THE PAYNEMS AND SARACENS OF SPENSER‘S THE FAERiE QUEENE Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D. MICHIGAN STATE UNEVERSTTY NTRMAL SENGH DHES! 1968 ....... IlllllllllllllllllllllllllHllllNlllllllllllillllllllllllllll 3129310528 4438 {[HES‘S This is to certify that the thesis entitled The Paynims and Saracens of Spenser's The Faerie Queene presented by Nirmal Singh Dhesi has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for 2&— degree in M fine/m 5 Major professor Date 10716/68 0-169 LY?!» Afi. “icing-2n Start- " Unix/emits; .— .,‘, I; OF S. The seven Pa Sahsfoy, Sansioy‘ and the Souidan, the other antago towers to guide 5'! sheer courage Christian knight but for the arm: encounters with the Pai/nirns areI Thematicaily, t enCounter with in the make-up This disse anlmportant ABSTRACT THE PAYNIMS AND SARACENS 0F SPENSER'S THE FAERIE QUEENE By Nirmal Singh Dhesi The seven Paynims or Saracens of The Faerie Queene, Sansfoy, Sansloy, Sansjoy, Pyrochles, Cymochles, Pollente, and the Souldan, stand midway between the champions and the other antagonists of the Faery Land. With no magical powers to guide them, no monstrous attributes to aid them, by sheer courage and determination the Paynims put the Christian knights through such trials and tribulations that but for the armor of Faith the latter would not survive the encounters with these reckless characters. In the narrative, the Paynims are the only proper adversaries of the exemplars. Thematically, they test their condition at every step; each encounter with the Paynims reveals some weakness inherent in the make-up of the good knights. This dissertation demonstrates that the Paynim is an important genre in The Faerie Queene, and that to fully understand the protagonists of Books One, Two and Five, and the structure of allegory therein, it is important llt :5 anderstand 1’- Chapter I e! rang the antagO‘ sndes,rank, a' ‘rvsehany, but 1: tfe nature and c :ncMc level, t Chapter II nonok One: San interns of the sauna of Faith tonutside influ ehbflief in it5 fmn outside. T nu ofan Orgo Chapter II Ilth pyroChleg the guiding Vir °Msel f! to wit toact, and in asthe COUnterr tat-i0” to act I indiverSe Sit an be Orniy the. Nirmal Singh Dhesi to understand the nature and function of these seven Paynims. Chapter I establishes the uniqueness of the Paynims among the antagonists of The Faerie Queene. Their sex, species, rank, and temperament obviously distinguish them from many, but they are mainly separated from them all by the nature and consequences of their villainies. At the psychic level, they are the shadows of the good knights. Chapter II analyses the nature and role of the Paynims of Book One: Sansfoy, Sansloy, and Sansjoy. It shows that in terms of the Virtue of the First Book, Holiness, the essence of Faith lies in the individual's susceptibility to outside influences, and consequently of the Paynim's misbelief in its antithesis, his insensibility to affects from outside. The Paynim sin is rooted, not in the mindless- ness of an Orgoglio or the overactive mind of an Archimago, but in a closed mind. Chapter III deals with the Paynims of Book Two, mainly with Pyrochles and Cymochles. In the context of Temperance, the guiding Virtue of the Second Book, learning to control oneself, to withhold action, is as important as properly to act, and in this respect Pyrochles and Cymochles function as the counters to the hero: they cannot resist the temp- tation to act merely for the sake of action. They are seen in diverse situations, to each of which their response is stubbornly the same. Their inflexible temperament is also manifestation 0 afd are in turn t Chapter IV 5 lacking the Chara antivo, are alsc Pallente and the series of the Ex! the faults and 1'! since in general the Paynims of 8 :art two of The 3‘9 image and in Nirmal Singh Dhesi a manifestation of a closed mind; they too test the exemplar and are in turn themselves tested. Chapter IV shows that the Paynims of Book Five, while lacking the character and elan of the Paynims of Books One and Two, are also similar to the latter in many respects. Pollente and the Souldan too are the leading human adver- saries of the exemplar; their encounters also point up the faults and inadequacies of the hero of Book Five. But since in general they fail to measure up to the level of the Paynims of Books One and Two, it would appear that in part two of The Faerie Queene Spenser decided to tone down the image and impact of the Paynims. in Part1 THE PAYNIMS AND SARACENS OF SPENSER'S THE FAERIE QUEENE BY Nirmal Singh Dhesi A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English 1968 ©Nirmal Singh Dhesi 1969 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright by NIRMAL SINGH DHESI 1968 To my Father ii My deepe :i:r.- of this dis Sate, Professor Ezssell Nye. Es great deal for 1': Ian also thankf' c: to my wife, t ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My deepest obligation for help in the prepara- tion of this dissertation is to my teachers at Michigan State, Professors Arnold Williams, Lawrence Babb, and Russell Nye. Especially to Professor Williams I owe a great deal for his invaluable comments and criticism. I am also thankful to Mr. Jon Joslyn for his assistance, and to my wife, Gwendolyn, for her patience. iii Izzrcduction . a.“ “3,:er 1- The Anta The Pay: III. The paw. IV. The Payn 352=lusion . i§9endix Book 0, B' The Educ; 1" Phaedria Salic’grap‘ny . TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter I. The Antagonists of The Eaerie Queens II. The Paynims of Book One . . . . . . III. The Paynims of Book Two . . . . . . IV. The Paynims of Book Five . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix A. The Significance of Knightly Armament Book One . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. The Education of Sir Guyon . . . . . C. Phaedria's "Pleasant Ile" . . . . . D. Phaedria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv Page 17 69 138 189 218 222 226 231 235 238 .u. \ the INTRODUCTION This dissertation undertakes to examine seven inter- related characters, called Paynims or Saracens, who figure prominently in Books One, Two and Five of The Eaerie Queene. It intends to demonstrate that both individually and collec- tively these seven--Sansfoy, Sansloy, Sansjoy, Pyrochles, Cymochles, Pollente, and the Souldan--are a unique element in the action and allegory of the poem. At the human level, the level at which the champions of The Eaerie Queens live and act, these Paynims, or Saracens, occupy an ethically middle ground, as close to the protagonists as to the other forces of evil. They function as the shadow of the good knights. They test the nuances of their Christian ethos, the temper of their faith, minds and purpose, that the other antagonists are unable to touch. Every encounter with them discloses a precarious equilibrium inside the protagonists that but for the latter's faith in God would be easily tipped over by these fell adversaries. Basically, the purpose of this study is threefold. First, to establish the Paynims-Saracens as a group, dis- tinct from the other antagonists of The Faerie Queene. Second, to analyse their nature and function, both as indi- viduals and as members of the Saracen clan. And, third, to 1 show that the gap noticed between the two parts of the poem can be also seen in these characters: the Paynims of Book Five Operate at a lower level than those of Books One and TWO. The origin of the words "Paynim" and "Saracen" ante- dates the Muslims to whom they were usually applied during the Middle Ages. Of the two, "Paynim" was more comprehen- sive in application than "Saracen." The ghh traces the source of "Paynim" to the Latin "Paganus,"1 the earliest use of which is recorded in Tertullian, a second-century Chris- tian writer.2 The ultimate etymology of "Saracen" is not so definite. The first-century Roman writer, Pliny the Elder, writes of the "Araceni" as one of the tribes of Arabia, as also does Ptolemy in the second century A.D. The earliest Christian writer to mention the Saracens is Eusebius of Caesaria (265-340 A.D.), who describes them as the leading tribe of Arabia Who kidnapped and sold Christian fugitives during the times of Trajan's persecution.3 His account of their origin from Ishmael, son of Abraham by the bondwoman, 1Literally, "civilian, non-militant," as all non- Christians were called by the Christians, Who called them- selves "milites," "enrolled soldiers of Christ." 2Supplement (1933 ed.), p. 330. 3"Saracens," Thethncvclo edia of Islam, ed. M. T. .Houtsma et al., IV (Leyden, 1934), pp. 155-56. Hagar, was to be repeatedly reproduced by European writers all the way through the Renaissance.4 The early references to the Saracens, however, even after they broke out of Arabia and overran the Christian Asia, Africa and Spain in the 7th and 8th centuries, are remarkably free from rancor. The few writers such as the Venerable Bede or the later Carolingians Who mention them regard them as ordinary unbelievers.5 The picture changes radically with the advent of the Crusades. The occupation of Jerusalem and the threat to Constantinople by the Seljuk Turks resulted in the first of 6 the Crusades in 1096. Naturally, "the inception of the Crusades was accompanied by propaganda to excite the pas- 7 sions of the Christians against the Muslims." Consequently, western accounts of the Saracens from about this time become highly polemical. They are now looked upon as an immoral 4The life ang dgath of Mahomeg, published in London in 1637, and attributed to Spenser's friend and patron, Sir Walter Raleigh, also repeats this story of the Muslim origin. Raleigh also refers to it briefly in his fiisgogy Q; ghg wggld (London, 1614 [i.e. 1617]), p. 62. 5R.‘W. Southern, Western Views of Tslam in ghg hiddle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), pp. 14-18. 6Ernest Baker, "The Crusades," in The hegacy 9f Tslgh, ed. Thomas Arnold and Alfred Guillaume (London, 1931), pp. 45-46. 7Dana C. Munro, "The Western attitude toward Islam during the period of the Crusades," Speculum, VI (1931), 330. 8 people, "the natural enemy of Christendom." The prophet Muhammed's name for the first time becomes known in northern Europe.9 He is described as an idol whom the Saracens wor- ship and offer sacrifices. While the intimate encounter of the two sides in the Crusades familiarized the Christians with the Saracens, the familiarity did not bring much knowledge. "Quite the con— trary. The first Crusaders and those who immediately followed them to Palestine saw and understood extraordinar- ily little of the Eastern scene. [Their] early success dis- couraged any immediate reactions other than those of triumph and contempt."10 The average Christian knew himself possessed of the perfect and of the Whole truth. He reacted with disgust, at best with compassion, when confronted with the crude distor- tion of this truth by means of which the Evil One had ensnared so many souls that might have been saved. When the Christian looked upon Islam, his primary task was not to study this phenomenon of an alien faith . . . but rather to explain the unex- plainable, to wit, the artful machinations by which Mohammed had won over his people to the acceptance of his absurd confabulations. 1 8C. Meredith Jones, "The conventional Saracen of the Songs of Geste," S culum, XVII (1942), 203. 9Southern mentions coming across Muhammad's name only once in a writing before 1100 A.D. (in Ralph Glaber's History) where the account is not at all polemical. O . cit., p. 28 and n. lOIbid., pp. 27-28. 11G. E. von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam (Chicago, 1954), p. 43. From the tales of the returned Crusaders and their camp— followers "a traditional type of 'Saracen' was invented and reproduced endlessly. Deepite the number of inconsistencies which acquaintance with Muslims must have revealed to them, western Christians were apparently prepared to accept this hate-inspired and conventional portrait."12 The Saracen was seen as a vicious and arrogant char- acter whose norm was to hate the good, i.e., the Christians. To a few facts in his picture were added a lot of imaginary details. He was described variously as a devotee of Venus,13 a worshipper of idols, a follower of an unholy trinity,14 and so on. As an individual, the Saracen was brave and, sometimes, even chivalrous. But the utter folly of follow- ing the false gods had forever put him beyond goodness. As an anonymous narrator of the First Crusade put it: [Had they] been firm in the faith of Christ and holy Christianity, if they had been willing to confess one Lord in three persons, . . . no one could have been found more powerful or courageous or gifted in war; and nevertheless, by the grace of God, they were con- quered by our men.1 12Jones, p. 204. 13Roger Bacon, The opus majus, trans. Robert B. Burke, II (Philadelphia, 1928), pp. 791-92. 14Samuel C. Chew, The Crescent and the Rose (New York, 1937), pp. 388f.; Norman Daniel, Tslam and the Wegh (Edinburgh, 1962), p. 309; William W. Comfort, "The liter- ary role of the Saracens in the French Epic," PMLA, LV (1940), 639. lsflnistoire anonyme de la premiere croisade," excerpted in The Viking Portable Medieval Reader, eds. Ross and McLaughlin (New York, 1960), p. 440. ‘3' ‘94.: u * Basica.‘ as a conflict 1 32:5 the strugg motions in t :‘efeat, if stil ..-. 16 Europea: States during a is age of the t "fie Saracen the might throng In order to 1 of this peric at a moment c western Euro; Boon those of 9 Wonders c leWary his °f approximat e same POin legends of Ma “lam Practi the moment Cf “198 Were 1; “Count 0: :8 Soon as UN cm or their “he Picture 01 from G leved Chane: Slim)! Certa; July “Prod; Basically, the Christian-Saracen conflict was seen as a conflict between right and wrong, in which, however hard the struggle, the right, Christianity, always came out victorious in the end. The usual lot of the Saracen after defeat, if still alive, was to revile and blaspheme his own gods.16 European literature acquired this portrait of the Saracen during a period of resurgent imaginative activity, the age of the troubadors and the chansgns. It stamped on the Saracen the imprint of a villain that was to disgrace him right through the Renaissance.17 In order to understand the tenacity of the fictions of this period we must notice that they were formed at a moment of great imaginative development in western Europe. The romances of Charlemagne and soon those of Arthur; the Miracles of the Virgin; the wonders of Rome and the legends of Virgil; the legendary history of Britain--they are all products of approximately the same period and of precisely the same point of view as that which produced the legends of Mahomet and the fantastic descriptions of Moslem practices. There can be little doubt that at the moment of their formation these legends and fan- tasies were taken to represent a more or less truth- ful account of what they purported to describe. But as soon as they were produced they took on a literary form of their own. At the level of popular poetry, 'the picture of.Mahomet and his Saracens changed very little from generation to generation. Like well- loved characters of fiction, they were expected to display certain characteristics, and authors faith- fully reproduced them for hundreds of years.18 16Von Grunebaum, p. 48. 17nan1e1, pp. 1, 2755. 