“Love Armed” is not an independent, standalone poem, but actually a poetic song that Aphra Behn freqeuently inserted into another type of writing at which she excelled: stage drama. “Love Armed” is a song that was originally conceived for the only tragedy that Behn ever produced. Abdelazer; or, The Moor’s Revenge (1676) was the fourth of sixteen plays that Behn would write during her long and varied career.
“Love Armed” was listed simply as “Song” when introduced in the opening scene of Abdelazer at a period in Behn’s career when she was primarily known as a playwright. Although she had been writing poetry for years, her work had gone largely unpublished, circulating only in manuscript among close circles of friends. Behn only turned to playwriting out of monetary necessity. Abdelazer tells the story of a captive moor, Abdelazer, who seeks revenge on King Philip of Spain after the king kills his father. "Love Armed" opens the entire play, sung while Abdelazer remains captive in his chamber. He is soon visited by the Queen, his lover, who says that she arranged the music to make him think about love and sensuality.
Indeed, "Love Armed" is first and foremost a love poem, spoken from the perspective of an unnamed speaker experiencing the woes of unrequited love. The speaker imagines Love as a god, invoking ancient Greek and Roman mythology, and argues that this god has come to exist because of her and her beloved. She presents two versions of love throughout the poem—the lover who pines for the beloved and the beloved who is in turn cruel in their rejection of the lover—to portray Love as a complex and paradoxical entity.
