The Faerie Queene, Book I

Summary

Book I of The Faerie Queene, the Legend of the Knight of the Red Cross, or of Holiness, tells how a young, untried knight wins his spurs by freeing a kingdom from a dragon and, on the way, learns how easily a Christian soul is deceived. Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, has sent the Redcrosse Knight, who bears a bloody cross on breast and shield, to help the lady Una, whose royal parents are besieged in their brazen castle by a monstrous dragon. Una rides a white ass beside him, veiled and leading a milk-white lamb, with a dwarf behind. In Canto I a storm drives them into the Wandering Wood, where Redcrosse strangles the serpent-woman Error and her brood; that night the enchanter Archimago, posing as a hermit, sends false dreams and a sprite in Una's likeness to persuade the knight that his lady is wanton. Redcrosse abandons her, kills the Saracen Sansfoy, and takes up with his companion Duessa, a witch who calls herself Fidessa; he hears the tree Fradubio tell how Duessa trapped him. Alone, Una is guarded by a lion, deceived by Archimago in Redcrosse's armor, and seized by the Saracen Sansloy, then rescued by satyrs who try to worship her and by the wild knight Satyrane. Redcrosse, meanwhile, visits Lucifera's House of Pride, sees the procession of the Seven Deadly Sins, and fights Sansjoy, whom Night carries down to Aesculapius in hell to be healed. Warned by the dwarf of the dungeon full of Pride's victims, he flees, but resting unarmed by an enchanted fountain he is captured by the giant Orgoglio, and Duessa mounts a seven-headed beast. Prince Arthur, the knight of Magnificence, answers Una's plea, kills Orgoglio, frees the wasted Redcrosse, and strips Duessa to reveal her hideous form. In Canto IX the weakened knight meets Despair in his cave and is nearly argued into suicide until Una snatches the knife away. She brings him to the House of Holiness, where Dame Coelia and her daughters Fidelia, Speranza and Charissa teach him; the physician Patience, Penance and Repentance cure his soul; and the hermit Contemplation shows him the New Jerusalem and tells him he is Saint George of England. In Cantos XI and XII Redcrosse fights the dragon for three days, revived by the Well of Life and the balm of the Tree of Life, and kills it. Una's parents celebrate, Archimago and a letter from Duessa fail to stop the betrothal, and Redcrosse leaves to serve the Faerie Queene six more years before the marriage. The first three books were published in London in 1590 by William Ponsonby with a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh explaining the plan; Books IV to VI followed in 1596. The library text is Book I alone, in George Armstrong Wauchope's 1903 Macmillan school edition, with his introduction, notes and canto summaries.

Top Lessons

• Holiness is learned through falling

  Redcrosse is a saint in the making, not a finished one. He is fooled by Archimago, seduced by Duessa, and imprisoned by Orgoglio before he can slay the dragon. Spenser shows holiness as a path of repentance and growth rather than a quality the hero simply has at the start.

• Truth is one; falsehood is double

  Una's name means one, and Duessa's suggests two. Duessa wears borrowed beauty and a false name, Fidessa, while Una is veiled but unchanging. The allegory teaches readers to judge by fruits and constancy, not by first appearances.

• Answering despair

  In Canto IX Despair turns half-truths about sin and justice into an argument for suicide, and Redcrosse has no reply. Una answers with grace: the knight has a part in heavenly mercy, and justice is not the last word. The scene is a careful study of how despair reasons and how hope breaks its logic.

• Strength belongs to God

  The opening of Canto X tells the reader not to credit the knight's victory to his own skill. Arthur's rescue, the Well of Life and the balm of the Tree of Life all show that Redcrosse wins only when he is renewed from outside himself.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Book I treats sin and despair in the language of disease and cure, which makes it a useful document for the Renaissance overlap of spiritual and medical care. The Cave of Despair (Canto IX) is one of the most influential English portraits of suicidal persuasion, written when despair was treated by divines as a spiritual crisis and by physicians as a form of melancholy; Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy later joins the two traditions. In Canto X a leech named Patience treats the knight's grieved conscience with salves, medicines, words and a strict diet, while fasting is used to abate proud humours, a picture of soul care borrowing humoral therapeutics. Canto V sends the wounded Sansjoy to Aesculapius in the underworld, recalling the classical god of medicine and the myth of his punishment for raising Hippolytus. Redcrosse's wasted body after Orgoglio's dungeon (Canto VIII) shows the period's ready link between spiritual captivity and bodily decline. These are allegorical uses of medicine, not clinical descriptions.

• Book I, Canto V, stanzas 17 and 36-44

  Leeches wash Sansjoy's wounds with wine and oil; Night carries him to Aesculapius in hell, whose story of healing Hippolytus is told.

• Book I, Canto VIII, stanzas 40-41

  Redcrosse is brought out of the dungeon pale, wasted and too weak to stand.

• Book I, Canto IX, stanzas 28-54

  Trevisan's flight, the cave of Despair, the argument for suicide, and Una's rescue of the knight as he raises the knife.

• Book I, Canto X, stanzas 23-29

  Coelia summons the leech Patience for a soul-diseased knight; diet, salves, Penance, Remorse and Repentance complete the cure.