18Southern, pp. 28-29. These development also can be studied in the English Jliterairure. In the few pre—Crusade works that mention the Saracens, the references are merely topical in nature; i.e., free from polemics.]'9 But the writings that come after the Crusades almost without exception condemn them. In the romances of course the words "Paynim" and "Saracen" are synonymous. But in works other than the romances, "Paynim" has a broader connotation than "Saracen." Used as a synonym of "pagan," it covers the non-Christians in general. The thirteenth-century Kentish sermons, for instaruce, refer to the Magi as the three "Kinges of 20 as also does Chaucer's contemporary, Thomas 22 Painime"; U k 21 - - ~ 3 - Usk also uses Paynim for animal worshippers. Similarly, Thomas Norton, Elizabethan translator of Calvin's Wtion of Chrfiistian Religion, sets down the old . . . 2 Roman writers as "the panime wr1ters." 3 x , 19As, for example, in King Alfred's translation of “Hi-Storia adversus Paqanos of Orosius (Alfred's Qrosius, ed. Henry Sweet, EETS orig. ser. 79 [London, 1883]), I.i.12, and in "Malchus," a tenth-century ms. (in The Shrine, ed. Thomas 0- cOczkayne [London, 1864-70], p. 42). 20"Old Kentish Sermons," in Old En lish Miscellan , ed- Richard Morris, EETS orig. ser. 49 (London, 1872), p. 28. 21In "The Testament of Love," in Chaucerian and W, supp. to fle Complete Works of geoffrey m, ed. Walter w. Skeat (Oxford, 1897), 11.1.49. 22Ibid., line 46. 23(London, 1599 [trans. 1561]), I.xi.l9. But the use of "Saracen" is neither so accurate nor so free from pejorative connotations. Some medieval writers do have a fairly good idea of who the Saracens are. Thus, early in the twelfth century, William of Malmesbury points out that the Turks and Saracens are two different pe0ple.24 Roger Bacon (1214?-94) distinguishes between the Saracens and other pagans.25 John Wyclif (c.1320-84) knows that the Saracens are a part (and not all) of the Paynims;26 and Reginald Pecock, a fifteenth-century churchman, that they are different from the Turks}.7 But there are also many writers who confuse them with other people. Robert of Gloucester (l260?-1300?) calls the Saxon invaders of England Saracens.28 The supposed Sir Jehn Mandeville writes of Christians who occasionally turn Saracen, confusing the latter with the Muslim religion.29 Langland, in Piers 24Cited in s. c. Chew, op. cit., p. 387. 2509. cit., p. 788. 26Select En lish Works of John W clif, ed. Thomas .Arnold, I (Oxford, 1869), p. 28. 27The repressor of over much blaminqugpthe clergy, ed. Churchill Babington, rolls ser. 19 (London, 1860), p. 99. nghg_mgh;;cal chronicle of Robert of gloucester, ed. W. A. Wright, rolls ser. 86 (London, 1887), lines 4522 and 4528. 29gh§_ygigqepghd_hravai;e of Sir John Maundeville, ed. J. O. Halliwell (London, 1883), p. 141. Plowman, calls emperor Trajan "pat sarasene."30 Caxton 31 mixes up the Saracens with the Turks. Even as late as the sixteenth century, when information about the Muslims had become easily available, important writers like Hakluyt keep confusing the Saracens with the other nations of Islam.32 Typical is the view of Henry Smith (1550?-9l), a Puritan divine: Those that imbrace the Religion of hahomet, are called Saracens, for it was the pride of Mahomet to haue them so called, to aduance his owne doc— trine and profession, because hee knewe himselfe lineallie descended of Ismael the sonne of Agar the bondwoman: therefore to auoide this reproch, hee bare the world in hand that hes came of §ara the free-woman, the wife of Abraham, and called himselfe and his followers §aracens. 33 But while the story of the Saracens' descent from Ishmael was universally accepted in the Renaissance, most writers were careful not to equate them with the Muslim religion or with other Muslim nations. Thus, for instance, Richard Eden's translation of The Decades of Peter Martyr of Anghiera, a work that "helped to stimulate the 30The vision of William concerningPiers the Plowman, text B, ed. Walter W. Skeat, EETS orig. ser. 38 (London, 1869), passus xi, lines 151 and 159. 31 axton's ir our of the WOrld, ed. Oliver H. Prior, EETS extra ser. 110 (London, 1913), p. 87. 32With Moors and Turks. See Richard Hakluyt, The nci a1 navi a ions v a es traffi es disc ve ' s of the English hatign (London [1907]), v. II, pt. 2 and v. IV, p. 17. 33In ggd's argow against atheisgs (London, 1604 [orig. pub. 1593]), p. 52. \ v. lO Elizabethan explorers and contributed to their knowledge of the science of navigation," does not confuse the Moors with 34 Thomas Newton in A notable historie of the 35 other Muslims. Sargcgns divides the Saracens from all other Muslims. Similarly, JOhn Smythe, toward the end of the century, points out that the Mamelukes are not the same as Saracens.36 But by this time the word "Saracen" itself comes to acquire a life of its own. It becomes a derogatory epithet. S. C. Chew refers to a number of inns in Elizabethan England 37 known as the Saracen's Head. Skelton, the Tudor poet, freely calls Christopher Garnish, a courtier and his oppo- nent in a flyting match, a Saracen.38 Such lax use of the term "Saracen" was of course a carry-over from the popular romances where the Saracen was an essential ingredient in the Devil's stew. Even Chaucer's "Man of Law's Tale" moves mainly through the exertions of 34 e decades of the news worlde or wes ndia, . . . Wrytten in the Latino tounge by Peter Martyr of Angleria, and translated into Englysshe by Rycharde Eden (London, 1555). 35( preface." 3§22££sis_sissesrsss. written by Sir John Smythe, Knight: Concerning the formes and effects of diuers sorts of weapons, . . . (London, 1590), p. 33b. 3799, cit., pp. 145-47. 38"Poems against Garnesche," in The gomplete Eoems .Qf_ighh_fihg;;gh, ed. Philip Henderson (London, 1959), pp. 151, 157 [lines not given]. , London, 1575). See especially "The Author's 11 the followers of "Mahound," and the story, though not a romance proper, is very similar to one, hhggé, and might even have been borrowed from there. His giant in the "Tale of Sir ThOpas" swears "by Termagaunt."39 The Saracen of romance in England, as in Europe, is a unique creature, divorced from the real Saracens, about whom more and more was becoming known. Since the romances almost always followed the French or other European models (or were often free translations thereof), the Saracen that originally emerged from the Crusades is carried on intact in them. Stout, powerful and courageous, he would be invin- cible but for the error of following the false gods. The romances use "Paynim" and "Saracen" interchangeably to cover virtually every group or nation that at one time or other might have pressed upon the Europe known to their compos- ers.4O Saxons, Poles, Hungarians, all indiscriminately fall into this category. The champions of course face mortal enemies close at hand too, but beyond the national boundaries 39Line 810. 40A practice that is also common in the French orig- inals. See Mark Skidmore, The moral traits of Christian and Sagacgn as pgrtrayed by ghe chansons de geste (Colorado Springs, 1935), p. 26. Ariosto, one of Spenser's models, also uses the two words synonymously a number of times. See, for instance, v1.12, 30, 31; vii.75, 92; xx.93, 115, etc., for "Saracen"; and v1.13, 29; vii.54, 60, 65, etc., for "pagan" or "paynim," in Ludovico Ariosto, Qzlandg Ehniosg (Firenze, 1916). In John Harrington's translation, "pagan" in.the original is freely translated as "Paynim," "Turk," etc. 12 lurk these diabolic visitors, who invariably represent the ultimate threat to the hero and his people. Thus the usual role of the Saracens in the romances is that of national, rather than personal, enemies.4 Briefly, then, Medieval and Renaissance writers in Europe and England approach the Paynims and Saracens in two ways. In the non-romance writings, "Paynim? in careful writers connotes pre-Christian pagans--Saxons, Greeks, or Romans--while in the romances it is synonymous with "Sara- cen." The "Saracen" of both the romance and non-romance works comes from the same source, the excited imagination of the Crusaders. But whereas outside the romances the portrait of the Saracen becomes modified as the later 41To cite a few examples: most of the well-known English romances, Beues of Hamtoun, Guy of Warwick, Joseph of Arimathie, Merlin, The Romans of Pagtehhy, Sowdone of Bahyione, etc., have Saracens as an important group of vil- lains. In Horn, Beues, Partenay, and Sowdone, words "Paynim" and "Saracen" are used interchangeably. [See King Horn, ed. J. Rawson Lumby, reedited by George H. McKnight, EETS orig. ser. 14 (London, 1866 [reedited 1901]), lines 39- 46 and 63-66; Sir Beues o; Hahtoun, ed. Eugen Kolbing, EETS ext. ser. 46, 48, 65 (London, 1885-94), lines 514, 533, 588, 599, etc.; Couldrette, ThghRomans of Partena , ed. Walter W. Skeat, EETS orig. ser. 22 (London, 1866 [revised 1899]), pp. 51-54; The Sowdone of Bab lone, ed. Emil Hausknecht, EETS ext. ser. 38 (London, 1881), lines 214, 304, 345, 535, etc.] The Saracens in Beues, Merlin, Partena , and Sowdone are respectively also Armenians, Saxons, Poles, and Moors. [See lines 514, 533, 588; p. 193; pp. 72-83; and p. 30, respectively, in the editions already cited.] The Song of gpland, perhaps the original of all the romances, includes over 30 nations, including the Hungarians and Slavs, in the Paynim-Saracen horde (lines 3214-64). Even the non-Saracen Arthurian cycle has its Saracens in the family of Sir Palomides. 13 generations get better informed, the Saracen of the romances remains stereotyped to be reproduced unchanged through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. These reactions and attitudes can be exemplified also from the writings of Spenser. In the romance-epic, Thp ggegge Queene, "Paynim" is used synonymously with "Sarazin." Of the seven characters who are the subject of this disser- tation, six--Sansfoy, Sansloy, Sansjoy, Pyrochles, Cymochles and Pollente--are called both Paynim and Saracen. Only the Souldan is not called a Saracen, but only a Paynim. 0n the other hand, there are also two references to the Paynims in The Shepheardes Calender: [Numa Pompilius] minded upon good reason to begin the yeare at Januarie, of him therefore so called tanguam janua anni, the gate and entraunce of the yere, or of the name of the god Janus, to which god for that the old Paynims attributed the byrth and beginning of all creatures new coming into the worlds, it seemeth that hee therfore to him assigned the beginning and first entraunce of the yeare. (From "The Generall Argument of the‘Whole Booke," lines 119-28) Cypresse, used of the old paynims in the furnishing of their funerall pompe, and pr0perly the signs of all sorow and heavinesse. 42 ("November," gloss, lines 87-9) 43 As the second reference echoes Horace, "the old Paynims" in both cases refers to the ancient Romans. Assuming that 42In The Complete Poetical WOrks of Spenser, ed. R. E. Neil Dodge (Boston, 1936). All references to Spenser's poetry will be to this edition. 43 II.xiv.23. The “invisas cupressos" in Horace, The Odes, 14 Spenser approved of what E.K. wrote, if he was not E.K. him- self, this would show his awareness of the precise usage of the word "Paynim." It may be pointed out that in The Faerip Queene also the only historical identification of the Pay- nims is with the Saxons.44 As regards the Saracens, Spenser must have known about them quite well. With the Turkish threat at its worst, the Muslims were a hot subject in Elizabethan England. There would have been no dearth of factual information about them to an avid reader like Spenser. In addition at his disposal was the vast knowledge of his friend and patron, Sir Walter Raleigh, who later wrote the famous Histogy of the world and is supposed to have also written The life and death of uphomet, the congpest of Spaine together with the pysing and ruins of the Sarazin Empire. But leaving aside these conjectures, we have a few of Spenser's own allusions to the Muslims that leave little doubt about his knowledge of the subject. There is his reference to them in A yiew: And this was the Ancient manner of the Spanniardes as yeat it is of all the mahometans to Cutt all theire beardes Closse saue onelye theire mvschachios which they weare longe 45 44III.iii.27-29, 36 and 52. 45A View of the Present State of Treland, in Thp Wogks of Edmund Spenser, a variorum edition, eds. Greenlaw, Osgood, Padelford et al., IV (Baltimore, 1949), p. 110. This edition will be referred to as Variorum in further citations. 15 NOticeably, Spenser here calls them "mahometans," i.e., followers of Mahomet, which is the correct Elizabethan Spelling of the prophet's name. In The Faerie Queene, the same name is twice written as “Mahoune,”46 in keeping with the romance formula. Spenser also does not mix up the Turks, Moors, or other "mahometans" with the Saracens, as did many Eliza- 47 He knows, for instance, that the Paynims bethan writers. who overran Spain during the Middle Ages were the "mores and Barbarians [Berbers? (editorial comment)]" out of Africa; that the Egyptians and Ethiopians are different 48 people. In 1596 came out an English translation of Jaques de Lavardin's popular history of Scanderbeg, a legendary fighter against the Turks in the fifteenth century.49 The first of its three dedicatory sonnets was by Spenser, Which 'would indicate that he had some reputation in the subject. Of course, in The Faerie Queene Spenser constructs his "Sarazins" according to the conventions of the Medieval romance. The word is used synonymously with "Paynim." On 461I.viii.33 and IV.viii.44. 47See, for example, Holinshed's criticism of such ‘writers in The chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (London, 1587), II.i.56-57. “yam. Iv. pp. 91. 105. 108. 49The historie of Qeorge CastriotI Surnamed Scanderbeg . . . , trans. Z. I. Gentleman (London, 1596). For the great popularity of its subject, see Chew, pp. 474- 478. 15 thiceably, Spenser here calls them "mahometans," i.e., followers of Mahomet, which is the correct Elizabethan spelling of the prophet's name. In The Faerie Queene, the same name is twice written as "Mahoune,"46 in keeping with the romance formula. Spenser also does not mix up the Turks, Moors, or other "mahometans" with the Saracens, as did many Eliza- 47 bethan writers. He knows, for instance, that the Paynims who overran Spain during the Middle Ages were the "mores and Barbarians [Berbers? (editorial comment)]" out of Africa; that the Egyptians and Ethiopians are different 48 people. In 1596 came out an English translation of Jaques de Lavardin's popular history of Scanderbeg, a legendary fighter against the Turks in the fifteenth century.49 The first of its three dedicatory sonnets was by Spenser, which would indicate that he had some reputation in the subject. Of course, in The Faerie Queene Spenser constructs his "Sarazins" according to the conventions of the Medieval romance. The word is used synonymously with "Paynim.“ 0n 46II.viii.33 and IV.viii.44. 47See, for example, Holinshed's criticism of such writers in The chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (London, 1587), II.i.56-57. 48W. Iv. pp. 91, 105. 108. 49The historie of Georquastriot, Surnamed Scanderbeg . . . , trans. Z. I. Gentleman (London, 1596). For the great popularity of its subject, see Chew, pp. 474- 478. 