Astrophil and Stella: Sonnet 72 (“Desire,
though thou my old companion art”) SIR PHILIP
SIDNEY (ca. 1582) In this SONNET, Astrophil addresses
“Desire” (l. 1), which causes him diffi culty in discern-
ing the differences between his erotic attraction and his
platonic love for Stella. Personifying his erotic impulse
as “Venus” (l. 5), Astrophil emphasizes that platonic
love (which he calls “Dian” [l. 5]—that is, Diana, the
virgin Greco-Roman goddess) is the foundation upon
which erotic love rests (l. 5). He then proclaims that he
will turn to “Virtue” and allow it to be his guide along
with “Service” and “Honor” (l. 6). As the poem draws
to a conclusion in the SESTET, Astrophil states that he
will rely on care and faith (l. 11), which Stella has left
him, to sustain him as he dismisses Desire. Nonethe-
less, the sonnet concludes with Astrophil’s acknowl-
edgment that Desire’s banishment is tenuous and with
his uncertainty that it will remain so.
By opening with an allusion from the CLASSICAL TRA-
DITION combined with PERSONIFICATION, the poem oper-
ates on a richly textured symbolic level, integrating the
poem’s present with that of its author’s cultural heri-
tage. The sonnet also uses the dichotomy of the two
states to represent the divided loyalties of the heart and
mind, which in turn can be viewed as symbolic of the
maze of sociopolitical alliances of the Tudor court.
See also ASTROPHIL AND STELLA (OVERVIEW); COURT
CULTURE; SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP.
Joseph BeckerAstrophil and Stella: Sonnet 74 (“I never drank
of Aganippe well”) SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (ca.
1582) Though it contains, essentially, a concluding
COUPLET, Sonnet 74 follows the ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN)
SONNET form overall, both in rhyme scheme (abab,
abab, cdcd, ee) and narrative, with the OCTAVE setting
up the situation and the SESTET resolving it. In this case,
the situation is about writing poetry.
The ambiguous fi rst line initiates the self-refl ection:
“I never drank of Aganippe well” (l. 1), which culmi-
nates in Astrophil’s declaration, “Poor layman I, for
sacred rites unfi t” (l. 4). If “well” in line 1 is a noun,
then the speaker claims that the Muses have never been
kind to him because he has never drunk from their
sacred well at the foot of Mt. Parnassus, rendering him
unfi t to receive inspiration. If well is an adverb, how-
ever, the sense is that the speaker has visited Aganippe
and drunk from the well, but he was judged unfi t to
receive the Muses’ inspiration. Swearing the most bind-
ing oath possible, “by blackest brook of hell” (the river
Styx, l. 7), the speaker insists that he has never been a
“pick-purse of another’s wit” (l. 8)—all his ideas are his
own. This is likely a direct response to accusations that
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY imitated Thomas Watson’s SONNET
SEQUENCE Hekatompathia (1582).
The sestet begins in a rather self-laudatory manner:
“How falls it then that with so smooth an ease/ my
thoughts I speak, and what I speak doth fl ow / in verse,
and that my verse best wits doth please?” (ll. 9–11)
Without divine inspiration or thievery, the speaker is
clearly a superior poet, as his contemporaries agree.
After a brief, somewhat coy, exchange, he reveals the
secret—he speaks so well because he has been
inspired—by “Stella’s kiss” (l. 14).
See also ASTROPHIL AND STELLA (OVERVIEW); SIDNEY, SIR
PHILIP.
FURTHER READING
Coldiron, A. E. B. “Sidney, Watson, and the ‘Wrong Ways’
to Renaissance Lyric Poetry.” In Renaissance Papers 1997,
edited by T. H. Howard-Hill and Philip Rollinson, 49–62.
Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1997.
Peggy J. HueyAstrophil and Stella: Sonnet 81 (“O kiss, which
dost those ruddy gems impart”) SIR PHILIP SID-
NEY (ca. 1582) In SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’s Sonnet 81,
Astrophil uses extravagant praise of her kisses to con-
vince the blushing Stella to silence him by kissing him
again. The tone of this ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN) SONNET is
physically passionate and ironic, as the poet turns a
conventional—and inconsequential—moment into an
occasion for a humorous reaction expressed in word-
play.
The OCTAVE is an extended APOSTROPHE addressing
the kiss from Stella’s lips. This continues the move-
ment from Sonnet 79, also an apostrophe to the kiss,
and Sonnet 80, which begins and ends at Stella’s lip.
The fi rst four lines employ asyndeton (leaving out con-60 ASTROPHIL AND STELLA: SONNET 72