1 Braggadocchio: Adds an augmentative suffix from Italian to the English ‘brag’, perhaps reflecting a common Tudor prejudice against ‘Italianate’ manners. Coined by Spenser, the name became an English noun meaning boastful swagger.

4 Belphœbe: Prefixes the Italian bella handsome to the Greek name for the goddess of the moon; cf. ii.44.1, where ‘faire Phebe’ anticipates and translates the name. Cf. also FQ Letter 36-37, where Spenser explains his invention of the name as an epithet for Queen Elizabeth ‘according to your owne [Ralegh’s] excellent conceipt of Cynthia, (Phoebe and Cynthia being both names of Diana)’.

1.7 behight: One of Spenser’s creative archaisms. Here may mean named or mentioned, with reference to Guyon’s account of his quest at dinner the night before (ii.43-45). But since the OE meaning is to promise or vow, the sense ‘pledged’ is also relevant.

1.9 many-folded: Cf. Il 7.220, where Ajax carries ‘a shield of bronze with sevenfold bull’s hide’ (χαλκεον εταβoειον, o οι Τυχ𝜄ος καμε τε𝜐χων; chalkeon etaboeion, o oi Tuchios kame tenchōn). The epithet ‘seven-folded’ is picked up by classical poets (e.g. Ovid, Virgil); it reappears at II.v.6.2-3 (Guyon’s ‘seven-folded shield’) and III.ii.25.7 (Arthegall’s ‘shield enveloped sevenfold’).

2.3 coniure: Etymologically, ‘swear together’.

2.8 Ruddymane: Combining ‘ruddy’ with L manus hands to translate the epithet ‘bloody-handed’.

2.8–2.9 2.8-9 The narrator seems unaware that teaching Ruddymane vengeance might be inconsistent with his training in ‘vertuous lore’ (because vengeance is sinful or belongs to the Christian God).

3.1–3.5 3.1-5, 9 The halting rhythm and the pun on ‘boot’ suggest an amused perspective on Guyon’s predicament, while the Palmer footing it ‘no more alone’ recalls the knight’s too-hasty response to Archimago and Duessa in canto i. These suggestions are gathered up in the final line of the stanza, where we read that Guyon ‘rushed in on foote’ to aid Amavia, abandoning his horse and spear.

3.3 Patience perforce: Proverbial (Smith 1970, no. 598).

4.4 kestrell kynd: As a term of contempt it means something like windbag: thus Nashe in 1596 refers to ‘One of these kistrell birds, called a wind-sucker’ (Saffron Walden Kij). Making Braggadocchio into a species of hawk, the phrase recalls by way of a pun the argument’s statement that he ‘is of fayre / Belphoebe fowle forlorne’.

4.5 vaine: With a pun on ‘vainglory’.

4.9 full light: ‘Light’ functions both as an adverb meaning ‘nimbly’ and as adjective meaning, in a military sense, ‘lightly armed’, while also suggesting that Braggadocchio lacks gravitas. ‘Full light’ is thus a complex oxymoron: being altogether or entirely frivolous, he is fully empty.

5.1 iollity: Carries a range of meanings including festivity, sexual pleasure, gallantry, splendor, jocularity, and, most immediately relevant, insolent presumption. The concentrated assonance of the back-vowels helps make the point, reinforced by the link between ‘swell’ and the wind-sucking behavior of the kestrell (4.4n).

5.4 personage: Close in range of meanings (physical appearance, image) to ‘person’, but more important-sounding. The personage is what Braggadocchio impersonates, taken in by his own imposture.

5.9 t’aduaunce his first degree: To get a promotion, now that he has knighted himself.

6.3 auaunting: Boasting, with an ironic echo of ‘advaunce’ (5.9).

6.3 brauery: Both bravado (looking back to ‘avaunting’) and finery (looking forward to line 4).

6.4 6.4 Cf. 4.4n.

7.6 dead dog: A Biblical insult specific to the books of Samuel: 1 Sam 24:14, 2 Sam 9:8, 2 Sam 16:9.

8.9 hold of him in fee: Legal phraseology (to hold land by virtue of one’s submission to a feudal lord) marking the scene as a parody of the homage ritual.

