Eve of Love

Sonnet 116

by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Then there's Christopher Marlowe:

Who wrote of lovely Leander:

Amorous Leander, beautifull and yoong,
(Whose tragedie divine Musaeus soong)
Dwelt at Abidus; since him, dwelt there none,
For whom succeeding times make greater mone.
His dangling tresses that were never shorne,
Had they beene cut, and unto Colchos borne,
Would have allur'd the vent'rous youth of Greece,
To hazard more, than for the golden Fleece.
Faire Cinthia wisht, his armes might be her spheare,
Greefe makes her pale, because she mooves not there.
His bodie was as straight as Circes wand,
Jove might have sipt out Nectar from his hand.
Even as delicious meat is to the tast,
So was his necke in touching, and surpast
The white of Pelops shoulder. I could tell ye,
How smooth his brest was, and how white his bellie,
And whose immortall fingars did imprint,
That heavenly path, with many a curious dint,
That runs along his backe, but my rude pen,
Can hardly blazon foorth the loves of men,
Much lesse of powerfull gods. Let it suffise,
That my slacke muse, sings of Leanders eies,
Those Orient cheekes and lippes, exceeding his
That leapt into the water for a kis
Of his owne shadow, and despising many,
Died ere he could enjoy the love of any.
Had wilde Hippolitus, Leander seene,
Enamoured of his beautie had he beene,
His presence made the rudest paisant melt,
That in the vast uplandish countrie dwelt,
The barbarous Thratian soldier moov'd with nought,
Was moov'd with him, and for his favour sought.
Some swore he was a maid in mans attire,
For in his lookes were all that men desire,
A pleasant smiling cheeke, a speaking eye,
A brow for Love to banquet roiallye,
And such as knew he was a man would say,
Leander, thou art made for amorous play:

Even Poseidon, seeing him swimming naked, and thinking he was Ganymede,
Took him deep into the sea, seeking to woo him from Jove.

From Hero and Leander


If Shakespeare knew the heights of Love,
Marlowe knew its depths.

Derek Jarman's

Gaveston and Edward II

Rave time...

Derek Jarman's fiery Edward II (1991) is erotic, political, visually arresting, experimental in the most provocative sense, and unforgettable. Few films of recent years offer so many incisive ideas to ponder or indelible images to savor. Yet with all of its intellectual and artistic sweep, it also connects on a deep emotional level. Some scenes literally made me weep, from the sheer power of Jarman's vision – filmed exactly 400 years after the premiere of its classic source, Christopher Marlowe's verse drama Edward II –


Kisses.

Jack