Come and live with me and be my love. The homoerotic poetry of Christopher Marlowe
Juan Diego Amoroz Etxebarria article published on the blog The Armari Obert (Spain) On August 9, 2019, freely translated by Giulia Garofani
"Come and live with me and be my love" It is a poem by Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), dedicated to a young man with whom the poet was in love. Despite the evidence, there are still many "scholars" who instead claim that the work is dedicated to a young girl. In case of doubt, everyone is heterosexual.
Virgil inspired most of the pastoral poetry of the English Renaissance. Richard Barnfield (1534-1620), William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Marlowe himself were the best and most brilliant authors of that period. A work that sometimes confuses with its author, like the true relationship between hatred and love between them.
Marlowe was an English translator of Ovid and Virgil, sources of inspiration for his poetic work. Alberto Mira reports that his poem Like Live With Me and Be My Love It is inspired by the seduction of Alessi by Coridone in Virgil's second eglogue. Ambiguous poem, usually translated into Italian "My beloved" and not "My love", Obviously on purpose. This still happens today, despite the furious protest that "My love" (W. Raleigh) He staged seeing the poem published in his old age.
The version of this poem, known in Italian as "The passionate shepherd of his love", is much more ambiguous than the original work; But there is a constant in his work, the young people fascinated by the promises of gifts, narcissists and owls, who like to walk naked to be observed and proclaim the triumph of their beauty: "The more flourishing and feminine is its appearance, more Marlowe seems to believe that the young man is willing to be undressed".
The poem was not published during the life of the English poet and playwright, but in 1599, six years after his death. W. Raleigh, the young man to whom he alluded to Egypt, was taken by anger, since he did not want his habits of youth to know, those years in which "A straw belt, the ivy sprouts, with coral pins, amber buttons or wonderful shoes lined for the cold and with pure gold buckles they could have moved it".
The passionate shepherd of his love
Come and live with me and be my love,
and we will try all the pleasures
that produce the valleys, the groves, the hills and fields,
the forest or the steep mountain.
And we will sit on the rocks,
We will see the shepherds to feed their herds
through shallow rivers, in whose waterfalls
Melodious birds sing Madrigali.
And I'll give you a bed of roses,
and a thousand fragrant twigs,
and a hat of flowers and a tunic,
All bordered with myrtle leaves.
A dress made of fine wool
that we will take from our wonderful lambs,
Beautiful shoes lined with the cold,
with pure gold buckles.
A straw strap and heir shoots,
with coral pins and amber buttons,
And if these pleasures can move you,
Come and live with me and be my love.
The young shepherd will dance and sing
For your delight every morning of May.
If these delights for your mind can move you
Then live with me and be my love.
Original text: Come to vivir conmigo y sé me loves me… marlowe
