Season 4 Podcast 194 Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, Book I, Canto 11 Pt IV Episode 36 “The Sword of the Spirit.”
Season 4 Podcast 194 Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, Book I, Canto 11 Pt IV Episode 36 “The Sword of the Spirit.”
In last week’s episode, the first day of the battle, the Dragon, his fiery breath breathing from the depths of his flaming belly, scorched the Redcross Knight, the heat so intense and painful that he wished for death. The Redcross Knight in his weakened state was knocked down, unable to rise. Una thought the battle was over. However, unknown to the Redcross Knight, behind him was the well of living water that contained the healing of the nations. He fell over backwards into the life-giving well and emerged healed and stronger than ever, ready to again fight the dragon. The long tail of the dragon represents what Spenser calls, “errors endless train.” The fiery breath of the dragon represents the fiery darts of the adversary. The Redcross Knight did not have the power sufficient in himself to fight the ferocious dragon; however, he discovered that Christ did have the power over Satan. Everything changed. The first time he fought for himself and was nearly killed. In fact, Spenser said that it was ten thousand times more painful than the pain of an ordinary man. This time he emerges a new man in Christ. It was like a second baptism. His strength was greater, his armor stronger. In this podcast we enter the second day of battle.
In the following stanza Spenser, the narrator, confesses that he doesn’t know how the Redcross Knight was healed and became a new man. He said he didn’t know how the sword was hardened and the blade sharpened with the holy water. He wonders how his baptism in the waters of the living well strengthened his hand, making them larger and more powerful. He wondered what other secret virtues came from the living well.
Spenser does know that if the Redcross Knight hadn’t bathed in the well of living water, he would have had no strength restored to his arm nor could he have had the power to pierce the dragon’s armor with his sword. Without being renewed in the waters of the well the Redcross Knight could never have harmed the dragon by subtlety or cunning or might or sorcery.
I wote not, whether the revenging steele
Were hardned with that holy water dew,
Wherein he fell, or sharper edge did feele,
Or his baptized hands now greater grew;
Or other secret vertue did ensew;
Else never could the force of fleshly arme,
Ne molten mettall in his blood embrew;
For till that stownd could never wight him harme,
By subtilty, nor slight, nor might, nor mighty charme.
The dragon became enraged with the awful wound he received from the Redcross Knight’s sword. He bellowed because of pain. His cries were like a hundred roaring lions driven by ravenous hunger. The dragon tossed his extremely long train. His tail whipped the air so fiercely that it was impossible to resist its force. The mighty strength of his long tail knocked down trees and broke rocks into pieces.
The cruell wound enraged him so sore,
That loud he yelded for exceeding paine;
As hundred ramping Lyons seem'd to rore,
Whom ravenous hunger did thereto constraine:
Then gan he tosse aloft his stretched traine,
And therewith scourge the buxome aire so sore,
That to his force to yeelden it was faine;
Ne ought his sturdy strokes might stand afore,
That high trees overthrew, and rocks in peeces tore.
The dragon advanced, his tail held high above his head containing sharp stings. His tail came down so hard on the ground that even the earth appeared to be stricken dead. No living person could have survived the strike of the long tail. The tail hit the Redcross Knight and shot through the shield and pierced
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