Kate M. Warren, "Plan and Conduct of Book Three," The Works of Edmund Spenser, A Variorum Edition, 10 vols., ed, Edwin Greenlaw et, al. (Baltimore! Johns Hopkins UP, 1932-^9) Vol. 3, 312-13. While Sir Satyrane does capture the Blatant Beast and rescues the Squire of Dames, to accomplish the latter he must let loose the Beast. His success is fur­ ther limited in that he is easily felled by the lusting gi­ antess. 2 Britomart also carries an ebony spear by which she is known.

^ Joshua VI. 3-J*. Note the parallels in use of numbers with I.viii.4.

^ John Upton, The Works of Edmund Spenser, A Variorum Edition, 10 vols., ed. Edwin Greenlaw et. al. (Baltimore! Johns Hopkins UP, 1932-^9) Vol. 1, 257. Upton compares Tim­ ias 's horn to one used in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. The fairy Logostilla (who represents reason) gives Astolpho a book and a horn. Astolpho's horn represents the forces need­ ed to carry out reason and intelligent thought. Upton sug­ gests an even further meaning behind Timias's horn. It "rep­ resents not only justice, but rather (Romans IO1I8 ) 'the word of truths the word of God, whose sound goeth into all the earth.* ^This," Upton adds, "is tantamount to calling it the 'horn of salvation,' and it is generally so interpret- ed_j/H Upton, however, considers Timias's horn as primarily originating with Roland's ivory horn, which Roland repeated­ ly fails to blow. In this way, Spenser compares Timias's heroism with Roland's.

^ Roche 202.

^ A.C. Hamilton, The Structure of Allegory in "The Faerie Queene" (Oxford! Clarendon, I9 6I) 162.

^ Timias is introduced as "A gentle youth" and "goodly 122 123 person" (I.vii.37). Spenser refers to him throughout the poem as "gentle."

8 Roche 148. He considers Timias*s "happy service to Belphoebe a minor analogy to Arthur’s unfinished quest for Gloriana," since "The quotations from Ashley /Of Honour/ make it abundantly clear that honor is the virtue of the private individual, glory the virtue of the public." See also 143-45.

^ William Nelson, The Poetry of Edmund Spensers A Study (New York« Columbia UP, 1963) 189-90. Refer also to Isabel G. Maccaffrey, Spenser's Allegory« The Anatomy of Im­ agination (Princeton 1 Princeton UP, 197o) 218.

Harry Berger, The Allegorical Temper; Vision and Reality in Book II of Spenser's "Faerie Queene" Yale Studies in English, 137 (New Havem Yale UP, 1957) 126-27; also 81-86.

^ Humphrey Tonkin, "Theme and Emblem in Spenser's Faerie Queene" ELH 40 (1973)* 223.

*2 Maccaffrey 2 6 9.

^ Maccaffrey 281nll. I agree with Maccaffrey*s view that Roche's idea of honor has a narrower meaning than she would allot it.

^ Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics. The Loeb Classi­ cal Library, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge 1 Harvard UP, 1934) 15.

^ Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology (New Yorki n.p., 1939) 101-02; Kathleen Williams. Spenser^ World of Glass (Berkeley 1 U of California P, I9 6 6; 99^ Spenser uses the idea of Diana's using Cupid's poem in his last poem in the Amoretti when "Diane beasts with Cupids dart" after she has exchanged one of her own quivers for his. Once the exchange is made, even "little Cupid" confuses the Diane of the Amor­ etti with his mother, Venus. He says, "to her All hayle my mother./ . , not knowing Venus from the other."

Nelson 206.

Spenser's allegory of Agape and her three sons in IV. 124 ii. and Triamond's and Cambell's friendship and marriages to Canacee and Gambina in IV.iii. are exemplums of love and friendship bringing accord and happiness.

James P. Bednarz, "Ralegh in Spenser's Historical Al­ legory," Spenser Studies» A Renaissance Poetry Annual, eds. Patrick Cullen and Thomas P. Roche, Jr. (New Yorki AMS, 1984) 4i 6 3.

^ William A. Oram, "Elizabethan Fact and Spenserian Fiction," Spenser Studies 1 A Renaissance Poetry Annual, eds. Patrick Cullen and Thomas P. Roche, Jr. (New Yorki AMS, 1984) 4i 42-43.

20 Roche 137.

21 Thomas H. Cain, Praise in "The Faerie Queene" (Lin­ coln 1 U of Nebraska P, 1978) 50-51* Also consult Allan H. Gilbert, "Belphoebe's Misdeeming of Timias," PMLA 62 (194?)» 6 3 2-3 3. Josephine Waters Bennett, The Evolution of "The Faerie Queene" Burt Franklin Selected Essays in Literature And Criticism 9 (New Yorki Burt Franklin, i9 6 0) 149. Bennett points out that Ralegh apparently acknowledged his identifi­ cation with Timias and the story, since in "The llthi and Laste Booke of the Ocean to Scinthia," written probably in 1592, Ralegh uses Spenser's name Belphoebe for queen Eliza­ beth rather than his own usual one of Cynthia. Refer to H.C. Chang, Allegory and Courtesy in Spensers a Chinese View (Edin­ burgh 1 Edinburgh UP, 1955) 158. Chang points out, interest- ingly, that Timias's banishment in the woods in several plac­ es closely echoes the poem "Like to a Hermite Poor," gener­ ally accepted as Ralegh's and first printed in The Phoenix Nest in 1593* the year following his banishment from court. Consult Chang's Chapter VI, "Timias the Squire and Sir Walter Ralegh," 152-68.

22 Oram 55*

2-^ Oram 55* 24 Bennett 168. Further consult Kathrine Koller, "Spen­ ser and Ralegh," ELH 1 (193*0 » ^8. Koller suggests the pos­ sibility that Ralegh's supposed disgrace is not as accurate as supposed. Matters of state and business may have called him to Ireland.

25 Cain 156. 125

26 Cain 125. Cain points out that Spenser may apologize to Gloriana for extolling another, he may describe Gloriana/ Elizabeth as the "greatest Maiesty" and the anonymous girl as "thy poore handmayd," yet only the country lass, not the queen, is equated with the Graces (VI.x.28). One thing is certain! in "apportioning praise here, Spenser has obviously given the greater part to the lass."

H.S.V. Jones, Spenser's Defense of Lord Grey (I9 I91 New York! AMS, 1976) 7-15. See also Cain 149-50. 28 Roche lk6. The sense of the dove as a unifying meta­ phor of faithfulness even in widowhood is expressed superbly in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale when Paulina, mourning her long dead husband, saysi I, an old turtle, Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there My mate (that's never to be found again) Lament till I am lost. (V.iii.132-35) 29 7 Refer to Spenser's "Mviopotmosi Or The Pate of the Bvtterflie"i 515-20.

Arnold Williams, Flower on a Lowly Stalks the Sixth Book of the "Faerie Queene" (East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1967) 53- CHAPTER IV

"Whose euer be the shield, faire Amoret be his">

AMORET AND SCUDAMOUR

In the love story of Amoret and Scudamour, we see the personal implications of fruitful conjugal love that is blocked from achieving its ultimate dimensions. Although both exemplar-lovers heroically quest after each other to join in virtuous, monogamic sexuality, they are kept apart. Scudamour's heroic test is to show himself worthy of Amoret's love. Until he learns to join the amiable virtues of Chastity and Friend­ ship, he cannot join with his beloved wife, Amoret. This in­ troduction of friendship and affection as crucial in a couple's marriage relationship is a radical introduction into the he­ roic ideal. Spenser insists that friendship is the key to the relationships of man and woman in all the reciprocities of life. Friendship is the basis of love between them and a neces­ sity within marriage. Because Scudamour cannot cope with a loving friendship within marriage, he cannot find the peace of mind and mastery of self that leads toward consummating his marriage with Amoret. His lack of completion is proof of his fragmented understanding of friendship and love.

126 127

Before Amoret and Scudamour can join there must be a new

equilibrium of understanding between them. Friendship and love must be joined with truthfulness and a ready communication be­

fore the justice of true lovers' joining can be attained. For

her part, Amoret must overcome her fear and distrust of the male before she can form a bond of loving friendship that in­

cludes a mutual respect of the other's rights. Yet, throughout

Books III and IV, Amoret and Scudamour show continual loyalty

to each other. This loyalty in all probability would have been

rewarded somewhere within Spenser's poem, had it been completed.

Amoret, however, disappears before she and Scudamour can join

in wholeness. Spenser apparently wants to show that the con­

dition of our fallen world is such that mankind's love is not

always successful. Ate's slander works as strongly to destroy

chastity and friendship and separate lovers as all slanderous words work to pull down law and justice. Loving truth in all

its ramifications is necessary if justice in mankind's personal

life is to be carried out. Friendship, love, and justice must

be linked with truthfulness and trusting communication if lov­ ers are to join in fertile, joyous marriage.

The reader is not to be left with love's failure to

achieve union, though, because Scudamour's narration of Amoret's

courtship within the Temple of Venus displays his increasing

discernment of the necessary elements within happy, conjugal

love that the exemplar-lovers continually seek. The reader's attention is to be focussed on the development of love within Scudamour as he quests after the virtuous life of passionate love within marriage. In placing Scudamour's tale of the isle and temple of Venus as a flashback of encapsulated narrative,

Spenser separates the tales of knightly strife from the tale of fertile marriage between the Thames and Medway Rivers.

Scudamour has, at least temporarily, put away his role of passionate courtly lover whom Britomart finds wallowing on the grass outside Busyrane's Castle. In relating the tale of Amor- et's wooing, Scudamour on one hand expresses his new under­ standing of the virtuous ideal of love, just as Venus expli­ cates the ideal of passionate love within marriage as a virtue worthy of continual heroic quest, a virtue that allows man­ kind's continue replenishment. On the other hand, in the beginning of his story, Scud­ amour 's notions of love are built upon a synthesis of two ideals. First, there is the old-line epic ideal of masculine dominance and rightst the woman is a prize to be captured, and only those strong enough to protect her have the right to possess her. Second, there is the romantic ideal of the cruel

Cupid emblazoned on his shieldi "Cupid with his killing bow,/

And cruell shafts" (IV.x.55)* In winning "The shield of

Loue” (IV.x.8), Scudamour derives his name* "(escu d'amour)" and his identity as "Cupids man" (IV.x.5*0. * He attempts to emulate the Cupid on his shieldi the same cruel Cupid shown graphically in Busyrane's Masque of Cupid. 129

Scudamour undertakes the task of winning Amoret with epic virtu and fortezza. When he hears of Cupid's shield and

Amoret as the "renowmed prise" (IV.x.4), Scudamour boldly thinks "(so young mens thoughts are bold)" to win "both shield and she" (IV.x.4). He arms himself to win "honour by some noble gest" (IV.x.4). Gaining access to Venus's isle is

Scudamour*s test of perseverence and bravery, as he explainst

"Vnworthy they of grace, whom one deniall/ Excludes from fairest hope, withouten further triall" (IV.x.17). He sur­ mounts risks the better to contrast himself with "faint-heart fooles" turned easily back by Danger from their quests for love (IV.x.17). Throughout, Scudamour acts boldly, as he has heard he must. He shakes "off all doubt and shamefast feare,/

Which Ladies loue I heard had neuer wonne" (IV.x.53)*

But Scudamour shows no consideration of Amoret's feel­ ings. In telling of their "courtship," he passes breezily over her fears and hesitations. He concentrates, instead, on whether her seizure offends Venus. When Venus, "with amiable grace," seems "To laugh . . . and fauour" his "pretence," he gains confidence (IV.x.5 6). She appears to agree with his contention that it is right for "Cupids man with Venus mayd to hold" since the goddess of love is ill-served by virgins

(IV.x.54). Amoret has been raised for the one man capable of taking her out of Venus's Temple. Now she must enter the world of Scudamour's human love to combine divine and earthly 130 love within the physical pleasure of marriage.

Once Scudamour removes Amoret from her place of pro­ tection in the Temple of Venus, Scudamour embodies a world of warfare, sexual chase, and irascible concupiscence that inflicts pain, jealousy, and revenge. Both lovers face the aftermath of Scudamour*s ideas of courtly love. He expects love to be an egotistical reflection of his desire for mas­ tery over his wife. Consequently, he does not understand

Amoret as the wonderful creature of love she in fact is, for Amoret offers the sheer purity of pleasure within procre­ ation. Raised with her companion, Pleasure, in the Garden of

Adonis, Amoret has been trained "In all the lore of loue, and goodly womanhead" (III.vi.51), As Venus's foster daughter,

Amoret contains the procreative forces which, having created, offer continual replenishment and hope for amelioration.

Scudamour's view of love is further presented through the wedding guests who celebrate Ainoret and Scudamour*s wed­ ding night in an orgy of riotous expectation. In "the bridale feast," the men are "Surcharg'd with wine," are "heedlesse and ill hedded,/ All bent to mirth before the bride was bed­ ded" (IV.i.3 )* When the "mask of loue" is brought in,

Amoret is "ill of friends bestedded" (IV.i.3 ). Within the confusion between Amoret*s previously gentle world and the present one, Busyrane enters into the wedding festivities to take Scudamour's place as the bridegroom. As Scudamour seizes Amoret from the Temple of Venus for his prize to be 131 taken on the wedding night, Busyrane, in turn, seizes her and whisks her away to an unknown place. The enchanter mocks the sanctified ritual of marriage with an evil ritual of wor­

ship for the love-deity, Cupid. Busyrane erects a house and masque in which Amoret is sacrificed to a negation of mar­ riage. In essence, Cupid's perverse force keeps Amoret from copulating with her properly wedded husband.

The reader first sees Scudamour when Britomart, the knight of chaste, friendly, but passionate love, comes upon

a young knight wallowing on the "grassy ground" beside a fountain. His "haberieon, his helmet, and his speare" lie beside him. "A little off, his shield" is "rudely throwne"

(III.xi.7). Previous knights have wallowed beside fountains and set aside their shields. Redcrosse gave way to his pas­

sion and desire for rest to dawdle with Duessa rather than

quest after Una. Verdant lay helplessly enchanted by Acrasia in her Bower of Bliss. The reader may sympathize with

Scudamour about the unfairness of Amoret's captivity, but

his grovelling and sighing-sobbing complaints seem more like

a parody of courtly love-suffering than anything else. Fur­

thermore, the discarding of his shield points to a certain unmanly failure. He lacks a suitably rigorous, knightly

frame of mind.

While the narrator presents Britomart as "the flowre

of chastity" from whom the lustful giant flees (III.xi.6), he suggests a less than perfect example in Scudamour through his discarded shield. Upon it the winged boy in colours cleare Depeincted was, full easie to be knowne, And he /jScudamour/ thereby, where euer it in field was (III.xi.7) sh0,me-

Scudamour's predicament presents an ironic counterbalance to the canto's opening stanza when the narrator condemns "Fowle

Gealosie" as turning "loue diuine/ To ioylesse dread, . . ?/

Of all the passions in the mind thou vilest art" (III.xi.1).

The narrator pleads that jealousy be

banished away, And in his stead let Loue for euer dwell, Sweet Loue, that doth his golden wings embay In blessed Nectar, and pure Pleasures well. Vntroubled of vile feare, or bitter fell. (III.xi.2 )

This personator of "the winged boy," is certainly not enjoy^ ing "Sweet Loue" or bathing "his golden wings" within "bles­ sed Nectar" from "pure Pleasures well." Dialogue between

Britomart and Scudamour discloses that this "Cupids man" is bereft of his "Pleasures well." Amoret has been grabbed away from the joys of their wedding night. The world of love of­ fered by the "winged boy" on the shield is, in fact, the opposite of the "Vntroubled of vile feare, or bitter fell" once jealousy is banished.

Although Scudamour complains about the injustice of

Amoret's captivity for seven long months, he voices trust in Amoret's chastity and faithfulness. He explains that she suffers Busyrane's "deadly torments" because "she Scudamore 133 will not denay" (III.xi.ll). In spite of "mortall paine,"

Amoret refuses "to yield" Busyrane "loue," because "Once to me yold, not to be yold againe" (III.xi.l7). Scudamour la­ ments, ostensibly for Amoret's suffering for his sake and his own inability to rescue her. There is a hint, neverthe­ less, that, at heart, he mourns more for his own unhappy lot than hers. Britomart, who knows little of the distorted sentimen­ tality of Cupid's cruel love, does not attempt to soften

Scudamour's mourning with the language of love. To his pas­ sionate outburts, she offers wisdom, dignity, and a clear vision of life. She suggests he submit his will to divine providence 1

And euer in your noble hart prepense, That all the sorrow in the world is lesse, Then vertues might, and values confidence, For who nill bide the burden of distresse, Must not here thinke to liuet for life is wretched- (III.*1.14) nesse* Her perceptive, rational, stoic observations lead to her most important point. Scudamour is not alone I In greatest friendship and knightly honor, Britomart offers to take up his heroic task and save Amoret from the tyrant "or with her for you dy" (III.xi.18).

Britomart takes charge of the helpless knight, whose grief has suspended both his intellectural and physical capa­ bilities. As if dressing a child, Britomart gathers up the armor he "vowed to disprofesse" and catches his wandering 13^

steed (III.xi.20). Persuaded to rise from self-pity and

girded by the trappings of manly responsibility, Scudamour

travels with her to Busyrane's castle to broach the castle.

Although Scudamour could pass beyond the personification,

Danger, that guarded the porch onto Venus's isle, he is

stopped by the encirclement of sulphrous fire and smoke on

Busyrane's porch. The magic ring of fire burns with "mon­

strous enmity" (III.xi.2 2), in contrast to the congenial lov­

ers in Venus's garden whose spirits are those "kindling

zealous fire,/ Braue thoughts and noble deedes" (IV.x.26).

Busyrane's flames kindle a nameless, irrational dread that plays upon the passions and allows the illusory flames to be further refueled. To defy their terror, one must have more

than natural bravery and prowess i one must have mastery over all the disordered passions and hatreds. This, of course,

Scudamour does not have.

The key to interpreting the flames comes from Brito­ mart *s reactions to them. Although not subject to the human weakness of perverted passion, Britomart is naturally dis­ mayed at the horrible flames. She pauses long enough to

consider her strategy. To Scudamour, she says, "Daunger without discretion to attempt,/ Inglorious and beastlike is"

(III.xi.23). She knows what she is about and uses the methods of good intentions and intelligence against the evil disor­ ders inherent within Busyrane's fiery ring. With shield and sword pointed toward the flames, she forces them to part and 135 enters Busyrane's House to rescue Amoret.

Because Scudamour has only a limited understanding of the loving friendship Britomart heroically exhibits, he falls prey again to his passions. He sees Britomart pass safely through the flames and attempts it, also. His attempt, how­ ever is filled "With greedy will, and enuious desire," with

"threatfull pride," with "righty rage, and with imperious sway" (III.xi.26). The flames force "his fiercenesse to re­ lent," and he retreats, "all scorcht and pitifully brent"

(III.xi.26). With "huge impatience," and even more sorrow at his failure than his pain, he throws himself back on the grass, irrationally to "beat and bounse his head and brest full sore" (III.xi.27).

Scudamour's previous beliefs in the power of knightly heroism, in the power of the Cupid on his shield are tested and found ineffective against the perverted world of love where Amoret is tortured. Scudamour's great task will be to attain self-mastery. He must learn that heroic virtue is to be found less in battle and personal bravery than in kind­ ness and unselfishness. The cruel form of love within the

Cupid on his shield may gain Amoret for him, but it cannot keep her. Before Scudamour can possess Amoret, he must de­ feat his own misconceptions about love and his own intemper­ ate passions. These, in reality, are his chief obstacles to attaining Amoret throughout all his wanderings. 136

Busyrane, who holds Amoret captive for seven months

"Because his sinfull lust she would not serue" (IV.i.4), rep­ resents Amoret's worst fears. As such, he is the arch villain of the generative principle. Although Amoret is tortured be­ cause she refuses "to yield him loue" (III.xi.1?), Busyrane represents far more than merely lust. That creature is de­ scribed in full anatomic detail later, when he seizes Amoret and is killed by Belphoebe. Thus, Busyrane is something be­ yond instinctive brute passion. He is an evil force intent on stopping the natural processes of human love.

An important clue to interpreting Busyrane comes in

Spenser's description of Amoret's capture« she is held for

"seuen monethes" "in a dungeon deepe" in "dolefull darke- nesse from the vew of day" (III.xi.10,16,11). Amoret's im­ prisonment for seven months, like Florimell's, is tied to the

"pattern of seasonal myth." As Alastair Fowler points out, her release emphasizes "the return of Adonis in the seventh month after his loss." Fowler, in support of Hamilton's view of the Venus and Adonis and Cupid and Psyche myths as patterns for the episode, ties Amoret's imprisonment to the vernal equinox and the beginning and end of the growing season. In equating Amoret's seizure and rescue to the end of earth's replenishment within the seasonal myth, Spenser sets human love and generation within the mythical and cos­ mological context of all-creating nature. When Busyrane cap­ tures Amoret, he temporarily brings the world to winter. He 137 stops the cyclical phenomenon of nature and attempts to ne­ gate even the eternal growing season of the Garden of Adonis through Amoret's association with the garden. Spenser's use of the time period follows accepted mythological explication since most "mythographers who interpreted the Adonis myth agreed in referring it to the contrast between the six months of autumn and winter and the six months of spring and sum­ mer." ^ Thus, Busyrane's seizure of Amoret is an attempt to arrest the natural cycle necessary for all creative genera­ tion. Consequently, he is the arch destroyer of all life.

In creating the Masque of Cupid, Busyrane suspends nat­ ural life and changes the wedding entertainment into a fix­ ated perversion of mimetic art that reenacts the game of love. In Busyrane's House, love is presented as cruel and un- forgivingi its lust brings misery and chaos. Six couples enter, representing love's terror and Amoret's embodied fears II and discoveries. The Masque forms an "emblematic proces­ sion of the psychological impulses that are engendered by and characterize erotic feeling." ^ Behind the six couples come "two grysie villeins," Despight and Cruelty, who lead in the beautiful Amoret (Ill.xii.19). The "winged God him- selfe" follows on a fierce lion (III.xii.22). This is not the domesticated Cupid whom Amoret knew in the Garden of

Adonis and whose cruelty was subordinated to nature's re­ productive goals. That Cupid has been metamorphosed into a new and terrible god. "Full proud," he pauses to exult over 138

"the euill ordered traine" (III.xii.23). Following Cupid are the figures Reproach( Repentence, and Shame« the aftermath of lust's satiety. Amoret's physical description centers around her natural beauty and noble reaction to her torture. A "most faire

Dame," Amoret is sad and fearful. "Yet in that horror shewd a seemely grace,/ And with her feeble feet did moue a comely pace" (III.xii.19)• Spenser begins with the commonplace of comparing her skin with ivory, but the simile then contrasts her innocent beauty against the sinister gold adorning the palace. Her breast is naked "as net iuory," and "Without adorne of gold or siluer bright" (III.xii.20). It is stained with blood from a wide wound through which "her trembling hart" was drawn forth. "Transfixed with a deadly dart," her heart lies in a "siluer basin" (III.xii.2l).

In the emblematic procession, Amoret's suffering heart, torn out from her body, creates a further emblematic quality of the heart as "the center of psychological activity." Spen­ ser uses the medieval literary tradition of the heart's be­ ing considered "both in terms of perception and of appe­ tites." ^ Thus, the word "heart" becomes a concrete form of verbal substitue for the abstractions of "emotions and de- 7 sires." ' To illustrate, the term "setting one's heart upon something” is a concrete statement of an enveloping desire.

Since Amoret's heart is shown as an externalized suffering, its placement suggests this emotion/desire is both perceived 139 and feared by her. Rather than an internal quality only, it

is more a burden imposed upon her by others. Consequently,

Amoret does not so much succumb to her own passions of love

their perversions are imposed upon her because of her help­

lessness and beauty. Her love for Scudamour, then, remains

innocent of appetitive lust.

Amoret's suffering heart suggests that the very nature

of love causes suffering. Amoret willingly undergoes physi­

cal suffering and endangers herself rather than forego her

beloved. Nor will her suffering necessarily reward her with a happy ending. As shown throughout the Amoretti. lovers can be cruel hunters, warriors, or traitors to lovet they torture

the loved one. Nor does love always grow into accord. In

Spenser's epic, as in other literature, love is sometimes perceived as hostility or as fear. Warfare and the pursuit of love (the hunt) are apparently perpetual and capable of dividing the lovers. Although Spenser joins love with honor in Book I, he refuses to deal with love on a simplistic lev­ el of always bringing happiness. The lover, perhaps in re­ venge for the received wound, perhaps unintentionally, nec­ essarily inflicts pain. This pain is prevalent through the

Amoret and Scudamour story and particularized within Amoret's bleeding, external heart. This "distortion, this failure ^in love7 is equally true to human life and is portrayed by Spen- 8 ser with equal insight."

Love's sweetness is difficult to attain and, even in 1*K> the edenic haven of Pastorella's rural world of Book VI, does

not last uninterruptedly. Something of the fallen world, whether in the form of cannibalistic savages or Ate's hatred,

invariably interferes to remind us that there can be no real rest until the world is redeemed from evil. The situation

almost always deteriorates, as Spenser explains:

The ioyes of loue, if they should euer last, Without affliction or disquietnesse, That worldly chaunces doe amonst them cast, Would be on earth too great a blessednesse, Liker to heauen, then mortall wretchednesse. Therefore the winged God, to let men weet, That here on earth is no sure happinesse, A thousand sowres hath tempred with one sweet, To make it seeme more deare and dainty, as is meet. (Vl.xi.l)

Amoret and Scudamour must go through those "thousand sowres," for life on this earth is often lonely and bitter. Yet "the winged God" does bring love, which is the closest thing "to heauen" on this earth.'

Love's suffering is acknowledged by Scudamour when he

calls love more grievous than sweett

For euery dram of hony therein found, A pound of gall doth ouer it redound. For I too true by triall haue approuedi For since the day that first with deadly wound My heart was luancht, auid learned to haue loued, I neuer ioyed howre, but still with care was moued. (IV.x.1)

In its wounded state, Amoret's heart is a visual emblem of love's pain and its willingness to sufferthat pain in order to remain faithful. Through the organ of love, rent through Amoret's flesh, Spenser presents the concept that 141 human love necessarily involves the flesh, and this union invariably carries the potential of pain* This pain is the result of Busyrane's sexual motivation, which causes Amoret's torture but cannot change her loyalty to Scudamour. Busyrane hopes to turn Amoret's chaste fidelity toward her bridegroom into an illicit distortion of the sexual relationship. Even after the masque is over, the evil enchanter creates spells from the "liuing bloud" dripping from Amoret's "dying hart"

(III.xii.31). But his "thousand charges could not her sted- fast heart remoue" (III.xii.31). Amoret's chastity and fidel­ ity are tested continually by him, not in context with spirit­ ual love or the virginal state but in terms of sexual love and the married state. Her heroic suffering to remain true to Scudamour is a comprehensive statement by Spenser that chastity and fidelity are not longer necessarily joined only with spiritual love or with virginity. Rather, chaste fidel­ ity is heroically joined with marriage.

When Britomart enters Busyrane’s inner room, the enchant­ er recognizes her as his natural enemy.

His wicked bookes in hast he ouerthrew, Not caring his long labours to deface, And fiercely ronning to that Lady trew, A murdrous knife out of his pocket drew, The which he thought, for villeinous despight, In her tormented bodie to embrewi (III.xii.32) Britomart, however, intercepts Busyrane in his attempt to kill Amoret and receives a less dangerous version of the knife's thrust. Drops of Britomart's own blood stain her chest 142 in a symbolic wound of defloration that joins Britomart and 9 Amoret in friendly and symbolic sexual kinship. When

Britomart forces Busyrane to reverse his evil charms, Amoret's chains fall from her, the evil dart drops from her breast, and she becomes "perfect hole" again (III.xii.3 8 ).

Britomart, whose heroic chastity can pass through the flames of passion and fear, leads them back through the vacant rooms, now vanished, and the dreadful flames, now disappeared.

The original, 1590 ending of Book III gives a satisfy­ ing resolution to Amoret's and Scudamour's problems in suc­ cessful marriage and presents virtuous sexual love as entire­ ly admirable. Britomart brings Amoret out to Scudamour, who clasps her to him in the free and pleasurable union of "loue and deare delight" (1590i III.xii.4-5). Their chaste married reunion is the fulfillment of Britomart's virtuous quest as she witnesses it, wishing she and Artegall coudl experience that same sexual union of husband and wife as "one flesh''

(Gen. 2 124). Physical pleasures within married love are clearly judged far differently from illicit pleasures of casual coition, since Britomart, the guardian of chaste, virtuous love, looks approvingly upon the erotic scene.

The unashamed sexual desire throughout the Amoretti that culminates in the Epithalamion finds its own interpretation in the Amoret and Scudamour story. The two join in terms of of hermaphroditic coitus. Amoret 143

did in pleasure melt, And in sweete rauishment pourd out her sprighti No word they spake, nor earthly thing they felt, But like two senceles stocks in long embracement dwelt. Had ye them seene, y would have surely thought. That they had beene that faire Hermaphrodite,

# • • So seemd those two, as growne together quite. (1590i III.xii.45, 46)

As we know, however, Spenser does not allow his reader this sense of dramatic propriety that the completed quest usually brings. In the 1596 version, Scudamour leaves, Amor­ et must quest to find him, and he must quest to overcome his intemperate jealousy and rage. Where Spenser once needed a proper' ending for his first three books, which were pub­ lished as a unit, when the next three books were added in

1595» he inserted a new ending that would allow Book.Ill to open up and join with Book IV to combine Chastity and Friend­ ship as one comprehensive virtue1 Love. The reader's satis­ faction is suspended until Scudamour narrates the Temple of

Venus, the Thames and Medway marry at the end of Book IV, and

Florimell and Marinell promise marriage and resulting concord in the beginning of Book V.

Instead of happiness within marriage, Scudamour and

Amoret are kept in a chronic state of anxiety. They form on­ ly a partial image of love that offers a glimpse into Brito­ mart' s potential for completion. As the personification of egotistical sexual gratification, Scudamour continues to man­ ifest the ideas of courtly love but places them within m matrimony. Amoret, representing monogamic pleasure, is help.- less even as she bravely defends her potentially constructive way of life. Just so, Busyrane's House and Venus's Temple exemplify the clash between two diametrically opposed views of love that must be merged and metamorphosed into a new and good form of love. It is this merging that Spenser disallows at the end of Book III so the conflict between Scudamour's ideas of courtly love and matrimony will be seen in his slow rehabilitation and rejuvenation within his suffering throughout Book IV. Until Scudamour reaches the point where he can narrate the Temple of Venus, he does not understand the monogamic idealism of sexuality that Amoret contains.

Scudamour must learn the principles of individual self- control and the constructive nature of monagamous love from

Britomart and Artegall. For her part, Amoret, trained in submissive feminity, must learn how to differentiate between safety and danger and to cope in this terrifying, fallen world.

Through Scudamour and his quest, as through Amoret's willingness to suffer rather than forgo fidelity to virtuous love, Spenser shows earthly love as valid and virtuous. There is no progressive ascent from the world of material love to the world of immaterial spiritual love for Scudamour. The search for heavenly beauty is never separated from his earth­ ly quest for Amoret. Nor is the former ever to be considered a superior quest. Scudamour's quest is to find human beauty 1^5 and sexual love in the form of Amoret. Finally, through her faithfulness and love, he is enabled to recognize virtuous love for its perfect goodness and truth. His quest is a continually earthly onej one that asks him to preceive the inward beauty of an already fully acknowledged outward beauty.

