The Facts on File Companion to British Poetry Before 1600

both the alchemical changes detailed in Sonnet 108 and
the entire pattern of achievement and loss Astrophil has
undergone in the previous 107 sonnets and 11 songs.
Although this sonnet ends the sequence, there is no real
conclusion, no closure for Astrophil or the reader. This
inconclusive end is another typical Petrarchan trope—
the lover trapped in love but aware he will never achieve
its gratifi cations.
As late as the 1960s, many scholars were dissatisfi ed
with this sonnet as the end to the sequence. In fact,
early editions appended Sonnets 31 (“Thou blind
man’s marke”) and 32 (“Leave me, O love”) from CER-
TAIN SONNETS to provide a more fi tting outcome to
Astrophil’s progress through the course of love. How-
ever, there is no historical evidence to support any but
Sonnet 108 to end the sequence.
See also ASTROPHIL AND STELLA (OVERVIEW).

FURTHER READING
Cain, Jeffrey P. “Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 108.”
Explicator 52, no. 1 (1993): 12–16.
Murphy, Karl. “The 109th and 110th Sonnets of Astrophil
and Stella.” PQ (1955): 349–352.
Marjory E. Lange

“AS YOU CAME FROM THE HOLY LAND”
SIR WALTER RALEIGH (ca. 1580?–1593?) “As You
Came from the Holy Land” is a brief poem attributed
to SIR WALTER RALEIGH. Like most of Raleigh’s poetry, it
serves as a tribute and COMPLAINT to Queen ELIZABETH I,
“Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear” (l. 15).
The poem shares Raleigh’s recurrent theme of a suitor
abandoned by his love. In this case his love has ven-
tured on pilgrimage and no longer loves him, for he is
old: “Love likes not the falling fruit / From the with-
ered tree” (ll. 27–28). The date of the poem is unknown,
but it was probably written in the 1580s or early 1590s,
during the height of Raleigh’s career in Elizabeth’s
court. The authorship of the poem is also unclear, and
while attributed to Raleigh in various compilations
after his death, there are no early manuscripts to prove
authorship.

FURTHER READING
May, Steven W. Sir Walter Raleigh. Boston: Twayne Publish-
ers, 1989.
Catherine Ann Perkins

AUBADE The aubade branched out from the

ALBA (lament of lovers parting at dawn) tradition.

Though the terms are sometimes used interchange-

ably, the aubade developed into a broader category

of dawn or morning poems, including poems

designed to greet the dawn, celebrate the dawn, or

simply express a morning-time love. The aubade has

no standard verse format. GEOFFREY CHAUCER’s TROI-

LUS AND CRISEYDE contains several aubades—for

example: “And day they gonnen to despise al newe, /

Callyng it traitour, enuyous, and worse” (T&C,

3.1699–1700).

Carol E. Harding

AUREATION From the Latin aureus for “gold,”

aureation is the practice of making language “golden”

through the use of elaborate vocabulary and intricate

syntax, the result of which is a grandiloquent and

ornate poetic diction. Some of the English poets of the

15th century, particularly JOHN LYDGATE and Stephen

Hawes (fl. 1502–1521), and many of the SCOTTISH

CHAUCERIANS, including ROBERT HENRYSON, WILLIAM

DUNBAR, and GAVIN DOUGLAS, favored aureate diction

and wrote using ornamental language full of VERNACU-

LAR coinages of Latin words.

FURTHER READING

Nichols, Pierrepont H. “Lydgate’s Infl uence on the Aureate

Terms of the Scottish Chaucerians.” PMLA 47 (1932):

516–522.

Pearsall, Derek. “The English Chaucerians.” In Chaucer and

Chaucerians, edited by D. S. Brewer, 201–239. London:

Nelson, 1966.

Mark DiCicco

AYRE (LUTE SONG) Also known as an art

song or lute song, an ayre was a poem composed spe-

cifi cally for voices accompanied by a lute.

See also BOOKE OF AYRES, A; “COME AWAY, COME

SWEET LOVE”; DOWLAND, JOHN.

FURTHER READING

Fischlin, Daniel. In Small Proportions: A Poetics of the English

Ayre 1596–1622. Detroit: Wayne State University Press,

1998.

AYRE 69