Info about the "Blatant Beast"   rev 1.0  dd 01 nov 2002

derived from:
The Faerie Queene
Published by Oxford press; 1st release 1912: 
The poetical works of Edmund Spenser (ca 1552 - 16 jan 1599)
(first released Londen, 1596)
(I have maintained the rather unusual spelling)

what is the Blatant Beast?

A first impression:

The fifth booke: Canto 7; 
(hags (or gossiping ugly old women?) try to outdo the Blatant Beast 
in foul language, with the purpuse to conquer the beast)

Verse 41
Thereto the Blatant Beast by them set on
At him began to barke loud and bay
With bitter rage and fell contention
That all the woods and rockes nigh to that way
Began to quake and tremble with dismay:
And all the aire rebellowed againe
So dreadfully his hundred tongues did bray
And evermore those hags themselves did paine
To sharpen him, and their owne cursed tongs did straine

Verse 42
And still among most bitter words they spake
Most shamefull, most unrighteous, most untrew,
That they the mildest man alive would make
forget his patience, and yield vengeaunce dew
to her, that so false sclaunders at him threw
and more to make them pierce and wound more deepe
she with the sting, which in her vile tongue grew;
did sharpen them, and in fresh poyson steepe:
yet he past on, and seem'd of them to take no keepe


a better description:

The sixth booke: Canto 1;
(knight Artegall askes another knight what his queeste is: 
it is to slay the Blatant Beast)

verse 6
What is that quest (quoth then Sir Artegall)
That you into such perils presently doth call?

Verse 7
The Blatant Beast (quoth he) I do persew,
And through the world incessantly do chase
Till I him overtake, or else subdew:
Yet know I not or how, or in what place
To find him out, yet still I forward trace,
What is that Blatant Beast? (then he replide)
It is a monster bread of Hellish race,
(then answered he) which often has annoyd
good knights and Ladies True, 
and many else destroyd.

Now we come to the best description. (Cerberus is the father, 
Chimaera the mother; Cerberus is guardian of the afterlife, 
the Hound of Hell)

verse 8
Of Cerberus whilome he was begot,
And fell Chimaera in her darksome den,
Through fowle commixture of his filthy blot;
Where he was fostred long in Stygian fen,
Till he to perfect ripenesse grew, and then
Into this wicked world he forth was sent,
To be the plague and scourge of wretched men:
Whom with vile tongue and venemous intent
He sore doth wound, and bite, and cruelly torment.

Finally the Beast is caught; they think to have imprisoned it;
and after all they think teh Beast became harmless and it is released!
So now it is free forever and humanity is stuck with it..

The seventh booke: Canto 12;

Verse 40
So now he rageth through the world againe,
And rageth sore in each degree and state;
Ne any is, that may him now restraine,
He growen is so great and strong of late,
Barking and biting all that him do bate,
Albe they worthy blame, or cleare of crime:
Ne spared he most learned wits to rate,
Ne spared he the gentle Poets rime,
But rends without regard of person or of time


So thats how I developed "Blatant Bill"