Theme and Emblem in Spenser's Faerie Queene

Author(s): Humphrey Tonkin

Source: ELH , Summer, 1973, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Summer, 1973), pp. 221-230
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

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THEME AND EMBLEM IN SPENSER'S FAERIE QUEENE

BY HUMPHREY TONKIN

This study will examine one of Spenser's favorite narrative

devices in the Faerie Queene, the prefiguration of major themes
by means of emblematic episodes. It will focus especially on one
such episode, in Book Four, and the realization of its implications
in Books Five and Six.
In a strange but notable scene in Book One of the Faerie
Queene, Prince Arthur and the Red Cross Knight exchange gifts.
Arthur gives the knight " a box of Diamond sure . . . Wherein were
closed few drops of liquor pure," and Redcross responds with "A
booke, wherein his Saveours testament /Was writt with golden
letters rich and brave" ([Link].19). Readers have found it strange
that Redeross should give the Christ-like Arthur a copy of the
New Testament, and some have inquired what becomes of the
diamond box in the later adventures of Redcross. But there are
very logical reasons for exchanging such gifts at this point in the
book. The episode makes' more sense if we emphasize what is ex-
changed rather than who receives it-if, in fact, we treat the
episode not as a sequence of events in the narrative of Book One,
but as an emblem.
We shall best understand this emblem by glancing at another,
a canto later. The story of the House of Holiness is of course the
most formally allegorical part of Book One, and there is little
attempt at verisimilitude in the presentation of the various char-
acters whom Una and Redcross meet there. This, for example,
is Fidelia:

She was araied all in lilly white,

And in her right hand bore a cup of gold,
With wine and water fild up to the hight,
In which a Serpent did himselfe enfold,
That horrour made to all that did behold;
But she no whitt did chaunge her constant mood:

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 And in her other hand she fast did hold
A booke, that was both signd and seald with blood;
Wherein darke things were writt, hard to be understood.
(I.x.13)

Fidelia's cup and book are representative of the grace bestowed by

the sacraments, and the example of Christ's birth, death, and
resurrection on behalf of mankind.
Now clearly the gifts exchanged by Arthur and Redcross are
similar to the objects Fidelia holds in her hands. Arthur renders
up the heavenly aspects of faith, the water of grace, the water
of the " living well " ; Redcross reciprocates with the earthly as-
pects of faith, the story of the incarnation. (We must add that
English readers would also have seen in this exchange God's
bestowal of grace on the English church, and the church's demon-
stration, through its patron St. George, of its fidelity to the true
teaching of Christ and the primitive church.) 1 Arthur and Red-
cross, then, represent through their exchange of gifts the same
qualities as are later combined in the single person of Fidelia.
But there is another dimension to this emblem. It presents in
small compass the dilemma posed and answered by the juxtaposi-
tion of the Legends of Holiness and Temperance. The contrast
between Books One and Two has been characterized as the con-
trast of Grace and Nature, or of Christian virtue and classical
virtue,2 but it is better described as the contrast between the pur-
suit of heavenly virtue (in Book One) and the application of
heavenly virtue to the affairs of men (in Book Two). Holiness,
to be sure, is pursued in this world, and Redeross's conquest of
the dragon has immediate implications for our worldly state, but
still the virtue is bound to salvation.
Arthur's Grace therefore symbolizes certain qualities which
we associate especially strongly with Book One. The Red Cross
Knight's Testament, dealing with Christ's life on earth, seems
suggestive of the cares and tribulations and hardships of earthly
life-the application of heavenly virtue to men's affairs. This
emblematic union of the human and the divine prefigures the
relationship of Holiness to Temperance, Book One to Book Two.

1 The best account of this aspect of Book One is in Frank Kermode, Shakespeare,
Spensei, Donne (London, 1971), pp. 33-69.
'See A. S. P. Woodhouse, "Nature and Grace in The Faerie Queene," ELH, 16
(1949), 194-9228; reprinted in Elizabethan Poetry: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed.
Paul J. Alpers (New York, 1967).

