Pride, Humility, and Grace in Book I of The Faerie Queene

Author(s): Harry Rusche

Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 , Winter, 1967, Vol. 7, No. 1, The
English Renaissance (Winter, 1967), pp. 29-39
Published by: Rice University

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/449454

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 Pride, Humility, and Grace in Book I of
The Faerie Queene

HARRY RUSCHE

SOME CRITICS OF The Faerie Queene have

obscured the importance of the part that pride assumes as a
constant and at times subtle danger in Book I; the result has
been a distortion of both the allegorical significance and the
structural unity of the Red Cross Knight's quest and his fight
against the sins that threaten the Christian life. Several critics,
for example, identify despair rather than pride as Red Cross's
most formidable opponent. One of the earliest was Janet
Spens, who argued that "For Spenser the chief temptation
had always seemed to be accidie, to succumb to that deep,
passionate lethargy, which lay in wait for so many in his
own day, and which in some form is indeed the chief enemy
of spiritual achievement."' A recent critic of like mind is
A. C. Hamilton, who discusses the structure of Book I in
terms of two five-act plays, the first concerned with the
Knight's struggle against pride, the second with his victory
over despair.2 Another is William Nelson, who in The Poetry
of Edmund Spenser sees despair as "the crisis of the soul"
around which the legend of Holiness is constructed.3
A notable exception to this "school of despair" is Mother
Pauline Parker; in her perceptive analysis of The Faerie
Queene she regards pride as the chief adversary in Book I
and says that Red Cross must overcome pride and to the
virtues he possesses add perfect humility. She also properly
subordinates despair to pride and sees self-regarding melan-
choly as an inevitable adjunct to spiritual pride.4 Nevertheless,
she neglects a great deal of evidence which proves the point,
and she does not fully account for the part that "heavenly
grace" contributes in Red Cross's defeat of pride and his

Janet Spens, Spenser's "Faerie Queene" (London, 1934), p. 130.

"A. C. Hamilton, The Structure of Allegory in "The Faerie Queene"
(Oxford, 1961), pp. 58-88.
'William Nelson, The Poetry of Edmund Spenser (New York, 1963),
pp. 151-152.
'M. Pauline Parker, The Allegory of the "Faerie Queene" (Oxford,
1960), pp. 76, 84.

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 30 PRIDE, HUMILITY, GRACE

acceptance of humility. The purpose of th

Mother Pauline's thesis and to demonstrate that pride, both
physical and spiritual, retains for Spenser its traditional
primacy as the most deadly sin in the Christian life and that
as such he assigns to it a central role throughout Book I.
Red Cross must defeat not despair, but pride. What he must
learn in the House of Holiness is not an antidote for melan-
choly, but a Christian humility, which comes with the accep
tance of grace; when pride is overcome, its concomitant
despair is likewise vanquished.
Spenser suggests the Red Cross Knight's susceptibility to
pride early in Book I; he begins his quest "to winne him
worshippe/ ... Which of all earthly thinges he most did crave"
(i, 3). In contrast to Red Cross and his desire for fame is Una,
who rides "Upon a lowly asse" and hides her face with a
veil. When the travellers come to the wandering wood and
Error's den, Una tries to dissuade Red Cross from challenging
the monster Error until he has had more experience in arms
(i, 12), but the Knight, confident of his own power and "full
of fire and greedy hardiment," cannot be held back. Disregard-
ing the warning of Una and the dwarf, he rushes in and wins
a relatively easy victory. In ii, 16, Red Cross and Sansfoy,
who immediately challenge one another, are compared to two
rams, "stird with ambitious pride." Later, when Una is
deserted by Red Cross, she laments his defection with a com-
parison between the Knight and the lion which has become
her protector:

'The lyon, lord of everie beast in field,'

