Summary
As morning breaks over Malbecco's castle, Britomart and
Satyrane prepare to leave, but Paridell claims that he
must rest there longer to recover from his wounds. Once
the other two knights have left, he pursues the real reason
he stayed behind: Hellenore. She welcomes his secret
love and devises a plan to get rid of her husband and
make him look foolish in the process. She sneaks into his
store of money and sets it on fire and then goes to
Paridell's arms right in front of him; Malbecco is caught
between his money and his wife, and he chooses to go put out
the fire; in the meantime, the two lovers leave. Miserable,
Malbecco goes off in search of his wandering wife. On the
way, he meets Braggadocchio and Trompart and offers them
money to help him; they slyly refuse the payment and
instead advise him to bury his treasure nearby to "keep it
safe." Then, the three search through the woods; they soon
meet Paridell, who had his way with Hellenore and then
abandoned her. They are all too afraid to challenge him
for this behavior, and so they continue on in search of the
lady. They find her, amazingly, living with a pack of wild
satyrs; Braggadocchio and Trompart run in fear of the
beats, but Malbecco stays. He tries to convince his wife
to come back with him, but she refuses, and he is violently
chased off by the satyrs. Outside the woods, he discovers
that the two braggarts dug up his money and took off.
Miserable, jealous, and grieving, he continues fleeing
until he comes to the sea. There he lives the rest of his
days consumed by jealous thoughts, until he becomes
Jealousy itself.
Meanwhile, Britomart and Satyrane ride away from Malbecco's
castle. Suddenly, a young man runs by, who is fleeing a
great giant named Ollyphant--the brother of Argante and
similarly perverse. Both of the knights chase the giant
into the forest and are split up. Britomart is surprised
to come upon a man sprawled out on the ground, weeping and
wailing. Eventually he explains that he is Scudamore,
whose lady Amoret is held captive by an evil sorcerer named
Busirane. Britomart vows to save her, if she can; he leads
her to Busirane's castle. A wall of flame surrounds it, in
place of a moat, and nothing can quench the fire.
Britomart, ever fearless, puts her shield before her and
walks into the flame; it splits and allows her to pass
through. But when Scudamore tries to do the same, he is
burned and must wait outside while Britomart enters the
castle alone.
Inside, the warrior maiden enters a beautiful room, with
walls covered by tapestries of great color and value.
These hangings depict "Many faire pourtraits, and many a
fair feate, / And all of love, and all of lusty-led
(III.xi.29)." They display the love of the gods: the many
shapes that Jove took on in order to live with mortal
women and many other examples. At the front of the room
there is a golden idol on an altar, which looks like Cupid,
the god of love. Moving into the next room, Britomart now
sees depictions of war and conquest, and the violence that
has accompanied love. However, she still sees no persons
in the castle; as night falls, she is troubled but stays
alert. Suddenly, a trumpet sounds, and a storm rages
through the castle. The winds open a door, and as
Britomart watches, a long "maske," or procession, comes out
of it.
The figures in the maske are the many servants of Cupid,
the god of love, who follow wherever his darts fly. There
is Desire, Doubt, Fear, Hope, Suspicion, Pleasure, and
others--and they all wear an outfit appropriate to their
nature. After them there follows a horrible sight: a
young woman, with a bleeding wound in her chest, is led out
by Despite and Cruelty, who remove her heart and put it in
a silver basin. Cupid himself comes out to witness this,
riding on a lion; then, the whole procession goes back
through the door, which slams shut. Britomart tries to
open the door but cannot, so she waits until the next night
for the procession to begin again. Indeed, the door swings
open again, but when she rushes in she sees none of the
figures from the maske. Instead, Amoret is there, tied to
a pillar, while the enchanter Busirane cruelly tortures
her, opening a wound in her chest. Britomart flies upon
him and strikes him down, but she cannot kill him, for
Amoret is held to the pillar through his magic. So, with
her sword she forces him to remove the spell, freeing the
maiden. She leads both of them out of the castle,
victorious; the scenes depicted on the walls are now gone,
with the dispersal of Busirane's magic. Outside the
castle, Amoret and Scudamore are reunited, and the Book
ends as they embrace.
Commentary
Malbecco receives a fate that is appropriate for his
jealousy and failure to love his wife: He loses both her
and his money and so spends the rest of his life consumed
by thoughts of jealousy. That is not all, however;
Malbecco is an interesting circumstance of a man being
transformed into an allegorical figure. After a
time, he "is woxen so deformed, that he has quight / forgot
he was a man, and Gealosie is hight [called] (III.xi.60)."
He becomes jealousy itself, and, thus, he never really dies.
We see the same circumstances in other characters but only
after the fact: The huge perversions of Argante and
Ollyphante have made them into giant beasts. Seeing the
actual transformation within Malbecco shows Spenser's view
that vices can consume a man. Malbecco "forgot he was a
man"--he let a certain quality possess him and rob him of
his identity. All at once, this lends a great deal more
credibility to Spenser's allegorical characters; they are
not merely symbols or pictures of an abstract ideal, but
they are also a very real example of what can happen to a
man who has no moderation. Certain physical qualities may
be exaggerated, but in characters like Jealousy, we can see
the destroyed spirit of a human being beneath the allegory.
These last three cantos bring the Book to a surprising
conclusion, at least from the perspective of the plot.
After the main character, Britomart, was absent from the
story for several cantos, she finally returns to be central
to the story in cantos xi & xii. And yet, the action of
those two cantos concerns another subplot, the separation
of Scudamore and Amoret. The main plot line, Britomart's
quest to find Arthegall, is never resolved nor is it even
advanced after the first half of the Book. This does not
seem to concern Spenser much; what is more important is
that the allegory is advanced. Previously, we have
seen characters meant to contrast with Britomart--generally
a weaker version of chastity (Florimell) or unchecked
lust that seeks to remove chastity (Argante, the
fisherman, etc).
