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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 68 (previously 25d) - Poetry about Love Between Women from the 16th and 17th Centuries - transcript

(Originally aired 2018/08/26 - listen here)

There’s an ulterior motive behind this podcast. A couple of them, actually. You see, I’ve discovered that I really like reciting old poetry as part of this podcast. And I think you like it too, because the shows that focus on poetry have been fairly popular, like the one looking at translations of Sappho’s poetry, and the one about medieval love poetry. The second ulterior motive is that putting together an episode involving lots of poetry means I don’t have to write as much. And when I’m feeling in a bit of a time crunch, that’s a good thing. Although, as I found, when putting this show together, just because a lot of the text comes from somewhere else, doesn’t mean it doesn’t take a long time to prepare.

So I thought I’d do a few episodes looking at poetry about love between women in various different eras. As usual, there’s a bit of a European and an English language bias simply because of the sources I have easily available, though I may do one specifically on Arabic poetry if I can find some complete texts in translation, rather than just excerpts. And the non-English material will be in translation, which rather undermines the point of it being poetry. As a wise person once said in Italian, “Traduttore, traditore,” a translator is a traitor. Or in the decidedly misogynistic but more flowery version: a translation is like a mistress, if it is beautiful it will not be faithful, and if it is faithful it is probably ugly. But communication is as essential as beauty, so I’ll try for a happy medium. I’ll include the original versions of the non-English works in the transcript for you to read if you like.

Today’s show is about poetry of the Renaissance and early modern period--for all practical purposes, the 16th and 17th centuries. The works are by both women and men. There is a tendency--though not an absolute rule--for the poems by women to be tender and devoted, while the poems by men are cynical and satirical. But there are some interesting exceptions. Rather than doing a strict chronology, I’ve grouped them into some general themes. I’m calling the first group...

The Pangs of Love

These are poems written by women about the sadder side of love or intimacy with other women. It might be jealousy or unfulfilled yearning or mourning for a lost love. We’ll start out with 17th century English poet Katherine Philips.

There is an ongoing debate on whether Katherine Philips can or should be considered a lesbian poet. She was a significant figure in the expression of Neo-Platonic philosophy among women and founded a social circle called the Society of Friendship that embodied those ideals. Her poems are full of sentiments of intense love and devotion for her closest female friends, especially Anne Owen, who is referred to with the poetic nickname Lucasia, while Philips used the name Orinda. Philips created and promoted a community of women’s passionate friendships--this was well before the official era of romantic friendship. But the traces of her intense same-sex relationships in her poetry also document her frustration with the social dynamics that made such friendships tenuous and often subordinated them to marriage. When her beloved Lucasia married, she wrote, “I find too there are few friendships in the world marriage-proof, especially when the person our friend marries has not a soul particularly capable of the tenderness of that endearment. ... Such a temper is so rarely found, that we may generally conclude the marriage of a friend to be the funeral of a friendship.”

The poem I’ve chosen is not one of the more familiar ones written to Lucasia, but one addressed to Mary Awbrey, who had a place in her heart before Lucasia came along. The verses speak of how love makes two beings seem a single person, and how such a love can be a shield against the world. Philips speaks of two souls, minds, and hearts becoming one. When she says, “my breast is thy provate cabinet” she isn’t speaking of a type of closeting to hide their love away, but rather refers to a private intimate space where they can express their true thoughts to each other. Strengthened by their love, they can ignore the troubles of the “dull world” and count themselves rich--a sentiment many can sympathize with today!

To Mrs M Awbrye

by Katherine Philips

(from Faderman Chloe Plus Olivia)

Soul of my Soul, my Joy, my Crown, my Friend,
A name which all the rest doth comprehend;
How happy are we now, whose Souls are grown,
By an incomparable mixture, one:
Whose well-acquainted Minds are now so near
As Love, or Vows, or Friendship can endear?
I have no thought, but what’s to thee reveal’d,
Nor thou desire that is from me conceal’d.
Thy Heart locks up my Secrets richly set,
And my Breast is thy private Cabinet,
Thou shed’st no tear but what my moisture lent,
And if I sigh, it is thy breath is spent.
United thus, what Horrour can appear
Worthy our Sorrow, Anger, or our Fear?
Let the dull World alone to talk and fight,
And with their vast Ambitions Nature fright;
Let them despise so Innocent a Flame,
While Envy, Pride, and Faction play their game:
But we by Love sublim’d so high shall rise,
To pity Kings, and Conquerours despise,
Since we that Sacred Union have engrost,
Which they and all the factious World have lost.

When I did an entire podcast episode about Aphra Behn, the 17th century poet, playwright, and some-time spy, I included several of her more popular works, especially the gender-bending “To the fair Clorinda, who made love to me, imagin’d more than woman.” Rather than repeating any of the poems I used before, here I offer a somewhat bittersweet verse in which Aphra offers her heart to a woman who...well, alas, you’ll find out in the end. Behn was a bit more forthright than Philips in expressing her desire. (And Behn wrote romantic poems addressed to both women and men.) While Philips’ poem danced at the edge of being interpretable as an expression of intense friendship, Behn’s offering is striking in its physicality.

A Song

by Aphra Behn

(from Faderman Chloe Plus Olivia)

While, Iris, I at distance gaze,
And feed my greedy eyes,
That wounded heart, that dies for you,
Dull gazing can’t suffice;
Hope is the food of love-sick minds,
On that alone ‘twill feast,
The nobler part which loves refines,
No other can digest.

In vain, too nice and chaming maid,
I did suppress my cares;
In vain my rising sighs I stay’d,
And stop’d my falling tears;
The flood would swell, the tempest rise,
As my despair came on;
When from her lovely cruel eyes,
I found I was undone.

Yet at your feet, while thus I lie,
And languish by your eyes,
‘Tis far more glorious here to die,
Than gain another prize.
Here let me sigh, here let me gaze,
And wish at least to find
As raptur’d nights, and tender days,
As he to whom you’re kind.

Elizabeth Singer Rowe, like many 17th century poets, was fond of neo-Classical imagery of nymphs and shepherds, as in the chosen selection here. She used the pen name Philomela for her first published collection at age 22. Much of her poetry was religious in nature and she seems to have had an almost neo-Gothick preoccupation with death in her best known collection Letters from the Dead to the Living. In addition to a happy but tragically brief marriage to poet Thomas Rowe, she had an earlier friendship with publisher John Dunton that he, at least, considered romantic though she called it platonic. The same-sex sentiments expressed in her poem “Love and Friendship” don’t seem to correspond to a romantic relationship in Rowe’s own life, and the title gives us a hint that we may be intended to understand a categorical distinction between the love that Amaryllis expresses for her shepherd swain Alexis, and the “nobler warmth of friendship” that Sylvia offers for Aminta. But Sylvia’s sentiments are framed as an “amorous secret”, and the simple act of setting a heterosexual and a same-sex relationship on an equal standing is meaningful. Take note of Sylvia’s appeal to the “chaste goddess of the groves”, which is of course Diana, closely associated with the imagery of women’s same-sex relationships at this time.

Love and Friendship: A Pastoral

by Elizabeth Singer Rowe

(from Poemhunter.com)

Amaryllis:

While from the skies the ruddy sun descends,
And rising night the evening shade extends;
While pearly dews o'erspread the fruitful field,
And closing flowers reviving odours yield,
Let us, beneath these spreading trees, recite
What from our hearts our Muses may indite:
Nor need we in this close retirement fear
Lest any swain our amorous secrets hear.

Sylvia:

To every shepherd I would mine proclaim,
Since fair Aminta is my softest theme:
A stranger to the loose delights of love,
My thoughts the nobler warmth of friendship prove,
And, while its pure and sacred fire I sing,
Chaste goddess of the Groves, thy succour bring.

Amaryllis:

Propitious god of Love, my breast inspire
With all thy charms, with all thy pleasing fire;
Propitious god of Love, thy succour bring,
Whilst I thy darling, thy Alexis sing;
Alexis, as the opening blossoms fair,
Lovely as light, and soft as yielding air:
For him each virgin sighs, and on the plains
The happy youth above each rival reigns;
Nor to the echoing groves and whispering spring
In sweeter strains does artful Conon sing,
When loud applauses fill the crowded groves,
And Phoebus the superior song approves.

Sylvia:

Beauteous Aminta is as early light
Breaking the melancholy shades of night.
When she is near all anxious trouble flies,
And our reviving hearts confess her eyes.
Young Love, and blooming Joy, and gay Desires,
In every breast the beauteous nymph inspires;
And on the plain when she no more appears,
The plain a dark and gloomy prospect wears.
In vain the streams roll on; the eastern breeze
And to the silent night their notes prolong,
Nor groves, nor crystal streams, nor verdant field,
Does wonted pleasure in her absence yield.

Amaryllis:

And in his absence all the pensive day
In some obscure retreat I lonely stray;
All day, to the repeating caves, complain
In mournful accents and a dying strain:
Dear lovely youth I cry to all around;
Dear lovely youth the flattering vales resound.

Sylvia:

On flowery banks, by every murmuring stream,
Aminta is my Muse's softest theme;
'Tis she that does my artful notes refine;
With fair Aminta's name my noblest verse shall shine.

Amaryllis:

I'll twine fresh garlands for Alexis' brows,
And consecrate to him eternal vows;
The charming youth shall my Apollo prove;
He shall adorn my songs, and tune my voice to love.

With Jane Barker’s “On the Death of my Dear Friend and Play-fellow” we are offered the pains of love experienced and then lost. Like the other poets in this group, Barker was forthright in taking feminist stands and arguing for the rights of women--though the poets collected here are otherwise quite diverse in their politics. Barker’s writings were typically aimed at a female audience, as with her structurally innovative work A Patchwork Screen for Ladies which combines romance, poetry, recipes, hymns, and philosophy. She did not marry and expressed disinterest in men, while including homoerotic themes in her writing. We can see that in this presumably autobiographical reminiscence on the death of a close female friend, written in 1688.

Because it comes up in multiple poems of this era, I thought I’d note that the reference to a “turtle” means a turtledove, a common symbol of romantic love and courtship, and is not a reference to a hard-shelled aquatic reptile. Another now-obscure allusion is to Heraclitus, a classical Greek philosopher, nicknamed “the weeping philosopher” for his generally gloomy take on life.

On the Death of my Dear Friend and Play-fellow

by Jane Barker

(from Poetrynook.com)

I dream'd I lost a pearl, and so it prov'd;
I lost a Friend much above Pearls belov'd:
A Pearl perhaps adorns some outward part,
But Friendship decks each corner of the heart;
Friendship's a Gem , whose Lustre does out-shine
All that's below the heav'nly Crystaline.
Friendship is that mysterious thing alone,
Which can unite, and make two Hearts but one;
It purifies our Love, and makes it flow
I'th' clearest stream that's found in Love below;
It sublimates the Soul, and makes it move
Towards Perfection and Celestial Love.

We had no by-designs, nor hop'd to get
Each, by the other, place among the great;
Nor Riches hop'd, nor Poverty we fear'd,
'Twas Innocence in both, which both rever'd
Witness this truth the Wilsthorp-Fields, where we
So oft enjoy'd a harmless Luxury;
Where we indulg'd our easy Appetites,
With Pocket-Apples, Plums, and such delights,
Then we contriv'd to spend the rest o'th'day,
In making Chaplets, or at Check-stone play;
When weary, we our selves supinely laid
On beds of Violets under some cool shade,
Where the Sun in vain strove to dart through his Rays
Whilst Birds around us chanted forth their Lays ;
Ev'n those we had bereaved of their young
Would greet us with a Querimonious Song.