He is to climb not to an unearthly spiritual world but into

Amoret's spiritually blessed marriage bed.

Spenser carefully amends Scudamour's understanding of

Amoret's and Britomart's situation in the second, 1596, end­ ing of Book III. The result is different because Scudamour lacks faith. He is unwilling to believe that another could go beyond his own limited abilities to counteract the flames of unreasoning passions and fears.

His expectation to despair did turne, Misdeeming sure that her those flames did burne; And therefore gan aduize with her old Squire, Who her deare nourslings losse no lesse did mourne, Thence to depart for further aide to'enquirei Where let them wend at will. (III.xii.^5) In "Misdeeming" Britomart's safety, Scudamour explicates his failure to understand her attributes of chastity and faithful friendship. The grammatic mood of the jussive,

"Where let them wend at will," stresses his wilfulness and lack of focus. His wending "at will" points up the disparity between his own wandering and Britomart's later riding forth with Amoret "To seeke her lou'd, making blind loue her guide"

(IV.v.29). The same "Misdeeming" and "will" that cause him to desert Busyrane's castle and his beloved Amoret also lead 1^6

Scudamour to Ate and her satanic defamation. His na'iVe de­

pendency on misinformation from others exhibits his ready

acceptance of visibilia. or what merely seems to be true.

Rather than rely on truth itself, which he saw in Britomart,

he readily accepts the illusion of truth. He falls prey to

Ate's lies and to all the deceptive visions he throws up in

his own mind once his imagination has been pricked.

The juxtaposition of Scudamour's and Amoret*s episodic

wanderings shows strong reciprocal factors of cause and

effect. Their separate adventures (especially when they al­

most meet but through chance or Arthur's oversight do not)

are related more closely than they might at first appear to

be. Their individual confrontations, fears and jealousies,

desires to escape or to seek revenge show similarities within

far different manifestations. Fictive characters represent

their psyches» fictive places deal with the processes of

their illusions and carry out an anatomization of their

psychic impulses. Their individual adventures pile one upon

the other in reciprocal causalities of misunderstandings.

For example, on a practical level of causality, Amoret

and Scudamour share similar reactions while they both believe

Britomart is a male knight. Amoret, rescued by Britomart from

Busyrane's torture, "is in the socially uncomfortable posi­

tion ofM feeling both "extreme gratitude for, and extreme fear of" her companion's "menacing strength" and possible sexual impositions. Scudamour, unable to protect his 147 unbedded bride, should be grateful for Britomart's assuming his responsibilities and rescuing Amoret. Instead, he too readily believes that Britomart has "Defil'd the pledge com­ mitted to" her trust and has turned her knightly strength to dishonorable "sinfull lust" (IV.i.53)* The problem, of course, hinges on Britomart's gender and the length of time he mis­ conceives her as a male. Yet, gender itself is not the only problem, as witnessed by Amoret's continual fear of Arthur, who guards her without hint of rapacious lust. While Amoret's misconception about Britomart's gender is quickly dispelled so the two females can form a fast friendship, Scudamour's continues far longer.

Throughout Book IV, the Legend

Ate, seeking revenge upon both Britomart and Scudamour, stirs up his jealous mind. In the next stanza after Amoret leaves the Tournament of the Cestus, Scudamour enters the House of

Care. In the next canto, Amoret wanders off from Britomart and is seized by Lust. Scudamour seems both to cause, and simultaneously, to react to Amoret's situations. In the con­ fusion of minds and situations, one never quite knows which 1^8

comes first» the cart or the horse. If Redcrosse is the allegorical representation of love

directed by the virtue of holiness, Scudamour is love di­

rected by the vice of jealousy. In this, Scudamour is not

entirely to blame. Ate is both a force from within and an

evil from outside that continually pricks away to cause dis­

sension. As Spenser shows time after time, natural virtue

has severe limitations, the excessively passionate knight of

love is by composition unable to resist Ate's twistings of

truth as long as he holds his stereotypic attitude of love.

When Ate gives an eyewitness account that his benefactor

Britomart has.bedded Amoreti

I saw him haue your Amoret at will, I saw him kisse, I saw him her embrace, I saw him sleepe with her all night his fill, (IV.i.A9)

and her three companions testify to the truth of her account,

Scudamour believes them. Following the fashion of believing

everything bad one hears but doubting the good, Scudamour

jumps to the conclusion that his wife's and Britomart's ac­

tions are despicable. In reality they spent the night talking

about their respective loves (for by now Britomart has let

down her long blond hair, and Amoret knows she is a female).

Scudamour may want to discover the truth, but he errs in be­

lieving those whom he should not. He judges his wife accord­

ing to Ate's level of deceit and slander. He fails to trust that which must be trusted entirely and must be taken on 149 faith. Malbecco's jealousy over Hellenore may make him ridi­ culous, but at least it is well founded. Amoret is no philan- ering Hellenore, and Scudamour must learn to perceive the difference.

In radical opposition to Ariosto's preachments that love is untrustworthy, Spenser teaches that love can be proven true. Not to trust when it is warranted is a sin of disbelief that leads only to despair and its accompanying vices« jeal­ ousy and avengement, which are Scudamour's first reactions to

Ate's words. His distrust of Amoret and lack of faith in

Britomart's integrity-are unfounded. His misjudgment of loyal, virtuous love and friendship results in his sojourn to the

House of Care where he suffers the torments of self-inflicted jealousy. As never before in the epic, Spenser argues that love can be trustedi love can be equated with loyalty and friendship. Throughout, Spenser insists “not only on the en­ nobling power of love, but on truth and loyalty, feelings which, though they may be called for as well by the chivalric romance of adultery, may be taken in Spenser as the ethical standard pointing to married love 'devoyd of guilty shame."' **

As a case in point, Amoret exemplifies virtuous married love when she participates in the beauty contest for Flori- mell's golden cestus. Of the damsels present, only Amoret can wear the girdle denoting "the vertue of chast loue,/ And wiuehood true, to all that did it beare" (IV.v.3). In a world of male inability to judge the good over evil or the true 150 over false, False Florimell is judged the most beautiful and awarded the girdle. Unlike the males, Britomart chooses

Amoret's "vertuous gouernment'' as superior to False Flori- mell's “beauties wonderment" (IV.v.20).

In the very next stanza, Scudamour shows himself still victimized by Ate's lies and subject to his own concupis- ciple and irascible passions. On a personal level, he re­ flects many of the problems seen in the society of knights at the tournament for the cestus. Like the knights, Scudamour rides to seek "reuenge on blamelesse Britomart" (IV.v.3D«

The more nurse Glauce tries to alleviate his jealous rage,

"The more it gauld, and griue'd him night and day,/ That nought but dire reuenge his anger mote defray" (IV.v.31).

Spenser forces the reader's awareness of Scudamour's suffer­ ing. His jealousy becomes a cataloguing of psychic and emo­ tional reactions to his own worst fears of what might be tak­ ing place while he and Amoret are separated. Rather than de­ scribe "Cupids man" in his suffering, though, Spenser shows him entering the House of Care.

In ironic contrast to Britomart's finding "great comfort" in friendship with "Amoret. companion of her care" (IV.v.

30), Scudamour enters a place whose name derives from the word-play of Britomart's companionable "care." The differ­ ence in motive reflects on love and friendship, as between

Amoret and Britomart, and on jealousy and revenge, as in

Scudamour's suffering. The jealousy "recommended by 151

mediaeval writers on courtly love as a sure means of increas- 12 ing the lover’s affection," rung "through his soule like

poysned arrow perst" (IV.v.31). Rather than being construc­

tive, Scudamour's jealousy is shown for the destructive force

it is. The House of Care may at first glance seem to be a merely tangential episode offering the reader a chance to

catch her breath before going on to another adventure. The

House is not, however, a merely orbital pause but an indis- pensible allegorical facet that assists Spenser in present­

ing what could be a rather dry philosophical precept. Just

as Redcrosse Knight enters the dream-state where his lust is goaded by Archimago, Scudamour enters a special place of private fears, jealousies, and rage. His riotous fantasies mutate into literal pains inflicted upon him by others. Spen­

ser's lesson is cleari those who yield to jealousy or seek revenge are doomed to suffer in the House of Care. Evil thoughts bring injury to self more than to others. Yet the lesson never remains quite that simplistic. The House of

Care is also Scudamour's night of the dark soul. The cock's crows, the owl's shrieks are bodings of evil that afflict him "to the very sowle" (IV.v.41).

The blacksmith's workers in the House externalize Scud­ amour's violence into "yron wedges" of "vnquiet thoughts, that carefull minds inuade" (IV.v.3 5). Their continual labors exist to deny the rest necessary to cleanse the soul 152

and keep the exhausted Scudamour from "the innocent sleep,/

Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care." ^ Instead

of the bed he had hoped for, Scudamour must lie down in his

armor on the hard floor. No matter how often he tosses and

turns, "He by no meanes could wished ease obtaine" (IV.v.40).

The clue to his problems comes in the two lines« "And oft

in wrath he thence againe vprosej/ And oft in wrath he layd

him downe againe" (IV.v.40). His externalised anguish becomes noises from hammers and bellows that keep him awake and then vices that attack first his mind, then his heart and vitals.

When he nods, a vice raps upon his headpiece or nips him in the side with redhot tongs. When he finally sleeps, "His ydle braine gan busily molest,/ And made him dreame those

two /Amoret and Britomart/ disloyall were" (IV.v.43). When

Scudamour at last rises in the morning, his face exhibits

"signes of anguish" so that anyone could "ghesse the man to be dismayd with gealous dread" (IV.v.45).

Around the time Scudamour stays in the House of Care,

Amoret seems to carry out his worst fearsi she wanders away from Britomart's protection and is seized by Lust. Although the time span is ambiguous, it seems likely that Amoret's imprisonment in Lust's den takes place before Scudamour meets

Britomart and learns she is a woman. The day Amoret and she leave the tournament for the cestus, they finally stop to rest "for wearinesse,/ Both of the way, and warlike exercise"

(IV.vii,3). While the exhausted Britomart sleeps, Amoret, now "of nought affeard," wanders off into the "saluage" for­ est populated by the vaguely dangerous "Beares and Tygers"

(IV.vii.4,2). Spenser gives only the explanation that she walks "through the wood, for pleasure, or for need" (IV.vii.

*»■). The "need” might be her own carelessness, her digestive organs, or her reactions to Scudamour's driving fears and

"ydle braine /which7 gan busily molest" Amoret as well as himself from needed sleep (IV.v.^3)- One thing is clear, thoughj her own actions allow her to be snatched up by Lust.

Amoret's seizure by Lust reminds us that in mythology

Venus, the mother-of-all-nature, is always in danger of slip­ ping from purity into lasciviousness and the role of pleasure- seeker. Amoret has been raised in terms of love as "the root of all that ioyous is" (IV.x.^7)« She holds the hint, if not the actuality, of the fallen state and the dangers of Acra- sia's lust. All nature, after all, is filled with Venus's firei "the Lyons rore, the Tygres loudly bray,/ The raging

Buis rebellow through the wood" (IV.x.46). Having been forci­ bly taken from Venus's Temple only to be seized and then freed from Busyrane's clutches, Amoret has had no time to be pre­ pared for the fallen world of sexual aggression. As Hamilton reminds us, once "Venus's love enters the world" all action within "Books III and IV is placed within Nature aroused by 14- Yenus." This does not mean that Amoret is to be judged as "bad" or or overly faulted for her poor judgment in wander­ ing away. Throughout the poem, Spenser carefully separates 154

"good" people from "bad," "good" love from "evil" lust.

Once love enters the fallen world, however, lust presents

a problem for everyone, especially Amoret. Her walk through

the wood suggests that she does not yet understand her own

nature or the strength of her instincts and passion. These

facts of life within fallen nature are something that she

must learn to recognize and guard against.

Amoret's capture by Lust and her stay with Arthur in

the House of Sclaunder should be clarified. Instead of rep­

resenting any flaw within Amoret, Lust and Sclaunder are

exterior dangers that prey upon unprotected womeni first,

in the form of physical harm; next, in psychological harm

through the duplicity of "seemings." Lust, which is clearly

male sensuality at its most bestial, explicit form, imposes

itself upon Amoret because of her helplessness. ^ She may

be open to Lust's advances because of her Yenerean nature,

but the more degraded form of sexual desire (Lust) remains

an external quality that is supplied sexual relief in the

cave by the old hag, who welcomes it. Where most males would

attempt to possess Amoret because of her physical beauty,

Lust displays no such discrimination. The old hag held cap­

tive in his cave is the ugliest of females, but in supplying

Lust’s needs she serves as surrogate for the beautiful

AEmylia. That Amoret does not go willingly with Lust nor wait passively for her fate of being raped, as does AEmylia,

shows Amoret's active resistance to the sin. She may be 155 foolish enough to wander away into the wild woods of passion, but in this episode Amoret is neither passive nor submissive.

She runs "like Robucke light" for her life (IV.vii.22). This direct challenge to her virginity forces her to define her sexuality more clearly. She determines even more strongly to remain a virginal bride until taken by her husband.

An interesting explanation of Amoret’s seizure by Lust comes from Hamilton, who describes it as "an elaborately 16 erotic allegory." Amoret is thrown down into Lust's cave where she hears AEmylias's story of her "twenty daies" capture and escape from being raped (IV.vii.13). When Lust returns to molest another victim, Spenser instead presents the "broad comedy of her /Amoret's/ horror when she sees Lust masturbating, 'spredding ouer all the flore alone,/ Gan dight him selfe vnto his wonted sinne' (IV.vii.20)— the true image of Lust in action— and her flight." It may be a "broad comedy" of horror, as Hamilton suggests, but we must not for­ get that it is also in "full horrified recognition of the evil he ^ u s t 7 embodies." First, Amoret is faced with the pressures of courtly society and Busyrane's artful cruelties1 now, faced with an abomination of nature, she runs "forth in hast" for her very life (IV.vii.2l).

Amoret cannot escape Lust through her own efforts alone.

“The shame of men, and plague of womankind" (IV.vii.18) pur­ sues Amoret, who runs in the Ovidian terms of "Myrrh' or Daphne" fleeing for their lives against the rape of the 156

gods (IV.vii.22). When Timias hears Amoret’s screams and

comes to her aid, he also proves unable to destroy the

beast. In the battle between Lust and Timias, the reader is

meant to understand that Amoret's "own body stands in the

way of her rescue." ^ Timias may practice continence while

living with Belphoebe, but he cannot destroy Lust. Hence,

Amoret is badly brused by Lust and wounded by Timias. There­

after, the "streame of coleblacke bloud" that gushes from

Lust's wound further inducts Amoret, as Britomart was in­

doctrinated, into the desires of the flesh that bruise and

the natural manly desires that may wound (IV.vii.27).

Hamilton’s term, "erotic allegory," is certainly prev-

elent, but it must not be carried to excess. Within the

terminology of Lust’s overcoming Timias until "scarse the

Squire his hand could once vpreare" (IV.vii.28), the double­

entendres provide a certain "sophisticated pleasure rather

than crude laughter" that successfully follows the vein of 20 Shakespearean bawdy. Hamilton, however, goes too far

when he uses the text to argue that Amoret and Timias par­

ticipate in sexual intercourse. Hamilton quotes from the

description of Timias's gentle and sensuous handling of the

swooning Amoret to make his point» "In its own terms as an

allegory of sexual intercourse, it is surely unique in Eng.- 21 lish poetry." I would add that it certainly is unique,

very unique, since Timias's battle with Lust and his care of

Amoret is not an "allegory of sexual intercourse." (If 157

Hamilton were arguing in context of the historical allegory

as Spenser's attempt to exonerate Ralegh from marying Eliza­

beth Throckmorton, he might have a point. But Hamilton does not bring up that area of the allegory.) Spenser, instead, uses those terms of sexuality in ironic counterpoint to ex­ plicate Timias's and Amoret's naturesi his natural manliness and sexuality that arise when faced with her passionate but

chaste nature.

The description of Timias's gentle ministrations to

Amoret has the same sensuous warmth as Glauce exhibits when she tries to soothe Britomart, who has just been wounded with love for Artegall. Timias holds the swooning Amoret,

Who lay the whiles in swoune, full sadly set, From her faire eyes wiping the deawy wet, Which softly stild, and kissing them atweene, And handling soft the hurts, which she did get. For of that Carle she sorely bruz'd had beene, Als of his owne rash hand one wound was to be seene. (VI.vii.35) Glauce holds the suffering Britomart within her arms,

And euery trembling ioynt, and euery vaine She softly felt, and rubbed busily, To doe the frosen cold away to flyi And her faire deawy eies with kisses deare She oft did bath, and oft againe did dryj And euer her importund, not to feare To let the secret of her hart to her appeare. (III.ii.3*0 The sensuous wording with Glauce's care of Britomart does not lead one to make a travesty of Glauce*s tenderness by interpreting it as a homosexual relationship. Just so, Tim­ ias 's natural tenderness is not the same as "sexual 158 intercourse." Nor is Amoret a participant in adultery.

Timias's actions display loving gentleness and passionate caring, not sexual intercourse, or rape even, as Amoret's unconscious state implies. For her part, Amoret cannot par­ ticipate because of her unconscious state.

Innocent though she is, Amoret's story from now on is a tragic one. She has been raised to fulfill the role of wed­ ded sexual love and procreation. She must join with Scuda- amour, yet she has been injured by Lust and by Timias, then deserted as Timias attempts to conciliate Belphoebe's mis­ understanding and anger. Amoret's wounds fester until she be­ comes desperately ill. Her diseased wound reflects the world's sick misapprehension of virtuous love. Her sickness, at least partially, also reflects her damaged reputation brought on by "spending time with the monster and then being 22 discovered in compromising circumstances with the squire."

The final and irreversible sickness would be continual sep­ aration from her beloved Scudamour. She huddles miserably with AEmylia, who is weak from starvation. Neither has learned to cope in a world that deals in loose affections and lawless lust and views all love from that perspective.

While Amoret and AEmylia join in a friendship of mutual fear and suffering, Scudamour is filled with "thoughts vn- kind" (IV.vi.5). He leaves the House of Care with nurse Glauce but continues to ignore her commonsense wisdom. When 159

Scudamour comes upon Artegall, the two learn they have one

thing in common« hatred for that strange knight who shamed

them. Scudamour complains of Britomart's perfidyi

For lately he my loue hath fro me reft. And eke defiled with foule villanie The sacred pledge, which in his faith was left, In shame of knighthood and fidelitie. (IV.vi.8 )

The two pledge a utilitarian friendship "to wreake their

wrathes on Britomart" (IV.vi.8 ). At this point, their friend­

ship shows little difference from that of Blandamour's and

Paridell's, for they are bent on unwarranted revenge.

As if on cue, Britomart appearsj Scudamour attacks her,

and she easily throws horse and knight to the ground. His

symbolic fall with his horse brings Scudamour's introduction

into the form of love that can allow friendship amd respect between passionate lovers. Having been thrown down by pas­

sionate true love (Britomart), Scudamour will from now on accompany her. Amoret, who has strayed away from Britomart, will be replaced by Scudamour, Amoret's male counterpart.

The reality of Britomart cuts through Ate's and Duessa's

discordant "seemings" and slander. Once Scudamour rises, his reaction to her beauty is similar to Artegall's. When Arte­ gall first sees Britomart's face, he falls down to worship

"so diuine a beauties excellence" (IV.vi.2l) in a form of

"religious conversion or revelation" into the "inception of love." Scudamour, also, instinctively senses her inner perfection and blesses himself in awed wonder. He worships 160

her "as one sore terrified" with respectful devotion (IV.vi.

24). With knowledge of Britomart's womanliness, Scudamour

begins to "woxen inly glad,/ That all his gealous feare he

false had found" (IV.vi.28). Jealousy and desire for revenge

fall away as. he crosses a threshold of understanding. Like

Redcrosse, who finally recognizes Duessa as evil, Scudamour

now realizes "how that Hag /Ate/" abused his love "With

breach of faith and loyaltie vnsound” (IV.vi.28).

Now that "Cupids man" is indoctrinated in fertile, vir­

tuous love, he can unite the exemplar-lovers Britomart and

Artegall. With a grin in his words, Scudamour calls Artegall

by name and teases that he, too, is now in love. Upon hear­

ing Artegall's name, Britomart knows she has found her

beloved. That Scudamour has the power to unite the two lov­

ers indicates his own newly found capacity to love.

Scudamour learns about love from Britomart's example

of perfact womanhood. He observes the passionate but virtu­ ous love between her and Artegall. He sees Britomart become

soft and womanly so Artegall can assert his natural, manly

dominance. Scudamour also watches Artegall restrain his sud­

den, passionate love and treat Britomart with loving tender­ ness and deep respect. In his love for Amoret, and in his motives to rejoin her, Scudamour must follow the pattern of their exemplary love. To join Amoret in a satisfying married union, Scudamour must do more than merely satisfy his own lust and ideas of "maistrve." He must offer loving 161

friendship and compassionate respect. He must strive to

achieve a proper balance between the sexes. Scudamour is not

to give up the force of his masculinity and sink into effem­

inate weakness, as he did in front of Busyrane*s House. He

must, however, alter his force into a paradigm of gentle,

masculine protectiveness. He must trust in Amoret's natural­

ly perfect womanhood, treasure her weakness, and unite it

with his strength, even as he enjoys her within the passion­

ate sexuality of virtuous matrimony.

Canto vi of Book IV begins with the poet's questioning

how anguished wounds of "thoughts vnkind" (IV.vi.1) can

be healed in Scudamour's jealous heart. The canto ends with

the poet's answer* Britomart’s "True loue and faithfull

friendship" will find a way (IV.vi.^5 ). Scudamour stands

senseless with "deadly feare" (IV.vi.3 7) when he discovers

Amoret has wandered away while Britomart slept, but he is

comforted by her promise to stay with him until Amoret is

found. Accompanied by her aged squire and nurse, Britomart

and Scudamour ride in shared friendship and love in order to

find Amoret. Where Britomart previously seemed to merge with

Amoret in shared amiability, Britomart participates now in like manner with Scudamour. For "whatsoeuer perill was pre- pared,/Both equall paines and equall perill shared" (IV.v.46).

A different "Cupids man" than travelled with Artegall

is with Britomart, the knight of Chastity and Friendship.

Scudamour now has a better understanding of knightly honor, 162 friendship and love. He can form a close friendship with

Britomart that asserts his knightly prowess and cancels his former childish weaknesses. Spenser stresses this by allign- ing the "good" lovers, Britomart and Scudamour, against the four "false" lovers, Blandamour, Paridell, Druon, and Clari- bell. The battle of "good" love against "false" is described in terms of cosmic proportions. Given such representation, we must assume that Scudamour has attained a stature of dy­ namic love and is a far different knight than the one we first met wallowing on the grass.

The aftermath of Sclaunder still follows Amoret, though, and keeps her from Scudamour. Sometime during Scud­ amour's stay with Britomart, Arthur finds Amoret and AEmylia.

The latter is half starved, and Amoret is "almost dead" from

"her late hurts" and "that haplesse wound,/ With which the

Squire in her defence her sore astound" (IV.viii.1 9). Al­ though Arthur heals Amoret's physical wounds with his pre­ cious liquor, her symbolic wounds of being slandered remain with her. Ate has told Scudamour that Amoret sleeps with another while you "Sweare she is yours" (IV.i.4 7), and he believes her lies. In believing them, Scudamour adds fuel to

Ate's slander and hatred. Amoret is able to wear the cestus of faithful married love. She was saved from Lust without be­ ing raped. But the knights at Satyrane's Tournament choose the false Florimell over Amoret, and Belphoebe.imisinterprets 163

Amoret's relationship with Timias. Amoret is in somewhat the

position of being a social outcast without trust by husband

or society. For a while, she must live in seclusion until

Arthur leads her safely through the House of Sclaunder.

Amoret follows the pattern of continuing to be drawn

toward what she and Scudamour most fear. She must continue to

prove her faithfulness in a world where goodness is blurred

and continually attacked. Amoret, AEmylia, and Arthur travel

together until they happen on a little cottage in the forest

where Sclaunder lives. Her "litle cotage" is in the same mold

as Care's "little cottage, like some poore mans nest" (IV.

viii.23; IV.v.3 2). Scudamour's private fears and hatreds with­

in the House of Care are focused in Sclaunder's outpourings.

Where Care creates “yron wedges'* of vnquiet thoughts, that

carefull minds inuade," Sclaunder sits within her cottage,

mouthing vicious lies to defame and dehumanize (IV.v.35)»

Scudamour's passions that beat upon his brain with the

"dreame" that Amoret and Britomart "disloyall were'' (IV.v.^3)

are openly imposed upon Amoret and Arthur, who are also inno­

cent of wrongdoing.

The three innocents, Amoret, AEmylia, and Arthur, rouse

the horrible Sclaunder, who is "Gnawing her nayles" with

fury and "sucking venime to her parts entyre" (IV.viii.2 3).

Her "filthy lockes" and "ragged rude attyre" (IV.viii.23) are reminders of the two hags. Impatience and Impotence, that held Arthur helpless, and forebodings of the two hags, Envy and 164

Detraction that attack Artegall. Sclaunder sits,

stuft with rancour and despight Vp to the throat, that oft with bitternesse It forth would breake, and gush in great excesse, Pouring out streames of poyson and of gall Gainst all, that truth or vertue doe professe, Whom she with leasings lewdly did miscall, And wickedly backbitei her name men Sclaunder call. (IV.viii.24)

Streams of poisonous language pour from Sclaunder*s throat.

In slander's personification, we see the very nature of slander and slanderous actions. She means to destroy all goodness and truth. No matter how bold the knight or "chast and loyall" the dame, Sclaunder strives "With forged cause them falsely to defame" (IV.viii.25). Their most glorious deeds "she with blame would blot, and of due praise depriue"

(I.viii.25). Although the three stay no longer than over­ night in her house, Spenser stresses throughout his epic that her evil words are not to be taken lightly. Slander must be considered a punishable crime, as we learn later in Mercil- la's Court where the slanderous poet's tongue is ordered

"Nayld to a post" (V.ix.25).

The three are presented with the moral paradigm of hav­ ing their righteous actions twisted into burdens of guilt.

Nor can their innocence free them from the cause of slander or from its imposition. For as long as they remain under

Sclaunder's roof or within earshot, they are vulnerable to attack. Yet the three patiently endure her railing because their physical bodies need rest. Amoret, especially, needs 165 that sleep which Scudamour was denied in the House of Care.

She must have time for her wounds to heal properly. If her time in Sclaunder's House is an allusion to Queen Elizabeth's fury at Elizabeth Throckmorton after the married Ralegh,

Spenser offers the remedy for their lustt time and "grace to Oil restore Amoret's wounds." It is important to remember, as Roche reminds us, that the three indeed are able to es­ cape Sclaunder's onsloughts, which they do once morning comes. This ability further indicates their innocence and suggests they should escape further wrath from the queen.

Within cantos vii through ix of Book IV, Spenser offers some of his finest illustrations of reconciliation and friendship. Araoret and AEmylia are shown as long suffering friends. There is the friendship story of Arayas and Placi- das. There is love and marriage between AEmylia and Amyas, and the reconciliation and marriage of Placidas with Poeana.

Like Cambina, Arthur brings order and concord out of the cruelty and strife at Poeana's castle. Through Arthur's in­ tervention, sexual desire and cruelty are transformed into a complementary relationship of mutual friendship and kind­ ness. As Spenser informs us, after Poeana marries Placidas she reforms from her previous lusting cruelty and domination to become a fine, obedient wife. The two couples become lov­ ing examples of wedded happiness. In joining the two couples,

Arthur presents love as the symbol for all the unifying forces throughout the epic. 166

The line of inquiry into the unifying force of love ends

once Arthur joins the friends "in peace and setled rest" and

resumes his protection of Amoret (IV.xi.l?)* At this point we explore the dark side, so to speak, of love and friendship.

Arthur keeps his search for Gloriana "conceau'd in secret

brest" and hidden from Amoret (IV.ix.17). Amoret's and Ar­

thur's relationship when traveling together could probably

be a parable of how not to be close friends since their trav­

els result in Amoret's continued separation from Scudamour when they could as readily be joined.

Instead of finding comfort that she is in good care,

Amoret is terrified that Arthur's "burning lust should breake into excess" (IV.ix.18). Her limitations remaim she

is still fearful of all male strength and unable to discern friendly male protection from rapaciousness and lusti she

does not understand that loyal friendship between the sexes

can exist in this fallen world. Sclaunder's defamation re­ minds Amoret that she is no longer in her peaceful garden or

temple. Nor is she protected by her beloved Scudamour. Her beauty attracts men's lust and brings resulting denigration and further fear.

The reader is under no such misconception. Spenser has spent too long informing us that the three are "vniustly blamd" while in Sclaunder's House (IV.viii.28) and that

Amoret, alone with Arthur, is "as safe as in a Sanctuary"

(IV.ix.l9). The poet has already interpolated the "antique 167

age" during the Sclaunder episode. Spenser invokes that time

of innocence when people lived "In simple truth and blarae-

lesse chastitie,/ Ne then of guile had made experiment." He

reminds us that they once "Held vertue for it selfe in souer-

aine awe" (IV.viii.30). The temptation to lust was forbidden by "a lawe" (IV.viii.3 0). We have an image of Amoret's,

Arthur's, and AEmylia's self-control from this "antique world." It is more than just a world now fallen. It is also

"a state of mind or, considered from a different viewpoint, a symbol of the Ideal as it exists before passing through

the distorting lens of the Actual." 2-* This antiquity might be in a unfallen state and, therefore, unattainable in this world, but the innocence the "antique age" represents can be regained within the individual's mind at any time. Amoret must somehow regain this sense of her own integrity and identity in the fallen world before she can rejoin Scudamour.

Although Amoret and Arthur are blameless, they never find a sense of loving friendship that she shares with Brit- omart and AEmylia or he with Timias and Britomart. It is meaningful that the familiar formula of a knight's rescuing someone and then hearing that persons’ story does not take place with Amoret and Arthur. Instead, the two ride together for "many miles" in search of their "loues dispersed diuers- ly,/ Yet neither shewed to other their hearts priuity” (IV. ix.19). Amoret is again in the uncomfortable position of be­ ing grateful to her benefactor for her life but fearful of 168

sexual molestation. She is only too aware that her beauty

cannot protect itself. Unlike Britomart, Amoret cannot

progress into a balanced relationship of friendship with

Arthur or loving friendliness with her husband. Filled with

fear, Amoret must overcome her fear and distrust before she

can enter that area of "personal relationships with which

friendship is concerned," and where she can "find mutual

O f. rights of some sort, and also friendly feeling." In

context with the necessity for loving friendship before

husband and wife can successfully unite, Amoret disappears

from the poem, and we see no more of her within the completed

six books. Once Arthur leaves Amoret on the sidelines and

stops the four knights' unfair fight against Britomart and

Scudamour, Arthur forgets about Amoret.

As if to emphasize concord's coming after strife, Arthur masters his own rage against the four false-loving knights

and devises a discussion to clarify the misunderstanding be­

tween the warring factions. Britomart can explain that she has not deserted the false Florimell as they supposed but

that she left with someone "to her liking" (IV.ix.3 6). Ar­

thur reminds the four knights that ladies should have the

freedom "of their loues choise. . ,/ And in that right should

be all knights be shielded" (IV.ix.37). Scudamour's story is now brought to the forefront.

