The name of an allegorical poem by Edmund Spenser, in which 12 knights were, in twelve books, to represent as many virtues, described as issuing forth from the castle of Gloriana, queen of England, against certain impersonations of the vices and errors of the world. Such was the plan of the poem, but only six of the books were finished, and these contain the adventures of only six of the knights, representing severally Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy.