2. Edmund Spenser
Hobbinol's love for Colin in Edmund Spenser's The
Shepheardes Calender (1579), inspired by Corydon's
love for Alexis in Virgil's second eclogue, portrays the love
between shepherds as the infatuation typical of the pederasts
criticized by Socrates in Plato's
Symposium rather than the ideal
friendship praised by Diotima and the numerous commentators on
Plato's seminal work such as Marsilio Ficino. The
Calender was written while Spenser was
still an unmarried young man, long before he became "sage
and serious" and had subsumed the ethical friendship theory
of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and
Cicero's De Amicitia, both of which he
would use only later, in the fourth book of The
Faerie Queene (1596). The masculine love in the
Calender comes more from the feeling
human heart than from the aspiring neoplatonic spirit. Hobbinol's
Socratic and emotional love rather than Platonic and educative
love for Colin does not indicate the carnal lust that we too
simplistically take to be the primary component of homosexual
love, but neither does it altogether preclude all desire for
physical contact. No textual evidence explicitly states that
Colin wishes to copulate with Rosalind, but surely we are
justified in describing this as heterosexual love; similarly,
although explicitly erotic textual evidence is lacking, in so far
as Hobbinol's love for Colin parallels Colin's love for Rosalind,
we are justified in classifying it as homosexual love.
This is not a post-Freudian reading that violates the temper of
Spenser's times. At least one of Spenser's contemporaries
acknowledged that the poem was liable to a homosexual
interpretation. The first critic to notice the ambiguity of the
relationship between Hobbinol and Colin is the scholar, critic,
and learned pedant whom we know only by his initials E. K. His
"glosse," published together with the
Calender, calls attention to the
homosexual connotations in the January
eclogue even while taking pains to discount them. I quote it in
full because it is the first critique of a homosexual theme in
literature:
For the reverse of the medal, E. K. is correct that Lucian, in
his Amores, Dialogues of
the Gods, and Dialogues of the
Hetaerae praised physical boy-love. In a dialogue
between a lesbian and a girl, Lucian puts forth as a seduction-
argument the reasonable syllogism that if male homosexual love
is good, then female homosexual love must be equally good;
Achilles and Patroclus are given as examples of the former. E.
K. is further correct that Pietro Aretino could be considered
Lucian's disciple - though more mischievous than devilish - in
so far as his Ragionamenti (1534) were
modeled upon Lucian's similar dialogues between aging
prostitutes. Pietro, otherwise known as "the Divine
Aretino," was most famous for his sixteen obscene sonnets
accompanying Marcantonio Raimondi's engravings of Guilio Romano's
equally obscene mural depicting the Modes of
Intercourse (1524), which came to be known as
"Aretine's Paintings" in most Renaissance literature.
Despite the exclusively heterosexual natural of these sonnets
(only one of which praises heterosexual anal intercourse, an
ecclesiastical crime that was certainly included among the sins
of Sodom), Aretino himself was a well-known homosexual, and wrote
such works as Il Marescalo, a play in
which a Mantuan courtier marries a girl whom he later discovers -
to his delight - to be a boy in disguise.
E. K.'s understanding of Xenophon's
Symposium is debatable, since Socrates
is therein realistically portrayed as a bantering coquette, and
his discussion of boy-love occurs within the framework of erotic
jest. E. K.'s reference to Plato may be to the spurious
Alcibiades I, but this work is largely
irrelevant to the subject at hand, and the reference is more
likely to the pertinent Symposium,
often referred to either as the
Alcibiades or the
Androgyn because of its main character
and subject. Most of the speakers in the
Symposium were overt homosexuals, but
the dramatic and often jesting framework does not allow any one
opinion to predominate. Many Renaissance readers felt that
Aristophanes' speech about the primal hermaphrodite was at least
as profound as Diotima's speech about the ladder of perfection,
despite their different attitudes toward boy-love. But the
important point as far as this present study is concerned is that
contemporary Renaissance opinion does not unanimously concur with
E. K.'s opinion. Sir Philip Sidney, for example, in his
Defense of Poesy (probably written at
almost the same time as Spenser's
Calender) says that Plato in his
Phaedrus and
Symposium, and Plutarch in his
Discourse on Love, both "authorize
abhominable filthiness"; and Socrates was often called
Alcibiades Paedogogus with an intended
pun upon pedant,
pedagogue, and
pederast. Sidney, incidentally, is
correct that Plato in the Phaedrus
"authorized" the physical aspects of boy-love. This
suggests that we should think of boy-love in three aspects rather
than the usual two: spiritual, to be praised; physical, to be
condemned; and physical and spiritual, to be condoned.