Britomart reminds Arthur of an even greater wrong to honor and ladies' love. Scudamour and she have been separated from 169

Amoret and Artegall. Her reminder reflects the philosphy that the individual in love loses self-attachment and so closely links identity with the beloved as to make separation a rending of self. Absence from the beloved thus becomes read, physical impairment that causes suffering. Her comment serves to remind the reader that Arthur could easily correct Scud­ amour' s misery. Arthur, however, seems to have forgotten Am­ oret. Furthermore, at no point during their travels or Scud­ amour' s tale of winning his wife does Arthur seem to connect his neglected charge with the long sought Amoret.

Critics sometimes condemn Spenser for Arthur's forget­ ting Amoret, as if the poet failed to pick up the thread of

Amoret's story. Certainly, as John Hankins suggests, "one might expect Arthur to give the joyous news of Amoret's near­ ness immediately after Scudamour's narrative." ^ Rather than Spenser's forgetting Amoret, Hankins answers that "more probably he reserved the completion of their story for his seventh book, on constancy, since their loyalty to each oth- 28 er is repeatedly stressed." This seems likely, since

Scudamour and Amoret continue to display development and learning in the necessary ingredients for a happy conjugal relationship. Still, whether or not Scudamour was to have his own book is highly conjectural. Almost certainly, though, Spenser would have finished their story somewhere soon in his completed epic. 170

Spenser could not have been avoiding reconciliation and marriage in cantos viii and ix of Book IV, since Arthur pro­ vides just that for Amyas with AEmylia and Placidas with

Poeana. Arthur brings concord among the six warring knights so Scudamour*s narration of winning his beloved can take place.

One might consider the great effectiveness of Scudamour*s narrating a retrospective tale of wooing Amoret as a wrap up to their reunition. Nonetheless, I would like to suggest that

Spenser keeps them separated for at least two good reasonst

(1) the condition of mankind's love in this fallen world is not always happy. AEmylia may be able to marry and live happily, but this is not so for Amoret and Scudamour, at least yet. (2) Spenser wants to stress the evils of slander.

Slanderous speech is essentially opposed to chastity, friend­ ship, and justice, just as the evils of Envy, Detraction, and the Blatant Beast work to bring down law and justice.

Accurate information and correctly recorded history are nec­ essary to provide the truth so that just laws can be passed and carried out in Book V. Just so, an understanding of truth in all its forms is necessary for all relationships. It is continually necessary if love is to succeed and justice in love to be carried out.

The omission of accurate information between Amoret and

Arthur begins her fear of Arthur and continues her problem of not joining Scudamour. Arthur compounds the error by failing to give an accurate account of his immediate past to the six knights. This lack of information keeps Amoret and

Scudamour from joining in Book IV. Since Arthur discloses nothing, Scudamour and Britomart have been denied the truth.

And the correct execution of justice depends upon knowledge of the truth. If falsehood is the chief enemy of justice, as

Spenser repeatedly states in Mercilla's court, then Arthur's lack of total disclosure is more than just forgetfulnessi it has the ring of withholding truth. Perhaps his quietness is to be considered the aftermath of staying in Sclaunder's

House. Certainly the Legend of Justice seems inexplicably unjust in its ending. Because of slanderous lies, Artegall is called back suddenly from Irena's kingdom before he can complete his task. Just so, the ending of Amoret and Scud­ amour 's story seems inexplicably unjust. The paradigm is, however, madet it is essential that friendship, love, and justice be linked with complete truth and ready communica­ tion. Human love as well as human justice is otherwise in a condition where "the world is runne quite out of square,/

From the first point of his appointed sourse,/ And being once amisse growes daily wourse and wourse" (V.Pr.l).

The reader is not to concentrate on love's failure and unhappiness near the close of Book IV, however. Scudamour, instead, provides the story of Amoret's courtship in a flashback of enclosed narrative that separates the stories of knighthood's terrible strife and the anthropomorphic wed­ ding of the Thames and Medway Rivers. His tale holds the ideal of marriage and consummation that is continually

sought by the exemplar-lovers. His ability to relate the

tale is all-important. It expresses a chastened Scudamour

who now understands the virtuous ideal of love. The foolish

courtly lover whom the reader first saw wallowing on the

grass and crying has been redeemed by Britomart's friendship

and love. He has overcome, at least for now, his terrible

jealousy and desire for revengej he now fights on the side

of virtuous love against false lovers. Through concluding

the Amoret and Scudamour story with the narration of the

Temple of Venus, Spenser ends their story with artistic bal­

ance and focuses the reader's attention on their story's

central themei the personal development of love within

Scudamour and the development of a new form of heroic love

for the reader. Passionate love within marriage is a virtue

after which we should quest continually.

Dangers and obstacles to be faced are an intrinsic part of love, as Scudamour displays when he goes past Danger to arrive at Venus's isle. As a lover, he goes beyond the bat­ tlefield of this imperfect world to enter the perfect one of rarified love. Although he uses such terms as "spoyles" and "seizure," these are attitudes he first had within the chronology of his love's beginnings. He is explicating his old ideas of love rather than his present ones within the terminology of Amoret as the prize to be won. (They are, of course, still present, perhaps indicating that there is at 173 least room for further advancement.) At any rate, the reader is to concentrate upon the fabric of the landscape.

Here, on Venus's isle, trees and flowers grow naturally or are planted to add to nature's beauty*

In such a luxurious plentie of all pleasure, It seem'd a second paradise to ghesse, So lauishly enricht with natures threasure. (IV.x.23)

A "thousand payres of louers" offer "great thankes" to their god for the enjoyment of their loves (IV,x.25). Lovers and friends form strong bonds of virtuous friendship so that although their lives “decay'd, yet loues decayed neuer" (IV. x.27). Love's virtue holds eternal life for them. Scudamour envies the lovers' eternal life through love and their free­ dom from fear and jealousy as he enters Venus's Temple.

Within the temple, he meets different forms of lovers who complain piteously of their beloved's absence. One sepa­ rates himself from the others to sing the praises of great

Venus. ^9 hymn stresses Venus's power to bring cosmic order, warmth, and fertility out of the horrors of chaos.

She is the world's great mother who causes the "merry birds" to be pricked with lust, and "the saluage beasts" to be drawn "with desire" (IV.x.45,46)»

So all things else, that nourish vitall blood, Soone as with fury thou doest them inspire In generation seeke to quench their inward fire. (IV.x.46) Through the one lover, with whom Scudamour identifies, 174

Spenser extolls a philosophy of love that urges sexual union bringing regeneration. Such a philosophy rejects the cruel

Cupid's fierce game of love. The hymning lover appeals to

Venus as "the root of all that ioyous is" and asks her to

"graunt that of my loue at last I may not misse" (IV.x.47).

Man desires more than just the procreation of beasts» the lover discerns love as more than just quenching his "inward fire" (IV.x.46). In the singer's request not to miss his

"loue," he implies a singular restriction. He asks for a particular person and a particular love, one who can lead him, and all humankind, through the hell of his complaint to the paradise of accomplished love. The lover's instinctual purity rejects love as mere selfish appearance and conven­ tion, even as he extols love's heavenly nature as encouraging earthly consummation.

Like the hymnist, Scudamour sorrows and seeks Venus to

"graunt ease vnto my smart,/ And to my wound her gratious help impart" (IV.x.48). He obtains Amoret as his wife through the blessing of Venus. But instead of Scudamour*s celebrating his marriage to Amoret within the episode, the next canto celebrates the marriage of the Thames and Medway. The count­ less progeny of the sea meet in Proteus's house to celebrate the marriage of two powerful English rivers. The great pro­ cession of the rivers evokes life's eternal fertility and variety as, in fewer than four hundred lines, Spenser intro­ duces over a hundred and seventy proper names, including the 175 30 great rivers of the world. Sixty-four names are of

English and Irish rivers led by the bridegroom and followed 31 by the bride and her attendant sea-nymphs. Yet, there

is an admo;, ttion about man's strife and a reminder of the

terrible battles that took place along the banks of the

British rivers. Along the Humber, six knights were murdered.

The desire for revenge persists! "But past not long, ere

Brutus warlicke sonne/ Locrinus them aueng'd" (IV.xi.38).

Lust and violence continue. A second legend describes three

Irish brother-rivers who are conceived through the rape of

the nymph Rheusa by Blomius. Still, the inexorable forces of

nature heal over the wounds made by man's dissension. The

flux of the life-giving English rivers binds the British isle

into a harmonious friendship between the rivers and the re­

gions they supply with life and fertility. The overriding

effect is of vast plentitude and fertility within the social

ritual of marriage.

The reader all but forgets that Amoret and Scudamour

are still not united, that their beautifully formed beginning

has not been successfully carried out. Instead there is a dom­

inant sense of the Temple of Venus's universal love and pro­

creation for all life. The rivers flow toward the wedding of

two of their own and toward the betrothal of Marinell (the

sea) and Florimell (the land) at the end of Book IV. Because of the analogues between Amoret and Florimell, her proposed marriage with Marinell can provide a satisfying resolution for the still separated and questing Amoret and Scudamour. NOTES

* Hankins 155*

2 Alastair Fowler, Spenser and the Numbers of Time (New Yorkt Barnes, 1964) 139. Fowler quotes from Macrobius's Saturnalia. I.xxi. to make his point.

^ Fowler 138.

** Roche 78-79.

^ Paul J. Alpers, "Narrative and Rhetoric in The Faerie Queene" Elizabethan Poetryi Modern Essays in Criti­ cism. ed. Paul J. Alpers (Oxford1 Oxford UP, 1967) 39^.

8 J.D. Burnley, "Fine Amort Its Meaning and Context," The Review of English Studies 31» No. 122 (l980)s 134.

^ Burnleyt 134.

8 Kathleen Williams 109.

^ Jonathan Goldberg, "The Mothers in Book III of The Faerie Queene." TSLL 1? (1975-76)t 2 3.

A. Kent Hieatt, "A Spenser to Structure our Myths (Medina, Phaedria, Proserpina, Acrasia, Venus, Isis)," Con­ temporary Thought on Edmund^Spenser. eds. Richard C. Frush- e11 and Barnard J. Vondersmith (Carbondalet Southern Illin­ ois UP, 1975) 112.

** Robert Ellrodt, Neoplatonism in the Poetry of Spen­ ser (1960j Geneve 1 Norwood, 1976) 142.

12 Earle B. Fowler, Spenser and the System of Courtly Love (Louisvillet Standard Printing, 1935) 15* 176 177

13 William Shakespeare, Macbeth, The Riverside Shake­ speare. eds. G. Blakemore Evans et al. (Bostoni Houghton, 19757"II.ii.33-3^.

^ Hamilton 155*

*3 See Roche 137n^9*

Hamilton 161.

^ Hamilton 161.

18 Evans 189*

19 Evans 189*

20 Hamilton 162.

2* Hamilton 162.

22 Rose 132.

23 Roche 9k.

ZUt Roche 207.

23 Donald Cheney, Spenser's Image of Nature« Wild Man and Shepherd in "The Faerie Queene" (New Haveni Yale UP. 1966) 150. 2 6 Aristotle k85. I have taken an excerpt from the pas­ sage 1 "The object and the personal relationships with which friendship is concerned appear, as was said at the outset, to be the same as those which are the sphere of justice. For in every partnership we find mutual rights of some sort, and also friendly feelingi ..."

2^ Hankins 159. 28 Hankins 159t consult k5 also. 29 Roche 132, He points out that this song is Spenser's adaptation of Lucretius's Alma Venus. 178

3° Jack B. Oruch, "Spenser, Camden, the Poetic Marriages of Rivers," SP 64 (1 9 67)1 618.

William Blissett, "Florimell and Marinell," SEL 5 (1965)i 98-99. CHAPTER V

"Where he her spous'd and made his ioyous bride"»

FLORIMELL AND MARINELL

The Florimell and Marinell story is crucial in provid­

ing a structure for the middle books and a resolution for

other stories. Far from being a relatively minor parallel to

the other exemplar-lovers, the Florimell and Marinell story

provides the thematic core of the middle books. As lovers

kept from joining but who then promise marriage in the last

canto of Book IV, Florimell and Marininell reflect the sym­

bolic renewal of concord and love that rejuvenates a world

torn by private and societal contention. Their betrothal

offers a satisfying resolution to many of the philosophical

and moral ideas Spenser deals with in the other exemplar-

lovers. The reader senses the concordia of personal and political relationships and of the world-order at large.

Through Florimell and Marinell, Spenser argues that man must live in peace and loving harmony. His heroic endeavor

is in pursuit of that greatest good.

Probably the best way to appreciate how much the Flori­ mell and Marinell story serves as a framework for the other

stories in Books III and IV is to disentangle it from the

179 180

other stories. It then becomes apparent how quickly and in­

tently Spenser introduces Florimell in Book III and how

closely their story is involved with False Florimell's through

out the two books. Thus, False Florimell's story becomes a

part of the thematic and structural integrity of their story.

As strongly as Florimell seeks wholeness with her beloved,

False Florimell seeks societal fragmentation. Spenser makes

the union of Florimell and Marinell in Book IV's canto xii

important enough to carry a resolution of concord and love;

it can provide a satisfactory ending for the still separated

Amoret and Scudamour and a sense of purposeful completion for

the two books. When Florimell and Marinell wed in Book V,

their story extends to join Chastity and Friendship with

Justice.

When Florimell first bursts on the scene in III.i.15-16,

she brings the flavor of Ariostan romance where Angelica dis­

rupts knightly society and stories are broken off at critical

moments. Florimell's appearance is charged with excitement and a sense of rising wonder and fear. * From the outset,

her flight is depicted in cosmological terms that bring con­

sternation and confusion among the males. Because of her,

the group disperses. Her unthinking, unsystematic flight

continually "initiates and intensifies pursuit and so helps

to bring about the very chase which it is intended to es- 2 cape." Her beauty spurs men's lust» her helplessness in­ vites their chase. Florimell has left the court in her 181 golden garments; she is unprepared for earth's abrasive at­ mosphere and unable to defend herself. Fearful of everyone and everything, she is at the mercy of anyone who can

capture her. With that unforgettable but fragmentary introduction,

Spenser leaves the unnamed Florimell. Her appearance is an incident within the knights' quests, a device that effec­ tively separates them by having the male knights chase after her. Yet Florimell is marked indelibly upon the males', and the reader's, minds.

In Book III, canto iv, Spenser introduces Marinell. He is a strange knight in bright armor who gallops toward Brit­ omart as she sits upon the strand, mourning her separation from Artegall. She has left Castle Joyeous and is attempting to stem her loneliness by considering the future progeny "Of her immortall wombe" (III.iv.ll). Her "former sorrow" changes "into suddein wrath," and she readies for battle

(III.iv.12). Britomart receives the first blow, but she severely wounds Marinell "through his left side" (his heart's side) (III.iv.16). He tumbles off his horse onto the strand.

Marinell's wound assumes its symbolism from Britomart's preceding experiences. She was trying to renew the painful pleasure of Cupid's wound that had begun her love for Arte­ gall. Her probing served to force the dart more deeply into her hearti "And the deepe wound more deepe engord her hart,/

That nought but death her dolour mote depart" (III.iv.6). 182

As she wounds Marinell, she passes on this first Wound from

Cupid and her second wound when she was physically wounded

in Castle Joyeous. This wound allows her to pass beyond the

first innocence of childhood and seek sexual fulfillment. J

Marinell's first deep-wound of love from Britomart becomes

a provocative love-as-illness motif throughout his and Flori­

mell's story. While Britomart's two wounds were not potenti­

ally mortal, Marinell's wound is. Her ebony spear throws him

down to lie "tombled on an heape, and wallowd in his gore"

(III.iv.16). It is a symbolic preparation for the fertile,

long lasting love he will have for Florimell.

Like Timias's and Adonis's wound in the left thigh,

Marinell receives his wound in the left side. Like theirs,

his wound carries out the Petrarchan convention that the

beginning of love comes from a wound by Cupid's weaponry.

When Marinell recovers, he will rise in the potential of

love. His wound will be much like the wound that Spenser de­

scribes in lines 11-12 from Sonnet VI, the Amoretti. which

celebrates the idea of chaste, married lovej

11 deepe is the wound, that dints the parts entire 12 with chast affects, that naught but death can seuer. 13 Then thinks not long in taking litle paine, 14 to knit the knot, that euer shall remaine.

Like Britomart, Marinell must learn the ways of the world and of love. He must be purged of his previous brutish incapacities for love and friendship with anyone other than his mother. At this point in his development, Marinell is 183 Like as the sacred Oxe, that carelesse stands, With gilden homes, and flowry girlonds crownd, Proud of his dying honor and deare bands, Whiles th'altars fume with frankincense arownd, • • • So fell proud Marinell vpon the pretious shore. (III.iv.17)

Although Marinell is described as a creature of the earth, a "sacred Oxe," as his name implies, he also repre­ sents the sea. He is the half-mortal grandson of Nereus and favored above other mortals. Marinell lives close to the sea, along its strand. "Obviously Marinell represents some power of the sea, and the reader can be sure that it will be a power equivalent in generality to the beauty" of the earth which Florimell represents. Although he is symbol­ ized as a sexless ox, he holds the potential of all the sea's proliferative replenishment and sexuality. His capac­ ities for moral growth and love are limitless. When Flori­ mell symbolically joins with the sexuality of the sea and

Marinell begins to pity and to love her, they will represent the union of earth and sea.

Yet, at this early point of his development, Marinell's nature is portrayed as more bestial than sea creature or human. As a castrated bull, Marinell's sterile life repre­ sents his mother's leadership. Much as the ox, "Proud of his dying honor," believes its garlands worthy embellish­ ments for death, Marinell unquestioningly denies his own sexuality to devote his life to protecting the strand.

Other than protecting his riches, he does nothing to 18^

deserve the wealth that comes to him indirectly through

shipwrecks and the disasters of others. His selfishness and

pride in wealth and fame must be sacrificed for his own

betterment.

When Marinell challenges Britomart's right to be on

his strand, which is strewn with gold, pearls, and precious

stones cast up by the sea, he shows a willingness to give

his life for "mere" treasures. This piling up of the sea's

"useless" treasures is his mother Cymodoce's first gift to

Marinell. Because Cymodoce (also called Cymoent) wishes

greater glory for her son than he has won through prodigious

feats of battle, she goes to her Seagod father, Nereus. She

asks him to favor Marinell "Boue all the sonnes, that were

of earthly wombes ybore" (III.iv.2l). She uses Marinell's

battle prowess to plead his great worth, rather than offer­

ing more humane traits«

An hundred knights of honorable name He had subdew'd, and them his vassals made, That through all Farie lond his noble fame Now blazed was, and feare did all inuade, That none durst passen through that perilous glade, (III.iv.2l)

Nereus evidently has little use for the treasure in

his depths. Certainly both Cymodoce and her father equate

battle prowess with the right to riches and, in turn, further glory. Nereus grants his daughter's "deare demaund" and gives

up his seized treasure to heap it upon Marinell's shore. Thereafter, Marinell "a great Lord did appeare,/ As was in all 185

the lond of Faery, or elsewheare" (III.iv.23). Marinell

grows even more fierce in battle and develops along the

lines of the warring Mars, who loves the bloody strife.

Cymodoce begins to worry that her son might be killed

in one of his fights, and she unsuccessfully urges him

to forbeare The bloudie battell, and to stirre vp strife, But after all his warre, to rest his wearie knife. (III.iv.24)

She cares little about the valuable jewels and gold if they

threaten Marinell's welfare. In order to learn his fate, she

goes to the prophesier, Proteus, who

Bad her from womankind to keepe him welli For of a woman he should haue much ill, A virgin strange and stout him should dismay, or kill. (III.iv.25) Thereafter, Cymodoce keeps Marinell away from women and each

day warns him against them. The poet stresses the unnatural- ness of man's flesh refraining from "loue in course of na­ ture" (III.iv.26). Marinell, however, passively heeds his mother's warnings

And euer from faire Ladies loue did fly? Yet many Ladies faire did oft complaine, That they for loue of him would algates dyi Dy, who so list for him, he was loues enimy. (III.iv.26)

At his mother's insistence, Marinell not only abjures all relationships with women, he also does not care whether they live or die. This "hulking, pampered, spoiled boy" is

"loues enimy." ^ Marinell, thus, becomes an "oxe," rejecting 186 sex because of fear for his safety. He must be wounded by

Britomart's ebony spear before he can mature into the man

who hears and responds to Florimell's cries in Proteus's cave.

He and his mother base their loves upon false premises. They

consider prowess and fame in battle as worthy of the greatest

wealth, and great wealth as worthy of greater fame. He de­

votes himself to winning ever more glory in his battles.

Marinell's false premises are reflected in the shape-

shifter, Proteus, who refuses to deal forthrightly with 7 Cymodoce and works.through' "seemings." His prophesy bears

true, but its effect is to mislead her and Marinell. Because

Proteus predicts that only a virgin can harm Marinell, he

considers himself unassailable and becomes greatly overcon­

fident in battle. The upshot of Proteus's prediction is that

Marinell gives up his natural sexuality because it is unsafe

and then is injured by the virago, Britomart. As Spenser

states, "But ah, who can deceiue his destiny,/ Or weene by warning to auoyd his fate?" (III.iv.27). Britomart follows

her destiny-of-love seen in Merlin's glassy globe, and Mari­ nell cannot avoid his own. At their meeting, the illusive prophesy comes true. But Proteus also prophesies Marinell's

illness because of love. In speaking of "a virgin strange and stout," he refers not just to Britomart's virginal state but also to Florimell's singular solidarity of purpose. Her strength of will sets her apart from the many lovers who lack the courage to follow the ideal of a constant, unalterable 187 love. Marinell's destiny is to love and marry Florimell, and he cannot "auoyd his fate" (III.iv.27)

As with Florimell's brief introduction, Marinell's is limited to a few stanzas, but they are charged with informa­ tion. His history is related through his mother, later, in canto ix, stanza 19* The poet reminds us of Marinell's deadly swoon and in the next line tells of the news travelling to

Cymodoce. She, however, does not react until stanzas 29-30, canto iv. While playing with her sister nymphs, she learns of Marinell's injury. At that point, she faints. The stanzas between relate Marinell's history, primarily through her ef­ forts to save her son.

Through Cymodoce, Spenser shows that those who love can be changed for the better. Her efforts have always been for

Marinell's welfare. That she chooses fame, wealth, and physi­ cal safety for him rather than moral growth exhibits poor judgment and a faulty value system, but it does not deny her love for her son. Cymodoce shows herself comically human, even though she is a sea nymph. She responds emotionally and imperfectly, but she is somehow sweet. In this respect, she is one of the few characters to equal Britomart's adolescent silliness. Like Britomart, Cymodoce has the capacity to grow in understanding because she loves and is willing to act on it.

Spenser's descriptions of Cymodoce should bring at least a smile. When she sees Marinell lying upon the strand, she goes into hysterics, faints three times, wakes up, sobs, and 188 complains. Her lamentations are serious in that they relay the depth of her emotion, but they are wildly impractical as to helping Marinell. He could easily die during her self- indulgence. Because she believes a woman incapable of causing his injury, she blames Proteus, calling his false. She then forgives his folly, saying, "to my selfe, and to accursed fate/ The guilt I doe ascribe* deare wisedome bought too late" (III.iv.37). After another period of extended mourning, she gathers herself together and tries to save Marinell's life.

Even during Cymodoce's passionate grief, she exhibits forgiveness and a maturity that can accept self-blame. Com­ pared with the hag who sends out the hyena either to return with Florimell or kill her, Cymodoce comes off well. Instead of resorting to witchcraft and creating an evil replica to cure her son, Cymodoce and her nymphs use healing balms and the nectar of the gods to staunch Marinell's wound. She then calls upon the sea's regenerative powers and takes Marinell to her chamber in the bottom of the sea. She sends for Try- phon, the sea god's mightiest healer.

Although Marinell's return to the sea reconfirms him as a representative of the sea, he is really a creature of the strandi he must breathe air. Cymodoce's bower is

built of hollow billowes heaped hye, Like to thicke cloudes, that threat a stormy showre, And vauted all within, like to the sky. In which the Gods do dwell eternally. (III.iv.43) 189

Marinell is a land creaturet a symbolic, sacrificial ox whom

his mother raises "in a rocky caue” (III.iv.20). Before he

and Florimell can join as equals, he must grow into a man

capable of pity and understanding. His cold selfishness is

but another perverse variation that Britomart first.feared

in love. Marinell's and Florimell's marriage must not be be­

tween beast or sea-god and woman. There must be no "shamefull

lusts" as with Pasipha'e* "that lou'd a Bull, and learnd a

beast to bee" (III.ii.41) or any "filthy lust, contrarie vn-

to kind" (III.ii.4o). Love between them must be normal, a

joining of equals where one complements the other.

The stories of Florimell and Marinell are kept before

the reader through Arthur's pursuit of her and through his

encounter with Florimell's dwarf in cantos iv and v. Al­ though she sees a knight pursuing her instead of the "foul foster," she continues her erratic flight. Even though Ar­ thur means "no euill thought, no euill deed," Florimell is as "affraid of him, as feend of hell" (III.iv.50,47). Her fear is unanswerable and uncontrollable, yet it stems from the assumption that whatever follows her will attempt to Q hinder her quest for Marinell.

Through Arthur's confusion of Florimell with Gloriana and the dwarf Dony's appraisal of Florimell, she can be ac­ cepted as a representative of ideal womanhood. Arthur follows her until it grows dark,. and he loses her trail. During the long, restless night, he confuses her with his Faerie Queene 190

and even wishes that Florimell "mote bee/ His Faery Queene,

. . 1/ Or that his Faery Queene were such, as shee" (Ill.iv.

5^). In Arthur's temporary confusion and deflection from his

quest to find Gloriana, he elevates Florimell to an approxi­ mation of the Faerie Queene. Florimell becomes a representat-

tive of ideal womanhood and worthy of man's highest aspirations.

In canto v, stanzas 3-12, Dony describes Florimell to Arthur

as "the fairest wight aliue" and the greates "In stedfast

chastitie and vertue rare" (III.v.5*8).

Florimell's dwarf, Dony, continues*

And is ycleped Florimell the faire, Faire Florimell belou'd of many a knight, Yet she loues none but one, that Marinell is hight. • • • All her delight is set on Marinell1 But he sets nought at all by Florimell. (III.v.8,9) Within these two stanzas, Dony fuses Florimell's and Mari- nell's stories. For the first time Marinell's rejection of

"women" becomes rejection of a particular woman* Florimell, whose inimitable beauty and virtue are irresistable to all others. When she hears Marinell is slain (another false rumor), she leaves the safety of the Faerie Court vowing "neuer to re- turne againe,/ Till him aliue or dead she did inuent" (III.v.

10). ^ For the first time, the "blazing starre" is named.

The hard brilliance of her celestial world's white and gold is softened by the sublunary world's fragile hues* "Florimell means 'flower-honey'." Her beauty takes on a seasonal, transitory warmthj and from now on, her flight is described 191

in terms of soft, warm-blooded creatures* a dove, a hare, "an

Hynd forth singled from the heard" (III.vii.1). All are threat­

ened with life's brevity by the hunter as Florimell repre­

sents the earth and its all too brief beauty that is to join

with Marinell.

Canto vii, Book III, opens with Florimell's terrified

flight, until she happens upon a little cottage where a witch

who practices "hellish arts" lives with her son (III.vii.6).

Mother and son's unsatisfactory "norm" of morality remains a

modus operandi that is not ameliorable. Like other discordant

evil characters, they provide contrasts to the admirable "norm"

of existing love and its potential for moral growth, as

displayed within Cymodoce and Marinell and allegorized through

Agape and her three sons. When Florimell senses the danger

she is in and escapes from the infatuated son's attentions,

the witch sends out a beast like "an Hyena" to bring Florimell

back or kill and devour her (III.vii.22). Florimell's flight

continues as the evil beast of the land pushes Florimell to­ ward the sea and closer to Marinell.

Instead of continuing Florimell's story, Spenser inter­ rupts to stress how the old hag's spotted beast sets loose false assumptions, revenge, madness, and slander. When Sir

Satyrane sees the beast devouring Florimell's palfrey at the

sea shore, he wrongly assumes that she is dead. He tries to avenge her death by killing the spotted beast but cannot. Like all evil, the beast thrives on strife and falsity. Satyrane 192

cannot destroy itj he can only temporarily abate its ferocity.

To control the beast, he takes the ribbon of Florimell's

girdle that slipped from her waist at the seashore. ** Tied

around the beast, the "golden ribband, which that virgin wore/

About her sclender wast" keeps the beast under control, and

it follows him meekly "like a lambe" (III.vii.3 6).

The lesson is rendered through the symbol of Florimell's

golden girdle. The ribbon is part of the cestus that Florimell

took with her from Venus while on her "Acidalian mount" (IV. v.5)» Made by Vulcan to bind his wife's "lasciuious desire"

and "loose affections" (IV.v.4), the girdle gives "the vertue of chast loue,/ And wiuehood true, to all that did it beare"

(IV.v.3 ). Yet behind the image of virtuous wifehood also lies the Acidalian Venus, for the cestus belongs specifically to her. Within this context, the cestus "is a complex symbol for a variety of bonds of amityt it signifies political loyalty, as much as the bond of friendship or of married love. Venus, after all, was not only the goddess of beauty and desire, but 12 also of civility and of all formal order." Thus, only loyal­ ty and virtuous love, civility and political order can hold the malignant, spotted beast in check.

At liberty again, the beast returns home to create further disruption. Jumping to the conclusion Florimell is dead, the son tries to murder his mother and then goes mad. To cure him, the witch calls forth further evil spirits to.create the ulti­ mate lie to beauty and amity, False Florimell. An evil sprite 193 controls the body's actions. No need to instruct the fiend

in dissemblance, for Myfraught with fawning guile, . . he in

counterfeisance did excell,/ And all the wyles of wemens

wits knew passing well" (III.viii.8 ). Dressed in Florimell's

clothing, the creature could even be judged "fairer then

her selfe ^Florimell7, if ought algate/ Might fairer be"

(III.viii.9 ). When the churl sees her, he is overjoyed at

Florimell's return and recovers his sanity.

The hag may have cured her wicked son, but the forces

she sets loose in the world are intrinsically evil. Con­

ceived through the advice of evil spirits, created through

the means of witchcraft, intended for deception, False Flor­

imell can bring only strife and lust to those around her.

She is effective in creating discord because she is created

to appeal to the churl's mind, which is capable only of

lust. Consequently, False Florimell is especially harmful

in that those who see only exterior beauty are led away from

the possibility of friendship or virtuous love. Since all de­

sire for her is based only on her outward beauty and her

interior is evil, that desire is necessarily for a "low 13 and abominable union." Trusting that she is the real

Florimell, whose virtue is unassailable, people are unpre­ pared to cope with the snowy Florimell's wiles and desire for discord. The foolish churl is only the first of a list of males whom she holds "in vaine delight" (III.viii.1 0). 194

From the beginning, the pretend Florimell's beauty acts as an irritant to disrupt society and cause strife. Like the churl, Braggadocchio is admirably suited to False Florimell, stressing Spenser's idea that like should be drawn to like and 14 equal to equal. Her evil is not so readily apparent, though, because the pretender uses the appearance of chastity to de­ ceive and entice each knight. When Sir Ferraugh sees her with

Braggadocchio, the False Florimell appears to be in fear of her honor. Sir Ferraugh believes he is rescuing the real Florimell, who must be rescued by the shape-shifter, Proteus.

The knights rally around Florimell's golden girdle and her double, creating a loss of faith in public norms of ration­ al thought, communication, and morality. If the knights knew of the real Florimell's danger, they would begin a war for her sake. Yet their "auengement and dispiteous rage" (III.viii.28) are put in terms of comic irony that deserves "reproue/ Of fals- hood or of slouth" (III.viii.27). They present ideals not of rescue but of annihilation of an entire society as their chival- ric heroism becomes fashionable posturing that would destroy another Troy.