10.1

Trompart: From Fr tromper to deceive, by analogy to English ‘trump’, ‘trumpant’, ‘trumpery’, also derived from tromper and its forms trompant and tromperie. Parodies the ‘trumpets sterne’ of I.pr.1.4 much as Trompart parodies the function of the epic poet to ‘blazon forth’ praise; the name thus seems to emerge comically from the ‘bellowes’ of the preceding line.

Trompart and Braggadocchio have been read at least since Upton 1758 as glancing satirically at the courtship of Elizabeth by the duc d’Alencon and his agent Simier. For the literary antecedents of these characters in Ariosto, OF, and other texts, see the article on each in SpE.

10.2 vaunting eye: Translating the name ‘Braggadocchio’ through a pun on Ital occhio eye (Hamilton 2001).

10.3–10.4 10.3-4 Note the echo of 4.5 in ‘Vaineglorious’ and the expansion of 4.4 (‘kestrell kind’) in ‘when fluttring wind does blow / In his light winges, is lifted up to skye’—amplifying both the argument’s anticipatory pun on ‘fowle’ and the name ‘Trompart’ as associated with bellows and trumpet.

10.5 10.5 Cf. arg.2-3.

10.8–10.9 10.8-9 Honor as the reward of virtue (opposed to honor ‘without desert’) is most highly regarded among those who are nobly descended; or, honor as the reward of virtue carries its blossom (praise) within its seed (noble deeds).

11.2 Archimage: Last seen at i.25 provoking Guyon to attack Redcrosse.

11.4 thondring with his feet: With Braggadocchio in the saddle, even the horse’s gallop turns to bombast; the pun on ‘feet’ extends the parody of epic poetry (cf. 10.1n).

11.7–11.9 11.7-9 Archimago’s adversarial role both mirrors and opposes the linking of the virtues; cf. i.5.4-5n and i.34.2n.

12.3 golden sell: Repeated from ii.11.6.

12.6 through hard assay forgone: ‘Lost in a difficult adventure’ or ‘renounced in a difficult test’. ‘Despight’ in line 8 may favor the first possibility, whereas at 17.6-9 Braggadocchio will elaborate the second.

12.7–12.8 12.7-8 ‘Has sworn never to wear another sword until he has avenged himself of that outrage’.

13.7–13.8 13.7-8 Archimago’s lies typically misrepresent events that have occurred in the narrative, as if he were competing with the narrator for control over the course of the story; cf. i.10.3-9n and 11.7-9n.

14.3 14.3 As if their lives had been entrusted to him.

15.7 hard assay: Cf. 12.6.

16.7 to quayle: I.e. to daunt or overawe. Given the way bird-references flock to Braggadocchio it is difficult not to hear a pun on ‘quail’.

17.3 on euen coast: Hamilton 2001 compares FQ 1596 IV.iii.24.8 on equall cost, suggesting that the phrases may mean either on level ground or on even terms.

17.6–17.9 17.6-9 A more boastful explanation than the one offered by Trompart at 12.6-8. Cf. OF 14.43 and 23.78, where Ariosto’s Mandricardo, armed only with a spear, swears he will bear no sword but Orlando’s.

17.7 17.7 Comically echoing ‘Seven at one stroke’, the motto of the ‘brave tailor’ in a folktale from the ‘Jack’ cycle. See SpE s.v. ‘folklore’.

18.1 Perdy: From ME ‘par dieu’, ‘by God’.

18.9 what mote that Monster make: What could bring about that wonder (L monstrum marvel or prodigy).

20.4 20.4 Cf. Ps 53:5, ‘There they were afraied for feare, where no feare was’; Lev 26:36, ‘the sounde of a leafe shaken shall chase them’; and Wisd Sol 17:1-18, ‘whether it were an hyssing winde . . . these feareful things made them to swone’.

20.5 20.5 FE corrects ‘vnto’ in this line to ‘greatly’. 1596 and 1609 read ‘their haire on end does reare’, which we take to be authorial revision rather than correction of compositorial error.

21.3–21.4 21.3-4 In Sidney’s New Arcadia the shepherd Dametas ‘fell down flat of my face’ when frightened by a bear, and is seen ‘lying with his breast and head as farre as he could thrust himselfe into a bush: drawing up his legges as close unto him as hee coulde: for, like a man of a very kind nature, soone to take pittie of himselfe, he was full resolved not to see his owne death’ (ed. Dennis 1970, 83-84). Sidney left the revision of his New Arcadia (published in 1590) unfinished at his death in 1586. It is not known whether Spenser saw a copy in manuscript.

