Rice University
Sidney's Astrophil and Stella: "See What It Is to Love" Sensually!
Author(s): James J. Scanlon
Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 16, No. 1, The English Renaissance
(Winter, 1976), pp. 65-74
Published by: Rice University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/449855
Accessed: 30-10-2016 13:38 UTC
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Sidney's Astrophil and Stella:
"See what it is to
Love" Sensually!
JAMES J. SCANLON
Modern critical interest in Astrophil and
Stella has centered around Astrophil's "psychology."' The result has
been noteworthy discussion of his emotional interaction with
Petrarchan love and poetic conventions.2 Little attention has been
given, however, to the ethical implications of Astrophil's psychology
as the Renaissance might have seen them. As Robert L. Montgomery
indicates in Symmetry and Sense: The Poetry of Sir Philip Sidney, the
Renaissance considered poetry "a discipline in the service of ethics,
an instrument of precept and example and a vehicle for the
encouragement of right reason."3 In the A pologie for Poetrie, Sidney
himself finds its purpose ethical:
Poesy therefore is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle
termeth it in his word mimesis, that is to say, a representing,
counterfeiting, or figuring forth-to speak metaphorically, a
speaking picture-with this end, to teach and delight.... it is
that feigning notable images of virtues, vices, or what else,
with that delightful teaching, which must be the right
describing note to know a poet by.4
Accordingly, the representation of Astrophil's emotional states in the
sonnets might be expected to be an "instrument of precept and
example" -a "speaking picture" with ethical implications. TFhe
'Perhaps William Ringler indicates the source of contemporary interest in Astrophil
and Stella best in the introduction to his edition of The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney
(Oxford, 1962), p. xlix, when he posits that "The interest of the poem lies in its
presentation of the emotional states and the psychology of Astrophil himself."
2Most noteworthy among modern critics are: Richard B. Young, "English Petrarke:
A Study of Sidney's Astrophel and Stella," in ThreeStudies in theRenaissance:SSidney,
Jonson, Milton, Yale Studies in English, No. 138 (New Haven, 1958), pp. 1-88; Robert
L. Montgomery, Symmetry and Sense: The Poetry of Sir Philip Sid ney (Austin, 1961);
David Kalstone, Sidney's Poetry: Contexts and Interpretations (Cambridge, Mass.,
1965); and, Neil L. Rudenstine, Sidney's Poetic Development (Cambridge, Mass.,
1967).
3(Austin, Texas, 1961), p. 1.
4Geoffrey Shepherd, ed., An Apology for Poetry (London, 1965), pp. 101, 103.
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66
ASTROPHIL
AND
STELLA
sequence's dramatic movement certainly suggests that the validity,
or, more precisely, the lack of validity, in Astrophil's unconventional
love ethic is Sidney's primary ethical concern. While both the
conventional and the unconventional love ethics are tested, the latter
is ultimately found wanting by experience: setting desire against
reason, Astrophil fails to fulfill his desires and ends miserably. In fact,
there are numerous indications that the sequence affirms the truth of
the conventional love ethic as set forth by Bembo in The Book of the
Courtier, if only by negative example. Should this be so, Astroplil
and Stella may be considered Sidney's mimesis of sensual love's folly.
Astrophil's narrative begins and ends in paradox. Initially, he
acknowledges the opposing "truths" of the traditional love ethic and
personal desire, setting the latter against the former; ultimately,
however, the negative effects of desire upon him affirm the validity of
the traditional ethic. For the Renaissance, which looked to the
Courtier as a gentleman's guide in love, Astrophil's early expression
of the reason-desire paradox would no doubt seem a deliberate
presage of the final paradox. As Bembo maintains in Book Four of the
Courtier, like Astrophil, those "provoked by lust" to "set reason to
matche greedy desire" are continually "driven at the will of fortune"
and end up "without succour" of reason.5
Perhaps Astrophil's earliest and most complete statement of the
opposing "truths" which exercise him comes in Sonnet 5:
IT is most true, that eyes are form'd to serve
The inward light: and that the heavenly part
Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
Rebels to Nature, strive for their owne smart.
It is most true, what we call Cupid's dart,
An image is, which for our selves we carve;
And, fooles, adore in temple of our hart,
Till that good God make Church and Churchman starve.