Florimell begins her symbolic conjunction with the sea when she is faced with actual physical violence from the lust­ ful old fisherman into whose boat she jumps to escape the hyena. Spenser treats the episode as light-hearted bawdy with severe consequences as the old man attempts to rape her. The description of sexuality and fish scales filling her garments 195 begins Florimell's association with overt sexuality and rein­ forces, her potential for union with Marinell. Evolved from the

"blazing starre" that shot across the knights' path, she is very much of the earth (III.i.16). As Marinell, representing the sea, is shown more and more a creature of the land, Florimell, representing the earth, is more a creature of the sea. She is contained in a little boat, in a narrowing world that tightens restrictively as the story continues.

Proteus rescues Florimell from the lewd fisherman but then, in turn, presses his own suit toward her. His description changes from one of protection into frighteningly cold, sexual terms that terrify the virgin, who is linked to the short season of warmth. Proteus's cold presages the death of a flower as he takes her with him to his lonely bower

in the bottome of the maine, Vnder a mightie rocke, . . , That with the angry working of the waue, Therein is eaten out an hollow caue. (III.viii.37) Rather than rape Florimell, as he could have, Proteus keeps her beauty and rejuvenating potential in abeyance. He wishes to lure her from her quest for Marinell and toward himself. As Roche suggests, "Proteus wants to replace Marinell in Florimell's affection (just as Busyrane wanted to replace

Scudamour in Amoret's)." ^

The importance of Florimell's resolve to reamin faith­ ful to Marinell must not be underestimated. The accolades for her unswerving devotion reach to the heavens, where saints 196 sing "most sweet hymmes of this thy famous deed" (III.viii.

42). Chastity is an active virtue that inhabitants of Faerie- land/England must understand and emulate, just as Florimell exercises it to its highest extent. Spenser seeks his Muse

to'aduance thy goodly chastitee, And to enroll thy memorable name, In th'heart of euery honourable Dame, That they thy vertuous deedes may imitate, And be partakers of thy endlesse fame. (III.viii.43) Spenser apotheosizes Florimell's decision to accept “torment­ ing griefe" or death rather than forego her love, her chastity, and her hope for virtuous union with Marinell (III.viii.42).

Florimell and her love are to be recognized as the finest ex­ ample of womanhood which is temporarily stopped from fertility.

Eventually, she will exemplify the consumation of concord and love upon this earth.

At Book Ill's ending, Britomart rescues Amoret from the enchanter Busyrane, who wishes to stop the generative cycle.

Like Busyrane, Proteus wishes to replace the damsel's beloved, but unlike Busyrane's licentiousness, Proteus's holds the myth­ ic replenishment of the sea. While Amoret and Scudaraour's story was once intended to afford a satisfying closure to the book, as I discussed in the previous chapter, Florimell and Mari­ nell 's story was never intended to be completed within that segment of the epic. The knights of Faerie Court have rallied around the remembrance of Florimell's beauty and the virginal symbol of her cestus while Florimell herself is held captive in Proteus's dark dungeon. Marinell is deathly ill from Britomart's wound. Like Florimell, he also lies "Deepe in

the bottome of the sea" (III.iv.43), but it is in Cymodoce's

bower, while she and her sea nymphs bewail his sad plight.

Marinell and Florimell are contained in private and separate worlds. Their ongoing story and False Florimell's creation in­

dicate that Spenser always intended to use the two stories to

tie Books III and IV together, and to incorporate Florimell's

and Marinell's theme of virtuous love into Book V. The thematic and dramatic structures of their stories form an ideal "truth of the heart" which comes within the reader's closural expecta­ tions. The theme of the "lovers'" separation and Flori­ mell's search for wholeness with Marinell is too deeply bound with the cyclical return of spring for the reader to be satis­ fied with anything less than a return of Florimell to happiness.

By the ending of Book IV, Marinell and Florimell's happy

joining can resolve Amoret's and Scudamour's lack of union and, in a mythic sense, show the reader what Britomart’s and

Artegall's marriage might be like when it eventually takes place. The Florimell-Marinell story provides a satisfying end­ ing because (1) the river marriage holds strong imagery of marriage and fertility within the ritualized wedding of Brit­ ain's rivers, and (2) Cymodoce, through proper political chan­ nels, peaceably brings Florimell and Marinell together in canto xii, Book IV. Florimell, in the mythic sense of land and sea's joining, can fulfill Britomart's mythical/historical/political quest for Artegall, marriage, and famous progeny. Among the 198

major couples, at least Florimell and Marinell will soon be

joined in fruitful, blessed matrimony as Book IV ends. Spenser,

however, makes the getting there difficult indeed.

In considering Book IV thematically, the first half is

heavily weighted with Ate, Duessa, and False Florimell as

sources of private and societal discord. The tournament in

memory of Florimell centers around False Florimell and the

golden cestus. Ate's discord focuses upon the chivalric rep­

resentatives of Faerie Court, who are sworn to uphold civil 20 order rather than tear it down. In canto vi, Ate's power

recesses briefly when Britomart and Artegall meet and vow to

marry, but forces of discord and dispersion resume in canto ix

when the knights recall False Florimell and the tournament.

They would destroy themselves by fighting if Arthur did not

intervene. From canto xi on, the forces of concordia and inte- 21 gration prevail and remain dominant to the book's end.

Ate's wicked, split tongue is continually divisive. She

is "Mother of debate,/ And all dissention" (IV.i.l9). 2 2

Ate concentrates on "How she might ouerthrow the things that

Concord wrought" (IV.i.29). Her ultimate target remains Con­

cord and God's "great golden chaine" (IV.i.3 0), the symbol of

God's love emanating from above to connect the supercelestial, celestial, and sublunary worlds and by which Concord holds the three worlds within their proper boundaries.

Concord, mother of "blessed Peace, and Friendship trew"

(IV.x.3 4), is equally well defined. Divine in origin, she stands outside the Temple of Venus, between her two sons, Love

and Hate. While Ate divides, Concord serves as a fulcrum be­

tween her sons, balancing their opposition. She keeps the world in its placei the heavens in harmony, the elements of

air, fire, land, and water within their boundaries. She alle­ gorically embodies "the pervasive force of good will, restor-

ing the normal harmony in all human relations." 2 k She holds the ideal order of personal relationship and political volition toward an ordered society. Yet, simultaneously Concord must be visualized not just "as a virtue, or as a relationship, but as a cosmic principle." She is the great universal word that generated the world and whose microcosm is human love.

When False Florimell and Sir Ferraugh join the group of travelers, she forms a destructive force where no group of lovers or society of friends can long exercise trust or vir­ tuous love. Within this corrupted, male-dominated society, the snowy Florimell becomes the corrupted ideal of womanhood.

Upon seeing her, Blandamour attacks Sir Ferraugh to win her as his own "spoyle" and "ioyous meriment" (IV.ii.5). For the two knights, Blandamour and Paridell, love is little more than lust. The damsel is a "spoyle" of war to remain submissive under their courtly-male domination. They have no desire for a woman as friend, companion, and equal. Thus False Florimell's sham of innocent helplessness incites them to lust in much the same way as the real Florimell's helpless flight incites them to chase after her. Throughout the middle books, Spenser examines the many aspects of one-sided cultures and the relationships possible between men and women within such societies. Where False Flor­ imell invites domination, another "Lady of Delight," Malecasta, in Castle Joyeous (III.i.31), offers a man’s idea of the evil master-woman. She offers "the ideal courtly life for women— i.e., if a man were to envisage the kind of courtly pleasure 2 6 he should like to have as a woman, this would be it." In turn, Paridell and Blandamour serve up a self-aggrandizing friendship that holds only impermanent and negative stages of dissent. They agree only when selfishness brings temporary accord. They follow along the lines of Aristotle’s fickle young men whose primary "motive of friendship appears to be pleas­ ure." The "object of the moment," whether in friendship or love, is formed quickly and given "up quickly, often changing before the day is out." Their utilitarian friendship is at its worst when confronted with the pretend Florimell, who is the consummate temptress.

The subversions of womanly virtue— False Florimell, Ate, and Duessa— and the knights who would "fight for honour of their loue,/ And rather die then Ladies cause release" (IV.ii.

1 9) stop their strife only so the knights can win further glory at Satyrane's tournament for Florimell's golden girdle.

Seeking selfish gain, the knights resume their friendship long enough "to ioyne in one/ With all their force" to defeat the other challengers (IV.ii.28). Although they appear in accord, 201

Yet all was forg'd and spred with golden foyle, That vnder it hidde hate and hollow guyle. Ne certes can that friendship long endure. (IV.ii.29) The limited visions of the knights' courtly ideals sire exemplified within the tournament and beauty contest, where

she that is fayrest found, Shall haue that golden girdle for reward, And of those Knights who is most stout on ground, Shall to that fairest Ladie be prefard. (IV.ii.2?)

Even courtly womanhood is shown nonvirtuous when no knight's lady can wear the golden cestus. The contest becomes a burlesque of virtue when False Florimell is displayed and her ravishing beauty shadows all others'. Her impersonation of virtuous beauty surpasses the real Florimell, "so forged things do fairest shew" (IV.v.15), and the snowy Florimell is awarded the girdle. The girdle, however, will not stay fas­ tened around her waist. Nor are other damsels successful in wearing it until Amoret takes it up and it fits "withouten breach or let" (IV.v.19).

The knights nevertheless insist upon the appearance of virtue over its reality. They choose lust and exterior over interior beauty in that they award the girdle to the snowy

Florimell rather than to Amoret. Of all present, only Brito­ mart realizes that "real beauty" is an inward virtue to be appreciated. As winner of the tournament, she rejects the knights' offer of the snowy Florimell and prefers Amoret's virtuous reality. Discordia reigns as five knights claim the snowy Flori­

mell. To quell the strife, Satyrane suggests she choose one

protector who "should without disturbance her possesse" (IV.

v.25). Although the episode is comedic, Spenser makes the im­

portant point of a lady’s having a choice, in the belief she

will choose wisely. This idea of choice opposes the concept of

male "maistrye" and is the beginning of amity between the sex­

es. False Florimell, though, selects the knight closest to

her own level1 Braggadocchio, who has twice refused

to fight for her. Displaying both cunning and poor judgment,

False Florimell in her selection stirs up further strife. The

knights recognize Braggadocchio's inability to defend her and

grow ever more hostile. But before the males can vent their

anger on him and seize back their "prize," Braggadocchio and

False Florimell slip away. Although the knights pursue

furiously, they remain thwarted, their tensions suspended, to

be resumed later in even more unmanageable form. False Flori­

mell is seen no more in Book IV, but her strife remains power­

ful 1 in canto ix, even memory of her causes the knights to

fight bitterly again over the tournament.

In canto vii, Book IV, the real Florimell is brought back to mind when Spenser briefly mentions her. Economically, he ties together the three heroines— Florimell, Britomart, and

Amoret— when he asks the Great God of Love why he brings such cruelty upon three innocents 1 203

So whylome didst thou to faire Florimellt And so and so to noble Britomarti So doest thou now to her of whom I tell, The louely Amoret. whose gentle hart Thou martyrest with sorow and with smart. (IV.vii.2)

Thus, Spenser brings the thematic undergirding of virtuous love to the forefront, even while he reminds the reader that the parallels of chastity follow their quests for chastity sind suffer accordingly. While the cruel Cupid conquers the world with his "cruell dart" (IV.vii.l), strife and dissension remain ascendant.

The last episode of strife linked with False Florimell in

Book IV comes in canto ix. Meterorological imagery reflects

Druon's, Claribell's, Blandamour's, and Paridell's discord that prevails throughout Faerieland. The four knights violently contest "for the loue of that same snowy maid,/ Whome they had lost in Turneyment of late" (IV.ix.24). As if from the four corners of the earth, the knights fight without thought or reason while the "foure parts of heauen doe rage full sore,/

And tosse the deepes, and teare the firmament" (IV.ix.2 3).

Like boats changing course because of uncontrollable winds and tides, the knights inconsistently change sides and take new partners. The meteorological imagery and fury of the elements symbolize Ate's power to destroy the world if mankind gives her a chance.

Eventually, however, strife and faulty assumptions are corrected and peace resumes. The knights form a friendly group­ ing as they travel and Scudamour relates his wooing of Amoret. ZQk

The Temple of Venus offers the zenith of creative en­

ergy. Within the middle books, Venus is the symbol and alle­ gorical equivalent of perfect concord and love, perfect friendship and peace. Instead of the cruel Venus whose se­ ductive powers destroy individuals and nations, this Venus represents the highest form of love between a man and a 28 woman and, on another level, God's love for mem. Thus, anything less than the highest form of friendship and passion­ ate love between a man and woman within fruitful marriage is unacceptable. For only through virtuous union can mankind escape the strife and chaos that infests the world. Anything less than happy and fruitful conjugality is less than perfect harmony with God and is an imperfect manifestation of God's love. As the exempla of false friendship between and among men and women illustrate in the first nine cantos, the re­ sults are lust, greed, jealousy, and strife, which are against God's wishes for mankind. Perfect love between a man and woman is in accord with God's (Venus's) wishes for man and brings peace to the land. It is, consequently, a heroic endeavor to search diligently for love.

Canto xi, Book IV, reminds the reader of Florimell's pitiful condition. She remains

In bands of loue, and in sad thraldomes chaynej From which vnlesse some heauenly powre her free By miracle, not yet appearing playne, She lenger yet is like captiu'd to beei That euen to thinke thereof, it inly pitties mee. (IV.xi.l) Through the idea that only divine intervention or miracle can 20 5 save her from imprisonment encourages the supposition that whatever rescues her will he a representative of "heauenly powre." Florimell's release must come from a more powerful force for good than the chivalric knights or even Arthur.

For seven months, Proteus keeps Florimell bound in chains in a "dongeon deepe and blindM (IV.xi.2). It is "Like to the balefull house of lowest hell,*’ where she

Ne euer euening saw, ne mornings ray; Ne euer from the day the night descride, But thought it all one night, that did no houres di- (IV. xi.*0 uide.

Like Amoret, who "Seuen moneths he /Busyrane7 so her kept in bitter smart,/ Because his sinfull lust she would not serue" (IV.i.^), Florimell chooses to remain true to her beloved rather than accept Proteus's wooing and freedom.

And all this was for loue of Marinell. Who her despysd (ah who would her despyse?) And wemens loue did from his hart expell, And all those ioyes that weake mankind entyse. (IV.xi.5) Marinell, meanwhile, despises Florimell and all women.

"Nathlesse his pride full dearely he did pryse" (IV.xi.5) as he lies desperately ill from Britomart's wound. Prepared for sexual love by Britomart, Marinell undergoes an inexplicable, internal metamorphosis of dying pride and growing empathy.

Unable to cure Marinell, Cymodoce seeks the sea's curative powers through the sea gods' greatest healer, Tryphon, who quickly heals her son. (The watery world shows itself a formed society with social rank and a form of remuneration. 206

Whereas Marinell did nothing to earn the riches bestowed upon him by the sea, Tryphon, in appreciation, receives a whistle made of a sea shell.) Cymodoce, however, remains overly pro­ tective of her son. Even after he is well, she keeps him by her side “For feare of perill, which to him mote fall,/

Through his too ventrous prowesse proued ouer all" (lV.xi.7).

At this point, Spenser leaves Florimell and Marinell to celebrate the wedding of the Thames and Medway Rivers in

Proteus's hall. "All the Sea-gods and their fruitfull seede"

(IV.xi.8) are invited to the bridal feast, for

Long had the Thames (as we in records reed) Before that day her wooed to his bedi But the proud Nymph would for no worldly meed, Nor no entreatie to his loue be ledi Till now at last relenting, she to him was wed. (IV.xi.8)

Man's morality is anthropomorphised within ritual. The poet invokes the Muses, for only they can do justice to the cele­ bration. ^ Through Memory's calling up the ancient rolls of forgotten time, the poet lists the numerous members of the bridal feast in descending order. Triton's trumpet makes the rocks roar as if rent from joyful sound to begin the procession. First come great Neptune and his wife, then

“the royall issue came" (IV.xi.l2)i the sea gods and the founders of nations. After the leaders come the great riv­ ers of the world. Then come the rivers and streams of Eng­ land and Ireland, led by the Thames and ending with the 20? Medway and her attendants the sea nymphs, among whom "the mother was/ Of luckelesse Marinell Cymodoce" (IV.xi.53)»

Nature delivers up her rivers in a meaningful order of ritualistic celebration. One of mankind's most important events, marriage, which brings birth, is projected as Nature, the ultimate creative force. "The rivers pass by as persons without ceasing to be riversi their anthropomorphic quali­ ties humanize the world of nature, and their solemn succes­ sion gives their names the effect of incantation." ^ Spen­ ser mixes the history of man with the history of the rivers, yet the marriage harkens back to earth's bedrock before time was accountable to man's measuring, when Chaos was first overcome by order. The ritualistic procession holds a pre-

Christian yearning for fertilization and for meaning out of the dangers of the ocean.

Throughout the canto, the spectacle of ceremonial order and pageantry measures the flow of time and rivers. They blend into a single stream of eternally fluxing fertility.

The famous rivers, "Which doe the earth enrich and beauti- fie" (IV.xi.20), hold the natural vigor of marriage. The

Nile fertilizes its Delta, inundates, then recedes from the land to leave rich silt promising fertility. Rivers are changing, yet unchanging, as the span of years create new channels while others disappear. The water brings life to the land and to mankind. The solemnity of the occasion is background to the book's canto xii and to the cause for 208

Marinell's discovering Florimell. The beginning of canto xii reminds the reader that leg­ ends tie Venus to the sea. Because of the great abundancy of the seas' progeny, the ancients decided

That Venus of the fomy sea was bred; For that the seas by her are most augmented. Witnesse th'exceeding fry, which there are fed, And wondrous sholes, which may of none be red. (IV.xii.2)

Venus is linked with the fertility of the sea, just as, through proximity and placement, her isle and temple are tied with the marriage of the Thames and Medway. The sea and the river marriage are parts of Venus. Whatever follows within canto xii must be interpreted in the light of mytho­ logical replenishment and interchangeability within these representative figures.

Amid the continuous signs of replenishment and social union, Marinell wanders about, alone. When Marinell hears

Florimell's complaints at the end of Book IV, he is far closer to Florimell as a creature of the land; she, in turn, is more a creature of the sea than in the beginning of their story. He has come to Proteus's hall to learn “the manner of the Gods when they at banquet be" (IV.xii.3j. But like a child at an adult party, Marinell remains an onlooker. Al­ though b o m of a sea nymph, he is half mortal; he can nei­ ther eat their immortal food nor dine at their banquet. He remains an air-breathing mortal. As he roams abroad to ex­ amine the dwelling, it "seem'd vnlike vnto his earthly 209

home" (IV.xii.4). Florimell has gradually been initiated in­

to the sexuality of the sea by the lascivious fisherman's

overt attack and by Proteus's wooing and then imprisoning

her beneath the sea. Fostered by the Graces, she is linked

with Venus, who now joins the sea's fertility.

Florimell is chained in a dungeon so dark she cannot

tell night from day. Nor can Marinell see her to be influ­

enced by her exterior beauty. He can only hear

the lamentable voice of one. That piteously complaind her carefull grieffe, Which neuer she before disclosd to none, But to her selfe her sorrow did bemone. (IV.xii.5)

By divine direction, Marinell arrives by "the hanging of an hideous clieffe" (IV.xii.5) to hear her piteous tale:

And if ye deeme me death for louing one, That loues not me, then doe it not prolong, But let me die and end my daies attone, And let him liue vnlou'd, or loue him selfe alone.

But if that life ye vnto me decree, Then let mee liue, as louers ought to do, And of my lifes deare loue beloued be. (IV.xii.9,10)

The joyous celebration of creation in canto xi gives way to

sadnessi the powerful sea causes grief as well as joy. ^1

As in Britomart's lamentation to Great Neptune to calm the winds and raging seas that metaphorically separate her from

Artegall, Florimell appeals to the sea gods. As a last re­

sort, she asks either to die or be joined with Marinell.

Britomart*s mental grief and Florimell's physical suffering are linked by the sea gods even as they guide Florimell 210

toward this final extremity of despair. As Hamilton statesi

Britomart's "feeble bark" is "literally rendered in the story

of Florimell" when she enters the fisherman's boat and is

imprisoned beneath the sea.

Britomart and Florimell are tied together even more

closely through consequential actions* e.g., when Britomart

wounds Marinell, she inflicts him with the capacity for sex­

ual love. That wounding, in turn, causes Florimell's flight

to discover whether he is alive or dead and her eventual im­

prisonment beneath the sea. Florimell's appeal to the sea

gods is linked to Britomart's appeal to "Great Neptune," who

in turn eventually frees Florimell. Their appeals eventually

extend to include Venus, who with "smyling looke doest paci-

fie/ The raging seas, and makst the stormes to flie" (IV.x.

44). Love not only causes Florimell, Britomart, and Amoret

to seek their knights-lovers, but Venus herself directs the winds and waves (even Proteus) to implement Florimell's longed for union with Marinell.

The restless search for loved ones within Books III and

IV is a repetitive process that allows Florimell's and Mari­ nell 's meeting and promised marriage to further a "feeling" of quiet relief after a storm. Meteorological disturbances keep Britomart's "feeble bark" from joining with Artegall.

They symbolize the four knights' terrible battle over False

Florimell while the heavens rage "with wide vprore,/ As if 211 in stead thereof they Chaos would restore" (IV.ix.23). The chaotic disturbances end on a quiet note of evil having been spent. Through Florimell and Marinell, the harmonious chords of health and happiness resolve the clashing discords of

Ate's private strife reflected within the public, disquieted macrocosm. The uneasy notes of Britomart's and Artegall's separation are brought to resolution. Britomart's loneliness is absorbed within Florimell and Marinell's promised marriage at the end of Book IV, allowing Britomart's "feeble bark" symbolically to join with Artegall.

Even stronger similar situations exist between Flori­ mell and Amoret. The reader can readily accept Florimell as the symbolic surrogate for both Britomart and Amoret.

Spenser links their names throughout the poem. He further encourages specific structural parallels between Amoret and

Florimell..For instance, Book III begins with Florimell's flight and ends with Amoret's rescue seven months after her kidnapping by Busyrane. Book IV begins with Amoret's wanderings and ends with Florimell's deliverance seven months after her imprisonment by Proteus. In canto vii of

Book III, Florimell escapes from the spotted beast and is captured by Proteus; in canto vii of Book IV, Amoret escapes from Lust only to enter the Sclaunder's house. ^3 Each maiden's beauty, feminine grace, rearing, and virtuous love counterpoint the other's. But in no area are the similari­ ties of situation as overt as in their seven months 212 imprisonments. Cantos xii of Books III and IV show similari­ ties that are significant to the structure, the thematic meaning of the two books, and the integrity of the poem as a whole. By disallowing Amoret's union with Scudamour at the end of Book III, Spenser frustrates a natural desire for the threads of stories to be neatly tied together. Books I and

II set up a pattern of resolving the story at the book's ending, although there is no love story in II. Later books can be logically expected to follow that resolution. Book III, however, leaves Amoret and Scudamour's story dangling. The reader's sense of balance is tilted. The desire for closure must depend upon "feelings," imagination, and Amoret's rescue to gain any sense of completion for Book III. Florimell's sit­ uation at the end of Book IV, however, embodies Amoret's lack of closure in the preceding book. Thematically and structural­ ly, Book IV's ending supplies the satisfaction that Spenser denies in Book III. Florimell and Amoret are proven irreproachable in virtu­ ous, unwavering chastity and love. Both are imprisoned be­ cause they refuse to yield to their captors, who possess either illusionary or protean powers. While Proteus changes into all manner of creatures, first to woo then to terrorize

Florimell, Busyrane uses illusion to create "A thousand charmes" to win Amoret's heart from Scudamour (III.xii.31). Both maidens are fearful of males and held captive for seven months before they are rescued, not by males, but by women«

Amoret by Britomart and Florimell by Cymodoce. Both maidens

are near or taking part in a wedding procession. Amoret was

kidnapped by Busyrane on her wedding day and forced to par­

ticipate in a grisly replication of her own wedding proces- 34- sion. Florimell, on the other hand, is held captive near

the marriage of the Thames and Medway, an event free of cru­

elty and evil intention and with the promise of continually

flowing, harmonious fertility. In Book IV, the countless

progeny of the sea gather to celebrate a wedding which joins

earth and sea and brings peace and fertility. In Book III,

love is expressed in terms of continual pain and degradation.

Cupid's Masque becomes, in retrospect, a cruel parody not

just of Amoret's wedding but of the Thames and Medway's mar-

miage as well.

The second ending of Book Ill's canto xii flows into

Book IV with a continuous story of love as inflicting pain

and causing strife, which is continually fueled by Ate, Du-

essa, and False Florimell. In order to gain the satisfaction

of love's goodness overcoming the forces of evil dispersion

and moral rot in personal and public man, the story of Flori­ mell and Marinell must replace Book Ill's dissatisfying end­

ing with a conclusion that equates the final canto of Book

IV's union with Amoret's and Scudamour’s disunion.

Although continually fearful, as is Amoret, Florimell's bravery exceeds even Britomart's, since the virago 21k can protect herself and knows her procreative destiny. The totally feminine Florimell insists upon her right to be joined with her beloved Marinell. Asking the gods either to let her die or allow her to "liue, as louers ought to do"

(IV.xii.10), she begs for Marinell to be imprisoned with her.

"So had I rather to be thrall, then freej/ Such thraldome or such freedome let it surely be" (IV.xii.10).

As Florimell's lament ends, she reveals the cause of her wretchedness! Know Marinell that all this is for thee. With that she wept and wail'd, as if her hart Would quite haue burst through great abundance of her (IV.xii.1 1) smart-

Marinell, who once scorned all women's love, is the only man unaffeeted by Florimell's great beauty. Now, however, he is moved to pity and remorse. He is not influenced by her exterior beauty, which he cannot see through the dark­ ness enshrouding her, but reacts to her interior beauty and deep need for him. Marinell's pride is overcome. He is

"toucht with soft remorse and pitty rarej/ That euen for griefe of minde he oft did grone" (IV,xii.12).

Marinell's love begins with a spiritual understanding of and communion with Florimell in her plight. It does not stem just from the physical and sexuali he does not need to see her great physical beauty before he recognizes her in­ ner purity. He learns to love "by learning louers paines to rew" (IV.xii.13)» while Cupid inserts the iron bit of love in Marinell's mouth "That made him stoupe, till he did 215 him bestride" (IV.xii.13). Marinell curses himself for having

despisde so chast and faire a dame, Which him had sought through trouble and long strifei Yet had refusde a God that her had sought to wife. (IV.xii.16)

As the instinct to love is awakened within Marinell

(representing the sea) for Florimell (representing the land),

he is characterized in terms of mother-love. The metaphoric

sexless ox takes on. the capabilities of female mother-love as he walks around her prison bemoning her vnworthy paine. Like as an Hynde whose calfe is falne vnwares Into some pit, where she him heares complaine, An hundred times about the pit side fares, Right sorrowfully mourning her bereaued cares. (IV.xii.17) Within the terminology of "Like as an Hynde whose calfe is falne vnwares/ Into some pit," Marinell assumes a profound human instinct expressing itself as Cymodoce's and Agape's mother-love. Like the hermaphroditic Venus of married love,

Marinell now represents the highest mortal form of love.

Strife and the degrading fury of the knights' responses to False Florimell is past in Book IV. Marinell considers ways to free his beloved Florimell but rejects them as in­ effectual. He recognizes that the situation calls for more than old-line epic battle prowess or mendacity. This recog­ nition, however, brings no plan of how to free Florimell.

Although his earlier destructive aggressiveness is gone, Marinell is not yet mature enough to act on his own or break the maternal cord tying him to Cymodoce. He still 216 exhibits excessive submissiveness. Accustomed to thralldom

under Cymodoce, he wants to stay with his newfound love, yet

does not dare "his mother disobay" (IV.xii.18). When the wed­

ding guests depart, he does not tell Cymodoce about Florimell

or ask for help but instead passively returns with his mother

to her bower under the sea.

Marinell1s actions are pre-adolescent in his desire to

remain a dutiful son. The more powerful force of Venus, how­

ever, decides it is time to put away childish things and de­ pendencies. Marinell may try to refuse the reality of love's

sexuality but cannot once the instinct for love is aroused.

Because he cannot join in wholeness with Florimell, he suffers

the pangs of lovei "Ne dayly food did take ne nightly sleepe,/

But pyn'd, and mourn'd, and languisht, and alone did weepe"

(IV.xii.19). Eventually, he becomes "Like /%7 ruefull ghost,

vnable once to stirre or moue" (IV.xii.20).

Cymodoce does not suspect her son's illness is caused by an unrevealed love and turns again to the sea god's healer, Tryphon, but he cannot help. In frustration, she turns from

the "watry gods, as booting nought,/ /And7 Vnto the shinie

heauen in haste she hide" (IV.xii.25).

When Cymodoce turns to the "shinie heauen" and Apollo, she for the first time acknowledges Marinell's birth-right as a creature of the earth. Heretofore, in seeking aid for her son, she has dealt only with representatives of the sea. These served their purposes, but they also inhibited Marinell's development into manhood. The poem assumes a distinction 21? between the two worldsi both are correct in their own places and neither invalidates the other. But like must turn to likej

it is now time for Cymodoce to turn to Apollo to cure her son.

The warmth the god carries from the "shinie heauen" opposes

Proteus's threatening coldness and False Florimell's construc­ tion of "purest snow in massie mould congeald" (III.viii.6).

Where Tryphon could not help, the healer Apollo quickly diag­ noses Marinell's problem as some inward thought, The which afflicted his engrieued mind} Which loue he red to be, that leads each liuing kind. (IV.xii.25)

When Marinell admits his love for Florimell, Cymodoce realizes it is too late to worry about Proteus's forecast of a woman's bringing about Marinell's death. Realizing the use­ lessness of seeking justice from Proteus, she goes directly to

"great king Neptune" and tells of "A cruell Tyrant" who "con­ demn'd" her son to "a wretched death" (IV.xii.29).

Neptune answers Cymodoce's passionate entreaty with rea­ soning insistance upon the truth. Softly smiling and with few words, he reveals the essence of his kingly rule as patient, impartial justice whose power cannot be denied. He reminds

Cymodoce that any wrong to her son is done to himself because only he has the power to award life or death to his subjects.

He asks who has wronged heri

And for what cause1 the truth discouer plaine. For neaer wight so euill did or thought. But would some rightfull cause pretend, thought rightly nought. (IV.xii.30) 218

Neptune's speech serves to reinforce justice as a thematic concern of epic heroism. Cymodoce's and Marinell's private lives influence and are influenced by public governance. The moral values and causes of strife in the earlier portions of the book are overcome by the natural chain of command in Nep­ tune's underwater world where no pretense can endure. Cymodoce, the plaintiff, and Proteus, the defendant, must not deal in false claims or illusion, which sure his forte.

To Neptune's question, Cymodoce answers,

Then it is by name Proteus, that hath ordayn'd my sonne to diet For that a waift, the which by fortune came Vpon your seas, he claym'd as propertiei And yet nor his, nor his in equitie. But yours the waift by high prerogatiue. (IV.xii.31) Reminded that she must be to the point, Cymodoce realizes she can expect impartial justice in Neptune's court. She pleads her case in language of a civil suit. "Ordayn'd,"

"claym'd," "propertie," "equitie," and "prerogatiue" appeal to reasoned order and decision rather than to empassioned pity. The assertion of man's ability to insert morality and justice into rapacious seizure is made. The state and its courts are an agency of moral perfection and justice if the proper chain of command is followed. In seizing Florimell,

Proteus has undermined Neptune's rule.

