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After the poetry of English courtier and soldier Sir Philip Sidney was published following his death in 1586 at the age of 32, Sidney was celebrated as the ideal courtly poet of the Elizabethan Age. His sequence Astrophel and Stella (1591) was the first cycle of sonnets in English literature and had a lasting influence on later poets. Reportedly sparked by his relationship with Penelope Devereux, a lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth I, Astrophel and Stella tells the story of the poet Astrophel‘s unrequited love for Stella, a high-born and virtuous woman. The following five sonnets from the cycle convey the changing emotions of Astrophel, in whose voice the poems are written, toward Stella.

From Astrophel and Stella By Sir Philip Sidney

1

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain: Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburn't brain. But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay; Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows; And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way. Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating my self for spite,

'Fool,' said my Muse to me, 'look in thy heart and write.'

15

You that do search for every purling spring, Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flows; And every flower, not sweet perhaps, which grows Near thereabouts, into your Poesy wring;

You that do dictionary's method bring Into your rhymes, running in rattling rows; You that poor Petrarch's long-deceased woes, With new-born sighs and denizened wit do sing; You take wrong ways, those far-fet helps be such As do bewray a want of inward touch:

But if (both for your love and skill) your name You seek to nurse at fullest breasts of Fame, Stella behold, and then begin to endite.

27

Because I oft, in dark abstracted guise, Seem most alone in greatest company, With dearth of words, or answers quite awry, To them that would make speech of speech arise, They deem, and of that doom the rumour flies, That poison foul of bubbling pride doth lie So in my dwelling breast, that only I

Fawn on my self, and others do despise: Yet pride, I think, doth not my soul possess, Which looks too oft in his unflatt'ring glass: But one worse fault, Ambition, I confess, That makes me oft my best friends overpass, Unseen, unheard, while thought to highest place Bends all his powers, even unto Stella's grace.

31

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies, How silently, and with how wan a face,

What may it be, that even in heav'nly place That busie archer his sharp arrows tries? Sure, if that long with Love acquainted eyes Can judge of Love, thou feel'st a Lover's case; I read it in thy looks, thy languish'd grace To me that feel the like, thy state descries. Then ev'n of fellowship, O Moon, tell me Is constant Love deem'd there but want of wit? Are Beauties there as proud as here they be? Do they above love to be lov'd, and yet

Those Lovers scorn whom that Love doth possess? Do they call Virtue there ungratefulness?

54

Because I breathe not love to ev'ry one, Nor do not use set colours for to wear, Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair, Nor give each speech a full point of a groan. The courtly Nymphs, acquainted with the moan,

Of them, who in their lips Love's standard bear; 'What he?' say they of me, 'now I dare swear, He cannot love: no, no, let him alone.' And think so still, so Stella know my mind, Profess in deed I do not Cupid's art;

But you fair maid at length this true shall find, That his right badge is but worn in the heart: Dumb Swan, not chatt'ring Pies, do Lovers prove, They love indeed, who quake to say they love.

Source: The Columbia Anthology of British Poetry. Woodring, Carl and James Shapiro, eds. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.

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————————————————————————————————————— Sidney, universally recognized as the model Renaissance nobleman, outwardly polished as well as inwardly conscientious, inaugurated the vogue of the sonnet cycle in his Astrophel

and Stella (written 1582?; published 1591). In this work, in the elaborate and highly

metaphorical style of the earlier Italian sonnet, he celebrated his idealized love for Penelope Devereux, the daughter of Walter Devereux, 1st earl of Essex. These lyrics profess to see in her an ideal of womanhood that in the Platonic manner leads to a perception of the good, the true, and the beautiful and consequently of the divine. This idealization of the beloved remained a favored motif in much of the poetry and drama of the late 16th century; it had its roots not only in Platonism but also in the Platonic speculations of humanism and in the chivalric idealization of love in medieval romance.

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