Her many children (“Impes”) suckle daily upon her “poisonous dugs” and shun away from the light that shines upon them as Una and Red Crosse enter the “darksome hole.” Una’s representation as the ultimate source of Faith and Purity comes into play here; one could argue that the Light from which the demon babies flee symbolizes the force of the Protestant Reformation’s “truth.”

The ensuing battle is not one between Red Crosse and “Errours,” it is between the Catholic tradition and the challenges that threatened its strength during the Renaissance. The Church reacted harshly toward such challenges, and I wonder whether the image of eed Crosse wrapped in Errours’ tail is consistent with the constraint many Protestant thinkers felt when they were “towed into line” by the authority of the Church.

It is Red Crosse’s faith, however, re-invigorated from Una’s plea, that provides him with the strength to “loose her wicked bands” and slit her throat. In perhaps the most poignant image of the section, she begins to spew a “floud of poyson.” Her vomit is “full of bookes and papers” and “loathly frogs and toades” without eyes. Here, Spenser seeks to expose Church teachings for what he feels they are worth: chunks within vomit. The inclusion of “loathly frogs and toades” might be a reference to Shakespeare’s three fates (“Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble . . .) and an admonition of Catholic ceremony as nothing more than witches’ magic.

Though I am sure Spenser will launch many more criticisms of the Catholic Church as we continue with The Faerie Queene, I found the situation of “Errours den” to be the most vivid thus far.