16 the surface, his Paynims and Saracens also display the tradi- tional dimensions. They are all tough and hefty warriors, armed cap-a-pie. Hot, fierce and foreboding, they enter the scene precipitously, looking for encounters to satisfy their irascible natures. They also swear by "Mahoune" and "Tarma- gaunt." In encounters with them what protects the good knights is their faith. Also, in the first part of the poem there is a hint that they are all part of a grand offensive against the Faery Queen herself. (I.xi.7; xii.18) Thus, the knowledge of the Paynims and Saracens that Spenser inherited and reproduced in his own writings has distinct traditional and contemporary features. Spenser knows about the real Paynims and Saracens, but ianhe Eagrig ngene he constructs them according to the conventional formulae. However, this similarity between the Spenserian and traditional Saracens is only superficial. Spenser takes up this time-honored model from the romances, but like everything else he borrows, the giants, beasts, enchanters, and so on, he breathes new life into this antique motif. In his hands the Saracens appear conventional only from a dis- tance. Looked at closely, they betray eccentricities, atypical actions and reactions, that stamp them as a unique sub-genre, a motif that carries the burden of Spenser's moral themes in The Faerie Queene, which is the subject of the following four chapters. CHAPTER I THE ANTAGONISTS OF THE FAERIE QQEEQE The unfolding drama of The Faerie Queene soon dis- closes its characters arranging themselves into set cate- gories. Particularly is this true of its evil characters whose hellish natures, divorced from grace, always act out similar fates. Journeying through the Faery-land, the knights-errant come across beasts that ever stink, giants that invariably look ugly, commoners who always live -wretchedly, and so on. This is not to suggest that differ- ences among such similar characters do not exist. On the ~contrary, they do. But in each group the individual charac- ters, in spite of their uniqueness, exhibit enough common traits and habits to mark them off as a unit distinct and separate from all other groups. One such group of evil characters is the Paynims or Saracens. The rest can be divided into six other groups according to their sex, species,.c1ass,<3r caste; viz., beasts, monsters, women, plebeians, enchanters, and base or comic knights. In this chapter, through a study of these seven groups, I wish to show that (l) the Paynims or Saracens in ,Ihe'gaerie Queene are, as a class, distinct from all other 17 18 evil characters; and that (2) they are the main human adver- saries of the good knights. I will compare and contrast Spenser's pejoratives, descriptions, and details of the stories in these groups to bring out their mutual exclusive- ness and their different distances from the protagonists' norm. This will, hopefully, isolate theuniqueness of the ~Paynims. The Renaissance was an aristocratic age and, conse- quently, Spenser's visualization of entities in a hierarchi- cal order could not be without significance. But, even aside from temporal considerations, a poet's mind would habitually speak through images that constellate concepts and feelings. To these--say a woman, a beast, or a giant-- the reader's response is intuitively perceptive, as, for instance, envisioning a yghhh'his mind spontaneously expects womanly behaviour from the character. The commendation or deprecation of the character then depends on how closely it approximates, exceeds, or disappoints that expectation. So, when Una acts as the perfect woman, or her lion more than a beast, they evoke in the reader that much more respect and admiration. On the other hand, a character who acts less than his type, as Braggadocchio, a knight, consistently acts the coward, arouses ridicule and contempt. I should imagine that during the Renaissance, when the reader's awareness of the unity-in-multiplicity of life (appearance-and-reality) ‘was his second nature, reaction to such configurations would 19 have been even more spontaneous, and the harmony of image and virtue not just expected but rather-taken for granted. Thus I feel that Spenser's projection of some sins and vices as beasts, others as women, still others as giants, and so on, has a significance beyond what scholar- ship has uncovered so far. Questions such as these could well be asked: why is Envie a feminine entity ("hag"), and Gelosy a masculine (Malbecco)? Or, why is Infamy (the Blatant Beast) bestial, while Detraction is~a female, and Defetto a male? Perhaps their answers would increase our understanding of Renaissance habits of thought and modes of expression. Since my purpose here is simply to establish the ~importance of the Paynims as a unit, distinct from others, I do not pr0pose to go into the rationale of these details. That such details, however, do matter, and importantly, I hope to demonstrate by taking up the general nature of the characters in each group--their labels, attributes, descrip- tions, habitats, genealogies, and other broad details of stories-~and showing that these are similar within each group, but different in each from all the others. Thus, through a process of separation and elimina- tion, I hope to draw attention to the unique position that the Paynims and Saracens occupy in the rogue's gallery of The Faerie Queene. I leave out of consideration those myriads of minor criminals who should perhaps form a cate- gory by themselves, not merely to draw a line somewhere, but 20 mainly because my aim is to outline the separation of the Paynims from others and not to exhaust the subject. In the following pages, then, I shall discuss the characteristics of the members of the seven groups mentioned above: beasts, monsters, women, plebeians, enchanters, base or comic knights, and the Paynim knights. In each group I have tried to include all the characters of its type who participate in actions extensive enough to bring out their typical traits. The labels and attributes cited to differ- entiate these groups are almost all from Spenser's own interjections; i.e., I ignore an epithet put in the mouth of any character unless, in some rare instance, its quality is beyond doubt and its use imperative. Beasts The category of BEASTS, which includes Error, Duessa's seven-headed beast, the old dragon, the hyena-like beast of the witch in III.vii, Geryoneo's beast, and the Blatant Beast, occupies the lowest seat in the criminal hierarchy oprhe Faegiehoueene. .This group, which composes the Faery-land's brute creation, is distinguished by labels such as "beast," "monster," and "fiend," which occur repeatedly in their definitions. Error is a "monster vile," "the ugly monster," and "the feend" (I.i.13; 14.6; 22.4). The beast that Orgoglio assigns to Duessa is "a monstrous beast," a "dreadfull 21 ibeast," "many headed beast," "purple beast," "cruel beast," “fruitfull-headed beast," a "beast" and a "monster" (I.vii. 16.8; 18.8 and viii.12.4; viii.6.2; 13.3; 15.1; 20.1; 15.7; vii.l7.6). The old dragon is a "feend," a "beast," a "huge feend," "the damned feend," "the direfull feend," "the dreadfull beast," "the wrathfull Beast," "the furious beast," "the hell-bred beast," "the ever damned beast," "balefull beast," "great beast," "the monster," and "an infernall monster" (I.xi.2.3; 25.6; 3.3; 35.1; 55.5; 8.1; 16.7; 17.5; 40.3; 49.1; xii.2.7; 4.8; xi.20.9; 31.5); and the witch's beast, "An hideous beast," "beast," "monster," "the monster-vilde," "feend," and a "wicked feend" (III.vii. 22.2; 33.7, 36.3, 37.1, 38.2, 61.6, viii.2.5; vii.23.6, 26.5, 28.1, viii.21—2; vii.30.7; 31.3; 32.2). Similarly, Geryoneo's is "An huge monster," "a dreadfull feend," "like to hellish feend," and "feend" (V.xi.23.l; 21.2, 21.7, 21.9, 25.7, 33.6; x.13.7; 29.3, xi.20.2; 22.5; 27.2; 30.5); and the Blatant Beast, a "monster," "a dreadfull feend," "the ugly monster," "a wicked monster," a "wicked feend," a "beast," a "monstrous beast," a "harmefull beast," a "hell- ish beast," and a "foule beast" (V.xii.37.7, VI.iii.26.5, ix.3.1, xii.13.4, 38.1; V.xii.37.8; VI.v.l6.2; vi.12.3; ix.6.2; iii.25.l, ix.5.9, 6.1, xii.31.1, 33.1, 36.1, 37.5, 37.9; xii.22.7; vi.15.5; xii.32.6; 24.6). The beasts are not, however, projected as mere animals. They also display transcendent attributes and 22 three of them even elements of human anatomy. Error is half woman and half serpent. (I.i.l4) Duessa's seven-headed beast has a tail that touches the sky. (I.vii.18) The old dragon has the advantage of his supernatural size: . . . his largenesse measured much land, And made wide shadow under his huge waste; As mountaine doth the valley overcaste. (I.xi.8) His flaggy winges . . . Were like two sayles, . . . (10.1—2) His huge long tayle, . . . . . . of three furlongs does but little lacke; (11.1, 7) His blazing eyes, like two bright shining shieldes, Did burn with wrath and sparkled living fyre. (14.1-2) He breathes out smoke and sulphurous fire. Theritch's beast has a charmed body that is impervious to steel. (III. vii.35) Geryoneo's beast speaks in a male voice from a woman's face (V.xi.20, 23); and the thousand-odd tongues of the Blatant Beast are partly human and partly animal. (VI.xii.27) Their descriptions invariably contain images and words--usually aspects of_§;;hh and ghihhr-that produce feelings of abhorrence. Error, "most lothsom, filthie, foule," and stinking, is seen lying "on the durtie ground" when the Redcross Knight enters her den. (I.i.14-15) A fetid smell seems to fill the place whenever she moves or -opens her mouth. Duessa's beast, a product of "filthie fen," walks on "filthy feet" (I.vii.16, 18), feeds on blood and gore, and eventually drops dead "on the durtie field." (I.viii.20) The jaws of the old dragon are full of human "blood and gobbets raw," and the hot breath from "his 23 stinking gorge" fills the air with "smoke and stench." Human flesh is also the diet of the hyena that chases Florimel (III.vii.22), as well as of Geryoneo's beast-- "fowle, deformed, . . . horrible, hideous"--who lives off the victims of her master. (V.x.29, xi.20) She expires "breathing out clouds of sulphure fowle and blacks," and her "most ugly filth" almost chokes Prince Arthur with stink. Foulness and filth are also the most evident char— acteristic of the Blatant Beast. (VI.i.8) Except for the Blatant Beast, all other beasts live in fixed habitats, which are usually a moor or some dark cave, such as Error's "hollows cave, Amid the thickest woods," the dark dungeon of Duessa's beast, or the waste land surrounding the castle of Una's parents, scene of the dragon’s depredations. The witch's beast comes "out of her hidden cave," and from a similar hiding place, underneath an idol, creeps out the beast of Geryoneo. As regards the Blatant Beast, although he has no fixed locale and ranges all over the Faery-land, yet he has for long been "fostred . . . in Stygian fen." This description of the extremely low nature-of these creatures is also carried into their antecedents and- genealogies. Invariably they are linked with the worst elements of the classical past: mythical beasts, Chimeras, hellish regions, and so on. No such information is given about Error or the witch's beast, but the-purple beast of Duessa is similar to the many-headed Hydra, "Which great 24 Alcides in Stremona slew," and to the beast of Revelation 17. The dragon comes from the worst part of Tartarus, the classi- cal hell. The beast in Belgae's land is "of hellish race, / Born of the brooding of Echidna base, / Or other like infernall furies kinde." Echidna is also a parent of the Blatant Beast (along with Typhaon), according to the hermit who cures Timias (VI.vi.9-12), while Calidore thinks that he was born of Cerberus and Chimaera. (VI.i.8)1 The beasts are finally overcome by the first-rank knights, who expressly seek to subdue them. Only Arthur or the major protagonists can end their careers. Others who attempt to confront them--as in the encounters of Timias with Duessa's beast and the Blatant Beast (I.viii.12f.; VI.v.16)--end up themselves getting hurt. The Redcross Knight flushes out and destroys first Error and then the old dragon, and Arthur the beasts of Duessa and Geryoneo, while the witch's beast is muzzled by Satyrane and the Blatant Beast by Calidore.2 1The difference is only one generation in the same family since Cerberus and Chimaera are the progeny of Typhaon and Echidna. 2In The Eagnig Queene as we have it, Satyrane is not among the champions of the six books or of the whole poem, but from the critical roles that Spenser assigns him every time he appears, and from his relationship with the other knights, I wonder if he was not destined to become a cham- pion in his own right in some unfinished part of The Eaerie Queeng e 25 ~hpnsters The MONSTERS discussed here are Orgoglio, Maleger, Corflambo, Geryoneo, Grantorto, and Disdain.3 These are uncouth, massy freaks with overdeveloped bodies and under- developed brains, whom Spenser usually qualifies with "giant," "tyrant," "hideous," "monstrous," and "horrible," or variations of these. Everything in their stories emphasizes the-unusual, unnatural and bizarre. Huge in size and grotesque in appearance, their roots lie in the gross elements of myth and nature. They come from the slimy Earth or the monsters of antiquity, and sometimes from both. Orgoglio, who is three times the height of an ordinary man, was born of Aeolus and Earth after a pregnancy lasting over two years. Earth is also the mother of Maleger, whose "subtile sub- stance and unsound" (II.xi.20) is very difficult for Arthur -to destroy. Corflambo, whose eyes shoot poisonous beams of fire, is a son of giants. (IV.viii.47) Geryoneo, "sonne of Geryon“ (V.x.9), the Greek monster killed by Hercules, has three bodies and three sets of arms and legs hinged on one 'waist. (V.x.8) Grantorto is "huge and Hideous . . . / Like 3Perhaps Ollyphant, brother of Argante, should also be included here, but he appears too briefly (two stanzas in II.vii, and four in II.xi) to be worth a separate identifi- cation. However, most of the remarks made here could also apply to him. It is notable that his name means elephant. 