Kara on FQ 1.2

The Faerie Queene 1.2  (Kara Beasley)

Canto II starts off with the two Sprights from Canto I reconfiguring into a young knight and having the “Una” Spright get into bed with either Archimago himself or someone else. The point of this is to separate Redcrosse and the real Una. This canto is about Una, and according to the last line of stanza 8, “He so ungently left her, whom she loved best” (Book I, Canto II: stanza 8). What Archimago uses as torture toward the knight (Redcrosse), actually turns out to be Una’s true feelings. She is in love with Redcrosse! Una goes off on her donkey which is too slow to catch up to Redcrosse, so to make her time even worse, Archimago disguises himself as Redcrosse just to watch her suffer more. Redcrosse, who is also known as St. George in the story, finds himself far away from Una and runs into someone named Sarazin. Sarazin is an infidel which is a person who does not believe in religion or who adheres to a religion other than one’s own.

The lady that is with Sarazin is Duessa who is actually a sorceress who calls herself Fidessa to disguise her true nature. She has them dual and after a long fight, Redcrosse comes out on top. She starts to flee until Redcrosse catches up with her and she begs for mercy thinking Redcrosse is going to end her also. But, he doesn’t of course, and she lies to him saying she is the daughter of an Emperor and came across Sarazin when she was wandering far and wide in sorrow because the prince she was supposed to marry had died. With Redcrosse convinced of her story, they set off and stumble upon a shading of trees which actually turns out to be a man named Fradubio who was turned into a tree by Redcrosses’s lady Fidessa. Fraudubio warns them that the same terrible thing that happened to him could happen to them. He goes on to say how he too had a beautiful lady until he had fought Duessa’s champion and had to choose between the two. Duessa made Fradubio’s ex-lover (Fralissa) ugly and he left her thinking Duessa was the most beautiful lady there was. Later on, he finds out she is an ugly old women and tries to run away, but she turns him into the tree he is now. Determined to help Fradubio, Redcrosse asks him if there is anything he can do to break the spell, and the only thing is to be “bathed in a living well” (Book I, Canto II: stanza 43). As Duessa listened to this, she was afraid Redcrosse would find out that she wasn’t this Fidessa she claimed to be, so, she pretended to be dead and Redcrosse becomes instantly worried and revives her. In the end, they were both so relieved that they started to make out.

Picture source: https://www.pixelsandpedagogy.com/pedagogy/teaching-the-opening-to-book-i-of-the-faerie-queene