[15.] For soveraine hope, as a sign of the supreme hope.
[20.] Greatest Gloriana, Queen Elizabeth. In other books of The Faerie Queene she is called Belphoebe, the patroness of chastity, and Britomart, the military genius of Britain.
[27.] A Dragon, "the great dragon, that old serpent, called the devil," Revelation, xii, 9, also Rome and Spain. Cf. legend of St. George and the dragon, and Fletcher's Purple Island, vii seq.
[28.] a lovely Ladie, Una, the personification of truth and true religion. Her lamb symbolizes innocence.
[46.] a Dwarfe, representing prudence, or common sense; according to Morley, the flesh.
[56.] A shadie grove, the wood of Error. "By it Spenser shadows forth the danger surrounding the mind that escapes from the bondage of Roman authority and thinks for itself."—Kitchin. The description of the wood is an imitation of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, i, 37, Chaucer's Assembly of Foules, 176, and Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, iii, 75. Morley sees in this grove an allegory of man's life, the trees symbolizing trade, pleasure, youth, etc.
[69.] The sayling Pine. Ships were built of pine.
[70.] the Loplar never dry, because it grows best in moist soil.
[71.] The builder Oake. In the Middle Ages most manor houses and churches were built of oak.
[72.] the Cypresse funerall, an emblem of death among the ancients, and sacred to Pluto. Sidney says that they were wont to dress graves with cypress branches in old times.