Quoth she, 'his princely puissance doth abate,
And mightie proud to humble weake does yield,
Forgetfull of the hungry rage, which late
Him prickt, in pittie of my sad estate:
But he, my lyon, and my noble lord,
How does he find in cruell hart to hate
Her that him lov'd, and ever most adord
As the god of my life ? why hath he me abhord ?"
(iii, 7)

These passages which we have briefly noted only suggest the

Knight's inclination to pride, but the shadow of the threat
gives way to the reality when Red Cross, confident in his own
physical prowess and his victories over Error and Sansfoy,
enters the House of Pride.
Few critics seem willing to give the necessary emphasis

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 HARRY RUSCHE 31

to one of the most important episodes dealing with pride.

For example, of Red Cross's encounter with Lucifera in
Canto iv, M. Pauline Parker says: "Again the Red Cross
Knight is not wholly deceived. He dislikes the Lady and her
company, though Fidessa is the foremost among them. He
has let himself be led into the proximate occasion of sin; but
he has not consented to it, or taken part."5 In A Preface to
"The Faerie Queene" Graham Hough recognizes both despair
and pride as themes, but he warns us not to allow the brilliance
of the procession of Lucifera and her "six sage counsellours"
to obscure the presence of other modes of presentation in
Spenser's poetry. The deadly sins, he says, "are quite un-
dramatic. They do not do anything, or enter into any signifi-
cant relation with Redcross, and they are in no way central
to the action as the house of Holiness is."6 Spenser's descrip-
tion of the procession, with its vivid and emblematic detail,
is in terms of the narrative technique too easily detached as
a vignette from the central action and is perhaps thus rendered
undramatic in the whole fabric of Book I, but the allegorical
significance of the scene and Red Cross's fall to pride cannot
be disputed. The procession, as we shall note, is a vital link in
a series of episodes that clearly indicates that pride, as queen
of the deadly sins, is the most serious threat Red Cross must
overcome in his spiritual preparation to fight the dragon
which has usurped the kingdom of Eden.
The pageant described in iv, 17-36 is formed so that Lucifera
and her court can go forth "to take the solace of the open
aire,/ And in fresh flowring fields themselves to sport."
Duessa rides next to Lucifera in the procession, but Red Cross
hangs back somewhat, for the gaudy magnificence of the
pageant-wagon and the train of courtiers appears to him
"unfitt for warlike swain."7 It is here in the meadow to which
the procession leads that Red Cross is challenged by Sansjoy,

5Parker, p. 84.
'Graham Hough, A Preface to "The Faerie Queene" (New York, 1963),
pp. 152-153.
Critics use this line to prove that Red Cross distrusts Lucifera and is
not taken in by her, but this reaction on the part of the Knight may
be merely childish peevishness; he counters Lucifera with his own
kind of pride when he feels that her welcome is unbecoming to his rank:
Yet the stout Faery mongst the middest crowd
Thought all their glorie vaine in knightly yew,
And that great princesse too exceeding prowd,
That to strange knight no better countenance allowd. (iv, 15)

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32 PRIDE, HUMILITY, GRACE

and the next day the two knights return to the field for their
contest. Lucifera comes out again "with royall pomp and
princely majestie" (v, 5), presumably with the same garish
procession in which she had ridden the day before. When
Red Cross subdues Sansjoy, he does homage to Lucifera:

Wherewith he goeth to that soveraine queene,

And falling her before on lowly knee,
To her makes present of his service seene:
Which she accepts, with thankes and goodly gree,
Greatly advauncing his gay chevalree.
So marcheth home, and by her takes the knight,
Whom all the people followe with great glee,
Shouting, and clapping all their hands on hight,
That all the ayre it fils, and flyes to heaven bright.
(v, 16)

