The Choise of Valentines Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo

The Choise of Valentines Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo, which alternatively acquired the label "Nashe's Dildo", is an erotic poem by Thomas Nashe, thought to have been composed around 1592 or 1593. The poem survives in three extant manuscri ... Read more

The Choise of Valentines Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo, which alternatively acquired the label "Nashe's Dildo", is an erotic poem by Thomas Nashe, thought to have been composed around 1592 or 1593. The poem survives in three extant manuscript versions and was first printed in 1899. It recounts in the first person a sexual encounter in a brothel between the narrator, Tomalin, and his lover, Mistress Frances. The poem contains the most detailed description of a dildo in Renaissance literature, and contains one of the first attestations of the word dildo, though the word seems to derive ultimately from nonsense syllables common in early-modern popular ballads. In the prologue, Nashe dedicates the poem to “the right honorable the Lord S.”, who is evidently Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's patron and friend. Then in the epilogue when Nashe writes “My muse devorst from deeper care, presents thee with a wanton elegie", it appears that Nashe indeed wrote the poem with the patronage of Southampton. Less