The following portraiture will be at once recognized: And round about her face her yellow hair Having, thro' stirring, loosed its wonted band, Like to a golden border did appear, Framed in goldsmith's forge with cunning hand; Yet goldsmith's cunning could not understand To frame such subtle wire, so shiny clear, For it did glisten like the glowing sand, The which Pactolus with his waters sheer, Throws forth upon the rivage, round about him near.
This encomium upon Elizabeth's hair recalls the description of another courtier, that it was like the last rays of the declining sun.

Ill-natured persons called it red.
SIR ARTEGAL, OR JUSTICE .-- As has been already said, Artegal, or Justice, makes conquest of Britomartis or Elizabeth.

It is no earthly love that follows, but the declaration of the queen that in her continued maidenhood justice to her people shall be her only spouse.

Such, whatever the honest historian may think, was the poet's conceit of what would best please his royal mistress.
It has been already stated that by Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, the poet intended the person of Elizabeth in her regnant grandeur: Britomartis represents her chastity.

Not content with these impersonations, Spenser introduces a third: it is Belphoebe, the abstraction of virginity; a character for which, however, he designs a dual interpretation.