vant brings it to Procne, who fi nds her sister and res-
cues her from the castle.
The eighth legend tells of Phyllis and Demophon,
the son of Theseus, who are betrothed. Despite his
promise, Demophon leaves and never comes back.
When he does not return, Phyllis, full of sorrow, kills
herself. Before she does, however, she writes Demo-
phon a letter expressing her desire to have him
return, and outlining the woe she suffers because of
his loss.
The fi nal legend is that of Hypermnestra’s love for
her husband and her father. Hypermnestra is to marry
Lyno, but her father believes that only ill will come of
such a union. He instructs Hypermnestra to murder
Lyno while he sleeps. Hypermnestra decides not to
murder her husband, and instead helps him escape.
He does, but she is caught, imprisoned, and sentenced
to death.
The main critical discussion of the Legend is whether
it actually endorses the types of female behavior that it
describes. The best-known source for such a collection
is OVID’s Heroides, a series of letter-poems composed as
if written by women lamenting their betrayal by men.
However, the legend is not all about women and their
troubles, as the men, overall, fare rather well. Each leg-
end contains as many lines about the errant men as it
does about their female subjects. Composed in this
way, the narrative leaves open the possibility for tex-
tual and narrative misogyny, making The Legend of
Good Women really the “Legend of men who got away
with boorish behavior.” Another interesting avenue of
scholarship examines the role of LOVESICKNESS in the
Legend, as the women in the poem suffer from this
affl iction. Finally, another body of criticism looks at
the violent implications in the relentless deaths of the
female protagonists.
FURTHER READING
Lerer, Seth. The Yale Companion to Chaucer. New Haven,
Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 2006.
Pearsall, Derek. The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer. Oxford: Black-
well, 1994.
Quinn, William A. Chaucer’s Dream Visions and Shorter
Poems. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1999.
Kimberly A. Racon
LEICESTER, ROBERT SIDNEY, EARL
OF (VISCOUNT DE L’ISLE) (1563–1626) A
long-serving politician and soldier, Robert Sidney was
governor of Flushing in the occupied Protestant Neth-
erlands and eventually retired to the family estate at
Penshurst, in Kent, becoming viscount de l’Isle in 1605
and earl of Leicester in 1618. Sidney was not known as
a poet until recently. In 1973, a manuscript at War-
wick Castle was identifi ed as Robert’s own manuscript
of poems. It is the largest collection from the period in
its author’s own hand.
Modeled loosely (though with a less obvious sequen-
tial structure) on his brother SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’s ASTRO-
PHIL AND STELLA, Robert Sidney’s collection of poems
was mainly written in a short burst in the 1590s, after
Philip’s death and while Robert was serving in the Low
Countries. It is full of nostalgia and loss that has per-
sonal origins—his brother’s death, his separation from
family, and his political frustrations—and is perme-
ated by a melancholy brooding derived from the popu-
lar Petrarchan model. His verse includes poems where
his life as a soldier, “the hardy captain, unused to
retire” (Sonnet 7.1) is directly addressed; others where
he looks nostalgically westward toward Penshurst,
where “love holds fast his heart” (Song 6.18). Other
poems are less personalized love plaints and SONNETs
addressed to the typical Petrarchan beloved, who is at
once elevated and complained against as “you that take
pleasure in your cruelty” (Sonnet 25.1), and happiness
is balanced by the pain of “my true mishaps in your
betraying love” (Sonnet 16.11).
Robert’s verse is careful and sometimes plodding,
but it is metrically versatile, showing an interest in
experimenting with a variety of metrical and stanzaic
forms. The emotions of his poems are expressed in
broad sweeps—generalized but poignant feelings about
time, disillusion, absence, and death. Like SIR WALTER
RALEIGH, another courtier-poet who felt the uncertain-
ties of fortune on his career, Sidney uses the lyric both
to escape from the world’s pressures and to brood over
the pressures that made him seek that solace.
Perhaps his most impressive poem is Song 6, which
is based on the traditional BALLAD about a pilgrim
returning from the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.
It is a 136-line dialogue between a pilgrim and a ladyLEICESTER, ROBERT SIDNEY, EARL OF 245