124-5). The lion is a common attribute of Fortitude, a virtue that Una exemplifies in this canto. Nohrnberg, Analogy of The Faerie Queene, p. 213, suggests 2 Kings 17.25.

8 1 Redounding: overflowing.

8 3 constraint: distress.

8 7 brood: ancestry.

8 9 attaine: overtake.

9 5 watch and ward: guard. 10 5 tract: trace.

10 6 hore: hoary, grey.

10 8 slow footing: walking slowly.

10 9 Details in this description of Abessa, first named in stanza 18, relate her to often allegorized passages in the Bible. Her pot of water is meant to recall the Samaritan woman at the Well, to whom Christ speaks: ‘Whosoever drinketh of this water, shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never be more athirst’ (John 4.13). The distinction is between the things of the flesh and the things of the spirit. The elaboration of the allegory is summarized in D. W. Robertson, jr, Preface to Chaucer, pp. 320-21.

    The fact that Abessa ‘could not heare, nor speake, nor vnderstand’ is an allusion to Christ’s words to his disciples:

… He that hath ears to hear, let him hear… To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all things be done in parables. That they seeing, may see, and not discern: and they hearing, may hear, and not understand, lest at any time they should turn, and their sins should be forgiven them (Mark 4.9-12).

11 9 cast in deadly hew: i.e., made her turn pale.

12 2 vpon the wager lay: Le., were at stake.

13 2 wicket: door.

137 beades: rosary beads.

13 8 Pater nosters: the Lord’s Prayer.

13 9 Aues: Hail Marys. See note to I.1.35.9.

14 2 ashes: symbol of penitence.

14 3 sackcloth: symbol of penitence.

14 4 fast from any bit: i.e., not eat any bite of food.

14 9 she rest her may: i.e., she might rest herself.

15 6 late: recent.

16 1 Aldeboran: a star in the constellation Taurus.

16 2 Cassiopeias chaire: Cassiopeia, mother of Andromeda, was transformed into the constellation that bears her name. In 1572 the most brilliant nova ever recorded broke out in this constellation and was observed by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. The appearance of a new star in the unchanging heavens had great significance for the abandonment of the ancient Ptolemaic theory of the universe and the acceptance of the Copernican theory, which placed the sun rather than the earth at the centre of the universe. For a description of the Ptolemaic universe see headnote to ‘Mutabilitie Cantos’. FowJer, Spenser and the Numbers of Time, p. 71 n, suggests that the sun is in a summer sign, possibly Leo.

16 4 fere: come. See Matthew 7.7.

16 8 seuerall: of various kinds.

16 9 purchase criminall: robbery.

17 3 poore mens boxes: alms boxes. 17 5 vestiments: garments.

17 7 spoild: despoiled, robbed. habiliments: religious vestments.

17 9 in at the window crept: John 10.1-2: ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that entereth not in by the door into the sheepfold but climbeth up another way, he is a thief and a robber. But he that goeth in by the door, is the shepherd of the sheep.’ Cf. Milton, Lycidas 115, echoing Spenser, Shepheardes Calender, ‘Maye’ 136 and PL 4.183 ff.

18 4 Abessa: Maclean points out the similarity to abbess, the head of a female monastery, and cites Ephesians 4.17–18in reading her as an instance of Spenser’s view of the Church of Rome. Within the context of the poem she is related to Fidessa and Duessa. Fidessa is Duessa (doubleness or duplicity) masking as Faith or the One Truth (Una). Abessa is the daughter of Corceca (blind heart), or superstition, which fosters a particular kind of faithlessness. Kirkrapine (church robbery) can be associated with monastic abuses, but he should also, in this context, be associated with all those who use the Church and rob as in John 10.1-2.

19 3 frayed: frightened,

20 5 strand: ground.

20 8 hap: mishap.

21 5 long wandring Greeke: Ulysses, who preferred to return to Penelope rather than to accept the immortality offered by the nymph Calypso (Od. 3). The allusion reinforces the idea of Una’s faithfulness.

22 3 Kirkrapine: see note to 18.4.