Where Cymodoce once asked Neptune to deliver the wealth of the seas for her son's glory, she now asks him to "my sonne repriuei/ So shall you by one gift saue all vs three 219 aliue" (IV.xii.31). Through painful experience, she has learned a higher set of values. The gift will be not one of wealth but of Florimelli e.g., love and life. Cymodoce will­ ingly and irrevocably links Florimell's fate with Marinell's and her own. Having established the point that the issue is truly about Neptune's retaining principal power in a unified civil community, she then seeks mercy for her son. The struc­ ture of Neptune's society shows distinct respect for hierar­ chical tradition, as exemplified in the Thames and Medway's ceremonial procession. His court of justice insists upon or­ der and the harmonious relationships binding humanity togeth­ er. A paradigm of virtuous, strong rulership, King Neptune grants Cymodoce's wish. He

streight his warrant made, Vnder the Sea-gods seale autenticall, Commaunding Proteus straight t'enlarge the mayd. (IV.xii.32) Proteus might read the warrant "with inward loathfulnesse," and be "grieued to restore the pledge, he did possesse" (IV. xii.3 2), but he dare not refuse his king's official command.

He reluctantly delivers Florimell to Cymodoce.

Upon seeing Florimell; who "all liuing creatures did excell" (IV.xii.3 3), Cymodoce immediately recognizes her in­ ner goodness and virtue. She is "right ioyous, that she got­ ten had/ So faire a wife for her sonne" (IV.xii.33). ^5

She takes Florimell home, whereupon Marinell begins to re­ cover as "soone as he beheld that angels face,/ Adorn'd with all diuine perfection" (IV.xii.34). 220 Marinell, though withered with sickness, responds to

Florimell's beauteous virtue with "the essential geniality, the rejuvenating and health-giving virtues of awakened pas­ sion." ^ Spenser exemplifies love as bringing happiness and health. Marinell's joy assimilates quickly throughout his body in a renewed of life which ends winter's killing cold.

He reacts as a withered weed through cruell winters tine, That feeles the warmth of sunny beames reflection, Liftes vp his head, that did before decline And gins to spread his leafe before the faire sun- (IV.xii.3^) shine*

Marinell responds to love as if to springtime and the sun's returning warmth. As if Demeter were bringing back the gift of seasonal warmth to the world through Zeus's justice,

Cymodoce brings the gift of Florimell to her son. Apollo's warmth is ascendant» Proteus's threatening cold and False

Florimell's snowy sterility are thwarted by the lifegiving sunshine of Florimell's presence. The amorous influence of her modesty and beauty warms Marinell's heart and stirs his soul to renewed vitality. Their promised union and the springtime warmth "of sunny beames reflection" replace the nights of lamentations and loneliness. Although Amoret and

Scudamour are kept from joining within the middle books,

Florimell and Marinell unite in mutual, spiritual friend­ ship, blessed by the vernal beauty of all-creative, fecund nature. They join for all couples and provide a satisfying sense of completion for Amoret and Scudamour. 221

Rather than the "false" loves and friendships shown in the beginning cantos of Book IV, the reader senses the union of two lovers capable of mutual faith and virtuous union.

Rather than the discord and fighting shown earlier, neither

Marinell nor his mother resort to arms. Cymodoce, instead, relies upon diplomacy and an orderly chain of command. She relies upon justice, not brute strength or cunning. William

Blissett captures the main point of Florimell's release when he states, "It is significant of the non-moral context of the myth ^Proserpine/Persephone7 that Florimell is not res­ cued by a heroic lover but released by a god at the order of a superior god— that is, in the natural course of events." ^7

As with the myth of Proserpine, The Faerie Queene's unnatural course of events within the earlier cantos of Book IV is of continual fighting and disagreement, which best finds settle­ ment through the orderly government of a "superior god." The world of Book III is one of lovers' separation and the snowy

Florimell's creation. The true Florimell is released through nonviolent means and equitable justice. She becomes the only major exemplar-female to join her lover without threat of immediate separation. Through the narrative of Florimell and

Marinell, Spenser shows the victory of love over hatred, health over sickness, and order over chaos. He provides a satisfying ending for the two books.

Spenser intermingles stories in Ariostan-type structure to create a complex, artistic whole where the reader's 222 response to Florimell and Marinell and to the material sur­ rounding their story helps to create the poem's total effect and meaning. The poet uses the Florimell and Marinell story, and False Florimell's, as a frame for Book IV. Their stories provide the structure for Books III and IV and combine the books into one thematic unit that insists upon the power of love and peace to circumvent hatred and strife. As represent­ ative lovers, they encompass the enforced separations of Brit- omart and Artegall and of Amoret and Scudamour and become their symbolic surrogates in felicitous, virtuous love.

In Book V, "Lords and Ladies infinite" and knights of

"braue courage" gather to celebrate Florimell and Marinell's wedding (V.iii.2). Her unjust, seven month captivity has been overcome. She is now free "To tast of ioy, and to wont pleas­ ures to retourne" (V.iii.l). The peaceful elements of person­ al and societal concord overcome the unjust tyrants in the earlier part of the book who would overthrow justice and societal order. The poet leaves others to describe the lux­ ury of the feasti the reader is not to be confused with oth­ er feastings in less admirable, concupiscible and irascible settings. Instead, the narrator promisesi "True vertue to aduance, shall here recounted bee" (V.iii.3).

In Florimell and Marinell's marriage ceremony, the nat­ ural phenomenon of the rivers' marriage is seen in societal terms. By carrying Florimell and Marinell's story over into 223 Book V, Spenser helps to bridge the generative aspects of

Britomart's and Artegall's story with the historic and join them with the theme of justice. False Florimell still prac­ tices delusion! but* when faced with the reality of Florimell,

she disappears. Braggadocchio is exposed as a cowardly liar and thief. Of utmost importance, Florimell has received jus­ tice and is returned to the world of a happy society as Mar­ inell 5 s bride.

Marinell*s wedding tournament repeats the chivalric mi­ lieu of Satyrane's Tournament but without its cruel trappings of unfaithful love and brutality. The state of chivalry at

Marinell's tournament might present a naiVe, simplified world whose values are imperfect, but it is a society where

justice can be attained and virtue is upheld rather than ir­ rationally denigrated. After the feasting, Sir Marinell, with six chosen knights, challenges all to battle. He fights in honor of Florimelli to prove "that she all others did ex­ cell" (V.iii.^). Rather than long descriptions of furious battles, as in Satyrane's tourney, the first two days are briefly described. They are noble contests, furiously fought but without individual brutality or bestiality. Neither side wins, although Marinell is declared each day's outstanding warrior.

On the third day, however, Marinell overextends him­ self. Like Coriolanus, he rushes into the midst of the en­ emy's ranks. For the first time during the tournament, 224

Marinell fights in unreasoning, animalistic terms. Having left his fellow warriors behind, he is captured in the midst of his prideful exuberance. His overconfidence and defeat open the door for questions about whether his beloved Flori- mell is indeed the most beautiful, as he challenged. Conse­ quently, False Florimell enters, accompanied by Braggadocchio and Artegall.

As in Satyrane's tournament, Artegall is disguised and arrives on the third day. This time, however, he is not the

"saluage knight." He exchanges shields with Braggadocchio

"to be the better hid" when he rescues Marinell from his

"vnworthie shame" (V.iii.lO). The analogous situation is rid­ iculed, yet the difference in situation is left too obvious to miss. Where he previously fought in savage disguise for the snowy Florimell, he now fights in defense of the real one and married love. Even a coward's shield will not hide his bravery. With the unworthy shield, Artegall fights worthily. De­ scribed in terms of human valor rather than bestial, Arte­ gall overcomes the first fifty knights and then the second fifty. He frees Marinell and they fight worthily together, until they are "left Lords of the field alone«/ So Marinell by him was rescu'd from his fone" (V.iii.12).

When Florimell comes out to award the honored garland of victory to the "stranger knight" who saved her beloved

Marinell and championed her cause, Braggadocchio comes forth. 225

Carrying the shield that Artegall had used, Braggadocchio

claims the honor. But he states that he did not fight for

Florimell; he fought for his own lady, who excells all others.

Rebuffed, Florimell turns aside to hide her shame. Braggadoc­

chio brings forth the snowy Florimell and unveils her. The

people are stupified with the illusion,

And said, that surely Florimell it was, Or if it were not Florimell so tride, That Florimell her selfe she then did pas. So feeble skill of perfect things the vulgar has. (V.iii.17)

Although Marinell did not fall in love with Florimell

because of her beautiful exterior, once he bases his tourney

on Florimell's beauty, he subjects his faith in her to the

level of his faith in her beauty. Thus, even Marinell is con­

founded. Gazing at the "snowy mayd," he is convinced she

is the "true Florimell" (V.iii.18).

It is up to Artegall to correct the "seemings" and judge

correctly what is virtuous and fair against "boasters pride

and gracelesse guile" (V.iii.20). While the others do not

have the information necessary to form an intelligent deci­

sion, he does. (There is an overt jest in the situation since

Artegall's disguise originated the problem.) Now, he apprises

others of the correct situation. Like Coriolanus, he shows his own sword scarred with the day's battle, his arm that bore the shield, his wounds "By which that glorie gotten

doth appeare" (V.iii.22). Having offered empirical proof of his battle, he challenges Braggadocchio to do the same. 226

Artegall charges that Braggadocchio's lady "Is not (I wager)

Florimell at all." "For proofe whereof, he bad them Flori­ mell forth call" (V.iii.22).

Then did he set her by that snowy one, Like the true saint beside the image set, Of both their beauties to make paragone, And triall, whether should the honor get. Streight way so soone as both together met, Th'enchaunted Damzell vanisht into nought« Her snowy substance melted as with heat, Ne of that goodly hew remayned ought, But th'emptie girdle, which about her wast was wrought. (V.iii.24)

As with the Gyant's scales, which presented a horrible paro­ dy of Astraea's justice, the false cannot be weighed against the true, or the wrong against the right. When compared with what is true and right, falsity and wrong weigh nothing. The snowy Florimell melts away, defeated by Florimell's real vir­ tue and real love. The pretender leaves only the golden girdle that once encircled her waist.

As with the Gyant's scales, "the doome of right" must be intellectually discerned. The balancing scale may meta­ phorically give the relationship between right and wrong, but the judgment about the relationship between false and true and what it means must take place "in the mind" (V.ii. b-7). The sensory impression of False Florimell may be re­ ceived, but the mind's reason must be able to translate the actual truth or falsity. ^ Marinell is faced with the im­ ponderable oppositions that point out the limitations of human intelligence. He was freed from his sterile nature by

Florimell's love. He has learned that corporeal beauty can 22? be an index of spiritual beauty since it co-exists within the real Florimell. Now, however, the capacity of human beings to intuit reality when faced with faulty sensory perceptions is shown as negligible. The question arises as to how much re­ ality can be penetrated by the human intellect. Perplexed at the illustration of what he sees and what he thought he saw as reality, Marinell stands aghast in contemplation of truth and falsity. In limiting the goal of love to false beauty as the pretend Florimell carried, Marinell presented himself with a dilemmas an attempt to attain the beloved may be love of the false rather than the true.

Artegall's task was not to impose the truth upon them but to turn Marinell's eyes away from the false toward the truth and goodness of Florimell. His duty as the hero of justice is to supply the conditions whereby Marinell and the knights and ladies of court can discern the "good" and then live it. He presents the ideal of love ideally governed in Florimell, which, in the body politic, would be justice.

At the disappearance of False Florimell, Marinell dis­ covers the imperfection of his senses, especially sight. With new knowledge comes enlightenment. At this point, the at­ tending confusions and disorders within his tournament are clarified. Braggadocchio's false knighthood, which he has carried since Book II, is exposed. His boasts (false testi­ mony about self) are stripped away for all society to see.

Artegall, having put off his disguise of Braggadocchio's 228 shield, conforms himself to the ideal knight of justice. The force of his unequivoeating justice that coldly weighs false against true without equity or mercy is the one essential quality to destroy False Florimell. Only this absolute in justice can free the people at the celebration who are deeply enmeshed in the illusory and lack the intuitive capacity to differentiate false from true and pay homage to the virtuous.

Artegall has liberated justice from the power of Brag- gadocchio's false assertions and moved it back within the sight of reality. The falsity imposed by the witch upon the viewers' eyes is finally destroyed. The real world, the spir­ it of truth that sustains the material world and offers hope, is set free within the social harmony of Marinell and Flori­ mell 's marriage. With the real Florimell restored to her rightful place of respect, Artegall restores the harmony of the sexes within their corrected human society.

Spenser, however, never allows peace within human soci­ ety to endure for long. As if on cue, Sir Guyon, the Knight of Temperance, appears to claim his horse that Braggadocchio stole early in Book II. Sir Guyon is greatly intemperate and would have killed the fool had he not been stopped. The brag­ gart, nonetheless,, refuses to give up the horse, and Arte­ gall must intercede to adjudicate justice. As with many areas of Marinell's wedding ceremony, Braggadocchio's trial is a patent joke. A large part of it is downright funny and, like comedy, ends with lovers united and society showing amelioration. 229

Spenser lightheartedly deals with the most serious is­ sues at times, and he does it well here. Braggadocchio (who epitomizes knighthood's fallen state) has stolen Guyon's horse while the knight was on a mission of mercy to save the babe with bloody hands (who epitomizes man's fallen state).

It is in character that the coward refuses Guyon's offer of trial by combat. Artegall, however, supports Braggadocchio's decision. Justice decided "By law of armes" belongs to "war­ like knights of yore" (V.iii.3 2). Seeking a higher level of justice than in the primitive past, Artegall insists their civilization has progressed beyond that warlike state of events. He asks Guyon for proof of ownership.

Guyon offers evidence* his horse, Brigadore, has a black spot in his mouth. The horse, however, will not stand still to be examined. He kicks or bites anyone attempting to "make due tryall" of Guyon's testimony (V.iii.3 3). The horse’s an­ tics are happy comedy. The reader is not to wonder why Brag­ gadocchio could sit him and now no one can touch him. Just so, we were not to question how False Florimell came to wear the golden girdle of chastity. But at Guyon's call, Briga­ dore stands still for inspection. All can see his "secret marke." Happy to be back with Guyon, his horse "friskt, and flong aloft, and louted low on knee" (V.iii.3 4).

Just as Braggadocchio continues an element of comedy that alleviates the seriousness of man's sin, the horse's antics hint at the poem’s division from real life even as it 230

underscores all might not be quite perfect within Artegall's

world of justice in courtly society. A note of the ridiculous

carries into the perfection of the courtly world to which

Florimell returns. Yet, we must remember Welsford's words

when introducing her study of Spenser's doctrine of love*

The ability to veer without embarrassment from high seriousness to gallantry and mock gravity is a recur­ rent feature of sixteenth-century poetry, and dis­ regard of it can lead to misinterpretation. ™

Spenser's thematic concern is uppermosti the injustice set

up in Book II's early canto is corrected and Guyon's horse

returned? False Florimell has melted away, and Braggadocchio

has been exposed as a liar and a thief.

The coward does not let well enough alone, though,

and he upbraids Artegall for his "iudgement so vniust" (V.

iii.35)» Now Guyon must stop Artegall from killing the fool.

Guyon pacifies Artegall's rage by appealing to his sense of

dignityi

Sir knight, it would dishonour bee To you, that are our iudge of equity, To wreake your wrath on such a carle as hee« It's punishment enough that all his shame doe see. (V.iii.3 6)

It is fitting that Talus carry out the punishment. Given

Talus's lack of humor, the punishment receives a wry touch.

He shaves Braggadocchio's beard and divests him of his armor.

Ladies now "laugh at Ladies, Knights at Knights" at "what a glorious shew he made in all their sights" (V.iii.3 9)*

Concordia reigns within the "ioyous dayes and gladfull 231 nights" of the wedding festivities (V.iii.40). Land and sea are joined in Florimell and Marinell within a society that upholds justice and can display happiness and an enjoy­ ment of life. They repeat the happy political and historical connotations of the mythical rivers' marriage, when the bridegroom Thames wears the coronet of "the famous Troynou- ant" (IV.xi.28), thereby joining the historical fiction of

England within their mythological underpinning of the generative cycle. Through Florimell and Marinell comes hope of earthly continuation and the replenishment of concordia over discord and strife, illusions and untruths. Their vir­ tuous union helps to join friendship and love with justice.

Through their metaphoric joining of land and sea, Florimell and Marinell help to join the mutability of the world and the processes of nature within the world as fulfilling God's divine order. The principles of natural law and man's just­ ice remaim concord and love should be man's ultimate goal upon this earth. NOTES

* Florimell's introduction is noteworthily intense.

2 Kathleen Williams, "Venus and Dianai Some Uses of Myth in The Faerie Queene." Spenseri A Collection of Criti­ cal Essays. ed. Harry Berger, Jr. (Englewood Cliffsi Prentice, i960) 113. Refer to Kathleen Williams, Spenser's World 112- 115.

^ Roche 68-71. k Roche 1901 refer to 190-92.

^ “Ox," Oxford English Dictionary. VII (1933)* Although Spenser does not call Marinell a metaphorically castrated "Ox," it seems probable that such a creature was in his mind. Definition li "The domestic bovine quadruped (sexually distin­ guished as bull and cow) 1 in common use, applied to the male castrated and used for draught purposes, or reared to serve as food."

^ A. Bartlett Giamatti, Play of Double Sensesi Spenser's "Faerie Queene" (Englewood Cliffsi Prentice, 1975) 121.

^ Giametti, Double Senses. Refer to "Poets and Proteus" 118-33.

Q Note that critics often equate Florimell's fear with her fear of sexuality* Florimell herself represents only beauty, desirability, and timorous passivity. For this view, see Graham Hough, A Preface to the "Faerie Queene" (New Yorki Norton, 1 9 6 2) I7 0-7 2. He stresses, correctly, that Florimell is a variant parallel with Amoret, Britomart, and Belphoebe, but then, as do many critics, neglects to consider that Flor­ imell never fears a sexual encounter with Marinell, as does Amoret with Scudamour. If Florimell's fear has an identifiable source, it could be considered to stem from her knowledge that whatever pursues her will hinder her quest for Marinell.

232 233

^ Janet Spens, Spenser*s "Faerie Queene"t An Interpre­ tation (1934; New Yorks Russell, 1967) 2 0. Spens points out discrepencies in Spenser's chronology of events relating to Britomart's wounding Marinell and the time of Florimell's flight from court to discover whether he is alive or dead.

1 0 Roche 190.

** There is some confusion in Spenser's wording when he describes Florimell's golden girdle. In canto vii, Spenser refers to the girdle as a "golden ribband" (III.vii.3 6). The beast returns to the witch with the girdle. It is "Tyde with her broken girdle"(III.viii.2). Yet, Sir Satyrane also has the girdle on display at his tournament! it is "A gorgeous girdle, curiously embost/ With pearle and precious stone, . . 1/ It was the same, which lately Florimel had lost" (IV.iv. 15). It seems likely that Satyrane takes the ribbon from the girdle and uses it to tie around the hyena; thus, the girdle is "broken," and both beast and knight can possess a portion of it.

* 2 Alastair Fowler 22.

^ H.S.V. Jones, A Spenser Handbook (1930; New Yorki Ap­ pleton, 1958) 240. The actual quotation is "But sometimes, as in the case of the False Florimell, a beautiful body will lead one to love a base mind; this, says Giraldi, cannot be called friendship, but rather a low and abominable union." Jones is referring to Giraldi Cinthio's Tre Dialoghi della Vita Civile. 14 Jones, Spenser Handbook 2 3 7. "In perfect friendships, the friends are really equal and each gets from the other a return of like . . . ." The idea "that a friend is an alter ego, or the replica of oneself,” was formulated by the mor­ alist Zeno, and "echoed by Aristotle, Cicero, and Montaigne."

Critics are divided as to whether Proteus is a force for good or for evil. Refer to Kathleen Williams, Spenser's World for a discussion of Proteus as providence 119.

^ Roche 157; 184-89. Roche's discussion of the Trojan myth and the two Helen's is highly relevant to Florimell and her double.and to Marinell as Achilles.

17 Roche 159. 234

Woodhouse 47-48.

^ Barbara Smith 152-53*

2 0 Roche 163.

2* For a discussion of discordia concors, see Roche 4-31} Kathleen Williams, Spenser's World 87-91.

22 Joseph B. Dallett, "The Faerie Queene, IV, i-vi A Synopsis of Discord," MLN 75 (1960)i 639-43.

2 3 Roche 7.

2if Hough 182.

2 5 Hough 182.

2^ Harry Berger, Jr., "The Faerie Queene. Book IIIi A General Description" Essential Articles! Edmund Spenser, ed A.C. Hamilton (Hamden, Conn." Shoe String, 1972) 414^

2^ Aristotle 461.

2® Refer to Hieatt, "Spenser to Structure" 112; Charles G. Smith, "The Ethical Allegory of the Two Florimells," SP 31 (1934)i 151) Charles G. Smith, "Spenser's Theory of Friend­ ship," PMLA 49 (1934)« 490-500i E.D. Pettet, Shakespeare and the Romance Tradition (Londoni Staples, 1949) 15*

2^ Mark P.O. Morford and Robert J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology (New Yorki David McKay, 1971) 56. When Spenser con­ sults Memory, he actually is consulting the Muses.

3 0 Blissetti 99.

3* Rosemary Freeman, The Faerie Queene» A Companion for Readers (Berkeley: U of Calif. P,“1970) 2 5 8.

3 2 Hamilton, Structure 168.

3 3 Nohrnberg 599. 235

3** Roche 73-82.

3$ Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, trans., Charles S. Singleton (Garden Cityi Doubleday, 1959) 3UI-U5. "I say that beauty springs from God and is like a circle, the center of which is goodness. And hence, as there can be no circle without a center, there can be no beauty without goodness. Thus, a wicked soul rarely inhabits a beau­ tiful body, and for that reason outward beauty is a sign of inner goodness." 3 ^ 2

3^ C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love (1936} New York: Oxford UP, 1958) 2 3 7.

37 Blissett:100.

Surely Dunseath is overly harsh in judging Marinell here, when he calls his furious fighting a "fall." The oc­ casion of his wedding celebration tends to make any fault meliorable. Also Marinell must get himself into some sort of trouble before Artegall can play the heroic rescuer on the third day. See T.K. Dunseath, Spenser's Allegory of Justice in Book Five of "The Faerie Queene" (Princeton1 Princeton UP, 1 9 6 8) ll^T-1 5.

39 Maccaffrey ^13-1^.

Welsford 2k. CHAPTER VI

"Well worthy stock, from which the branches sprong"«

THE MAJOR EXEMPLAR-LOVERS, BRITOMART AND ARTEGALL

As do no other Spenser figures, Britomart and Artegall combine past mythic and present English histories. As

Giamatti states, epics are about quest and the search for a new world and new knowledge or about exile and the quest to return home to the roots of our beginnings where woman is the center. * Thus Britomart epitomizes the quest. She might desire to remain at home in tranquil safety, but her heroic impulse to love insists she quest after Artegall so she can bring him back to surmount the demonic forces that would destroy her British homeland. She is to found a home with him and create a new and better society from the best memory of the "royall seed, the antique Troian blood" (III.iii.42). Her heroic duty is to find Artegall and thereby create a domestic center for themselves that can broaden historically to include all Britains. This quest for Artegall and love is fivefold* (1) Britomart is to join love and procreation with English nationalism and bring the hope of peace to England. (2) Her heroic task is to mature on a human, sexual level so she can become a wife

236 237 to Artegall and an intelligent ruler. (3) In the course of her quest for him, she provides a heroic exemplum of loving friendship that overcomes societal strife. (4) Once Britomart encounters Artegall, she provides a civilizing effect to change him from a "saluage knight" into one whose justice supports love and a peaceful society. (5) Throughout, Brito­ mart heroically fuses friendship with love, moral and spirit­ ual development, and political action. These latter areas become most specific in her preparations to free Artegall from Radigund's servitude and give him back his leadership.

The Iliad relates Menelaus's attempt to regain Helen and take her home* the Odyssey, tells of Odysseus's attempt to return to Ithaca and Penelope. The Gerusalemme Liberata describes the crusaders' attempt to free the holy city and gain paradise* and The Faerie Queene narrates the exemplar- knights' attempts to return to the Faerie Queene and her court after their adventures. Given those terms of return,

Britomart's quest renders an even higher form of epic hero­ ism in Spenser's poem,since she neither originates from nor seeks to return to Faerie Court. Her attempt to find Artegall and love is a heroic quest originating from and returning to her Britain so she can found an even more glorious civili­ zation. As Anchises, in death, attempts to teach Aeneas how best to live in peace, Britomart, in life, presents an active paradigm of the hope for peace. As she quests through Books III, IV, and V, she reveals the civilizing impulse of love. 238

Britomart herself is a celebration of the generative

powers bringing progeny and civilization. During her travels,

she awakens to sexual love as she learns to recognize and com­

bat those many forces that would destroy the generative im-

ulse of love. She provides examples of friendship that can

create a society able to live amicably in a politically just

system. Her scan of history is immense» her view looks forward

to what Britain can and should be and backward to what Troy

was in Aeneas, her ancestor, and was not in Paris.

At her entrance, Britomart is described as combining

the themes of British nationalism, female warrior, and love.

Unlike other knights-exemplar of the poem, she is not in­

troduced in terms of her virtue, Chastity. Instead, she is

presented as a strongly national and passionate loveri "the

famous Britomart." whose fame comes through her "straunge

aduenter" begun "from Britaine" in order "To seeke her louer"

whom she saw "in Venus looking glas” (III.i.8 ). Her name

stands for "British Mars," a connection supported by her nurse Glauce's later pun calling her the "mayd Martiall"

(III.iii.53)• Elizabethans would probably remember Ario­

sto's popular heroine, Bradamante. Antiquarians would likely

catch other complexities behind Britomart's name. They might first remember Comitis's Mythologiae's follower of Diana

called Britomartis, ^ or, more likely, remember Boccaccio's wood nymph called Britona, later referred to as "Britona. Martis filia. quae cum vireo adhaesisset Dianae. et perpetuo 2 39

facto virginitatis toto." ^ As chaste warrior for her coun­

try, Britomart is simultaneously a forerunner of the virgin

queen, Elizabeth, and a contemporary "British Mars" who

searches for Artegall and then fights for him against Radi-

gund so he will return to Britain as the kingdom's protector.

Britomart may be named after a follower of chaste Diana,

but she is guided by love, and her functions are generative.

The looking glass in which she sees her lover is initially

described as Venus's rather than Merlin’s. As warrior, Brit­

omart represents the Renaissance ideal of virtu, which in

this context means having extra moral strength and energy

as well as being virtuous and having virtue. As female war­

rior seeking her lover, her extra moral strength and guiding

energy derive from her passionate love. Her search for Arte­

gall is initiated from the amatory impulse and her ideal seen

"in Venus looking glas" (III.i.8 ). Her heroic quest is an

attempt to find that love and reconcile the ideal with the

reality of Artegall and life on this earth. Her heroic mis­

sion is to discover Britain's true greatness that will come

through her progeny, who will form the Tudor dynasty and re­

turn the Golden age of Justice to England through Queen

Elizabeth.

The aggressive, libidinal attraction that compels

Britomart to begin her quest for Artegall also holds womanly understanding. She can yield eventually to an enduring, in­ timately sexual and friendly relationship. The entymology of her name as "British Mars" joins with "Venus looking glas"

to sport in Mars and Venus's "loues and gentle iollities"

(I.Pr.3). The combination encourages the idea of an androgen­

ic unioni when necessary, Britomart is masculinely competi­

tive} when called for, womanly and ameliorative. She stands

between Belphoebe and Amoret "as an example of completed and 5 integrated human nature, 'amiable grace and manly terror.'"

Both sexes are knit in concord within her quest to find Arte-

gall, which exemplifies the first natural competitiveness

necessary to win the loved one. She can then give way to ami­ able feminine grace that brings concordia. Then, the fe­

male Venus's call for procreation that begins Britomart's

quest will yield to the female Venus who gentles the Martian

Britomart and Artegall and allays "his murdrous spoiles and

bloudy rage" (I.Pr.3)» Venus, after all, is more than just

libidinal attraction. In spiritual context, she is Venus

Generatrix. God's all-purposeful life force for regeneration.

In political context, she is the mother of Aeneas and the

founding force of the arts of peace and good government in

the second Troy.

The importance of Merlin's prophecy to Britomart must not be underestimated within the context of British history,

society, and politics. Before Britomart hears Merlin's ex­ planation of her envisioned Artegall in Merlin's/Venus's

"glassie globe" (III.ii.2l), she is little more than an adolescent who looks in a magic glass to discover her future 241

husband. After she learns her destiny as progenitor of a line

of kings, she takes up her heroic quest. The glass globe is

placed in her father's castle to entice Britomart to begin

her "heauenly destiny" (III.iii.24) as well as to protect

King Ryance's current kingdom. ^ Britomart looks in the glass and sees a vision of "A

comely knight" who bears Achilles' armort "Portly his person

was, and much increast/ Through his Heroicke grace, and honor­

able gest" (III.ii.24). From her simple desire for practical

advice from Merlin on how to cope with her sudden passion of

love for the envisioned knight comes prophetic illumination!

Britomart will synthesize the political, historical, domestic,

and generative within her quest for union with Artegall. The

knight exemplar of justice and future founder of Tudor royal- .

ty is to be her husband. All of British destiny is being

pulled toward its Tudor rule, until "sacred Peace" will still

the "warlike minds" of Britomart's long, ancestral linej a

"royall virgin" (Queen Elizabeth) will rule (III.iii.49). A

clear, national, political identity is traced through the

envisioned knight, and concord will come between all races.

It is Britomart's duty to take up England's fate in her

girlish hands. Merlin tells her:

Indeed the fates are firme, And may not shrinck, though all the world do shakei Yet ought mens good endeuours them confirme. And guide the heauenly causes to their constant terme. (III.iii.25) Britomart must tear herself from family, home, and country. ZkZ

It is "the streight course of heauenly destiny,"

Led with eternall prouidence, that has Guided thy glaunce, to bring his will to pass Ne is thy fate, ne is thy fortune ill, To loue the prowest knight, that euer was. Therefore submit thy wayes vnto his will, And do by all dew meanes thy destiny fulfill. (III.iii.24)

Merlin's prophesy makes Britomart's quest to find her

beloved a heroic duty of national magnitude. Britomart is to

bring Artegall "firmely bound with faithfull band" back "To

this his natiue soyle." He is to "aide his countrey, to with­

stand/ The powre of forrein Paynims, which inuade thy land"

(III.iii.2?). Artegall's greatest battles are to be fought

on British soil. The "maid Martiall" is to bring back more

than just thb most able warrior, however. To Artegall*s

fierce justice, Britomart will bring mercy and equity that

can turn aside civil discord and rebellion. With wise govern­

ance, peace can be encouraged to its fullest extent. Because

Britomart knows the outcome of her heroic quest for love, a

famous line of kings culminating in Elizabeth and a golden

rule of peace, her quest reaches new heights of nationalistic

intent.

