long white beard carries a book of prayers and walks with eyes looking down He looks very gentle and kind He pretends to pray and repent all the time And all the way he prayed as he went And often knockt his brest as one that did repent This appearance makes the Knight and Una trust him But this is a false identity He is not holy at all He is a sorcerer who plans to deceive them Invitation to His Hermitage Archimago offers them a place to stay in his little house called a hermitage This is inside a quiet forest The place looks very peaceful holy and safe A little lowly Hermitage it was But this house is actually full of magical tools and evil books It shows how appearances can be very misleading The Magic Spell and Evil Plan That night while the Knight and Una are sleeping Archimago begins his evil plan He opens his magic books He performs black magic to call two evil spirits He wants to use these spirits to create a lustful dream for the knight and a fake Una As Spenser writes He seekes out mighty charmes to trouble sleepy mindes Archimago sends the lustful dream into the knight s head and makes him see Lady Una behaving in a shameful way The second spirit is changed into a false Una Archimago Tricks the Knight When Red Cross Knight wakes up from the lustful dream he sees Lady Una lying beside him Lady Una is trying to seduce him The knight is shocked He is disappointed to see the lady so unchaste Archimago s trick works The Red Cross Knight loses trust in Lady Una Even though she has done nothing wrong the knight now thinks she is impure He decides to leave her without asking or confirming anything The knight is so angry that He thought have slaine her in his fierce despight This shows how falsehood can destroy faith if a person is not careful Archimago s Symbolic Meaning Archimago is not just a character he stands for something deeper Archimago pretends to be holy but is full of evil So he represents the hypocrisy and lies of false religion Spenser s The Faerie Queene is an allegorical work Archimago stands for the evil Roman Catholic priests In this poem Archimago s main role is to separate Holiness Red Cross Knight from Truth Una This is very important because Spenser wants to show that without truth holiness becomes weak In fine Archimago is a key villain in The Faerie Queene He is dangerous because he is not an open threat like Monster Error he uses false appearances and lies His role is to test the knight s faith trust and spiritual strength Through Archimago Spenser warns us to be careful of people who seem religious but are secretly evil nbsp