ABSTRACT
With Book III, the element of Ovidian romance, which has been weighed against that of Virgilian epic since the beginning of the poem, becomes unmistakeably dominant. I In the terms in which we have been regarding the divergence between the two modes, the quest of the titular hero of this book, like that of her immediate model, Ariosto's Bradamante, is precisely the pursuit of love, which in Virgilian epic constitutes the paradigmatic distraction from or obstacle to the quest. The swingeing anti-eroticism of Guyon's Virgilian conception of temperance is replaced with an ideal of true love, and a concern with the necessity of distinguishing between its true and its corrupt forms, a focus which makes Ovid's varied array of loves and lovers an indispensable resource and a pervasive presence. From Malecasta's house to Busirane's, the walls of Book III are hung with tales from the Metamorphoses, Paridell and Hellenore have learnt their techniques of courtship from Ovid's Amores, Ars amoris and Hero ides , and Britomart mediates her very self-reflection through her reading of Ovid.
