Omer Talon

Omer Talon (~1510-1562) was probably a professor of rhetoric. Not much else is known about him. He was associated with Pierre de la Ramée and published as Audomarus Talaeus.

The Massacre at Paris

In [Scene 9] Talaeus tries in vain to persuade Ramus to flee. Retz recognises him as a Catholic and lets him go. (Talon died about 10 years before the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre.) Retz refers to Talaeus as a "bedfellow "1 from the Ramée. Marlowe in no way meant to imply a homosexual relationship between the two. "Bedfellow" had a completely different meaning back then. The bed was a much more public place than it is today. It was not only used for sleeping, but also for talking. A bedfellow was a confidant who could definitely influence one.2


Bray, Alan. 1990. “Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan England.” History Workshop Journal 29 (1): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/29.1.1.

  1. The Massacre at Paris. 9, 12↩︎
  2. Bray (1990)↩︎

Aktualisiert am 24.05.2024

Comments are closed.