dicated in a letter
to Raleigh which introduces the poem, is as follows:

To pourtraict in Arthure, before he was king, the image of a brave Knight,
perfected in the twelve private Morall Vertues, as Aristotle hath devised;
which is the purpose of these first twelve bookes: which if I finde to be
well accepted, I may be perhaps encoraged to frame the other part of
Polliticke Vertues in his person, after that hee came to be king.

Each of the Virtues appears as a knight, fighting his opposing Vice, and
the poem tells the story of the conflicts. It is therefore purely
allegorical, not only in its personified virtues but also in its
representation of life as a struggle between good and evil. In its strong
moral element the poem differs radically from _Orlando Furioso_, upon which
it was modeled. Spenser completed only six books, celebrating Holiness,
Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. We have also a
fragment of the seventh, treating of Constancy; but the rest of this book
was not written, or else was lost in the fire at Kilcolman. The first three
books are by far the best; and judging by the way the interest lags and the
allegory grows incomprehensible, it is perhaps as well for Spenser's
reputation that the other eighteen books remained a dream.

ARGUMENT OF THE FAERY QUEEN. From the introductory letter we learn that the
hero visits the queen's court in Fairy Land, while she is holding a
twelve-days festival. On each day some distressed person appears
unexpectedly, tells a woful story of dragons, of enchantresses, or of
distressed beauty or virtue, and asks for a champion to right the wrong and
to let the oppressed go free. Sometimes a knight volunteers or begs for the
dangerous mission; again the duty is assigned by the queen; and the
journeys and adventures of these knights are the subjects of the several
books. The first recounts the adventures of the Redcross Knight,
representing Holiness, and the lady Una, representing Religion. Their
contests are symbolical of the world-wide struggle between virtue and faith
on the one hand, and sin and heresy on the other. The second book tells the
story of Sir Guyon, or Temperance; the third, of Britomartis, representing
Chastity; the fourth, fifth, and sixth, of Cambel and Triamond
(Friendship), Artegall (Justice), and Sir Calidore (Courtesy). Spenser's
plan was a very elastic one and he filled up the measure of his narrative
with everything that caught his