(l. 8). The word Lieftenancy (l. 7) assures readers that
Stella is still the motive for all of Astrophil’s actions;
what has changed is the nature and sphere of those
accomplishments.
What Astrophil does not say is that this is what
Stella has sought all along. Instead, in Sonnet 107,
Astrophil makes the situation look like his own idea,
and he implores Stella for permission to do what she
has been urging him to do. In many ways, Sonnet 107
answers Sonnet 69, not least because in the earlier SON-
NET Astrophil was given the “monarchie” of Stella’s
“high heart” (l. 10), and in Sonnet 107 he repeatedly
affi rms her command over him. The fi nal irony of Son-
net 107 comes in the last three lines, when Astrophil
hints that if he is not allowed to take up some greater
work, it will be Stella’s perceived fault: “On servants’
shame oft Maister’s blame doth sit” (l. 12). The whee-
dling tone of line 5’s “Sweete” now fulfi lls its purpose.
Astrophil does not want his faithful loving to be
scorned because it resulted in nothing more than the
passionate outpourings of an unsuccessful suitor.
However, by accepting his own responsibility for his
change in attitude, he reverses his fortune and his love
endeavor succeeds.
See also ASTROPHIL AND STELLA (OVERVIEW); SIDNEY, SIR
PHILIP.
Marjory E. LangeAstrophil and Stella: Sonnet 108 (“When Sor-
row—using mine own fi re’s might”) SIR PHILIP
SIDNEY (ca. 1582) This, the last SONNET of SIR PHILIP
SIDNEY’s Astrophil and Stella, is weighted heavily with
alchemical imagery, references to metals, and the refi n-
ing, annealing processes of transformation. The
speaker, Astrophil, acknowledges that his love for
Stella remains simultaneously his joy and his only
ongoing frustration. This admission ends the entire
Astrophil and Stella SONNET SEQUENCE utilizing a very
Petrarchan strategy, the paradox that the joys and dis-
satisfactions of love are inextricably interwoven.
This ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN) SONNET begins with
Astrophil describing himself as burdened by the mol-
ten lead of sorrow, melted in the heat of his own pas-
sion (“mine owne fi er’s might,” l. 1) within his heart’s
furnace (“my boyling brest,” l. 2). This burden is
leaden, heavy, grey—and destructively hot. Into this
darkness, however, shines the light of his joy that is his
beloved Stella, who is not named in Sonnet 108.
The second part of the OCTAVE and fi rst part of the
SESTET illustrate what happens to Astrophil when,
empowered by thought of Stella (the one who “breeds
my delight,” l. 5), he tries to fl y to her comfort (“my
yong soule fl utters to thee his nest” (l. 6). Despair, who
is with him all the time, cuts his wings, wraps him in
darkness, and forces him to admit that one who is
imprisoned (within “iron doores,” l. 11) by despair
cannot possibly appreciate the sun itself (“Phoebus’
gold,” l. 10). Astrophil’s only solution is to declare that
just as Stella is the only joy that can alleviate his woes,
so she also provides the only “annoy” (l. 14) destroying
his joy. The key to the last three lines is the parentheti-
cal alas—“So strangely (alas) thy workes in me pre-
vaile” (l. 12)—because it reinforces Astrophil’s
ambivalence about his whole situation. In Sonnet 108,
he recognizes that he can never win the satisfaction of
union with Stella, but neither can he escape the way
her “workes” master (“prevaile [in]”) him (ll. 13–14).
Sonnet 108 depends on alchemical images. Alchemy
was the process by which baser metals could, presum-
ably, be transformed into gold using various chemical
reactions, principally extreme heat and pressure. Here,
Astrophil is both the alchemist and the location where
transformational operations take place; Stella becomes
both the gold being sought and the agent of the change.
The distance between base “lead” (l. 2) and “Phoebus’
gold” (l. 10) establishes the extremity of change Astro-
phil longs to experience in his love for—and from—
Stella. The “darke fornace” (l. 3) of his “boyling brest” (l.
2) becomes the vessel wherein the transformation might
take place. Sorrow, personifi ed (see PERSONIFICATION),
provides the lead needed to begin the reaction and initi-
ates the process of transformation. Representing himself
as a “yong soule” and Stella as his “nest” (l. 6) thickens
Astrophil’s imagery by adding a child/mother relation-
ship to the images of alchemy. Using nest as METONYMY
for mother, and combining the attributes of a soul with
those of a young bird, the poet inserts a separate pattern
of transformation into his metallurgic one. Later in the
sonnet, Stella’s “workes” (another alchemical term) are68 ASTROPHIL AND STELLA: SONNET 108