Duplicitous Duessa

Duessa’s rhetoric is consistently characterized by duplicity. Indeed, her very name suggests her duplicitous nature, of “two-ness, doubleness, and duplicity” and even “the principle of falsehood itself” (Hume 229). Often, her duplicity comes in the form of disguise; this has led Linda Gregerson to call Duessa “a scarlet seductress with a predilection for deception and rich

costuming” ("Protestant Erotics: Idolatry and Interpretation in Spenser's Faerie Queene" 9).

While her motivations for action are not explicitly stated in the text, her primary goal seems to be upward mobility, similar to Lucifera, who “for to the highest she did still aspyre, / Or if ought higher were then that, did it desyre” (1.4.11). This certainly connects her with the courtier, who is often motivated by ambition. Duessa also joys in mischief-making for the sake of chaos or

knightly duties . . . [an] emphasis upon women's distracting qualities [which] helps explain why Duessa and her fellow hags and witches often seem focused on keeping the knights out of the

field” (Cavanagh, "Nightmares of Desire: Evil Women in The Faerie Queene" 328). Though

Duessa uses magic and rhetoric to disguise herself to meet those ends, she also takes advantage of opportunities provided by fortune, as when Orgoglio defeats her champion, Redcrosse. She immediately switches allegiance to Orgoglio, who “gave her gold and purple pall to weare, / And

triple crowne set on her head full hye, / And her endowd with royall maiestye” (1.7.16).40 Duessa

has traditionally been interpreted as a depiction of the Whore of Babylon or representation of the

Catholic church;41 the aim of this reading is not to contradict those interpretations, but to analyze

her place as a user of the art of persuasion.

Duessa uses both rhetoric and magic effectively against some characters of The Faerie

Queene, but the efficacy of her efforts reaches its limit after Arthur and Una expose her true identity. Even when Duessa tricks characters in the poem, Spenser constantly reminds readers of her duplicity. Klein notes that “even when Duessa is disguised, however, Spenser never lets his reader forget her diabolical power and origin” (186). Spenser gives her the epithet “false Duessa”

no fewer than 20 times42 in the poem, and also calls her “fowle Duessa” twice (1.4.37, 1.8.49),

“faithlesse Duessa” once (4.1.32), and “proud Duessa” twice (1.8.6 and 1.8.13). By constantly reminding readers of her falseness, Spenser directs their attention to the way she manipulates other characters without giving Duessa the opportunity to persuade the readers themselves.

40

Hume interprets this as pride, rather than ambition: “her monstrous pride is exposed when she allows Orgoglio to deck her in temporal pomp and the triple crown of the papacy” (229).

41 _{See, for example, Gregerson (Protestant Erotics: Idolatry and Interpretation in Spenser's Faerie Queene) and}

Hume. Hamilton, while not denying the Christian readings, also addresses Duessa as a function of classical archetypes in “Spenser’s Treatment of Myth.”

42 _{Duessa is identified as “false Duessa” at 1.2.44, 1.4.13, 1.4.arg, 1.5.11, 1.5.45, 1.7.1, 1.7.18, 1.7.50, 1.8.25,}

Duessa’s most striking characteristic is her ability to deceive others so consistently with disguise. When she meets Redcrosse, “her humblesse low / In so ritch weedes and seeming glorious show, / Did much emmoue his stout heroicke heart” (1.2.21). Redcrosse easily falls for the fictional story that Duessa tells him as the “virgin widow” (1.2.24) and “seeming simple maid” (1.2.27), Fidessa. The pair travels together, making “faire seemely pleasaunce each to other,” and Redcrosse “in his falsed fancy he her takes / To be the fairest wight, that liued yit” (1.2.30). Later, after Redcrosse flees the House of Pride without Duessa, she finds him and “with reproch of carelesnes vnkynd, / Vpbrayd, for leauing her in place unmeet, / With fowle words tempring faire, soure gall with hony sweet” (1.7.3). Duessa effectively uses language to both chastise Redcrosse and to please him. Spenser highlights her adaptive ability to use language, not just magical disguises, in her interactions with Redcrosse. Nor is Redcrosse the only knight that Duessa has fooled into believing her fair dissembling. Fradubio, another knight tricked by Duessa, tells his sad story to Redcrosse and “Fidessa,” apparently still unable to see through Duessa’s disguise.