The forecast of her destiny and England's future releas­

es Britomart from chronological history into transcendant knowledge that overcomes time. She readily accepts her own involvement in history. She knows that the direct descent of the Tudor crown will come not from Arthur but from herself and Artegall. Merlin's prophecy rewrites mythic history 243 but joins with the "Briton moniments" to form a continuous , national chronicle tracing its foundation to the legend of

Brutus, founder of the new Troy in Albion. When Merlin re­ minds Britomart that her womb carries the "famous Progenie" from the "auncient Troian blood" (III.iii.22), Spenser

strengthens the Tudor claim to the Trojan bloodline.^ Through

Artegall's lineage as a British changeling and half-brother O to Arthur, the Tudors sire linked to the Arthurian myth.

Through Merlin's prophecy, Elizabethan Englstnd is given sin even stronger nationsil identity. In exploring Britain's fu­ ture, England is extolled as a nation, and her pride is clari­ fied. Britomart, as the stock from which the glorious Eliza­ beth springs, receives validation of worth from her final off­ spring. Britomart derives her utmost historical meaning from

Elizabeth's greatness. Just so, Elizabeth receives confirmation of worth from her glorious progenitors, Britomart and Arte­ gall. Merlin justifies Britomart's right to love Artegall by making it her national mission to love. Britomart, in­ spired by his legendary vision of reality, begins her mythic and heroic quest.

To prepare herself for her quest of love-as-duty and duty-as-love, Britomart takes up the armor of the "Saxon

Virgin," who fought for Uther Pendragon, "Faire Angela." for whose love the other Saxons call themselves "Angles"

(III.iii.55*56)• Britomart, the "British Mars," thereby meta­ phorically joins the warring Angles and Saxons within 2Vi-

"Angland." The Saxons* strife against the Britons over cen­ turies of rule is overcome within Briton's virgin, Britomart, in her quest for love and to create the Tudor dynasty. As

Henry VII brings peace back to Britain after the War of the Roses by reuniting the Lancasters and Yorks, Britomart's armor seems to unite the two races and bring amity out of strife. The armor Britomart puts on is to be regarded as a meta­ phoric assumption of societal obligations. The armor, in turn, will protect whoever takes up and puts on society's national interest. The didacticism carries furtheri as Brit­ omart is to follow Angela's example, Queen Elizabeth is to follow Britomart's as a virago battling fervantly for Eng­ land. Nurse Glauce counsels Britomart to employ Angela for her example "and equall courage to thee take" (III.iii.

56). Her ferocity in battle is described in terms of love for country. Britomart digests Glauce*s inspiring words until

great desire Of warlike armes in her forthwith they tynd, And generous stout courage did inspire, That she resolu'd, vnweeting to her Sire, Aduent'rous knighthood on her selfe to don. (III.iii*57) In Angela's armor, Britomart displays all the qualities necessary to an epic heroi royal blood, battle prowess, re­ spect from other warriors, and personal beauty. Her woman­ hood holds the potential of generative fullness as no male knight could hope to present it. She is wholly bent upon 245 finding Artegall and fulfilling her destiny of earthly love

and marriage. As the foremost British nationalist, she goes

out to change from girlish ardor into mature sexuality that

can fulfill her heroic role. Her heroic task as the Virtue

of Chastity in Book III is to be inducted into womanhood as

she meets and confronts the debased versions of chastity and friendship that actively oppose generative love.

Britomart's quest is one of sexual maturation. Within this quest, she meets the primary villains of God's and Na­ ture's first law of generation! "the mightie word" that com­ manded all creatures "to increase and multiply" (III.vi.34).

First, in Castle Joyeous, Malecasta encourages lechery and . violates any faithfulness to true love. Her courtly love- maneuverings are seen again in Paridell and Hellenore's Ovidian play at love while the jealous husband, Malbecco, tries un­ successfully to guard his young wife from others. The arch villain of the generative principle, however, is Busyrane, who would keep Amoret from completing her wedding night and would hold back love from entering the world of mankind.

In reaching sexual maturation, Britomart receives her first, libidinal wound from Cupid when she sees Artegall in

Merlin's looking glass. Her second wound she receives from

Gardante at Castle Joyeous after she rejects Malecasta's ad­ vances. The third wound she receives from Busyrane after she frees Amoret from her chains. These wounds represent a 246 progressive "induction into passionate love." ^ This sexual urge that invades her is not to be denied, nor can it be en­ tirely controlled.by reason as Britomart follows her quest toward sexual maturation and Artegall. Yet, driven by Cupid's wound, Britomart "never so completely yields to passion that 10 her reason cannot reassert itself." The wounds are to be viewed as beneficial if painful stages within her life; con­ sequently, they are light ones rather than mortally dangerous.

Britomart remains free of the evil Cupid's power that would destroy her through love's passion.

Britomart's quest for sexual maturation runs on two levelsi the natural cycle of generation as seen in Venus's pursuit of Adonis and whose primary metaphor is the Garden of

Adonis and "the ongoing process of history and social cus- 11 tom." While Florimell and Marinell bring the generative mixing of land and sea within the societal and historical realms of the British rivers' marriage, Britomart brings the social and historical within the range of the generative cycle.

Once Britomart accepts her sexuality as a natural impulse, she is quickly sets against mankind's social customs of court­ ly love, for these customs hinder natural organic growth.

At Castle Joyeous, Britomart meets a chivalric romance situation where six knights are "ganging up on" one. After rescuing the underdog (whom Spenser calls Redcrosse and/or Guyon), Britomart learns that the castle's custom calls for each visiting knight either to renounce his lady-love or prove 24? by battle that his lady is more beautiful than the lady of the castle, Malecasta. If the visiting knight wins, his reward is

Malecasta. If he loses, he must give up his lady-love and serve Malecasta. This no-win situation violates faithfulness in love and encourages adultery with the lascivious "Lady of delight" (III.i.31)» Castle Joyeous*s rules prey upon the chivalric code of honor with elegant treacheries. Its castle- life relects crumbling religious, moral, and political values, leaving honor without a basis of morality but with a veneer of elegant chivalric customs that practice the novelty of chiv­ alry without its ideals.

Like any good knight, Britomart espouses the codes of honor and love. Bringing "rebuke to the unchaste and aid to the incomplete or insecure in virtue," ^ she chides the six aggressive knights about the necessity for faithfulness in lovei "For knight to leaue his Ladie were great shame,/ That faithfull is, and better were to die" (III.i.25). Her words support Redcrosse*s refusal to veer from his lady-love and refute Scudamour's too ready acceptance of "maisterie" in love. Throughout her relationship with Artegall, She follows these next words of advice*

All losse is lesse, and lesse the infamie, Then losse of loue to him, that loues but onei Ne may loue be compeld by maisterie; For soone as maisterie comes, sweet loue anone Taketh his nimble wings, and soone away is gone. (III.i.25) 2*4-8

Britomart takes up Redcrosse's battle to "proue his cause" that faithfulness in love is worth battling for (III. i .28). Yet, even in this deadly serious vein, she uses her disguised feminity t.o mock the castle's courtly rules by stating that she loves but has "Lady none;/ Yet will I not fro mine owne loue remoue" to serve Malecasta (III.i.28).

Forcing the knights to yield, Britomart rebukes their false values: now may ye all see plaine, That truth is strong, and trew loue most of might, That for his trusty seruaunts doth so strongly fight. (III.i.29) Having proven the powerful weaponry of "truth" and "trew love" in battle and words, she allows the castle's defeated champi­ ons to take Redcrosse and her in to meet their "Lady of de­ light. " Malecasta (III.i.31). The materialistic luxury of the castle points to its voluptuous carnality. Pillors and posts are framed of "purest bullion" (III.i.32). Acrasia's self indulgent sensuality is retold within the M t t y terms of Castle Joyeous's tapestries and Venus's concupiescent hunt of Adonis. The Circian self- indulgence that turns men into lusting beasts is "prettied up" to escape the realities of life and death. Libidinous ap­ petite is neither sexually arousing nor devastating, as in the Bower of Bliss or Cupid's Masque. Castle Joyeous's pleas­ ing tapestries relate the story of Venus's first being smitten with Adonis's beauty, her voyeuristic pleasuring in his body, 2^9

hie joy in "the hunt and being gored by the boar, then his

escaping mortality "by being transformed into a flower. Castle

Joyeous offers a "pleasure palace" to its reveling Knights

and ladies who delight in loose loves and swim "deepe in

sensuall desires" (ill.i.39). It is no House of Busyrane

where sexual passion is repressed to deny generation or where

"wastefull emptinesse,/ And solemne silence" hangs "ouer all

that place" (III,xi .53).

Castle Joyeous is a place of easy life, mistaKes and

"seemings." The narrator assists the ambiguity of these mis­

takes by jumping back and forth from different characters'

viewpoints, until the truth of the castle's trivializations

of love are exposed as negations of virtuous love's exist- li|. .. ence. Britomart and Redcrosse are shown as evaluating the

trappings surrounding Malecasta in her bower. ^ Just as

identities are hidden or mistaken in the castle, Malecasta

seems a woman of great beauty (III.i.41). and Britomart is

disguised as a male knight. Although beautiful, Malecasta

has "wanton eyes" that "roll too lightly" and "too often" glance "Wi-thout regard of grace, or comely amenaunce" (Ill.i,

41). Like her imitative court, Malecasta is frivolous and superficial. Her sexual overtures extend beyond modest bounds in her desire to sink herself within little sexual affairs that fill -the emptiness of her life.

Seeking Britomart, Malecasta thinks she is "a fresh and lusty knight" and begins a flirtation of avowed suffering for 250

love, to which Britomart offers sympathetic understanding.

Knowing that the female Malecasta offers no real sexual threat,

Britomart playfully participates in the badinage. Britomart only partially understands the complexities of Cupid's "game of love." In the familiar romance framework of the reluctant male knight's being wooed by his ardent hostess, Britomart follows the social amenities of the t&te-a-t&te without ex­ pecting its complications of culmination.*^ Importantly, she refuses to despise love, even in its least gracious form. Al­ though she realizes that Malecasta holds "Her loue too light, to wooe a wandring guest," Britomart also firmly believes that

"great rebuke it is, loue to despise,/ Or rudely sdeigne a gentle harts request" (III.i.55)* s^e tends to judge Male­ casta's avowed sufferings because of love as similar to her own sufferings because of love. Britomart must learn about the distortions of love from experience.

When Britomart goes to her chamber and bed, Malecasta changes the situation. In scarlet robe, Malecasta creeps into bed with Britomart for a night of enjoyment with an attractive 17 male. ' The female Britomart reacts by jumping to the conclu­ sion that a male "loathed leachour" has invaded her bed (III. i.62). It is sheer comedy as Britomart jumps out of bed, grabs her sword, waves it, and Malecasta faints in fright.

Gardante, in protecting Malecasta, gives Britomart her second wound of love, which represents the sexual temptation of sight, the first of the conventional six stages of lecherous 251 lft love. The arrowtip, with its metaphoric power of Cupid's gold dart, gores Britomart's side, and drops of purple blood stain her "lilly smock" (III.i.65). Britomart is prepared for sexual love. But because she is innocent of any sin. in love,

"the wound" is "not deepe" (III.i.6 5). The arrow inducts her into sexuality beyond the untrustworthy "seemings" of the castle and of first-sight. Britomart will henceforth be more open to sexual love from Artegall and more suspecting of the

"seemings" of love.

Britomart must discover the reality of love and the real

Artegall, not the "seeming" vision in the "glassie globe," which, after all, began Britomart's journey. While Britomart recognized the sexual looseness in the castle, she at least partially countenanced it through her courtesy to Malecasta.

Having arrived at a far better understanding of just what the easy sexuality of Castle Joyeous is all about, she refuses to stay "Where so loose life, and so vngentle trade" take place

(III.i.6 7). Her moral sense is alerted? the tawdry "seemings" of Castle Joyeous have served their purpose.

Britomart has begun her sexual maturation, but she must also learn moral fortitude and display it. She must prove herself worthy of her heroic endeavor by conquering fears for the success of her quest. Having searched throughout Faerie- land for Artegall, Britomart, with nurse Glauce, becomes de­ spondent. As an embodiment of her self-defeatism and "spirit­ ual peril," her steps are directed toward the seashore. 252

Seated along the strand, Britomart casts her fears and dis­

couragement upon the dangers of Neptune's watery world. Her

previous dejection leads her to a fully formed realization

that safety comes only in- being piloted by reason rather 20 them "bold emd blind" "loue" (III.iv.9). Tested by her own

doubts and fears, she is found worthy of her heroic quest.

Her metaphoric joining of land and sea makes them no longer

antagonists but complements, thereby preparing the way for

Florimell and Marinell to arrive at a similar "gladsome port"

of safety (III.iv.lo). The measure of Britomart's having

conquered her fears and having matured in love is conf_rmed

in her victory over Marinell, who represents the fecund sea

but devotes his life to the sterile riches along his strand.

Britomart's second major area of sexual maturation takes place at Malbecco's house. The episode is introduced iron­ ically and with knightly buffoonery. Spenser shows Britomart's taking on male aggressiveness and pride as she and several other knights battle over possession of a pig stall during a heavy storm. Refused entrance to Malbecco's house, the knights join in ignominious suffering to "flame the gates" of Malbecco's house (III.ix.18). Thus, the fabliaux of Pari- dell and Hellenore's courtship and the pseudo-hi story of his tale of Paris are introduced through situational comedy. 253

Britomart is not allowed to appear ridiculous for long,

however. In a dramatic description of disarmament, she reveals

her beauty, and the knights are "smitten" with the "wondrous

sight" of her beautiful goodness (III.ix.23). The men recog­ nize her as someone truly extraordinary in beautiful chas­

tity. Her beauty brings concord among them as their minds

"abide/ In contemplation of diuinitie," and they worship her

"cheualree,/ And noble prowesse" rather than lust after her

(III .ix,2*0 . The obverse is readily apparent once Hellenore joins the group for dinner. The men's function of sight turns from an appreciation of Britomart's goodness to seduction. The

one-eyed Malbecco jealously watches the men, especially

Sir Satyrane and Britomart to protect his beautiful, lusty, young wife from them. His blind side is left open for Pari- dell to flirt with Hellenore in a classic Renaissance de- 21 scription of sight being used to cause love. Hellenore throws her own "firie dart" of "priuy lust" that sinks into

Paridell's "weake hart" (III.ix.28,29)• The pair carry on an Ovidian game of love complete with spilling wine in a

"sacrament prophane" (III.ix.30). Paridell's cold, calcu­ lated seduction robs love of sentiment and consideration for the object of seduction. He has no moral scruples about stealing his host's wife or gold. Paridell and Hellenore play out the cycle of Trojan destruction caused by Paris and Helen's first reckless 25^

abandonment of moral principles. The two all but devour

each other with their eyes as they perform the fine art of wooing and eating, equating the luxury of covert sexuality

with sumptuous food. In a "politic regulation of conduct,"

he sends Hellenore "close messages of loue" through his eyes.

He spills his wine "to let his loue be showne," and she, in

turn, spills hers "in her lap" to express the "desire her in­ ward flame to slake" (III.ix.27,30,31) • ^ The Hellenore/ Mal-

becco/ Paridell episode becomes a sardonic burlesque of the

classical Helen/ Menelaus/ Paris story.

For Eritomart's part, the eating and drinking are but

a hearty appreciation of sustenance and shared fellowship.

The communal aspect of the dinner that in her implies hearty friendship and maturation points up the narcissism and emo­ tionally infantile sexuality within Paridell and Hellenore and the sterile jealousy of Malbecco. Britomart serves as a correction to their immorality. Just as she rebuked the six unchaste knights who championed Castle Joyeous, she serves as a touchstone for Paridell's utilitarian seductions.

Paridell follows the epic convention of entertaining other guests with his story. The purpose behind his tale, however, is "to encourage Hellenore's lust through lurid de­ scriptions of the destruction of Troy. He boasts of his Tro­ jan ancestry* while Paris was a shepherd on Mount Ida, he impregnated the beautiful Oenone and deserted her. It is a fitting geneology for one who will soon seduce his host's wife, then desert her. Paridell's adroitness in language

paints a vision of destruction and self-indulgence for his

own self-serving lust. A reader familiar with the Trojan

cycle knows that the Trojan War begins because Paris took

Helen to Ilium. Paridell, however, refuses to accept lust's

responsiblity in Troy's downfall. He, instead, blames the

horrible suffering on the will of "angry Gods" or "direfull

destinie" (III.ix.33). The famous adulterous lovers are left

free of blame. Paris's seizure of Helen becomes a feat of

"great prowesse and bold hardinesse"» a reward from Venus

"for meed of /his? worthinesse" (Hl.ixO^) • Paridell's glor­

ification of Paris and Helen holds love as a dangerous and

exciting novelty that offers continuous titillation. From

this view, love's aftermath naturally brings discontent,

division, and strife with the possibility of even further

destruction. Paridell, nonetheless, glories in lust's momen­

tary excitement. His perspective of Troy is summed up when

he calls the city "nought, but an idle name" that buried now

in ashes "low dost lie" (III.ix.3 3). Britomart has within herself the generative powers

that rejuvenate civilization. As she matures in sexuality,

she also matures in discernment of those impulses that

would tear down society or, like Paris and Helen's selfish

lust, deny societal obligations. Paridell's history encom­ passes the destruction of Troy but with a new ending. Paris's

illegitimate son flees to the island, Paros, where he settles. 256

Paridell's ancestor acts heroically; Aeneas, cowardly. But

Paridell's account of founding the city, Paros, from the ashes of the old Troy does not fit in with Merlin's prophesy or the history of Aeneas's founding of Rome. Britomart cor­ rects him, saying that she has heard

she was lineally extracti For noble Britons sprong from Troians bold, And Troynouant was built of old Troyes ashes cold. (III.ix.38)

Only Britomart's prompting causes Paridell to remember that others in the Trojan line did not entirely disappear.

In Paridell's version, it is Paris, not Aeneas, who flees with "the Troian reliques sau'd from flame" (III.ix.3 6).

Furthermore, rather than praise marriage, Paridell dispar­ ages it through its close conjunction with war and death.

When Aeneas lands in "Latium," he wars long with old Latin-- us until Aeneas is

constraind, To contract wedlocki (so the fates ordaind.) Wedlock contract in bloud, and eke in blood Accomplished, that many deare complaind» The riuall slaine, the victour through the flood Escaped hardly, hardly praisd his wedlock good.

(III.ix.^2) In Paridell's version, marriage is nothing more than a per­ sonal and societal contract of political expedience. Brit­ omart, of course, holds the moral conviction that marriage is far more than his cold blooded, political carnality.

As Britomart matures sexually, she matures in her con­ cept of a just and good government which must be cojoined 257 with the moral good of its citizens. In addition, the valid­ ity of Aeneas's wedding contract as a felicitous coital union furthers her own line's greatness. Her questions and comments supply a moral to Paridell's history. With true fervor, she praises the greatness of the other Troys«

There there (said Britomart) a fresh appeard The glory of the later world to spring, And Troy againe out of her dust was reard,

• • • But a third kingdome yet is to arise. Out of the Troians scattered of-spring, That in all glory and great enterprise, But first and second Troy shall dare to equalise. (III.ix.44)

In the dinner's social setting,. Britomart asserts the moral force for good and the greatness of Britain and "Troynouant"

(London) (III.ix.45). Her celebration of ancestry is a love for and pride in her country's future. Paridell's is a fur­ therance of pride and illicit passion whose past brought only destruction. The history each presents holds the human nature that would build, or destroy.

Spenser's moral in the parody is clear. If the Tudor line is descended from the ancient Trojans, as Henry VII and Elizabeth strongly assert, then those things that de­ stroyed Troy must not be allowed to destroy the third Troyi

"Troynouant." Elizabethan Britain must not play out Paris's and Helen's abandonment of moral principles and political conscience as Paridell and Hellenore do. The ancient city of Troy countenanced adulterous lust and Paris's selfish acceptance of life for-the-moment with no thought of final 258 consequences. Paridell and Hellenore in their Italiante rituals display a declination from what Rome once was.

While Paridell praises the other branch from "the antique

Troian stocke" and the Britons' beautiful city, "Troynouant."

Hellenore clings with "fraile wit" to his every word (Ill.ix. i*7#51»52). Like their predecessors, they lap up sensual de­ light. They follow passion rather than reason; they reject moral ideals of justice and political concordia.

Britomart's commitment to sexual, social, and political maturation is a commitment to steadfast love and unselfish­ ness, moral traits necessary for Britain to recover what was sundered in Troy. Britomart might feel empathy toward Pari­ dell since both are of Trojan descent. She might consider herself "another partner of' his "payne," but the old Troy's way of life holds only ever tightening circles of destruction that must not be resurrected (III.ix.^O). Britain must honor its original stock from the line of Aeneas and reject the line of Paris that allowed its own destruction through failure to deny adulterous self-satisfaction that would pridefully destroy it. Paridell's rendition of Trojan his­ tory celebrates the glory of selfish love. The love that caused strife and destruction in the first Troy, and which

Paridell will repeat, must be reclaimed by Britomart through her passionate love for Artegall so the world can be reunited in peace.

Britomart forces Paridell to admit that he has indeed 259 heard of "Another plant" that grew from "the antique Troian stocke" (ill.ix.47). His words echo Merlin's prophecy to

Britomart in terms of plant imagery and extensive growth.

Paridell states i That of the antique Troian stocke, there grew Another plant* that raught to wondrous hight, And far abroad his mighty branches threw, Into the vtmost Angle of the world he knew.

For that same Brute. whom much he did aduaunce In all his sp each, was Svluius his sonne, (III.ix.47,48) who eventually landed on Britain.

In using the plant imagery, Spenser combines the gen­ erative growth and maturation of all nature with Britain's historic line. The image of the branching "Troian stocke"

(III.ix.47) involves Britomart with the past Troy and Rome and the future London. Their fertile imagery provides the transition from "lovesick virgin to founding mother, from individual figure to historical symbol." J Britomart began her heroic quest as a virginal virago seeking love. Now she is the Venus armata. representing the mythos of Venus, mother of Aeneas and championess of Rome. Britomart draws around herself Venus's conciliatory spirit that built civilizing harmony and the arts of justice in Rome. Britomart will bring that same loving and conciliatory spirit to the third

Troyi London. Fully accredited as the Venus armata. she is ready to enter Busyrane's House to bring out Venus's step> daughter, Amoret. 260

The subjective mental state Britomart reached at the seashore has matured and extended to an identification with the material world of her own historicity. In Angela's historically important armor, Britomart, as "Venus armata." signifies the warfare of lovei she is the compound of attrac­ tion and rejection that represents the multiplicity of love's strengths. In terms of the "bellicose Venus," Brito­ mart's weapons usually belong to her oppositions in love* either "Diana, Minerva, or Mars." But this martial Venus stands "for the strength that comes from love, for the forti­ tude that is inspired by charity, or— in reverse— for a sweetness derived from strength! de forti dulcedo."

Britomart has overcome her doubts and misgivings along her travels. Her sweetness and goodness now derive from a strength arrived at, not in battle, but from the knowledge of her own womanly maturation and purpose that cannot be denied.

As Amoret must be freed by Britomart for coition with her husband, Britomart must take that next step for her own sexual nature to be prepared for satisfactory consummation with Artegall. Much as Amoret is kept imprisoned from the world and Scudamour for seven months, Britomart's physical needs have been kept dormant. It is imperative to Britomart's own nature that she free Amoret. For, in bringing Amoret out for Scudamour, Britomart brings out that procreative aspect of herselfi mature sexual love with Artegall. At 261

that point, Britomart will represent a vision of womankind

at her largest and best. While Amoret, like Belphoebe and

Florimell, offers glimpses of a "composite portrait of the

anima," or life-force of the soul, Britomart represents the

growth of that "total image of womanhood that dominated

Spenser's imagination." 2-* Britomart enters the most dangerous and important ad­ venture in Book III. She must face the arch villain of the

generative principle and cyclical pattern of regeneration!

Busyrane. In his power to pervert the cycle of the seasons

by seizing and holding Amoret captive, he has the ability to frustrate human history. If Britomart does not prove vic­

torious over him, England's greatness and order of rule would be denied. Britomart pits the "discretion" of her good intentions and bold intelligence against Busyrane's magic (lll.xi.23). The stinking flames that keep Scudamour from entering Busyrane's castle cannot be quenched or sur­ mounted by any heroic methods of "wit or might," however

(III.xi.2 3). The virtuous passion that burns in Britomart's vitals must directly oppose the "flaming fire, ymixt with

smouldry smoke,/ And stinking Sulphure," whose "griesly hate/ And dreadfull horrour" choke off all usual entrance

(III.xi.21).

Britomart is no stranger to the flames of love. When she first envisioned Artegall in her father's glassy globe, she burned with such "raging smart" that nothing would her 262

"flame relent" (III.ii.43). Guided by her nurse, Glauce, how­ ever, Britomart came to recognize her love as different than those loves "lewdly bent" into "shamefull lusts" (III.ii.43.

41). She has innocently experience^ learned from, and re­ jected the sterile and perverted love of Castle Joyeous and

Paridell's version of love and the Trojan cycle. She has overcome her own doubt and despair by Marinell's seashore and recognizes the flames of distorted passion as evil mon­ sters of the mind. Neither attracted by the allurements of sterile gratification nor fearful of their terrors, Brito­ mart remains cautiously alert to their dangers. She refuses to be dissuaded by Scudamour*s fears and voluntarily enters the flames, shield before her face and sword pointed toward the flames. They part, and she enters Busyrane's House to rescue Amoret. Britomart moves through and into the core of Busyrane's mind/house. Its construction is not just a reflection of

Amoret's fears but is also Britomart's intelligent journey to oppose the sterile self-gratification of the cruel Cupid's version of love as war, with Cupid the ruling god. Through

Britomart's eyes, the reader sees the groupings of mytholog­ ical tapestries along the outer rooms' walls. She studies the artistic rendition of gods being metamorphosed into bestial form to satisfy their lusts. Whether Olympic gods or earthly kings and warriors, all become "moumfull Tragedyes,/ And spoiles" in Cupid's wars (III.xi.45). They repeat the 263 stories of "all Cupids warres, . . And cruell battels" until he triumphs over all his opponents (III.xi.29).

Britomart goes to battle for the wholesome continuity of human and physical nature in its proper hierarchical re­ lationship. Cupid brings chaos to individual relationships and social disorder throughout by usurping the law of nature's sovereignty. The proud Cupid wants to tyrannize not only lovers like Amoret or the gods as they indulge their sodom- itical and incestuous appetites. Cupid wants to usurp Jove's throne and assume the titular role Cupid already claims to possess. The tapestries depict "great Joue" as filled with

Cupid's sexual impulse. When he leaves his throne to take part in his exploits of love,

The winged boy did thrust into his /jove's7 throne, And scoffing, thus vnto his mother sayd, Lo now the heauens obey to me alone, And take me for their loue. which loue to earth is (III.xi.35) gone* As Fowler aptly argues through his numerological analysis,

"Spenser represents the cause of tragedy and of suffering in love as a displacement of Jupiter, the constitutional sovereign of the universe, by an evil Cupid— a Cupid wil- ful, tyrannical, desirous of mastery." c When Britomart defeats Busyrane and stops Cupid's power over Amoret, she keeps Cupid from usurping the natural laws of the universes i.e., Jove's sovereignty. When she takes Amoret out from her seven months bondage, she ends Cupid's tyrannical, destruc­ tive power over love. Her purpose is to restore the 26k

generative powers of nature to love and to Venus, who, in

turn "becomes part of an ordered universe acknowledging

divine rule.M As I pointed out earlier, Amoret, like Florimell, is

part of the ordered, animate universe when she repeats the

seven month pattern of captivity within the season myths.

When Busyrane captures Amoret, he seeks to continue for­

ever the respective fallow season that follows the season

of growth. Therefore, when Britomart carries Amoret out

from Busyrane's House, Britomart is returning the power of

the earth to regenerate itself and to ensure man's perpetu­

ity. In particular, Britomart returns married love to the

earth as the best means to keep renewed order within society

and rational thought to the individual, both of which are

temporarily stopped by Cupid's passionate tyranny.

Cupid's cruelty is manifested within the tapestries

and statue of him, which the narrator describes through

Britomart's eyes. Her movement toward the inner room of

Busyrane's House becomes a journey expressing the normal

human psychology of her mind, which is fascinated by sexu­

ality but rejects its perversions. The tapestries of Cupid's

mighty wars reflect tales from the Metamorphosis where Jove

becomes "Now like a Ram, faire Helle to peruart,/ Now like

a Bull Europa to withdraw" (III.xi.30)» Britomart has already worried about the "hidden hooke with baite" she swallowed that made her sick with love (III.ii.39)i She feared that her sexual love for Artegall might he depraved. But, through Glauce's help, she knows her love is free "Of filthy lust, contrarie vnto kind"i her "loue be not so lewdly bent"

(III.ii.40,^3). She is not guilty of "shamefull lusts" that, if allowed, would create a "Monster of your mind" (Ill.ii.

41,40). She looks at the tapestries wonderingly and moves along the room to its upper end where the golden image of

Cupid stands upon his altar. The cruelty of Cupid in the tap­ estries carries over to his statue of menacing gold. Brito- mart does not wholly understand what is going on but reacts to "the dazzling effect of the palace." 2® Seeing the mighty statue and people surrounding it in idolotrous worship, she is amazed and fascinated. She feels the strong pull Cupid exudes upon her to worship it, also. Fascinated, she "euer- more and more vpon it gazed,/ The whiles the passing bright- nes her fraile sences dazed" (III.xi.49). The human passion within her is subject to domination by the evil Cupid, but she resists. Nor is she ever in real danger of worshipping the blindfolded Cupid and the tradition of polite adultery.

The intensification of cruelty grows as the core of

Busyrane's House is approached. Through living walls of gold, the next room continues the tapestries' tales of con­ quest and spoils. Through love, "mighty Conquerors and Cap- taines strong" (III.xi.52) create their own decays the gar­ lands of their victories are trod down underfoot. Again Brit- omart gazes for a long time with "greedy eyes" (III.xi.53), 266 trying to understand those impulses she long ago rejected yet recognizes as a part of her psychological human nature. The glittering walls hold the "wilde Antickes" of

A thousand monstrous formes . . , Such as false loue doth oft vpon him weare, For loue in thousand monstrous formes doth oft appeare. (III.xi.51)

There is no sound of footstep but, instead, "wastefull empti- nesse,/ And solemne silence ouer all that place" (III.xi.53)*

Busyrrane's Hall represents "Virgil's hell, where Aeneas goes perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna /^Through the empty hall of Dis and his vacant realm* (Aen. vi.2 6 9^7 ."

Britomart examines the epigram over the doori "Be bold. be bold, and euery where Be bold," and sees over another iron door the writingi "Be not too bold" (III.xi.5*0 She studies the meaning, "yet wist not what it might intend" (III.xi.5*0 •

The epigram's apparent ambiguity allows numerous interpreta­ tions and represents certain criteria and attitudes. When ex­ tended in terms of its own logic, the words give rise to a sequence of varying moral significances in relation to each individual and each moral issue. Busyrane would urge the fol­ lower of Cupid to be bold in beginning and carrying through love affairs but not in committing oneself to fidelity. Con­ versely, the reader is to surmise that the heroic quest de­ pends upon a balance of reason and passions a temperance in love that never calls for truancy from duty or allows fickle­ ness. Nor should one unintentionally (too boldly) enter a 267 relationship only (also too boldly) to leave it in exchange for yet another new love, as Paridell would do. The natural and complete state of life must contain virttf, wisdom, and passion, all in proper balance of boldness» only then can control be achieved. As Britomart reads the admonition, she must retain that balance which allows success* she must not give way to despair and wallow in its degradation, as Scud- amour has done. Throughout Britomart’s siege of Busyrane's House, she uses intelligence and reason when called for and boldness when action is necessary. She wisely considers the dangers of the flames surrounding the castle and acts boldly because such action is required. She boldly travels through the rooms' terrifying silence to examine the tapestries and Golden Cu­ pid. When the Masque of Cupid is ended, she attempts to fol­ low but cannot because the door is locked. She wisely waits until the next evening. Then, when the door opens, "in went/

Bold Britomart. as she had late forecast,/ Neither of idle shewes, nor of false charmes aghast" (Ill.xii.29). Brito­ mart is continually bold in championing marriage. In assist­ ing the consumation of Scudamour and Amoret’s marriage, she legitimizes the spiritual and sensual delights that Amoret, the ultimate representative of passionate married love, brings to the world.

