The fi rst two stanzas identify speakers and situation.
Stella opens by asking who stands in the dark beneath
her window, complaining; Astrophil answers it is the
one who, exiled from her, refuses any other light. She
replies by asking if he has not fallen out of love with
her yet, to which Astrophil insists that the only change
she will ever see in him is to ruin. A COMPLAINT is a
recognized category of love poetry; by naming it spe-
cifi cally, Stella recognizes what Astrophil’s presence
indicates.
In the middle fi ve stanzas, Stella explores the depth
and basis for Astrophil’s love: absence, time’s passage,
and new beauties will dim her in his eyes; reason and
all that he has suffered will argue against her. First she
suggests that since they can no longer see one another,
his feelings will die. He agrees, ironically, that absence
might help, but qualifi es himself by adding it could
help only if he could be absent from himself, since his
heart is irrevocably bound to hers. She continues her
argument by asserting that time passing will make his
pain easier, but he retorts that time can only work in
accordance with the subject’s nature, offering as exam-
ple the turtledove, who, traditionally, was believed to
mate for life. You will see new beautiful women, pro-
tests Stella. They will seem only like saints’ paintings,
imperfect images of your perfection, Astrophil replies.
Stella shifts her ground to Astrophil’s own personality:
Your reason will insist that you stop loving me, she
says. Astrophil rejoins that his love for her is founded
precisely in his reason; it is not merely dependent upon
her beauty. Her fi nal protest is that all the wrongs he
has borne on account of his love for her will fi nally
force him to stop loving. He insists that the more trou-
bles that come to shake love, the more deeply it roots
itself.
The last pair of stanzas provide the only possible
way to break the impasse. The lovers are interrupted:
Stella thinks she hears someone listening and is afraid
to be caught speaking with Astrophil. He agrees to
leave, but only because he does not want to endanger
her, and he assures her that his soul remains with her.
She, heatedly, tells him to go, now, before Argus’s eyes
see him. Astrophil complains that the greatest injustice
in the whole miserable situation is that he must run
away from louts.
Sidney uses three devices to place the song’s lovers
and their situation into the tradition. First, Stella is
located physically above Astrophil, inside a guarded
space; Astrophil must stand below, bemoaning their
separation outside. Second, Astrophil compares him-
self to the biblically and classically faithful turtledove,
a popular emblem of lifelong fi delity. Finally, Stella
refers to her watchers metaphorically as Argus, the
mythical 100-eyed creature set by Hera to guard Io
(one of Zeus’s mortal mistresses) from his further
advances. Argus could be relied on to see any intruder,
since some of his 100 eyes were always open. The
implication is that no matter how faithfully Astrophil
loves, he cannot compete successfully against the com-
bined barriers of the gulf imposed by enclosed space
and wardens. The dialogue format and the length allow
the poet to develop a more extended narrative than is
possible within a SONNET.
See also ASTROPHIL AND STELLA (OVERVIEW); EMBLEM;
SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP.
Marjory E. LangeAstrophil and Stella: Sonnet 106 (“O absent
presence, Stella is not here”) SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
(ca. 1582) In Sonnet 106, Astrophil continues to
mourn Stella’s fi nal departure from him—a wretched
state that began in Sonnet 87. Second to last in the
SONNET SEQUENCE, Sonnet 106 marks Astrophil’s fi nal
and unsuccessful efforts to accept Stella’s absence and
to look for a new lover.
The poem is a variation on the ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN)
SONNET and begins as an APOSTROPHE to “hope.” The
fi rst QUATRAIN begins with an oxymoron: absent pres-
ence. Stella is present in Astrophil’s thoughts but phys-
ically absent. He blames his misery on hope, which he
asserts has deceived him into believing that Stella
might return. The “Orphane place” (l. 3) he inhabits
emphasizes that he is alone, without her. The phrase
also resonates provocatively with Orpheus, the poet-
musician who similarly seeks to reclaim his absent
beloved and whose hope is fi nally dashed by his own
error. Astrophil, too, has erred, losing Stella when he
breaks his promise to love her chastely. He goes on to
ask Hope where Stella is, asserting that Hope had66 ASTROPHIL AND STELLA: SONNET 106