SONNET XV

You that do search for every purling spring

Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flows,
And every flower, not sweet perhaps, which grows
Near thereabouts, into your poesy wring;
Ye that do dictionary’s method bring
Into your rimes, running, in rattling rows;
You that poor Petrarch’s long – deceased woes
With new- born sighs and denizened wit do sing:
You take wrong ways ; those far fet helps be such as do bewray a want of inward
touch,
And sure, at length stol’s goods do come to light.
But if both your love and skill, your name you seek to nurse at fullest breasts of
Fame,
Stella behold, and then begin to endite.

Traduzione

Voi che cercate ispirazione nell’opera d’altri,

in ogni sorgente mormorante ( luogo delle Muse )
che sgorgano dalle costole del Parnaso.
E ogni fiore non dolce ( appassito ) che cresce
Nei dintorni del mare lo strizzate nella vostra poesia
Per trarre la linfa da porre nella vostra poesia.
Voi che cercate nei dizionari di retorica e stilistica,
i versi da inserire nelle vostre opere,
voi che cercate con nuovi sospiri e con un ingegno nuovo di
cantare i poveri dolori ormai morti da molto tempo,
voi state imboccando la strada sbagliata.

Sidney criticizes his contemporaries that passively imitate Petrarch but paradoxically
it is one of the few sonnets that respects the Italian Petrarchan structures: he says
that we should not be passive imitators but that we should not be passive imitators
but that we should not forget the greats as well.
There is a quite ambiguous answer another sonnet how to write sonnets, the verse
14 is similar to the SONNET 1, one the one hand he is condemning those who imitate
Petrarch ( long deceased woes = PETRARCA NON PUO’ PIU’ ESSERE FONTE DI
ISPIRAZIONE ). Sonnet does not have a couplet, there is a Petrarchan rhyme pattern
octave and sextet.