Stay here, my Muse, and of these let us learn,
The loss of our deceased Friend to mourn:
Learn did I say? alas, that cannot be,
We can teach Clouds to weep, and Winds to sigh at Sea,
Teach Brooks to murmer, Rivers to over-flow
We can add Solitude to Shades of Yew.
Were Turtles to be witness of our moan,
They'd in compassion quite forget their own:
Nor shall hereafter Heraclitus be
Fam'd for his Tears, but to my Muse and me;
Fate shall give all that Fame can comprehend,
Ah poor repair for th'loss of such a Friend.

Men Jealous of Women’s Love for Each Other

One of the clues we have that love between women was beginning to be taken seriously in the 16th and 17th centuries is that men were writing about it. And especially when men began to express jealousy about women’s devotion to each other. But in this first poem by French poet Pontus de Tyard, we see an older motif: that of a woman unhappy that the love she feels for another woman is in vain and, by its nature, cannot be achieved. This was a common trope in versions of the classical story of Iphis and Ianthe, but by the Renaissance, women were beginning to contradict that position. Perhaps writers like Pontus needed to reassure themselves that men weren’t being made obsolete.

Like another poem I include in this episode, this one makes a direct connection between the female pair and historical pairs of famous male devoted friends who often featured at this time in discussions of neo-platonic friendships between men that had homoerotic elements.

The original poem is in French and is included in the transcript. The translation I use is from Terry Castle’s The Literature of Lesbiannism and has aimed for a more literal and vernacular style, rather than being strictly metrical or aiming for the feel of 16th century English poetry.

élégie pour une dame énamourée d'une autre dame - Poéme

by Pontus de Tyard

(French from Wikipoemes.com)

J'avois tousjours pensé que d'amour et d'honneur,
Les deux seulles ardeurs qui me bruslent le cueur,
Se pouvoit allumer une si belle flame
Que plus belle clarté ne luisoit dedans l'Ame:
Mais je ne me pouvois en l'Esprit imprimer
Comme ensemble on devoit ces deux feux allumer :
Car combien que ' d'Amour beauté soit la matière,
Et qu'en l'honneur entier la beauté soit entière,
Il ne me sembloit point qu'une mesme beauté
Deust servir à l'Amour et à l'honnesteté.

Je disois : ma beauté d'honneur est en moy-mesme,
Mais non pas la beauté, laquelle il faut que j'aime :
Car la seule beauté de moy-mesme estimer
Ne serait seulement que mon honneur aimer,
Et il faut que l'Amante hors de soy face queste
De la beauté, qu'Amour luy donne pous conqueste :
Donq' l'ardeur de l'honneur en moy seulle aura lieu?
Donques doy-je fuir l'ardeur de l'autre Dieu?

Helas ! beauté d'Amour, te choisiray je aux hommes !
Ha, non : je cognois trop le siècle auquel nous sommes.
L'homme aime la beauté et de l'honneur se rit,
Plus la beauté luy plait, plustost l'honneur périt.
Ainsi du seul honneur chèrement curieuse
Libre je desdaignois toute flame amoureuse,
Quand de ma liberté Amour trop offensé
Un aguet me tendit subtilement pensé.

Il t'enrichit l'Esprit: il te sucre la bouche
Et le parler disert: En tes yeux il se couche,
En tes cheveux il lace un nœud non jamais veu,
Dont il m'estreint à toy : il fait ardoir ' un feu —
Helas qui me croira ! — de si nouvelle flame
Que femme il m'énamoure, helas! d'une autre femme.

Jamais plus mollement Amour n'avoit glissé
Dedans un autre cueur: car l'honneur non blessé
Retenoit sa beauté nullement entamée,
Et l'Amant jouissoit de la beauté aimée
En un mesme suject, ô quel contentement!
Si — légère — il t'eust pieu n'aimer légèrement:
Mais le cruel Amour m'ayant au vif blessée
S'est tout poussé dans moy, et vuide il t'a laissée
Autant vuide d'Amour, vuide d'affection,
Comme il remplit mon cueur de triste passion
Et de juste despit, qu'il faut que je te prie,
Ingrate, et que de moy ta liberté se rie.
Où est ta foy promise et tes sermens prestez?
Où sont de tes discours les beaux mots inventez?
Comme d'une Python feinte et persuasive
Qui m'as sceu enchaîner par l'oreille, captive!

Helas! que j'ay en vain espanché mes discours!
Que j'ay fuy en vain tous les autres Amours!
Qu'en vain seule je t'ay — dédaigneuse — choisie
Pour l'unique plaisir de ma plus douce vie!
Qu'en vain j'avois pensé que le temps advenir
Nous devroit pour miracle en longs siècles tenir:
Et que d'un seul exemple, en la françoise histoire,
Nostre Amour serviroit d'éternelle mémoire,
Pour prouver que l'Amour de femme à femme épris
Sur les masles Amours emporteroit le pris.

Un Damon à Pythie, un Aenée à Achate,
Un Hercule à Nestor, Cherephon à Socrate,
Un Hoppie à Dimante ont seurement monstre,
Que l'Amour d'homme à homme entier s'est rencontré :
De l'Amour d'homme à femme est la preuve si ample
Qu'il ne m'est jà besoin d'en alléguer exemple:
Mais d'une femme à femme, il ne se trouve encore
Souz l'empire d'Amour un si riche thresor,
Et ne se peut trouver, ô trop et trop légère,
Puis qu'à ma foy la tienne est faite mensongère.
Car jamais purité ne fust plus grande au Ciel,
Plus grande ardeur au feu, plus grand douceur au miel,
Plus grand bonté ne fust au reste de nature
Qu'en mon cueur, où l'Amour a pris sa nourriture.

Mais plus qu'un Roc marin ton cueur a de durté,
Plus qu'un Scythe barbare il a de cruauté :
Et l'Ourse Caliston ne voit point tant de glace
Que tu en as au seing : Ny la muable face
Du Nocturne Morphé n'a de formes autant
Qu'a de pensers divers ton esprit inconstant.

Helas ! que le despit loing de moye me transporte !
Ouvre à l'Amour, ingrate !
Ouvre à l'Amour la porte :
Souffre que le doux trait, qui nos cueurs a percé,
R'entame de nouveau le tien trop peu blessé,
Recerche en tes discours l'affection passée :
Resserre le doux nœud dont estoit enlacée
L'affection commune et à toy et à moy,
Et rejoignons ces mains qui jurèrent la foy :
La foy dans mon esprit tellement asseurée,
Qu'elle ne sera point par la mort parjurée.
Mais si nouvel Amour t'embrase une autre ardeur,
Je supply, Contr'Amour, Contr'Amour Dieu vengeur!
Qu'avant que la douleur dedans mon cueur enclose
Me puisse transformer, et me faire autre chose
Que ce qu'ores ' je suis, soit que ma triste voix
Reste seule de moy errante par ce bois,

Ou soit qu'en peu de temps ma larmoyante peine
Me distille en un fleuve, ou m'escoule en fonteine,
Et pendant que je dy et aux Cerfs et aux Dains,
Seule en ce bois touffu, ingrate, tes dédains,
Tu puisses, d'un suject indigne consumée,
Aimer languissamment, et n'estre point aimée!

Elegy for a Lady enamoured of another Lady

by Pontus de Tyard

 (English from Castle The Literature of Lesbianism)

I have ever fixed Love and honour’s bright part
As the only two ardors that burn in my heart,
Could such a magnificent flame ignite
That no brighter Soul could ever alight,
But I knew not how to envision in Thought
How the two fires at once could be wrought
For, as much as beauty is the stuff of Love,
And in Honour entire lies beauty entire,
I could not see how this very beauty
Could be part of both Love and integrity.
Thus I spake: My beauty in honour within myself doth lie,
But not that beauty to myself of value
Would be nought but mine own honour true,
Yet the Lover outside the self must not rest
But seek the beauty afforded Love thorugh conquest:
Thus only honour’s heat will exist in me;
Must I thus flee the ardor of the other Deity?

Alas! Love’s beauty, would I choose you over men?
Aha! no; I know too well this century we are in:
Man loves beauty, and honour doth mock, not cherish;
When beauty pleases him, honour doth perish.
So, as one of one honour alone dearly curious,
And free, I disdained all flame amorous,
When Love by my freedom took offense,
And handed me a decoy immune to my defense.

It enriches the Mind; the mouth it refines,
It sweetens your speech; in your eye it reclines;
In your hair it weaves a knot that fain does amaze,
That binds me to you; it fans a blaze,
(Alas! who will believe?) with such new heat,
That my heart--a woman’s alas! for another woman beats.

Never more softly Love did cruise
Into another heart, with honor unbruised
Retaining there its untarnished beauty
The Lover enjoying this beloved beauty
In the same subject, o Felicity above,
If lightly had it pleased you not lightly to love!

But cruelest Love, having wounded me bereft,
Dislodged all within me and emptiness left,
Emptied of Love, no affection it fashioned,
While filling my heart with miserable passion
And by fair spite, I just cry out my plea,
You’re an ingrate, and your freedom mocks me.
Where is your pledged troth, the oaths you did lend,
Where from your speeches are the words that pretend
Like a python that feints and attracts,
That knew how to chain me by ear to those pacts?

Alas! How I’ve spilled my guts in vain!
How I fled every other Love the same!
How in vain you (scornful one) I chose,
As my one delight, as my life’s rose!
How in vain did I think the time ahead
Would by miracle through the centuries us wed
And that, unique example in French history,
Our Love would serve as eternal memory
Proof that Love of woman by woman may arise
And from all manly Lovers seize the prize.

A Damon for Pythias, an Aeneas for Achates,
A Hercules for Nestor, Cherephon for Socrates,
Hoppius for Diamantus, have shown us yet
That Love of man for man is wholly met.
Of Love of man for woman does proof so abound
There is no need for me to cast around
But of woman for woman there is not yet
In the empire of Love, a trove so richly set,
And it cannot be found, as your flight bespeaks!
Since to my faith your in return was weak,
For never beneath the sun was greater purity,
Nor hotter heat in fire, nor sweeter lick in honey,
No greater bounty found in all of nature,
Than in my heart, where Love had come for nurture!
But harder than the Rock Giraltar is your heart’s rule;
More even than a barbarous Scythian is it cruel.
And Ursa Major has seen less ice eternal
Than you have in your veins; nor does Nocturnal
Morpheus’ shifting visage alter its line
As much as thought transforms in your inconstant mind.

Alas! How spite does from me mine own self remove!
Open up to Love, ingrate, open up to Love!
Suffer that the sweet barb that pierced our heart
Might once more enter yours, too much unhurt;
Seek out in your speeech the affection it once drove;
And retie the sweet knot in which was wove
The common bond that you to me once led,
And let our hands rejoin in vows we pled,
The vow that in my spirit is secure,
That even in death will endure.
But if a new Love enfold you in its fire,
I implore Counter-Love, Anteros, a God so dire
That before the pain within my heart immure
I be transformed, achieving one thing more
Than what I was before, to wit, that my voice alone
Despondent, endure when through this wood I roam
Where in a little time my weeping pain
Would flow in a river or shower from a fountain,
While I tell both Stag and Buck behorned,
Alone in tufted woods, ingrate, of your scorn,
That you might of a subject all unworthy be subsumed,
To pine forlornly, languish, and in your love be doomed!

