Happy Birthday, Marlowe, the voice that launched a thousand riffs. I seem to always be looting from him, whether it's something like my short story "Fear and Loathing in Deptford" or random bits from passages like this one (part of which just ended up in my latest novel [first draft creeping toward its end, hurrah]). Sic semper geniis, eh?
I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits,
Musicians, that with touching of a string
May draw the pliant King which way I please.
Music and poetry is his delight;
Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night,
Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows;
And in the day, when he shall walk abroad,
Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad;
My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,
Shall with their goat feet dance the antic hay.
Sometime a lovely boy in Dian's shape,
With hair that gilds the water as it glides,
Crownets of pearl about his naked arms,
And in his sportful hands an olive tree,
To hide those parts which men delight to see,
Shall bathe him in a spring; and there, hard by,
One like Actæon, peeping through the grove,
Shall by the angry goddess be transformed,
And running in the likeness of an hart,
By yelping hounds pulled down, shall seem to die:
Such things as these best please his majesty...
3 comments:
sounds like a poofter
Nah, he's just "artistic," you know.
Well, my glib response linked to an article that most folks may not be able to access, so here's an accessible and detailed article about Marlowe's sexuality.
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