ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on Luke Wilson's discussion of the use of inapt weaponry in The Old Arcadia to help situate the literary uses to which Sidney applies this potion. Potions and poisons of various sorts, to be sure, play a critical role throughout the literature of early modern England. The term potion in the period tends to denote any liquid or liquor used to bring about various psychosomatic effects, either to an affected individual or to an affected group. One way in which self-fashioning finds its distinct flavor in The Old Arcadia is in terms of its representations of gender. Duke Basilius' metaphor here confirms how early modern psycho-physiology tends to view the human body as an implicitly volatile apparatus. Sidney's representation of subjective identity, as embodied within the humoral paradigm, thus comes directly to affect the fundamental structure of The Old Arcadia, drawing upon Aristotle's abstract terms in the fictional application.