Edmund Waller’s poem “On the Friendship Betwixt Two Ladies” shows a bit of unease about whether such a close relationship might interfere with the natural order of things. Women, after all, must be available to men! Waller was a 17th century English poet and politician, being active on the royalist side in the English Civil War. Much of his verse, like this one, is of a relatively simple structure rather than following formal conventions, packed with classical allusions. Many of his occasional poems referred to people in his social circle and we can probably assume that the “two ladies” of this poem were inspired by people he knew, but I haven’t been able to track down any guesses of their identities. Waller uses several interesting metaphors, such as comparing a woman’s love to a debt (that she presumably owes so some generic man) and that loving another woman is like a debtor giving away his money so that he can avoid paying the debt. The reference to “the boy’s eluded darts” is, of course, to Cupid’s arrows and Cytherea is another name for Venus who was said to travel in a chariot drawn by doves.

On the Friendship Betwixt Two Ladies

by Edmund Waller

(from Poemhunter.com)

Tell me, lovely, loving pair!
Why so kind, and so severe?
Why so careless of our care,
Only to yourselves so dear?

By this cunning change of hearts,
You the power of love control;
While the boy's eluded darts
Can arrive at neither soul.

For in vain to either breast
Still beguiled love does come,
Where he finds a foreign guest,
Neither of your hearts at home.

Debtors thus with like design,
When they never mean to pay,
That they may the law decline,
To some friend make all away.

Not the silver doves that fly,
Yoked in Cytherea's car;
Not the wings that lift so high,
And convey her son so far;

Are so lovely, sweet, and fair,
Or do more ennoble love;
Are so choicely matched a pair,
Or with more consent do move.

Denis Sanguin de Saint-Pavin was a bit more waspish in his jealousy for women’s mutual affections. He was a French libertine, famed for his lascivious poetry and later nicknamed “the king of Sodom” for his bisexuality. Although the 17th century libertines gave the impression of supporting free love, it often came in a predatory misogynistic flavor. His poem “Two Beauties, Tender Lovers” was not published until two centuries after his death, no doubt due to the subject matter. As with Waller’s poem previously, Saint-Pavin presents love between women as vain and pointless. Women, he claims, cannot satisfy each other, being too similar, so there’s no benefit to denying themselves to men.

Deux belles s’ayment tendrement

by Denis Sanguin de Saint-Pavin

(French from Archive.org)

Deux belles s'aiment tendrement,
L'une pour l'autre s'intéresse.
Et du mesme trcdt qui les blesse
Elles souffrent également.

Sans se plaindre de leur tourment.
Toutes deux soupirent sans cesse,
Tantost l'amant est la maistresse,
Tanlost la mais tresse est l'aniaid ;

Quoy qu'elles fasserd pour se plaire,
Leur cœur ne se peut satisfaire,
Elles perdent leurs plus beaux jours ;

Ces innocentes qui s'abusent
Cherchent en vain dans leurs amours
Les pkdsirs qu'elles nous refusent.

Two Beauties Tender Lovers

by Denis Sanguin de Saint-Pavin

 (English from Castle The Literature of Lesbianism)

Two beauties, tender lovers,
One attends the other equally,
Equally wounded by the same
Affliction, suffering equally.

Uncomplaining in their torment
Both ceaselessly do sigh:
Now the one lover is mistress,
Now the mistress is lover.

Whatever they do for pleasure,
Their hearts are not content,
Wasting thus their daily treasure,

These Innocents, in self-abuse,
Seek pointlessly in their loving
Pleasures which to us they do refuse.

Men Appropriating Lesbian Imagery

If you think that men appropriating the language of lesbianism is a modern invention--that whole annoying thing about, “Oh, I’m a lesbian trapped in a man’s body because I love women too”--rest assured that 16th century dudes were just as annoying. Poetry, after all, was thought to be a manly art, so even the famous Sappho was considered the literary property of men. The following poetic exchange between John Donne and his friend Thomas Woodward is fascinating because not only does it frame Sappho’s love for women in a positive way, but because of how it appropriates that imagery for themselves. Although Donne wrote a fair amount of sensual poetry, probably his most famous work is the meditation that concludes, “any man’s death diminishes me for I am involved with mankind. Therefore do not send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Donne’s poem “Sappho to Philaenis” written in 1633 imagines the ancient poet lamenting that her poetry has failed to secure the heart of her beloved. The poem includes a number of references to Sappho’s poem “He seems like a god to me” but also makes the argument for the greater desirability of same-sex love for women in that it creates no risk of pregnancy. To this end, Donne uses some rather colorful agricultural metaphors. I’m not sure that I’d risk calling my beloved “a natural paradise...unmanured!” Another theme is that love between women is natural because the touch of two women’s bodies is like a body touching itself. This is one of the themes common in this era that simultaneously supports and undermines same-sex love, that a woman loving another woman is like a woman loving herself.

Sappho to Philaenis

by John Donne

 (from Bartleby.com: John Donne (1572–1631).  The Poems of John Donne. 1896.)

WHERE is that holy fire, which verse is said
To have? Is that enchanting force decay’d?
Verse that draws nature’s works from nature’s law,
Thee, her best work, to her work cannot draw.
Have my tears quench’d my old poetic fire?
Why quench’d they not as well that of desire?

Thoughts, my mind’s creatures, often are with thee,
But I, their maker, want their liberty.
Only thine image in my heart doth sit,
But that is wax, and fires environ it.
My fires have driven, thine have drawn it hence;
And I am robb’d of picture, heart, and sense.

Dwells with me still mine irksome memory,
Which, both to keep and lose, grieves equally.
That tells me how fair thou art; thou art so fair
As gods, when gods to thee I do compare,
Are graced thereby; and to make blind men see,
What things gods are, I say they’re like to thee.

For if we justly call each silly man
A little world, what shall we call thee then?
Thou art not soft, and clear, and straight, and fair,
As down, as stars, cedars, and lilies are;
But thy right hand, and cheek, and eye, only
Are like thy other hand, and cheek, and eye.

Such was my Phao awhile, but shall be never,
As thou wast, art, and O, mayst thou be ever.
Here lovers swear in their idolatry,
That I am such; but grief discolours me.
And yet I grieve the less, lest grief remove
My beauty, and make me unworthy of thy love.

Plays some soft boy with thee, O, there wants yet
A mutual feeling which should sweeten it.
His chin, a thorny, hairy unevenness
Doth threaten, and some daily change possess.

Thy body is a natural paradise
In whose self, unmanured, all pleasure lies,
Nor needs perfection; why shouldst thou then
Admit the tillage of a harsh rough man?
Men leave behind them that which their sin shows,
And are as thieves traced, which rob when it snows.

But of our dalliance no more signs there are,
Than fishes leave in streams, or birds in air;
And between us all sweetness may be had,
All, all that nature yields, or art can add.
My two lips, eyes, thighs, differ from thy two
But so, as thine from one another do,

And, O, no more; the likeness being such,
Why should they not alike in all parts touch?
Hand to strange hand, lip to lip none denies;
Why should they breast to breast, or thighs to thighs?

Likeness begets such strange self-flattery,
That touching myself all seems done to thee.
Myself I embrace, and mine own hands I kiss,
And amorously thank myself for this.
Me, in my glass, I call thee; but alas,
When I would kiss, tears dim mine eyes and glass.

O cure this loving madness, and restore
Me to thee, thee my half, my all, my more.
So may thy cheeks’ red outwear scarlet dye,
And their white, whiteness of the Galaxy;

So may thy mighty, amazing beauty move
Envy in all women, and in all men love;
And so be change and sickness far from thee,
As thou by coming near keep’st them from me.

The attribution of the next poem to John Donne’s friend Thomas Woodward is in part conjuctural. The poem appears in a 1620 collection of Donne’s work with the heading “To Mr. J.D. (T.W.).” Scholars are fairly certain of the attribution to Woodward. Donne and Woodward were certainly close friends. There are suggestions that there may have been an erotic aspect to their relationship. The imagery in this poem is clearly intended as a response to that in the previous, though in a decidedly less elevated vein. Woodward envisions the two female figures as their respective muses, engaged in “mystic tribadry” resulting in an orgasm--spending her pith--that is this poem. The classical reference “Bassa’s adultery no fruit did leave” refers to the classical Roman writer Martial’s riddle about how a woman named Bassa could commit adultery with no man present.

To Mr. J.D. (T.W.)

attributed to Thomas Woodward

(from Archive.org)

Thou sendst me prose and rimes, I send for those
Lynes, which, being neither, seem or verse or prose.
They'are lame and harsh, and have no heat at all
But what thy Liberall beams on them let fall.
The nimble fyre which in thy braynes doth dwell
Is it the fyre of heaven or that of hell ?
It doth beget and comfort like Heavens eye,
And like hells fyre it burnes eternally.
And those whom in thy fury and judgment
Thy verse shall skourge like hell it will torment.
Have mercy on mee and my sinful! Muse
Which rub'd and tickled with thine could not chuse
But spend some of her pith, and yeild to bee
One in that chaste and mistique Tribadree.
Bassae’s adultery no fruit did Leave,
Nor theirs, which their swollen thighs did nimbly weave,
And with new armes and mouths embrace and kiss.
Though they had issue was not like to this.
They Muse, oh strange and holy lecheree,
Beeing a mayd still, gott this song on mee.

Satire and Vituperation

Of course, the ribald and teasing imagery of Woodward’s verse is only one small step from satire and vituperation aimed at actual women. The accuastion of lesbianism has long been a staple of men’s attempts to control women’s entrance into realms they considered exclusively male. As I noted above, in the Renaissance, men overtly claimed that poety was a quintessentially masculine art. One of the reasons for male fascination with the figure of Sappho was to identify ways to masculinize her or to appropriate her work in order to remove her apparent exception to this claim.

English poet and playwright Ben Johnson considered the poetic career of courtier Cecilia Bulstrode to be almost a personal affront, perhaps because he thought Bulstrode’s patroness, the Countess of Bedford, should have patronized his work instead. But also because--as he implies in his opening salvo--that she’d dared to criticize him. His venom took the form in 1640 of suggesting rather crudely that she had homoerotic tendencies, implying that her poetry could only result from raping her poetic muse. There’s no evidence that Cecilia Bulstrode had any more pointed interest in women than usual. In fact, another contemporary who satirized her did so after jilting her after she pursued him romantically. But it scarcely matters in what direction Bulstrode’s desires lay. For men, it was enough that she dared to rival them and must be torn down. And one of the easiest ways to do so was to frame her as mannish and perverse.

In the first line of the poem, people may be familiar with the French word pucelle as being an epithet of the medieval heroine Joan of Arc, known as “La Pucelle” or “the maiden”. But by the 17th century, it had picked up a derogatory sense and probably was a fancy way of saying whore. But Johnson doesn’t restrict himself to sexual insults. He accuses her of vanity, then turns around and suggests she feigns too much piety. That she loves fine clothes, yet is ugly and that no man would want her. I confess the more he goes on, the more I’m cheering for Cecilia.

Epigram on Cecilia Bulstrode

by Ben Johnson

(from Castle The Literature of Lesbianism)

Does the court pucelle then so censure me,
And thinks I dare not her? Let the world see.
What though her chamber be the very pit
Where fight the prime cocks of the game, for wit?
And that as any are struck, her breath creates
New in their stead, out of the candidates?

What though with tribade lust she force a muse,
And in an epicoene fury can write news
Equal with that which for the best news goes,
As airy, light, and as like wit as those?

What though she talk, and can at once with them
Make state, religion , bawdry, all a theme?
And as lip-thirsty, in each word’s expense,
Doth labour with the phrase more than the sense?

What though she ride two mile on holidays
To church, as others do to feasts and plays,
To show their ‘tires, to view and to be viewed?
What though she be with velvet gown endued,
And spangled petticoats brought forth to eye,
As new rewards of her old secrecy?