Fradubio explains that when he met Duessa, he saw a knight who “had a like faire Lady by his syde, / Lyke a faire Lady, but did fowle Duessa hyde” (1.2.35). When he compares Duessa to his love, Fralissa, to see who was fairer,

Both seemde to win, and both seemde won to bee, So hard the discord was to be agreed.

Fralissa was as faire, as faire mote bee,

And euer false Duessa seemde as faire as shee. (1.2.37)

When Duessa realizes that her own feigned beauty does not outshine Fralissa’s, she decides to “win by guile,” and using her magic, she “Dimmed [Fralissa’s] former beauties shining ray, /

And with foule vgly forme did her disgrace” (1.2.38). She does not rely on magic alone, however. Duessa supplements this magic with rhetorical speech, saying to Fradubio,

Fye, fye, deformed wight,

Whose borrowed beautie now appeareth plaine To haue before bewitched all mens sight;

O leaue her soone, or let her soone be slaine. (1.2.39)

Again, it seems to be Duessa’s words—her rhetorical power—as much as her magic, that convince Fradubio of his former love’s fall from beauty; he notes, “her loathly visage viewing with disdaine, / Eftsoons I thought her such, as she me told” (1.2.39). Melinda Gough attributes this to Duessa’s effective rhetorical slander, stating that “Duessa's ability to substitute the image of foulness for Fraelissa's true fairness relies not only on slanderous speech but also on the enchantress's traditionally persuasive yet fallacious rhetoric: Fradubio sees what Duessa tells him to see” (50). Moreover, Fradubio continues to live under the false impression planted by Duessa for a “long time” until he “chaunst to see her in her proper hew” (1.2.40). Chance, then, leads Fradubio to view the undisguised Duessa and discover his error, and not a lack of efficacy on Duessa’s part or self-realization by Fradubio.

Duessa handily manipulates Redcrosse, Fradubio, and Sansjoy. These male knights seem to be easy prey for her. Redcrosse is rustic and unrhetorical (see Chapter 4), Fradubio is young and eager, “in prime of youthly yeares, when corage hott / The fire of loue and ioy of cheualree / First kindled in [his] brest” (1.2.35), and Sansjoy is a “Paynim bold [and] enraged wight, / Whome great griefe made forgetter the raines to hold / Of reasons rule” (1.4.41). When speaking to Sansjoy, Duessa lauds his brother Sansfoy as “flower of grace and cheualrye,” playing on his grief to manipulate him and “him amoues with speaches seeming fit” (1.4.45). Spenser

characterizes all three knights by passion, either from their youth or emotion, and Duessa easily deceives them, putting them at risk for complete destruction. Sheila Cavanagh notes that

“Duessa's consummate skill in camoflauge amplifies her danger for the knights and ladies she

encounters” ("Nightmares of Desire: Evil Women in The Faerie Queene" 332). More impressive,

perhaps, is Duessa’s ability to deceive Night, her own kinswoman. Night demands to know who she is, and Duessa responds,

I that do seeme not I, Duessa ame,

Quoth she, how euer now in garments gilt, And gorgeous gold arayd I to thee came,

Duessa I, the daughter of Deceipt and Shame. (1.5.26) Night explains her inability to see past Duessa’s disguise:

. . . In that fayre face The false resemblaunce of Deceipt, I wist Did closely lurke; yet so true-seeming grace It carried, that I scarse in darksome place Could it discerne, though I the mother bee Of falshood, and roote of Duessas race. (1.5.27)

