The Faerie Queene Appearances Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Book, canto, stanza

Quote #1

And that new creature borne without her dew,/ Full of the makers guile with usage sly/ [Archimago] taught to imitate that Lady trew [Una],/ Whose semblance she did carrie under feigned hew. (I.i.46).

In our first example of weird fake people in this poem, Archimago's construction of a false version of Una relies heavily on the study and imitation of her appearance and manners.

Quote #2

Then when [Arthur, Timias, Una, and Redcrosse] had deployld [Duessa] tire and call,/ Such as she was, their eies might her behold,/ That her misshaped parts did them appall,/ A loathly, wrinckled hag, ill favoured, old,/ Whose secret filth good manners biddeth not be told. (I.viii.46)

Although Duessa spends most of Book I posing as a beautiful woman, when she's finally captures by Arthur and others he reveals that her appearances is actually very ugly… a manifestation of her inner, moral ugliness.

Quote #3

…[Guyon] rusht into the thick,/ And soone arrived, where that sad pourtraict/ Of death and dolour lay, halfe dead, halfe quick. (II.i.39)

When Guyon finds Amavia dying with her baby playing in her own blood, the horror of the scene is described in terms of art: their image is called a "sad portrait."