What though she hath won on trust, as many do,
And that her truster fears her: must I too?
I never stood for any place: my wit
Thinks itself nought, though she should value it.
I am no statesman, and much less divine;
For bawdry, ‘tis her language, and not mine.
Farthest I am from the idolatry
To stuffs and laces: those my man can buy.
And trust her I would least, that hath foreswore
In contract twice; what can she perjure more?
Indeed, her dressing some man might delight,
Her face there’s none can like by candle-light.
Not he that should the body have, for case
To his poor instrument, now out of grace.

Shall I advise thee, pucelle? Steal away
From court, while yet thy fame hath some small day;
The wits will leave you, if they once perceive
You cling to lords, and lords, if them you leave
For sermoneers: of which now one, now other
They say you weekly invite with fits of the mother,
And practise for a miracle; take heed
This age would lend no faith to Darrel’s deed:
Or if it would, the court is the worst place,
Both for the mothers and the babes of grace;
For there the wicked in the chair of scorn
Will call it a bastard, when a prophet’s born.

The French poet François de Maynard was even more forthright in what he accused his subjects of, though he had the courtesy (or perhaps the sense) to cloak them in pastoral nicknames. De Maynard was a contemporary of the French courtier Brantôme who wrote very explicitly of the homoerotic exploits of the women of the French court. Here, writing in 1646, he makes the intent of his verse plain in titling it “Tribades, or Lesbians.” The translation, taken from Terry Castle’s The Literature of Lesbianism, uses modern slang to match the sense and tone of the original. It keeps the rhyme scheme but doesn’t attempt to match the meter.

Tribades seu lesbia

by François de Maynard

(French from Poesie-erotique.net)

Ils sont bien battus, vos beaux yeux,
N'en accusez pas la migraine,
Mais bien la fureur de Clymene
Et vos doits, à qui serrait mieux
Braguette que gant ni mitaine.

Si votre doigt savait pisser,
Avec ce qu'il sait deja faire,
Belle Phyllis, c'est chose claire
Qu'on le pourrait faire passer
Pour quelque chose qu'il faut taire.

Pour avoir, comme vous avez,
Une main si blanche et si nette,
Comment diable est-ce que vous faite,
Car le trou où vous la lavez
Est une étrange savonette ?

Tribades or Lesbia by François de Maynard

 by François de Maynard

 (English from Castle The Literature of Lesbianism)

Your gorgeous eyes are sorely wrecked
And migraine’s not the wind that’s bitten
But rather Clymena’s fierce delect
And your fingers, better fitting
In an open fly than a glove or mitten.

If your finger could shoot its wad
With all it knows to do to date
Sweet Phyllis, there’s no debate
That readily it could masquerade
For something much too crude to name.

To have, as is your pride,
A hand so white and clean
How in hell do you keep it preened
When the tub in which you slide
It has such strange soap, I mean?

17th century England saw a great deal of anxiety and debate on the proper distinction of the genders and the disaster that would come from men appropriating feminine tastes and women claiming masculine prerogatives. This played out in religious polemics, on the stage, and in popular verse. The following are two anonymous linked broadside ballads published in 1698, verging on the pornographic in tone, that form a satirical dialogue. The first is entitled “The Women’s Complaint to Venus” purporting to be the voice of English women complaining that the men were all turned into sodomites, though there are also several political jabs included, such as the quite accurate suggestion that King Charles II was prone to ennobling his mistresses.

Women’s complaint to Venus

by Anonymous

(from RictorNorton.co.uk)

How happy were good English Faces
Till Mounsieur from France
Taught Pego a Dance
To the tune of old Sodom's Embraces.

But now we are quite out of Fashion:
Poor Whores may be Nuns
Since Men turn their Guns
And vent on each other their passion.

In the Raign of Good Charles the Second
Full many a Jade
A Lady was made
And the Issue Right Noble was reckon'd:

But now we find to our Sorrow
We are overrun
By Sparks of the Bum
And peers of the Land of Gommorah.

The Beaus too, whom most we rely'd on
At Night make a punk
Of him that's first drunk
Tho' unfit for the Sport as John Dryden.

The Souldiers, whom next we put trust in,
No widdow can tame
Or virgin reclaim
But at the wrong Place will be thrusting.

Fair Venus, thou Goddess of Beauty,
Receive our Complaint.
Make Rigby Recant
And the Souldiers henceforth do their duty.

The second broadside offers “Venus’s Reply” retorting that the women brought this all on themselves by preferring lesbian sex, using possibly the earliest known use of the slang phrase “the game of flats”. In fact, this broadside is quite educational with all its synonyms for fucking: “tup”, “swinge”. The ballad also mentions Green Sickness, which was thought to be an illness suffered by women who weren’t getting enough sex.

Venus’s Reply

by Anonymous

(from SecretHistoriesProject.tumblr.com)

Why Nymphs, these pitiful stories,
But you are to blame,
And have got a new game
Call’d Flatts with a swinging Clitoris. 

Besides I have heard of wax tapers
With which you get up
And each other Tup
To cure the Green Sickness and Vapours. 

I am told by a delicate Seignior
Some Matrons do ease
Their Lust, and so please
They’ve not been laid with these ten years.

Your Frogmore frolicks discover
Some Reasons of Art
So play the man’s part
You are for no Masculine Lover.

At all which I am so offended
My Son at Men’s hearts
Will throw no more darts
Till your Lust and your lives are amended.

Forsake but these odd ways of sinning,
And I’ll undertake
The arrantest Rake
Shall swinge you as at the beginning.

The Triumph of Love

I’ve saved the most positive and most lyrical poems for last, in a group I call The Triumph of Love. These poems are all written by women and addressed to the women they loved, in a myriad of ways. It includes romantic love, near-worshipful devotion, and simply reveling in the excellence of one’s beloved. The poems are in Scots, Spanish, and French, all providing evidence of the emotions we lose when women’s voices are suppressed in the historic record.

The first is anonymous, and the female authorship is attributed largely on the basis of the viewpoint and treatment of the subject, as well as the female persona of the poem’s voice. It comes from a collection called the Maitland Quarto Manuscript dating the 16th century that is a major source of Scots literature of that era. By “Scots” this means neither Scottish Gaelic nor English with a Scottish accent, but the close relative of English that developed along its own path in Scotland. If you’ve ever read the poetry of Robert Burns, you’ve encountered the Scots language. The verse can be rended fairly closely in English by tweaking a handful of words, but the rhymes are sometimes impaired. The adaptation to English is my own work.

There are a lot of classical and biblical references in this piece. Rather than listing them all, I’ll just note that if you hear two names being mentioned together, they’re either famous lovers or famous male platonic friends. The poem is innovative in claiming for a female couple the right to be set beside those well-known pairs.

Maitland Quarto Manuscript, Poem 49

by Anonymous

(Scots from Archive.org)

As Phoebus in his spheris hicht
precellis the kaip Crepusculein
And phoebe all the starris licht
3our splendour so madame I wein
Dois onlie pas all feminine
In sapience superlative
Indewit with vertewis sa devine
as leirned pallas rediviue.

And as be hid vertew vnknawin
The adamant drawis yron thairtill
3our courtes nature so hes drawin
My hairt 3ouris to continew still
Sa greit Ioy dois my spreit fulfill
contempling 3our perfectioun
3e weild me holie at 3our will
and raviss my affectioun.

3our perles Vertew dois provoike
and loving kyndnes so dois move
My Mynd to freindschip reciproc
That treuth sall try sa far above
The auntient heroicis love
as salbe thocht prodigious
and plaine experience sall prove
Mair holie and religious.

In amitie perithous
To theseus wes not so traist
Nor Till Achilles patroclus
nor pilades to trew orest
Nor 3it achates luif so lest
to gud AEnee nor sic freindschip
Dauid to Ionathan profest
nor Titus trew to kynd Iofip.

Nor 3it Penelope I wiss
so luiffed vlisses in hir dayis
Nor Ruth the kynd moabitiss
Nohemie as the scripture sayis
nor portia quhais worthie prayiss
In romaine historeis we reid
Quha did devoir the fyrie brayiss
To follow brutus to the deid.

Wald michtie Iove grant me the hap
With 3ow to haue 3oar brutus pairt
and metamorphosing our schap
My sex intill his vaill convert
No brutus then sould caus ws smart
as we doe now vnhappie wemen
Then sould we bayth with Ioyfull hairt
honour and bliss the band of hymen.

3ea certainlie we sould efface
Pollux and castoris memorie
and gif that thay desseruit place
amang the starris for loyaltie
Then our mair perfyte amitie
mair worthie recompence sould merit
In hevin eternall deitie
amang the goddis till Inherit.

And as we ar thocht till our wo
nature and fortoun doe coniure
and hymen also be our fo
3it luif of vertew dois procuire
freindschip and amitie sa suire
with sa greit feruencie and force
Sa constantlie quhilk sall Induire
That not bot deid sall ws divorce.
And thocht aduersitie ws vex
3it be our freindschip salbe sein
Thair is mair constancie in our sex
Then euer amang men has bein
no troubill / torment / greif / or tein
nor erthlie thing sall ws disseuer
Sic constancie sall ws mantein
In perfyte amitie for euer.

(English adaptation by Heather Rose Jones)

As Phoebus in his spheres height
Excells the cape Crepusculine
And Phoebe all the star’s light
Your splendour, so madame I ween,
Does only pass all feminine
In sapience superlative
Endowed with virtues so divine
As learned Pallas does revive.

And as by hidd’n virtue unknown
The adamant draws iron there-till
Your courteous nature so has drawn
My heart, yours to continue still
So great joy does my spirit fulfill
Contemplate your perfection
You wield me wholly at your will
And ravish my affection.

Your peerless virtue does provoke
And loving kindnes so does move
My mind to freindship reciproc’
That truth shall try so far above
The ancient heroic’s love
As shall be thought prodigious
And plain experience shall prove
More holy and religious.

In amity, Pirithous
To Theseus had not such trust
Nor to Achilles, Patroclus
Nor Pylades to true Oreste
Nor yet Achates love so leased
To good AEneas nor such friendship
Dauid to Jonathan professed
Nor Titus true to kind Josip.

Nor yet Penelope I wis
So loved Ulysses in her days
Nor Ruth the kind Moabitess
Nohemie, as the scripture says
Nor Portia whose worthy praise
In Roman histories we read
Who did devour the fiery blaze
To follow Brutus to the dead.

Would mighty Jove grant me the hap
With you to have your Brutus’ part
And metamorphosing our shape
My sex into his will convert
No Brutus then should cause us smart
As we do now--unhappy women
Then should we both with joyful heart
Honour and bless the band of Hymen.

Yea, certainly we should efface
Pollux and Castor’s memory
And if that they deservéd place
Among the stars for loyalty
Then our more perfect amity
More worthy recompence should merit
In heaven eternal deity
Among the gods to inherit.

And as we are, though to our woe,
Nature and fortune do conjure
And hymen also be our foe
Yet love of virtue does procure
Friendship and amity so sure
With so great fervency and force
So constantly which shall endure
That nought but death shall us divorce.
And though adversity us vex
Yet be our friendship shall be seen
There is more constancy in our sex
Than ever among men has been
No trouble, torment, grief, or pain
Nor earthly thing shall us dissever
Since constancy shall us mantain
In perfect amity for ever.

Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz was no ordinary nun of the Order of Saint Jerome. She had one of the largest private libraries in 17th century Mexico, with 4000 volumes, and pursued scientific experiments as well as writing poetry. De la Cruz wrote romantic poetry primarily to two women who were both friends and powerfull patronesses, and to whom she gave poetic nicknames in her work. Leonor Carreto, the Marquise de Mancera, wife of the Viceroy of Mexico, was addressed as Laura in de la Cruz’s love poems. Some time after Laura’s death, de la Cruz began writing poems to “Lysi” her nickname for Luisa Manrique de Lara y Gonzaga, the Marquise de la Laguna and Countess of Paredes, who arranged for a volume of de la Cruz’s poetry to be published in Spain. The poems invoke themes of both the courtly love tradition of the past and the romantic friendship tradition of the future, fitting comfortably into a celebration of platonic same-sex friendship used by both women and men in expressing loves that would be less acceptable if interpreted as carnal. The poem I’ve chosen is addressed to Lysi, her second love.

Divina Lysi mía

by Juana Inés de la Cruz

(Spanish from Poemhunter.com)

Divina Lysi mía:
perdona si me atrevo
a llamarte así, cuando
aun de ser tuya el nombre no merezco.

A esto, no osadía
es llamarte así, puesto
que a ti te sobran rayos,
si en mí pudiera haber atrevimientos.

Error es de la lengua,
que lo que dice imperio
del dueño, en el dominio,
parezcan posesiones en el siervo.

Mi rey, dice el vasallo;
mi cárcel, dice el preso;
y el más humilde esclavo,
sin agraviarlo, llama suyo al dueño.

Así, cuando yo mía
te llamo, no pretendo
que juzguen que eres mía,
sino sólo que yo ser tuya quiero.

Yo te vi; pero basta:
que a publicar incendios
basta apuntar la causa,
sin añadir la culpa del efecto.

Que mirarte tan alta,
no impide a mi denuedo;
que no hay deidad segura
al altivo volar del pensamiento.

Y aunque otras más merezcan,
en distancia del cielo
lo mismo dista el valle
más humilde que el monte más soberbio,

En fin, yo de adorarte
el delito confieso;
si quieres castigarme,
este mismo castigo será premio.

My Divine Lysi: To the Marquise de la Laguna

by Juana Inés de la Cruz

 (English from Faderman Chloe Plus Olivia)

Divine one, my Lysi;
Forgive me if I dare
To call you mine
Though I do not merit to be called “yours.”

I believe it is not presumption
To address you thus--
For you are so radiant
That my daring could not dim you.

It is merely the tongue that misspeaks
When one states that the master’s empire,
His very domain,
Belongs to the slave.

 “My King,” says the vassal;
“My jail,” says the prisoner;
And the humblest of slaves
Calls his master “his” without offense.

So, when I call you mine
I have no pretense
That all will think you are mine.
It means only that I want to be yours.

I saw you, but that is enough;
In discoursing of fires
It is enough to point to the cause
Without dwelling on the blame of the effect.

To see you so distant
Does not deter my daring;
No deity is secure
From the arrogant flight of the mind.

And though there may be others more deserving,
The most humble valley
And the loftiest mountain
Are equidistant from Heaven.

Finally, I plead guilty
Of adoring you;
If you wish to punish me
That punishment will be my reward.

Anne de Rohan-Chabot was a French noblewoman of the 17th century. Although the poem “On a Lady Named Beloved,” written in 1617, clearly expresses her romantic love for a woman, distinguishing what she feels from friendship and invoking Cupid as a clear signifier of erotic feelings, like many other 17th century women who wrote similar poetry, her interests leaned toward both men and women. She was, for a time, the mistress of King Louis XIV, and she was famous for her devotion to her much older husband.

I don’t think we know who the woman is who inspired this tender poem. Anne was highly educated, and we can see echos of Sappho’s poetry in the repeated phrase about someone being “like a god”. The known works of Sappho had been published in French by her time.

Sur une Dame Nommée Aimée

by Anne de Rohan-Chabot

(Both French and English from Stanton The Defiant Muse)

Belle, j’aurais un très grand tort
Si pour votre grâce estimée
J’avais reçu l’amoureux sort;
Pour autre que pour vous ma chère Aimée,

Tous les olympiques flambeaux
De leur carrière enluminée
Ne sont point ornements plus beaux
Que les yeux de ma bell Aimée

Amour, ravi de ses beaux yeux,
La main droite et de flèche armée
Darda dans mon coeur soucieux
L’ardent désir d’aimer Aimée,

Je ne sais s’ils sont cieux ou dieux
Dont la puissance m’est cachée
Et qui me contraint en tous lieux
De mourir pour aimer Aimée.

A les voir ils me semblent cieux;
Ils sont de couleur azurée,
Par leur effet je les crois dieux,
Me forçant d’aimer cette Aimée.

Bref, je les tiens pour cieux et dieux,
Par cette force recelée
Et par leur aspect lumineux,
N’ayant rien plus cher que mon Aimée.

On a Lady Named Beloved

by Anne de Rohan-Chabot

Beauty, it would be a great wrong,
If, for your worthy graces,
I had been dealt the lover’s fate;
For anyone but you, my dear Beloved,

All the Olympic torches,
Illuminated in their course,
Are not lovelier ornaments
Than the eyes of my beautiful Beloved.

Cupid, delighted with those eyes,
His right hand armed with an arrow
Shot into my troubled heart
The ardent desire to love my Beloved.

I know not whether they be heavens or gods
Whose power from me is hidden
And compels me, both near and far,
To die so as to love my Beloved.

To see them, they seem like the heavens,
Of azure color are they,
But by their effects they’re like gods,
Forcing me yet to love that Beloved.

For me, then, they’re both heavens and gods,
Because of their hidden power
And luminous appearance,
For I hold nothing dearer than my Beloved.

Conclusion

And that seems a good note to end on. We have seen the wide variety of interpretations and presentations of love between women in European poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries. That diversity reminds us that people in history never had a single understanding or opinion about same-sex love. The condemnation existed side by side with the celebration, the scorn with the praise. And more than anything, the poems by women remind us of all the voices that were silenced and suppressed, whose thoughts we can only imagine.

---

Show Notes

This episode takes a poetic tour through expressions of, and reactions to, love between women in 16th and 17th century Europe.

In this episode we talk about:

• Poems about the pangs of love
  • “To Mrs M Awbrye” by Katherine Philips
  • “A Song” by Aphra Behn, see also the podcast on Behn
  • “Love and Friendship: A Pastoral” by Elizabeth Singer Rowe
  • “On the Death of my Dear Friend and Play-fellow” by Jane Barker
• Men jealous of women’s love for each other
  • “Elegy for a Lady Enamoured of Another Lady” by Pontus de Tyard
  • “On the Friendship Betwixt Two Ladies” by Edmund Waller
  • “Two Beauties, Tender Lovers” by Denis Sanguin de Saint-Pavin
• Men appropriating lesbian imagery
  • “Sappho to Philaenis” by John Donne
  • “To Mr. J.D. (T.W.)” by Thomas Woodward
• Poems of satire and vituperation
  • “Epigram on Cecilia Bulstrode” by Ben Johnson
  • “Tribades or Lesbia” by François de Maynard
  • “Women’s Complaint to Venus” and “Venus’s Reply” by anonymous
• The triumph of love
  • Maitland Quarto MS Poem 49
  • “My Divine Lysi” by Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz
  • “On a Lady Named Beloved” by Anne de Rohan-Chabot

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Book Appreciation with Darlene Vendegna - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 67 (previously 25c)

(Originally Aired 2018/08/18 - listen here)

Heather Rose Jones: For today's book appreciation show, The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast is delighted to welcome Darlene Vendegna to talk about some of her favorite historically based fiction featuring queer female characters. Darlene is a voracious reader and energetic booster of lesbian fiction and I'm glad to have this opportunity to have her on the show. This is an unusual recording session because we're actually sitting here in Darlene’s lovely little house in Oakland to record. I first met Darlene at a reading at Laurel Book Store right after my first book came out. And well, let's let her talk about it.

Darlene Vendegna: Yeah, we first met at Laurel Book Store, but we almost met when you did your launch party at the late, great Other Change of Hobbit in… Where was it? In Richmond or…?

H: That's El Cerrito then.

D: Oh, El Cerrito. Oh god, yeah, they moved to El Cerrito, yeah. But I got the time wrong which is not unusual for me, [Heather laughs] and we got there I think too early for it and we couldn't wait around.

H: Yeah. And I showed up for the reading [Darlene laughs] and Tom Whitmore said… Was it Tom? No, I don’t think Tom was there. It was Dave. Dave said, he's like, “There were these people here earlier that came for your reading.” And I'm thinking, "Who? [Darlene laughs] Who is this? Who even knew about it?” [Darlene and Heather laugh]

D: Well, and I knew about it because Karin Kallmaker, who's with Bella, is a good friend of mine and she said, “Hey, this new book came out and I think it's up your alley and my daughter loves this author. She wrote a lot of stuff. She wrote short stories for Marion Zimmer Bradley, Sword and Sorceress." And I was like, "I have all those books, [Heather laughs] that means I've read this woman. [Heather laughs] Who is she?" And so then put it all together, and those great skin changer stories were so great. But we missed you then, but then I think I might even have hounded Luan at Laurel Book Store to have you in, which I do. And she had you and we met and we've lived happily ever after for a few years now. [Heather laughs] Yeah, and I met Karin through--dating myself here--back in AOL days when there was a W to W I think, women to women groups in AOL and we had a group, and I met Karin and I think I met Nicola Griffith through that and a few others. And then it wasn't until Karin and I clued in that…wait a minute, we live closer by. [Heather laughs] And I think a couple other authors came, I don't know, we finally met and that's a good 20 something years ago and we've been friends ever since, so.

H: Yeah. And of course, Karin was the acquisitions editor at Bella when I sold my first book. But she and I had actually first met on a Usenet group called alt.shoe.lesbians, which was this weird little social group. The name came first and then a bunch of lesbians moved in and decided to set up an online coffee shop there, and we had a fabulous time until Usenet fell into the gutter and all the trolls moved in.

D: Yeah, it's so funny we're talking about this stuff and I know for a lot of people who listen to the podcast, this is like history to them. Yeah. I was thinking about the books I would talk about today, and the ones that I'm going to talk about are all historical. I mean old in the ‘40s and I think one is in the 1900s and one is in the 1800s. Anyway, but it occurs to me that crap, I could just talk about the books that I first read when I came out in the ‘70s. [Heather and Darlene laugh] And to all of the kids now, that's history. That's historical fiction to them. [Heather laughs] I mean, Curious Wine for all intents and purposes, it's historical fiction, you know? Anyway, but we're going to have a real history. For all of us, that's history anyway.

H: So, what are some historical books you want to talk about?

D: Oh, boy, I had a hard time making a shortlist. But the top three are Hild by Nicola Griffith. And Nicola Griffith writes all kinds of genres and she's fabulous. And Hild isn't really lesbian. She's certainly a strong female character and in the way that--

H: So, I'm going to interrupt you and say let's give the context of the book.

