ETS4U
THE RENAISSANCE SONNET
Rime 190
Petrarch (1304 – 1374)
(Translated by Robert M. Durling)
A white doe1 on the green grass appeared to me,
with two golden horns2, between two rivers,
in the shade of a laurel, when the sun
was rising in the unripe season.
Her look was so sweet and proud
that to follow her I left every task,
like the miser who as he seeks treasure
sweetens his trouble with delight.
"Let no one touch me," she bore written
with diamonds and topazes3 around her lovely neck.
"It has pleased my Caesar to make me free.4"
And the sun had already turned at midday;
my eyes were tired by looking but not sated,
when I fell into the water, and she disappeared
1
Traditionally sacred to Diana, goddess of the hunt and of virginity
Corresponding to Laura’s braids (Laura is the “beloved” of the poem)
3
Emblems of steadfastness and chastity, respectfully.
4
According to Solinus (third century A.D.) three hundred years after Caesar’s death white stags were found with
collars inscribed “Noli mc tangere, Caesaris sum” (Do no touch me, I am Caesar’s).
2
Whoso List to Hunt5
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)
Whoso list6 to hunt, I know where is an hind7,
But as for me, alas! I may no more.
The vain travail hath worried me so sore,
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means, my worried 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 in diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about,
"Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
An wild for to hold, though I seem tame.
5
An adaptation of Petrarch’s Rima 190, perhaps influenced by commentators on Petrarch, who said that Noli Me
Tangere quia Ceasaris sum (Touch me not for I am Ceasar’s” ) was inscribed on the collars of Ceasar’s hinds, which
were then set free and presumably safe from hunters. Wyatt’s sonnet is usually supposed to refer to Anne Boleyn,
in whom Henry VIII became interested in 1526.
6
Cares
7
Female Deer
From Amoretti8
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
Sonnet 67
Lyke as a huntsman, after weary chace,
Seeing the game from him escapt away,
Sits downe to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds, beguiled of their pray,
So, after long pursuit and vaine assay9,
When I all weary had the chace forsooke,
The gentle deer returnd the selfe-same way,
Thinking to quench her thirst at the next10 brooke.
There she, beholding me with mylder looke,
Sought not to fly, but fearlesse still did bide,
Till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke,
And with her own goodwill her fyrmely tyde.
Strange thing, me seemd, to see a beast so wyld
So goodly wonne, with her owne will beguyld.
Sonnet 75
One day I wrote her name upon the strand11,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I write it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey12.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay13,
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek14 my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so, (quod15 I) let baser things devise16
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse, your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
8
Amoretti = little loves (latin)
attempt
10
nearby
11
beach
12
prey
13
attempt
14
also
15
said
16
contrive
9
Sonnet 54
Of this worlds Theatre in which we stay,
My love like the Spectator ydly sits
Beholding me that all the pageants17 play,
Disguysing diversly my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask18 in myrth lyke to a comedy:
Soone after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I waile and make my woes a tragedy.
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my merth nor rues19 my smart20:
But when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry
She laughs and hardens evermore her hart21.
What then can move her? if nor merth nor mone22,
She is no woman, but a senceless stone.
Sonnet 64
Comming to kisse her lyps, (such grace I found)
me seemd I smelt a gardin of sweet flowres,
that dainty odours from them threw around
for damzels fit to decke their lovers' bowres.
Her lips did smell lyke unto Gillyflowers,
her ruddy cheekes lyke unto Roses red;
her snowy browes lyke budded Bellamoures23,
her lovely eyes lyke Pincks but newly spred;
Her goodly bosome lyke a Strawberry bed,
her neck lyke to a bounch of Cullambynes24;
her brest lyke lillyes, ere theyr leaves be shed,
her nipples lyke yong blossom'd Jessemynes25:
Such fragrant flowres doe give most odorous smell,
but her sweet odour did them all excell.
17
Roles
Cover (or mask) his emotions; also, act in a masque, a short, allegorical drama.
19
pities
20
hurt
21
heart
22
moan
23
Bellamours (a flower); drawn from the French (belle = beautiful; amour = love)
24
Columbines (a flower)
25
Jessemynes (a flower)
18
From Astrophil and Stella26
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
Loving in Truth
Loving in truth, and fain27 in verse my love to show,
That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,—
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay28:
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant29 pen, beating myself for spite:
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”
I On My Horse
I on my horse, and Love on me, doth try
Our horsemanships, while by strange work I prove
A horseman to my horse, a horse to Love,
And now man’s wrongs in me, poor beast, descry.
The reins wherewith my rider doth me tie
Are humbled thoughts, which bit of reverence move,
Curbed in with fear, but with gilt30 boss above
Of hope, which makes it seem fair to the eye.
The wand is will; thou, fancy, saddle art,
Girt31 fast by memory; and while I spur
My horse, he spurs with sharp desire to my heart;
He sits me fast, however I do stir;
And now hath made me to his hand so right
That in the manage myself takes delight.
26
Star lover and star (latin)
Desirous
28
Prop/help
29
Truant/someone who shirks their duty
30
gilded
31
held
27
From Sonnets
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Sonnet 12
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave32 day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst33 from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier34 with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed35, to brave36 him when he takes thee hence
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease37 hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair38 from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd39;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest40;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
32
resplendent
formerly
34
A frame for carrying harvested grain; also, a stand on which a corpse is carried to the grave.
35
children
36
defy
37
Allotted time
38
beauty
39
Divested of its beauty
40
Own, with a play on owe
33
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark41,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken42.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom43.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun44;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd45, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go46;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she47 belied with false compare.
41
Ship
Although a star’s altitude may be measured
43
Brink of Judgement Day
44
Dull, greyish brown
45
Variegated
46
Walk
47
Woman
42
The Sonneteer’s Beloved. The picture was used in various books to illustrate the clichés of love poetry: her breasts
are globes, her lips pink coral, her teeth pearls, ‘roses and lilies her cheeks disclose’, her eyes are suns darting
arrows of desire, her eyebrows are bows, her hair nets hearts, and Cupid sits in her brow. (R. E. Pritchard, ed.,
Shakespeare’s England: Life in Elizabethan and Jacobean Times, Sutton Publishing, 2000, page 34)