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 Books Three and Four involve a quite different type of recon-
ciliation, which is also first presented to us in emblematic form.
When Belphoebe bursts, upon Braggadochio and Trompart in
Book Two, we are given an elaborate and detailed description of
her appearance which unites the attributes of Venus and Diana,
thereby looking forward to the great theme of the central books,
the reconciliation of the cycle of generation with heroic action
through the person of Britomart. The cycle of generation is most
clearly set forth in the mythic episode of the Garden of Adonis.
At first this Garden seems to have little to do with Britomart's
quest for Artegall, whom she has seen in her father's magic mirror.
Only later do we come to understand that the magic circle of
the mirror, in showing her her future husband, has in a sense
shown her her own femininity, and that her journey will end when
she is able to accept the myth described in the Garden, by accept-
ing her feminine role. This, of course, comes about after the de-
feat of the monstrous Radigund, when she yields her power to
Artegall.
A third major emblem in the Faerie Queene sums up the central
preoccupation of the last two books. Readers of Book Four will
recall that Artegall appears at Satyrane's tournament " in quyent
disguise,"
For all his armour was like salvage weed,
With woody mosse bedight, and all his steed
With oaken leaves attrapt, that seemed fit
For salvage wight, and thereto well agreed
His word, which on his ragged shield was writ,
Salvagesse sans finesse, showing secret wit. ([Link].39)

There is a good deal of scholarly disagreement about the nature of

this " secret wit," but its general meaning seems fairly clear. By
equipping him in this way, Spenser has prepared the character of
Artegall for an encounter with Britomart in which he will prove
that sweetness is greater than strength, love more powerful than
force. Artegall, in other words, is fitted out with emblematic
attributes in order to tell us something about Britomart. But
these attributes, while they may resolve certain problems in the
characterization of Britomart, make the character of Artegall nar-
row and constricted. We realize that if he is to become complete
as Britomart later becomes complete, his salvagesse must be
matched by finesse, his savage strength by discrimination and
sensitivity.

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 But Book Five does not show this process. The optimistic
ending of Book Four, with the marriage of the rivers, the story
of Scudamour's success in the Temple of Venus, and Marinell's
discovery of Florimell, leads us to expect some glorious celebration
of harmony, a kind of climactic paean, at the beginning of Book
Five.3 Instead, Spenser makes Book Five tightly restrained,
severe, authoritarian, for this is principally Artegall's book, not
Britomart's. As Spenser emphasizes the. limitations of his hero's
justice, its unsympathetic qualities as well as its obvious successes,
we come to understand that in Book Five we see principally only
half the emblem, only the salvagesse. Sir Calidore, in Book Six,
will add the finesse.

II

The political allegory in Book Five, most of it contained in the

later cantos, may seem a curious element in a work whose author
has taken such pains to distance his action from " the daunger of
envy, and suspition of present time." We are inclined to label
this component " historical allegory," forgetting that it deals with
events strictly contemporary, involving men not only still living,
but still in positions of authority. No entirely adequate explana-
tion of this strange departure has been provided by the many
commentaries on Book Five, though it is obviously appropriate
in a consideration of the role of law to examine contemporary
events where such rule has been exercised. The least satisfying
aspect of so doing, however, is that it puts special demands on
the reader's knowledge of facts exterior to the poem. The Burbon
episode, for example, makes virtually no sense unless we under-
stand that it refers to Henry of Navarre, and has precious little
impact if we do not realize the degree of antipathy which his
conversion generated among protestant Englishmen. On the other
hand, the allusions to contemporary events' bring the here-and-
now within the scope of the poem in a peculiarly effective manner.
They widen the base of the Faerie Queene and they prepare us
for a different kind of action in Book Six. Not only does Astraea
stand at the beginning of Book Five, but the spirit of her earthly
representative, Elizabeth herself, stands behind the Legend of

'See Judith K. Anderson, " ' Nor Man it is': The Knight of Justice in Book V
of Spenser's Faerie Queene," PMLA, 85 (1970), 65-77.

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Justice and invests its episodes with a double significance.4
The opening of the book stresses the distance between Golden
Age justice and Artegall's justice even as it explains that Astraea
was responsible for Artegall's education.

