Shakespeare’s Tiger King

Yes, you read that right…

We’ve heard this story before…

A plague brakes out. Everyone is stuck at home, with nothing to do, and no end in sight. For entertainment, all are watching this amazing but crazy story unfold…

But this isn’t Covid.

It was the summer of 1592. There’s an outbreak of the plague (the OG kind) and officials shut everything down — yes, they knew even back then that people gathering in groups spread it…it’s a small world. At its peak about a thousand people died a week and about ten percent of the population perished.

Shakespeare’s company couldn’t perform in the theater, and the actors were out of work. To get a little money, Shakespeare penned what was at the time his most famous writing. He’s know today for his plays, but he first broke on the scene in his own time with an epic poem: Venus and Adonis.

The story is of a goddess (Venus) pursuing the hunter, Adonis, for…love. Adonis is more into hunting and isn’t so sure about all this until…this is a steamy story. Look at what Venus tells him:

I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:
Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:

Venus telling Adonis to wonder south? Into her “garden”…The poem is a fun one. Elizabethan sexuality was actually less puritanical than we realize, but even this poem had trouble getting to print because of its scandalousness.

Other playwrights of Shakespeare’s time were trying to understand what was happening and document historical events. But Shakespeare? He was writing hot steamy poems with draw-me-like-one-of-your-french-girl scenes for Elizabethans to get their thang on…

The poem was so popular it was reprinted multiple times within his lifetime (rare, even then). Everyone was at home but this little poem was power packed with delightful little tidbits that are scandalous by today’s standards, but even more back then.

The poem isn’t as widely known today, but it’s what made his name then, and probably made his career, ushering people to see the play written by the poem’s author.

Covid wasn’t the first time humanity had a moment of life interrupted by a virus.

When cooped up, with no clear timeline of when normal events will resume, humans need something to pass the time. And what helped our Elizabethan forebears to do that? Shakespeare’s Venus & Adonis.

We had Tiger King. The Elizabethans had Shakespeare’s erotica.

Tiger King was a crazy moment culturally. We were all pent up, at home, with nothing but time and a Netflix subscription to pass our days. We didn’t know how long it would be…and the same thing happened with our fellow humans, 500 years before us.

We aren’t as far removed from the past as we think.

I discovered this story from Dame Sarah over at Shakespeare Made Clear and owe her work to bringing this to light. Her YouTube channel is so charming and fun.

I don’t know when the next lockdown will happen but I know that whenever it comes, we humans will venture into our imaginations for anything to escape the pain. For us, it was a crazy gay zoo keeper in Oklahoma. For Elizabethans, it was the erotica of Shakespeare.