Volu m e I - Purdue University Calumet

"nymphs, with whom she decks the woods" and "knights, in whom true honor lives" (l. 5-6) into a more
sinister light. Male knights do not appear in depictions of the mythological Roman Diana; their inclusion in
the English Diana's train is significant in light of Ralegh's knighthood in 1585. "Nymphs" clearly refers to
the young noblewomen with whom Elizabeth surrounded herself, and whom "she watched over like a
jealous mother" (King 51). Excessive watchfulness and jealousy were traits associated with the goddess
Diana's tyrannical control of her nymphs in other literature from Elizabeth's reign. A masque performed
before the queen in 1566 shows Diana being forced to accept the marriage of one of her nymphs, which
King identified as the marriage of Elizabeth's companion, Frances Radcliffe, to Thomas Mildmay (45). In a
masque by George Gascoigne, written in 1575 but never performed for Elizabeth, Diana attempts to
reclaim a nymph named Zabeta from the company of Juno, goddess of marriage (Doran 267; King 47). By
associating Diana with Elizabeth, Ralegh prompts his readers to associate Diana's tyrannical jealousy with
Elizabeth's possessiveness towards Bess Throckmorton. Instead of an idyllic nymph-decked forest scene, he
conjures the image of Elizabeth as an overbearing tyrant, oppressing her beautiful nymph and the knight still
protesting his "true honor."
Other literary associations make Ralegh's conflation of Elizabeth with Diana less-than-flattering.
Her scripture-conscious Protestant subjects, for whom "the practice of idolatry was among the direst
charges" (Montrose, "Idols" 138), would have identified Diana as the goddess whose idols are condemned
by St. Paul in Acts 19 (Montrose, "Idols" 131). Montrose suggests that this "taint of pagan idolatry"
surrounding Diana-Elizabeth is the reason most Diana references are literary rather than visual; good
Christian Englishmen would not hang an idol of a pagan goddess on their walls, even to flatter the queen
(129). Ralegh's connection of Elizabeth to a goddess closely identified with idolatry, defined as "the paying
or offering of divine honors to any created object" ("Idolatry"), is actually a reminder of the queen's
mortality. And a mortal woman accepting praise due to goddess is clearly guilty of the deadly sin of pride.
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