There she him taught to weigh both right and wrong

In equall ballance with due recompence,
And equitie to measure out along,
According to the line of conscience,
When so it needs with rigour to dispence.
Of all the which, for want there of mankind,
She caused him to make experience
Upon wyld beasts which she in woods did find,
With wrongful powre oppressing others of their kind.
(V.i.7)

The precepts of Astraea are matched by an elemental force. Soft

primitivism is juxtaposed with the primeval savagery of hard
primitivism, and there is no attempt, at this stage at least, to
bring these two contradictory views of the past into any kind of
harmony.5 The first episode does perhaps offer some justification
for such displays of sheer strength. Sir Sanglier's offense-the
cutting off of his mistress' head-is a deed of such brutality that
we are prepared to acknowledge the need for power as well as
humaneness in the exercise of the law. What is more, Artegall
shows surprising leniency in his re-enactment of Solomon's judg-
ment. Not only does he restore the living lady to her rightful
lord, he shames Sir Sanglier rather than punishing him. His
charge to Sir Sanglier, that he bear with him his lady's head,
"the burden of defame," surely derives the maximum deterrent
effect from the sentence. The conduct of the trial also suggests
that guile is a perfectly appropriate aspect of law-enforcement.
Artegall and Arthur will use it again in their conquest of the
Souldan and Malengin later in the book.6
Those critics who find fault with Artegall for his judgment
against Sir Sanglier seem to be reading the episode in terms of pre-
conceived notions about Artegall. I see no evidence of the lack of

'Cf. Frances A. Yates, "Queen Elizabeth as Astraea," JWCI, 10 (1947), 27-82.

' The terms were coined by Arthur 0. Lovejoy and George Boas, Primitivism and
Related Ideas in Antiquity: Contributions to the History of Primitivism, Vol. 1 (Balti-
more, 1935). Cf. Donald Cheney's valuable distinction between Wild Man and Shep-
herd, Spenser's Image of Nature (New Haven, 1966).
6 Jane Aptekar, Icons of Justice (New York, 1969), pp. 119 if.

Humphrey Tonkin

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respect for the lady which A. C. Hamilton detects here, and T.
K. Dunseath's reminder that even if Solomon was a good judge
he was a less continent husband strikes me as quite beside the
point.7 Dunseath is attempting to show that Artegall's early ex-
ploits lead ultimately to a kind of fall, each of them containing
some flaw or some failure. He is surely right to see a decline in
Artegall's efficacy in these initial episodes, though it begins not
with Sir Sanglier, but with the Giant. Though Artegall's eloquence
in answering the Giant's ill-reasoned egalitarianism is impeccable,
he is confused and embarrassed by the rebellious crowd:
Which lawlesse multitude him comming too
In warlike wise, when Artegall did vew,
He much was troubled ne wist not what to doo.
For loth he was his noble hands t'embrew
In the base blood of such a rascall crew. ([Link].52)

The monotony of the rhymes seems expressive of Artegall's

comfiture. In a sense his fears are our own; this is the first gen
crowd we have met in the whole of the Faerie Queene.8 If Arte
is caught momentarily off his guard, so, too, are we. Muddl
headed egalitarians ourselves, we may find it hard to avoid s
with the populace, and hard to contain our shock at Artegall's
stand-offishness. But perhaps this aspect of the episode is less
important than the way in which it shows Artegall's limitations.
He seems strangely unable to cope with the public aspects of the
law, to handle crowds as well as individual criminals, and (above
all) he seems oddly lacking in resourcefulness and self-control.
The next episode, the tournament at the wedding of Marinell and
Florimell, shows his martial superiority, but also shows him losing
his temper at Braggadochio ([Link].36).
Certainly such anger ill befits a dispenser of justice, though th
episode which follows, the decision involving the two brothers an
their island and treasure, is admirably conducted, and incidentall
gives the lie to the egalitarian giant. The suggestion of congruen

7 Hamilton seems to imply that Artegall's offer to carve the lady in half shows a
deplorable lack of propriety, but that is so only if Artegall is in doubt about the out-
come of the case. See A. C. Hamilton, The Structure of Allegory in " The Faerie
Queene" (Oxford, 1961), p. 71. Cf. T. K. Dunseath, Spenser' Allegory of Justice in
Book Five of " The Faerie Queene" (Princeton, 1968), pp. 84-85.
8 Earlier crowds have been crowds of fiends (Maleger's, for example) or beasts
(Error's brood). This is the first crowd whose only characteristic is that it behaves
like a crowd.