Thus Red Cross delivers himself into the service of Lucifera,

yields himself to pride, and takes his seat next to the queen,
the place previously occupied by Duessa, and the procession
of the Seven Deadly Sins returns to the House of Pride. The
description of Lucifera and her train which occupies so much
of Canto iv does, therefore, enter into significant relation with
Red Cross, who is especially receptive to the influences of the
House of Pride because of his earlier successes; when he
takes his seat next to Lucifera we have our first of many
indications that the Knight has temporarily been overcome
by pride and that he has met a subtle foe that will not be so
easily conquered as the readily recognized enemies Error and
Sansfoy in Cantos i and ii.8
The danger to which Red Cross has now exposed himself is
further emphasized in Canto v when Duessa and Night carry
the body of Sansjoy to hell to be healed by Aesculapius in
Spenser's adaption of Book VI of Virgil's Aeneid, a source

'Graham Hough's comments on the House of Pride follow those of John

Ruskin (Stones of Venice, 3, 205-209), whom he quotes at some length.
Ruskin says of the deadly sins and their queen: "From these lower
vices and their company, Godly Fear, though lodging in the house of
Pride, holds aloof; but he is challenged, and has a hard battle to fight
with Sans Joy, the brother of Sans Foy: showing, that though he has
conquered Infidelity, and does not give himself up to the allurements
of Pride, he is yet exposed, so long as he dwells in her house, to distress
of mind and loss of his accustomed rejoicing before God." Despite the
stature of this critical tradition which diminuishes the importance of
the House of Pride, the text itself suggests that the episode is signifi-
cant, in that Red Cross does not remain unaffected in this encounter
with pride nor does he hold aloof from Lucifera and her court.

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 HARRY RUSCHE 33

which is particularly suitable to the general theme of the

House of Pride as an image. Tityus and Typhoeus, whom
Duessa and Night pass as they journey through hell (v, 35),
were traditionally interpreted by the mythographers as sym-
bols of pride and insolence, as were all the giants and titans
who had rebelled against the Olympians.9 Ixion likewise was
punished in Hades for his presumption in daring to attempt
the seduction of Hera, the wife of Zeus. Although the sin of
Aesculapius was not generally regarded to have been one of
pride and presumption, Spenser suggests that this is perhaps
how we are to interpret his act of infringement upon powers
reserved to the gods. Aesculapius was cast into hell when
Zeus saw "such wondrous science in mans witt to rain/ . . .
that could the dead revive" and realized that he could not
deprive the physician of life. Night, "beseeching him with
prayer, and praise," appeals in part to Aesculapius's pride in
his skill as a healer:

'Goe to then, O thou far renowmed sonne

Of great Apollo, shew thy famous might
In medicine, that els hath to thee wonne
Great pains, and greater praise, both never to be donne.'
(v,43)

The argument of Night and her appeal to might and praise are
effective; Aesculapius agrees to take charge of the wounded
Sansjoy.
The deadly consequences of pride are again depicted at the
end of Canto v when the dwarf relates to Red Cross his dis-
covery of the dungeons in the House of Pride, where among
the "wretched thralls" are Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, Ninus,
Semiramis, and all those who fell "Through wicked pride and
wasted welthes decay" (v, 51). With this new knowledge of
the dungeons and the prisoners of Lucifera which they hold,
Red Cross flees the House of Pride. The dungeons hold for
him a real terror, for he recognizes how near he himself has
come to enthrallment by Lucifera; "he no longer would/ There
dwell in perill of like painfull plight" (v, 52). He has, of
course, overcome neither Lucifera nor Sansjoy, and he must
again confront pride and despair in the more formidable
characters of Orgoglio and Despair.
In his next encounter with pride Red Cross is swiftly and

'H. G. Lotspeich, Classical Mythology in the Poetry of Edmund Spenser,

Princeton Studies in English, No. 9 (1932), 63-64.

