"If I were a woman, as I am a man,..." is indeed a striking line, but it is far from being an "overt declaration of same-sex desire". On the contrary, what is striking about it from the perspective of this century is that the king is confident enough of his heterosexuality and masculinity that he has no difficulty admiring the beauty of another man when the situation calls for that. An ordinary 20th-century American man would feel compromised if he expressed such an observation. There have always been exceptions, of course, and the taboo as a whole has weakened a good deal in my lifetime.