We remarked upon the distinct presence of the narrator’s voice in this canto, which opens with a description of three kinds of love: 1. “deare affection vnto kindred sweet” 2. “raging fire of loue to woman kind” 3. “zeale of friends combyned with vertues meet” (1). The third love struck us as strange, and we continued to puzzle over friendship. Is it the most conscious love? Most manly?
Arthur affixes the lopped head of Corflambo back onto his trunk, props the frankensteined body onto a beast, and heads back to the castle. Allie suggested that perhaps the reanimation of Lust—mutilated then reconfigured—might be less an act of destruction, but an act of control. MK suggested that because you cannot stop the body from signifying, this repurposing might likewise be an act of containment.
Upon the house of Poeana, Arthur finds himself once again susceptible to pretty, pretty ladies, but manages to be controlled (Emily).
Arthur commands the Dwarf (ever the subjugated arm of Labor) to open the prison, and Amyas rushes to embrace Aemelia and Placidas. Though Aemelia is evidently capable of distinguishing between the two friends, Poeana is struck “when she them saw embrace (…) For they so like in person did appeare” (10).
As we considered the collapse of Amyas and Placidas in phrases like “this trustee Squire” (3), we asked once more: what is the role and threat of emulation in friendship—where association with someone else can make you interchangeable with a friend, but can also aid in distinguishing your identity? What are the delineations/delimitations between seeming versus being? Allegory versus plot?
Poeana, stripped of “both her sire, / And eke of Lordship, with both land and fee”—particularly, the “losse of her new loue, the hope of her desire”—is mollified by Arthur’s words, capable of calming “her raging heat” (14). Arthur then persuades Placidas to marry Poeana.
After an ambiguous length of time, Arthur decides to proceed with his former quest, taking a fearful Amoret alongside with him. The narrator insists that Amoret, frightened of sexual assault, is needlessly fretful, and not in any real danger from Arthur—