Astrophil and Stella: Sonnet 21 (“Your words,
my friend—right healthful caustics—blame”)
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (ca. 1582) In Sonnet 21, Astro-
phil responds to a friend who has admonished him
against writing love poetry. The theme is one of critical
self-examination in which Astrophil’s poems serve as
evidence that he has wasted his abilities on “coltish
gyres” (l. 6) rather than having bent them to more seri-
ous and virtuous pursuits. The SONNET is written in
IAMBIC PENTAMETER and follows the ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN)
SONNET form.
The opening OCTAVE recounts the arguments of Astro-
phil’s well-meaning friend, and it contrasts the friend’s
words against Astrophil’s poetry. The interlocutor has
offered advice, which Astrophil compares to medicine
(“healthful caustiks”) intended to illustrate how love has
“marde” his “young minde” (l. 2), a point further empha-
sized by the three consecutive stresses that slow down
line two and give it a sense of moral gravity. The second
half of the OCTAVE turns more serious, linking Astrophil’s
failure to reform himself morally (after having read
Plato) to his failure to fulfi ll “nobler desires” and “great
expectation” (ll. 7–8). In these lines, and continuing
through line 11 (the fi rst half of the SESTET), Sonnet 21
seems to allude in very general terms to some aspects of
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’s own life: By 1582–83, when Sidney
was likely composing Astrophil and Stella, he had gained
no important offi ce at the court of Queen ELIZABETH I. In
1579, various political setbacks, stemming mostly from
arguments with other courtiers (e.g. the Earl of Oxford),
likely resulted in the question that ends the fi rst half of
the sestet: “If now the May of my yeares much decline, /
What can be hoped my harvest time will be?” This cer-
tainly seems to suggest the series of Sidney’s failures.
The conclusion of the poem characteristically con-
tradicts the standard: After conceding the wisdom of
the interlocutor’s advice and alluding obliquely to Sid-
ney’s own tribulations, Astrophil returns to his fi ctional
world and demands “Hath this world ought so faire as
Stella is?” Thus, by returning to the theme of Stella’s
beauty, the poem subverts its own autobiographical
intimations and trumps all the conventional judgments
offered by the friend.
See also ASTROPHIL AND STELLA (OVERVIEW).
Joel B. Davis
Astrophil and Stella: Sonnet 23 (“The curious
wits, seeing dull pensiuenesse”) SIR PHILIP SID-
NEY (ca. 1582) In Sonnet 23, Astrophil takes his
reader aside for a moment, pointing out all the ways
that “the curious wits” (l.1) misread his moods, before
he turns, in a dramatic APOSTROPHE to those who watch
him, to declare his love for Stella. It is the fi rst in a
series of SONNETs that directly address the atmosphere
of courtly suspicion and gossip where Astrophil imag-
ines his poems are interpreted; the others are Sonnets
27, 28, 54, and 104.
Like most of the sonnets of Astrophil and Stella, Son-
net 23 is written in iambic pentameter and follows the
ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN) SONNET form. In the opening
OCTAVE, Astrophil admits that his own eyes reveal a
“dull pensiveness” (ll. 1–2), but he suggests that the
“curious wits” that surround him speculate about his
motives inaccurately, “with idle paines, and missing
ayme” (l. 4). He offers us an ambiguity in the third line,
“Whence those same fumes of melancholy arise,”
which may refer either to his own eyes or to the “curi-
ous wits” who observe him. Melancholy itself is a fash-
ionable humor at court: In SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’s time,
those who affected melancholy were given to playing
with language extravagantly and drawing out intricate
metaphors (also called CONCEITS).
The second half of the octave explains that some
observers of Astrophil believe he is being excessively
studious (ll. 5–6), while other observers noting his ser-
vice to the “Prince” believe he takes the courtier’s role
of counselor too seriously, and that he attempts to give
political advice to correct errors of his “state” (l. 8).
Although neither of these interpretations of Astrophil’s
behavior relates directly to Sidney’s own life, they nev-
ertheless hint at Sidney’s studious and serious nature,
his position as a courtier, and his advocacy of the mili-
tant policies that Queen ELIZABETH I did not wish to
pursue (especially in the Netherlands).
The closing SESTET begins by naming even harsher
judges of Astrophil’s behavior, who see him caught up
in “ambition’s rage” (l. 9), frustrated with his own lack
of advancement, and thus scheming to get ahead at
court. In the second half of the sestet, Astrophil sud-
denly turns to those he imagines have been whisper-
ing about him, and he exclaims “O fooles, or over-wise”44 ASTROPHIL AND STELLA: SONNET 21