E. K.'s "disorderly love" need not refer to
both of the latter. In sum, although modern critics have
accepted E. K.'s refutation as a matter of course, it raises so
many possibilities that his argument would not be convincing to
a learned Renaissance gentleman.
William Webbe, in A Discourse of English
Poetrie (1586), attempts to grapple with the
problems raised by this glosse. Webbe paraphrases E. K.'s
argument, and agrees that the pederastic reading
"overshooteth the poet's meaning," but he strangely
vacillates in his own opinion. He backtracks a little, mentions
that his circle of literary acquaintances had debated the problem
(which apparently aroused some controversy), ponders the problem
a bit more, and then asserts (justly) that critics have no right
to prescribe a poet's morality - the soundest judgement of the
whole Discourse. Then he notices that
the ambiguity exists also in the June
eclogue, whereas E. K. had mentioned it only in regard to
January. Then he offers a speculation
upon Spenser's non-literary behaviour: "perhaps he learned
it from the Italians," who were believed to have a notorious
penchant for sodomy - a possibility that hardly concurs with E.
K.'s reading. And finally, with uncertainty and doubt, he ends
in defeat: "But some will discuss this I hope of better
ability."
Much later, Francis Palgrave in the nineteenth century felt that
"E. K.'s awkward apologetic gloss rather draws attention to
the anachronistic impropriety of this allusion [to Virgil's
second eclogue] than to justify it. Spenser is here, of course,
only obeying the literary impulse of the age towards classical
reproduction." Palgrave is here, of course, only obeying the
complacent moral impulse of his own age, and his comment is
merely an apologetic attempt to remove the tarnish that might
adhere to the work of a favourite poet. We could just as easily
say that Spenser's Epithalamium
exhibits mere literary imitation, and that its praise of
heterosexual love has no relevance to his own personality at the
time. The argument that whatever is morally inconvenient is a
mere literary imitation, if applied universally and consistently,
would render null and void all meaning in all literature, leaving
only a dull vista of skilful literary exercises. The speciousness
of this argument can be illustrated by Richard Barnfield's own
assertion, in a work we will discuss shortly, that he was merely
imitating Virgil in The Affectionate
Shepheard, even though his work is filled with
sentiments such as "If thou wilt be my Boy, or els my
Bride."
But the main objection to Palgrave's interpretation is the
implication that Spenser is not in control of his poetic
materials. It would in fact be more beneficial to Spenser's
reputation as a highly conscious literary artisan to assume that
he was aware of the ambiguity of the relationship, and left it
ambiguous for a deliberate purpose. Spenser may have wished to
establish a nearly exact parallel which could be mathematically
expressed as "Hobbinol is to Colin as Colin is to
Rosalind" in order to show that the male-male-male bond is
spiritually and artistically superior to the male-female bond,
and to establish in high relief the contrast between the negative
Colin-Rosalind gynerasty and the positive Hobbinol-Colin
pederasty (some would-be philosophers feel that the insertion of
an "a" in this term renders it more spiritual; it does
not). Although the Renaissance concept of friendship was
admittedly "stronger" than our own, the parallel would
be not nearly so exact as that required by Spenser's
characteristic literary technique if the erotic element were
rigidly excluded.
The parallelism of pederasty and gynerasty becomes apparent in
the Calender when we compare Colin's
remarks in January with those of
Hobbinol in April: Colin says,
Just as Plato, Mantuan, Barnabe Googe, and numerous medieval and
Renaissance writers, particularly those influenced by the
classical and native anti-feminist tradition, reject gynerastic
love outright, so there are numerous medieval anti-feministic and
anti-heterosexual elements in Spenser's
Calender. The overall tone is set in
January, where "love" (here
synonymous with heterosexual love) causes pains akin to the cold
of winter. Willye's satirical emblem in
March is "To be wise and eke to
loue, / Is graunted scarce to God aboue." Likewise,
Thomalin's emblem in March is "Of
Hony and of Gaule in loue there is store: / The Honye is much,
but the Gaule is more." E. K. in his gloss to these lines
explains that "Hereby is meant, that all the delights of
Love, wherein wanton youth walloweth, be but follye mixt with
bitternesse, and sorow sawced with repentaunce." In
May Piers the good Protestant rejects
love and sees it as mere lust, the standard view of heterosexual
love. In July Thomalin tells of a
shepherd who "left hys flocke, to fetch a lasse" as an
exemplum of the sin of pride. In August
Perigot and Willye discuss not only the pain caused by Cupid's
arrow, but how a shepherd in love commonly neglects his sheep.
