When Redcross seeks Sansjoy (stanza 15), the description recalls Aeneas looking for Turnus (Aen. 12.466-7), but the intent is now ironic at the expense of the hero, who is brave in defence of a bad cause, Duessa.

10 2 suddein: glancing quickly.

10 6 Stygian: of the river Styx; cf. note to I.4.48.9.

10 7 hyre: reward.

10 8 german: brother, slake: slacken.

12 5 Ladies sake: for the sake of the lady.

13 6 The device of a god’s sending a cloud to rescue a favourite in danger has parallels in Il. 3.380, Aen. 5.810-12, and GL 7.44-5.

14 8 Plutoes baleful! bowres: hell.

15 1–3cf. Aen. 12.466–7and note to stanza 10.

16 4 gree: favour.

16 5 aduauncing: praising.

16 8 on hight: aloud.

17 2 leaches: doctors. abide: attend.

17 5 can embalme: anointed.

17 7 diuide: descant.

20 ff Following the tradition begun by Hesiod, Spenser makes Night one of the important pre-Olympian gods. She is opposed to light and all its associations in this book and numbers among her descendants Duessa and Aveugle, father of the three Sans brothers. The details of her appearance are taken from Natalis Comes, a Renaissance mytho-grapher (Mythologiae 3.12). She is the eldest of the gods because she existed before the world was formed and before the Olympian gods were begotten in Demogorgon’s hall (chaos). Demogorgon, who is meant to recall Plato’s Demiurge, is the invention of Boccaccio, who makes him the progenitor of all the gods, since his name is derived from daimort (spirit) andgorgos (earth). See I.1.37–8and IV.2.47.

20 4 mew: den.

22 6 vnmade: i.e., before it was made.

22 7 Nephewes: grandsons (Latin: nepotes), a common usage in the Renais sance.

23 7 so euill heare: i.e., are not esteemed (Latin: audire male), 25 3 their foes ensew: follow their foes.

25 9 excheat: plunder.

26 4 price that: pay for that which.

27 9 vnwares: unexpectedly, unknowingly.

28 2 welfauoured: beautiful. 28 4 twyfold: twofold.

28 9 fine element: air.

29 6 cruddy: clotted.

31 3–9Avernus is a lake near Naples but is traditionally associated with a cave-like entrance to the underworld, celebrated by Virgil (Aen. 6.237-42) as the place of Aeneas’ descent into hell. Once there, he was initiated into the mysteries of the dead, and learned the future glories of the city he was to found.

32 3 Plutoes house: hell.

33 1 Acheron: river in hell (Greek: ‘stream of woe’).

33 3 Phlegeton: Phlegethon, river of fire in hell (Greek: ‘burning’).

34 1 Cerberus: the three-headed dog that guards the gate to hell. The ‘adders venemous’ of line 3 are probably derived from the Furies who accompany Cerberus, ‘combing black snakes from their hair’ (Met. 4.454). Spenser uses the continuation of Ovid’s passage in the following stanza.

34 2 along: at full length. 344 lilled: lolled.

34 6 gnarre: snarl.

35 Spenser’s imitation of one of the most famous topoi of classical and Renaissance literature: the catalogue of the damned. Spenser is indebted mainly to Met. 4.458 ff, 10.41 ff, and Aen. 6.617 ff, which in turn are indebted to Od. 11.582 ff. No one of the classical authors includes all the figures or cites them in this order, but Lotspeich notes that Natalis Comes (6.16) lists them in this order and is thus probably Spenser’s source: brion (6.16), Sisyphus (6.17), Tantalus (6.18), Tityus (6.19). Titans (6.20).

35 1 lxion: invited to dine with Jove, Ixion planned to seduce Juno. Jove, realizing his intentions, deceived him with a cloud shaped like Juno and had Mercury bind him to a wheel of iron, on which he rolls through hell.

35 2–3For attempting to seduce Proserpina, Sisyphus was condemned by the judges of the underworld to roll a large stone uphill. The stone eternally escapes him as he reaches the top.

35 5 Tantalus served his own son Pelops as a dinner for the gods. He was condemned to stand chin deep in a pool of water, which receded as he tried to drink from it. Above his head were fruit trees whose boughs retreated from him as he reached for the fruit.

35 6 Tityus: tried to rape Leto, the mother of Apollo and Diana; he was killed by them, and stretched out over nine acres in hell, where two vultures ate his liver, maw: stomach, or in this case, liver.

35 7 Spenser conflates Typhoeus and Typhon, the Titan who was among the rebels against Jove (see III.747–8and VII.6.15, 20).