26 to a giant for his monstrous hight." (V.xii.15) No pedigree is given for him. Disdain, a progeny of giants, is a "sib to great Orgoglio." (VI.vii.4l) Like Corflambo, his eyes shoot beams of fire. (VI.vii.42) The monsters lack the elan of the antagonists like the Paynims. They are lumbering Goliaths who depend upon sheer mass and muscle to overWhelm the enemy. And, ironi- cally, this seeming asset turns out to be their Achilles' heel when their ponderous momentum fails to match the rapid moves of the Christian knights. The monsters raise up their arms to strike, and in the extra seconds they take to bring them down the more agile knights charge in like a flash. But usually the monsters overstrike and during the interval in Which they try to regain their balance or weapons, the knights lungs in to finish them off. Thus, Arthur cuts off Orgoglio's arm while he is trying to recover his misaimed club after the first stroke. The second charge of Orgoglio unbinds the veil on Arthur's shield, which signals the end of this monster. Corflambo strikes at Arthur and misses: But ere his hand he [Corflambo] could recurs againe, To ward his bodie from the balefull stound, He [Arthur] smote at him with all his might and mains, So furiously, that, ere he wist, he found His head before him tombling on the ground. (IV.viii.45) Geryonso is also cut down while trying to recover his balance: For as he [Geryoneo] in his rage him overstrooke, He [Arthur], ere he could his weapon backs repairs, 27 His side all bare and naked overtooke, And with his mortal steel quite throgh the body strooke. (V.xi.l3) Similarly, Artegall wounds Grantorto in the side, "whiles the-cursed felon high did rears, / His cruell hand, to smite him mortally." Grantorto's axe, in the meantime, descends and gets stuck in Artegall's shield and during the struggle to wrest it out the knight strikes his head off. (V.xii.20- 22) Or, when Disdain raises his club to hit Arthur, . . . ere his stroke attayned his intent, The noble childe, preventing his desire, Under his club with wary boldness went, And smote him on the knee, that never yet was bent. (VI.viii.lS) OnlymMirabella's plea prevents Arthur from finishing him off. The monsters"weapons~match their size and strength. The trappings of knighthood, sword, shield, spear, and horse, are absent from their armament. In fact,_ths word .knighg is not even mentioned in connection with them. Their ~own weapons consist of a macs, polaxe, club, or even a tree 'or‘rock.4 Orgoglio attacks the Redcross Knight with a 41 do not mean to suggest that the~mace and axe-are not knightly weapons, but that they are not the primary tweapons of a knight. Arthur, for-that matter, uses a macs in fighting Maleger--uselessly, as it turns out. (II.xi.34) But knights in Spenser and in the Romances ordinarily fight *with the spear, sword, and shield, the three standard knightly weapons. Moreover, whereas Arthur's macs is described merely as an "Yron macs," with no abstract quali- fiers, the wsapons of the-monsters, Corflambo, Geryoneo, .Grantorto, or Disdain, are respectively described as "massie," "hugs-great," "huge," and "mighty." It may also be mentioned that Ollyphant's sister, Argante, also carries "an huge great yron macs." (III.vii.40) O. a J‘. 28 shaggy oak, while Maleger, in a hurry, picks up a huge rock to throw at Prince Arthur. (II.xi.35) Corflambo carries a mace (IV.vii.43), Disdain an iron club (VI.vii.43), and both Geryoneo and Grantorto fight with huge axes. (V.xi.5; xii.14) Nb fixed locales are given for Maleger and Disdain, but all other monsters live in castles, which not only serve for their living quarters but also as prisons for their opponents. A predilection for snslaving an adversary, apparent- ly for good, is a unique characteristic of the monsters. Orgoglio throws Redcross Knight into a dungeon with no inten- tion of ever releasing him. Corflambo keeps many captives in his castle, Placidas tells us, to "wast them unto nought." (IV.viii.48) Geryoneo has enthralled the people of Belgae's land and is daily feeding them to his monster. (V.xi.20) Grantorto imprisons Irena with the hope of shortly executing her (V.xi.39-40); and Mirabella is Dis- dain's slavs--even Arthur may not rescue her. (VI.viii.l7) I wonder if Spenser is not here making a distinction between the monsters' brand of tyranny and the tyranny of, say, even the worst of the Paynims, the Souldan, who is also labeled a 5 but who, in contrast, openly desires "tyrant" at one place to kill or undermine Mercilla. (V.viii.18-19) The reaction of Renaissance England to slavery was no different than ours 5Among the male antagonists only the monsters or the Souldan wear this tag. 29 today. The reason why the Turk, for instance, was held in great contempt in sixteenth-century England was not merely because of the age-old conflict between the pagan and the faithful, or the common belief that his people were slaves and the Englishmen free, but for the abhorring fact that penning up Christians, sometimes English Christians, as prisoners for ransom or otherwise was his regular exercise, as the Elizabethans were told frequently in the appeals for charity delivered at the Paul's Cross during the Queen's reign.6 In fact, Spenser's own single reference to the Turks in The Faerie Queene alludes to the fourth beadman in the House of Holiness whose . . . office was, Poore prisoners to relieve with gratious ayd, And captives to redeeme with price of bras, From Turkes and Sarazins, which them had stayd. (I.x.40) Tb the Elizabethans, the slavery of the monsters must have appeared similarly debasing, and the monsters, consequently, as worse than the Paynims. We saw above that Arthur and Artegall are the only knights who tackle the monsters successfully. Redcross, who also encounters one, Orgoglio, is unprepared to face him. In each case, the knights either chance upon them or seek them out, i.e., the giants are fixed characters and the 7 movement is from the knight to the giant. Arthur fights 6See Millar Maclure, The Paul's Cross Sermons T534- ;642 (Toronto, 1958), p. 11. 7In Book One Redcross Knight first stops near Orgoglio's castle, and is then attacked by the monster. 30 with five, killing Orgoglio, Maleger, Corflambo, and Geryo- neo, and sparing Disdain at Mirabella's appeal. Artegall kills one, Grantorto. Except for some bruises received from Maleger (II.xi.29), Arthur is not touched by these adver- saries; Artegall, however, is cut a number of times by Grantorto's axe. (V.xii.l9) Women What mainly distinguishes the WOMEN characters from the other antagonists in The Faerie Queene is the use of their sex as an essential ingredient in the evil they embody. For most of them the nature of their being and function lies rooted in sex--sex desired, denied, perverted, or dried up. For instance, what attracts a knight to an Acrasia or repels him from a hag are the opposite aspects of their femininity. In the poem, they represent "the works of the flesh" that St. Paul talks about in Galatians 5:19-21. But this is not their only distinction. Also unique with them are their modus operandi and their ends. They work through typically feminine means, charm, beauty, even their tongues, to counter the other side--even Artegall is overcome by Radigund not through force but because he sees her face and relents. None of them is killed by a male knight. In fact, only one female in The Faerie gheene is killed by a male protagonist at all: Munera, "the Paynims 31 daughter," who is dismembered limb by limb by Talus.8 Others are either beyond death, or despatched by female protagonists: Radigund by Britomart, Duessa by Mercilla. Among these women we soon recognize three sub-groups: the temptggssgg who lure men to ruin and disgrace; the vira 3, who force men to obedience or destruction; and the weak, old‘hhgg, who destroy men and reputations through bitter words and other such mean activities. In the follow- ing pages I shall take up these groups successively and try to show a unity of design in each through its major figures. The pejorative commonly used for the TEMPTRESSES, who include Lucifera, Phaedria, Acrasia, Malecasta, and Hellenore, is "vain" (or its noun form "vanity"). Except for Lucifera, words "wanton" and "loose" also appear notice- ably in their descriptions. These temptresses are dangerous flirts. They are indiscriminate in their attentions, taking in all men, good or bad, equally. Since their lives are highly self-oriented, a Redcross is as welcome to serve them as a Sansjoy, and a Guyon as good as a Gryll. 8Is Talus a monster on the side of the good? In fact, we find the categories under discussion also paral- leled on the right side. We have the good beasts (Una's lion), good monsters, good women, good commoners (dwarfs, hermits), good magician (Merlin), good minor warriors (squires), and, of course, the good knights. 32 Our attention in their episodes centers on the dual- ity between appearance and reality that embraces-their own natures and the natures of their habitats. (Glamorous and charming to look at, they are sordid and harmful underneath. Unlike the viragos and the hags, they do not carry-their -true natures on their faces. Nor, like them, do they ever 'run after their victims, since the latter always willingly walk into their traps. But once in their presence, the knights get trapped by the.visibi;ig. Only gradually do they discover the true nature of their hostesses. Thus, when Redcross and Duessa walk into Lucifera's court, her "glorious vew / Their ‘frayle amazed senses did confound." (I.iv.7) In spite of misgivings, the illusions of the Knight last for days until the dwarf accidentally lights upon the cargo of her dun- geons. (I.v.45f.) Guyon becomes-aware of Phaedria's duplicity quite early (II.vi.22), but not before he has joined in her cheer and mirth. (II.vi.21) Acrasia's decep- tions need no recapitulation. In Book Thres,-Malecasta's lecherous intentions are clear to Spenser and the reader from the beginning, but Britomart is ignorant of her double- dealing and for a time even entertains her avowals of amour. (III.i.53-55) It is only later at night, when Malecasta attempts to seduce her, that she awakens to the true meaning of her daytime sighs and sobs. Similarly, when the knights march into Malbecco's castle and insist upon Hellsnore's presence at dinner, she comes out like a graceful, "gentle 33 courteous dame" (III.ix.26), but Paridell's ocular assault soon discovers that "Ne was she ignoraunt of that leud lore." (III.ix.28) This duality in the nature of these women is also reflected in their environments. They live in fixed habi- tats whose beautiful facades dazzle the unfamiliar eye but in reality merely camouflage a hollowness and sterility inside. The golden domes of Lucifera's palace touch the sky, but the place itself sits on a sandy hill, no better than a glorified ruin. (I.iv.4-5) Phaedria's island is "waste and voyd" of man (II.vi.ll), though full of birds and trees. It wanders at the whim of every current. (II.xii.ll) The artificiality of Acrasia's Bower of Bliss has been examined in detail by C. S. Lewis.9 Malecasta's Castle Joyeous matches the interior decoration of Busyrane's castle very closely. It has pillars inlaid with solid gold and "great perles and pretious stone," and amorous tapestries hanging along the walls. (III.i.32) Yet this solid-looking mass is an "image of superfluous riotize," and home of fickleness. (III.i.33) The insubstantiality of Malbecco's establishment is revealed when Hellenore sets it on fire. These habitats are the anti-cores in eachbook.10 9The AlTegory of Love (New York, 1953), pp. 324-33. IQAggizggggg. The cores in the different books of The Eaerie Queene are matched on the evil side by places like the cave of Mammon, the castles of Lucifera ananale- casta, etc., where all sorts of knights-come for rest, recreation, and, occasionally, even for instruction. The 34 Ostensibly places of rest and recuperation like the true cores, they serve instead exactly the opposite purpose. Here the questing knights find no peace or purpose to com- fort them; only restlessness and irresolution to thwart their constant aims. A continual tension keeps building up in these places since different kinds of contradictory forces converge there. The protagonists are usually led there by ignorance or necessity.11 Thus the House of Pride contains the archetypal sins as well as Sansjoy and the Redcross Knight, whose victory over the Paynim merely serves to mislead him further. Phaedria's island invites both Guyon and Cymochles; and the Bower of Bliss every one from a Cymochles to a Gryll. Simi- larly, Malecasta's castle harbors Britomart and Redcross, as ‘well as the jolly hostess and her six knights; and.Malbecco's houses the chaste Britomart and the loose Hellenore, the vir- tuous Satyrane and the lustful Paridell and the Squire of Dames. hospitality of these places is indiscriminate and its sham is soon discovered. For want of a better name I have thus designated them. 11A disharmonious pair, Huddibras and Sansloy, is also present in a core, the House of Medina, but Medina induces harmony, even though tenuous, between the two: Her gracious words their rancour did appall, And suncke so deepe into their boyling brests, That downs they lett their cruell weapons fall, And lowly did abase their lofty crests To her fairs presence and discrete behests. (II.ii.32) The view that prevails eventually is Medina's, and the peace established is no mere peace of exhaustion or accord in ignorance. 35 The VIRAGOS, Argante, Radigund, and Briana, are openly contemptuous of knights and knighthood and make no secret of their desire to enthrall or humiliate them.12 Argante is carrying the abducted Squire of Dames when Saty- rane happens upon her. She throws the Squire down and makes for Satyrane instead. Only a forceful pursuit by Palladine, 12Argante is also a female counterpart of the mon- sters. She is a giantess (III.vii.37, 39), a monster (II. vii.52), and a sister and half-sister to two monsters, Ollyphant and Orgoglio. (III.vii.47; I.vii.9) Moreover, her gross nature and her reliance on "her-mains strength, in which she most doth trust" (III.vii.50), would also seem to place her among them. Even her cumbersome movements-- it takes her such a while to manage a blow, that Satyrane lunges in with his spear before she can bring her hand down (III.vii.40)--resemble the pattern of the monsters. But these are rather her obvious traits, and I have put her among the women in an attempt to show that the distinction of her sex matters even among the monsters when.we see her share features in common with Radigund and Briana. She also shares her nymphomania with Hellenore and.Malecasta. Perhaps Argante's case is an extreme example, an obvious nymphomania that is beyond the victim's control, whereas Hellenore's would appear to be a latent form that needs an opportunity to manifest itself. Like the jealousy of Mal- becco, her husband, so long as some facade covers her actions, Hellenore stays within the bounds of visible norm, but once the guard is relaxed, the passions inside her seem to burst out. In Malecasta's case, Spenser pointedly dis- tinguishes between an ordinary love and the burning lust of "the Lady of Delight." (III.i.47f.) Her appetite seems directed toward the mere thrill of conquest--by force or persuasion. She has set the terms of combat in such a way that win or lose the errant knight must become her lover. If he submits to her right away, well and good (as witness Gardante, Parlante, and others); if he fights and loses (and chances are that he will, considering the numerical odds in her favor), then, too, the conquest is hers; but in the remote possibility that the stranger knight does win, she “would yield herself to him entirely. Thus whether the knife is dropped on the melon, or vice versa, in the-end it all comes to the same. 36 the female knight chasing her, helps him escape. Radigund openly defies the whole chivalric order. As Sir Terpin tells Artegall, she has already put a number of knights "to shame, and many done be dead." (V.iv.29) Briana regularly degrades knights and ladies who happen to pass by her castle. Unlike the temptresses of the last sec- tion, the‘hgghg.gpg;§hgi of these females is force, not guile. There is no dissimulation or double-dealing in their looks, words, or demeanour. All about them is frankly vicious and faithfully ungenerous. Argante's eyes shoot fire from the heat inside which makes her range the whole land "To seeks young men, to quench her flaming thrust." (III.vii.39, 50) Rage and cruelty line the face of Radigund no less than they define her actions. Briana responds to Calidore, when he comes to reprimand her for discourtesy toward errant knights, by heaping "uncomely shame" upon him instead. Yet their accounts are not entirely black. There are circumstances in their histories that explain the nature of their viciousness, and show that its roots go down to a natural function, procreation, gone awry. The‘ghhgh cauggns of their behaviour is sex and love, overful, absent, or denied. And in each case, the root of their violence is shown to lie outside of their own selves. No love, of course, is involved in Argante's man- hunts, but her nymphomania can be traced back to her inces- tuous parents, to which the form of her birth--she was born 37 conjoined incestuously with her twin brother, Ollyphant-- adds its own legacy. (III.vii.47-48) Radigund's hate springs from her dried-up love for Bellodant. The real villain in Briana's misbehaviour is Crudor, who set up the stipulation that she‘weave a mantle of knights' beards and ladies' hair to gain‘his love. (VI.i.13-15) These women are thus at the.mercy of twisted forms of sex and love. The ~remedy lies beyond their own selves as Calidore partly shows -when he forces Crudor to marry Briana to end her selfish cruelty. (IV.i.5-9) Like the temptresses, the viragos are also assigned fixed locales in the Faery-land, close by which the knights encounter them "by chaunce." Argante is on her way to her "secret ils" when Satyrane happens to see her. (III.vii.37) Near Radigund's fortified city, Radegone, Artegall acciden- tally comes across her troop trying to hang Sir Terpin. (V.iv.21) He disperses them and then goes on to fight Radi- gund herself. Briana is not involved in a direct clash with Calidore, but he first comes across an example of her mis- chief--the bound squire--nsar her castle "by chaunce" (V1.1. 