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Much like Camelot
28 March 2006 07:55 amDuring one of the poetic interludes of Sidney's Arcadia, we learn more about the princes' backstory -- deeds while roaming the eastern Mediterranean like classical knight-errants, performed as they fail to obey a father's summons to Byzantium. One episode in particular is worthy of Ariosto at his love-silly best:
The "great lady" of Palestina calls for their help when a neighboring ruler gets her with child after promising to wed her, then decamping. Though thinking she ought to "have been sure of the church before he had been sure of the bed," they come -- whereupon she forgets the neighbor and falls in love with both princes equally, unable to decide which she prefers. When they show signs of wanting to leave, she imprisons them until she can pick a husband between them. Whereupon that neighboring ruler (remember him?) invades, and the populace frees the valorous duo to deal with him. They do so, then deal with their problematic hostess by ... absconding to Egypt.*
Did I mention they're teenaged boys?
Did I mention Teh Silly? And the moralizing?
* She then falls for several men in succession, we're told, before finally marrying an apple-monger. No word of what happens to the baby she's pregnant with.
---L.
The "great lady" of Palestina calls for their help when a neighboring ruler gets her with child after promising to wed her, then decamping. Though thinking she ought to "have been sure of the church before he had been sure of the bed," they come -- whereupon she forgets the neighbor and falls in love with both princes equally, unable to decide which she prefers. When they show signs of wanting to leave, she imprisons them until she can pick a husband between them. Whereupon that neighboring ruler (remember him?) invades, and the populace frees the valorous duo to deal with him. They do so, then deal with their problematic hostess by ... absconding to Egypt.*
Did I mention they're teenaged boys?
Did I mention Teh Silly? And the moralizing?
* She then falls for several men in succession, we're told, before finally marrying an apple-monger. No word of what happens to the baby she's pregnant with.
---L.