Instead of the unrestrained appetites of Amoret and

Scudamour*s wedding guests, Britomart sees Cupid's erotic masque. Instead of the positive celebration of a lawful wed­

ding ceremony, the idolatrous worshippers of Cupid present

a celebration of lawless, perverse, extramatramonial lust.

It is a triumphant culmination of cruel difficulties in the male/female relationship! Amoret and her suffering is a re­ ward to the winner. Cupid's love would rule and destroy the

sanctified ritual of marriage and natural generation. The

courtly affectations and literary mannerisms that Paridell uses to woo Hellenore are repeated in the beginning of Cu­ pid's Masque, where a similar "ioyous fellowship of Minr

strals," "wanton Bardes, and Rymers impudent" sing "of loues delight, with sweet concent" (III.xii.5). Yet, once sexual desire is sated, the cruel force of love's war causes only misery. Despight and Cruelty lead the beautiful but suffer­ ing Amoret, who carries her excised, bleeding heart, "trans­ fixed with a deadly dart," in a silver basin (III.xii.2l).

The "winged God" Cupid exults over her idolatrous and cruel processional of love.

Britomart, however, has more than the boldness the masquers celebrate, or just physical boldness» she has the boldness of wisdom and passionate, honest love. The boldness of her chastity and the reasonableness of her wait overcome

Busyrane's illusions once she enters his inner room. Rather than the many masquers, she encounters a room bare except for

Amoret, who stands chained to a brass pillar, while the evil enchanter Busyrane writes charms in his book "to make her 269 him to loue" (III.xii.3l). Amoret, however, has not succumbed to Busyrane's horrible spells written from her "liuing bloud" as clarified in the linei a "thousand charmes could not her stedfast heart remoue" (III.xii.3i)• She remains a stoic figure of passive, virtuous resistance. Busyrane immediately recognizes Britomart as love's re­ demption, throws down his book, and rushes to stab Amoret.

Britomart, however, intercepts him and receives a less dan­ gerous version of the wound. Little drops of blood stain her fair chest. As Goldberg points out, Britomart's wound car­ ries all the sexual implications of female fecundity accept- 31 ing male penetration. Spenser's wording clarifies 1 "Albe the wound were nothing deepe imprest" (III.xii.33) • Britomart is not wounded because of sexual guilt but as a natural part of her sexual maturation.

When Britomart receives the wound in her own "snowie chest," the psychological interrelationship between the two females is strengthed; they share the sufferings of love.

Amoret is a part of Britomart that she defends and frees from Busyrane's spells. When Britomart would kill the helpless

Busyrane, she would in one sense destroy the male force nec­ essary for her own sexuality. She spares him because Amoret pleads that only he has the power to reverse his incantations and cure her suffering. Britomart does not yield to Cupid's power as Amoret was expected to doj instead, her heroic en­ durance frees Amoret. She forces Busyrane to reverse his 2?0 charms. The chains fall from Amoret, and the evil dart drops from her "dying hart" as if it were a sated male organ which, upon withdrawing, falls "softly forth, as of his owne accord

(III.xii.38). 32 Having shown Britomart's sexual maturation and the power imbued within her heroic task to prepare herself on a human level to become Artegall's wife, Spenser offers a clear ex­ ample of womanly mercy. In caring for Amoret, Britomart pro­ vides a heroic exemplum of loving friendship that overcomes strife. Britomart's civility within a grouping of courtly society creates a small unit that can live amicably within a politi­ cally just system. Britomart rectifies yet another castle custom that dictates an unfair code of action. To gain en­ trance and lodging for the night, a knight must be accompanied by his lady-love. Britomart keeps her own accomodations that she has gained because of her charge, Amoret, by defeating a young knight who hopes to win both beautiful damsel and lodg­ ing. Soundly trounced, the knight must expect an uncom>- fortable night outside. Britomart takes pity on him, however.

His unhappy condition causes her to define her own sexuality more clearly to herself and to others. She arranges with the seneschal of the castle for Amoret to remain as her lady so they can keep their accomodations. In turn, however, Britomart offers to serve as the young knight's lady so he, also, can gain entrance and food. From their initial strife, Britomart's offer to share

Amoret and herself brings "goodly fellowship restor’d" (IV.i.

15). When Britomart removes her helmet and lets her long hair fall down about her, Amoret learns that her protector is a female. They form a grouping where Britomart is the middle term, a mediator between male and female, where the latter would ordinarily be subservient. The young knight is happy be­ cause he is fed and lodged. Amoret is filled with "franke af­ fection" for Britomart because she no longer fears her sexual attack (IV.i.l5)» Britomart’s consideration for another's com­ fort is on the private level of three individuals. Yet, her amity also concerns the community within the castle in that her personal conduct overcomes the strife caused by the castle's customs. Book IV's first episode closes with friendship as a civilizing virtue that overcomes strife in many relationships and situations.

Through Britomart's relationship with Amoret and with Ar- tegall, Spenser argues that friendship between two people is the nucleus of societal relationships, with or without sexual involvement. When extended, such friendships can bring peace to a group or a nation. As Spenser explicates throughout, true friendship between virtuous people brings joy within the relationship and offers a prosperous stability of under­ standing between those who call themselves friends<. The virtuous can unite in friendship and thereby strengthen and 33 confirm each other in chastity and honor. They thereby preserve each other's individual morality, which can then ex­ tend to societal morality. This microcosm of friendship be­ tween two people reflects, in civil terms, the political foundation of a country, which, in turn, reflects the Con­ cordia of the world. As in the antique records of the peace­ maker's, Britomart's heroic duty is to provide friendly leadership that can help civilize those around her.

A large part of Britomart's heroic task is to encounter

Artegall and provide a civilizing effect upon him so he will change from a "saluage knight" into a civilized being whose justice supports love and friendship in a peaceful society.

She is to combine the cruel power of his unbridled vir/virtis with her own womanly gentleness so he can take on an androgy­ nous kindness. To do this, Britomart must first cause him to 3k fall in the "middest of his pryde" (IV.Lv.kk).

Artegall's savagery fiercely resents every type of civil izing force even as it explicates the restrictive aspects of his development. Bearing a "ragged shield" whose "secret wit" bears the inscription! "Saluagesse sans finesse" (IV. iv.39), Artegall is wrapped in the trappings of nature and potential procreation. He is in many ways similar to a society in its most primitive state, even as the "secret wit of his savagery mocks the brutal nature of the other knights at Satyrane's Tournament for the Golden Cestus (IV. iv.39).

Just as the now identified Artegall is to be declared winner of the three-days tournament, a "stranger knight" 273

rushes out from the "thickest rout" (IV.iv.43). If Artegall

waited until the last day to enter the battle so he would be

fresh while the others were exhausted, he has been outman-

euvered. Britomart uses battle strategy rather than blind

rage, for she waits until the last moments to take the fore-

fronti she did her "glorie shendi/ So nought my be esteemed

happie till the end" (IV.iv.43). Artegall's ideal of fortezza

within animal fury is reduced to ridicule when Britomart

attacks her unrecognized beloved. Described "like a lyon in

his bloodie game," Artegall has roamed like a lion-king among

his beasts, glorying in his prowess (IV.iv.4l). But he is hit

So sore, that tombling backe, he downe did slyde Ouer his horses taile aboue a strydej Whence litle lust he had to rise againe. (IV.iv.44)

Artegall's ignominious slide down his horse's tail says it

all. He leaves the tournament, furious that he cannot win

the pretend Florimell as his prize and vowing revenge against

the "stranger knight" that defeated him.

Britomart brings her civilizing force of love to Arte­

gall a second time, as he sulks in the shade at the edge of

a forest. Scudamour and he have formed a pact "to wreake

their wrathes on Britomart" (IV.vi.8), the unknown knight.

Their selfish friendship reflects their victimization by Ate

and leads both knights into a horrid "unfriendliness to

self" that cripples them further. ^ They wait together in a place where the knight is likely to pass. It is 2 ? ^

Britomart's mission this time to woo Artegall away from his virulent fury. She comes "soft ryding towards them" with the playful softness of Venus that can overcome all wrath (IV. vi.9). By losing to Artegall, she will "defeat" him into love.

Artegall attacks; but his own "felonous intent" turns back upon itself, and he falls in the midst of his "despiteous ire" for "spoyle and vengeance" (IV.vi.ll). He fights in an­ imalistic terms until, like an "angry loue in his vengeance," he unseats Britomart, and they battle on the ground, where her strength is no match for his. He heaps huge blows down upon her as the poet chides* "Ah cruell hand, and thrise more cruell hart,/ That workst such wrecke on her, to whom thou dearest art” (IV.vi.16). ^ Artegall's bloodthirst is de­ scribed in terms of his hand's desire to destroy her. When her helmet is sheared off and she is revealed in all her beauty,

"his hand" thinks "to worke on her his vtmost wracke" (IV.vi.

21). Artegall's arm and sword take on a sense of responsibil­ ity to disassociate themselves from his hand's unthinking cruelty*

And cruell sword out of his fingers slacke Fell downe to ground, as if the steele had sence, And felt some ruth, or sence his hand did lacke, Or both of them did thinke, obedience To doe to so diuine a beauties excellence. (IV.vi.21)

Spenser's point of beauty overpowering brute cruelty is explicit. 2 75 37 Beauty functions here on a heroic level of virtue. ■

Britomart*s beauty assists her in her quest to civilize

Artegall's savagery. His arm, even his inanimate sword, not only respond to her beauty but also have the courage to act and reject his savage intent. They have honorably succumbed to her beauty (as they should to an image of their Maker).

Yet, Artegall's hand would, if it had its way, still "worke on her his vtmost wracke" (IV.vi.21).

While Artegall's arm and sword display virtuous reason and moral courage, his hand, representing only brute strength, does not. Artegall's physical strength can defeat

Britomart's vulnerable womanliness, yet strength in and by itself lacks moral excellence and would potentially destroy.

This lack of moral excellence keeps physical strength from being truly strong. It can, therefore, be defeated by true moral excellencei that beauty and heroic valor seen so nobly in Britomart. Artegall's "yron courage" must yield to Brit­ omart, whose beauty is a replication of "The maker selfe"

(IV.vi.17) and whose task is to defeat his savagery.

The dramatic narration of Artegall's capture by Brito­ mart' s beauty implies an indictment of the ideal of fortezza by itself, without woman's civilizing force. Once Britomart*s beauty is revealed, however, Artegall sees the potential re­ sults of his cruel strength. He begs her "pardon" for "his errour frayle,/ That had done outrage in so high degree" (IV. vi.22). He is reduced to adoration, and falls down before 276

Britomart in worship of her "angels face, vnseene afore,/

Like to the ruddie morne appeard in sight" (JV.vi.l9)i

And he himselfe long gazing thereupon, At last fell humbly downe vpon his knee, And of his wonder made religion, Weening some heauenly goddesse he did see, Or else vnweeting, what it else might beej And pardon her besought his errour frayle, That had done outrage in so high degrees Whilest trembling horrour did his sense assayle, And made ech member quake, and manly hart to quayle. (IV.vi.22)

The illuminative nature of Artegall's reaction to Brit­ omart 's beauty must not be misinterpreted or its importance minimized. Critics often point out that their meeting is centrally located in Book IV. It should be further noted that Artegall's and Scudamour’s worship of her beauty is, in turn, centrally located in canto vi. Thus, structural place­ ment indicates the importance of their worship. Artegall's sudden rapture, in particular, goes far toward clarifying

Spenser's concept of love and heroism. Artegall's worship of her beauty in canto vi is not, as Dunseath contends, just another manifestation of his faulty character. Artegall is not, as Dunseath declares, "guilty of prostrating himself OO at beauty's shrine." J Nor should we believe that "He him­ self is the instrument of his fall to concupiscence, when he 39 slavishly prostrates himself before Britomart's beauty." '

To accept Dunseath's view is to muddy Spenser's intentions.

Artegall's impulse is diametrically opposed to the idolo- trous worship of beauty and concupiescence. Above all, Arte­ gall's worship of Britomart's beauty must not be confused 2 77 with his worship of Radigund's beauty and unwise decision to subrogate his power to her. Similarities between the two episodes are there, but as contrasts to the different rela­ tionships Artegall has with each.

Like Una, who always saw the wonderful potential within her beloved Redcrosse, Britomart has always seen Artegall's beautiful reflection of virtuous justice. Her entire heroic quest has depended upon her vision of Artegall's physical beauty and the promised perfection of their union and Brit­ ain's greatness. Artegall's "Heroicke grace, and honorable gest" (III.ii.24) may be so well hidden that she fails to recognize him, but his "Saluagesse sans finesse" holds a "se­ cret wit" (IV.iv.39). Those virtues Britomart saw clearly within him are there, waiting to be developed through her re­ demptive love. Her heroic endeavor is to meet with him and provide the civilizing effect of love so he can develop in­ to the Knight of Justice his vision promises.

Artegall, for his part, has no foreknowledge of virtuous union. He has heard nothing of Britomart the female; he knows only his hated male antagonist. Suddenly, he is struck with a knowledge of beauty and goodness that transcends anything previously contemplated. Before him is a very real, passion­ ate, and loving woman whose beauty manifests her inner vir­ tue. His actions are not to be judged in terms of courtly love but in terms of "Spenser's erotic and poetic psychology" that invests feminine beauty with "the visible manifestion 278 of God's goodness as it radiates outward . . . into Shapes llQ in Matter." Artegall, in his sudden awareness of beauty and love's potential goodness, reflects Spenser's erotic psy­ chology! "since human thought rises from the sense, we invar­ iably judge the divine on the basis of what seems to us high- est in physical bodies."

It is now Artegall's place to woo Britomart with tender ministrations. The state of the couple's courtship is summed up« "Thereat full inly blushed Britomart;/ But Artegall close smyling ioy'd in secret hart" (IV.vi.32). He must restrain his "looser thoughts to lawfull bounds" (IV.vi.33)« Yet, even as he gently wooes Britomart's "modest countenance," his passionate love grows stronger (IV.vi.33) •

At last through many vowes which forth he pour'd, And many othes, she yeelded her consent To be his loue, and take him for her Lord, Till they with mariage meet might finish that accord. (IV.vi.41)

Britomart is an ameliorative influence upon Artegall.

While he remains with her, he triumphs over his pride and controls his passions. Furthermore, he displays a clear un­ derstanding of the psychological thread keeping their tender relationship intact. When he must finally leave Brito­ mart to resume his "hard aduenture yet in quest" to free

Irena, he discovers his beloved "full loth so shortly to for­ sake" (IV.vi.42). He gently wins Britomart's consent for him to leave. Although duty must be followed, he wishes his 279 beloved's full support in his cause. Having wooed to win her,

Artegall now "with strong perswasions her asswaged," until he wins "her will to suffer him depart" (IV.vi.43). Vowing eternal love, he promises to return before three months have passed (IV.vi.4-3). Spenser's message is clear. Heroic, virtuous love does not interfere with duty but, instead, encourages its better­ ment. Britomart has given Artegall a new understanding of duty. Although, she displays the depth of love's need by attempting to keep him with her as long as possible, she does not stop him from leaving. Nowhere does Spenser paint

Britomart more the ingenuous woman in love than in Artegall's deparaturet she "a while" accompanies him as he sets offj

"oftentimes she leaue of him did takei/ And eft againe de- uiz'd some what to say" something she had forgotten (IV.vi.44,

45). Eventually, though, all excuses are used up, and she must "with right heauie mind" allow her beloved to follow his heroic mission in support of "his fortunes gouernment" (IV.vi.46).

Just as Britomart does not thwart Artegall as the knight of justice who must perform his duty, she performs her own function as the exemplar of chaste love when she assists

Scudamour in his just pursuit of married love. Britomart would gladly retire her armor and return home to wait quiet­ ly for Artegall's return, but she has made a commitment to truth, honor, and hope, the latter of which is a commitment 280 to virtue, "which doth beget/ True loue and faithfull friend­

ship" (IV.vi.Jf6). She accompanies Scudamour until he tells his wondrous story of the Temple of Venus, which in turn fades into the story of the rivers' marriage and Florimell

and Marinell's betrothal at the end of Book IV, whereupon

Britomart returns home to wait impatiently for Artegall.

She will take up her armor again only to' rescue her beloved

Knight of Justice and set him back on his path of duty and

love.

Having found personal domesticity for himself through

Britomart's civilizing influence, Artegall now actively

furthers true love, faithfulness, and societal domesticity

in carrying out justice. Artegall, who scorned the love of

women before his betrothal to Britomart, now strongly estab­

lishes fidelity in love as the bedrock of a peaceful, uni­

fied society when he re-enacts.Solomon's judgment. Artegall

and his groom, Talus, come upon a decapitated damsel and a

squire who mourns the loss of his lady to a renegade knight who killed his own lady and seized the squire's. In re-enact­

ing S&lomon's decision, Spenser invites a comparison of sit­

uations. In the biblical tale, Solomon offers to divide a

live baby between two women who dispute motherhood. As we well know, the real mother would give up her baby rather

than have it killed. In Artegall's world, the situation is far harsheri a lady has already been murderedi the weak are 281 tyrannized) and those who love may be discarded and, worse, killed for loving. Artegall seeks the best way to bring about justicei he devises a trap for the mendacious bully, who preys upon true love and who will indight himself through his own testimony. Artegall provides a test to prove worthiness in love rather than brawn in battle. He offers to cut up the living damsel so both dead and living can be divided equally between the knight and the gentle squire. To dissent from this divi­ sion is to admit having decapitated the womani the penalty is to wear her head for a year. The renegade knight, Sangliere, is pleased with the verdict and offers up the lady to be killed. The squire, predictably, wants his beloved to remain alivei

And rather then his loue should suffer paine, He chose with shame to bear that Ladies head. True loue despiseth shame, when life is cald in dread. (V.i.27)

Artegall, however, reverses himself. Judging "For worthy thou of her does rightly seeme," he gives the squire the living damsel (V.i.28). The knight of justice is not so much dealing with retributive justice as “discovering which knight is worthy to have the living lady, and which the dead."

Spenser stresses that the punishment awarded Sanglier will be given not so much because he committed murder but because * he did not stand steadfast in love. The knight did "loue so light esteeme,/ As that ye would for little leaue the 282 same" (V.i.28). As his "burden of defame" in love, the evil knight must wear his own damsel's head (V.i.28). Given the brutality of Sir Sanglier's crime, the wearing of the head for a year suggests a surprisingly lenient punishment if the issue were murder. The issue, however, is love, and the head is to serve as a strong deterrent to those who would love lightly. The abuser of love is to be shamed. In doing this,

Artegall supports both the authority of love as the binding force of a just society and also the familial ties that form Jl Q "the basic unit of society." J Thus, the celebration of

Britain's national justice begins within the roots of person­ al and societal domesticity.

Artegall again supports true love when he decides a civil case involving two warring brothers whose rival claims involve their wives' treasures and two islands. The brothers, Amidas and Bracidas, each inherited an idland of equal size, but the sea has eroded part of Bracidas's island and deposited its alluvium up along his brother's shores. Having lost a large part of his island, Bracidas also loses his betrothed, Phil- tera, when she deserts him to elope with Amidas and his en­ larged fortune. Amidas, in turn, proves himself false in lovei he rejects his fiance, Lucy, who has "little dowre" but great

"vertue" (V.iv.9), to marry Philtera. Lucy thereupon tries to commit suicide by throwing herself into the sea but is saved by Philtera*s lost sea chest, which holds Philtera's dowry for Amidas. Lucy eventually washes ashore on Bracidas's island, and the two virtuous lovers fall quickly in love.

When Philtera claims the chest and its contents as her own that had been lost through shipwreck, Artegall adjudicates for both sea chest and alluvium and decidest "That what the sea vnto you sent, your own should seeme" (V.iv,17,18). The situation in the fable of the two islands is effectively concluded. Artegall is triumphant as the human agent of jus­ tice, true love, and virtuous union within the legal frame­ work of equity. Yet, his decision does not restore complete amity. "Both Amidas and Philtra were displeasedi/ But

Bracidas and Lucy were right glad" (V.iv.20). Because of their joy in each other, the virtuous lovers are happy.

Spenser's lesson is obviousi love brings its own reward of justice. The very natures of greedy lovers do not allow them to find happiness under even an ideal form of government as

Artegall represents.

The most dangerous adversary to justice in Book V is

Radigund, the Amazon warrior queen. Indeed, she is one of the most subtle, complex dangers within the poem. She offers a more sophisticated temptation than Book II's Circian Acra- sia, who merely distracts men from duty and changes them into swine, or Book Ill's courtly Malecasta, whose knights procure her new lovers. Radigund is a great and powerful woman in the realm of a Delilah or Cleopatra who politically imperill other nations by seducing away their leaders when they attempt 284 to reform and bring justice to society. Moreover, Radigund*s motive is revenge upon all knights of Maidenhead because one knight, Bellodant, rejected her love. In bringing Artegall to his knees, Radigund serves as a prime example of wrongful rule by a woman who upsets the natural, hierarchical order of God, king, and country.

Since Artegall has already fallen twice to the female

Britomart, he should be forewarned that Radigund, famous as a mighty warrior, could also be dangerous. But entertaining her emisarries in his rich pavillion with "curt'sies meete"

(V.iv.51), he is plied by Radigund*s gifts of "wine and iun- cates fit"(V.iv.49). Artegall foolishly accepts Radigund's terms of individual combat« unconditional surrender for the loser and "maistry" for the winner. As queen of the Amazons,

Radigund's character is symbolized through her "embrodered belt of mickell pride" (V.v.3), placing "her challenge to

Artegall in proper perspective" since one of Hercules's tasks

"was to obtain the belt of Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons."

That Artegall should place himself in Hercules's position is to admit his own faulty pride. In agreeing to fight on her terms, he commits "the fatal hamartia." ^ Thereafter, Arte­ gall's own unwavering sense of justice will force him to be

"bound by his foolish oath" to abide by Radigund's terms of 46 battle. 0

The pomp that surrounds the battlefield, the trumpets that sound the battle are vaguely reminiscent of Satyrane's tournament for Florimell's golden "belt." Artegall issues out of his pavillion. But where Britomart came riding uncere­ moniously out of the crowd to unseat him, Radigund enters

"With stately port and proud magnificence" (V.v.4). She looks like a cross between the calculating seductress whom Brito­ mart rejected in Castle Joyeous and a tarted-up version of

Belphoebe in battle garb. Where Belphoebe's silk chemise is

"lylly white," however, Radigund’s is the "purple" of Luci- fera's pride (II.iii.26, I.iv.16). Radigund's chemise is gus­ sied up with silver thread. Its fabric is "quilted vppon sat- tin white," and ribbons trail artfully from it (V.v.2). She is dressed to seduce Artegall away from reason and down the path of ribboned servitude.

Artegall defeats Radigund in battle but then discards his sword at sight of her beauty. His single-minded concentra­ tion on harsh justice has hertofore blinded him to its final consequences. He is suddenly struck with Radigund's beauty and with his own act of causing its destruction. He is in a similar situation to his overcoming Britomart, but there are all-important differences. When Artegall sees Britomart's beauty, her face is disclosed providentiallyi her ventrail is sheared away as if by God's design. Her beauty is described in terms of angelic deification and the clear freshness of

"the ruddie morne" (IV.vi.l9). Upon seeing such natural beauty,

Artegall responds on an unconscious level1 his sword drops from numbed fingers. He bows before her in humble worship. 286

Radigund's beauty, in contrast, is described as cloudedi "Like as the Moone in foggie winters night" (V.v.12). At Radigund's

"darkned" beauty, Artegall throws his sword "from him apart,/

Cursing his hand that had that visage mard" (V.v.12,13). His fingers and hands do not betray himj his own faulty reason

does. His instincts seem to be guided by a desire for mercy and amity, not by lust for her beauty. It must be noted that

Artegall does not fall down to worship Radigund. Instead, he remains standing and weaponless. She,meanwhile, lies on the ground looking up at him "with confused eye" (V.v.13). The positions of Artegall with Britomart and Radigund are diamet­ rically opposed. Artegall's pity for Radigund's beauty is not lust but a vagary of unfounded emotion that will bring his

downfall. For this failure in judgment, and for his prideful, foolish oath, Artegall must take responsibility. His act of

throwing away his sword causes his reduction into servitude.

Once Artegall decides to keep his oath and serve as

Radigund's vassal, he involves himself in a self-sacrifice to

uphold what he perceives as justice. He follows the exact letter of the law, which Radigund uses when she entraps him

through his oath. He follows the ideal of justice, no matter

the cost to him, and accepts a "shamefull life, vnworthy of

a Knight" (V.iv.32). Dressed in woman's clothing, his shield hung high and his sword broken to "shame" him, he is set "most low” among other captive knights to the task of spinning (V. v.21,23). Rather than degenerate into weakness, however, Artegall's inner strength is revealed. Captive in a life where he cannot fulfill his obligation of the active life, Artegall enters a world of contemplative possibilities, a world never before encountered by him. He begins to learn the meaning of humility once he is forced to draw upon his own inner resources. There­ upon, "he begins a process of discovery, a growing self-

Il '7 awareness that leads to wisdom." He accepts his new role with a heroic nobility and resignation that reflects stoic 48 "intellectual humility" and overrides his oppressors. He resists Clarin's "calculated pleasantries" that are an at- tempt to place Artegall into a state of despair. 7 Rather than rail against his situation, he politely replies that he will bear whatever fortune brings (V.v.38). By refusing the unchristian idea of despair, Artegall, for all intents and purposes, redeems himself of past failings. He shows himself equal to any temptation. Artegall waits patiently, loved by both Clarin and Radigund, "but litle frended" by them, until "his owne true loue" Britomart can regain his freedom (V.v.57)« On one hand Artegall grows in stature from his subjuga­ tion} on the other hand, the subjugation of male by female is contrary to nature» Women were meant "T'obay the heasts of mans well ruling hand" (V.v.25). Other consequences of

Artegall's vassalage are widespread! he cannot continue his quest to save Irena, nor can he wed Britomart and begin his 288 line of British rulers. The most immediate consequence is brutally swiftt Sir Terpin is taken out and "full shamefully" hanged (V.v.l9). The female dominion into which Artegall has committed himself is a false justice, one whose perversion of the proper order must be corrected.

To free Artegall from Radigund’s servitude and give him back his leadership, Britomart must prepare herself spiritu­ ally and morally. At least temporarily, Britomart takes Arte­ gall's place as the knight of justice. Her first test takes place in Dolon's castle, the second in the Temple of Isis.

Sensory impressions within the imperfect world continually deceive and mislead, and "Britomart herself embodies the dissonance between inward and outward, between physical body and spiritual reality, that is the ultimate source of Faery- land's disorder." Britomart must correct this situation within herself and the land where she travels to find Arte­ gall.

Unlike Artegall, who throws away his sword before Radi­ gund's beauty, Britomart refuses to disarm herself or rest in

Dolon's house. By now, she has learned to guard against calum­ ny, even when it appears non-existant. Unlike her stay at

Castle Joyeous, Britomart neither undresses nor doffs her arms until her quest is completed. Nor will she allow her­ self to sleep. Throughout the poem, each hero must deal in some way with the weakness of the flesh. Within Britomart's 289 situation, the weakness of the flesh is presented as a tempta- tion within the biblical context of Christ's betrayal.

In terms of moral treachery, Peter fails Christ through fleshly weakness and need for sleep, according to Maresca.

Within the complex syncretism of Britomart as an "imitatio

Christi" and Dolon as Judas, we are reminded that although

"our spirit is willing" our "infected will and concupiscible flesh more often than no betray us into the imitation of Peter, if not of Judas." ^ Britomart, however, does not allow

Dolon's betrayal to be carried out. In another dark night of the soul, she endures and overcomes despair, as she did by the sea coast with her metaphoric ship cast upon its fertile waters. She spends the night in Dolon's house "Restlesse, re- comfortlesse, with heart deepe grieued," refusing sleep (V.vi.

2*0. Britomart's self-imposed vigil saves her. At the time

"The bird, that warned Peter of his fall," would call, or the bellman ring for matins, Britomart hears her bed drop through a false trap and then raise back to its normal position (V. vi.27). Spenser's reference to the bird reminds us that we are always in danger of betraying ourselves, until we focus our sights, as does Britomart, on that only which is true.

Britomart, however, does not betray Christ once the cock crows, since she never denies Artegall or her love for him.

She does not sleep, so she does not fall through the trap door.

Following this victory of the soul and body, in which Britomart shows her excellence on a personal level and in a purely private capacity, she visits Isis's Church. Here, the idea of intimate personal relationship is joined with excel­ lent citizenship and political rule. Britomart takes over as the virtue of Justice in the two important central cantos, vi and vii, of Book V. Much as the middle hooks of the poem emphasize the creative power of life, the central cantos of

Book V emphasize the spiritual energy and creative power that extends into man's history. Britomart's goals must not be merely to settle down in physical comfort with Artegall; she must seek spiritual strength and the creative power of life that can overcome the destructiveness of death. Britomart's readiness to enter Isis's Temple stresses the important theme*

"the purpose of sexual generation in renewing the life of the state and of the universe." she is at home in the Temple of Isis, where married lovers rule as keepers of justice.

Equals of two different celestials, Isis signifies the moon and "Osvris signifies the Sunne,/ For that they both like race in equall iustice runne (V.vii.i*). Britomart may remain a virgin within the completed poem, but she appears to be more mother goddess than virgin here.

Early on we are told she will be "the ancestress of kings and *57 heroes." Her quest now shows itself a "union of opposites that is the beginning of society." Within the Temple of

Isis, the generative cycle of Venus's pursuit of Adonis joins with the historical cycle of Britomart's pursuit of Artegall.

During Britomart's "nocturnal vision," Isis's perfect justice 291 telescopes ,from a "representation of perfect Justice (orrsome aspect of Justice) to the application of justice in the world KQ of Britomart and Artegall." Providentially drawn to the Temple, Britomart is welcomed by its priests.and "with great humility/ Did enter in, ne would that night depart" (V.vii.3). Approaching the silver idol of Isis with its "crown of gold" that shows "powre in things diuine," Britomart prostrates herself before the image in silent prayer (V.vii.6). At Isis's amiable countenance and her wand's benevolent movement, Britomart unlaces her helmet and trustingly lies down to sleep— as she did not do in Dolon's house. In much the same context as the priests lie upon "their mother Earths deare lap” to sleep, Britomart lies beside the altar of Isis to enter a dream-state exempli­ fying her own state of sexual fertility and historic impor­ tance (V.vii.9).