11), an event that opens up the rest of her story.13 The resolutions of their stories also are beyond the male knights who encounter them: only female knights 13It may be pointed out that in the case of Lucifera et al. the knights repair to their habitats on purpose. (See I. iv. 2, 3 for Lucifera; II. vi. 19 for Phaedria; Guyon' s jour- ney to Acrasia' s Bower is premeditated; for.Malecasta, see III. i. 20; and for Hellenore III. viii. 51-52. ) 38 suppress them directly. Take the case of Argante, who in the end still roams at large looking for game because, as the Squire of Dames says: Ne any may that monster match in fight, But she [Palladine], or such as she, that is so chaste a wight (III.vii.52); or Radigund, who is finally punished by Britomart. Nor does Calidore handle Briana herself. He ends her highhandedness through the reformation of Crudor, her lover. The HAGS are the old women among the antagonists in The Eaggie nggne, whom Spenser specifically labels "hags," in addition to applying pejoratives like "foul," "wicked," "loathsome." They include Duessa, Occasion, Impotence, Impatience, the witch who harbors Florimel in III.vii, Ate, 14 Except for Duessa and Sclaunder, Envie, and Detraction. the witch, they are all personifications of the vices their names indicate. Everything about these females builds up a portrait of evil and ugliness. Even the wrinkles on their faces invite horror and abhorrence instead of pity and compassion. Filth sticks around them like a nervous creditor; their ugly and deformed bodies smell to the skies. Their habitats are 14By her dissembling, her gorgeous attire, and her leading men astray with words and looks, Duessa also shows strong inclination toward the first type, the temptresses. As an epitome of falsehood, she is the very essence of unreality farthest from truth, which is also what the latter portray. But I have set her among the hags as underneath her sham exterior she is really a hag, physically, as Prince Arthur's disrobing her in I.viii shows. Also, like them, she wanders up and down to procure victims, in addition to other parallels indicated below. 39 dark and decrepit cottages, situated in lonely and barren spots--the haunts of the outcast and the fugitive. Nothing relieves the air of heaviness that surrounds them. The beautiful Duessa disrobed, we discover, is no protégée of’Venus after all. She is bald and scruffy, prob- ably suffers from pyorrhea and eczema, and has a tail "with dong all fowly dight." (I.viii.47-48) Occasion, mother of Furor, is lame and half bald, with "loathly" hair hanging loosely on her forehead. She is "in ragged robes and filthy disaray." (II.iv.4) Grim looks, loose hair, and "bodies wrapt in rags" also mark the hags, Impotence and Impatience, who assist Maleger against Arthur near Alma's castle. In addition, Impotence is, like Occasion, lame. (II.xi.23) Of a similar nature is the witch whose den Florimel runs into after escaping from the foster. This shabby, little cottage is situated in an isolated valley, "far from all neighbours." Hers Florimel finds the witch sitting on "the dustis ground," wrapped up “in loathly weedes." (III.vii.6-7) Ate, who attends Satyrane's tourna- ment in the company of Paridell and Blandamour, lives in "a darksome delve farre under ground," surrounded by prickly brambles and barren land. (IV.i.20) No part of her body is sound or clean: "Her face most fouls and filthy was to see," she has cross eyes, twisted ears, a tongue with two prongs, and hands and feet of unequal size. (IV.i.27-29) Sclaunder, at whose cottage Arthur stops after rescuing Amorst and Amelia, is found sitting on the floor, "in 4O ragged rude attyre, / With filthy lockes about her scattered wide." The "foule and loathly creature" is chewing her nails for hatred when the three enter her cottage. (IV.viii. 23) No less abhorrent are Envie and Detraction who rail at Artegall after he returns from Irena's rescue. Both wear tattered rags; both look "griesly" and out of shape. Envie has cross eyes and claw-like hands (V.xii.29), and Detrac— tion's mouth is distorted, with a snake's tongue inside. (V.xii.36) In line with their physical distinction from the temptresses and the viragos, the actions of the hags are also set at a different pitch. An unrelieved meanness is the keynote here as well. Sex or physical violence as a factor in their actions is precluded by their age, so the evil in their stories comes out as abuse, annoyance, or harassment of the protagonists. Rarely do they attack the knights physically. Only Impatience at one stage attacks Arthur. (II.xi.29) Other hags either merely abuse the knights (Sclaunder, Envie, Detraction), or help others to 'harm them (Duessa, Occasion, Impotence, Ate). Whereas the temptresses and the viragos are found mostly at the anti-cores of the book, the bags, except for Sclaunder, appear just before or.§ThgT--usually after--a core or an anti-core. Even here there seems to be a pattern. Duessa and Ate, who can change Shape at will to look sweet or sour as the occasion demands (see IV.i.18 for Duessa and IV.i.31 for Ate), appear both before and Th a core: the 41 tournament of Satyrane. Duessa, it will be recalled, has already appeared before, Th and gghg; an anti-core in Book One, Lucifera's palace. All other hags appear only SEES; the cores or, in the case of Envie and Detraction, after an anti-core. Guyon comes across Occasion after leaving Medina's castle; Impotence and Impatience annoy Arthur after his stay at Alma's and the witch in Book Three appears right after-the description of the Garden of Adonis. A similar distinction also seems to exist in the nature of the initial contact in their stories. Duessa and Ate always seek out their victims such as Redcross, Guyon, or Paridell and company; while in all other cases the knights come upon them accidentally and then suffer them from necessity or ignorance. As with the other females, the knights may not physically chastise the hags. At the most they can render them harmless. Any extreme punishment that they suffer is either self-inflicted, as with Impotence and Impatience, or at the hands of other women, as Duessa sen- tenced to death by Mercilla. The hags are thus straight-line characters. There is no movement up and down, no new discoveries, no develop~ ment in their portraits; we leave them in the end at the same level of abomination at which we first encounter them. Seemingly, then, their hellish natures are constant and permanent. ~They would appear to be the female counterparts of the plebeians, discussed below. Like them, they portray 42 the low, un-complex, seminal types of evi1--on the feminine side of the spectrumr-the essence of the entities that their names signify, as compared to the complex, human manifestar tions of these entities that the other females represent. Plebeians The PLEBEIANS are the commoners of the Faery-land. This category includes Despair, Furor, Mammon, the foster, Lust, Care, Malengin, and Despetto and his brothers.15 These characters alone, of Course, do not exhaust the scope of commonality among the antagonists. ‘We also have the mobs that follow other villains, and individuals who appear as ushers, keepers, etc. The mobs, however, are not distin- guished individually, and the other individuals stay frozen because they lack action to put flesh and blood into them. The eight selected above, on the other hand, participate in long and important encounters. Consequently, they are not the commoners whom the protagonists brush aside or warily 15Mammon's presence here could be questioned as he is dressed in a sooty armour and turns out to be the ruler of the world's treasury. I am putting him here for two reasons: one, in the world of sun, light, and air, where the knight is the norm, he looks, lives, and acts like the others of this type do; and, two, his treasury, where he is a king, sits in the Hades, unused, silhouetting him as the miser who, in spite of his wealth, prefers the life of an impoverished wretch. Compared to him, even Malbecco lives extravagantly. Since bounty in the knight was of prime concern to Spenser and his age, I wonder if the implication 'here may not be that without riches used the knight is no better than a plebeian. 43 pass by, as they do the mobs and the frozen individuals, but those on whom they have to spend some time during their journeys. Also, whereas the mobs and the frozen characters are extensions of some major evil, appearing always within its context (as the troops of Maleger and Radigund, or ‘Vanity in Lucifera's palace and Doubt in Busyrane's), these eight16 are independent characters who live and move in the Faery-land in their own right. In other words, the latter are unattached commoners compared to the feudalistic nature of the others. Spenser mostly uses "carle," "villain" and "wicked" as epithets for these malefactors. Their faces, dress, habitats uniformly reflect the vulgarity of their natures. Hideous looks, shabby rags, and gloomy caves and forests where foot of man seldom falls, are the physical details that accompany their encounters. When Redcross reaches Despair's "hollow cave, / Far 'underneath a craggy clift upight, / Darke, dolefull, dreary, like a greedy grave" (I.ix.33), he finds the "cursed man, low sitting on the ground" (I.ix.35), his dull eyes staring through the shaggy hair that almost hides his haggard face. "His garment nought but many ragged clouts, / With thorns together pind and patched was." (I.ix.36) Furor's copper- red hair and blook-streaked "burning eyen" (II.iv.15) indi- cate the wrath burning inside. Mammon's likeness to Despair 16Despetto and his brothers are treated jointly. 44 has been noticed by many critics. His face, head, eyes, hands, dress--everything visible--are covered with soot when Guyon meets him after leaving Phaedria's Island. He crouches in a wilderness "glade, / Cover'd with boughes and shrubs from heavens light." (II.vii.2-3) About the foster who chases Florimel in III.i, we know little except that he is hideous to look at (III.i.17) and lives in a forest with two brothers, all "children of one gracelesse syre." (III. v.14-15) Care's "little cottage" (IV.v.32), where Scudamour and Glauce stop after leaving Satyrane's Tournament, is situated at the foot of a crumbling hill, by the side of a muddy stream along which nothing grows but a "few crooked sallowes." (IV.v.33) He is a blend of Despair ananammon, 'with filthy hands, shaggy hair, "Hollow eyes and rawbone cheekes," all coated with smoke. (IV.v.34-35) His dress is patched-up rags. (IV.v.35) Lust, who abducts Amorst in IV; vii, is a cannibal of "monstrous shape." (IV.vii.32) On either side of his gargantuan face, long elephantine ears hang down to the waist, while huge, long teeth protrude from a gulf of a mouth in front. His body is matted with hair; a piece of ivy around the hips is the only other covering. He lives in a "cave, farre from all peoples hearing." (IV. vii.7-8) Malengin, whom Arthur and Artegall bait out of his underground cave (V.ix.8f.), has deep-set eyes and long, shaggy hair. He wears a wornout, outlandish dress. (V.ix. 10) No descriptive details are given about Despetto and his brothers who attack Timias in VI.v.13f., but the ease 45 with which they slip into the thick forest on seeing Arthur would indicate a home-like familiarity with it. (VI.v.22) 'When the protagonist in the stories of the plebeians is a knight-errant the action takes place in a barren locale. Redcross meets Despair, Guyon Mammon, Scudamour Care, and Arthur and Artegall Malengin in barren hills and wilder- nesses.17 But the scene of action shifts to a deep forest when the protagonist is not a knight. Thus Timias encounters the foster, and later Lust--with the help of Belphoebe, another protagonist who is not a knight--and Despetto and his brothers in the woods. The plebeians remind us of the hags discussed above. Like them, they are the nightmarish projections from the lowest reaches of the subconscious--uniformly ugly and detestable, found always in lonely or sordid environments. The initiative in meeting them also rests with the protago- 18 nists and the encounter is usually accidental. As with the hags, a physical contact with them is established only by the non-knightly characters. The knights, except in one 19 instance, always shun personal involvement with them. As 17No locale is given for Furor. 18 Malengin. 19Furor, in II.iv, is the only such character with whom a knight, Guyon, involves himself directly. It is important to note that he is also the only character in.Thg £3erie Queeng to be labeled a "mad man," repeatedly, and one ‘wondsrs if this would indicate a transgression of the norm by a low character under a fit, especially in the light of But intentional in two instances, Despair and 46 their stories progress, the knights in the and avoid them entirely, and in the few instances where they are punished, their chastisement is handed over to subordinate characters. Thus, from Despair, Furor, Mammon, and Care, the knight-protagonists merely dissociate themselves; Despetto and his brothers escape them; and the foster, Lust, and .Malengin are killed by Timias, lephosbe, and Talus respec- tively. Notably, Malengin's capture and punishment is assigned to Talus after he is flushed out by Arthur and Artegall. These three, who are slain in the end, are all sex offenders: the foster tries to rape Florimel, Lust Amorst, and Malengin kidnaps Samient, apparently to rape her. W What distinguishes the ENCHANTERS, Archimago and Busyrane, from the other antagonists in.Thg_Ehg;Tg_thghg is their My; W. Whereas the latter work their way through force, charm, temptation, or even plain abuse, the "enchaunters" use "magick bookes and artes of sundrie kindes“ to achieve their ends. At crucial moments they pro- duce strange manuals to evoke hidden powers with which to 'work their“will. Mainly, they try to overpower the victim Renaissance attitudes toward madness. It is notable that toward the end of the encounter, the palmsr dissuades Guyon from further involvement with him. 47 with false and weird vision. And herein, I think, lies the difference between them and a good "enchaunter," of which The Eaerie Queene has only one, Merlin. Merlin's magic lies in understanding the true inclination of things in nature and in working harmoniously with them to reinforce their inherent virtues, as, for instance, when he makes Arthur's sword irresistible by mixing the metal with madwort and dipping it in "flames of Aetna" and the Stygian waters. (II.viii.20) In other words, Merlin is a "prophet" (III.iii.21) who can discover a hidden virtue; i.e., he does not create it, rather like a Michaelangelo he gives form to what already exists in the pristine matter itself. But not so these evil magicians. They seek to pervert the natural order.20 They create false images and insubstantial things whose only pur- pose is to deceive the eye. Thus while Mbrlin's art can stand the test of time and elements, the forgeries of these two enchanters vanish like pricked bubbles at the first breath of reality. 