Speaker
In many ways, the speaker marks the most interesting character in the poem; as readers, the only clue we have to the speaker’s gender identity is the poem’s title, which was added much after its original composition. Although such a historical textual reading might problematize the speaker’s gender, (can her gender identity be queered?) an equally interesting reading emerges if her gendered is assumed to be feminine. As a woman inhabiting the space of the pastoral lyric, the speaker finds herself in a masculine genre; but instead of succumbing to a heteronormative model for desire—expressing one unilateral love for another—she posits the possibility of loving two men equally.
Elsewhere Behn’s lyric speaker is identified as “Astrea,” a woman interpreted as Behn’s poetic self.
Damon
Damon is a reoccurring character in much of Aphra Behn’s poetry. She uses his presence to call upon the male image of the ideal pastoral cavalier—a man who lives a somewhat libertine lifestyle in the country, and sees women as conquest—and so to appropriate and bend the pastoral lyric tradition. In many ways, we find the speaker both identifying with and defining herself against Damon’s conventional masculinity.
Alexis
Alexis, like Damon, is a character that occurs elsewhere in Behn’s poetry, and often gets cast as a conquering lover. It is important to note that both Alexis and Damon have no distinguishing characteristics in the poem. Instead, they act as foils, constantly counteracting each other. Damon’s conquests of the speaker only stand to make her more vulnerable to the advances of Alexis, and vice versa. By creating two nearly identical male characters in Alexis and Damon, Behn critiques the idea that masculine agency in the pastoral poem equates to a solidifying of masculine identity; instead, masculinity here only works to dampen and occlude Alexis and Damon’s desire to conquer or subdue the speaker.
Cupid
The speaker, in stanza 3, makes a desperate appeal to Cupid—the god who shoots arrows which cause people to fall in love—to withdraw one of the darts that caused "them" to love both Damon and Alexis. It's important to note however, that the agency of the appeal remains with the speaker and not Cupid; the speaker cannot decide which of two lovers to be done with.