D: Okay, [Heather laughs] perfect, perfect. Yeah, yeah. So, Hild is St. Hilda of Whitby. She founded a monastery in the 7th century and she was an important figure in the conversion of Anglo Saxons to Christianity. So, you guys are falling asleep, but let [Heather laughs] me just say, not a lot is known about her life other than she was like the second daughter of a minor king in a time in England when there were little kingdoms everywhere and it was always warfare going on. She was a second daughter of one of these minor kings and he was killed when she was very young, he was poisoned. And so, she spent her life in court but as a very secondary figure. Not only because she was the second child, she was a girl, and in that time girls weren't really educated very much, but she was educated and she loved to read. And by virtue of her education, not only her education but her very observant nature, she saw things that a lot of people just ignored or didn't pay attention to. And so, she got this reputation for being almost a seeress or a prophetess because she would know things were going to happen. Not because she really could see, but because she saw. She has a really, really fascinating character. And the way that Nicola writes her and again, not much is known about her, so Nicola had to do really detailed research into that era and how people spent their time and predominantly how women spent their time and lived their lives. And so, she creates this incredible story and it's a journey of a coming-of-age story in a way because it starts with Hild as a very young girl and it follows her until she's like 23 or so. And there's going to be others who are going to go further where you really find out what she is, and it's just a growing up kind of a story. Her primary relationships were with women. So, although we can't say that this is a lesbian story, she definitely had love interests that were girls.

H: Yeah. And Griffith has set up a context saying, "Here's a context in which women having romantic and erotic relationships with each other is an integrated part of this society, but it's not the equivalent of heterosexual relationships. It’s just this other thing that goes on."

D: Sure. And I think a lot of it was a woman could have a woman lover because she'd still be a virgin when she got married, so it was kind of an accepted thing or it seemed to be common that you'd have your significant friend who maybe would be your bed warmer or something. It's really a dense book, and I don't mean that in a dry way because Nicola has a beautiful way of writing that even though there's a lot of detail, it really is just engaging and interesting and she uses language so beautifully. And I'm a fast reader, so a lot of times I might skim parts if I feel like it's not furthering the story [Heather laughs] in any way for me. I'm notorious for skipping sex scenes because it's like, "I know how sex works. [Heather laughs] Thank you, I’ll move forward." There isn't certainly really sex scenes in this, but Nicola writes so beautifully that even though a passage might be a little dense, the way she writes and the words that she uses, I would go back and reread a passage and read it out loud just to taste it, you know what I mean?

H: Yeah, there are stories where I have consumed them as audio stories and now I can't imagine reading them on the page because the verbal language is just so much a big part of it.

D: Yeah, that's an interesting thing, you know, I never really got into audiobooks very much, but then for some reason, I did pick up one. Oh, I know why, it was Patience and Sarah. Janis Ian is a friend of mine and I love her music, and she narrated Patience and Sarah the audiobook.

H: Oh, I may have to get that. [Heather laughs]

D: Oh my god! Oh my god! It's Janis Ian and Jean Smart, who is from Designing Women I think, she's done a bunch of stuff. So each play a person. One plays Patience, one plays Sarah. And not only are they reading it, but they're acting it. And I've read that book countless times. And when I heard them read it to me, it was like a whole new book. So I can't [Heather laughs] recommend it enough. Even a book you know, their voices are great, yep. So anyways, Hild, yeah. It's just a fascinating time period, incredibly fascinating character, and it's just beautifully written. We were talking about this earlier, there's no really narrative arc in terms of there was not like…

H: It's not like a clear three-act plot structure.

D: Exactly, right. Exactly, right. But she's fascinating and she writes beautifully. And so, again, she's not a lesbian per se, but she is a strong self-actualized interesting character.

H: And there are female-female relationships in there that are both emotional and erotic.

D: Yes, yes, yes. So, this isn't a bathtub read, [Heather laughs] you know?

H: Not without getting very wrinkled skin.

D: Very wrinkled skin [Heather and Darlene laugh] yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean I could read a typical lesfic book in a couple hours. This took several days, many days to read. So, that's number one book that comes to mind. The second book that comes to mind is one I just read not long ago. And it's actually a novella, so it's not a full-length book. So here we go, the other extreme, and it's called Passing Strange by Ellen Klages. This story, it's got a little minor element of magic to it, so that kind of put it in the sci-fi fantasy realm. But really to me, it's more historical fiction. There's actually two timelines. It takes place, the bulk of the story and the romance part of the story, there is a romance in it is 1940s and it's San Francisco, which living here in Oakland, I love the history of San Francisco and Oakland and they had a really rich history. And so, it's 1940s and it's about a circle of lesbian friends who are living more life in San Francisco. One of them is a painter, another one is a drag performer, another one is a lawyer and it's in the ‘40s and they're all closeted, of course. And a couple of the characters, it's a circle of friends, a couple of the women are married to men. One is a merchant sailor, so he's not around so that's convenient, and the other one is married, I think her husband is gay, so they have this whole cover thing going on. That's not really a bulk of the story, but that's just interesting to see how these lesbians lived in the ‘40s and how they had to adhere to the rules of when they'd go to a bar, had to make sure they were wearing three articles of women's clothing. Otherwise, the cops who routinely harassed the bars anyway would have a reason to arrest these women.

H: Well, and another very historic part of it was that the bars and nightclubs that were gay gathering places also had to exist as tourist attractions.

D: Right, right. Yeah, they'd have the lookie-loos that would come. And so, the main story with the romance in it is bookended by present day. And it's you meet this elderly Asian woman who has this piece of art that she's selling. And you don't know when you read the first part, but the piece of art she's selling is by her friend. Then it flashes back to the ‘40s and we meet this character who present day is just known by one name, and all they know on present day is that she was a prolific artist for comic book covers and serial science fiction covers and then mysteriously disappeared. And her signature was one name, so of course, the assumption was that this mysterious artist who disappeared was a male, and there’s legend of this lost piece of art that, you know? And so, this woman happens to have this lost piece of art and goes to sell it and that's that. She's trying to sell it, she sells it then you go into past and then you find out the whole genesis of that piece of art and their romance and there's a mysterious disappearance and that's the little piece of magic that's in it, and then it jumps back to present day. But the bulk of the story, again, is this 1940s novella. It was just fascinating. This doesn't happen to me with a lot of books, but when I finished reading this book, I had a hangover. I was like, "I love those people, I love their time, I love their [Heather laughs] story. I don't want to tarnish it by anything."

H: I want to go back and hang out with them.

D: I know, exactly. I wanted it to be more. I wanted to hear more about them. They were really fascinating characters.

H: And one of the fascinating things, you say is you want to keep hanging out with them. When I had Ellen on the show and talking about all of her various novels, it turns out that there are little Easter eggs where characters crossover between her stories and that there's this larger network by which they're all part of the same universe as it were.

D: Right. And I realized that afterwards, I went to... She did a reading in San Francisco, she and Lucy Jane Bledsoe, and I’m a big fan of Lucy so I went. And Ellen was reading from her new book which is a YA book about a little girl in the ‘50s who wants to play Little League.

H: Yes, it's Out in Left Field.

D: Yeah, Out in Left Field, yeah. And I go to these readings and I'm like, ‘No, no, not buying anything. I don't know need [Heather laughs] new books right now. Don't, don't, don't, don’t.” And I had already bought Passing Strange, but then she read from this stupid book, [Heather laughs] little baseball book, and I'm a kid of the ‘60s.

H: Yeah, you're sitting here wearing a ball cap right now.

D: Right, right, my Cub’s hat [Heather laughs] and I was a little jock in the ‘60s. Maybe we could play softball if we got the equipment. Anyway, so a story about a little girl who wants to play baseball. And there's a character in that who is related to a character in Passing Strange, very secondary minor character, and that character... I think Out of Left Field or Out in the Field, whatever it's called, that character's mother or aunt is in Ellen's other books, Green Grass Sea?

H: Green Glass Sea, which is about the Manhattan Project.

D: Right, right. In fact I think... Anyway, there’s this person--

H: The sort of subtle, as I say, it's the Easter egg level network of connections that I love.

D: Yeah. Right, right. Reading Passing Strange, I wouldn't have known that this character is related, but she mentioned it when she was reading from the Left Field book that, "Oh, by the way, so and so is related to so and so." And so then I went Googling and good reading, I was like, "Oh, okay. To read, to read, to read. [Heather and Darlene laugh] Oh my god, got them all."

H: And I think sometimes authors do that for their own amusement. There was, I think it was on Facebook or something recently, Jae posted a diagram of connections between lots of her novels. Not all of them, there were a couple little islands in there. Then she's got again these Easter egg connections between the stories.

D: Yeah. Well, and that's funny. And if you follow an author, you appreciate that. And I don't know if it necessarily makes you want to read more of their book, but it certainly--

H: Well, it makes you feel like you've got this inside line. And if it's done in a way that jumps out at you, so it's like, "Oh, I see how that was done," then it's not as much fun. But if it's like, "Wait, I recognize that name. Wait, I recognize that story," and you feel like you're in on a secret, that could be fun.

D: Right, right. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So yeah, so the time period, the characters, it was really great. I really loved it. I look forward to reading all her other stuff too. [Heather laughs] I really do. Yeah, yeah. So, I could jump to the connection with Ellen and Lucy Jane. So, Lucy Jane Bledsoe, she writes in many different genres. And her books I think they're published by mainstream presses, so she's not really in the lesfic world per se although she was the keynote at GCLS this year. But she wrote a book called A Thin Bright Line, and it takes place like ‘50s- ‘60s, Cold War. And it's loosely based on, she had an aunt who passed away when Lucy was nine. And she didn't know much about her aunt other than she's got the same name, Lucy, but she knew she was a scientist and a prolific, good writer and editor and she worked for the government and she never married. So that's what Lucy knew about her. And so, she was intrigued and she did enough research to find out specifically what her aunt did, and that her aunt yes, definitely was a lesbian. [Heather laughs] And so, she constructed this whole story about her aunt's life with the little tidbits that she knew for sure and then she added more. And so, her aunt, the main character in the book, her name is Lucybelle Bledsoe. So she works for the government as an editor for the scientists who are researching the polar icecaps in Antarctica I think. And it's during the Cold War, and the concern was that the Russians were going to get there first. And so there's all these scientists there, and she’s the editor. So she takes their sprawling [Heather laughs] scientific findings, you can appreciate this Heather, and she makes them readable and legible. So, she's very well regarded. Well, she's also a lesbian, and of course, she works for the government in the '50s during the Cold War. And so she has to be really, really closeted at work. And her boss, the guy who hires her, knows this little secret about her, but makes it very clear, "I know." But they have to keep it a secret. It's very different. So, she works with these women and little by little finds out that they are also lesbian. And so they have this little secretive group that gets together. And she constructs this... So it's New York and it's Chicago. And when she's in New York, Lucy has her meeting certain people, lesbians who are famous to us now. But at the time that Lucy of course is meeting them, they’re just lesbians who do whatever they do. So, it's a great look again at the lesbian life. And again, it's the ‘40s. I'm sorry. No, this is the ‘50s and ‘60s. Then there's Martin Luther King and civil rights, so she didn't live very long, but she lived a really interesting life. And it was really interesting Lucy says that when she was asking about trying to reach out to people who had known her aunt, they were all very secretive over the phone to this girl calling and saying, “Hey, I'd like to know what you know about Lucybelle Bledsoe.” And they weren't really very forthcoming with information. But then when Lucy went to New York and met these people and they realized that this woman on the phone asking questions about their friend is like their friend, they were much more forthcoming. So, once they realized that Lucy was also a lesbian, they were like, “Well, let me tell you what we know about her and yes, she definitely was and this and that.” And she missed like by two years meeting the woman who had been her aunt's lover, just missed it. So that's a little piece of it.

But again, Lucy is the same, much like Nicola, writes in all different genres and just writes beautifully, just loved it. It was just another really great taste of history and strong lesbians. I can't talk about lesbian historical fiction without talking about Justine Saracen.

H: Especially if you're talking about 20th century.