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between the law of men and the law of nature also adds a
fitting footnote to the marriage of Marinell and Florimell. Never-
theless, the judgment, as Dunseath points out,9 does not alto-
gether come to grips with the issues, since while it ends the dispute
it does nothing to restore amity between the brothers.
This inability to cope with the human aspect of justice sets
the scene for Artegall's fall to Radigund. The contrast between
the Amazon queen and the hero is a kind of parodic representation
of the contrast between Astraea's justice and Artegall's. The mild
Astraea, feminine, benign, becomes the tyrannous and masculine
Radigund; the fierce and unrelenting Artegall is reduced to the
submissive effeminacy of a Hercules thrall to Omphale. He is
rescued from this submission to a woman by a woman. Brito-
mart's conquest of Radigund, however, far from perpetuating his
subjection, allows him to continue his quest with renewed strength,
since Britomart, this addition to her quest over, reverts to fem-
ininity, while Artegall resumes his masculine role. Some com-
mentators suggest that Britomart's intervention is a kind of bes-
towal of grace on the fallen Artegall, an intervention of Astraean
goodness to offset Radigund's perversion." The idea is attractive,
and it is supported both by the scriptural echoes in the Dolon
episode which precedes Britomart's intervention and by the un-
veiling of Arthur's shield in the fight against the Souldan which
follows it. What is more, Artegall's recovery leads not to a mere
repetition of his earlier judicial activities but to a widening of his
sphere of action to take in the political realm.
While some may see Artegall's movement into the realm of
policy as the effect of a New Dispensation, and while there may
be evidence to support this view, the argument is nevertheless
ultimately unconvincing because Britomart's intervention seems
to have precious little effect on Artegall's general behavior. What
is more, Arthur's arrival, while it may begin with an indecisive
and accidental collision between the two knights and Artegall's
establishment as Arthur's equal, actually puts Artegall in an in-
ferior role. It is Arthur who fights the Souldan, while Artegall
merely disposes of the Souldan's followers and at the last opens
the gates for the Prince's triumphal entry. It is Arthur whose

JJustice, p. 125.
10 See, for example, Clifford Davidson, " The Idol of Isis Church," SP, 66 (1969),
70-86.

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emotions are revealed in the trial of Duessa. Artegall, we are told,
remains opposed to her " with constant firme intent." Such " zeale
of Justice " shows that Artegall's self-control has advanced indeed,
but it gives no indication that his principled firmness is tempered
with any kind of benevolent grace. Nor at the end of the book
does his encounter with the Blatant Beast suggest any new ability
to cope with people. He has learned little along that line since the
encounter with the Giant. His refusal to be angered or deflected
by Envy and Detraction and their monstrous beast confirms our
impression that he has learned the virtues of control, but not that
he understands human nature.
In fact our dominant impression of Book Five, despite the
presence of Britomart (a presence which ultimately tells us much
more about Britomart than it does about Artegall), is of in-
exorability. While we tend to forget how well-wrought a book it
is, we are surely right in seeing its Justice as a decidedly incom-
plete virtue. It is, no accident, I think, that the book is rem-
iniscent of Book Two. Many of the questions which we raise
concerning the sequence Isis-Radigund-Souldan are very similar
to those raised by commentators on the central episodes of the
earlier book. There is a distinct similarity between Arthur's de-
feat of the Souldan in Canto 8, and his defeat of Pyrochles and
Cymochles in Canto 8 of the Legend of Temperance. Canto 9
takes Guyon and Arthur to the House of Alma, and Artegall and
Arthur to the Court of Mercilla; at Alma's house Arthur takes
upon him the task of ridding Alma of Maleger and his forces, and
at Mercilla's court he agrees to rescue Belge from the tyranny of
Grantorto. These tasks occupy Canto 11 in both books.'1 Lewis
Miller has, suggested that Arthur's important role in Book Two
can be usefully discussed in the context of Arthur's quest as well
as, Guyon's., and the same is perhaps true in the case of Book
Five.'2 Nevertheless, the extensive coverage given to Arthur's
exploits rather than Artegall's must inevitably make the Knight
of Justice look more limited and less versatile. This lack of ver-
satility results, partly from the logic of Spenser's argument. If we
read Isis Church as an emblem of the role of law in good govern-
ment, then the position of the crocodile relative to Britomart will

" The similarity of the endings of Books Two and Five has been pointed out by
Cheney, Image of Nature, pp. 180-81.
2 Lewis H. Miller, Jr., "Arthur, Maleger, and History in the Allegorical Context,"
UTQ, 35 (1966), 176-87.

