Silliness, delayed

Back during international love of rhetoric week, a visit to the new nephew interrupted my description of the Great Heaping Pile of Teh Silly a.k.a. Sidney's old Arcadia. So, continuing onward into act three -- yes, it stays just as silly.

Both pairs of young lovers now know who's who, but no one else. The lovers pledge themselves to each other, and the prince disguised as a shepherd convinces his beloved to elope with him -- he finds breaking his promise to the prince disguised as an Amazon, to stay till both get their girls, no obstacle. More inconveniencing is his beloved's insistence that he do nothing dishonorable as they make their getaway. He is, however, a resourceful prince and resorts to folklore -- using tricks to distract her chaperones so they can decamp when the road to the coast is clear.*

Meanwhile, Amazon prince(ss) must cope with being openly wooed by both of "her"** beloved's parents -- awkward enough from the father, but even worse from the mother. When Mom reveals she's seen through the prince(ss)'s disguise, "she" claims that an octogenarian Amazon once defeated him at a joust and made him swear to live as an Amazon until his beard grew in -- in reply to which, out of love-grief Mom tears her clothes in an artfully immodest way. Fortunately, Amazon prince(ss) is armored with love for the daughter and makes "her" saving throw resists the seduction. To comfort Mom, though, "she" does kiss her a couple times -- and the narrator makes it clear that "her" unwillingness to firmly say No only makes things worse for everyone.***

So teenaged boys.

Reports on acts four and five to come.


* Incidentally, the famous sonnet "My truelove hath my heart and I have his" is part of a lie to make his boss's wife jealous.

** The narrator is, at this point, still using female pronouns for boys in drag.

*** And not just because "her" girl gets jealous.

---L.