Aesculapius in The Faerie Queene

Aesculapius is, traditionally, a famous doctor from classical mythology. In The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, he agrees to help Night and Duessa bring Sansjoy back from the dead.

Necromancy was a particularly bad dark art, but one for which Aesculapius was imprisoned in Night’s realm in the first place.

In Christianity, necromancy was particularly evil for two reasons:

The power to raise the dead should be left to God alone

It assumes that mortal life is greater than immortal life in the world to come

In book one, Aesculapius is successful at bringing Sansjoy back from the dead, allowing him to continue his service to Duessa.

See our complete list of Arthurian characters for more entries like this one.

Arthurian Bibliography

• Norris Lacy, Geoffrey Ashe, Debra Mancoff – The Arthurian Handbook (Second Edition)
• Alan Lupack – The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend
• Ronan Coghlan – The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Arthurian Legends
• Anonymous – Lancelot-Grail, the French Vulgate
• Sir Thomas Malory – Le Morte d’Arthur