21.9 stately portance: Contrast with the ‘gay portaunce’ (5.7) that Braggadocchio ascribes to the court.

21.9 borne of heauenly birth: The surmise of divinity is a frequent motif in Spenser. See SC Apr 163-65 and note, where the emblems trace this courtly compliment back to Aeneas’s wondering recognition of his divine mother, Venus, disguised as a maiden huntress in the woods outside Carthage. Many of the terms used to describe ‘Eliza’ in Colin’s song reappear in the description of Belphoebe. The phrasing ‘borne of . . . birth’ is pure redundancy unless the verb also suggests the past participle of ‘bear’ (carry, endure), a nuance supported by the proximity of ‘portance’, which means ‘bearing’. At Aen 1.405, Aeneas recognizes the disguised Venus by her stride: et vera incessu patuit dea (‘and in her step she was revealed, a very goddess’).

22.1

St. 22-31 These ten stanzas comprise a blazon, or formal pictorial description of female beauty. The primary motive is honorific, but satiric touches can be discerned. The passage interweaves echoes from Tasso’s Rinaldo, Ariosto’s OF, Virgil’s Aen, and Song Sol, which Ponsonby in 1591 (Complaints, ‘The Printer to the Gentle Reader’) says he ‘understands’ Spenser to have translated, although no such text survives.

The Virgilian echoes come from separate but related passages. They include details from the description of Venus as she appears to her son virginis os habitumque gerens et virginis arma (‘with a maiden’s face and mien, and a maiden’s arms’; Aen 1.315): namque umeris de more habilem suspenderat arcum / venatrix dedratque comam diffudere ventis, / nuda genu nodoque sinus collecta fluentis (‘For from her shoulders in huntress fashion she had slung the ready bow and had given her hair to the winds to scatter; her knee bare, and her flowing robes gathered in a knot’; Aen 1.318-20). These details link Belphoebe also to Diana, whom Venus partly impersonates with her virginal disguise; thus when Virgil compares Dido to Diana later in Book 1, the description echoes that of Venus: illa pharetram / fert umero gradiensque deas supereminet omnis (‘she bears a quiver on her shoulder, and as she treads overtops all the goddesses’; 1.500-501). Spenser mingles both passages in the blazon, suggesting that Belphoebe (and allegorically, Elizabeth) combines the beauty of Venus with the chastity of Diana.

22.3–22.4 22.3-4 Her face shines (L clarus) without blemish because the four humors are well-blended in her physical constitution. Cf. Song Sol 4:7, ‘Thou art all faire, my love, and there is no spot in thee’.

22.5–22.6 22.5-6 Cf. SC Feb 130-32, ‘Lilly white, and Cremsin redde, . . . Colours meete to clothe a mayden Queene’. The pairing of lilies and roses, frequent in Renaissance poetry, goes back to Song Sol 2:1, ‘I am the rose of the field, and the lilie of the valleis’. Its use to describe the complexion of the face, also conventional, may owe something to Song Sol 5.10, ‘My welbeloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest of ten thousand’. Also influential are Virgil’s description of Lavinia’s blush, mixta rubent ubi lilia multa / alba rosa (‘white lilies blush with many a blended rose’; Aen 12.68-69) and Ovid’s description of Corinna’s blush, Quale rosae fulgent inter sua lilia mixtae (‘Like roses gleaming among the lilies where they mingle’; Amores 2.5.37).

22.7 ambrosiall: Resembling ambrosia, variously the nectar, food, or ointment of the Gods, which has the power to confer immortality; cf. Virgil’s description of Venus: ambrosiaeque comae divinum vertice odorem / spiravere (‘and from her head her ambrosial tresses breathed celestial fragrance’; Aen 1.403-4).

22.8–22.9 22.8-9 Belphoebe’s cheeks evidently combine the powers of the well and tree of life in Eden (I.xi.30.1, 48.7-8). As indirect royal praise, this stanza’s hyperbolic attribution to Elizabeth of both divinity and the power to convey it to her beholders comes perilously close to blasphemy—or mockery. As Sidney in the New Arcadia drily observes of the queen of Laconia, ‘She was a queen and therefore beautiful’ (The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, ed. Evans 159).

