The rhyming scheme is generally ababbcbcc, though this too is subject to change, whether by authorial oversight or authorial intention (e.g. II ii 7, VII vii 28).
The stanzas are not numbered in the original editions.
Between 30 and 87 stanzas comprise a canto (Italian, "song"), a term borrowed from Lodovico Ariosto, the Italian poet, whose work influenced Spenser.
A canto is preceded by a four-line verse called an argument. This summarizes what follows, often with particular emphasis on its allegorical meaning. The metre of the argument is that of the Book of Common Prayer.
Each complete book is introduced by a proem, a group of between four and eleven stanzas preceding the argument of Canto i.
Twelve cantos comprise a book. Book VII is incomplete.
Spenser's stated plan was to write twelve books, one on each of the twelve moral or private virtues; it is not known whether he composed any more of The Faerie Queene than has survived. The Faerie Queene was to have been followed by another epic poem of twelve more books, one on each of the political or public virtues. No trace of this work has ever been found.
THE SHADOW TEXT
The Shadow Text is intended as no more than a lowly companion to the original. It makes no attempt to preserve metre or rhyme, but renders a prosaic version, unifying the spelling in order to make the meaning easier to understand.
I have altered the punctuation for the shadow version, though not without trepidation. My aim has been to make crystal clear the mechanical sense expressed by each stanza, but quite often this is impossible. For one thing, the original pointing, rather than being used strictly logically, may also influence the rhythm or emphasis of the words when spoken (and The Faerie Queene is a poem which should be read aloud—although perhaps not in its entirety!—to be fully appreciated). For another, the functions of the punctuation marks themselves have undergone change since Spenser's day. The semicolon, for example, is found in FQ introducing direct speech, where today a comma or a colon would be used. Again, the comma is often required to carry long parentheses, themselves sprinkled with commas; these passages can become very confusing, especially where Spenser has also adopted a contorted and latinistic word-order.