Chapter CLIX: Section LII: Fifth side. Despair. A female figure thrusting a

dagger into her throat, and tearing her long hair, which flows down among the leaves of the capital below her knees. One of the finest figures of the series; inscribed "DESPERACIO MOS (mortis?) CRUDELIS." In the Renaissance copy she is totally devoid of expression, and appears, instead of tearing her hair, to be dividing it into long curls on each side.

This vice is the proper opposite of Hope. By Giotto she is represented as a woman hanging herself, a fiend coming for her soul. Spenser's vision of Despair is well known, it being indeed currently reported that this part of the Faerie Queen was the first which drew to it the attention of Sir Philip Sidney.