23.1–23.2 23.1-2 Expanding the epithet ‘Cleare as the skye’ (22.3n), these lines will be echoed in FH, where ‘lampe’ and its forms recur as figures for eyes, beauty, light-giving heavenly bodies, Christ, and God’s Beloved (e.g. HL 131, HB 59, HHL 170, HHB 274). This pattern reflects both the Neoplatonic definition of beauty as light and the biblical associations of ‘lamp’ (which appears some three dozen times from Exodus to Revelations).

23.2–23.9 23.2-9 The conventional notion of female beauty as a fire kindled in heaven, which is then darted out through the eyes to pierce the beholder’s gaze, is elaborated in FH, which also develop the contrast between the effects of cupidity (HL 106-140) and those of chaste love (HL 169-203). Spenser seems to be glancing at Ariosto’s description of Alcina’s eyes: intorno cui par ch’Amor scherzi e voli, / e ch’indi tutta la faretra scharchi / e che visibilmente i cori involi (‘around which Love seemed to play and flutter, and from whence he would empty his quiver, and which would visibly steal hearts’; OF 7.12.4-6; trans. modified from Waldman 1974).

24.1–24.6 24.1-6 Presumably Love has not yet engraved any triumphs in the broad, white expanse of Belphoebe’s forehead, since her face remains ‘withouten . . . blot’ (22.3) and the infinitive verbs (for Love . . . to engrave, / And write) suggest rather an inviting prospect than a finished inscription. All good and honour must therefore be red in the blank smoothness of the tablet’s untouched, virginal surface rather than in the text of Cupid’s battles and triumphs—all the more likely if, as 23.9 informs us, Belphoebe’s majesty breaks his warlike instruments. Less elaborately, Ariosto compares Alcina’s fronta lieta (‘serene brow’) to terso avorio (‘polished ivory’; OF 7.11.7). Tasso mentions Clarise’s fronte d’avorio (‘brow of ivory’; Rin 1.55.5), while of the Queen of Media he says, Sembrava a lei ch’Amor quivi locato / Tutte le sue vittrici insegne avesse, / E quale in carro suol di palme ornato / Trionfator altier, lieto sedesse (‘It seemed that Love had leased to her all his triumphant insignia, and that in his carriage ornamented with palms, the proud victor sat happily’; Rin 9.15.1-4).

24.7 dropping honny: Cf. Song Sol 4:11, ‘Thy lippes, my spouse, droppe as honie combes’.

24.8 rubins: Cf. Am 15.8, ‘if Rubies, loe, hir lips be Rubies sound’, and 81.10, ‘The gate with pearles and rubyes richly dight’. This and the lily-rose image from 22.6 are conventional enough that echoes may be incidental, but both occur together with the ivory brow in a single stanza of Tasso (Rin 1.55); cf. also RS 737.1-2: Quell’Angelica voce che si frange / tra bianche perle e bei rubini ardenti (‘That angelic voice [voice of Angelica] that breaks forth between white pearls and [bei] fiery rubies’; Rizzoli 1.713). Ariosto combines coral and pearls with the lily and rose in the description of Isabel: interotta da fervidi signiozzi, / che dai corali e da le preziose / perle uscir fanno i dolci accenti mozzi. / Le lacrime scendean tra gigli e rose (‘ardent sighs kept interrupting the flow of soft words which issued brokenly from her coral lips, which parted to disclose such precious pearls. Her tears descended between lily and rose’; OF 12.94.2-5; trans. Waldman, modified in last line).

24.9 siluer sound: ‘Silver’ is one of Spenser’s favorite adjectives: cf. SC June 61 and note.

25.1–25.2 25.1-2 Cf. Am 40.3-4: ‘on each eyelid sweetly doe appeare / an hundred Graces as in shade to sit’, and SC June 25 gloss: ‘thys same Poete in his Pageaunts sayth. An hundred Graces on her eyeledde satte. etc.’.

25.3 belgardes: Coined by Spenser from Ital bel guardo, ‘lovely look’.

25.3 retrate: Either retreat (from Fr retraite and L retrahere) or portrait (from Ital ritratto). For Spenser’s repeated play on the etymology of drawing and the metaphor of tracking, see II.i.12.7n. Here the combination of portraying-and-withdrawing repeats the dynamic of Love’s inscription at 26.1-6.