201t is not that Merlin cannot do this: he can stop the sun and the moon in their tracks, or turn night into day, if he wants to (III.iii.12), but he will not abuse such power. A good "mags," he works in sympathy with nature, fate, and God, as, for-instance, when he tells Britomart to "submit thy wayes unto His will, / And doe, by all dew meanes, thy destiny fulfill" (III.iii.24), or explains to Glance when she complains about Britomart's harsh fate: Indeede the Fates are firms, And may not shrinck, though all the world do shake: Yet ought mens good endevours them confirms, And guyde the heavenly causes to their constant terms. (III.iii.25) 48 A touch of this insubstantiality also rubs off on the enchanters themselves. Creepy and ominous while in com- mand of their powers, they are pitiable spectacles the moment their airy castles disintegrate. To overcome them, however, the protagonists need luck and God's help more than their arms or the skill to use them. The two, however, cannot be killed. While both are hurt on one occasion or other, both are alive at the end of their stories. Spenser distinguishes Archimago through epithets and qualifiers like "false," "slie," "wicked," "subtill," "cunning," "craftie," etc. In no instance where Archimago encounters a protagonist does he appear in his true shape. Una and Redcross meet him as a hermit; next, disguised as Redcross, he overtakes Una alone; later, dressed as a pil- grim, he meets Una, escorted by Satyrane. The last she sees him is at her betrothal, where, disguised as Duessa's foot- man, he accuses the Redcross Knight of bad faith. In Book Two he appears before Guyon as a squire. On the other hand, before wicked characters like Braggadocchio, Atin, Pyrochles and Cymochles, Archimago a1ways presents himself in his true shape, an old necro- mancer. His only attempt to appear in disguise before an antagonist--as Redcross Knight before Sansloy--quickly ends in an ignominious revelation of his true identity. Archimago pursues the protagonists with a single- minded viciousness that is rare among the rogues of.Thg 49 gaegig Quegne. He molds every opportunity, every character that he meets to his one purpose: to ruin the good. He separates Una from the Redcross Knight and then chases her throughout the Faery-land. After he is foiled in the end of Book One, he leaves Una and turns his attention to the Redcross Knight. He tries to recruit Guyon to fight him, and failing in this, brings Guyon within his hatred too. He then successively enlists Braggadocchio, Pyrochles and Cymochles in undertaking to fight Guyon. That he does not succeed finally is a comment more on his foresight than on his restless zeal. Archimago's magic consists of framing verses from "balefull bokes" (II.i.2) and "artes of sundrie kindes." He can summon sprites to abuse the senses of an adversary; he controls the north wind, into which he can vanish at will. (II.iii.l9) He can read the secrets of nature: with his knowledge of herbs and charms he quickly restores Pyrochles to health. He knows enough about Arthur and the virtues of his armament to warn Pyrochles and Cymochles. His knowledge, however, has severe limitations. It does not touch the future. He knows the events of the past and the present, but he cannot see the events-to-be. Unlike (Merlin, to whom the future reads like an open book, Archimago shows no foreknowledge. At least that is what we suspect when repeatedly he is surprised, unmasked, and thwarted in his Machiavellianism. His gloating over the separation of Redcross from Una.("he praisd his divelish arts"--I.ii.9) 50 soon turns into consternation when he watches Sansloy lower his spear toward him. He is unable to distinguish between Una-forlorn and Una-restored: he appears at her father's court to prevent her betrothal to the Redcross Knight and is right away recognized by her. His further attempts in this direction also end in fiascos. Nowhere does he give any impression that he can grasp the shape of things to come. Archimago has the proverbial nine lives of the cat; nothing seems to hold him down for long. He is mistakenly wounded by Sansloy in I.iii, but-a few cantos later he is wandering as a pilgrim to find someone to avenge him. (I.vi.34f.) He is thrown into a dungeon in the end of Book One but through his magic he is soon at large again. He escapes unpunished despite all the mischief he makes in Book Two. Apparently he can neither be suppressed nor killed. Busyrans, "the enchaunter“ who kidnaps Amorst, is sketched as an off-shade of Archimago. Like the latter, his magic also consists of making up diabolic verses from "wicked Bookss“ and other such mumbo jumbo. But in other 'respects he shows up poorly compared to Archimago. Archi- mago's art aims at a high mark: nothing less than the cemplste surrender of his belief by the victim. Through lies, illusions, and deceptive mirages, Archimago sways the minds of the protagonists, persuading in turn the Redcross 51 Knight, Uha, Satyrane, and Guyon to willingly carry out his ”wishes, even if only for a short while. Busyrane, on the contrary, relies on force and torture. He has a knife per- ‘manently stuck into Amoret's heart; his cohorts, Despight and Cruelty, scourge her continuously. Even his illusions threaten, rather than entice, her into giving up or giving in. ‘Whereas Archimago brought his opponents into his cot- tage to work on them at leisure, Busyrane creates a ring of fire.around his castle to prevent their entry. This discrepancy is also reflected in their motives. Archimago's relentless pursuit of the protagonists is entirely motivelsss. At least we see no earthly reason why he hates Una--unless it is the natural opposition of evil to good. Busyrane's villainy, however, has a clear-cut motive. The drama in his castle is enacted "all perforce to make her [Amorst] him to love.“ (III.xii.31) The 'enchanted castle, the masque of Cupid, the ritual inside the last room have-only one single-purpose: service of his lust. Like Archimago, however, his boldness and illusions 'vanish.as soon as Britomart, withstanding his charms forcibly intervenes. Then the beauty of his castle, its ring of fire, the rich decor inside, and the-masque of Cupid, all disappear like an insubstantial fraud, leaving "the enchaunter" himself a pitiable wretch, hurt but still alive. 52 Base or Comic Knights The male antagonists who are knights in the narrative belong to two types: the Paynims, and the rest whom I have labeled the BASE or COMIC KNIGHTS. The designation of the latter, who include Braggadocchio, Malbecco, Sanglier (in Book Five), Dolon, Turpine, and the knight of the "sommer barge,"21 aptly reflects their natures. These six are by no means the only non-Paynim knights among the antagonists; the spoem also contains characters like Ferrau, Crudor, Gardante et al., who would belong to this company. But whereas the latter are barely mentioned or glanced at in brief outlines, the former figure in actions that individualize their ~natures. These knights are the vain bullies of chivalry. They never engage‘with an equal adversary, always restrict- ing their attention to safely weak individuals and to such double-dealing as vain boasts, false humility, or overt and covert treachery. There would be some point to their 'knighthood even if they were plain aggrandisers, for, as Arthur admonishes Turpine, sometimes strong and valiant knights doe rashly enterprize, Either for fame, or else for exercize, A wrongfull quarrell to maintains by fight; 21This is the nameless knight killed by Tristram in VI.ii.4. I have so labeled him from the device on his shield. (VI.ii.44) 53 Yet have, through prowesse and their brave emprize, Gotten great worship in this worldes sight: For greater force there needs to maintains wrong then right. (VI.vi.35)22 But these six are cowards to the marrow of their bones. The very daredevils where little opposition is expected, they fold up the moment the opponent proves to be formidable. The victim must be helpless--or they are done for. Their motives match the meanness of their natures. Their depredations have no justification other than the satisfaction of their base appetites: they harass others for pelf, for women, for undeserved glory, or, sometimes, for sheer fun. It is notable that Spenser makes the whole group faceless. Other than two general statements, that Dolon seemed “well shot in yeares" (V.vi.l9), and Malbecco "old, and withered like hay" (III.ix.5), no details are given about their physique or physiognomy. However, Spenser's labels, ascriptions, and the tone of narration leave little doubt about the nature of these sons of Mars. They end their careers in the same wretched manner in which they live. Considered too base, weak, or spine- less even to die at the hands of knight-protagonists, they bow out trailing clouds of disgrace and ridicule. Only one of them, the knight of the "sommer barge," is killed--and 22Guyon hints at a similar view earlier when he goes to help Duessa. (II.i.l4) 54 that by a boy, Tristram, who is not even a squire yet--an ignominious end for a knight. Others are unceremoniously booted out, alive but exemplarily punished, as I shall show in the sketches below; The description of Braggadocchio is full of pejora- tives like "losell," "boaster," "thief," "screcrow," "coward," "peasaunt," "capon," "mock-knight," "counterfeit,” "boastfull," and "vaine." The details dwell upon his com- plete-unworthiness for the role he "purloins." There is not a single incident that does not mock his knighthood. He begins by stealing one knight's equipment, Guyon's horse and ‘weapons, and ends by claiming another's victory, the honor due Artegall at Florimel's espousals. In between he stead- ily breaks every rule in the book of chivalry. He acquires a lady, false Florimel, by robbing a "silly clowns," the 'witch's son, in Book Three. Under the pretense of helping a poor man-sMalbecco, dressed "like a pilgrim pore"--he instead robs him. Other knights rescue damsels in distress; Braggadocchio twice leaves his own to save his skin. At Satyrane's tournament, instead of tilting and jousting dur- ing the knightly exercises, he sits the days out, refusing to budge even whsn‘his party needs him most. The end to his pilgrimage of disgrace comes at Florimel's espousals, where he falsely claims to have rescued Marinell, who was actually saved by Artegall. After his exposure, Talus drags him out- side the hall, shaves off his beard, breaks his arms, and, for good measure including his squire Trompart, kicks them 55 out of the place. Malbecco's end is similar although it comes about differently. As the Squire of Dames points out, he is "'a cancred crabbed carle . . . That has no skill of court nor courtesie,'" being always obsessed with the safety of his wife and his wealth. Twice more the word "carle" is used to describe him. (III.ix.12, 17) Like Braggadocchio, he is a mean hypocrite (though not a boaster). So great is his fear for his wife and his money that he always keeps his castle, "which ought evermore / To errant knights be com- mune" (III.viii.52), shut to all and sundry, and in the story opens it only when Britomart, Satyrane, and others threaten to burn it down. But once the guests are in, he is all humility and contrition, feigning ignorance of their late ill treatment and blaming it on his servants. Unlike Braggadocchio, he hurts no one but himself. A second threat of fire, this time actually carried out by Hellenore, costs him both wealth and wife. It is a measure of his ‘wretchedness that to recover her he dons the garb of a poor pilgrim and appeals for help to a man like Braggadocchio. However, still more ignominy awaits him. Reaching the satyrs among whom Hellenore has come to live, he sees him- self cuckolded, and after a night of vain pleading with her ‘crawls away from his shame. "The wretched man," now sans home, hearth, and sustenance, tries suicide, but death would not come to him either. Finally, resigned to his true 56 identity, Gelosy, he begins to live in a desolate cave on a diet of toads and frogs. (III.x.57-58) Sanglier is the knight, "'if knight he may be thought, / That did his hand in ladies bloud embrew, / And for no :cause,'" (V.i.16) whoseguilt Artegall uncovers in Book Five by a Solomon-like stratagem. This detestable knight kidnaps the lady of a weak squire, and murders his own because she ‘would not leave him. Artegall hands over his arrest and arraignment to his page, Talus--an insult for a.knight--who leads him back, "bound like a beast appointed to the stall," after a good whacking. (V.i.22) His guilt established, his ‘bravado and defiance soon disappear-as Artegall sentences ‘him to carry his lady's head for twelve months. Talus sets at rest any lingering hesitancy (Vti.29) and he meekly picks up his burden of infamy like a "rated spanisll." Dolon, the knight Britomart meets on her way to rescue Artegall, is seemingly very modest and gracious; he >greets her courtsously and offers her his home for the night. But the night soon reveals his true-identity when, mistaking her-for Artegall, who killed his eldest son, .Guizor, he treacherously attempts to murder her, first by dropping her bed through a trapdoor, and, failing in that, by sending two knights to kill her. That this might be the -work of a crazed avenger is quickly dispelled by Spenser: even in his youth Dolon was an infamous knight: 57 . . . for he was nothing valorous, But with slie shiftes and wiles did underminde All noble knights which were adventurous And many brought to shame by treason treacherous. (V.vi.32) Spenser's epithets define him as a "vild man" (V.vi.35), father of "losels" and "wicked sons." The episode of the knight of the "sommer barge," whom Tristram kills in Book Six, also points up the infamy 23 He is riding with a lady when they come of this type. upon Aladine, an unarmed knight, courting his lady, Priscilla. Immediately he throws down his own lady and proceeds to attack Aladine, "withouten cause, but onely her [Priscilla] to reave." (VI.ii.43) He wounds Aladine but Priscilla eludes him. The peeved man then takes out his frustration on his own lady by forcing her to walk -alongside while he rides the horse. He also keeps goading her with his spear. Marching thus they meet Tristram, an unarmed youth of seventeen, who reproves him for his ill behaviour. The chagrined knight at this attacks Tristram, but the latter hits back and kills him. i For Turpine, the knight whom Arthur punishes in Book Six, Spenser