“Faire Sir (said he) if in that picture dead Such life ye read, and vertue in vaine shew, What mote ye weene, if the trew lively-head Of that most glorious visage ye did view? But if the beautie of her mind ye knew, That is her bountie, and imperiall powre, Thousand times fairer then her mortall hew, O how great wonder would your thoughts devoure, And infinite desire into your spirite poure!” (II. ix. 3.) In the vision of this inward world of beauty in woman’s mind, so Spenser teaches, begins the passion of love. In the “Phædrus” Plato has analyzed it as a divine fury, and in his account he emphasizes the feeling of reverence with which the lover gazes upon the beauty of the beloved, seeing in it the idea of pure beauty which his soul has beheld in its prenatal existence. “But he,” says Plato, “whose initiation is recent, and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other world, is amazed when he sees any one having a godlike face or any bodily form which is the expression of divine beauty; and at first a shudder runs through him, and again the old awe steals over him; then looking upon the face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a god.” (“Phædrus,” 251.) The habit of contemplating the beauty of the beloved in reverent fear is characteristic of the love which Arthegal feels for Britomart. So intimately acquainted was Spenser with Plato that he caught the spirit of his worship of beauty. Disguised as Britomart, the virgin Knight of Chastity, was, in her panoply of armor, her beauty was not the object of constant sight. On three different occasions, however, when by the removal of some portion of it her features shine forth, the impression made by her beauty is that of reverent adoration. When Arthegal chances thus to behold her, the sight is so awful that he hesitates to press his suit for her love, and only after some time does he venture to win her affections. One occasion on which the spectators catch a glimpse of Britomart’s beauty occurs when she unlaces her helmet. The sight of her golden locks strikes all with amazement; and though there is a mingled feeling of surprise and curiosity, due to the preconceived notion of her sex, the feeling of amazement and adoration of her beauty is expressly stated as consequent upon this revelation. “With that, her glistring helmet she unlaced; Which doft, her golden lockes, that were up bound Still in a knot, unto her heeles downe traced, And like a silken veile in compasse round About her backe and all her bodie wound; Like as the shining skie in summers night, What time the dayes with scorching heat abound, Is creasted all with lines of firie light, That it prodigious seemes in common peoples sight.