I. _The Plot_: The Redcross Knight reaches the Brazen Tower in which Una's parents, the King and Queen of Eden, are besieged by the Dragon. The monster is described. The first day's fight is described, in which the Knight is borne through the air in the Dragon's claws, wounds him under the wing with his lance, but is scorched by the flames from the monster's mouth. The Knight is healed by a bath in the Well of Life. On the second day the Knight gives the Dragon several sword-wounds, but is stung by the monster's tail and forced to retreat by the flames. That night he is refreshed and healed by the balm from the Tree of Life. On the third day he slays the Dragon by a thrust into his vitals.
II. _The Allegory_: 1. Mankind has been deprived of Eden by Sin or Satan (Dragon). The Christian overcomes the devil by means of the whole armor of God (shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of the Spirit, etc.). The soul is strengthened by the ordinances of religion: baptism, regeneration, etc.
2. There is a hint of the long and desperate struggle between Reformed England (St. George) and the Church of Rome, in which the power of the Pope and the King of Spain was broken in England, the Netherlands, and other parts of Europe. Some may see a remoter allusion to the delivery of Ireland from the same tyranny.
13. BE AT YOUR KEEPING WELL, be well on your guard.
iii. This stanza is not found in the edition of 1590.
30. AND SEEMD UNEATH, etc., and seemed to shake the steadfast ground (so that it became) unstable. Church and Nares take _uneath_ to mean "beneath" or "underneath"; Kitchin conjectures "almost."
31. THAT DREADFUL DRAGON, symbolical of Satan. Spenser here imitates the combat between St. George and the Dragon in the _Seven Champions of Christendom_, i.
32. This description of the dragon watching the tower from the sunny hillside is justly admired for its picturesqueness, power, and suggestiveness. The language is extremely simple, but the effect is awe-inspiring. It has been compared with Turner's great painting of the Dragon of the Hesperides.
42. O THOU SACRED MUSE, Clio, the Muse of History, whom Spenser calls the daughter of Phoebus (Apollo) and Mnemosyne (Memory).
56. TILL I OF WARRES, etc. Spenser is here supposed to refer to his plan to continue the _Faerie Queene_ and treat of the wars of the English with Philip II ("Paynim King") and the Spanish ("Sarazin").