True, that true Beautie Vertue is indeed,
Whereof this Beautie can be but a shade,
Which elements with mortal mixture breed:
True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made,
And should in soule up to our country move:
True, and yet true that I must Stella love.6
5W. E. Henley, ed., The Book of the Courtier From the Italian of Count Baldassare
Castiglione: Done into English by Sir Thomas Hoby Anno 1561, The Tudor
Translations, No. XXIII, (London, 1900), p. 306. All subsequent references to the
Courtier will be taken from Henley's edition of the Hoby translation.
6This and all subsequent citations from Astroplil and Stella are taken from William
Ringler, ed., The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney (Oxford, 1962).
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JAMES
J.
SCANLON
67
Here Astrophil directly indicates the opposition between the
traditional love ethic and the demands of personal appetite. While
insisting on the "truth" of his own desires, he paradoxically
acknowledges the contradictory "truth" of tradition. The resultant
tension is reflected in both the form and content of Sonnet 5, and, for
that matter, in the form and content of the sequence as a whole. The
first thirteen lines grant the propriety of the eyes' service to "inward
light" or reason as "king"; the purely metaphoric nature of Cupid's
activities and the foolishness of love's idolatry; the superiority of
eternal "Vertue" as "Beautie" over its mere "shade" in "mortal" or
physical beauty; and the legitimacy of the soul's orientation toward
heaven not earth. Astrophil thus grants the "truth" of the traditional
love ethic Bembo details in the Courtier. For Bembo, reason is that
faculty "proper to man" which enables him to rule "appetite or
longinge"; avoid the folly of sensual love's "miseries" or "tormentes"; recognize that physical beauty is a "thinne shadowe" of
"heavenlie," "bodilesse" beauty; and direct the soul toward
"heavenlye beawtye. "7 Still, in opposition to this acknowledged
"truth," the final line of Sonnet 5 insists on the personal "truth" that
Astrophil "must Stella love." The poem's structure therefore implies,
and the remaining sonnets confirm, that his relationship to Stella is
anathema to the ethical tradition which stresses reason, true worship,
eternal virtue, abstract beauty, and the soul's heavenly direction. As
one quickly discovers, from his perspective their relationship is rather
an embodiment of desire, idolatry, the immediate, the physical, and
the earthly. The sonnet's final line consequently becomes Astrophil's
assertion of personal desire against the ethical tradition. According to
the rubrics of that same tradition, such an irrational assertion
portends ultimate psychological disaster.
It is not surprising that this conflict of "truths" should inform
other poems early in the sequence. The matter of reason's ethical
demands, for example, is important to Sonnet 10 where reason
disputes "sence and love" in Astrophil; to Sonnet 14 where reason
attempts to purge him of ruinous "sinfull thoughts"; to Sonnet 18
where "Reason's audite" indicates that wasteful "passions" render
him faithless to his own "Nature"; and to Sonnets 21 and 25 where
reason shows him to be "in vertue lame." Yet Astrophil's "young
mind marde" by desire spurns reason's admittedly "healthful
causticks" (Sonnet 21). For while he can acknowledge the "truth" of
the conventional love ethic intellectually, he cannot do so emotionally: his "heart give[s] to [his] tongue the lie" (Sonnet 47). Using
7Courtier, pp. 343; 344, 357; 353, 360; and 359, respectively.
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68
ASTROPHIL
AND
STELLA
Sidney's words in the Apology, Astrophil's "erected wit" enables him
to "know what perfection is," but his "infected will" prevents him
"from reaching unto it."'8 In these terms, Astrophil has clearly
betrayed himself as Bembo's typical young man who knows "wher
unto [he] is provoked by lust contrary to due, to be ill," but chooses to
become "wrapped in sensual love, which is a very rebell against
reason."9
That Astrophil should consider his own desires "ill" is determined
ethically by their end. As he indicates continually, his love teleology
is earthbound and physical, not heavenly and spiritual. Consequently, he would never petition as Petrarch does in Rime No. 10:
"Levan di terra al ciel nostr' intelletto."10 Rather, directed by the
acknowledged "shade" of true beauty, Stella's "mortall" beauty, he is
governed by what Bembo calls the "judgement of sense" and not
reason:
Love is nothinge elles but a certein covetinge to enjoy
beawtie.... Whan the soule is then taken wyth covetynge to
enjoye thys beawtie as a good thynge, in case she suffre her
selfe to be guyded with the judgement of sense, she falleth
into most deep erroures and judgeth the bodie in whyche
Bewtye is descerned, to be the principall cause thereof:
whereupon to enjoye it, she reckeneth it necessarye to joigne
as inwardlye as she can wyth that bodye whyche is false: and
therefore who so thinketh in possessynge the bodye to injoye
beawtie, he is farr deceived, and is moved to it, not wyth true
knowledge by choise of reason but with false opinyon by the
longing of sense."