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 34 PRI DE, HUMILITY, GRACE

totally overwhelmed by the giant Orgoglio, and it is only

Arthur and his shield that can rescue the Knight. M. Pauline
Parker interprets Arthur in this episode as humility; as the
perfection of holiness, Arthur here must possess the dis-
tinguishing virtue of the holy-humility-which is directly
opposed to pride. His diamond shield is the symbol of humility
in action, and the diamond box which Arthur gives Red Cross
is likewise to be taken as humility, "that any wound could
heale incontinent."'10 An essential point, however, is omitted
in her persuasive analysis of Arthur's role in the episode with
Orgoglio. Arthur is clearly identified at the beginning of the
Canto (viii, 1) with "Heavenly Grace" and must be, therefore,
besides the virtue humility, representative of God's inter-
vention in the seemingly hopeless plight of Red Cross. But
grace and humility are readily reconciled and appear to coexist
in Spenser's scheme, which will become clearer in our con-
sideration of Cantos ix and x. Humility is the denial of one's
own powers, the knowledge of one's own insufficiency without
grace, and hence the absence of spiritual or intellectual pride;
Arthur, in this sense knowing his own power to be worthless,
is saved by the symbol of his own humility, his shield. Arthur
can represent both grace and humility, because in his humility
he relies on grace. Confronted by the symbol of humility,
Orgoglio, the symbol of pride, must necessarily fall, an empty
bladder that betrays its true nature as a "monstrous masse
of earthly slyme,! Puft up with emptie wynd." But the lesson
of humility which Arthur should exemplify for Red Cross,
whom he has rescued from pride, is not easily learned. The
Knight again becomes the victim of his own pride in the next
canto in his encounter with Despair; it is not until after his
meeting with the hermit that he begins to learn the true nature
of the relationship of pride, humility, and grace in the Chris-
tian life.
When Trevesan, still with the rope about his neck, tells
Red Cross of the cave of Despair and the damnable arguments
which the old man uses, Red Cross, apparently still suffering
from pride of spirit and intellect, eagerly sets out to match
wits with Despair. The Knight, of course, runs a poor second
in his contest with the "man of hell," for he is completely duped
by Despair's arguments and his rhetorical tricks. Red Cross

"Parker, pp. 89-91.

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 HARRY RUSCHE 35

attempts to overcome Despair with classical argument and is

totally outwitted, which does not surprise us at all, for we
know that this is not the time for disputations. Una must stop
the Knight just as he is about to plunge the knife into his
heart, and she comes to him, regardless of what other alle-
gorical significance we may choose to give her, as a simple
Christian truth: through God's grace we all share in God's
mercy.

'Come, come away, fraile, feeble, fleshly wight,

Ne let vaine words bewitch thy manly hart,
Ne divelish thoughts dismay thy constant spright.
In heavenly mercies hast thou not a part?
Why shouldst thou then despeire, that chosen art?
Where justice growes, there grows eke greter grace,
The which doth quench the brond of hellish smart,
And that accurst hand-writing doth deface.
Arise, sir knight, arise, and leave this cursed place.'
(ix, 53)

The rhetorical trick with which Despair defeats Red Cross is

the suppression of the term mercy, one of the elements in the
question of God's judgment of man; hence, justice, only one
of the terms of the Old and New Testament equation, re-
mains.1' It is Una's task to restore both terms and save the
Knight.
For a second time Red Cross has failed to acknowledge
grace, the real and effective weapon with which the Christian
wages the war of holiness, and for a second time he has relied
on his own powers, thus betraying a pride of spirit and in-
tellect that in spite of itself is rescued by grace. This relation-
ship between pride and grace becomes clearer for the reader
in Canto x, where Spenser reflects on the encounter between
Red Cross and Despair in the preceding canto:

What man is he, that boasts of fleshly might,

And vaine assuraunce of mortality,
Which, all so soone as it doth come to fight
Against spirituall foes, yields by and by,
Or else from the fielde most cowardly doth ly?
Ne let the man ascribe it to his skill,
That thorough grace hath gained victory.

