Season 4 Podcast 146 Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, Book I, Canto 8 Pt I Episode 20 “King Arthur and the Giant.”
Season 4 Podcast 146 Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, Book I, Canto 8 Pt I Episode 20 “King Arthur and the Giant.”
In last week’s episode, King Arthur, perceiving Una’s grief, persuades her to tell her entire story. Una is so distraught that she at first refuses to confide in King Arthur. The wise King Arthur persists so Una relates the story of how her parents are held captive by the dragon and how the Redcross Knight is held captive by the temptress Duessa and the evil giant Orgoglio. King Arthur covenants to deliver The Red Cross Knight from the dungeon.
CANTO VIII
Faire virgin, to redeeme her deare
brings Arthur to the fight:
Who slayes that Gyant, woundes the beast,
and strips Duessa quight.
Spencer laments that the righteous must face so many perils from Satan who daily seeks their fall. Only through heavenly grace can we be sustained against the wiles of the devil. Grace is firm and her care continuous. Spencer compares Una, which means truth, to pure grace for her love for the Redcross Knight is steady. However, through foolish pride or personal weakness or sins man becomes overpowered by Satan. If not for the steadfast Una, the RedCross Knight would have died. The Dwarf leads King Arthur, his squire, and Una to the giant’s castle. In the quest, we have everything we need to conquer the giant: Una represents truth. The Dwarf represents common sense. The Squire represents faith. King Arthur represents all the virtues. They are on a quest to rescue the Redcross knight who symbolized holiness but through the wiles of Duessa he committed grievous sins and is now bound by his sins in the giant’s dungeon, persecuted by Duessa, the whore of Babylon.
AY me, how many perils doe enfold
The righteous man, to make him daily fall,
Were not that heavenly grace doth him uphold,
And stedfast truth acquite him out of all.
Her love is firme, her care continuall,
So oft as he through his owne foolish pride,
Or weaknesse is to sinfull bands made thrall:
Else should this Redcrosse knight in bands have dydd
For whose deliverance she this Prince doth thither guide.
3 RON
They persevere until they reach the castle whose walls are very high. The Dwarf spies the castle first and cries out, “Lo yonder is the same in which my Lord my liege doth luckless lie.” The Dwarf turns to King Arthur and begs him to use his mighty powers to free his master. They order Una to stay behind till she knows how the battle ends.
They sadly traveild thus, until they came
Nigh to a castle builded strong and hie:
Then cryde the Dwarfe, Lo yonder is the same,
In which my Lord my liege doth lucklesse lie,
Thrall to that Gyants hateful tyrannie:
Therefore, deare Sir, your mightie powres assay.
The noble knight alighted by and by
From loftie steede, and bad the Ladie stay,
To see what end of fight should him befall that day.
King Arthur moves forward with his squire. The castle gates are shut tight, and no one answers. The Squire takes out his magic horn which has great powers.
So with the Squire, th' admirer of his might,
He marched forth towards that castle wall;
Whose gates he found fast shut, ne living wight
To ward the same, nor answere commers call.
Then tooke that Squire an horne of bugle small.
Which hong adowne his side in twisted gold
And tassels gay. Wyde wonders over all
Of that same hornes great vertues weren told,
Which had approved bene in uses manifold.
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