Corydon (Greek Κορύδων ''Korúdōn'', probably related to κόρυδος ''kórudos'' "lark") is a stock name for a shepherd in ancient Greek pastoral poems and

fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse (poetry), verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphized, and that illustrat ...

s, such as the one in Idyll 4 of the Syracusan poet

Theocritus Theocritus (; grc-gre, Θεόκριτος, ''Theokritos''; born c. 300 BC, died after 260 BC) was a Greek poet from Sicily and the creator of Ancient Greek pastoral poetry. Life Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from h ...

(c. 300 – c. 250 BC). The name was used by the Latin poets

Siculus Siculus (from Greek) was a legendary king and son of Italus. Thucydides and other Greek historians have suggested that he was the legendary progenitor of the Sicels (or Siculi), an Italic people who colonised Sicily three hundred years before the ...

and, more significantly,

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

. In the second of Virgil's ''

Eclogues The ''Eclogues'' (; ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. Background Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offer ...

'', it is used for a shepherd whose love for the boy Alexis is described therein. Virgil's Corydon gives his name to the modern book ''Corydon''. Corydon is the name of a character that features heavily in the

of Calpurnius Siculus. Some scholars believe that Calpurnius represents himself, or at least his "poetic voice"Hubbard, T.K. The Pipes of Pan (1996) pp 152 through Corydon, Corydon is mentioned in Edmund Spenser's ''

The Faerie Queen ''The Faerie Queene'' is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. ''The Faerie Queene'' is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 sta ...

'' as a shepherd in Book VI, Canto X. In this section he is portrayed as a coward who fails to come to the aid of Pastorell when she is being pursued by a tiger. The name appears in poem number 17 ("My flocks feed not, my ewes breed not") of ''

The Passionate Pilgrim ''The Passionate Pilgrim'' (1599) is an anthology of 20 poems collected and published by William Jaggard that were attributed to " W. Shakespeare" on the title page, only five of which are considered authentically Shakespearean. These are two ...

'', an anthology of poetry first published in 1599 and attributed on the title page of the collection to

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

. This poem appeared the following year in another collection, ''England's Helicon'', where it was attributed to "Ignoto" (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for "Unknown"). Circumstantial evidence points to a possible authorship by

Richard Barnfield Richard Barnfield (baptized 29 June 1574 – 1620) was an English poet. His obscure though close relationship with William Shakespeare has long made him interesting to scholars. It has been suggested that he was the "rival poet" mentioned in ...

, whose first published work, ''The Affectionate Shepherd'', though dealing with the unrequited love of

Daphnis In Greek mythology, Daphnis (; grc, Δάφνις, from , ''daphne'', "Bay Laurel") was a Sicilian shepherd who was said to be the inventor of pastoral poetry. Family According to tradition, he was the son of Hermes and a nymph, despite which ...

for Ganymede, was in fact, as Barnfield stated later, an expansion of Virgil's second ''Eclogue'' which dealt with the love of Corydon for Alexis. Corydon and Thyrsis appear in Henry Needler's poem, "A Pastoral", first published in 1724. The name is again used for a shepherd boy in an English children's trilogy (''Corydon and the Island of Monsters'', ''Corydon and the Fall of Atlantis'' and ''Corydon and the Siege of Troy'') by Tobias Druitt

Corydon is the name of a shepherd in a Christianity, Christian

hymn A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hy ...

entitled ''

Pastoral Elegy The pastoral elegy is a poem about both death and idyllic rural life. Often, the pastoral elegy features shepherds. The genre is actually a subgroup of pastoral poetry, as the elegy takes the pastoral elements and relates them to expressing grief ...

''. The town of

Corydon, Indiana Corydon is a town in Harrison Township, Harrison County, Indiana. Located north of the Ohio River in the extreme southern part of the U.S. state of Indiana, it is the seat of government for Harrison County. Corydon was founded in 1808 and served ...

is named after the shepherd of that hymn. Corydon and Thyrsis are a pair of shepherds in

Edna St. Vincent Millay Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She wrote much of he ...

's 1920 play, "Aria da Capo"

'' Corydon (book), Corydon'' is the name of a 1924 Dialogue by

André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism ...

, in which the discussion of the naturalness and morality of homosexuality and pederasty are linked to the character Corydon, inspired by Virgil.

References

Virgil Ancient Greek literature Fictional LGBT characters in literature LGBT themes in Greek mythology {{LGBT-stub