Malbecco: The Embodiment of Jealousy

Jason

September 26, 2022

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Malbecco is a minor character that appears in book 3 of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. He is the Lord of the castle, and he is not a very likable guy.

When we first hear of Malbecco, he will not let the heroes into his castle because he is simply a non-hospitable man. He would prefer to spend his time hoarding over his treasures and his wife, both of which he keeps locked safely away.

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Malbecco is the embodiment of jealousy, and literally turns into a creature called Jealousy after his wife is taken away from him and most of his riches are burned or stolen. Once all this tragedy strikes, he throws himself over a cliff, but transforms into the creature of Jealousy.

Malbecco acts as a foil to the character of Britomart. He shows the negative sides of keeping things to yourself. Where Britomart keeps her chastity to herself, we can see that such things can be taken to extremes, when such protection is centered on trivial things.

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

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Author

Jason is a huge storytelling nerd devoted to cataloguing storytelling in all its forms. He loves mythology, history, and geek culture. When he's not writing books (see his work at MythHQ.com), his favorite hobbies include hiking, spending time with his wife and daughters, and traveling.