'See E. Sirluck, "A Note on the Rhetoric of Spenser's Despair," MP,

XLVII (1949), 8-11, and K. Koller, "Art, Rhetoric, and Holy Dying in
the Faerie Queene," SP, LXI (1964), 128-139.

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 36 PRIDE, HUMILITY, GRACE

If any strength we have, it is to ill,

But all the good is Gods, both power and eke will. (x, 1)

Despair's argument for a shorter life with fewer sins-and

therefore less punishment after death-is effective because
Red Cross is not spiritually strong enough to counter such
arguments. He still has a regard for his "fleshly might" and
his own "skill" that betrays his pride. As this episode suggests,
despair and pride are closely associated in that the logical
movement is to despair when physical and intellectual pride
are deflated and a man's sense of sin is enlarged. Red Cross
must first be convinced of his own excellence before he can
despair at the evidence of his lack of excellence when all his
sins and weaknesses are recalled to him; the Knight's pride is
thus perverted to despair, until Una reminds him of mercy
and grace, which redeem him from his depravity and "that
accurst hand-writing doth deface."
Clearer too is the significance of the Knight's encounter
with Orgoglio and the imprisonment from which Arthur
rescues him. There too he had been overcome by pride and
despair from which only truth and grace could redeem him :12

Ay me! how many perils doe enfold

The righteous man, to make him daily fall,
Were not that Heavenly Grace doth him uphold,
And stedfast Truth acquite him out of all!
Her love is firme, her care continuall,
So oft as he, through his own foolish pride
Or weaknes, is to sinfull bands made thrall:
Els should this Redcrosse Knight in bands have dyde,
For whose deliveraunce she this Prince doth
thether guyd. (viii, 1)

The lesson which Red Cross learns is actually a simple one:

man has no cause for pride and every reason for humility.
Without grace, he is nothing. To learn his lesson thoroughly,
however, the Knight must now repair to the House of Holiness.
Red Cross is admitted to Caelia's house by the porter
Humilta, and one of his first duties is to purge himself of
pride: "In ashes and sackcloth he did array/ His daintie corse,
proud humors to abate" (x, 26). When finally he has been
instructed in all the offices of holiness, he is led by Heavenly

"We do not discount the roles of truth (Una), reason (the dwarf), and
faith (Red Cross's armor) in the salvation of the Knight, but numerous
critics have demonstrated that these are insufficient without grace.

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 HARRY RUSCHE 37

Contemplation to his vision of the New Jerusalem where he

learns his name and nature. As important as these revelations
are to the Knight in his preparation to meet the dragon,l3 it
is only when we hear his reaction to his new knowledge that
we know that he is ready for his coming battle. Red Cross has
benefited from his instruction in the House of Holiness, for
at this moment we witness the total defeat of both spiritual
and physical pride; the Knight of Canto i, who so heartily
craved "To winne him worshippe," could scarcely have
humbled himself to say: "'Unworthy wretch,' quoth he, 'of
so great grace,/ How dare I thinke such glory to attain?'"
(x, 62). When Contemplation assures him that he is indeed
destined as St. George for such glory, and says that he must
return from his vision and go back from the world of contem-
plation to the world of action, Red Cross, who can now resist
physical pride as well as spiritual pride, replies:

'Then shall I soone,' quoth he, 'so God me grace,

Abett that virgins cause disconsolate,
And shortly back returne unto this place,
To walke this way in pilgrims poore estate. . . .' (x, 64)

Further evidence of his humility and his reliance on powers

other than his own is that he now recognizes grace and calls
it by its name. With a complete Christian understanding of his
own worthlessness, he can think himself only undeserving of
that grace; thus has humility supplanted pride at the end of
Canto x.

