Richard Barnfield's sonnets appended to "Cynthia" are basically in
Petrarchan form, using the scheme ABBA·ABBA CDECDE
Richard Barnfield wrote sonnets that focused upon homosexual love.
Other Elizabethan poets also wrote about homosexuality, but they
also wrote about heterosexual love. Richard Barnfield was different
in this respect.
Richard Barnfield Sonnet 9
Diana (on a time) walking the wood,
To sport herselfe, of her faire traine forlorne,
Chaunc't for to pricke her foote against a thorne,
And from thence issu'd out a streame of blood.
No sooner shee was vanisht out of sight,
But loues faire Queen came there away by chance,
And hauing of this hap a glym'ring glance,
She put the blood into a christall bright,
When being now come vnto mount Rhodope,
With her faire hands she formes a shape of Snow,
And blends it with this blood; from whence doth grow
A louely creature, brighter than the Dey.
And being christned in faire Paphos shrine,
She call'd him Ganymede: as all diuine.
Commentary:
In Paphos, Cyprus there remais mozaics similar to those found
in Byzantium. Some of these mozaics depict a Ganymede. It should
be recalled that a ganymede is a prepubescent boy used for sodomy.
The ganymede is usually depicted in combination with a soaring
eagle, representing the other partner in sodomy. The eagle soars
as love is heavenly (on a higher plane). Sodomy was often
practiced by ephebes (soldiers in training) in Crete before
ancient Greece, in ancient Greece, and in Ancient Rome, by soldiers.
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