Astrophil's operation by the "judgement of sense" in his relationship
with Stella becomes more complete as the sequence progresses. While
the early statement "in Stella's face I read,/ What Love and Beautie
be" (Sonnet 3) is conventional enough, the distinctly unconventional
implication that "Vertue" subordinated to appetite or "will" should
"be in love" with "flesh" follows almost immediately:
VERTUE alas, now let me take some rest
Thou setst a bate betweene my will and wit,
If vaine love have my simple soule opprest,
Leave what thou likest not, deale not thou with it.
8Shepherd, p. 101.
9Courtier, pp. 306 and 345.
?0Anna Maria Armi, trans., Petrarch: Songs and Sonnets (New York, 1968), p. 10.
"Courtier, pp. 342 and 343-344.
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JAMES
J.
SCANLON
69
But if that needs thou wilt usurping be,
The litle reason that is left in me,
And still th'effect of thy perswasions prove:
I sweare, my heart such one shall shew to thee,
That Vertue, thou thy selfe shalt be in love.
(Sonnet 4)
Astrophil is not drawn up to virtue through the fleshly ladder as the
Bemboist ethic stipulates;'2 rather, he reverses the conventional love
ethic and insists that virtue descend that ladder to worship "flesh" as
"true . . . Dietie." It is not long before reason, the conceded
handmaiden of "true knowledge" from Plato through the Renais-
sance, is subordinated totally to self-will and the appetite for fleshly
"food. " 13
Having determined "the bodie in which Bewtye is descerned, to be
the principall cause thereof," Astrophil pursues Stella's "flesh"
relentlessly. With reason already instructed by desire to "Leave sense"
unbridled (Sonnet 10), he seeks to "joigne . .. inwardlye" with her
body. When Stella denies him physical satisfaction, he first deems his
position almost hopeless: "Cupid is sworne page to Chastity"
(Sonnet 35) and Stella sits on "Vertue's throne" (Sonnet 40). Cleverly,
however, Astrophil maintains that he is willing to admit the demands
of virtue so long as virtue will compromise itself:
A STRIFE is growne betweene Vertue and Love,
While each pretends that Stella must be his:
Her eyes, her lips, her all, saith Love do this,
Since they do weare his badge, most firmely prove.
But Vertue thus that title doth disprove,
That Stella (o deare name) that Stella is
That vertuous soule, sure heire of heav'nly blisse:
Not this faire outside, which our hearts doth move.
And therefore, though her beautie and her grace
Be Love's indeed, in Stella's selfe he may
By no pretense claime any maner place.
Well Love, since this demurre our sute doth stay,
Let Vertue have that Stella's selfe; yet thus,
That Vertue but that body graunt to us.
(Sonnet 52)
"For Bembo's lengthy discussion of this ennobling process see Courtier, pp. 356-363.
"3It is interesting to note that the "food" images used by Sidney to describe
Astrophil's lust (e.g., Sonnet 71) are used frequently in the Courtier to describe the
lover's appetite (e.g., pp. 279, 285, 343, 353, and 357).
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70
ASTROPHIL
AND
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When "Vertue" will make no such compromise, however, Astrophil
marshals all the weapons of "infected will" in pursuit of his
appetites. These include grammatical sophistry (Sonnet 63), flattery
(Sonnets 64 and 68), and moral sophistry (Sonnet 71). Because these
efforts prove of no avail to that "greedy desire" which "wouldst have
all" (Sonnet 72), Astrophil steals a kiss from the sleeping Stella:
Yet those lips so sweetly swelling,
Do invite a stealing kisse:
Now will I but venture this,
Who will read must first learne spelling.
