Retelling and the Wedding Night
When Spenser revised the end of "The Legend of Chastity," the story of Amoret and Scudamour became almost ostentatiously incomplete, its ending indefinitely deferred. Rather than the tidy, happy tale of estrangement and restoration promised by Spenser's original stanzas, in Book Four the love story becomes one among the most "piteous" ever told.
The following plot summaries provide simple accounts of the love story as it unfolds in the scenes surrounding Spenser's revised stanzas. The left-hand column contains summaries of the plot from the 1590 printings, which contained the original stanzas and ended after the third book. The right-hand column includes summaries of the revised plot as it appeared in 1596 printings, in which the original stanzas were replaced with revised ones and which included six books.
Events that occur exclusively in the 1590 version are in orange, those that took place in both are in black, and those implied by the revisions in the 1596 version are in blue.
The summaries progress according to the movement of the story (the unfolding of events within the narrative). To determine the order in which these events are told within the plot (the unfolding of events in time), please refer to the transcriptions.
1590
Amoret is taken captive by the hand of wicked wizard Busirane.
Busirane pens Amoret within a castle surrounded by flames, from whence Scudamour cannot retrieve her.
Busirane tortures Amoret
for failing to return his love.
While Amoret is in captivity, Britomart encounters the wallowing Scudamour, who recounts the story of Amoret's abduction and entrapment.
Britomart enters the house of Busirane to rescue Amoret.
Outside the third room of the castle, Britomart witnesses the masque of Cupid.
Amoret is among the masque's players, a knife entrenched in her bleeding breast, her heart held before her in a silver basin.
After a night and day of waiting, Britomart enters the third room. The members of the masque have vanished, aside from Amoret, whose hands and waist are bound. Busirane stands before her and casts spells on her, using her blood as ink.
Britomart attacks Busirane. He wounds her slightly.
Upon threat of death, Busirane reverses his spell and Amoret is unbound, her breast resealed and restored. She is rendered "perfect hole."
Britomart binds Busirane in the chains that held Amoret.
Britomart and Amoret depart to find Scudamour despairing outside the house.
Amoret and Scudamour, reuinted, are united in an embrace remniscent of the image of Hermaphrodite. Britomart looks on at the lovers.
1596
Scudamour captures Amoret in a perilous fight with twenty knights. Amoret and Scudamour are wedded.
Amoret is taken captive by the hand of wicked wizard Busirane,
who brings the masque of Cupid to the wedding feast, who abducts her before the wedding night.
Busirane pens Amoret within a castle surrounded by flames, from whence Scudamour cannot retrieve her.
Busirane tortures Amoret
for failing to submit to his lust.
While Amoret is in captivity, Britomart encounters the wallowing Scudamour, who recounts the story of Amoret's abduction and entrapment.
Britomart enters the house of Busirane to rescue Amoret.
Outside the third room of the castle, Britomart witnesses the masque of Cupid.
Amoret is among the masque's players, a knife entrenched in her bleeding breast, her heart held before her in a silver basin.
After a night and day of waiting, Britomart enters the third room. The members of the masque have vanished, aside from Amoret, whose hands and waist are bound. Busirane stands before her and casts spells on her, using her blood as ink.
Britomart attacks Busirane. He wounds her slightly.
Upon threat of death, Busirane reverses his spell and Amoret is unbound, her breast resealed and restored. She is rendeblue "perfect hole."
Britomart binds Busirane in the chains that held Amoret.
Busirane is deeply engrieved, his efforts now wasted.
Britomart and Amoret depart to find that Scudamour has gone, having wrongfully thought that the flames of Busirane's castle had consumed Britomart.
Deferral and Retelling: Why the Wedding Night Matters
In "The Legend of Friendship," Spenser leaps backward in narrative time in order to expand his account of the separation of Amoret and Scudamour. By fleshing out this part of the story, he alters it, thereby performing a kind of revision. His description of the couple's wedding feast (Book IV, Canto I, Stanzas 2-4), implies a revised understanding of the story by surprising the reader with the news that the pair is married.
Similarly, when Spenser tells us that Busyrane has brought the masque of Cupid to the wedding feast--thereby extending the possible locations of its performance beyond the confines of Busyrane's castle--he contributes to the context in which Britomart's encounter with the disappearing masquers may be understood.
Most significant is Spenser's indication that Amoret's abduction took place immediately before the wedding night. By specifying the time of entrapment, Spenser points toward particular interpretations of Busyrane's intentions, Amoret's wound, and Scudamour's jealousy, by placing emphasis on their relations to marriage, lust, and the wedding night. The deferred reunion of the lovers now specifically entails the deferred consummation of their marriage.