25.6–25.7 25.6-7 Cf. I.iv.2, ‘Mirrour of grace and Majestie divine’; this echo followed closely by ‘soveraine’ brings the reference to Elizabeth near the surface. She is a reflection both of her God’s grace and of his majesty, and (therefore) a reminder of her mortal subjects’ allegiance to their sovereign. For the link between ‘moniment’ and L monere to remind see glossary.

25.8–25.9 25.8-9 The inexpressibility topos makes explicit the back-and-forth between inscription and erasure or withdrawal reflected in the preceding lines. Spenser has translated (and intensified) Ariosto’s reference to painting: Di persona era tanto ben formata, / quanto me’ finger san pittori industri (‘She was so beautifully modeled, no painter, however much he applied himself, could have achieved anything more perfect’; OF 7.11.1-2).

26.5 Purfled vpon with many a folded plight: Ambiguous because of the doubled prepositions, and because ‘purfled’ can mean either ‘embroidered [upon]’ or ‘bordered [with]’. The simplest construal is to read as if a comma separated upon from with, which then would begin a new descriptor. Thus unfolded, the line might be paraphrased, ‘Embroidered and having many pleats’.

26.9 26.9 The pattern of writing/withdrawing in the blazon, made explicit by the inexpressibility topos, is now made literal by the unfinished alexandrine, ‘broken’ like Cupid’s darts (23.9). Other half-lines appear at II.viii.55.9, III.iv.39.7, III.vi.26.4 (1590 only), and III.ix.37.5.

27.2 embayld: Spenser appears to be fusing the verbs ‘bale’, to hoop or bind, and ‘embay’, to surround. In TCM he will refer to Faunus in the custody of Diana’s nymphs as ‘within their baile’ (VII.vi.49.2); he uses the verb embay several times to describe immersion in a liquid, most recently at II.i.40.7 where Ruddymane ‘did embay / His little hands’ in his mother’s blood.

27.3 gilden buskins of costly Cordwayne: Knee-boots made of fine leather (named for the Spanish town of Cordova, where it was made), ornamented with gold-leaf.

27.7–27.9 27.7-9 As Hamilton 2001 notes, this description suggests virginity (‘that none might see’) and thus evokes the phrase ‘virgin knot’. Ariosto has little to say about Alcina’s attire; it is her biondo chioma lunga that he describes as annodata (‘her long blond tresses . . . gathered in a knot’; OF 7.11.3). Tasso describes Clarice’s gambe snelle / sino al ginocchio ricoprendo ornava / di cuoio azzurro, e qual con aurei nodi / era da poi legato in mille modi (‘slender legs, up to the knee adorned with a covering of sky-blue leather, which was tied with golden knots a thousand ways’; Rin 5.13.4-8). For the Virgilian echo, see 22-31n.

28.1–28.4 28.1-4 Cf. Song Sol 5:15: ‘His leggs are as pillers of marble, set upon sockets of fine golde’, and 1 Cor 6:19: ‘Know ye not, that your bodie is the temple of the holie Gost . . .’. Given the discreet but persistent attention in the preceding lines to Belphoebe’s ‘golden fringe’ and ‘fouldings close enwrapped’, the ‘temple of the Gods’ supported by these ‘faire marble pillours’, which typologically represents the body as a whole, may be somewhat comically localized in the genitals. In such a reading, the festival crowds resorting to the temple become a preposterously indecorous image, perhaps travestied from the description of Dido’s first approach to Aeneas: regina ad templum, forma pulcherrima Dido, / incessit, magna iuventum stipante caterva (‘the queen, Dido, moved towards the temple, of surpassing beauty, with a vast company of youths thronging about her’; Aen 1.496-97).

28.5 port: Cf. ‘stately portance’ (21.9).

28.7 play: The stanza-form calls for a b-rhyme here (cf. ii.7.7n); Church 1758 suggests ‘sport’.

29.5 bauldricke: Derived from the cingulum militare given by Roman emperors when awarding knighthood to equestrian soldiers. For the traditional use of the baldric as a symbol of knighthood (and in some contexts of chastity or temperance), see Leslie (1983:172-74).

29.5–29.7 29.5-7 For a visual analogue of Spenser’s emphasis on the baldric as accentuating Belphoebe’s breasts, see the band running across the breast of the Virgin Mary in Michelangelo’s first Pietá.

