Cymochles is a villainous knight in book 2 of The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser. He serves as an antagonist to Sir Guyon, and is the brother of Pyrocles.
Cymochles name means “trouble with waves”, and he is the exact opposite of his brother. He chooses to lie around, be lazy, and enjoy earthly pleasures, while his brother is constantly seeking action and violence.
Eventually, he does take some action after thinking that his brother was killed, and he goes out to take revenge. But he is frequently distracted along the way, and is eventually killed by Prince Arthur along with his brother.
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
See also my ever-expanding list of primary and secondary sources.
