III. Passing
the Torch: Book 6
In
Book 6, the torch is passed. The Knight of Courtesy, Calidore, opens the Book
by saying to Arthegal “where ye ended haue” says Calidore, “now I begin” (vi. i.6).
Calidore is the gentle hero, in pursuit of the Blatant Beast left at large by
Arthegal at the end of Book V. Book VI starts our right away with Arthegall
meeting Calidore, justice meeting courtesy, perhaps the first episode in all of
the Faerie Queen in which two Knights meet one another and do not immediately
want to fight. The significance of this episode is that not only do they
recognize each other, but, in essence, the torch is passed and the ideal of the
Christian Hero begins to be molded from a chosen Christian Everyman for the
unenviable task of implementing a strict code of justice tempered with equity
(for which the native populations often respond angrily) to the hero of a
Christian knight who is both chivalric and courteous (for which the population responds
positively.[1] But instead of executions in the name of
justice, Calidore dispenses mercy, often in the form of sermons throughout Book
VI. In one instance, he comes across a night, Crudor who snatched the beloved
lady of the squire Calidore tries to help. They struggle until finally Calidore
strikes Crudor with his sword. Calidore ultimately issue mercy after
instructing Crudor about proper courtesy:
“So
all returning to the Castle glad,
Most ioyfully she them did
entertaine,
Where goodly glee and feast to them
she made,
To shew her thankefull mind and
meaning faine,
By all the meanes she mote it best
explaine:
And after all, vnto Sir Calidore,
She freely gaue that Castle for his
paine.
And her selfe bound to him for
euermore;
So
wondrously now chaung’d, from that she afore (VI. i.46)
At this point, everyone immediately
rejoices and Calidore is established a hero from the onset. But not before he he exhorts Crudor to eschew
“pride and cruelness” and “himself…to subdew” because “all flesh is frayle” and
“subiect to fortunes chance”, culminating in Calidore issuing one of the most
aspired Christian virtues, forgiveness.[2]
In
another episode, after rescuing Pastorella from the brigands, the chivalric
Calidore safely returns her to her biological parents in canto xii, coming out
a hero after having neglected his quest to kill the Blatant Beast by staying
and ultimately regretting to leave the pastoral calm and serenity of Mount
Acidale. Immediately after, Calidore
finally catches up to the Blatant Beast and uses only his shield and an iron
muzzle to bind its mouth.
“Yet
greatly did the Beast repine at those,
Straunge bands, whose like till then
he neure bore,
Ne euer any dusrst till then impose,
And chauffed inly, seeing now no
more,
Him liberty was left aloud to rore:
Yet durst he not draw backe;
The proued power of noble Calidore,
But trembled vnderneath his mighty
hand,
And
like a fearfull dog him followed through the land (VI. xii.36)
Here he has the monster in chains, having
captured the Beast after he had broken into a church and destroyed the cloister
and the altar. The poet then laments that, even though the monster is now in
chains, he will soon break free of his bonds and escape at liberty, but not
before the people through all the land rejoiced and welcomed Calidore as their
savior and hero.
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