The Political Allegory in "The Faerie Qiieene" 31 



In Canto viii the story now turns back to the witch's son who 

 mourns the loss of Florimel. To quiet the boy, his mother makes 

 for him a snowy Florimel, an exact copy of the escaped original. 

 Her hair is of gold wire. 



" Yet golden wyre was not so yellow thryse 

 As Florimel's fayre heare." 



Elizabeth prided herself upon her golden (red) hair. The young 

 man is completely taken in, and joys in his love ; and the snowy 

 lady seems to reciprocate his tenderness. " Him long she so with 

 shadowes entertained." This is exactly what Elizabeth did with 

 Alengon. Long after she had seen that marriage to him was 

 impossible, she kept him at her feet by false shows of affection. 

 The false Florimel then seems to be Elizabeth drawn into trifling 

 courtships for political reasons. 



And now as if to mystify us, Spenser brings Braggadocchio 

 and Trompart upon the scene, who seize upon the snowy lady and 

 bear her away. That is, he makes Alengon come in another 

 character and seize upon the empty prize.*^ 



But for the present, Braggadocchio may not keep his prize. 

 Another claimant appears who forcibly seizes and carries her 

 away. He is a much more knightly person, and we feel a breath 

 of pity that it is only a shadow that he has secured. I take it 

 that Sir Ferraugh, this knight, is the Archduke Charles of 

 Austria, who played hide and seek with Elizabeth and Alengon in 

 the seventies, to the utter disconcerting of all Englishmen. At 

 any rate, the story is beautifully complicated, as were all of Eliza- 

 beth's political love affairs. 



We leave these characters and turn to Satyrane who mourns 

 Florimel as dead after he had picked up her girdle and had bound 

 the Beast. He now meets Sir Paridell, who is out seeking Flori- 

 mel, and who informs him that the chief news in Fairy Land is 

 "the late ruin of proud Marinell " (the enforced retirement of the 

 proud Raleigh to Ireland in 1589) and "the sudden parture of 

 faire Florimell." Paridell seems to have more than one role. In 



^'It is possible to regard the witch's son as the Duke of Anjou, after- 

 ward Henry III, who was for political reasons, also a candidate for the 

 hand of Elizabeth. 



189 



