Verses 44-45 in Spenser’s “Faerie Queen” delve into the details of the sorceress Duessa as the knight-turned-tree Fradubio tells his sad story of how he was turned into a tree. Little to Fradubio and RK’s knowledge, Duessa has disguised herself as Fidessa to deceive RK and claim the Redcrosse Knight for herself. This passage stood out to me in verse 44, “That from the bloud he might be innocent/And with fresh clay did close the wooden wound/Then turning to his Lady, dead with feare her found” (44). It is suggested that RK believes Fradubio to be innocent, just from the line, “That from the bloud he might be innocent” (44), and proceeds to close Fradubio’s wooden wound with clay. However, RK is not a character that thinks too critically or deeply about issues, as is evident in the following passage, “Her seeming dead he found with feigned feare” (45.1). RK found the Lady passed out and busied himself in attempting to revive her. He does not even stop to ponder why the Lady passed out. We the readers however know that Duessa faints on purpose to attempt to distract him from thinking about Fradubio’s story and making the connection that she is in Fidessa. …show more content…
Duessa wakes from her fainting “spell,” and though RK seems to take it that she trembles from passing out, I interpreted it as she is trembling in fear of being found out. RK helped her up, being “too simple and too trew” (45) and accepts her thanks. RK aka “Holiness” is supposed to represent honor and chivalry, all the things that a knight is expected to be in his line of work, hence the line “too trew”. He is “too true”, naïve, and blind to look beneath the surface and see that Fidessa is not who she says she