Abstract

History tells us that Caesar came, saw, and conquered. Richard Barnfield's sodomitical shepherd-poet Daphnis came, saw, and conquered (or perhaps saw, conquered, and came) as well. Such, at least, is what we are led to believe in the initial stanza of Barnfield's The Affectionate Sheapheard, for there Daphnis describes his love for the boy Ganymede as an attempt at seduction that came to fruition: