Braggadocio & co. fight amongst themselves. There appears to be no discernible motive for this combat, which proceeds in a strange but orderly fashion. An epic simile compares the knights to “the winds” that “From all four parts of heaven doe rage full sore” (23). On the one hand, the image is orderly as the wind comes from four distinct direction and thus reminds us of the earlier stable arrangement of the double marriage in Canto 3. On the other hand, that is a lot of wind, which “all the world confound with wide vprore.” The concluding phrase, “they Chaos would restore” encapsulates this strange conjunction of order and disorder. How does one “restore” “Chaos“?
The knights also “change their sides, and new parts take,” as if this were a sport (26). Is this episode a parody of the tournament? The tournament is evoked by the knights when Britomart intervenes to put a stop to the pointless fighting, and they band against her, resentful of her prior victory. Arthur joins the fray on Britomart’s side, and this brawl is also described in an orderly manner as well: “Foure shared two, and two surcharged one” (30). “[S]urchaged” is one of many puns in this stanza that compare the exchange of blows to repayment of loans with interest (“vsury”).
Team Britomart wins, and Arthur scolds the other knights for being sore losers (37). Thereafter, we turn to Scudamour whom Britomart “importune[s]…To tell through what misfortune he had far’d.” (41). Why, we wondered, does Britomart want to hear this story? [JY]