reserves some of his choice pejoratives. A casual sampling includes terms like "carle," "craven," "coward," "rude-churl," and "Vile lozell." Harassing Iknights and ladies, even robbing them "not with manhood, 23Spenser does not give this knight any name. 58 but with guile," is his regular exercise. Turpine has no sense of shame. Meeting Calepine and wounded Serena at a ford, and asked to help them cross the river, he not only refuses any aid whatsoever but even stops at the opposite bank to watch and mock their efforts. A little later, when Ithey reach his castle and beg for shelter, he orders them turned away. In the morning he rides after them, in order to kill Calepine since he knows him to be unarmed (Cale- pine had discarded his arms to help Serena after the attack of the Blatant Beast). He attacks Calepine and is on the point of finishing him off when he is saved by the timely appearance of the salvage man. In the ensuing struggle, the salvage man's tenacious assault forces Turpine to give up his spear and shield and fly off with loud yells, "a thing uncomely for a knight." (VI.iv.8) Subsequently, Prince Arthur comes to know of this outrage and decides to pay him a visit. At his castle, Turpine, protected by forty of his retainers, attacks Arthur but is soon flying from his counterstrokes. He runs to hide in his wife's closet where he is hauled out by Arthur. Arthur spares his life, but degrades him by taking away his arms. Next day, as Turpine breaks his word and secretly persuades two knights to attack Arthur, the latter catches him by a stratagem, tears up his knightly bannerall and hangs him by the heels on a tree. 59 A consistent meanness is thus the hallmark of these knights. In usurping a knightly demeanour, in withholding hosPitality, in bullying the helpless, or in setting up plots while simulating friendship, they break almost every law of chivalry. Their comic and exemplary ends are true to their evil careers, showing their complete unworthiness for the office of a knight. Paynims or Saracens The PAYNIMS or SARACENS, the only other knightly opponents of "'the children of fayre Light,'" are men of an entirely different mettle.24 They are the foes par 24There is also another group of knights, of whom Paridell and Blandamour are the chief examples, who seem to fall among the antagonists. But a close scrutiny shows this to be otherwise. These are more the truant knights of the Faery Court than its inveterate enemies. All the time they keep slipping in and out of the company of the protagonists, who conciliate, reproach or drub them a little, but never seriously confront them. They are mostly minor figures any- how, except for Paridell and Blandamour, who are the only fully developed characters. As for Paridell, he is at once recognized as a knight of the Faery Court by Satyrane, who meets him after the Argante episode. (III.viii.45-46) He is also related to Britomart through his descent from Paris of Troy. (III.ix.38, 51) Blandamour twice fights with Britomart and once with Prince Arthur, but neither of the protagonists has much heart in fighting him. In the first encounter with Britomart, she throws him down to ride on without bothering even to look back. (IV.i.36) The second time she is more eager to calm him than to chastise him. (IV.ix.31) Even when Arthur appears on the scene to help her and Scudamour fight him and his companions--Paridell is one of them--she persuades him also "t'asswage his wrath, and pardon his mesprise." (The word "mesprise" in the quote is important to note. We can be sure that the word for the Paynims would have been "miscreaunce," reserved, with variants, almost exclusively for them. It is used for 60 excellence of the protagonists: they speak no untrue words, use no underhand means, and command no miraculous powers in encounters with their heaven-led enemies. ‘With them each conflict is strictly a man-to-man affair. What trips them finally is the element of Faith which they lack, but which the good knights possess. This absence of Faith in the Paynim is hereditary. Books One and Two trace it to their descent from Night, the ancient enemy of the God of Light (Paynim genealogy is given only in part one of the poem). Additionally, the Paynims of Book One are the sons of Aveugle. Spiritual darkness is, thus, a Paynim heritage. Such details modify the villainy of the Paynims. Their guilt is not entirely their own. Almost all the details in their stories reflect this diminished guilt. Their epithets, for instance, are the mildest for any group. .Mostly we come across words like "bold" and "proud, with "cruell," "fiers," "faithlesse," and "strong" appearing less frequently in that order. In addition, Sansloy is also called "brave," "mighty," "valiaunt," "lawless," "unruly," Sansjoy in I.v.l3; for Sansloy in I.vi.4l; for Pyrochles in II.viii.39, 51; and for the Souldan in V;viii.l9. Also Atin calls Guyon "miscreaunt," which is how a faithful knight 'would appear to a miscreant himself. The only other use of the word in the poem is once for Despair. (I.ix.49) Soon they all settle down, like good friends, and Claribell, one of these delinquents, persuades Scudamour to tell them his life story. (IV.ix.30, 40) Such good neighbourliness would be hard to imagine between the Paynims and the Faery knights. 61 and "beastly"; Pollente, "carle unblest"; and the Souldan, "hatefull," "tyrant," and "a mighty man." Overall, the quali- fiers that stress their prowess rather tend to stand out. The Paynim descriptions reinforce this impression of their uniqueness. They are . . . foes of so exceeding might, The least of which‘was match for any knight. ‘ (II.viii.34) From Sansfey, "full large of limbs and every joint / . . . [who] cared not for God or man a point" (1.11.12), and Sansloy, "strong, and of so mightie cores, /.As ever wielded spears in‘warlike hand" (1.111.42), to Pyrochles, "'A knight of wondrous powre and great assay'" (II.iv.40), and Pollente, "so puissant and strong, / That with his powre he all doth overgo" (V;ii.7), the Paynims are all renowned warriors, related to the,hg;g.ngi:g of gods, Night, by blood, and, by allegiance, to the elusive foe of the Faery Queen, the great Paynim king. (I.xi.7, xii.18) The Paynim actions underline their reputation. In courage, confidence and agility, they are unmatched by any but Arthur or the champions of the Faery-land. No other foe in'Thg_z§g;;g_ggggng, not even the monsters, measure up to them in this respect. The monsters might appear to be dire and consequential, but they lack the dash, skill or stamina that the Paynims possess. Bulk and fear are their usual assets but these are easily countered by the wary knights. Not so with the Paynims, however. Each encounter+w1th them 62 is touch and go. And.what is even more dangerous, they are the only antagonists in The Egggig Quegne, except Archimago, who seek out the protagonists to destroy them. In their stories--this is true of part one of the poem--they act upon the good knights; i.e., it is they who usually discover or find or search them out. So Sansfoy lights upon Redcross (1.11.12), or Sansjoy jumps him at Lucifera's; or Una is found by Sansloy, and Guyon by Pyrochles and Cymochles. They are usually the first to attack, and always for reasons which they believe to be highly chivalric (and superficially they would appear so) but which are invariably rooted in misbeliefs. Thus Sansfoy charges at Redcross in "hope to winne his ladies hearts that day" (1.11.14), igno- rant of the truth about this heart, as Redcross too late discovers 1n I.vii. Or, Sansjoy attacks Redcross, accusing him of having killed Sansfoy with guile. (I.iv.4l) Archi- mago is attacked mistakenly by Sansloy, who later fights Guyon and Huddibras for Perissa's love, "Which gotten was but hate." (II.11.26) Pyrochles attacks Guyon under the misimpression . . . that thou hadst done great tort Unto an aged woman [Occasion], poore and bare, And thralled her in chaines with strong effort, Voide of all succour and needfull comfort. (II.v.17) Cymochles rushes from Acrasia's Bower under the mistaken belief that Pyrochles is dead or dying (II.v.36, 38), and later fights with Guyon under another misbelief that he is paying court to Phaedria. (II.vi.28) 63 Concomitant with this origin of their aggressive- ness in misbelief are other reasons: those all too human failings that we also see in the good knights. The Paynims misconstrue or are plainly misled into fighting the protagonists. In Sansfoy's case, his desire to please Duessa by attacking Redcross arises from a genuine confu- sion about the intentions of Redcross, as shown in the next chapter. Similarly the mistakes of Sansjoy and Sansloy 25 The are a result of their grief over Sansfoy's death. misbeliefs of Pyrochles and Cymochles are traceable to Atin and Archimago who mislead them in each situation. The Paynims in part two of the poem need no such justifi- cations: in a technical sense, both Pollente and the Souldan are forced to fight by their adversaries. Even their reported depredations mostly serve their women. Thus, the causes of their villainy also lie outside of their own selves. Consequently, in looking at the nature of the Paynim villainy, whether we discover its roots in the causes that the Paynims themselves believe in (but which we know to be misbeliefs) or in what we would call human weaknesses or fallacies (such as grief, or misguidance by 2SIn Sansloy's case, this is true of his attack on Una and Archimago. In his fights with Satyrane and Guyon, Satyrane attacks him first, as also does Guyon, techni- cally--he rushes in to forcibly stop Sansloy and Huddibras from fighting. 64 others), the fact remains that it is different from that of the other antagonists in The Eaerie Queene. It is a child, not of the perversions of will, reason or emotion, but of misbelief; in other words, it is born of an absence of true belief or true reason. ‘With the other evil characters, their villainy has rarely any excuse other than their own self-indulgence. If it is not the plain motiveless malig- nity of a monster or an Archimago, it is bound to arise from their ego, cowardice, or base appetite. In any case, their evil is centered squarely in their self. But the villainy of the Paynims, though also self-centered (since true faith is absent), is different. Consciously, it always makes a bow to a cause outside: service of some lady, rescue of some old woman, vengeance for a dead brother, and so on. Even when mistaken.in their reasons, they do not fabricate them like an Archimago or a Bragga- docchio. They honestly believe, within their narrow capa- bilities, that they live in the true spirit of chivalry. Their problem is that they know no better. They do not know that living outside the Law of God robs them of true reason, leaving them at the mercy of mere will guided by passions. But, then, if they knew, wouldn't they be the best of the knights in the Faery-land? Misbelief also decides their fates in these stories. By separating them from God, it creates in them a self- sufficiency, a.willfulness--a tendency to reject the 65 miraculous, all that testifies to the existence of true God-~that oftentimes obscures the plain evidence of their own senses. Thus we watch Sansfoy willfully rejecting the truth of his own observation--the power of the Cross to protect Redcross--only to have it proved on his body (I.ii. 18); or Sansjoy ignore Duessa's caution about Redcross's arms (I.iv.50; she had seen Sansfoy challenge and fall before them); or Pyrochles rudely disregard the warning of Archimago about the virtues in Arthur's sword (II.viii.22), after himself having been cured by Archimago's herbs and charms. (II.vi.51) To the extent that the Paynims are baffled by their misbelief, the good knights are helped by their belief in God. It is faith, potent in their hearts and latent in their arms, and at times even manifestly present, that always protects them from these vicious enemies. Redcross may be faithless in running away from Una, but he is not faithless in intent, for he did not know; he still retains the innate goodness (right disposition) that helps him destroy Sansfoy. (I.ii.l9) His goodness is still potent enough during his next trial to overcome Sansjoy. (I.v.12) Similarly, Una is saved from Sansloy through divine inter- vention. (I.vi.7) Or, Guyon escapes harm as Pyrochles' wrath spends itself on his sevenfold shield, painted with the Faery Queen's portrait. (II.v.6) Later, when Pyrochles and Cymochles together attack him, the divine intervention is direct: an angel protects him until earthly aid 66 arrives. (II.viii.3-8) In the same episode, when Arthur undertakes Guyon's rescue, Pyrochles' sword (Arthur's “owns good sword Morddure") hits him again and again but the charmed weapon cannot enter the body of its master. (II.viii. 30, 38, and 49) Pointedly, in the Artegall-Pollente episode, Artegall enters the fight with "'God to guide,'" while the Paynim ends it cursing "High God, whose goodnesse he despaired quight." (V.ii.10, 18) Another evidence of the absolute dependence of the protagonists upon Faith comes in the Souldan episode where the wounded Arthur is so hard pressed that he is forced to lift the veil off his magic shield to overcome the Paynim--perhaps also a left-handed compliment to the Paynim's role since this is the only occa- sion when Arthur must uncover the shield himself. (V.viii. 37)26 In these encounters only the cream of Christian knighthood is capable of tackling the Paynims. Arthur kills three: Cymochles, Pyrochles and the Souldan, and Redcross and Artegall one each, Sansfoy and Pollente respectively. The Paynims, then,are the only human characters in Th3 Eg§;y_ghgghg to die fighting the flower of Christian chiv- alry-~but not before they have drawn blood from the Oppo- nents and damaged their arms in every single encounter, 26Arthur's shield is also uncovered in I.viii.19 and IV.viii.42, both times accidentally. 67 except Pollente's.27 Sansfoy's spear-charge against the Redcross Knight stuns them both; but the Paynim recovers first and, unsheathing his sword, strikes off a large por- tion of the knight's crest before he himself is cut down. Again, in his duel with Sansjoy the Redcross Knight receives a blow at the end that sends him spinning like a tOp; only Duessa's premature cry of joy saves him in time. Similarly, Sansloy and Satyrane hack each other to pieces. Or, Pyro- chles rushes at Guyon . . . and strooke At him so fiercely, that the upper marge Of his sevenfolded shield away it tooke, And glauncing on his helmet, made a large And open gash therein. (II.v.6) The staggering blow pushes Guyon's beaver into his breast. Later, Cymochles and Guyon fight so furiously "that a large purple stream adown their giambeux falles" (II.vi.29); soon "Cymochles sword on Guyons shield yglaunst, / And thereof nigh one quarter sheard away." (II.vi.31) In the subsequent encounter with Prince Arthur, Cymochles' sword bites deep into Arthur's right side. (II.viii.38-39) This bleeding of the protagonists continues in Books Four and Five also. At Satyrane's Tournament, Bruncheval and Satyrane charge each other so furiously "that both, rebutted, tumble on the 27Other characters destroyed only by the Christian knights are the beasts and monsters. It is notable that among the monsters only Grantorto is able to hurt a protag- onist, Artegall. Of the others, Orgoglio collars a dis- armed Redcross Knight,.Maleger pummels a fallen Prince Arthur, while Corflambo, Geryoneo, and Disdain make no impression on their knightly opponent. 