Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/368

 connaisseur of female charms. There must have been many English "stage-boys", quite able when in their women's robes to excite other than tearful passions of uranian spectators, seated in "The Globe" or "The Swan" or at "The Duke's House"; even if Shakespeare has made his Egyptian Queen repudiate the idea of having "some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness".

Apart from Shakespeare himself, dramas and other matters from his contemporaries allude to male-to-male love and to male beauty, especially boyish, with a Greek-Italian quality. Presumptively, it often expressed the real personality of the writers—reflexes of the individual. Occasionally the subject of a stage-play or poem overtly brought such atmosphere into the printed page, the acted scene. To Christopher Marlowe's "The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of King Edward II" we have referred. But even in that piece there is no crude accusation that Edward's passionate tenderness for Piers Gaveston or Hugh Ledispenser is more concrete than of psychic sort. Such a motif is somewhat enhanced in clearness by the dialogues between the King and Gaveston, as by the jealousies of Queen Isabella, who complains that her caresses are despised for those of Gaveston. Noteworthy is the bold word on the royal tie to Piers which the Elder Mortimer speaks when leaving England; cautioning his nephew not to intrigue rashly against Gaveston:

"Nephew, I must to Scotland; thou stayest here. Leave now to oppose thyself against the King. Thou seest, by nature he is mild and calm; And, seeing his mind so dotes on Gaveston, Let him without controulment have his will. The mightiest kings have had their minïons: Great Alexander loved Hephaestion; The conquering Hercules for Hylas wept; And for Patroelus stern Achilles drooped.