spright

You are a Spright, a Succubus, not a true female.

You are a haunted spright, a succubus created by Archimago to torment and delude.

Variations on the term include "spright" (the origin of the adjective "sprightly", meaning "spirited" or "lively") and the Celtic "spriggan".

In the final lines, the poet once again rejects the three images: "Vanish, ye phantoms, from my idle spright, / Into the clouds, and never more return!"

Hanging tapestries are pulled aside by the incredulous Knight, who sees false Una's flesh revealed in intimate posture with an equally false Spright made a Squire.

But whether one sees her as a "Lady trew" or as the "lady Trew," Una is no less a specter and no less under male instruction than Archimago's spright.

Some have rarely been seen publicly, among them the priceless "Westmoreland Manuscript" of 1625, the final authority for John Donne's "Holy Sonnets": "I am a little world made cunningly/ Of elements, and an Angelike spright."

The reader may initially be prepared to fix on the reference to Una's virtue, her "trouthe" or troth, but may, on second thought, recall the ontological contrast between Una, who truly is a "Lady," and the spright, who is not.

At midnight four times in each year does her Spright When Mortals in slumber are bound, Arrayed in her bridal apparel of white, Appear in the Hall with the Skeleton-Knight, And shriek, as He whirls her around.

And now Adonis, with a lazy spright, And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye, His louring brows o'erwhelming his fair sight, Like misty vapours when they blot the sky, Souring his cheeks cries 'Fie, no more of love!

But if ye saw that which no eyes can see, The inward beauty of her lively spright, Garnisht with heavenly guifts of high degree, Much more then would ye wonder at that sight, And stand astonisht lyke to those which red Medusaes mazeful hed.

At the beginning of canto 2, after the "feigning dreame" and "faire-forged Spright" tell Archimago they failed to seduce Redcross, the enchanter first throws a fit and then moderates his behavior in a swerve that duplicates Redcross's swing from "fierce despight" to "sufferance wise" (1.1.50).