29.7 young fruit in May: Ariosto describes Alcina’s breasts as due pome acerbe, e pur d’avorio fatte, that vengono e van come onda al primo margo, / quando piacevole aura il mar combatte (‘a pair of apples, not yet ripe, fashioned in ivory’, that ‘rose and fell like the sea-swell at times when a gentle breeze stirs the ocean’; OF 7.14.3-5, trans. Waldman). The Chorus in Tasso’s Aminta sings about a golden age when naked virgins unveiled le poma del seno acerbe e crude (‘the young and unripe apples of their bosoms’; I.2.692).

29.8–29.9 29.8-9 Cf. Ariosto: Non potria l’altre parti veder Argo: / ben si può guidicar che corrisponde / a quel ch’appar di fuor quel che s’asconde (‘Argus himself could not see them entire, but you could easily judge that what lay hidden did not fall short of what was exposed to view’; OF 7.14.6-8, trans. Waldman).

30.1–30.5 30.1-5 Tasso says that Rinaldo saw il crin parte ondeggiar al vento / parte in belli aurei nodi avolto e stretto (‘part of the hair to flutter in the wind, and part in lovely golden knots tightly wound’; Rin 1.54.3-4). For the Virgilian echo, see 22-31n.

30.7 flouring: Combines ‘flowering’ and ‘flourishing’, both from L florere.

30.8 rude: Cf. line 6.

30.8–30.9 30.8-9 For a visual analogue to this description see Boticelli’s Primavera.

31.1–31.2 31.1-2 Another echo from the first book of the Aeneid (see 21.9n and 28.1-4n), once again alluding to Dido’s appearance on her first approach to Aeneas: qualis in Eurotae ripis aut per iuga Cynthi / exercet Diana choros (‘Even as on Eurotas’ banks or along the heights of Cynthus Diana guides her dancing bands’; 1.498-99). Eurotas is the principle river in Laconia, named after a legendary king of the region; Cynthus is a hill on the island of Delos where the goddess Diana was born, from which Roman poets derived the epithet ‘Cynthia’.

31.5–31.6 that famous Queene / Of Amazons: Penthesilea, at whose picture Aeneas is gazing when Dido approaches him: ducit Amazonidum lunatis agmina peltis / Penthesilea furens mediisque in milibus ardet, / area subnectens exsertae cingula mammae, / bellatrix, audetque viris concurrere virgo (‘Penthisilea in fury leads the crescent-shielded ranks of the Amazons and rages amid her thousands; a golden belt binds her naked breast, while she, a warrior queen, dares battle, a maid clashing with men’; Aen 1.490-93).

31.6 whom Pyrrhus did destroy: Most classical authors report that Penthesilea was slain at Troy by Achilles, not his son Pyrrhus. The exception is Dares Phrygius in de bello Troj (Upton 1758, qtd Var 2.218), but as Upton points out, this exception was the version that entered into the romance tradition, where Spenser would have found it echoed by Lydgate, Caxton, and Sir Philip Sidney.

31.7–31.9 31.7-9 According to Apollodorus, Proclus, and other classical sources, Penthesilea was first seen by Priam when she came to be purified of guilt for the accidental slaying of her sister Hippolyte while hunting (the fate that threatens Braggadocchio in Spenser’s episode). Presumably ‘The day’ refers forward to line 8, not backward to line 6: Caxton and Lydgate, for example, both report that Penthesilea fought with Pyrrus and the Myrmidons for a month before she was slain (III.96; Troy Book IV.4260-64). Spenser does seem to have picked up details from Caxton’s account: the verb ‘succour’ appears there in connection with Penthesilia (‘When she knew that the Greeks had beseiged Troy, she went to succor it with a thousand Virgins, for the love of Hector’; III.93), and at the end of her first day’s combat with the Greeks, ‘Queen Penthasilia returned into the City with glory and honour where King Priamus received her with joy, and gave her many rich jewels’ (The Destruction of Troy, in Three Books [ed 1670], III.94).

32.8 right haunch: Tasso’s Clarice is likewise pursuing a deer wounded entro la spalla destra (‘in the right shoulder’; Rin 1.53.8).

32.8 stedfast arrow: An arrow well-trimmed for accurate flight. Cf. Ascham 1545: ‘To make the ende compasse heauy with the fethers in fliyng, for the stedfaster shotyng’ (2.127).

