The Fairie Queene, preface materials and Cantos I-VI

There are times when the stretch towards allegory seems sincere. There are the two Cantos (4 and 5) that are focused on Pride. Pride is a palace that looks quite gaudy and impressive. It has high but thin walls, and an insecure foundation. Once let in (and the doorkeeper Malvenu keeps no one out), one is in the court of Queen Lucifera. Vanitie keeps the court, while the other six sins (idleness, gluttony, lechery, avarice, envy, and wrath) pull her coach. Each one has a three-stanza description, their bodies mirroring their sins in much the same way they do in the Purgatorio and the Inferno. Satan rides the beam of the coach, while Slowth rests in the mire nearby. It is decadent. It is destructive. We don't see the prisoners and the corpses around this court until, at the end of the next Canto, the Redcrosse Knight flees in fear for his life. He's bleeding, but he must flee anyway, out of fear that he will become one of the downtrodden rather than the victorious. (He has just beaten Sans ioy, the brother to Sans foy (who he defeated) and Sans loy (who tries to rape Una).

Yet there are parts of the story that thus far read as unintelligible. What is Archimago doing, except being a stereotypical villain? He appears to be a true hermit and religious type, but it turns out that the book around his belt is a magic book rather than a psalter. If this book is supposed to be about faith, is Archimago (and Duessa too) supposed to represent the failure or subversion of faith while maintaining the false appearance of virtue? Facade - that seems to be the most striking note in these parts. Three times now, Archimago has appeared in disguise. First indirectly, through his sprites, he feigned Una's disgrace. Then he dresses as the Redcrosse Knight to deceive Una, only to be discovered by Sans loy (who knows Archimago). Finally, as a pilgrim, he leads Una and Satyrane into a fight with Sans loy. Coupled with the castle of Pride, and Duessa/Fidessa, there's a lot of disguises going about.

There is also the direct faithlessness of the pagans, paynims, or the Sarazins (Saracens). Nothing direct about their religion - it seems like their faithlessness is enough. Sans foy, Sans loy, and Sans ioy. The first killed at the start. The second currently fleeing after Una, with Satyrane in pursuit. The third killed (and ambiguously healed?) in Pride's court by the Redcrosse Knight. They are large, but somewhat fair in description, even if they are also prone to excesses. They sound a lot like Cohen's giants. They are a physical threat to faith, and also to virtue.

What else? Duessa's descent into the underworld to obtain healing for Sans ioy is fairly interesting (Canto 5). There are tons of descriptive details, including the sinners that are found there. All of this falls under a general strain I've seen of providing classical examples. This happens even in the dedicatory materials, but there's a constant emphasis on referring to Jove, Venus, Mars, Phoebus, and the like. I've mostly left these references out of my notes, being too lengthy and typical to really pay attention to. I think it's interesting where they appear, more than how they appear. For instance, the descent into the underworld seems to closely mirror what the Redcrosse Knight sees in the court of Pride.

Blood, of course, is on my mind. Fighters bleed frequently, and there seems to be an extra satisfaction in these cantos in telling where the blood goes to. This also ties in with monstrous procreation (Satyrane, the lamia monster). For instance, the monster with a woman's top and a snake's bottom has poisonous dugs from which a thousand little monsters suckle (Canto 1). When she is decapitated, black blood rushes forth from her head. Note, the blood doesn't disappear, but it pools on the ground. The little ones consume the blood, become overfull, and die. When the two knights fight in Canto 6, the blood falls fruitlessly to the ground, evoking its alternative uses in reproduction. When Sans ioy is killed, I believe there is reference to his blood being consumed by the ground around him. Unlike most of the romances I've read, I want to say that blood here is at least two-dimensional. It denotes violence, yes. It has humoral valences at times, yes. It also - and this is important - participates in an exchange where it must go somewhere, must come from somewhere, and must rest somewhere. When fighters bleed, it reads as more than a matter-of-fact detail. That blood is as necessary to the fighting as swords, but more than that, it's not just incidental. It's integral to fighting itself, showing it and its effects on each other and the environment around them.