Astrophil and Stella: Sonnet 91 (“Stella, while
now by Honour’s cruell might”) SIR PHILIP SID-
NEY (ca. 1582) Sonnet 91 builds on a controlling
metaphor that Stella is Astrophil’s sun, so that without
her he remains in darkness, except for those other
women whose features momentarily light his night
with their beauty. Astrophil, concerned lest Stella think
him unfaithful in his love for her, seeks to assure her
that these others only please him because he sees her
in them, and that is what moves him.
This ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN) SONNET begins its OCTAVE
with an oxymoron, “honour’s cruell might” (l. 1), high-
lighting Astrophil’s state of mind and the inversion of
values that passionate love produces. Absence from
Stella, like night or a veil, creates a darkness that
grieves him. The second half of the octave treats other
women as SYNECDOCHEs for Stella; Astrophil says that
he sees them as if they were candles (compared to Stel-
la’s sun). In a parody of the BLAZON, elements of indi-
vidual women—the hair, hands, cheeks, lips, or
eyes—illuminate his darkness slightly. The metaphor
of eyes as “seeing jets, blacke, but in blacknesse bright”
(l. 8) focuses the image both in its ALLITERATION and in
the oxymoron of black brightness.
In the SESTET, Astrophil admits these beauties please
his eyes, but only because “of you they models be” (l.
10). He extends the simile to claim that these women’s
features are “wood-globes of glistring skies” (l. 11);
that is, they are like wooden models of astral bodies,
resembling them in form but refl ecting only some tiny
portion of the original’s light. The sonnet’s conclusion
offers to reassure Stella: Astrophil does not love these
women even if it looks that way, even if “they seeme
my hart to move” (l. 13). He loves them for what they
refl ect of Stella, “you in them” (l. 14).
Astrophil addresses Stella throughout this sonnet.
Naturally, such APOSTROPHEs occur more frequently in
SONNETs when the two lovers are separated than when/
where they are together, when he is more likely to talk
about her. Astrophil bridges her absence by invoking
her name. The CONCEIT that Stella is the original and all
other beautiful women merely copies or refl ections of
her reappears in Song 11 (ll. 21–25). By the end of
Sonnet 91, Stella has emerged as an archetype for
things that are fundamentally incomparable.
See also ASTROPHIL AND STELLA (OVERVIEW); SIDNEY, SIR
PHILIP.
Marjory E. LangeAstrophil and Stella: Sonnet 94 (“Grief, fi nd
the words; for thou hast made my brain”) SIR
PHILIP SIDNEY (ca. 1582) In SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’s Son-
net 94, Astrophil relinquishes the responsibility for
writing sonnets. He addresses personifi ed Grief in an
extended APOSTROPHE, fi rst complaining that he is
unable to write because his grief is so great and telling
Grief to complain on his behalf—to write his poetry, in
fact. The entire SONNET is hyperbolic (overblown or
exaggerated), but the eventual destination is a piece of
self-criticism: The speaker recognizes that he is griev-
ing excessively.
The OCTAVE of this ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN) SONNET
orders Grief to “fi nd the words” (l. 1) to write because
Astrophil’s brain has become darkened by the misty
vapors rising from grief’s “heavy mould” (l. 2). This
metaphor compares grief to a swamp from which nox-
ious fogs rise, blinding Astrophil so that he cannot
even see what is making him suffer. Grief, he says, is
able to complain (l. 5); being the source of the pain
Astrophil suffers, Grief must do the writing. In these
lines, Astrophil fi rst acknowledges the severity of his
grieving: He suffers the sickness of grief even though
“harbengers of death lodge there in his braine” (l. 8).
The speaker recognizes how out of control he really is,
and he tries to turn the responsibility for poetry over to
Grief, the more balanced of the two. The SESTET devel-
ops this CONCEIT by suggesting that Grief has reason to
complain on his own behalf, since the association with
Astrophil makes him “more wretched” than he would
be otherwise.
This sonnet has more than the usual number of vari-
ants among the manuscript and early printed editions,
attesting to its many diffi culties of syntax and diction.
Line 9, for instance, occurs in four completely different
versions. Thus, although the general meaning and over-
all sentiment are extraordinarily clear, the details of this
sonnet remain more obscure than many, which empha-
size Astrophil’s condition and point. The convoluted
syntax contrasts with an unusually smooth rhythm.64 ASTROPHIL AND STELLA: SONNET 91