(Second Song)
But now guided solely by the "judgement of sense," Astrophil is
hardly content with one kiss. Unlike Bembo, he does not conceive the
kiss to be "a cooplinge of soules together"; instead, as the archetypical
"sensuall lover," he is "more inclined to the part of the bodye."14
Desiring to "joigne . . . inwardlye" with Stella's body, Astrophil
deems himself a "foole" afterward for "no more taking" than the
simple kiss (Second Song). Consequently, at first he seeks "more"
kisses (Sonnets 73, 79, 80, 81, 82, and 83). The language of the poems
indicates, however, that his demand for kisses grows beyond the mere
meeting of lips. In Sonnet 82, for example, he begs another kiss of
Stella pledging, "I will but kisse, I never more will bite," and in
Sonnet 83 he characterizes his lechery as having drunk "Nectar" from
Stella's "toong." The bite and the tongue-kiss are more than the
simple kiss; the passion normally associated with them is indicative
of Astrophil's intensifying desire to "joigne.. .. inwardlye" with her
physically. The timidity or reserve he exhibited in the early sonnets
while there was at least a "little reason" in him is gone. Soon
Astrophil pursues his insistent appetites with abandon:
ONELY joy, now here you are,
Fit to heare and ease my care:
Let my whispering voyce obtaine,
Sweete reward for sharpest paine:
Take me to thee, and thee to me.
4Courtier, pp. 355-356. Bembo's full statement reads:
For sins a kisse is a knitting together both of body and soule, it is to be feared,
least the sensuall lover will be more inclined to the part of the bodye, then the
soule: but the reasonable lover woteth well that although the mouthe be a
percell of the bodye, yet it is an issue for the wordes that be the enterpreters of
the soule, and for the inward breth which is also called the soule.... For this
do all chast lovers covett a kisse, as a cooplinge of soules together.
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JAMES
J.
SCANLON
71
These sweet flowers on fine bed too,
Us in their best language woo:
Take me to thee, and thee to me.
(Fourth Song)
Astrophil's insistently repeated "Take me to thee, and thee to me,"
however, is always countered by Stella's more insistent "No, no, no,
no, my Deare, let be." He cannot convince her to "take time while
[she] may." Thus, he ends the Fourth Song realizing his appetites'
defeat:
Wo to me ...
Cursed by my destines all,
That brought me so high to fall:
Soone with my death I will please thee.
Fortune, which in the heat of passion earlier he foolishly bid "lay on
[him] her worst disgrace" (Sonnet 64), is now clearly recognized to
hold "sway" over his movements (Eleventh Song). Astrophil appears
to have some sense that, in Bembo's terms, with reason abrogated and
appetite unbridled, he has been "driven at the will of fortune," and,
with neither reason nor appetite satisfied, he is now inevitably
"without succour."''5
Given the Renaissance understanding of the courtier's proper love
ethic, it is not surprising that Astrophil's assertion of "greedy desire"
against reason should result inevitably in frustration. One of the
"truths" Astrophil acknowledged continually in the early sonnets is
that sensual lovers "strive for their owne smart" (Sonnet 5); "bend"
their "course to lose . . . selfe" (Sonnet 18); and, as a result, "do in
ruine end" (Sonnet 14). In his ruinous end, then, Astrophil
simultaneously fulfils his own earlier predictions and the Bemboist
paradigm of the sensual lover:
These kind of lovers, therefore love most unluckely . . . they
find they comebye their hurt, and end their miseries with
other greater miseries, for ... there is never other thinge felt,
but afflictions, travaile, so that to be wann, vexed with
continuall teares, and sighes, to lyve with a discontented
minde, to be alwaies dumbe, or to lament, to covet death, in
conclusion to be most unlucky.... The cause therefore of this
wretchednesse in mens mindes is principally sense.'6
'5Courtier, p. 306.
'6Courtier, pp. 344-345.
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72
ASTROPHIL
AND
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Aware from the start of unbridled appetite's consequences, Astrophil
deserves his final "miseries."
The last poems of the sequence record Astrophil's "greater
miseries." While the earlier sonnets often present love's "tourmentes," those difficulties conceived in hope pale in comparison to
the hopeless final ones. Speaking of his "desert" after the Fourth
Song, Astrophil invokes retribution if that "desert" has changed
owing to his insistent "Take me" (Sonnet 86). The answer comes in
the woe which besets him as the narrative concludes. Just as
previously his appetite knew no bounds, so now "all wo/ Can abide
to keepe no measure" (Ninth Song).
