ABSTRACT

The young knight freed by Guyon and the Palmer after they find him in the Bower of Bliss, his head in the lap of Acrasia, who has charmed him to sleep (FQ II xii 72-84). Verdant’s subjection to Acrasia is an exemplum of the consequences of intemperance. Distracted by her erotic pleasures, he has put aside his ‘warlike armes,’ as the Red Cross Knight took off his ‘yron-coted Plate’ to rest by the fountain where he was found by Duessa, and as Cymochles cast off his ‘warlike weapons,’ also for Acrasia (I vii 2, II v 28). The most immediate models for Verdant are Tasso’s Rinaldo, discovered by two fellow knights in the garden of Armida with his flower-adorned sword like a useless ornament, unfit for war (Gerusalemme liberata 16.30), and, at a further remove, Ariosto’s Ruggiero, who lays aside his shield, helmet, and gauntlets when he arrives on the island of Alcina (Orlando furioso 6.24). Behind all three are the victims of Circe, who is Acrasia’s direct analogue, and the common .classical motif of the warrior disarmed by love: Mars and Venus, Hercules and Omphale, Bacchus and Ariadne, Antony and Cleopatra.