The speaker defends his, and Calidore's, meandering narrative by saying that all the delays which kept him from the Blatant Beast served to illustrate Calidore's courtesy to all. Calidore intends to resume his quest against the Blatant Beast and accordingly takes Pastorella to a nearby castle where Bellamoure and Claribell live. The speaker tells us how many years ago Bellamoure and Claribell fell in love and were secretly married. When Claribell's father discovered this he was enraged because he wanted Claribell to marry the Prince of Picteland. He threw them into separate prisons, but Bellamoure nonetheless snuck over occasionally and they conceived a child. When the child was born, Claribell, fearing her father's further wrath, had her handmaid take the child elsewhere. The handmaid took the child to a field, left it after noting a particular birthmark on its breast, and it was found and raised by a shepherd. Eventually Bellamoure and Claribell were freed and united after her father died. Calidore leaves the castle to find the Blatant Beast as he knows he has been remiss. Claribell's handmaid care for Pastorella and one day she happens to see that Pastorella has a birthmark on her breast. She runs to Claribell, tells her that Pastorella is her lost daughter, and Claribell and Bellamoure are reunited with their child. Calidore searches for the Blatant Beast and finds it has ransacked monasteries and churches. He catches up with the beast, battles it, subdues it by pressing it under his shield, and muzzles it. He then leads it through faery land and people are amazed by it. The Blatant Beast remained subdued till long after when it escaped and no one has or can recapture it. It now ranges through the world and afflicts both the innocent and guilty, including poets. The speaker knows his own verse may also suffer from it, and entreats his verse to strive to please.