The Faerie Queene: Allusions 9 key examples

At first, an elderly man (later identified as Archimago, one of the poem’s chief villains) opens his doors to the exhausted travelers, and he appears to be a kindly figure. However, Spenser’s subtle allusions to Catholicism signal to his Protestant readers that there is more than meets the eye in this scene. There is no “entertainement”  in the house, so instead the guests chat with their elderly host through the evening. The old man has a “tongue as smooth as glas,” suggesting that he is charming but also perhaps a wily or manipulative figure.

Through the night, he regales them with stories of “Saintes and Popes.” For many Protestants of Spenser’s day, such tales were considered to be dangerous deceptions used by Catholics to trick the naive and superstitious. So too does the elderly man repeat “Aue-Mary” ("Ave Maria" or “Hail Mary”), a prayer to Mary, the mother of Christ, whose prominent role in the Catholic Church was critiqued by many Protestant reformers. Through these various allusions, Spenser satirizes Catholicism and portrays this seemingly comfortable house as yet another spiritual trap that Redcross must overcome.

Here, Spenser shows his willingness to adapt the materials that he draws from in his poem. It is as though Spenser has plucked Arthur from an early point in his own legendary story, before his royal paternity has been revealed to him. Spenser’s Arthur claims to have no knowledge of his parents, nor of his background, as he was taken right from his mother’s breast and “deliuered to a Faery knight” to be raised as a Faerie in Faerie Land. Spenser demonstrates his familiarity with the Arthurian legend to which he alludes, but he also modifies the legend to suit his own ends. Spenser incorporates figures from a wide array of literary and mythological traditions in his own symbolic representation of England and English history. 

In the previous stanza, Spenser confronts a hypothetical reader who might dismiss The Faerie Queene because of its reliance on figures and locations drawn from mythology. In his rebuttal, he argues that such a small percentage of the globe is known to Europe that nobody can really say with confidence what else might be discovered some day. To support this argument, he alludes to various locations in the “New World” as it was then known. How many people, he asks, had “euer heard of th’Indian Peru” until Spanish explorers first sailed there? So too does he allude to the Amazon River and “fruitfullest Virginia” in order to defend his interest in legends and myths. When Spenser wrote these lines, England had just founded the Virginia Colony, its first enduring colony in North America, named (like many characters in The Faerie Queene) for the “virgin queen” Elizabeth I. 

First, Spenser alludes to Diana, a virgin goddess and patron of hunters. Diana was famous for fiercely protecting her own chastity. In one famous myth, the hunter Actaeon accidentally stumbles upon her bathing, and in retaliation, she transforms him into a deer; he is promptly torn apart by his own hunting dogs. Next, Spenser references Penthesilea, “that famous Queene / Of Amazons” who participated in the invasion of Troy during the Trojan War. 

To readers in Spenser’s day, these references to virgin goddesses and female queens would have also been understood as allusions to Queen Elizabeth I, who was known as the “Virgin Queen” for refusing to marry or have children. In all instances, Spenser’s allusions signal to the reader that Belphoebe is a formidable figure. Braggadochio, however, fails to realize this and, earning Belphoebe’s displeasure, he  is almost shot with an arrow and impaled by a javelin in quick succession. 

The narrator acknowledges the difficulty of writing about chastity, which he describes as the “fairest vertue.” His gendered language in this passage links chastity to women and femininity. Why, the narrator asks, would he need to look to any “Faerie Forreine ensamples” (or in other words, foreign examples from Faerie Land) in order to find a good example of chastity, when this virtue is already most clearly “exprest” in “my Soueraine’s brest”? In referencing his sovereign, Spenser alludes directly to Queen Elizabeth I, who was known as the “Virgin Queen” because she never married or had children. Spenser offers an extravagant compliment to the Queen, from whom he sought royal patronage. “Ladies,” he claims, need only “behold the pourtraict of her hart” in order to have a perfect model of the virtue of chastity. 

Britomart has a surprisingly strong reaction to Paridell’s story, feeling “empassiond” by the “piteous” destruction of Troy and outraged by the cruelty of the conquering Greeks. She has heard, the narrator reports, that “she was lineally extract” from the Trojans, as “noble Britons sprong from Trojans bold.” Here, Spenser alludes to the belief expressed by many medieval British historians that Britain was founded by Trojan refugees who fled the destruction of their city. Though this theory was already archaic by Spenser’s time, he is interested throughout The Faerie Queene in myths and folklore surrounding his nation and its origins. 

Here, Spenser writes on the “subtiltyes” or tricks of women, a conventional topic in early modern humor. Women, he suggests, will find a way to conduct an affair if they desire to do so, and no counter-measures can prevent this. He alludes to Argus, a giant in Greek mythology whose body was covered in hundreds of unsleeping eyes. A servant of Hera, he was charged with guarding Io, a white cow to whom Zeus was deeply attracted. In most mythological accounts, Argus is tricked into falling asleep and is then slain by Hermes on behalf of Zeus; through this allusion, then, the narrator implies that Malbecco’s attempt to keep his wife under his thumb will likewise prove futile or even perilous to him. 

Here, Spenser lampoons the language of epic poetry, and more specifically of The Illiad, Homer’s epic portrayal of the Trojan War. Spenser uses a series of metaphors drawn from war in order to portray the affair of Hellenore and Paridell, whose names mimic those of Helen and Paris, chief players in the Siege of Troy. Their names immediately signal to the reader that these characters will conduct an affair regardless of the cost, in much the same way that Paris’s abduction of Helen directly led to the destruction of Troy by the Greek army. 

Spenser’s satire cuts two ways. First, the gulf between the grand rhetoric he uses here and the petty affair conducted by Hellenore and Paridell highlights their status as “minor” figures in comparison to their famed namesakes. However, Spenser’s parody also underscores the fact that the mythological Helen and Paris conducted a tawdry affair that ruined the lives of many. This is Spenser’s most notable instance of “mock epic” in The Faerie Queene.

The narrator claims that Amoretta and Scudamore were so close to each other that they could barely be distinguished, stating that “ye would haue surely thought, / That they had beene that faire Hermaphrodite.” Here, Spenser alludes to a figure in Greek Myth. In Ovid’s account, Hermaphroditus was born a remarkably beautiful youth who attracted the attention of a naiad, who prayed to the gods to be permanently united with the young man. In answer to her prayers, the two figures were permanently fused into one with both male and female sexual characteristics. 

In this stanza, Spenser meditates upon romantic love between men and women, suggesting that a close couple might be thought of as one figure combining both sexes. Observing the blissful scene, Britomart is split between her feelings of happiness for Amoretta and Scudamore and her own jealousy, as she has made little progress towards her beloved Arthegall.