I. _The Plot:_ Prince Arthur and Una are conducted by the Dwarf to Orgoglio's Castle. At the blast of the Squire's horn the Giant comes forth attended by Duessa mounted on the seven-headed Beast. In the battle which ensues Arthur wounds the Beast, slays the Giant and captures Duessa. Prince Arthur finds the Redcross Knight half starved in a foul dungeon and releases him. Duessa is stripped of her gaudy clothes and allowed to hide herself in the wilderness.
II. _The Allegory:_ 1. Magnificence, the sum of all the virtues, wins the victory over Carnal Pride, and restores Holiness to its better half, Truth. With the overthrow of Pride, Falsehood, which is the ally of that vice, is stripped of its outward show and exposed in all its hideous deformity.
2. The false Romish Church becomes drunk in the blood of the martyrs. There is a hint of the persecutions in the Netherlands, in Piedmont, of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day and the burnings under Bloody Mary. Protestant England is delivered from Popish tyranny by the honor and courage of the English people. Militant England (Prince Arthur) is assisted by the clergy (Squire) with his horn (Bible) and is guided by Truth and Common Sense (Dwarf).
23. HORNE OF BUGLE SMALL, the English Bible. Spenser here imitates the description of the magic horn of Logistilla in Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_, xv, 15, 53. Such horns are frequently mentioned in romance, e.g., _Chanson de Roland_, _Morte d' Arthur_, Hawes' _Pastime_, Tasso's _Jerusalem Delivered_, _Huon of Bordeaux_, _Romance of Sir Otarel_, Cervantes' _Don Quixote_, etc.
50. LATE CRUELL FEAST, a probable reference to the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day in Paris in 1572, and to the persecutions of Alva's Council of Blood in the Netherlands in 1567.
ix. This stanza is an imitation of Homer's _Iliad_, xiv, 414.
95. IN CYMBRIAN PLAINE, probably the Crimea, the ancient Tauric Chersonese. Some connect it with the Cimbric Chersonese, or Jutland, which was famous for its herds of bulls.
105. Note the Latinism "threatened his heads," and the imperfect rhyme "brands."
118. HER GOLDEN CUP, suggested by Circe's magic cup in Homer's _Odyssey_, x, 316, and the golden cup of the Babylonish woman in _Revelation_, xvii, 4.