Having watched the new Merlin series over the summer and seen a bunch of movies about King Arthur, the Hollywood images of knights in the medieval time period were fresh in my mind and helpful to imagine while reading The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. Spenser's version of the classic story about knights rescuing damsels in distress and fighting dragons, give a great twist to the story, because he compares it to other mythologies, like stories from the Bible and the Greek & Roman Gods.
Canto 12 of book one of The Faerie Queene picks up right after the Knight defeats the dragon, and the Knight and Una head to a celebration feast. There is a reference to heaven's gate in Stanza 3, "which long time had bene shut, and out of hond." After the Knight defeats Satan (aka the dragon), there is "proclaymed joy and peace through all his state; for the dead now was their foe, which them forrayed late" in heaven.
In stanza 10, they are cautious of "touching the dragon" and "his nest of many dragonets, his fruitfull seed." Just because the evil souls left behind don't have Satan as their leader anymore, doesn't mean they still can't do evil deeds in his honor. After all some people believe Lilith is still out there, seeing as she was the first evil. In stanza 23, it is interesting to see Una being compared to "the lamb's wife" in the passages from Revelations, almost as reference to Jesus and his relationship with Mary Magdalene.
Canto 12 of book two of The Faerie Queene contains many Greek and Roman mythology references, such as "Argo" more than Bible references. Since it has been awhile since I have studied the mythologies, the footnotes are a great background to the references and allegories.
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