"A mad man, or that feigned mad to bee,
Drew by the hair along upon the ground,
A handsome stripling with great crueltee,
Whom sore he bett, and gor'd with many a wound,
That cheeks with teares, and sides with bloud did all abound.
And him behind, a wicked Hag did stalke,
In ragged robes, and filthy disaray,
........
And ever as she went, her tongue did walke
In foule reproch, and termes of vile despight,
Provoking him by her outrageous talke,
To heape more vengance on that wretched wight;"
So the hag tortures the mandman and the madman tortures the knight.
Guyon decides to break up this extremely intemperate scene. First he pushes back the Hag and wrestles with the madman, Furor, another character who reminds me of myself;
"And sure he was a man of mickle might,
He had governance, it well to guide:
But when he frantick fit inflamd his spright,
His force was vaine, and strooke more often wide,
Then at the aymed marke, which he had eide:
And ofte himselfe he chaunst to hurt unwares,
Whilst reason blent through passion, nought descried,
But as a blindfold Bull at randon fares,
And where he hits, nought knowes, & whom he hurts, nought cares."
They wrestle it up a bit, it looks like the madman is going to win, but then he
"Overthrew himself unwares, and lower lay.
And being downe the villain sore did beat,
And bruze with clownish fists his manly face:"
The Hag Occasion calls on the madman to murder, Guyon starts to lose his shit and draws his sword to "maintaine he part".
Luckily he has his Palmer with him who stops him and, again, surprisingly late in the scene, delivers information that maybe would have been more useful before things kicked off.
"He is not such a foe,
As steele can wound, or strength can overthroe."
The madman is called Furor and his mother, the Hag named Occasion. If you want to tame Furor, you must first bind Occasion.
So Guyon does this, grabs the Hag by the forelock (the back of her head is bald and she can't be grabbed once she is past, you have to stop Occasion before she arrives), fastens an "yron lock" around her tongue and then binds her hands to a stake.
Furor runs away at this, Guyon chases himm grabs him and;
"With hundred yron chaines he did him bind,
And hundred knots that did him sore constraine:
Yet his great yron teeth he still did grind,
And grimly gnash, threatning revenge in vaine:
His burning eyen, whom bloudie strakes did staine,
Stared full wide, and threw forth sparkes of fire,
And more for ranck despight, then forgreat paine,
Shakt his long lockes, coloured like copper-wire,
And bit his tawny beard to shew his raging ire."
 |
| Walter Crane I think) |
(Can yron teeth bite through yron chains?)
Guyon then hears the story of the captured Knight. Its a lot less interesting than the monster stuff. Standard Shakespeare plot. Raised with squire a brother. Really into a girl. Squire betrays & tricks him; gets slutty handmaid to dress up as the girl, squire dresses as another dude, arranges to be seen by the Knight. Knight goes crazy with jealousy, kills the girl he's into. handmaid confesses, knight kills Squire with poison, then chases Handmaid to kill her.
"Till this mad man, whom your victorious might
Hath now fast bound, me met in middle space,
As I her, so he me pursued apace,"
Then the Palmer delivers another speech about contolling your emotions, of which I quite liked this unusual, and dark, verse;
"Wrath, jealousy, grief, love do thus expel:
Wrath is a fire, and jealosy a weede,
Grief is a flood, and love a monster fell;
The fire of sparks, the weed of little seed,
The flood of drops, the Monster filth did breed:
But sparks, seeds, drops, and filth do thus delay;
The sparks soon quench, the springing seed outweed
The drops dry up, and filth wipe clean away:
So shall wrath, jealousy, grief, love die and decay."
.........................
Then we come into the traditional second part of the Canto in which a new badass is introduced. In fact this is only the introduction to the introduced of the badass. You can always tell when a high level boss is appearing in the Faerie Queene as they have a kind of announcer to tell you they will be turning up and to be scared of them, as Despair had his frightened Knight, so this bad guy has;
"A varlet running towards hastily,
...
His countenaunce was bold, and bashed not
For Guyons lookes, but scornefull eyglaunce at him shot."
Behind his back he bore a brasen sheild,
On which was drawen faire, in colours fit,
A flaming fire in midst of bloody field,
And round about the wreath this word was writ,
Burnt do I burne. Right well beseemed it,
To b the sheild of some redoubted knight;
And in his hand two darts exceeding flit,
And deadly sharpe he held, whose heads were dight
In poyson and in bloud, of malice and despight."
This guy, Atin warns Guyon that his master, a super Knight, is coming here and that Guyon better GTFO already. This is Pyrochles, brother of Cymochles, sons of old Acrates and Despight, Acreates who was son of Phlegeton and Jarre, Phlegeton who was son of Herebus and Night, Herebus who was son of Aeternitie.
So, let me count, four generations descended from Eternity?
(I know we had some of Nights family in the previous Canto, has anyone ever done the heavenly/unheavenly family trees for the supernatural characters in the Faerie Queene? That sounds like it would be very useful for RPG-ers. It would actually be a fucking crazy setting to visit if it was all broken down into geography.
Also I know I said I would keep a count of weird qualities to form into charts but I'm sorry I just don't have the time.)
Anyway, this guy Pyrochles likes to start shit and he's coming here to look for Occasion so she can help him with that.
Guyon - Oh I've got Occasion tied up right here..
Atin - Motherfucker what do you think you are doing tying up old women?
Guyon - Well... its complicated..
Atin - Throws deadly dart & runs off.
Guyon - Blocks.
Get ready for a fight next Canto I guess.
Pyrochles - as it sounds, essentially 'Firey Guy'
Cymochles - 'One who constantly fluctuates'
Acrates - 'without control' seems the male version of _acrasia_, maybe from a parralel comic book universe?
Phlegeton - a river in hell.
Jar - 'discord'.
Heberus - probably the Greek god.
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