December concludes the cycle with an
enumeration of the sorrows and destruction caused by gynerasty
and reestablishes the link between (heterosexual) love and
winter. Of course we could argue, as did Palgrave, that Spenser
is here again "obeying the literary impulse of the age
towards classical reproduction." But conventions do not
exist without a purpose, and are not selected for imitation
without reason. The conventions of anti-heterosexual love
complement the conventions of pro-masculine love, and indicate
the psychic attitude of many Renaissance writers. In
The Shepheardes Calender the
conventions are supported by tone and structure to such a degree
that E. K. justly claimed that the primary purpose of the entire
work was to warn of the follies of (heterosexual) love.
The homoerotic theme of the Calender
goes beyond the mechanics of literary imitation. The immediate
motivation behind the work was Spenser's need to discover himself
as a poet, and even within this context the contrast between
pederasty and gynerasty is importantly linked to the source of
literary creativity. In December Colin
falls in love with Rosalind and is rejected, and therefore breaks
his pipe and ceases to sing. In April
Hobbinol sings the song in praise of fair Eliza which Colin had
written before he had fallen in love with Rosalind. The
meaning, later made explicit, is that poetical talent is lessened
by heterosexual love. The two songs that Colin does create are
about Eliza and Dido, the first a virgin queen, manly-woman
warrior, and Amazonian statesman, the second a dead queen: both
women are unavailable for gynerasty. The elegy for Dido in
November appropriately follows the
discussion in October concerning heroic
rather than pastoral verse, and Cuddie observes that Colin,
"were he not with loue so ill bedight, / Would mount as
high, and sing as soote as Swanne." Piers argues that love
inspires poetry, but Cuddie contends that
Only Hobbinol remained true to Colin, and most of the positive
elements in the Calender focus upon
him. Hobbinol's love for Colin is referred to in the very first
and very last lines of the entire work, and his constancy is
contrasted with the faithlessness of Rosalind. Just as Rosalind
and winter form the negative framework, so Hobbinol's love forms
the positive framework. He appears or is referred to at
structurally significant points, and appears in one of each kind
of eclogue: recreative, plaintive, and moral.
In April, Hobbinol appropriately
recounts Colin's former recreative pastimes and follows this up
by proving Colin's "excellencie and skill in poetrie"
by reciting the song of fair Eliza. The plaintive eclogue in
which Hobbinol appears, June, is the
climax and turning-point of the cycle as Colin and Hobbinol are
brought together again, and Hobbinol is again the positive point
of reference against which all others are measured:
The moral eclogue in which Hobbinol appears,
September, is a polemic on the abuses
of Popish prelates, which curiously establishes sympathetic and
complex nature of Hobbinol's personality. Colin and the other
shepherds are mere figurae with one-dimensional
concerns, whereas Hobbinol has a multi-layered personality.
The central paradox of the Calender is
"that love should breede both joy and payne"
(January, 54). This paradoxical emotion
is experienced by Hobbinol in his pederastic love for Colin as
well as by Colin in his gynerastic love for Rosalind. This joy-
pain, fire-ice paradox is a standard convention in the lover's
complaint tradition, originating in glukupikron, yet the
whole tenor of the Calender suggests
that Hobbinol's pederastic love is fundamentally joyful whereas
Colin's gynerastic love is fundamentally painful. Hobbinol's
diction abounds in terms such as "pleasant,"
"gentle," "calm," "friendly,"
"delight," "chereful," and "pierlesse
pleasures," while Colin's diction abounds in terms such as
"unhappy," "angry," "lucklesse,"
"plaintive," "weary," "carefull,"
"piteous," and "woe." Within a religious
context, Hobbinol's love for Colin symbolizes the grace of God's
bounty, whereas the pain caused by Colin's love for Rosalind
symbolizes damnation; Hobbinol says she is "void of
grace." He also calls her a "witche" who has
"bewitched" Colin (just as Mantuan in his third eclogue
portrays all women as "sorceresses") and led him into
the dark night of the soul, a realm of night ravens, elvish
ghosts and ghastly owls. Colin's emblem, Gia spema
spenta, indicates, as E. K. suggests, that Colin's hopes for
salvation are "cleane extinguished and turned into
despeyre." The argument put forward by some modern
interpreters that Hobbinol's Pan is not the true deity is based
upon Colin's rejection of "The shepheards God (perdie was
he none)" (December. 50). But
"Tytrus" (i.e. Virgil) is also called "The god of
shepheardes" (June, 81), and it
is possible that Colin is rejecting him. The real meaning of his
statement may be that he should have worshipped Pan rather than
the archpoet of heterosexual love. Colin, the fallen Adam., has
misdirected his love, his faith, hope, and charity, towards the
witch-Eve Rosalind rather than towards the unfallen Adam-Christ
Hobbinol.