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likely be mirrored in the position of Artegall relative to Mercilla.
The law is the servant of the sovereign and even constitutes a
potential danger should it rage out of control. A hero who must
constantly be brought to heel offers unpromising material for the
depiction of the triumph of justice.
Perhaps because of this need for loyalty and control, Artegall's
integrity rather than his power is the quality especially stressed
in the book. In fact, integrity of personality forms a minor theme
in a number of episodes. The broken sword which appears on
Sanglier's shield suggests that he is a savage masquerading as a
knight. When Talus breaks Braggadochio's sword ([Link].37) and
Radigund breaks Artegall's (V.v.21) they are registering the fail-
ure of their adversaries to fulfill the role of knight. Artegall loses
his personality by becoming Radigund's captive and must have it
restored to him by Britomart, while Britomart herself is finally
able to put off her armor and go back to being a young girl in
love, which is really what she has been trying to be all along.
Of course, this emphasis on integrity of personality should not
lead us, to conclude that Spenser disapproved of female rulers.
Besides Britomart, there are no less than four in this book-
Radigund, Mercilla, Belge and Irena. Radigund, to be sure, forces
an ugly reversal of the sexes: women become men and men be-
come women. Beige, however, is a victim of masculine force-the
same kind of force as was earlier depicted in the crocodile. Irena,
lacking a champion, never wins the power that is rightfully hers.
But Mercilla, strong yet merciful, devotee of the rule of law yet
courteous to all, presents a picture of the perfect ruler. Beige
and Irena represent constitutional authority thwarted because of
lack of means to enforce it, but they do not in themselves provide
arguments for those of Spenser's contemporaries who had doubts
about the efficacy of woman rulers. Mercilla's breadth of vision,
set beside Artegall's narrowness, casts doubts on, men's executive
abilities if anything, not women's."3
Mercilla is a forerunner of a wider conception of civil order
which leads us directly into Book Six. Her court hints at a broader
definition of justice embracing not only civil order but also civil
harmony and mercy-a court, in other words, in which salvagesse

13 See James E. Phillips, Jr., " The Background of Spenser's Attitude Toward Women
Rulers," HLQ, 5 (1941), 5-32, and " The Woman Ruler in Spenser's Faerie Queene,"
HLQ, 5 (19492), 211-34.

Humphrey Tonkin 229

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is fully complemented and controlled by finesse. It stands in re-
lation to Book Six somewhat as the hermaphrodite image deleted
from the end of Book Three stands in relation of Book Four: the
later books are expansions of the earlier images. Parallels between
Books Five and Six are abundant. The Graces remind us of
Mercilla and the Litae,'4 Calidore's dubbing of Tristram contrasts
with Artegall's refusal to dub the squire in Canto 1, Turpine is
tricked much as the Souldan is tricked, echoes of the Hercules
myth appear in Book Six as well as Book Five, emphasis on the
integrity of personality continues in the later book.'5
Whereas Book Five tends to stress firmness and narrowness,
Book Six emphasizes rehabilitation, reintegration, forgiveness, and
harmony. Donald Cheney, in his excellent discussion of the par-
allels between Books Five and Six,'6 has suggested that the later
book completes and rounds out its predecessor, replacing the nar-
rowness of Artegall's virtue with the breadth and human kindness
of Calidore's. If there is anywhere a New Dispensation it is indeed
in Book Six, not Book Five. The very contrast in the education
of the two heroes makes this plain. Whereas Artegall was brought
up among savage beasts, Calidore's upbringing was at Gloriana's
Court. " His faire usage and conditions sound " epitomize the
natural virtues of a perfect society. Such qualities, we are told,
" with the greatest purchast greatest grace." Contrast this with
our first view of Artegall: " Ne any liv'd on ground, that durst
withstand / His dreadfull heast." Calidore's disregard for petty
conventions and his application of a wider view of harmony than
Artegall's justice can contain bring him new troubles and a harder,
more imprecise quest than Artegall's. On Mount Acidale the em-
blem in Book Four comes to fruition: Calidore's vision of the
Graces matches grace with strength, finesse with salvagesse.

University of Pennsylvania

as Dunseath, Justice, p. 210.

15rOn Hercules in Book Five, see Dunseath, Justice, pp. 47 if.; Aptekar, Icon
155 ff.
l Image of Nature, pp. 176-96, and passim.

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