Artwork Information

In Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Book II, Acrasia represents Intemperance, and her ‘Bower of Bliss’ is the honey trap in which she transforms her prey into monstrous animals. Sir Mordant is shown in a state of trance, awaiting his fate. Fearful of what may happen, his wife Amavia entrusts her newborn child Lucina to Diana and Juno, divine protectors of women and infants. Although she then restores her husband, the seductive Acrasia (seen here in the form of a mermaid) goes on to poison him, and overcome with grief, Amavia takes her own life.