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LECTURE 14
ASTROPHIL AND STELLA

About Philip Sidney

Sir Philip Sidney was born in 1554 and died in 1586. He was an English poet,
scholar, soldier, and courtier. Sir Philip Sidney is remembered as one of the
main literary figures of the Elizabethan age. His most notable works
include: Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poesy (also known as The Defence of
Poetry or An Apology for Poetry), and The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.

SONNET 31

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!

How silently, and with how wan a face!

What, may it be that even in heav'nly place

That busy archer his sharp arrows 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 looks; thy languish'd grace

To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.

Then, ev'n of fellowship, O Moon, 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 possess?

Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

Sonnet 31 is featured in Astrophil and Stella, a sonnet sequence that has 108
sonnets and 11 songs. Astrophil and Stella was probably written in the 1580s and it
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narrates the story of Astrophil and his hopeless passion for Stella.
Particularly, Sonnet 31 conveys Astrophil’s thoughts while seeing the moon at night.
The poem is a Petrarchan sonnet. It has 14 lines and it is written in iambic
pentameter. Sonnet 31 can be divided in an octet and a sestet and it has an ABBA
ABBA CDCDEE rhyme scheme. Moreover, the poem has love and nature as main
themes. The tone is reflective and it gets aggrieved as the lines go by.

 The first eight lines (octave) focus on the lunar realm, the speaker identifying
with the moon, and that of mythology, specifically Cupid the Roman god of
passion and desire and affection.
 The following six lines (sestet) are basically rhetorical questions asked by the
speaker in an attempt to understand his own inner feelings.
 The personification of the moon is what is known as a pathetic fallacy, a device
where an inanimate object is given human attributes, feelings and responses.

Sidney looks up at the pale moon in the night sky and says that it appears to
rise in the sky sorrowfully, as though taking ‘sad steps’. Like many poets before him,
Sidney picks out the ‘wan’, or pale, ‘face’ of the moon and interprets this paleness as
a sign of sorrow. He then wonders whether the moon’s sorrow is actually
lovesickness, and that Cupid, the Roman god of love (‘that busy archer’), even seeks
to pierce heavenly bodies with his arrows, so as to bring them under love’s spell. The
moon obviously stands alone in the night sky – set apart from the stars by its relative
size – and so becomes a symbol of the solitary lover who is suffering from
unrequited love.

Sidney goes on to assert that the moon, if it has been ‘long-with-love-

acquainted’, is a fit judge of love, and well-placed to feel what suffering lovers down
on earth feel. Sidney states that he has read the moon’s love-experiences in its
appearance and that its ‘languished grace’ (it’s graceful, but nevertheless weakened
by the effects of love) reveals to Sidney, who is similarly afflicted by love, that the
moon is a fellow-sufferer.
The octet depicts the lyrical voice’s perception of the moon. The poem starts
by describing how the moon rises in the sky at night. The lyrical voice personifies the
moon (“O Moon, thou climb’st the skies!) and projects his/ own sorrows in the moon
(“With how sad steps”). The lyrical voice describes the moon carefully, as an
individual being: “How silently, and with how wan face!”. There is a repetition of the
word “how” in order to emphasize the lyrical voice’s attention to the object that he is
describing. The lyrical voice questions about the moon’s sadness, and figures that it
must be because of “What, may it be that even in heav’nly place /That busy archer
his sharp arrows tries” (cupid). The lyrical voice’s connection of his feelings to those
of the moon is an example of a “pathetic fallacy”, where elements of nature appear to
have human emotions.
The lyrical voice suggests that the moon is struggling with sentimental
problems, as he can see them from experiencing them himself: Sure, if that long-with
love-acquainted eyes /Can judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case”. This furthers
the personification and the “phatetic fallacy” mentioned before. The lyrical voice can
“read it in thy looks” and the moon appears to be, again, weak (“thy languish’d
grace”). This portrait of the moon shows the lyrical voice’s assurance about the
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moon being lovesick. Once again, the lyrical voice compares the moon’s state to his,
making a direct relationship between the moon’s suffering and his (“To me, that feel
the like, thy state descries”). Notice how the unusual syntax accentuates the words
of suffering that the lyrical voice is expression.

That concludes the first eight lines of this poem, which largely follows the
Petrarchan sonnet model, with those first eight lines rhyming abba abba. Now we
move to the sestet, or concluding six-line unit. Sidney now wants to know some
home truths about unrequited love as the moon experiences it. If you are a true and
faithful lover up there, are you considered foolish? Is the beautiful woman you love
as proud (i.e. as superior and disdainful) as the woman loved by Sidney? Does the
woman you love, moon, love the attention but at the same time feel disdain for the
one who has been ‘possessed’ by love for her? Is ungratefulness (i.e. the way the
woman treats the man who truly loves her so) considered a virtue up there as well as
down here?

The sestet presents a series of questions that are crucial to the lyrical voice.
The focus of the poem shifts from the description of the moon to the lyrical voice’s
reflections about love. This is the typical volta, turn, that occurs in the Petrarchan
sonnet. The lyrical voice asks the moon (“Then, ev’n of fellowship, O Moon, tell me”)
whether, in the sky, love is treated as “want of wit”. Moreover, he asks if women are
as proud as they are on earth (“Are beauties there as proud as here they be?”).
These series of questions project problems that the lyrical voice is dealing with.

The lyrical voice still has more questions. He wants to know whether the
things above like to be loved. Notice the internal rhyme in the fourth line. Moreover,
he wants to know if the beloved ones like the ones who are in loved with them
(“Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? “). Again, the lyrical voice is
questioning and thinking about his own sentimental struggles and his relationship
with Stella. The final line continues with the questions and the complaints that the
lyrical voice has expressed in the sestet. The lyrical voice asks whether “above” love
is despised to (“Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?”). He feels that love is a
virtue, but it sounds as his beloved one, Stella, doesn’t feel the same way about the
lyrical voice’s display of virtue and constant love. The tone of the sestet shows that
the lyrical voice is deeply wounded and the rhetorical questions accentuate this pain.

Any analysis of ‘With how sad steps’ should address the extent to which
Sidney is being serious when he offers up this somewhat excessively romanticised
(and, it has to be said, one-sided) conversation between the poet and the moon. Is
he sending himself up? We believe not, but as with many of the poems in Astrophil
and Stella, Sidney is aware of how ridiculous love can render us, even while that
love is felt sincerely and keenly. But courtly love, of course, was several centuries
old when Sidney was writing, and so the idea of admiring an unattainable woman
from afar needed to be explored with an awareness that these tropes were already
familiar to many readers, especially the educated readers who would have read
Sidney’s sonnets when they were circulated in manuscript.