Note 385b — APPENDIX

The complimentary title of ‘Amyntas,’ which was naturalised in English literature by Abraham Fraunce’s two renderings of Tasso’s Aminta—one direct from the Italian and the other from the Latin version of Thomas Watson—was apparently bestowed by Spenser on the Earl of Derby in his Colin Clouts come Home againe (1595); and some critics assume that Nash referred in Pierce Pennilesse to that nobleman rather than to Southampton. But Nash’s comparison of his paragon to Ganymede suggests extreme youth, and Southampton was nineteen in 1592 while Derby was thirty-three. ‘Amyntas’ as a complimentary designation was widely used by the poets, and was not applied exclusively to any one patron of letters. It was bestowed on the poet Watson by Richard Barnfield and by other of Watson’s panegyrists.