68 plain; / . . . Where in a maze they both did long remaine." (IV.iv.18) In Book Five, the Souldan shooting from a chariot gravely wounds Prince Arthur. Thus from whichever angle we view them, the Paynims and Saracens stand out among the antagonists of The Faerie Queene. Their sex, species, status and temperament obvious- ly separate them from the other villains, but what puts meaning into this separation is the detail of actions and explanations in their stories. Epithets therein more reproach than condemn them; genealogies provide them with a heritage ancient as Night itself; their descriptions neitherfrighten nor bemuse but properly impress; and their actions and motives shed illumination on their nature. Every encounter underlines their courage, confidence and élan. In the pages above, I feel that I have shown the unique position that the Paynims occupy in the diabolic ranks of the Faery-land. Along with the beasts and the monsters, theirs is a direct confrontation with the protag- onists, but, unlike them, they are not the hunted, but rather the hunting antagonists. They are the only true knights on "the other side.” Since the law of the Faery- land is chivalry, and the knights-protagonist its norm, the Paynim knights are the inverted image in a dark mirror that the good knights see at times to discover what they them- selves would be but for their faith in God. CHAPTER II THE PAYNIMS OF BOOK ONE This chapter analyses the three Paynim brothers in Book One of The Faerie Queene: Sansfoy, Sansloy, and Sansjoy. It will first survey the characteristics that they share in common, and then study their stories in detail to understand their individual natures. These three are the only knights to confront the protagonists in Book One. Sansfoy is the first to appear, before the Redcross Knight, early in the second canto, and the next are Sansloy and Sansjoy in cantos three and four respectively: Sansloy to confront Una, and Sansjoy Redcross. Sansloy appears again in canto six before Una rejoins the Redcross Knight. Thus the whole span of their action lies within the context of Redcross-Una separation. Indeed Archimago, by abusing the senses of the Red- cross Knight, pushes the two protagonists, Una and Redcross, into a world where the errant Paynim is the norm. In this topsy—turvy world, it is the Paynims who invariably seek encounters. Actions ordinarily considered good here lead to 69 7O confusion;1 and good ends to seeming felicity, but actually to further damnation.2 Here faith (Fidessa-Duessa) betrays and false faith saves.3 The anti-norms of this world live in halls and hamlets,4 and the true norms in the forests,5 ordinarily home of the anti-norm. The Paynim is its errant knight, and the Redcross Knight its recreant.6 It is in this upside-down world that the three Pay— nims first appear as externalizations of the true condition of the protagonists who figure in their stories: Redcross, Una, and Satyrane. Immediately preceding an encounter with a Paynim, each protagonist unwittingly becomes the focus of a dual configuration, the truth he thinks he knows and his true situation, of which the subsequent Paynim emblematizes lRedcross dissociating himself from Doubt for fear of blood-guilt (I.ii.44) and thus also from his well-meant warning about Duessa; or Sansjoy's vengeance for a brother's death leading to his own sad end. 2The victory of Redcross over Sansfoy leads to his acceptance of Duessa, and over Sansjoy to his adulation of Lucifera. 3The faith of Redcross in Duessa that revives him enough to beat down Sansjoy. (I.v.12) 4Lucifera (notice that Redcross accepts her condi- tion for the duel), and AbessarCorceca group. 5Lion, Satyrs, Satyrane. 6From Faith. He is more the led and the hunted knight here than the eager zealot of the first canto. The push of his energies is not expansive any more, as in the Error, Archimago, or even Despair episodes, but contrac- tive, as if engaged in self-preservation. Indeed the feel- ing we get throughout is of a knight barely holding his own, with each successive assault becoming increasingly difficult for him to withstand. 71 the latter aspect, as if he were holding up a mirror to the good knight. Redcross meets Sansfoy after deserting Una; i.e., he has betrayed faith, unknowingly, when the "faith- less" knight chances upon him. Similarly, just before his clash with Sansjoy, the Paynim without "joy," Redcross divorces himself from the "joyaunce vaine" of Lucifera's court. (I.v.37) Before the_UnafiSansloy encounter, Una, Truth, without knowing it, is being guided by Archimago, Hypocrisy; i.e., a state of lawlessness already exists when Sansloy, its emblem, appears. Similarly, Satyrane chal- lenges Sansloy with a truth acquired from Hypocrisy, Archimago. Thus the appearance of a Paynim knight in Book One indicates the pre-existence of an identical state in the protagonist himself. Each of these encounters establishes a new harmony within the protagonist. The element missing earlier is acquired, i.e., the dichotomy is erased, but, in the new integration the protagonist is, ironically, even worse off than before. After Sanfoy's defeat, Redcross possesses a new faith, Fidessa, who will lead him directly to the house of Pride and Orgoglio's dungeon. Similarly, Sansjoy's defeat seemingly restores the Redcross Knight's pride and spirits: he makes obeisance to Lucifera, "Which she accepts, with thankss and goodly gree, / Greatly advauncing his gay chevalree" (I.iv.l6), and even leads with her a festive procession of those very people whose "joyaunce vaine" he 72 had earlier rejected. (I.v.l6)7 We see a similar pattern in the Una-Sansloy episode. Archimago's defeat restores the law: Hypocrisy is unmasked. But it also brings in Sans- loy's law of might-is-right: Una is in greater peril than before. This is the lawless world of which the Paynims are the errant knights. In the encounters, it is they who introduce the action and then retain the initiative through- out until the final movement.8 In other words, the protag— onists have no choice in meeting them; the Paynims make the first contact and then set the pace of the encounter. The choices that the protagonists do have are confined to the preceding episode in each case, but once a decision is taken there, the clash with the Paynim becomes inevitable. Redcross Knight, once he accepts Archimago's evi- dence, is led straight to the charge of Sansfoy. It is Sansfoy who chances upon him, introduces each movement in their encounter, and finally forces the issue, until in the 7It seems to me that in both situations deep within him Redcross feels the malaise this equipoise covers. After he and Duessa-Fidessa become friends: So forth they rode, he feinin seemel merth, And shee coy lookes: so dainty, they say, maketh derth; (I.ii.27; italics mine) .and when after the duel he returns to Lucifera's palace (it is pointedly called "Home"), the music and merriment there merely serve "him go heguile of griefe and agony." (I.v.17; italics mine) 8The Satyrane-Sansloy encounter is an exception. 73 end the dormant spirits of Redcross well up to help cut down the Paynim. Similarly, once he enters Lucifera's Palace at Duessa's bidding (I.iv.3), the encounter with Sansjoy follows as a matter of course. Again the initia— tive throughout, until the last blow, is with the Paynim. In Una's story, the choice lies in her accepting the bogus Redcross, Archimago, but once it is made, her molestation 9 by Sansloy becomes inevitable. The Paynim modus operandi in these encounters is force. No doubt force is central to chivalry and the good knights use it constantly, but, as we saw in the last chap- ter, force is not the only response of a protagonist to every situation. Redcross Knight, for instance, uses force (with Error and dragon), reason (with Despair), and flight (from Fradubio and Lucifera) as the circumstances demand. But not so the Paynims. In their stories, such gradations do not exist. Force is their only response to a hostile world, and their dependence on it is absolute, so absolute that it transcends all need or fear of God or man. This disposition of the Paynims might appear to put them next to the monsters whose actions are also dictated 9Actually, like the choice before Redcross in Archi- mago's hermitage, these choices are not entirely free. In each case the senses of the protagonists are abused. But the point I wish to make is that each situation preceding the Paynim episode involves an act of will on the part of the protagonists--they could have refused if they had detected the deceits--whereas the action in the Paynim episodes is forced upon them; i.e., they have no choice but to be acted upon. 74 exclusively by force, but whereas the unthinking monsters can only act that way,10 the predilection of the Paynims for force is a matter of choice. That is to say, the Paynims are aware of, or confronted with, rational choices but the propensity of their natures is such that they invariably choose force and violence. This, of course, is not apparent all at once. But after the rush and excitement of the Opening charges we become aware of the options against which their choices are silhouetted. Sansfoy, after repeatedly charging Redcross in vain, comes to recognize the Cross on the Knight's shield as a divine protection, but such is the Paynim's blindness that in spite of his own observation he willfully vows to force the issue. (I.ii.18) Sansjoy's overconfidence in his own valor is such that he offhandedly rejects Duessa's caution about the weapons of the Redcross Knight. (I.iv.50) Similarly, force is all that Sansloy understands. When he carries away Una after unmasking Archimago, her "piteous plaintes" fail to touch his heart. (I.iii.43-44) It is a stronger force, the Satyrs, whose appearance frightens him enough to leave Una alone. But this also does not mean that the Paynims are merely unmitigated bullies. Behind each of their aggressions 10To the monsters, their mass and force are as natural as eating and breathing. They seemingly have no brains. They seldom open their mouths, and then merely to grin or curse, or make simple animal sounds. 75 lies a justifiable excuse: they simply misreason or mis- guide themselves into becoming embroiled with the protago- nists. A comparison with the diabolism of the other villains in Book One pinpoints this substantially. Archi- mago, Duessa, Orgoglio, or the old dragon, react to the mere presence of good. The protagonists do not have to g9 something to activate their villainy. These villains attack them merely their "cursed will to wreake." (I.ii.33) But not so the Paynims. An inherent antagonism exists between them and the good knights no doubt, but there is also always present a justification, a cause outside the mere nature of their opponents, that brings out their aggressive tendencies. Confusion, and Duessa, cause the Redcross-Sansfoy combat. Duessa mistakes the Redcross Knight's motions and "bids" her knight, Sansfoy, prepare for the fight, which the eager Paynim obeys. (I.ii.l4) Sansloy and Sansjoy are even more justified in attacking their opponents: they avenge a brother's death. Such justifications, absent in the stories of the other villains, would seem to meliorate somewhat the gross- ness of the Paynim crimes. At least the Paynims have some excuse for their aggressions, whereas the others have none. The machinations of Duessa and Archimago still further miti- gate the Paynim villainy. These two aid, abet, or instigate every combat involving a Paynim in order to misuse him for 76 their own purposes.11 In other words, in addition to fight- ing for his own reasons, the Paynim also unwittingly serves these arch-villains--a situation of which the Paynim is unaware. Duessa and Archimago know the truth and also the Paynim's ignorance of it, but through lies and distortions they immerse the Paynim in such subtle illusions that he finds it convenient to indulge his turbulent nature. Com- pared with these Machiavellian sophists, the Paynim is really an egregious ass. This, of course, does not absolve the Paynim of the responsibility for his crimes-~the choice to act is his--but it does somewhat lessen his guilt. It makes him a human, and not a diabolic, criminal. Duessa embroils Sansfoy with Redcross. She also figures prominently in the Sansjoy episode. Slipping into Sansjoy's lodgings at night, she offers him love, lies and hope for his fight the next day. She incites him against Redcross by falsely corroborating his charges of treachery. (I.iv.4l, 47) She offers him love: "'To you th' inheri- tance belonges by right / Of brothers prayse, to you eke longes his love'" (I.iv.48), and secret help: "'Where ever yet I be, my secrete aide / Shall follow you'" (I.iv.48), llA conSpiracy between the POpe and the Muslims was a subject of countless sermons on either side of the Refor- mation (the Romists, of course, would make the appropriate substitution). At times even the Queen had to issue denials against charges of collusion with the Great Turk. See S. C. Chew, pp. 101-102 and n.; and G. B. Harrison, Thg Elizabethan Journals, I (London, 1938), p. 233. 77 while all the time posing before him as Fidessa. (I.iv.42) As with Sansfoy, it is her words that, ironically, lead to Sansfoy's defeat the next day. She prematurely applauds his final stroke which arouses the Redcross Knight to strike down the Paynim. (I.v.ll-12) Whereas Duessa follows the fortunes of Sansfoy and Sansjoy, Archimago attaches himself to Sansloy. No love is lost between the two of course, but while Sansloy is neutral toward "the enchaunter vaine," Archimago is secretly hostile toward him. In their first meeting (I.iii.33f.), Archimago, disguised as "Redcross" and traveling with Una, is mis- takenly attacked by Sansloy. His fall reveals his identity and also Sansloy's knowledge of him. (I.iii.28)12 Sansloy, however, ignores him. But Archimago remembers his humilia- tion and in their next encounter avenges himself by entangling Sansloy with Satyrane. (I.vi.34f.) Dressed as a pilgrim, he meets Satyrane and Una, to whom he lies about Sansloy killing Redcross. While Satyrane hunts out the Paynim and fights him, . . . that false pilgrim, which that leasing told, Being in deed old Archimage, did stay In secret shadow, all this to behold, And much rejoyced in their bloody fray. (I.vi.48) Both Duessa and Archimago prey upon the inborn ignorance of the Paynim, a heritage that basically unites 12In view of their antagonism in the next encounter (I.vi.42, 48), I doubt if Sansloy's calling Archimago "'my friend'" (I.iii.39) is anything more than a mere formula. Sansloy soon leaves him lying in.his gore to ride off with Una, ostensibly Archimago's lady. 78 the three brothers. Ignorance is in fact hhg Paynim dis- ease: they are knights unaware of their own selves. In a final analysis, this would be true of any evil. Evil would not long remain evil if it were to become aware of itself. For that matter, no villain in The Eaerie Queene has a deep awareness of himself. But in their outer aspects at least characters like Duessa and Archimago have no illusions about themselves: Duessa knows that she is Falsehood, 13 In other Archimago that he is Hypocrisy, and so on. words, they delude others, but not themselves, about their true identities. The Paynims, however, live in utter self- delusion. They sincerely believe that they belong to the right side; that the causes for their embroilments are