Sir Philip Sidney said he had merely "slipt into the title of a Poet," perhaps with some truth, since Queen Elizabeth I mistrusted him, and left him sometimes under-employed in her service. He nevertheless wrote a powerful Defence of Poesie which has resonance for our own time. "The poet nothing affirmeth and therefore never lieth," he famously claimed, and much practice and theory still agree with him. The "Defence" reminds us that poetry in England (though not in Wales or Ireland) had its mocking detractors even in that Elizabethan golden age. Serious as his arguments are, Sidney's peroration culminates playfully, with a curse: he warns the detractors of poetry that "while you live you live in love and never get favour for lacking skill of a Sonet, and when you die your memorie die from the earth for want of an Epitaph".
One of the great works that form Sidney's own Epitaph, "Astrophel and Stella" was composed in 1582, four years before his death. The collection of sonnets and songs is sometimes known as "Astrophil and Stella", the spelling reminding us of the pun implicit in the masculine name. The Star-Lover is of course the poet, and the Star in question is thought to have been Penelope Devereux, who married Lord Robert Rich in 1581 (see Sonnet 37 for its almost wild punning on the word "rich".)
If star-loving Philip never received Stella's favours, it wasn't for lack of a Sonet, nor lack of skill. This week's poem is a deserved favourite, the memorable No 31 "With how sad steps O Moone …"
It's the grammatical unexpectedness of "how" which first arrests the attention. Imagine if Sidney had used the flatly un-noticeable "what": "With what sad steps, O Moone, thou climbs't the skies …" Would we even read on? Sidney chooses a word that invites ambiguity, presenting it through an idiom that seems, to this reader, at least, not quite native to the register of courtly English. The repetition of the word in "How silently" and "how wanne a face" in line 2 is unexceptional, of course. But "how sad steps" is almost ungrammatical, a casual shorthand for "how sad a step". And yet it works brilliantly. It evokes a compound, "how-sad" which intensifies "sad" to "very, very sad", and, of course, also suggests the exclamation "how sad!" But "how" also signifies a technical puzzle, as in "How is it done?" How does the moon walk when it's so sad: how does it manage to move, and how is the sadness expressed in movement? The poet "nothing affirmeth" but he suggests an arresting visual image. The notion of the moon taking steps might have been idiotic, but, by letting the question "how does a moon walk?" sink in subconsciously, the line pushes us to imagine that shambling, pathetic progress. Like an unhappy courtier, perhaps, the moon-man seeks to rise, but is frustrated.
And, of course, we also see the letter O – five times in the first line. Is this, as a later poet said of the moon "the O-gape of complete despair?" Maybe not, but the Os certainly help reveal the planet's face.
The "what" we happily avoided in line 1 appears in line 3, a rhetorical "What, may it be …" used simply as an exclamation, to emphasise that this is another loaded question. The "busie archer" line is brisk, and suggests quick-fire activity on the part of the celestial Cupid. The following line slows the pace, and includes the wonderfully extenuated compound adjective, usually hyphenated: "long-with-love-acquainted eyes". Now the moon's more conventional and literary history is asserted. It has long been associated with sighing lovers. The victim who experiences love's arrow first-hand has become ageless witness. This representation still avoids being dull. The moon as goddess would be dull (and after all, the poet has a Star for his goddess), but, as a wise observer and wan fellow-sufferer, the poet-lover's own surrogate, "he" commands emotional authenticity and attention.
Some commentators suggest that the moon changes from person to a planet in the sestet. I don't see why. The poet still addresses the moon ("Then ev'n of fellowship, O Moone, tell me …") and "there" (line 10) surely doesn't denote "on the moon". It refers, I think, to the sky, the "heavenly place" the moon inhabits.
The turn brings in a series of further questions. They are even more plainly designed to illuminate the speaker's own experience. The moon recedes somewhat, as the earthly lover enumerates his injuries in swift, concise succession.
The word "love" in some grammatical form appears five times in as many lines: the effect is far from merely playful. "Above" in line 12 adds an internal rhyme, and further rich ambiguity. "Do they above love to be loved" signifies physical place, of course, "above" as "up there in the heavens", but it also implies that the Beauties love to be loved "above" anything else, and, what's worse, are "above" love when asked to give rather than receive it. Constantly honing his sense of ingratitude, the lover scorned eventually turns the tables: there's a strong hint that those who are loved unrequitedly are hypocrites in calling their "ungratefulness" virtue. While the use of plurals (lovers, beauties) creates a supposed impersonality, Sidney is far from unemotional. As a structure determined by the outer fabric of rhetorical questions, the poem is a display of controlled pressure to speak out.
In concluding with a rhyming couplet, Sidney departs from his Petrarchan model. Emphasis is gained, although the rhymes are far from harsh. "Possess" and "ungratefulness" return us to the tenderly sibilant rhyme-sounds which infused the octet, and which the sestet had initially interrupted with those crisp, masculine CDCD rhymes, "me", "wit", "be", "yet".
Sidney has obeyed his own injunction in Sonnet 1: "Looke in thy heart and write." His personal signature lets him revitalise already well-worn themes. But without the reading, the thorough study of literary models, his heart would probably not have yielded very much of a poem, and certainly not the stellar performance we have here.
Sonnet XXXI
With how sad steps, O Moone, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wanne a face!
What, may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharpe arrowes tries?
Sure, if that long-with-Love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a Lover's case;
I read it in thy lookes; thy languisht grace
To me that feele the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moone, tell me,
Is constant Love deem'd there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be lov'd, and yet
Those Lovers scorn whom that Love doth possesse?
Do they call vertue there, ungratefulnesse?