D: Especially if you're talking about 20th century, yeah. But she wrote a book, one that I specifically wanted to mention is 16th century, and it's called The Sistine Heresy. So, it takes place since the 16th century in Rome during the time when Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel. The main character is connected to the Borgia family. And in 16th century, the Borgia Pope dies, and so Adrianna loses any cachet that [Heather laughs] she had because the Borgias are no longer in power.

H: Suddenly, the Borgias are--if you were--poison.

D: Right, right, exactly. [Heather and Darlene laugh] Yeah, right. So, it takes place there in Rome, and Adrianna meets a painter who is working with Michelangelo and she's a woman, but she's dressing as a man so she can work as a painter. And they have a romance, and Michelangelo is having a romance with a young castrato. So, there's these two little romances going on during a time when the church was more than a little corrupt. And there's one priest in particular, this is also the time of the Spanish Inquisition, and so there was one priest in particular who has it out for the Borgias and has it out for Adrianna and Michelangelo too because he suspects their proclivities. And so, there’s two romances, and Michelangelo and Adrianna are friends and of course of the whole foursome they're friends. But Justine, her historical research is impeccable and her use of place I mean, Rome becomes a total character in this book. Peggy, my wife, and I both read The Sistine Heresy in preparation of going to Rome two years ago, and it was great because the Castel…

H: Castel Sant'Angelo.

D: Yes, yes. So, it was really fascinating to go there because it's in the book, in Sistine Heresy, it's mentioned. So it's a delicious taste of 16th century Rome, and going there after having read the book really helped cement in me that Justine is really good [Heather laughs] with scenery man, really good at setting a scene and her research is just impeccable. All her books, I mean, from 16th century, she's got a couple that I think are in ancient Egypt and then of course World War Two with her… I think she just won an award for the Berlin one or something.

H: The Berlin one I think is new this year.

D: Yeah. Oh, so the sniper’s… Oh, she did one about the The Witch of Stalingrad, yeah. One of the reasons I like to read historical fiction is when I was a kid, history [snores] [Heather laughs] but when you can get a taste of the actual people's lives, you can give me the information as long as there's a good story wrapped around it. I'm fascinated to learn about World War Two and any time period, but give me a story with it and then I’ll learn it out.

H: Yeah, something to root your memories in.

D: Exactly, right. Exactly, right. And so yeah, so that's one of the things I really like about historical fiction, I like a good story. But I'd like to get a little bit of an education, but boy, it's got to be engaging, you know? You have to be good characters and yeah.

H: And one of the things I love about historical fiction about women is that for me as a woman, it does give me that rooting, that engagement of saying we were there. I mean, even just women, women were there in history. I did this joke where it's like, based on statistical documentary evidence, women were actually very rare in the Middle Ages. [Darlene and Heather laugh] And telling stories of historical settings through women's lives and showing that just because we don't make it into the kings and battles-type history books doesn't mean that we were not vitally important to everything that went on. I love books that demonstrate that.

D: Yeah, these books, the ones that I've now mentioned, they all have an element of there's not a lot of really exciting action that takes place in them, sometimes a little bit, and they're more personal stories. But if you want to talk about historical stories that are also actiony-based, Linda Kay Silva now writing as Alex Westmore, she published a lot of her books under her real name Linda Kay Silva and now she's rebranding them all with this Alex Westmore name. So, she writes a bunch of different genres as well. She did a detective series and I think there's a time travel one, and there's several. But the one in particular for context of this is pirate stories. And it's the late 1500s when first Queen Elizabeth was in power. And the main character in the story, it's a trilogy--not a trilogy now, I think there's five and she's working on a sixth. And the main character is a young Irish woman is key, she's a lesbian, her childhood friend is abducted by pirates and so Quinn is the main character, so Quinn decides that she is going to hop on board a pirate ship and go to rescue her childhood friend. Well, the pirate ship that she gets on dressing as a man is a pirate ship that's captained by Grace O'Malley, who is a legitimate historical figure as is Queen Elizabeth, of course. And Grace O'Malley has a vendetta against Francis Drake. And it's set in, this is a time when Elizabeth was really expanding her reign and trying to get hold of all of Ireland, and the Irish clansmen weren't having it. So there were a lot of battles and Quinn is very Irish and Grace is, of course, very Irish. So, Quinn joins the pirate ship passing as a man and has these adventures.

H: So, what's the title here?

D: Oh, so the title of the first one is The Pirate Booty or The Pirate’s Booty, and the series is called The Plundered Chronicles. And so, you follow Quinn through being on Grace's ship and even Grace doesn't know that she's really a woman. And it follows and Grace goes on to other books and Quinn goes on in other adventures and it is jam packed. They read almost like action films. I mean, Quinn is a great character, almost too great of a character [Heather laughs] in that she's really good-looking and women just fall over themselves. She’s just like everybody wants her. Even the straight women are like, “Oh, I could go for that.” [Heather laughs] But she's also strong, independent and the action and the fighting and it all feels really realistic in the relationships between Grace and Drake and what was really going on in the time with piracy was really interesting. Yeah, so they're fun. They're really actiony. And Linda is a history professor, so I got to say she probably has all her facts straight. I haven't followed up on it, but they're really fun. These are books that are page turners.

H: Yeah, I keep thinking that some year I need to do a special pirate show because it's such a major sub-genre.

D: Yeah. It really is, surprisingly.

H: And for one reason or another, I just haven't read many of the books so I can't do the show yet, but some day, some day.

D: Yeah, she's fun. She writes really well in an exciting way. I would consider anything by Nicola or anything by Lucy Jane to be real literature, you know? Plundered Chronicles is fun. It’s fun and right.

H: Drama adventure.

D: Drama adventure, yeah, with historical element that's really interesting. So, that's my list. I mean I can go on and on, but you have a time limit, I’m sure. [Heather and Darlene laugh]

H: Well, thank you so much Darlene for coming on the show and sharing stories and telling us all about your favorite historical books.

D: Oh, my pleasure, are you kidding? I like to talk about books all the time. I’m obsessed.

H: And that's why I had you on. [Heather and Darlene laugh]

D: It was great. Thanks, Heather.

---

Show Notes

In the Book Appreciation segments, our featured guest will talk about one or more favorite books with queer female characters in a historic setting.

In this episode Darlene Vendegna, voracious reader and energentic booster of lesbian fiction, recommends some favorite queer historical novels:

• Hild by Nicola Griffith
• Patience and Sarah by Isabell Miller (audiobook recorded by Janis Ian& Jean Smart)
• Passing Strange by Ellen Klages
• Out of Left Field by Ellen Klages (not lesbian)
• A Thin Bright Line by Lucy Jane Bledsoe
• The Sistine Heresy by Justine Saracen
• The Pirate’s Booty by Alex Westmore (and the rest of The Plundered Chronicles)

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 66 (previously 25b) - Interview with Vanda - transcript

(Originally aired 2018/08/11 - listen here)

Heather Rose: Today, The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast welcomes Vanda to the show. Glad you could join us.

Vanda: Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

H: Vanda is the author of the Juliana series, about a young woman starting in 1940s in New York City, following the progress of her show business career and her struggle to balance success and a forbidden romance. The third book, Paris, Adrift, just came out in May. Perhaps you could tell us a bit about the characters and where you're taking them in the series.

V: Okay, the characters in this series are getting closer. Originally, the plan was in book two that Juliana is married. The plan was for her and her husband to go to Paris and to revitalize Juliana's career, they sort of had a dip. Al, or Alice, was staying back to serve as a manager because she has other things to do in the states. But at the last minute Richard, whose mother always is getting sick and has a heart attack, he can't go. So, Al has to go and of course Richard apologized because he's only bought one state room [Heather laughs] and has only purchased one hotel room, and it's going to be so inconvenient for them. And of course it works much [more] perfectly. At first, Juliana has a lot of trouble-- No, they really both have some problems about being gay. Al is doing better with it even though she was shocked when she first found out in the first book, but Juliana is struggling a lot and she doesn't talk about the struggle, but she kind of acts out things. When they're on the ship, they go home on the [S.S.] United States, that was the typical form of transportation in 1955. So, they're there and Juliana is nervous about being alone with Al in the state room, and she's acting out in certain ways. They're not very close to that point. Al is expecting them to sleep together every night and all of a sudden that's not what happens.

H: But they have a relationship already, right?

V:  They had a relationship that has been rocky since the beginning.

H:  Oh, okay.

V:  Because Juliana is married and the husband doesn't know. It's not likened to marriage, he doesn't know. We don't know exactly what goes on between Richard and Juliana that she's very quiet about that. And so in this thing, she's kind of shocked to be staying in the same room with Al. And at one point she gets upset and she says, "We're not Shirl and Mercy," who are two women they know who do live together. Al thinks she doesn't want to be with her, but she doesn't mean it that way. Which she explains later. She says, "I know how to be with a man on a trip like this, I don't know how to deal with you on a trip. I don't know what to do." There's no lessons for that. She's not sure how to behave or how to be herself in this situation. But by the time they get to Paris, it's working out, and they get very close. They do end up spending a lot of time in bed and working out a lot of the issues they've had in the past. One of the friends in the book that they'd had, who kind of poses as a man sometimes as an act, he has this kind of what we call today drag king... he also used to date Juliana and shows up every once in a while in the book. It upsets Al. He tells--she actually--reveals to Juliana that she's decided to have an operation and make a change. Now this is early, but the first transgender change was with man. It's very secret but it was done with a man. So she's gotten in touch with the first surgeon which was in England. That little part there, for the transgender community, is not comfortable, because they do make fun. They make fun, they get very uncomfortable because this is not something that lesbians handle well. This long history of tension with-- And then the whole world didn't handle it well.

H:  Yeah.

V:  There was a lot of jokes and meanness and that kind of stuff. With this history, I want to portray it accurately. It's not now, it's then. It's 1955, people are learning. I would show that progression of change and how attitudes change, how things change. That's in there in it. But Al also wonders--she's often had masculine thoughts, she wonders about herself, quietly, never to Juliana. That's basically where the characters are going. You know, I'm into book four now which I'll be totally bringing out, not too long. The reason that they're in Paris is because Juliana had a major flop in New York. This is complicated, you don't read about it. Her husband is actually the one who I name as her manager, not Al. But Al does all the decision making. But this one time, her husband signs Juliana to be in a play. It's not a musical, it's a regular straight play. She's never done it before and she really bombs miserably. So she decides she's never going to do Broadway ever again. Okay? It was a horrible experience. She's a fabulous singer, so she will never do it again. Well, somebody approaches Al on the ship with a Broadway show and he wants her to do it, but Al can't convince Juliana to do it. She says, “No, I’m not ever going on a Broadway stage. It’s a horrible experience.” It turns out then that the guy who approached her actually threatens to out them if she doesn't do it. There's a whole thing that happens around that kind of thing.

H: It feels like the series is intended to bring the reader along through a tour of queer life in the later 20th century. Are you planning to follow the characters for quite a ways?

V:  Yeah, I want to go into the 2000s.

H:  Oh, okay!

V:  So then it'd be like late 80s and 90s when it'll be finished. I want them to see the changes, let's see what they think about it. And of course there'll be new characters entering because some characters that were in book one have left--they may come back--and other characters will enter. People will have children along the way and those children-- so it will be--

H: So, a real family saga sort of thing?

V: Yeah. Because besides Juliana and Al, there's Max who's been there since the beginning. He's not on the ship with them but he runs the nightclub where Al works. And he's been with—a mentor to Al since the beginning. So I have gay men in the… And it was in the beginning of around the 40s and 50s, the early community was pretty tight with each other. The men and the women were together. In the Mattachine society actually, the women belonged to it. And the men helped the women pull together [unintelligible] alliance, they were part of that. There wasn't this split that tends to be now. This is coming together a little bit more now, I think, but there was a big time that happened in the 70s where everything was...