At first, Astrophil conceives what Bembo calls "a hatred against the
wyght beloved.' '17 This is essentially because "rage now rules the
reynes, which guided were by Pleasure" (Fifth Song). He who once
allowed appetite to rebel against reason; set will to tyrranize over wit;
devilishly attempted to bewitch and seduce his lady; and, intending to
steal "all," first stole a kiss, now names Stella "Rebell," "Tyran,"
"witch," "Divill," and "thiefe" (Fifth Song). Having loved
"unluckely" and obscured reason, Astrophil rationalizes his guilt,
placing the blame on Stella. Although his hatred for her soon passes,
his misery does not. Believing eventually that even at a distance Stella
loves and "smarts" along with him (Sonnet 87), Astrophil suffers the
pains of separation or "absence" (Sonnets 88, 89, 91, 92, and the
Tenth Song). His "sence," made "Orphan" by Stella's departure,
initially "flies to the inward sight" of memory for consolation
(Sonnet 88). Having trusted too long in the external and the physical,
however, he finds no lasting "succour" in the internal and the
spiritual. Rather, Astrophil experiences the doleful fate of those who
according to Bembo "considereth only the beawtie in the bodye":
"The lover therefore that considereth only the beawtie in the bodye,
loseth this treasure and happinesse, assoone as the woman beloved
with her departure leaveth the eyes without their brightnes, and
consequently the soule, as a widowe without her joye."18 Thus, with
the physical "light of [his] life" gone, absence soon becomes that
"darkest shade" which plunges Astrophil into "Sorowe's night"
(Sonnets 89 and 91) with all its incumbent tears and sighs. The
"delights" of memory only serve to "increase" his "woes" (Tenth
Song) such that both "soule" and "sence" are now tried with
"sicknesse" (Sonnet 94). Astrophil therefore turns from "a hatred
against the wyght beloved" to self-hatred:
7Courtier, p. 344.
'8Courtier, p. 357.
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JAMES
J.
SCANLON
73
Yet waile thy selfe, and waile in causefull teares,
That though in wretchednesse thy life doth lie,
Yet growest more wretched then thy nature beares,
By being placed in such a wretch as I.
(Sonnet 94)
Through all this, Astrophil's sole consolation, and it is minimal, is
in physical reminders of or actual meetings with Stella (Sonnets 91,
92, 103, 105, 106, and the Eleventh Song). The "candle light" of other
women's physical beauty is said to lighten his "dark place" only
because they are "models" of Stella (Sonnet 91). These reminders are
likely, however, to cause more pain than pleasure (Sonnet 106). The
meetings or near meetings with her actually leave him more
frustrated with what he considers "unjustest fortune's sway"
(Eleventh Song): his physical desires remain unfulfilled and he must
always depart her presence. Morever, even in separation, Astrophil's
orientation remains essentially physical; he is still the image of
Bembo's sensual man ever prey to "unhonest lustes." Disappointed
in appetite and without the direction of reason, he "furthwith
retourn[s] again to unbridled covetinge and with the very same
trouble which [he] felt at the first, [he] fall[s] again into the raginge
and most burninge thirst of the thinge, that [he] hope[s] in vaine to
possess perfectlye."19 He consequently attends to other women's
"hands," "cheeks," and "lips" (Sonnet 91); to memories of Stella's
"faire" physical "wonders" (Tenth Song and Sonnet 103); and to
thoughts of the "bed" and its functions (Sonnet 98). This "burninge
thirst" for the physical is nonetheless very much "in vaine. " The end
result of his enforced separation from Stella is his "owne smart"; he
suffers a "rude dispaire" which kills all "joyes" with "woes" (Sonnet
108). Unlike Bembo's rational lover who does "not take thought at
departure or in absence, bicause he shall ever more carye his precious
treasure about wyth him shut fast within his hert,"20 Astrophil
cannot cope psychologically with their separation. The conclusion of
the sequence therefore pictures Astrophil "discontented" in both
body and mind.
Ultimately, then, Astrophil reaps what he has sown. The "ruin" he
foresaw initially as the inevitable result of unbridled desire has come
to pass. Having at once rejected the conventional love ethic and
having failed to attain the goal of his own unconventional ethic, he is
left "without succour" of either reason or fulfilled desire. As such,
'9Courtier, p. 344.
20Courtier, p. 358.
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this "miserable" ending would render him a paradigm for the
Renaissance of irrational love's folly. Unable to subordinate "greedy
desire' to reason and hence rejected by Stella, Astrophil appears to be
Sidney's "speaking-picture" of Bembo's sensual lover. Sidney thus
points to Astrophil's folly and says ironically in the words of Sonnet
107, "See what it is to love" sensually!
University of Illinois, Urbana
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