It is curious that the major metaphor of supposedly heterosexual
love - being shot with Cupid's arrow - is most vividly expressed
in the Calender by an ambiguously
erotic ritual combat between Thomalin and Cupid in the
March eclogue. This eclogue begins with
a eulogy on the sacred precinct as though it were a place in
which a shepherd sports with his shepherdess, with references to
the phallic pride of the budding "tender head" of the
"hawthorne studde," to "flora's flowers," to
"Maia's bower," to dancing with Lettice and awakening
Love from Lethe, and, in general, "sporten in delight."
But there are in fact no women in this eclogue. As it opens, an
older man named Willllye comes upon Thomalin, who is
"overwent with woe." Thomalin says that this is the
third day in which he has "chaunst to fall a sleepe with
sorowe, / And waked againe with grief" because three days
ago an ewe had fallen into a dell and "unjoynted both her
bones." This symbolic episode is recounted as a parallel to
a more specifically castration-like event that happened to
Thomalin several days ago, indicating a symbolic identity between
himself and the ewe (equivalent to Hylas as the fawn). His story
is modeled upon a similar story in Theocritus' third idyll: one
day, while hunting for birds, he heard a rustling within an ivy
cope (the sacred precinct) and saw something moving about.
"But were it faerie, fiend, or snake," he could not
tell. In spite of his ignorance, he "manfully thereat
shotte," and there "sprong forth a naked swayne, / With
spotted winges like peacocks trayne." Naked Eros or Cupid
then leaped into a tree, and Thomalin, even though he now
recognized him, kept shooting arrows at the boy. His "manly
sport" is that of male orgasm: "So long I shott that
al was spent: / The pumie stones I hastly hent." Cupid,
unheart, playfully leaped from bough to bough for awhile, but
then he let loose his own arrow in earnest. The shaft hits
Thomalin in the heel - the basic castration motif associated with
figures such as Achilles, a symbol recognized by E. K. in his
gloss long before Frazer or Freud: "by wounding in the hele
is meant lustful love. For from the heele (as say the best
phisitions) to the previe partes there passe certain veines and
slender synnewes . . . so that (as sayth Hipocrates) yf these
veynes there be cut asonder, the partie straighte becometh cold
and unfruiteful." The eclogue ends without a resolution,
with Thomalin's wound festering and "rankling more and
more," just as Colin "rankles" with love for
Rosalind.
Hobbinol's Edenic garden, like Maia's bower, is rightly called
by Colin a "Paradise" lost by Adam, whereas Rosalind's
realm is that of the witch, of night ravens, of ghosts and black
night where she wipes away his "wanton toyes."
"Wanton" means both "foolish" and
"erotic"/"amorous" in Spenser's diction, and
these "wanton toyes" are the same love-tokens which
Hobbinol had given to Colin. Since Hobbinol already receives from
Colin all the elements requisite for even the strongest form of
friendship according to friendship theory þ spiritual love,
respect, and trust þ his desire to "win his wanton
heart" is a desire to receive amorous love in all its
aspects. In the Calender itself there
is no explicit condemnation or praise of amorous love between
men. Spenser's other poems are similarly ambiguous on this point.
He quite reasonably condemns the giant Oliphant for pursuing a
young boy with purely lustful purposes in mind:
Colin of course is Spenser himself, and Hobbinol is his friend
Gabriel Harvey. The two biographical, rather than literary,
questions are whether or not Harvey's love contained any erotic
motives, and the degree to which Spenser reciprocated his love.