Night is a more surprising victim of Duessa’s deceit because she lacks the characteristics which limit the judgment of the young knights. Despite this ability to deceive, Duessa does not seem to

have mastered sprezzatura. In her conversation with Sansjoy, she reveals her art through lack of

finesse, stating “O But I feare the fickle freakes (quoth shee) / Of fortune false” (1.4.50), of

which Hamilton cheekily notes, “excessive alliteration declares Duessa’s duplicity” (1.4.50n).

her duplicity against characters such as Arthur and Una. Spenser, though revealing the strength of Duessa’s rhetoric and magic against weaker characters of the poem, places a limit on the power of Duessa’s work. He encourages his readers to distrust and dislike her, but stops short of allowing her to become so persuasive that the reader needs to fear her.

When Una and Duessa meet, Una tells Redcrosse that Duessa has been “the roote of all [his] care, and wretched plight” but recommends that he nevertheless allow Duessa to live

because “to doe her die . . . were despight, / And shame t’auenge so weake an enimy; / But spoile her of her scarlot robe, and let her fly” (1.8.45). Despite Duessa’s ability to influence other characters, Una calls her weak—perhaps because her duplicitous nature suggests a lack of

inward virtue. Una, the unification of all virtue, demands Duessa’s exposure: “So as she bad, that witch they disaraid, / And robd of roiall robes, and purple pall, / And ornaments that richly were displaid” (1.8.46). Upon seeing her naked, “her misshaped parts did them appall” (1.8.46), and of her,

Such then (said Vna) as she seemeth here, Such is the face of falshood, such the sight Of fowle Duessa, when her borrowed light

Is laid away, and counterfesaunce knowne. (1.8.49)

Una’s exposure effectively silences Duessa; though she attempts to trick her way back into court society, she does so without the rhetorical voice she uses in the first book, and her power is severely limited.

Duessa makes several ineffective plays to reenter society after her exposure, first

make Guyon fight Redcrosse. In Book 4, Duessa again takes on a disguise of beauty as Paridell’s lady in the contest for Florimell’s girdle. Paridell displays her,

His false Duessa, that she might be seene, Who with her forged beautie did seduce The hearts of some, that fairest her did weene; As diuerse wits affected diuers beene. (4.5.11)

Though her disguise does fool some, the suggestion that “diuerse wits” experience influence differently implies that some who view her (perhaps the more naïve or inexperienced knights) are more easily tricked than others. Nonetheless, she does not win the contest, showing that her effectiveness has been limited—perhaps here because she does not have the opportunity to match her physical affect with words. Finally, in Book 5, despite seeming “a Ladie of great

countenance and place . . . [who] did appeare rare beautie in her face” (5.9.38), Duessa is

ultimately condemned to death by Mercilla after a trial43 for her many crimes against the knights

of Faeryland. Though Duessa initially inspires some compassion in Arthur (5.9.46), Zele makes a strong case against her in court, and she never has the opportunity to speak in her own defense.

Her vulnerability at having been exposed44 by truly virtuous characters combined with a limited

ability to speak renders Duessa ineffective and ultimately costs her her life. If Duessa represents a type of court lady—or at least aspects of a court lady—the message that Spenser puts forth is unclear. Her duplicity both makes her powerful and limits her power. Her rhetoric strengthens her disguise yet disappears when her disguise is removed. She shows ambition and independence but suffers the severest punishment in the end. Her failings seem to be both that she does not

43

Duessa’s depiction in the court is quite obviously a representation of Mary, Queen of Scots. See Hume and O’Connell.

44

Klein similarly notes Duessa’s limited efficacy after being disrobed, but attributes it to Arthur’s revealing “Duessa's true ugliness,” after which “she can no longer tempt anyone” (183).

match her courtliness with inner virtue and that she simply is not good enough at her art, perhaps because that art is not backed with the force of virtue.