Hilarius
From LGBT Archive
Hilarius, also known as "Hilary the Englishman" was a poet, said to have been born in England, who was writing around 1125. He was one of the pupils of Pierre Abélard and seems to have spent some time at Angers in France. Little is known of his life, and he may or may not have been identical with other writers of the same name.
Hilarius wrote a number of poems in Latin, including several addressed to an English nun, and others expressing his love for a "Boy of Angers" and "An English boy"[1].
In one of his love poems, Hilarius compares William of Anfonia, the "splendour of England", to Ganymede, writing "Certainly if Jupiter now reigned, ... he would become a bird for you, so that you might be joined with him forever"[2]
References
- ↑ Rictor Norton (ed) My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries. Leyland Publications, San Francisco, 1998. Previously in: Thomas Stehling, Medieval Latin poems of male love and friendship, Garland, New York and London 1984, p. 70.
- ↑ "Ganymede" in Randy P Lunčunas Conner and others, Cassell's Encyclopedia of queer myth, symbol and spirit, 1998, ISBN 0-304-70423-7.