As for the latter, it is clear that Spenser-Colin in the
Calender at least pursued a female and
that he "disdained" Harvey-Hobbinol's advances. There
is no substantial biographical material on Gabriel Harvey which
would either prove or disprove homosexual orientation. Harvey met
Spenser in 1570, when Harvey entered Pembroke College. Spenser
may have been eighteen years old, Harvey may have been twenty
(their respective birth dates of 1552 and 1550 are not absolutely
certain). Their friendship became quite close, lasted throughout
their lives, for long periods involved almost daily contact, and
was certainly "intimate" however we may wish to define
that term. Spenser did not marry until the age of forty-four, and
Harvey never married. This is the extent of the evidence or non-
evidence, and one may be forgiven for inferring that these two
men were not very enthusiastic heterosexuals. We would do best
to accept, along with its ambiguities, E. K.'s estimation that
Harvey was Spenser's "very speciall and most familiar
freend, whom he entirely and extraordinarily beloued."
Go on to 3. Affectionate Shepherds.
Go to Pastoral Bibliography.
CITATION: If you cite this Web page, please use the following form of citation:
In thys place seemeth to be some sauour of disorderly
loue, which the learned call paederastice: but it is
gathered beside his meaning. For who that hath red
Plato his dialogue called Alcybiades, Xenophon and
Maximum Tyrius of Socrates opinions, may easily
perceiue, that such loue is much to be alowed and
liked of, specially so meant, as Socrates vsed it: who
sayth, that in deed he loued Alcybiades extremely, yet
not Alcybiades owne selfe. And so is paederastice much
to be praeferred before gynerastice, that is the loue
which enflameth men with lust toward woman kind. But
yet let no man thinke, that herein I stand with Lucian
or hys deuelish disciple Vnico Aretino, in defence of
execrable and horrible sinnes of forbidden and
vnlawful fleshlinesse. Whose abominable errour is
fully confuted of Perionius, and others.
E. K. is correct that Maximus Tyrius in his
Dissertationes and Joachim Perionius
in his Commentary on Aristotle's Nichomachean
Ethics both condemn the physical aspects of youth-
love, though he does not point out that the subject is not
comradeship but boy-love (from paidos, "boy,"
and astia, "love") - the lover being an adult,
and the beloved being a male between the ages of twelve and
seventeen, or until the hairs begin to sprout on his chin. A
typical passage from Tyrius runs thus: "The one love is mad
for pleasure; the other loves beauty. The one is an involuntary
sickness; the other is a sought enthusiasm. The one tends to the
good of the beloved; the other to the ruin of both. . . . The one
is Greek, the other is barbarous. The one is virile; the other
effeminate" (trans. John Addington Symonds).
It is not Hobbinol, wherefore I
plaine,
And later Hobbinol replies to Thenot,
Albee my loue he seeks with dayly suit;
His clownish gifts and curtsies I disdaine,
His kiddes, his cracknelles, and his early fruit.
Ah foolish Hobbinol, thy gyfts
bene vayne:
Colin them giues to
Rosalind againe.
Nor thys, nor that, so much doeth make me mourne,
The analogues are clear: Colin, with the tressed locks of the
Virgilian formosus puer or the seductive Eros of
Strato's Mousa Paidika, is as much a
disdainful mistress as Rosalind. His wanton heart is sought after
by his daily suitor Hobbinol, who attempts to force his heart -
just as a lover storms the fort of his fair mistress. The gifts
one gives to one's beloved were termed love-tokens and
enticements-to-love in the lover's complaint tradition; a
courtier never gives such gifts to his faithful friend in the
Aristotelian-Ciceronian friendship tradition and it is nonsense
to suggest that such gifts are given from an intellectual motive.
The enticements-to-love that Hobbinol gives to Colin are the very
same kidds and cracknelles, or chestnuts, that Corydon offered
to his similar "shepheardes boye," Alexis. The passing
on of these identical love-tokens to Rosalind indicates that
Hobbinoll's desire for Colin parallels Colin's desire for
Rosalind. The parallels in both passages are systematic enough
to be intentional. Hobbinol, as much as Colin, is attempting to
win the wanton heart of his cruel fair. The only difference
between these otherwise identical situations is that Hobbinol is
concerned with Colin's sorrow as well as his own, while Colin is
concerned with only his personal sorrow. The effect of this
contrast is to suggest that Hobbinol's pederastic love is a love
whose human sympathies remain open, while Colin's gynerastic love
is a love which blinds one to the emotional experiences of
others.
But for the ladde, whome long I lovd so deare,
Now loues a lasse, that all his loue doth scorne:
He plongd in pain, his tressed locks dooth teare.
. . .
Colin thou kenst, the Southern
Shepheardes boye:
Him Loue hath wounded with a deadly darte.
Whilome on him was all my care and ioye,
Forcing with gyfts to winne his wanton heart.
All otherwise the state of Poet stands
In November Thenot complains that
Colin's Muse has been "Lulled a sleep through loues
misgouernaunce," and asks him to sing again. It is
significant that when Colin agrees to take up his pipe again, his
elegy on the death of a great lady will foreshadow the death of
his love for Rosalind. Colin's last statement in
December is that he was a good poet
until (heterosexual) love led his astray, which resulted in his
spring being blasted, his summer being wasted, his autumn reaping
only cares, and his winter enveloping this very spirit.
For lordly loue is such a Tyranne fell:
That where he rules, all power he doth expell.
O happy Hobbinoll, I blesse thy state,
Colin's pagan earthly Eden is where Colin was inspired to compose
his joyful song of Eliza, "where Byrds of euery kind / To
the waters fall their tunes attemper right." As several
critics have suggested, the Calender
is an allegory on the fall of man, and because of the paradox of
felix cupla Hobbinol's Eden can be simultaneously very
positive and yet inadequate; in order for Colin to be saved, it
is necessary that he fall. In his supposed maturity he abandons
Hobbinol's "shepherd's Pan" for "the Great
Pan," i.e. the Christian god.
That Paradise hast found, whych Adam lost.
Say it out Diggon, what euer it hight,
This reply of Hobbinol to Diggon concerning Roffyn illustrates
a man who relates everything to his main interest in life, i.e.
Colin, but at the same time shows his moral integrity and his
human sympathies.
For not but well mought him betight,
He is so meeke, wise, and merciable,
And with his work his worke is conuenable.
Colin clout I wene be his selfe boye,
(Ah for Colin he whilome my ioye)
Shepheards sich, God mought vs many send,
That doen so carefully theyr flocks tend.
(172-9)
. . . a young man, the which fled
But this exemplum cannot be generalized into a
condemnation of amorous love between men, for it clearly involves
the immoralities of violence or force, pure lust for its own
sake, and the abuse of a minor. There is no similar condemnation
of Apollo for loving "Fresh Hyacinthus, Phoebus paramoure
/ And dearest love" (Faerie
Queene, 3. 6. 45). Nor is there any condemnation
of the obviously pederastic love between Sylvanus and Cyparissus:
gazing upon fair Una, Sylvanus "grinnith to revive / His
ancient love, and dearest Cyparisse" (Faerie
Queene, 1. 6. 17). Likewise, Spenser shows no moral
outrage when in the Garden of Adonis, Eros "With faire
Adonis playes his wanton partes" (Faerie
Queene, 3. 6. 49) just as he "playes"
with Psyche þ the repeated term "playes" has erotic
connotations in the former situation if it has any in the latter.
In the medieval masque, the portrait of the boy Fansy is a
portrait of a homoerotically attractive Virgilian formosus
puer:
From an hugh geaunt, that with hideous
And hatefull outrage long his chaced thus;
It was that Ollyphant, the brother deare
Of that Argante vile and vitious,
. . .
For as the sister did in feminine
And filthy lust exceede all woman kind,
So he surpassed his sex masculine,
In beastly use, all that I ever finde:
[he did] The fearefull boy so greedily poursew.
(Faerie Queene, 3. 11.
3þ4)
. . . like a lovely boy,
The homoerotic allusions to Ganymede and Hylas are clear, and
these loves seem to inspire the creative imagination rather than
to cause moral degradation.
Of rare aspect and beautie without peare,
Matchable ether to that ympe of Troy,
Whom Jove did love and chose his cup to beare,
Or that same daintie lad, which was so deare to great
Alcides.
(Faerie Queene, 3. 12.
7).
Return to Return to The Homosexual Pastoral Tradition
Rictor Norton, "Edmund Spenser",
The Homosexual Pastoral Tradition, 20 June 2008 <http://rictornorton.co.uk/pastor02.htm>.
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