The dragon that Red Cross is now prepared to fight in

Canto xi is in at least one aspect the enemy that he has en-
countered so many times; M. Pauline Parker cites two pas-
sages that suggest that the dragon, which is sin in all its
manifestations, in part represents pride. The first passage
describes how the dragon falls upon the Knight and carries
both horse and rider "above the subject plaine" (xi, 19). To be
thus lifted and raised above, she says, is again the attack of
pride.14 On the third day the dragon charges for the last time:
"And in his first encounter, gaping wyde,/ He thought attonce

"A. C. Hamilton contends in The Structure of Allegory (p. 101) that the
significant fact in Canto x is that Red Cross has overcome despair and
learned to "cherish" himself and is thus prepared to meet the dragon.
Through the knowledge of his name and nature he has learned his own
worth.
"Parker, p. 101.

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 38 PRIDE, HUMILITY, GR A4CE

him to have swallowed quight,/And rusht upon him with

outragious pryde . . ." (xi, 53). That pride, she notes, is his
downfall. The dragon has exposed a vulnerable spot, and Red
Cross seizes his opportunity to run the dragon through the
mouth. Red Cross has not secured this victory without help;
the real manifestation of his new strength is that in this last
battle he accepts grace in a way that he has not in his previous
engagements with pride. He is miraculously restored first
by the Well of Life and then by the Tree of Life. Spenser
leaves no doubt that this is the intervention of grace on behalf
of the Knight; as he retreats from the scorching breath of the
dragon, it chances "(Eternall God that chaunce did guide)"
that he falls beside the Tree of Life where he lies all night
while the balm of the tree restores him. A humbled Red Cross
accepts the grace provided him in the guise of chance and
takes his strength from it.'5
The theme of Red Cross's conflict with pride and the other
sins that are related to pride or that result directly from it is
thus reiterated throughout Book I. Despair, like the other
sins, is also subordinate to pride, for the two, as we have
observed, are too closely associated both in the narrative and
in the general plan of Spenser's allegory to warrant their
separation; further, a unity of allegorical interpretation and
narrative structure is restored which does not exist if we
attempt to elevate despair and to identify it as a theme sepa-
rate from pride. Despair, like all the sins that threaten the

"Spenser suggests in the last canto that pride has been overcome and
has no place now that the dragon has been defeated. Of the celebration
that follows Red Cross's victory, Spenser says:
What needes me tell their feast and goodly guize,
In which was nothing riotous nor vaine?
What needes of dainty dishes to devize,
Of comely services, or courtly trayne?
My narrow leaves cannot in them contayne
The large discourse of roiall princes state.
Yet was their manner then but bare and playne:
For the antique world excesses and pryde did hate;
Such proud luxurious pompe is swollen up but late.
(xii, 14)
Red Cross also refers to his six years of service with Gloriana that
remain and to his adversary, "that proud Paynim King that works her
teene" (xii, 18). Una, to whom Red Cross is now betrothed, removes her
veil "and on her now a garment she did weare/ All lilly white, with-
outten spot or pride" (xii, 22). Duessa, so closely identified with pride
throughout Book I, is only a momentary threat to Red Cross and Una
in this last canto.

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 HARRY RUSCHE 39

Christian's quest for salvation, is a result of the egocentrism

created by pride, and all are banished when pride is humbled
and grace is recognized as indeed sufficient. Spenser's treat-
ment of pride in Book I is thoroughly traditional; in regarding
pride as the chief of all the other sins he follows the precedent
of the church fathers and many secular writers, among them
St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Robert Mannyng, and
William Langland.'6 The central role assigned to pride justi-
fies Spenser's close and detailed description of Lucifera's
House of Pride and Red Cross's first major encounter with a
recurrent and subtle threat to the Christian life; if we look
to the text for our evidence, we find that of all the Knight's
opponents-error, hypocrisy, falsehood, faithlessness, despair
-pride is still the most constant and deadly.

Emory University

'For those authors before Spenser who regarded pride as first among
the sins, see Morton W. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins (Michigan
State College Press, 1952), pp. 78, 84, 87, 88, 145, 172, 181, 183, 201, 223,
241, 349, 368.

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