H: Yeah.

V: So, I'm showing that 'why?' I like to look at history and it makes sense when you can look at it from a distance. I'm trying to look at what was going on that made these things make sense.

H: Do you have a background as a historian or is it coming out just through the writing? Have you always had an interest in history?

V: My father was big at reading history, he read history all the time. It's funny, both my sister and I have a love of history. She's doing Victorian and that kind of stuff. I teach psychology, but there's a course I teach that interests me a lot. I didn't develop it, I just got it. It shows how societies and people change over time, and that there's a process that goes. It's called minority social influence. It was nice because you can see it happening right now in our country right now. The struggle with racism, for instance, that struggle is part of minority social influence. It's changing people. It's not just a fight, it's changing people. And it's going to change it in the right direction, it's just going to take time. So, I like to watch that. And if you do history, especially modern history that you can actually touch--I can remember my mother and father and that--then you can see it actually happening and how it's different now. But everything's not different. And I don't know, you can watch history happening right in front of you and I love that. I love that.

H: I'm always interested in the challenges that authors face when writing about sexuality in other eras. Was that something that you struggled with or was that something that seemed to come naturally?

V: It was a problem because one of the things is clothes, they wear so many clothes. [Vanda laughs] If you talk about the 50s, they wore girdles and bullet bras and [Heather laughs] just clothes with slips. They didn't wear pants. Just the logistics of it is part of it but also the way they talked about it and the language. I have a book on the history of sexual language. I pick up weird books to refer to this and figure out when they changed the terminologies, you know, and how did that change and stuff. Just the language terminology. Sex is sex in people, but how does it work when you're in a different time period?

H: Yeah. What I find researching history is that sex isn't just sex, there are clear different attitudes towards even what is sex, as opposed to things that are fun to do that aren't sex. That's really fascinating.

V: Well, the whole thing about whether lesbian sex was sex, that's an interesting topic. That's one of the issues that came up in 70s, it was a big fight when the 70's said 'well, lesbian sex didn't count, it wasn't sex. It must involve a penis.'

H: [laughs] Well, that's a very old attitude.

V: Right, right. I don't think they would have that in the ‘50s ‘cause nobody is talking about it. Nobody would be talking. But there is that "Oh, the girls are just doing things because they're getting ready for the real sex real soon. As in marriage." In the ‘50s, they would care about it a little bit more because it was not the way to be. I have some books that were written in the ‘50s. Like one guy, a psychiatrist, who talked about that being a lesbian could lead to criminal behavior, kleptomania. It had a whole list of things, I use that in book three. I started in book two and goes into book three, it's this idea that it's going to do some terrible thing. I use these case examples of a woman who's a lesbian who bashes her husband and then goes and plays bridge. [both laugh] [unintelligible] Yeah, right.

H: Yeah, the whole idea that once you have no morals, then anything is possible, you know?

V: Like that's it. And to be a lesbian was to be immoral, and then everything else was possible. I tried to portray that attitude throughout the books, and that's what makes it for anybody to know that you're one of those.

H: Yeah. Where did the idea for these characters come from? Did the characters drive the story or did you have an idea of wanting to do this large historic arc?

V: I wanted to do a history. I don't ever remember having a plan to do a long- I didn't know what it was going to be. Basically, the two main characters, Juliana and Al, kind of just appeared. And they've just stuck with me. I don't know, they've been writing the story. I've been very lucky with this because I just sort of sit down and they let me know where it's going to go. This doesn't happen with everything I write but this. [Heather laughs]

H: Did you go to Paris to do research? Did you use that as an excuse for a trip?

V: Actually, I did go to Paris. [Heather laughs] The thing is, it's very different than it was in the 50s.

H: Well, of course, yes.

V: Yeah, so some of the places I knew and I went and visited some of the places that they go to, some of the cafes and stuff. But of course I had to still have pictures of stuff, then I had reading things about places that they might have gone to, that was particular. One thing I learned about Paris is during the ‘50s, it was not a haven for gays either. It wasn't any better than here. Well, it's much better. Like, in the books, they go to a lesbian nightclub or a bar—a club where they can dance, [they had them] in the US too, hidden away. And this is hidden away, but the guys were being arrested regularly. They didn't arrest the women because they didn't really take women seriously. They arrested the guys. It wasn't illegal in France to be gay like it was here. But for men, it was illegal for them to dance with another man. So they would sometimes raid the clubs and arrest the men. But they were not okay about lesbians, there was less mean things said and less mean things in newspapers, and telling people watch out for those bad people. It wasn't a nice place. It wasn't the ‘20s, it was the ‘50s. And the ‘20s happened to be with [the] really affluent class, people living in a different artsy environment, it wasn't for everybody.

H: Yeah, there's always been a lot of class difference in how you experienced your sexuality.

V: Right. Right, yeah.

V: When I was trawling through your Amazon listings, I spotted a play that you've written that also has a historical context. For the audience, this is a play about the life of 17th century Italian abbess Benedetta Carlini, which is a name that I have mentioned time and again on the podcast. Why don't you refresh people's memories about why she would be a figure you might write about?

V: She's the first lesbian who got a written record of. She was discovered by Brown, what's her first name?

H: Judith, Judith Brown

V: [She was looking in a library] and found these records of this lesbian nun who was on trial for doing a lot of what they thought was bad things. And it was the first time we had a record of lesbian behavior.

H: Well, there are earlier ones but I'll let you go with this one for now. [laughs]

V: I'd love to hear about other records you have.

H: Yeah. Well, I think also Brown was writing about her at a time when a lot of the other material hadn't been published yet, so... We know a lot more earlier examples now.

V: [She was writing in the] ‘80s so many more have come out, I would love to know your sources.

H: Oh, well. Well, follow my blog. [laughs]

V: Okay, I will. Because I love to write about that, and I really enjoyed writing the story. It got me into a different language, a sound of the language and...

H: What part of the story are you depicting in the play?

V: It starts off when she's going to be examined, so that's the thing that's happening. They're coming in to give her an exam to find out if she's a mystic or not. I use the same kind of characters that were in the book, but I find that they're not necessarily exactly, you know? Like, there was the father, Paolo Ricordati, was in there. He was her father confessor. Then there was kind of a mayor religious something. Anyway, they come in to examine her. Paolo Ricordati has a kind of crush on her. That's not part of it. [Heather laughs] And then as they're doing this trial everything, the story from different perspectives gets unfolded to the nuns that are there and what they saw and what they witnessed and what [unintelligible] happened. You kind of unfold the story that way.

H: Yeah, because initially she was having mystic experiences and visions and stigmata.

V: Splenditello.

H: Splenditello!

V: Splenditello.

H: Yeah, that she thought she was being essentially possessed by an angel and that she would claim that the sexual activity she was having with women were really the angel doing it.

V: Right. Right, that's all in there. It's like when he comes in, she immediately goes into these mystic things and it upsets him, that one provost is totally upset about her reaction. But through it all-- who is the other woman that she has sex with?

H: Oh, I'm not remembering at the moment. But, yeah. Her companion!

V: But anyway, she tells the story and says. "Oh, but he was-- Jesus showed up." [unintelligible] I leave Splenditello to the end. The provost is starting to go--first, he doesn't believe it. Then he started to believe her and then Splenditello shows up and he's like, "Oh my god." The sexual thing is revealed last between the two women, which blows the whole thing. They condemned her. I have to do it in certain-- so that it builds suspense and confuse the audience too as to what to think about her.

H: Yeah, it's very hard to know what to think about her whether she was having a breakdown because of the conflict over her sexuality or whether, you know, the whole thing is very entwined together. Have you ever had the play staged?

V: Oh, yeah. It was a finalist in the Lambda Award.

H: Oh, cool.

V: Yeah, it was cool. It's published by Original Works, it was in the international New York City Festival.

H: Yeah, I wish I had been aware of it ‘cause somebody somewhere on my social media was asking for lesbian-themed plays to use for a school project. I wish I'd known about it to mention it.

V: Yeah, two of them. The other one is also nuns but this is a modern one. Yeah, one is one act and this one is a long, long one. It's been also staged in Minnesota? I don't know the company, but they took some gorgeous pictures. I think it's on my website.

H: I'll mention the title of the play for our listeners. It's Vile Affections, which is a phrase that comes out of the trial transcripts, isn't that correct?

V: Yeah, it's also from the Bible, Romans. And I use that—the priest when he finds out about the sex. He's screaming 'vile affections!' and does something—a Romans citation. [Heather laughs]

H: You mentioned you're working on the fourth Juliana book, do you want to tell us a bit about that or are you one of those authors who doesn't like to talk about current projects?

V: It's hard to talk about now, I don't know that I can. I think it's coming along interesting, a lot of things--

H: Do you have a title yet?

V: Yes. Actually, I do. Which is unusual, but I do. I have a title for both--two books, book four and five. I even sort-of know what the title is. Book four is Heaven Is to Your Left. That's the title of the play that Juliana is going to be doing in book four and it's the title of the book.

H: Is your writing mostly focusing on the Juliana series right now or do you have other projects that you'd like to do?

V: I'm focusing mostly on Juliana, but I want to do a couple spin offs from the Juliana series. Like for instance in the first book, there's a character Danny, who is Al's original boyfriend when she comes to New York City, and he realizes that he's gay during the thing. I am fascinated by how many gay women and men date each other before they know who they are. Before they know they're gay, they end up dating each other. That happens to a lot of people.

H: I wonder if it's because people are picking up on the sense that they are not going to have things expected of them that they don't want to give.

V: Maybe. My first passion of my life was a gay man. [Heather laughs] Yeah, I don't know. I think what I loved about him was he was feminine, so he was as close as I can get to a woman without being a woman. I'm interested in that idea anyway. He discovers that he's gay but he's ashamed of it. He's very tormented about it so he leaves, he joins the army. It's World War II, he joins the army, and we don't see him again. I'm going to write his story in the army, I think that'd be interesting for me. I have some interesting lesbians who are in the WACS and stuff. So I want to do that. And I've become very interested in LGBT life in the ‘30s and late ‘20s. I have some characters that would have been alive at that time. Even Juliana would. She comes into the scene around 16 years old, which means you should see her that young at some point. So, I'm thinking about writing about that era, that time. Those are some stories I want to do. I don't know, I'm really into this history thing with gay history. That's very interesting.

H: Well, I certainly think so. [laughs] If people wanted to follow you online through social media, or do you have a website?

V: Oh, yeah. My website is www.vandawriter.com. I'm also on facebook.com/vandawriter, that's an author page.

H: I'll put links to all of your books and to your social media in the show notes, and thank you so much for joining us.

V: Thank you for having me, this has been fun.

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Show Notes

A series of interviews with authors of historically-based fiction featuring queer women.

In this episode we talk about:

• The Juliana series and how it follows queer history across the latter half of the 20th century
• Books mentioned
  • Juliana by Vanda
  • Olympus Nights on the Square by Vanda
  • Paris, Adrift by Vanda
  • Vanda’s play about 17th century lesbian nun Benedetta Carlini: Vile Affections

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Links to Vanda Online

• Website: http://vandawriter.com
• Facebook: Vanda

The dividing line between women's same-sex friendships and romantic relationshps can be fuzzy--and distinguishing them on the basis of often scanty documentary evidence is difficult indeed. This article looks at the structure and rhetoric of female friendship in the middle ages and how some specific friendships are reflected in the correspondence of Saint Hildegard of Bingen.