Text 21

SONNET CXC

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,

But as for me, alas, I may no more

The vain travail hath wearied me so sore.

I am of them that fathest cometh behind;

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind

Draw from the Deer: but as she fleeth afore,

Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,

Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain:

And, graven with diamonds, in letters plain

There is written her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere, for Ceasar's I am;

I wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

(Translated from Italian by Sir Thomas Wyatt)

The sonnet is thought to refer to Anne Boleyn, would-be mother of Princess Elizabeth. Thomas Wyatt "lost" her to the King. In the poem, Wyatt, perhaps rather cynically, describes the pursuit of an inaccessible lady as a waste of time. This seems to be a sentiment miles apart from Petrarch's! Actually, King Henry VIII might have made a mental note of the sentiment and – who knows? – might have started to think evil. Unsurprisingly, upon his second arrest Thomas Wyatt was not able to regain the King's favour. He was charged with treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London where his days ended. The times were ruthless, poet or no poet.

Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) in his day was thought to be the greatest English poet since Chaucer and equal to the great classical epic poets. His aim in poetry was very gentlemanly, 'to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline'. Seems to very contemporary for the education of today, doesn't it? Among other things, he wrote a book of 88 sonnets entitled Amoretti (love songs, from Italian of course).

Sir Phillip Sydney (1554—1586) was Spenser's younger friend. He served the court of Elizabeth I. As well as a poet, he was an aristocratic soldier and statesman. To the Elizabethans, he was an ideal courtier, able to excel in all that was regarded as fitting for a nobleman. When he lay in a battlefield in Flanders, mortally wounded (aged only thirty-two), he is reputed to have passed a cup of water to a dying soldier with the words: 'Thy need is greater than mine.' It's really high-sounding poetry turned life.

Five years after Sidney's death, Astrophel and Stella, a sequence of 108 sonnets, was published. In fact, this was the first sequence ever dedicated entirely to the poet's beloved. For a time, Sydney was engaged to Penelope Devereux, the daughter of the Earl of Essex. She is sometimes identified as Stella, though she is said to have been far less virtuous than the Stella of sonnets. Sydney's sonnets are said to have inspired Shakespeare to write his Sonnets (1595-1599). Phillip Sydney may be called the first critic in English literature, too; he wrote Apology for Poetry, in which he defended the importance of poetry in the face of aggravating puritan attacks. The following two sonnets are taken form the collections by Spenser and Sydney respectively (Text 22).