Florimell's Girdle
Florimell's Girdle
Florimell's Girdle
When Florimell’s girdle reappears in Book V of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, it continues
to metonymically represent female sexuality by being linked to women’s “middles”, “loynes”, and
“wast” (5.3.28). Surprisingly, false Florimell has somehow managed to finally fasten it to herself.
Equally befuddling is the idea that the magical object could have simply slipped off of the real
Florimell in the first place. These seemingly loose ends in the plot can be tied up by the careful
reader who recognizes that Spenser uses the presence of the girdle as a narrative device to explore
the Florimells’ duplicity. Readers would better appreciate how prominently the girdle-as-chastity
metaphor figured into the plot if they were alerted of the biblical roots and contemporaneous uses
An explanatory note is especially necessary since the proverb has fallen out of use since
Book IV was published in 1590. A Google search for relatively newer proverbs, such as “When in
Rome, do as the Romans do,” can result in over four million hits while a search for “Ungirt
Unblest” results in 563 rather repetitive hits. Indeed, a 1628 quatrain by Robert Hayman, available
on the Literature Online (LION) Database, seems to tease the researcher though it reveals that the
The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that “blest” is a version of “blessed”. Likewise, “girt” is
a version of “gird” which means either to wear a girdle or to prepare oneself for action. Notably,
knights readied for action by equipping themselves with a sword suspended from their girdles or
belts. The OED, along with several historical resources indicates that “gird” was often employed
“with more or less direct allusion to biblical passages”. The OED cites Isaiah xi. 5, “righteousness
shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.”
Joseph Hall, a 17th-century English bishop, defines the proverb by likening girding to
praying: “‘Ungirt, unblest,’ was the old word; as not ready till they were girded, so not till they
had prayed.” Indeed, “in the Old Testament language, the girdle is emblematic of reverence,” says
character Falstaff evokes the proverb praying that he be unblessed (“I pray God my girdle break”)
proverb points out that many Europeans held the almost literal belief “that this or that good fortune
could thus be bound about one”. Considering these sources, “ungirt unblest” suggests that being
blessed is analogous to being girded. Poet Robert Aylett is in line with this interpretation when he
praises Spenser saying he used Florimell’s girdle to “shadow” true love and chastity. “Looser
ladies”, who failed to fasten the girdle, “Ungirt unblest, were that had beene unchaste.”
An article by Gordon Tesky, available via the JSTOR Database, disagrees with Aylett
pointing out that false Florimell was “loose” yet girded; Spenser does not use the girdle to shadow
“truth” but rather to facilitate the division of Florimell into two identities and he reintegrates the
girdle with the original Florimell only after the fake has melted. Moreover, Tesky argues, when
Florimell was ungirded, she was “cast forth into adventure”. On the other hand, a work by
Rebecca Yearling, found using the MLA International Bibliography, more convincingly suggests
that the girdle really is a narrative tool to trace chastity. Yearling points out that the false Florimell
is girded only after achieving “basic fidelity” with Braggadochio, but such chastity is still inferior
to the sort demonstrated by Florimell and Marinell. Moreover, the Spenser Encyclopedia’s entries
on “Europa” and the “Fisher” suggest that Florimell’s chastity suffered when she was, like Europa,
ungirded at sea. Florimell was made to face rather than flee male sexuality when the fisher “threw
her downe” and defiles her “garments gay” (3.8.26). Readers ought to know that it is in the
context of this strong correlation between wearing the girdle or not, and experiencing fidelity or
Aylett, Robert. The Brides Ornaments: Poetical Essayes upon a Divine Subject. [In The Song of
Songs, Which Was Salomons.]. London: William Stansby, 1621. Spenser and the
Tradition: English Poetry 1579-1830. Virginia Tech University. Web. 8 Mar. 2013.
<http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?action=GET&textsid=33235>.
Crowther, John, Ed. “No Fear Henry IV Part 1.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 8
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"girt, V.". OED Online. December 2012. Oxford University Press. 8 March 2013 .
Hall, Joseph. Contemplations on the Historical Passages of the Old and New Testaments. London:
Printed for William Baynes and Son, 1825. 385. Google EBooks. Oxford University, 16
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Hamilton, A.C.. Spenser Encyclopaedia. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2012. Ebook Library.
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Hayman, Robert, Fl. 1628. 81. Ungirt, Vnblest. [from Quodlibets (1628)]. London. Printed by
Elizabeth All-de, for Roger Michell [etc.]. Source: Literature Online (1992).
Onians, Richard Broxton. The Origins of European Thought: About the Body, the Mind, the Soul,
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Spenser, Edmund, and Dorothy Stephens. The Faerie Queene: Books Three and Four.
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Tesky, Gordon. "From Allegory to Dialectic: Imagining Error in Spenser and Milton." PMLA
101.1 (1986): 9-23. JSTOR. Web. 8 Mar. 2013.
Wordsworth, Charles. Shakespeare's Historical Plays: Roman and English. Vol. 2. N.p.: W.
Blackwood and Sons, 1883. 206. Google EBooks. Harvard University, 31 Oct. 2008. Web.
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Yearling, Rebecca. "Florimell's Girdle: Reconfiguring Chastity In The Faerie Queene." Spenser
Studies: A Renaissance Poetry Annual20.(2005): 137-144. MLA International
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