The Faerie Queene Book 2 part 2

previously
After defeating the brothers, King A tells Guyon that he has been on a quest to find the Faerie Queene. I was also thinking that, because the Faerie Queene is supposed to represent Queen Elizabeth, hopefully some very awkward allegorical romance would result.

[Guyon] She is the mighty Queene of Faerie,
Whose faire retrait I in my shield do beare;
She is the flowre of grace and chastitie,
Throughout the world renowmed far and neare,
My liefe, my liege, my Soueraigne, my deare,
Whose glory shineth as the morning starre,
And with her light the earth enlumines cleare;
Far reach her mercies, and her prayses farre,
As well in state of peace, as puissaunce in warre.

Thrise happy man, (said then the Briton knight)               [Arthur]
[..]How may straunge knight hope euer to aspire,
By faithfull seruice, and meet amenance,
unto such blisse? sufficient were that hire
For losse of thousand liues, to dye at her desire.

Certes (then said the Prince) I God avow,
That sith I armes and knighthood first did plight,
My whole desire hath beene, and yet is now,
To serue that Queene with all my powre and might.
Now hath the Sunne with his lamp-burning light,
Walkt round about the world, and I no lesse,
Sith of that Goddesse I have sought the sight,
Yet no where can her find: such happinesse
Heauen doth to me envy, and fortune fauourlesse.

PROSPECTS LOOK GOOD!

The slightly odd thing is that the theme of this Book is temperance, but Guyon doesn’t seem very temperant – instead he’s followed around by this old guy who tells him off whenever he’s about to do an immoderate thing. This makes things boring because the old guy always stops him whenever he’s about to do anything interesting, but also, weird, because Guyon doesn’t seem that restrained himself – old guy is!

So King A teams up with Guyon to go questing (where? why? idk). They go to the House of Temperance (ALLEGORY) where Guyon hooks up with a lady called Shamefastness and King A with a lady who represents Ambition, and I’m like…are we really having dudes getting along with THEIR OWN METAPHORICAL PERSONALTY TRAITS? YEP

Except they don’t get along – Arthur tells his girl off for being too serious and glum and Guyon thinks that his is uncouth because she keeps blushing too much. Amusing.

The palace has all kinds of weird allegorical stuff in it, like the COOKS! OF! TEMPERANCE:

But to delay the heat, least by mischaunce
It might breake out, and set the whole on fire,
There added was by goodly ordinaunce,
An huge great paire of bellowes, which did styre
Continually, and cooling breath inspyre.
About the Caudron many Cookes accoyld,
With hookes and ladles, as need did require;
The whiles the viandes in the vessell boyld
They did about their businesse sweat, and sorely toyld.

So they go the Library and King A picks up Chronicles of the Kings of Britain and Guyon gets Chronicles of the Kings of Faerie, which explained a lot because up til now I’ve had no idea what was going on or who or where these people were. As it turns out King A is from Britain and came to Faery Lond, while Guyon is actually a faerie who was already living there. And then Spenser decides to go into SAXO mode and I’m like, no we aren’t going to get a break from the plot to do 50 stanzas of EVERY SINGLE KING OF BRITAIN ARE WE?

YES

This is mostly a tale of how people fought a lot in order to become the rulers of ancient Briton, but King A is delighted. “Yay, all my ancestors callously killed each other for power!” And then Spenser’s like “now I will tell the Chronicles of Faerie” and I’m like NO WAIT HE’S NOT GOING TO INVENT A FAKE GENEAOLOGY TO COMPARE WITH THE KINGS OF BRITAIN?

YES

But I was sorely disappointed because I was expecting Spenser to invent a completely crazy tale of fictional dynastic struggles to rival the Britain one. Spenser really missed a chance there. 😥 It’s just a list of names, albeit a hilarious one, because it’s all “the first King of Faerie Land was Elf, and he was succeded by his son Elfinell, and then his son Elficleos”

ELF O CLES