The Faerie Queene

The narrator summarizes how Britomart saved Amoretta from Busirane and brought her back to Scudamore, adding some new details to the story. For example, on the way back from the castle, a knight saw Britomart and Amoretta riding together, and the knight made a challenge to try to claim Amoretta for himself.

While fighting, Britomart easily knocks the other knight off his horse. The knight is disappointed at first, but his disappointment becomes amazement when Britomart takes off her helm and reveals that she is a woman. Amoretta is also surprised and relieved because she wants to stay loyal to Scudamore even though Britomart has rightfully “won” her.

Happy to be saved by Britomart, that night Amoretta sleeps in the same bed with her. In the morning, they head out and come across two knights, each riding side-by-side with a lady. As it turns out, however, one of the ladies is false Duessa (the sorceress who appeared in previous books) and the other is Ate, who is known as the mother of all debate and disagreement.

Ate has been a powerful force throughout history, leading to the downfall of everyone from the old Babylonian kings to Alexander the Great. Her face is ugly and she has a forked tongue that represents her lies because it goes in two different directions. She both speaks and hears in double. Her ultimate goal is to overthrow Concord, and along the way, she has been helping Duessa to hurt good knights.

The knight with Ate is Blandamour, who is fickle and unreliable. The other knight, with Duessa, is Paridell (who carried off and then unceremoniously abandoned Hellenore in the previous book). Britomart, however, doesn’t know about Paridell’s falseness, so she greets him when they approach.

Paridell and Blandamour are both enchanted by Amoretta, but soon Scudamore comes riding onto the scene. Paridell challenges Scudamore but gets knocked to the ground and badly injured. Blandamour promises revenge on Scudamore.

Just then Duessa intervenes and tells the knights they have no reason to be angry at each other. She says that love must be freely given and not forced through mastery or domination. Ate, however, laughs at all the knights, saying that while they’re all arguing over Amoretta, she is faithless and already loves someone else.

Scudamore accuses Ate of lying. Duessa, however, says that she did in fact see Amoretta kissing another knight. Although Duessa is lying, she succeeds in riling up Scudamore’s anger against Britomart. Glauce (Britomart’s nurse who is acting as her squire) tries to calm Scudamore down, but he responds by attacking her and nearly slaying her. He rages at Britomart for making Amoretta unfaithful. He brings his hand back to strike Britomart and only stops at the last moment.