[200.] the only haire. The dauphin of France, the first husband of Mary Queen of Scots, afterwards King Francis II, son of Henry II. Duessa's story is full of falsehoods.
[243.] so dainty they say maketh derth, coyness makes desire. The knight is allured on by Duessa's assumed shyness.
[251.] ne wont there sound, nor was accustomed to sound there.
[254.] cool shade. The Reformed Church, weakened by Falsehood, is enticed by doubt and skepticism.
[262.] faire seemly pleasaunce, pleasant courtesies.
[263.] With goodly purposes, with polite conversation. This whole stanza refers to Mary's candidacy for the English throne and its dangers to Protestantism.
[269.] He pluckt a bough. In this incident Spenser imitates Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, vi, 26, in which Ruggiero addresses a myrtle which bleeds and cries out with pain. The conception of men turned into trees occurs also in Ovid, Vergil, Tasso, and Dante.
[272.] O spare with guilty hands, etc. Cf Vergil's account of Polydorus in Aeneid, iii, 41, in which a myrtle exclaims, Parce pias scelerare manus, etc.
[284.] from Limbo lake, here, the abode of the lost. With the Schoolmen, Limbo was a border region of hell where dwelt the souls of Old Testament saints, pious heathen, lunatics, and unbaptized infants. Cf. Milton's Paradise of Fools, Paradise Lost, iii, 495.
[291.] Fradubio, as it were "Brother Doubtful," one who hesitates between false religion and pagan religion, Duessa and Fraelissa (Morley). Fraelissa is fair but frail, and will not do to lean upon.