33.1 St. 33 Following closely the address of Aeneas to Venus:‘nulla tuarum audita mihi neque visa sororum, / o—quam te memorem, virgo? namque haud tibi voltus mortalis, / nec vox hominem sonat; o dea certe!’ (‘None of thy systers have I heard or seen—but by what name should I call thee, O maiden? for thy face is not mortal, nor has thy voice a human ring; O goddess surely!’; Aen. 1.326-28; cf 21.9n). Tasso’s Rinaldo asks Clarice qual che vi siate, o donna o dea (‘whatever you may be, woman or goddess’; Rin 1.58.6). The topos originates with Odysseus’ address to Nausicaa: ‘I beseech thee, O queen,--a goddess art thou, or art thou mortal?’ (Od 6.149-50).

33.7 goodlyhed: Excellence either of appearance or of character (a deferential mode of address).

34.3 mewd: Hawks and falcons are ‘mewed’, or enclosed in a cage, while moulting; barnyard poultry are ‘mewed’ for fattening.

35.6–35.9 nest . . . crest . . rowze: Cf. arg.3-4n, 4.4n, and 10.3-4n, reinforcing the sense of ‘rowze’ (both technical and rare) as a reference to the action of a hawk in ruffling its feathers. Cf. I.xi.9, where the dragon shaking his scales is compared to an eagle that ‘His aery plumes doeth rouze’.

36.1 St. 36 The mock-epic simile in this stanza unpacks the diction of 35.6-9 while reversing the species implied: Braggadocchio is no longer hunter but prey (or no longer ‘Scarcrow’, as at 7.1, but scared crow). These passages culminate a series of jesting references to birds at arg.4, 6.4, 7.1, 10.3-4, and 34.3.

36.7 fowle: Pun intended.

37.4 transmewd: Echoing ‘mewd’ at 34.3.

38.2 38.2 Braggadocchio awkwardly conflates Belphoebe’s ‘words’ with the ‘deeds’ and ‘vertue’ they praise (37.8-9)—as might be expected of one whose deeds exist only in words.

38.8 Aboue the Moone: Cf. ‘O fairest under skie’ (38.1), and Aen. 1.379: fama super aethera notus (‘my fame is known above the stars’).

38.9 with laurell girlond cround: Cf. I.i.9.1-2, ‘The Laurell, meed of mightie Conquerours, / And Poets sage’. As a conqueror who awards himself the laurel for purely verbal feats of arms, Braggadocchio offers a moment of sly self-parody by the poet whom Helgerson describes as a ‘self-crowned laureate’ (1983); cf. 10.1n.

39.1 St. 39 Cf. st. 5; Braggadocchio is himself en route to the court, where he hopes ‘to be receiv’d / For such as he him thought, or faine would bee’.

39.9 is fit . . . is fitt: Cf. 37.4, ‘Soone into other fitts he was transmewd’.

40.1 St. 40 The irony of putting this speech into the mouth of a character identified with queen Elizabeth is unmistakable. For precedents in Boiardo and Tasso, see OI 2.1.36-36 and GL 17.61-63.

40.6–40.7 who his limbs with labours, and his mynd Behaues with cares: Who exercises his limbs with activity and regulates his mind with attention to serious matters (as Spenser’s own paraphrase in the next two lines suggests).

41.7–41.9 41.7-9 Reprising the contrast from Book I between the House of Pride (iv.2.8-9) and the House of Holiness (x.5.9), which in turn restate Matt 7:13-14. These passages also echo Hesiod, Works and Days 287-91: ‘Badness can be got easily and in shoals: the road to her is smooth, and she lives very near us. But between us and Goodness the gods have placed the sweat of our brows: long and steep is the path that leads to her, and it is rough at the first’.

42.5–42.6 42.5-6 At this point Braggadocchio corresponds neither to Aeneas beholding Venus in the Aen nor to Ruggiero greeting Alcina in OF, but to Ruggiero when Angelica escapes from his grasp (11.1-9).

43.1 Pesaunt: Here, a broad term of abuse implying both low social status and contemptible character.

43.7 fowle blott: For the pun on fowle, see the notes to the argument and subsequent references throughout the canto; blott signifies ‘disgrace’.

43.9 leaue so proud disdayne: Presumably Braggadocchio should mean to say that she leaves ‘with so much’ proud disdain; what he actually says is that she leaves the disdain behind, which implies that it is his, not hers (at 46.6-9 it passes over to Guyon’s horse). He projects his own affect onto Belphoebe more coherently in line 6, ‘Ne car’d he greatly for her presence vayne’.