ABSTRACT

Elizabeth's representation as the goddess of love in the Elvetham entertainment demonstrates the difficulties that arise when interpreting Venus. The Virgin Queen as Venus provokes desire in her subjects, encouraging them to sexual acts although she publicly eschews such pleasures. Many of Venus's musical conventions were not only associated with the goddess of love; they were associated with all kinds of amorous music. In a duet, composed by William Lawes, Venus's priests pray the Princes will have as much success in love as on the battlefield. In entertainments like John Dryden and Louis Grabu's Albion and Albanius, Venus, the goddess who had been emblematic of the harmony present at the Caroline court, is used to symbolize Stuart legitimacy; the political association is retained, but the insistence on sexual virtue falls away. While the Stuarts attempted to harness the musical power of Venus, the connection they forged with the goddess would later come back to haunt them.