In terms of human sexuality, the crocodile that appears to devour the flames that would destroy Isis's temple is amorous but ambivalenti he is potential destroyer, defender, and sexual lover. The "wondrous vision" that appears to

Britomart implies "The course of all her fortune and poster- itie" (V.vii.12). When a tempest arises, it scatters the holy embers, which burst into "outragious flames" that would de­ stroy them all (V.vii.HO. Just when it seems the temple would go up in flames, the crocodile beneath Isis's feet awakens. Its mouth open wide, it devours "Both flames and 292

tempest" i with which growen great, And swolne with pride of his owne peerelesse powre, He gan to threaten her likewise to eatj But that the Goddesse with her rod him backe did beat. (V.vii.15)

Beaten back into humility, the crocodile quickly capitulates

and grovels at Britomart*s feet, seeking "grace and loue of

her," which she grants (V.vii.16). Britomart, representing and longing for fecund married love, is receptive. (Marriage

to Osiris/Artegall/crocodile will enable her to express her natural sexuality properly in marriage.) The crocodile will

defend her, but he will also inevitably direct his sexuality at her. This sexual energy is both "creative concupiscence" and "destructive lust," both of which must be contained for his energy to be ameliorative. The crocodile succeeds in

coition and impregnates Britomart, who gives birth to "a

Lion of great might; that shortly did all other beasts subdew" (V.vii.16).

Disturbed by the circuitous, oblique yearnings of her dream, Britomart lies awake until dawn, whereupon she arises and the chief priest interprets her dream for her. "Fild with heauenly fury" (V.vii.20), the priest interprets with the divine authority of one who recognizes Britomart and her missioni

Magnificke Virgin, that in queint disguise Of British armes doest maske thy royall blood, So to pursue a perillous emprize, How couldst thou weene, through that disguized hood, 293

To hide thy state from being vnderstood? (V.vii.21)

Penetrating the veil hiding the secrets of the universe, the high priest explains to Britomart that the crocodile repre­ sents her "righteous Knight, that is thy faithfull louer,"

Artegall, who is "Like to Osvris in all iust endeuer./ For that same Crocodile Osyris is" (V.vii.22). The crocodile's triumphant sexual energy becomes a relationship of equality and sexual game that produces a powerful military greatness in their son and a dynasty of strength. Furthermore, the union of crocodile/Artegall with Isis/Britomart suggests a union of equity and justice absolute in which neither is dom­ inant over the other.

The priest explains that Isis's foot on the crocodile's back means that she suppresses "both forged guile,/ And open force" (V.vii.7). The crocodile (representing both Osiris and Artegall)

Vnder Isis feete doth sleepe for euers To shew that clemence oft in things amis, Restraines those sterne behests, and cruell doomes of (V.vii.22) his*

Just as the crocodile's sexual energy is ambivalent, so too is the impulse motivating justice. Isis emblematically sup­ presses voracity and power, lust and guile, much as Mercilla does, later, in Artegall's visit to her court in.canto ix.

Mercilla holds the sceptre of "peace and clemencie" but also has "at her feet her sword" of justice, rusted but ready to be 29k drawn (V.ix.3 0 ). Mercilla's administration of both justice and equity fulfills the thematic prediction that Isis sup­ presses forged guile and open force as she simultaneously suppresses the masculine rapaciousness bringing "cruell doomes" (V.vii.22).

Just so, the euhemerisra of Isis and Osiris furthers

Merlin's glassy globe's prediction of Artegall and Britain's greatness. The meaning of Isis and Osiris as rulers is ex­ plained* Spenser's Egyptian myth deifies "The iustest man aliue, and truest" into "great Osyris. of the race/Of th*old

AEgyptian Kings" (V.vii.2). His wife, the goddess Isis, is

"the Venus of the Egyptian pantheon." ^ Isis "in her person cunningly did shade/ That part of Iustice, which is Equity"

(V.vii.3) and restrains justice from undue harshness. Like

Artegall and Britomart, Osiris and Isis are political rulers who, importantly, are married while they live and rule on earth. Later, they will serve as gods of justice and of cre­ ation. Their inclusion extends Britomart's and Artegall's marriage, rule, and progeny to the cosmic dimensions of uni­ versal peace ruled by equity.

It is up to Britomart's imaginative, fecund nature to bring this world of fertile, equitable justice to her promised mate. Artegall is far too enmeshed within the practical world of upholding justice to encounter those dreams which Brito­ mart can envision. She must set him on the right track of a justice that includes more than just the letter-of-the-law 295 with its overly harsh methods and interpretations. She, in­

deed, must free him from the unrighteous, wrongful subjuga­

tion that Radigund's lascivious tyranny has imposed. Then

Artegall, as Osiris/crocodile, can, within the historical

cycle of British rule, put out "all the troublous stormes"

and "raging flames" that Britomart*s "many foes shall reare/To

hinder thee from the iust heritage/ Of thy sires Crowne" (V. vii.23). The high priest predicts that Britomart will.take

Artegall to her beloved country, Britain,

And ioyne in equall portion of thy realme. And afterwards a sonne to him shalt beare, That Lion-like shall shew his powre extreame. So blesse thee God, and giue thee ioyance of thy dreame. (V.vii.23)

Inspired by the ideals of spiritual fortitude while in Colon's house, by the high priest's final Christian blessing, and by a renewed faith in her love's outcome, Britomart goes forth

to fulfill her destiny by fighting Radigund and freeing Arte­

gall. Only after this is accomplished can Britomart submit

herself to her husband's care in marriage and motherhood and

enter her sphere of true greatnessi she will be the moon to

Artegall's sun. She will, in her domestic level, assist Arte­ gall in the decisions he alone can carry out.

In Britomart's battle with Radigund, there is no place for compromise or unwarranted mercy. Britomart must show

justice as necessarily unrelenting. Unlike Artegall, who falls because he agrees to Radigund's conditions and then fails to kill her because he values her beauty, Britomart acts with 296 deliberation. She disdains Radigund’s suggestion that they fight under her usual conditions of vassalage (V.vii.28).

Britomart insists upon the usual knightly rules of conduct and will fight only under those terms proscribed "by lawes of cheualrie" (V.vii.28). That the battle is over Artegall is kept in the fore­ front. Each warrior encounters the whole force of the other's might in.one of the most, bloody battles with­ in the poem. Justice may be tempered by mercy in heaven, but Britomart's battleground is on earth and she means to win it. As Radigund attacks, she upbraids Britomartt

This token beare Vnto the man, whom thou doest loue so deare; And tell him for his sake thy life thou gauest.

Britomart replies« Lewdly thou my loue deprauest, Who shortly must repent that now so vainely brauest. (V.vii.32)

Britomart eventually smites Radigund so hard that her sword pierces the helmet and enters her brain. No misplaced impulse of mercy enters the reality of their battleground. "In re- uenge" of Radigund's evil actions, Britomart cuts off "both head and helmet" (V.vii.3*0* Thus, the crucial duel between herself and her shadowed self, Radigund, is over. The heroic overtones in the battle between them is clear. In risking death for the sake of her beloved, Brtiomart elevates that love to the highest level. Britomart, and she only, can re­ store to Artegall the responsibilities he forfeited. 297

Having resumed her role as male warrior and engaged in the full excess of battle fury to overcome Radigund's unnat­ ural usurpation of power, Britomart shows a certain fitting equity within the cruelty of Radigund's beheading. Only this excessive action seems able to correct Radigund's unjust, un- Z p natural rule. Once Radigund is destroyed, however, Brit­ omart returns to her proper femininity, which encompasses compassion and mercy. It is noteworthy that Britomart, appal­ led at the carnage Talus creates among the Amazons, orders him to cease his fury. Her disciplined mercy resists any possibility of temptation to seek revenge upon Radigund's

Amazons• When Britomart finally discovers her beloved Artegall, she turns "her head aside," and is "abasht with secrete shame" at his "deformed" state (V.vii.3 8 ). As Dunseath points out,

"The 'secrete shame' initiates a ruthless self-searching which reveals Britomart's new perspective" and "newly achieved maturity in her love for Artegall." ^ Her jealousy is proven wrong, and she comforts him with a fully realized compassion*

And then too well beleeu'd, that which tofore Iealous suspect as true vntruely drad, Which vaine conceipt now nourishing no more, She sought with ruth to salue his sad misfortunes sore. (V.vii.3 8 )

Spenser equates Britomart's "wonder and astonishment" with

Homer's "chast Penelope" who can barely recognize Odysseus when he returns home after his long journey, thereby compar­ ing Britomart with the Renaissance's "finest symbol of the 298 6k faithful wife" (V.vii.39). Britomart now possesses all those qualities of maturity which Merlin presaged before she began her quest for love. Like Penelope, Britomart stands "long staring on him, mongst vncertaine feares" (V.vii.39)» Also, like Penelope,

Britomart shows a charming bit of comedy and girlish shyness when she cannot believe that this stranger is her long-lost

Odysseus returned from the dead. ^ Britomart launches into a Homeric kind of humor indicating affection for mankind's human qualities. Britomart chidesi Ah my deare Lord, what sight is this . . . What May-game hath misfortune made of you? Where is that dreadfull manly looke? where be Those mighty palmes, the which ye wont t' embrew In bloud of Kings, and great hoastes to subdew? Could ought on earth so wondrous change haue wrought, As to haue robde you of that manly hew? Could so great courage stouped haue to ought? Then farewell fleshly forces I see thy pride is nought. (V.vii.40)

One suspects that life with Britomart will never lack that essence of the creative spirit with its wonderful childlike quality. Artegall's newfound humility is stressed in the re­ versal of roles: Britomart (Penelope) has saved the day and

Artegall (Odysseus) has defended his honor, forgone pride, and learned wisdom. Artegall, however, does not respond, and, like the Homeric reunion, there is no love scene of passionate reunion. The attention is placed upon Britomart's reassuming her wifely position, not on Artegall's taking back his right­ ful one as his due. 299 Britomart at no time attempts to exploit her newly found personal or public powerV Instead, she gives Artegall back his proper place and reinstates the proper hierarchy of rule.

While Artegall*s strength is built up and her wounds heal, she reigns as princess of Radigon. Thereupon, she restores the hierarchy of the sexes to its proper place. She repeals the Amazons' usurped rule as unnatural and restores the men to power. Thus she “did true Iustice deale" (V.vii.42). The enslaved knights of Maidenhead are made magistrates of the city and must "sweare fealty to Artegall" (V.vii.43).

Where Britomart could have kept self-rule, she does not.

Spenser uses the Pauline tradition of the wife's subjugation to the husband in having Britomart willingly give over her rule to Artegall. The essential point is that Britomart chooses obedience to Artegall. The correct balance of hier­ archical power is retained within their friendship. It is one thing for Scudamour to be incorrectly dominant, to seek “maistrye," and quite another for Artegall to accept the nat­ ural responsibilities of rule that Britomart gives him. He should exercise his authority over her, since to Spenser mas­ culine dominance is necessary for marital happiness. Just so, their happiness within society depends on an ordered community.

This idea imposes a system of mutual obligations and duties that reflects the concordia and natural order of creation, which itself exhibits the hierarchical principle. The very order of nature is achieved not through equal weight to the 300

four elements but upon the fulfillment of each one in its proper task as part of an ordered universe. Artegall has

argued this principle with the egalitarian giant and again uses it in deciding the issues of the islands and treasure between the two couples. Thus, when Britomart returns the

Amazons to "mens subiection" and herself to Artegall9s rule,

she indeed "did true Iustice deale" (V.vii.kZ). With all the attributes of a wise and faithful wife, she sends Artegall on his quest to bring justice to Faerieland, "Seeing his honor, which she tendred chiefe,/ Consisted much in that aduentures priefe" (V.vii.4^-). Thus, Britomart's final action within the poem is to create a properly run political society that can bring peace and to encourage her beloved toward honorable action in the course of his duty.

As Britomart has joined love and procreation with British nationalism and brings the hope of peace to England, she estab­ lishes order and peace in Radigun and Faerieland. She has matured sexually and compassionately so that she can become a proper wife to Artegall and a noble ruler. Her loving friendship and governance overcome societal strife, and she has shown Artegall the way to support love and justice in a peaceful society. Throughout, Britomart fuses friendship with love, moral and spiritual development, and the organized com­ munity of mankind.

Like epic poets before him, however, Spenser does not allow a final happy ending to his lovers.' stories. Britomart 301

and Artegall join only to part quickly. Artegall*s way of

justice is always vulnerable to moral or social attack. Thus

even the civilized values that the society he seeks to protect

is called into question. Like epic poets before him, Spenser

describes an imperfect world in which morality and ideals are

all but unattainable for long. Man must struggle continually

with himself and with society. Spenser presents probably a

wider expanse of history than in any previous epic, especially

in his British chronicles and predictions. He suggests that

there can and will be general improvement, yet his poem re­

mains pessimistic. Artegall will learn the true governance of justice from

Mercilla in her court when, through the course of strict legal

procedure, Duessa is put on trial for her many crimes. The

trial is "public, impartial, with full liberty to witnesses

and advocates on either side." ^ Mercilla, as judge, is

"exact to determine guilt, but slow to punish it, and re­

luctant to go to extremes." ^ Artegall learns, through Dues-

sa's death penalty, that the enactment of justice is never

simple when carried out among human beings with respect to

each other. Reason and duty must be placed above emotion.

There must be stern, self-controlled punishment, but it must

also display forbearance. For without justice carried out as sane, compassionate, yet reasoned decision, evil will take matters into its own hands and reappear to cause ever worse havoc. Ate will continue in any way possible to raise 302 contention and moral enervation. The responsibility for justice lies in continual awareness of all those elements that would lead to a breakdown in firm yet caring judicial authority.

Artegall is now ready to free Irena from Grantorto and return peace to her kingdom. Yet Spenser has still another lesson in love by which "to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline." As the exemplar of Justice, Artegall again attempts to uphold true love when he rides to the aid of an embattered knight without a shield.

Grantorto has seduced Flourdelis away from her former lover,

Burbon, who is trying to recapture her from a rabble group. To prove the worth of true love, Spenser presents an exemplum of flawed and foolish love.

The reader quickly realizes that both Flourdelis and

Burbon are less than worthy lovers. She was easily won from Burbon by Grantorto's “golden giftes" and "guilefull" words (V.xi.5 0 ). Furthermore, she rejects Burbon's embraces with "disdainfull yre" (V.xi.6l). Burbon, also is flawed in that he too easily gives up his shield, his only means of protection against the rabble group. His reasons for laying it aside are overtly because of others' "enuie" and increase in "all strife and troublous enmitie" over it (V.xi.5 0 )• But the real reason he lays it aside is to attain back his beloved

Flourdelisi "Hoping thereby to haue my loue obtayned” (V.ix.

5*0. Yet, his putting aside his shield for love puts her even further beyond his ability to attain her, for it leaves 303

both him and his beloved unprotected* Burbon has shown him­

self unable to discern consequential action. Nothing, as

Artegall chides, should allow him to abondon his "warlike

shield" (V.xi.55). In turn, Artegall chides Flourdelis for

her "foule disgrace" to her "breach of faith once plight"

(V.xi.62). Artegall continues in open rebuke*

Fie on the pelfe, for which good name is sold, And honour with indignitie debased* Dearer is loue then life, and fame then gold; But dearer then them both, your faith once plighted (V.xi.6 3) h0ld# Flourdelis, having scorned Burbon, hangs her head in shame and does not answer Artegall's charge. Yet, despite her un­ faithfulness, Burbon clasps her in his arms and carries her away, "nor well nor ill apayd" (V.xi.62).

They are the last of the faulty lovers in Book V, and one is to infer that they, like the greedy lovers Amidas and Philtera, deserve each other. The fidelity in love that

Artegall argues throughout Book V, and demonstrates while he is Radigund's servant, is confirmed. Only those who are worthy of true love are truly honorable and heroic. Flourde­ lis and Burbon are a parody of that honorable married love which upholds and protects Protestant England, as reflected even by their French Catholic names.

To stress that Artegall is a far different Knight of

Justice when he meets Grantorto, Artegall shows that he has learned when mercy is called for. As when he called Talus back from further slaughter of the rascal troops who held 30k

Flourdelis captive (V.xi.65)t he calls Talus back from bat­ tering Grantorto's troops "without remorse,/ That on the ground he left full many a corse" (V.xii.?). He sends word to Grantorto that he has not come "for such slaughters sake" but to "trie the right/ Of fayre Irenaes cause with him in single fight" (V.xii.8). Where Artegall previously rejected trial by combat as unfair and to be superceded by reasoned justice, he now embraces its necessity. Grantorto has guile­ fully seduced the people from just governance, and no reason­ ing, impartial court could hold sway.

To further stress Artegall's maturity in carrying out

his role as the defender of justice, Spenser describes Arte­

gall' s simplicity of accouterments and his seclusion. Where

he once orders his "pavilion to be richly pight/ Before"

Radigund's city gate, he now orders his "tent/ There to be pitched on the open plaine" (V.iv.46, xii.10). Where he once

partied with Clarin and her maidens, he orders "That none

should dare him once to entertaine" (V.xii.10). Artegall pre­

pares himself mentally and physically for serious battle.

Grantorto has set the machinery of the law in motion

against Irena by imprisoning her and demanding a trial by

combat to clear her of the charges he has leveled against

her. Yet no specific crimes have been enunciated. His accu­

sations remain vaguei "Of all those crimes, that he gainst

her doth reare,/ She death shall by" (V.xi.40). Such lack of specific charges denies the accepted legal procedure of 305

arraignment, presentation of charges, prosectuion, defense,

and verdict that Mercilla's court carefully followed in Dues-

sa's trial. In such an abomination of justice as Grantorto

demands, Irena as peace could have little hope for justice

without a counterbalancing moral force of power equal to

Grantorto's immoral force. The description of Artegall's battle strategy reveals

his newly found, reasoned humility. Rather than fighting like

a cruel beast, he uses his shield and sword to advantage. He

shuns Grantorto's strokes "And way did giue vnto their grace-

lesse speed" (V.xii.18). Like a skilled mariner at an ap­

proaching storm, Artegall strikes his sails and mainsheet.

The narrator remarks»

So did the Faerie knight himselfe abeare, And stouped oft his head from shame to shield* No shame to stoupe, ones head more high to reare, And much to gaine, a litle for to yield* So stoutest knights doen oftentimes in field. (V.xii.19) Artegall battles prudently, seizing the advantage when it is

offered. The sentence of death falls upon Grantorto rather

than on Irena.

Having restored Irena to freedom, Artegall sets about

to reestablish her peaceful kingdom. It is relatively easy

because once the people see the prideful tyrant is dead they

fall down in adoration at Irena's feet and sound Artegall's

"glorie . . . ouer all" as the deliverer of their queen Irena

(peace) (V.xii.2*0. Their trust in Artegall as the bringer 30 6

of just peace is well placed, for Artegall leads her back

Vnto the pallace, where their kings did rayne, Did her therein establish peaceablie, And to her kingdomes seat restore agayne, (V.xii.25)

"And all such persons" who supported Grantorto's cause are harshly punished (V.xii.25). Since the final aim of justice must be peace, Artegall

sets to work reforming Irena's kingdomi His studie was true Iustice how to deale, And day and night employ'd his busie paine How to reforme that ragged common-weale. (V.xii.26) Artegall sends Talus out to "reueale/ All hidden crimes" and to seek out those who robbed or rebelled against "lawfull gouernment" so they can be punished (V.xii.26).

But before Artegall can complete his task, he is called back to Faerie Court. Thus, even in the land of Faerie, there can be no perfect justice that long prevails. The con­ dition of fallen man is not yet one of complete justice.

That can prevail only in Mercilla's idealized realm where no battling knights are known. "For the Spenserian knights, who are, in effect, what they do in the story, there is no 69 Cartesian sanctuary where Reason can sit back and choose." '

Spenser's knights must continue their heroic battles in the face of continual adversity. There are only brief, individual victories that quickly turn into human frailties and, at least partial, defeats. Thus, before Artegall can reform 307

Irena's realm “thoroughly," He through occasion called was away, To Faerie Court, that of necessity His course of Iustice he was forst to stay. (V.xii.27)

Artegall's problems continue. Once he leaves Irena's kingdom and returns to Faerieland, he is met by the two hags,

Envie and Detraction, and the infamous Blatant Beast. Envie attacks with her venemous snake that bites from behind. De­ traction reviles Artegall for using "vnmanly guile" and cre­ ating injustice with his "sword of Iustice," for oppressing innocent people and overcoming Grantorto through treachery

(V.xii.40). The Blatant Beast barks and bays "With bitter rage and fell contention" (V.xii.41). Yet, under the fury of the beast's hundred tongued rancor, Artegall "past on, and seem'd of them to take no keepe” (V.xii.42). With the humil­ ity of wisdom and the knowledge of his own virtue, Artegall can pass beyond them unscathed. He has been left behind by

Astraea to keep a world she deserted. He embodies the ideal of justice that is not perfect but is capable of being carried out in this world. In a world that shows resentment toward truth, virtue, and honor, he must continue his heroic task to uphold love and justice so that peace can bring the highest good to mankind. To accomplish this, he must remain ever vigilant, ever strong. He must hope for peace and justice, but he must be ever prepared for war and injustice. His heroism, which follows the epic tradition, involves knowing 308

that the world is seriously flawed and that at best he can

control it unsteadily. Yet he will continue to destroy the

injustices of calumny and deceit. He will continue to help

correct the relations between men and women and uphold true

lovers. There is hope that although his world does not neces­

sarily improve, within the union between himself and Brito­ mart they can bring glory and honor to friendship and to virtuous union. Only in a society where love and mar­ riage can establish a permanent relationship can there be

a just society where peace is upheld. Artegall has attained

self-knowledges he knows what he must do to fulfill himself within the painfully limited world, and he accepts his his­

torical destiny* his descendants will establish a permanent relationship that reflects the best way for Spenser's

Protestant Englanders to live. The epic moment of love and wholeness is brief and fragile, but it is all important. Only through love and firm but caring justice can there be hope for peace in this world. NOTES

* Giamatti, Play 19-20.

^ Cain 122. Refer also to Roche 53-55• Roche believes, with Merritt Hughes, that the source for Britomart's name comes from Virgil's Ciris.

3 Cain 122.

^ Henry Gibbons Lotspeich, Classical Mythology in the Poetry of Edmund Spenser (New York* Octagon, 1965) ^3»"Brit­ omart." Boccaccio names Britona as a wood nymph in 7,1^, a warlike follower of Diana in 9«35»

3 Kathleen Williams, "Venus and Diana" 110.

^ Venus in her Temple further substantiates the idea of a glassy substance with magical powers of "sexual love" that is "based upon a faithful personal relationship." She stands upon such a glassy substance in IV.x.39* See Lewis, Spenser's Images 41nl.

^ Spenser furthers Henry VII's and Queen Elizabeth's claims to be descended from Arthur and "from Brutus, the Trojan," from Giamatti, Play 58. Refer also to 53-63.

® Roche k8nb2.

^ Rose 126.

10 Rose 126.

** Tonkin, "Spenser's Garden"* *H3*

12 Tonkin, "Spenser's Garden"* **13»

*3 Woodhouse 316. 30 9 310

Louis A. Marre, Ironic Historians The Narrator of Books III and IV of "The Faerie Queene" Salzburg Studies in English Literature, Elizabethan & Renaissance Studies, ed. James Hogg 9 8 (Salzburg* U Salzburg, 1980) 26.

Marre 28.

Ariosto VII. xvi-xxxii.

^ Ariosto XXV. xxiv-lxx.

*8 Rose 91. He lists the conventional six stages of lech­ erous love from beginning to end* "seeing, speaking, toying, kissing, reveling, and copulating— personifications of the kind of activities to which Castle Joyous is devoted."

Daniel M. Murtaugh, "The Garden and the Sea* The Top­ ography of The Faerie dueene. Ill," ELH 40 (1973)* 336.

20 J.S. Weld, "The Complaint of Britomart* Wordplay and Symbolism," PMLA 66 (1951)* 5^9.

2* Marre 47.

Earle Fowler 88. Refer to Fowler's chapter, "Spenser's Ovidian Love" 86-90.

2^ Goldberg* 18.

2i+ Wind 85.

2-* Hough 1351 see also 135-37* Consult Berger 200. Hough really is elaborating upon Berger's point of the divided anima.

28 Alastair Fowler 154.

2^ Alastair Fowler 154.

28 Alpers* 394.

29 7 Lewis, Spenser's Images 71j transl. 7lnl. 311

30 Lewis, Spenser's Images 27-28* Lewis's discussion of the epigram "Be Bold" is highly relevant* refer also to Sir Francis Bacon, "Of Boldness" « Essay XII, Bacon's Essays with Annotation, ed. Richard Whalety (Bostoni Lee & Shepard, 1871) 123-24.

3* Goldbergi 2 3.

32 Goldbergi 2 3.

33 Renwick I6 7.

3^ Italics mine.

3 3 Roger Sale, "Spenser's Undramatic Poetry," Eliza­ bethan PoetryI Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. Paul J. Alpers (Oxford 1“ Oxford UP, 1967) 44o.

3^ Italics mine.

3^ Stedman 124.

3® Dunseath 43.

3^ Dunseath 46.

Harry Berger, Jr. "A Secret Discipline! The Faerie Queene, Book VI," Form and Convention in the Poetry of Ed­ mund Spenser, ed. William Nelson (New Yorki Columbia UP, I9 6I) 5 7. I am drawing from Berger's interesting summation of Spenser's points of doctrine to deal with Artegall's wor­ ship of Britomart's beauty.

^ Berger "A Secret" 57* ho Hamilton 172.

^ 3 Hamilton 189. 44 Dunseath 131,

Lewis, Images 106. 312 a.6 Lewis, Images 10?.

^ Dunseath 136.

^ Dunseath 136.

^ Dunseath 136-40.

5° Refer to Rosemond Tuve, "Spenser's Reading» The Claris Mulieribus." Essays by Rosemond Tuve> Spenser. Herbert. Wilton, ed. Thomas Roche, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1970) 87. ~ Tuve disagrees with Lotspeich, who believes that Spenser con­ fuses Iole with the classical Omphale as Hercules's femin­ ine captor because he mistakenly follows Boccaccio's con­ fusion. Tuve argues convincingly that the change is on pur­ pose. As Tuve points out, Spenser carefully calls Hercules's consort Iolas rather than Omphale, following Boccaccio's De Claris Mulieribus in order to stress the idea of an unjust woman-in-power and that Radigund misuses that power. In further irony, one of "Radigund's namesakes. Saint Radegund, was remarkable for her insistence on remaining a virgin after her marriage, which, from an anti-Catholic point of view, and Spenser's epic's view of fertile love in marriage, is a "notable example of wifely disobedience" (97). Jane Apteker, Icons of Justice: Iconography and Thematic Images in Book V of "The Faerie Queene" (New York: Columbia UP. 1969; 97. The-lasciv­ iousness that Radigund develops toward Artegall plays ironic­ ally on her namesake Radegund*s insistant chastity, since both ladies "exercise wrong female dominion" (Apteker 97)•

5* Italics mine. The loose and irregular verbs seem to follow the Petrarchan convention of love in oppositions.

52 Maresca 70.

53 Maresca 69-71.

5^ Maresca 70.

55 The cock's crow calls to mind Christ's prediction that Peter would deny Him three times and His later reproval to His apostles, who slept: "What, could yet not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that he enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt 26. 40-41). 313

Alastair Fowler 42. Refer to Fowler for a discussion of the central cantos, vi and vii, 44.

^ 7 Lewis, Images 2 5.

58 Roche 206.

59 Tonkin, "Spenser's Garden"« 414.

60 Apteker 105-0?.

^ Maccaffrey 125nl5.

62 Evans 204-05.

^5 Dunseath 178.

A4 Dunseath 179*

^5 Refer to C.M. Bowra, Heroic Poetry (New Yorki St. Martin's, 1966) 500-501.

88 M. Pauline Parker, The Allegory of "The Faerie Queene" (Oxford1 Clarendon, i9 6 0) 222.

6 7 Parker 222.

88 "Spenser's Letter to Ralegh."

^9 Teskeyi 10. CONCLUSION

One could as little imagine Spenser's heroic poem without its continual advocacy of love as without its individual books of virtues. The epic, however, has never been simply a generalized form knowable from Homer on down. Heroism was to be rediscovered and reshaped by each age's poet. As Spenser questioned the old determinates, he reflected certain convic­ tions. Even before Milton mocked Satan by representing him in heroic terms that simultaneously implied condemnation of those heroic attributes, Spenser rejected those conventional stand­ ards. For Spenser, heroism must come through selfless devotion to others rather than through brutal self-aggrandizement. The heroic knight, though Christian, must live in the present as well as hope for the future. Spenser's heroes have an empire on this earth, and they are to enjoy it.

Spenser's drastic reorientation of heroism through the redeeming capability of human sexual love and marriage cre­ ates a new heroic ideal and a new hero. He is simultaneously epic hero as exceptional man and Everyman. In a profound

Christian Humanistic understanding of this world, Spenser posits love as mankind's hope to achieve the summum bonum.

He argues that love can transcend those dominating forces

314 315 that threaten to engulf this world. Reversing the Christian allegorical gloss on classical epic, which interprets the hero as Everyman, Spenser contends that every man (Everyman) can be his own epic hero. Every man can at least attempt to imitate heroic man in each book’s virtue, for it is within his grasp.

The simple act of participating in love and marriage brings hope that each man can create a just society within his own sphere of influence. Virtuous union necessarily includes those virtues that are reflexive of God's own love for mankind. In re-creating himself within his offspring, man re-creates God's love and commitment to man, who was made in His image.

There is no passive idleness in Spenser's heroic love but, instead, virtuous,. heroic action. Britomart comforts the mourn­ ing Scudamour with such action when she promises to "Deliuer her /Amoret7 fro thence, or with her for you dy" (III.xi.18).

Man's ability to overcome the wretchedness of life comes through the strength of his virtue. As Britomart says to

Scudamouri "... all the sorrow in the world is lesse,/ Then vertues might, and values confidence” (III.xi.14). Man and woman must redeem their impulses toward despair and lack of faith in God's providence by virtuous and hard effort, by endurance, by a spirit of confidence and courage— all of which are begun by and continually undergirded by love. The heroic ordeal which love demands is a moral quest for truth and love that can bring justice and peace to every man and woman. Spenser's epic, although never finished, offers a histor

ic perspective beyond previous epics. Without foregoing a

certain pessimistic outlook, Spenser uses the British chron­

icles, Merlin's prediction, Britomart's forecast of London's

future greatness to suggest an improvement within mankind.

Societies may continue to deteriorate or, like Troy, destroy

themselves, but the next society does not make quite the same

mistakes. Cultures evolve, like Spenser's exemplar-knights

that develop their virtues as they travel through their books

The Blatant Beast may appear, but some, like Arthur, remain

impervious to its poison, and others have within themselves

the ability to cure its slanderous bite. Within Spenser's

heroic poem of fantasies lies an inner reality and "truth"

about life. Spenser's own appreciation of love and marriage

offers a bedrock of hope within the mutable world around him.

It is a measure of Spenser's genius that so much of him­

self is reflected within his epic. Surely no one else could

have written The Faerie Queene. The poem reflects his atti­

tude toward and love for his wife and family, his sense of

being exiled from England, his appreciation of the Irish

countryside around Kilcolman, and his desire to enter a

romantic world of the imagination where idealism could exist

outside the boundaries of his life.

In Ireland, Spenser formed a perspective achieved by few

Britishers. He was surrounded by the rich farmland and beauti tiful Irish countryside where superstitions and fairy tales abounded. Yet the land's war-ravaged people had a history of brutal revolts against authority, especially British rule.

Spenser faced constant difficulties and dangers even as he was surrounded by the dichotomy of Ireland's beauty and suf­ fering, romance and loneliness. The conventions of the chival- ric life offered both bloody combat and graceful leisure that mirrored his philosphic view and convictions. He could see the danger and beauty of life and find an inner meaning through the strength of love that brought hope to life. The

Faerie Queene is the mature product of his poetic genius. WORKS CITED

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