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white_hartThanks to our LGBTQIA+ History Month display at work (and presumably my Faculty Board Chair, who is an eighteenth centuryist), I have encountered Aphra Behn's 'To the Fair Clorinda', which I hadn't previously come across.
To the Fair Clorinda, who made love to me, imagin'd more than Woman
Fair lovely Maid, or if that Title be
Too weak, too Feminine for Nobler thee,
Permit a Name that more Approaches Truth:
And let me call thee, Lovely Charming Youth.
This last will justifie my soft complainte,
While that may serve to lessen my constraint;
And without Blushes I the Youth persue,
When so much beauteous Woman is in view
Against thy Charms we struggle but in vain
With thy deluding Form thou giv’st us pain,
While the bright Nymph betrays us to the Swain.
In pity to our Sex sure thou wer’t sent,
That we might Love, and yet be Innocent:
For sure no Crime with thee we can commit;
Or if we shou’d – thy Form excuses it.
For who, that gathers fairest Flowers believes
A Snake lies hid beneath the Fragrant Leaves.
Thou beauteous Wonder of a different kind,
Soft Cloris with the dear Alexis join’d;
When e’er the Manly part of thee, wou’d plead
Thou tempts us with the Image of the Maid,
While we the noblest Passions do extend
The Love to Hermes, Aphrodite the Friend.
I'm sure thatthe_comfortable_courtesan was well aware of this poem (even if Behn's dates are too early for it to have actually referred to her, unless one or other of them had access to a time machine*), but I thought I'd post it here are others may not have been...
*if anyone wants to write Comfortable Courtesan/Aphra Behn time travel fic I would love to read it!
To the Fair Clorinda, who made love to me, imagin'd more than Woman
Fair lovely Maid, or if that Title be
Too weak, too Feminine for Nobler thee,
Permit a Name that more Approaches Truth:
And let me call thee, Lovely Charming Youth.
This last will justifie my soft complainte,
While that may serve to lessen my constraint;
And without Blushes I the Youth persue,
When so much beauteous Woman is in view
Against thy Charms we struggle but in vain
With thy deluding Form thou giv’st us pain,
While the bright Nymph betrays us to the Swain.
In pity to our Sex sure thou wer’t sent,
That we might Love, and yet be Innocent:
For sure no Crime with thee we can commit;
Or if we shou’d – thy Form excuses it.
For who, that gathers fairest Flowers believes
A Snake lies hid beneath the Fragrant Leaves.
Thou beauteous Wonder of a different kind,
Soft Cloris with the dear Alexis join’d;
When e’er the Manly part of thee, wou’d plead
Thou tempts us with the Image of the Maid,
While we the noblest Passions do extend
The Love to Hermes, Aphrodite the Friend.
I'm sure that
the_comfortable_courtesan was well aware of this poem (even if Behn's dates are too early for it to have actually referred to her, unless one or other of them had access to a time machine*), but I thought I'd post it here are others may not have been...*if anyone wants to write Comfortable Courtesan/Aphra Behn time travel fic I would love to read it!
