(55)Clitia , Phaebus, and Chloris eye Thought none so faire as Mercurie. Venus thus Did discusse By her Sonne in darts of fire: (60) None so chast to check desire.
Dian rose with all her Maydes, Blushing thus at Loues braidessudden assaults , With sighs all Shew their thrallenslavement , (65) And flinging thence, pronounc’d this sawold saying, but true : What so strong as Loues sweete law?
FINIS. Ro. Greene.
¶ Astrophell to Stella, his third Song. +Printed in Astrophel and Stella (1591), pp. 48-9; and in Astrophel and Stella in The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia , (1598), pp. 548-49. Author: Sir Philip Sidney. Structure (May/Ringler): 18: 3×6 aabb12cc11
I F Orpheus voyce had force to breathe such musiques loue Through pores of sencelesse trees, as it could make them moue: If stones good measure daunc’d, the Thebane walls to build To cadence of the tunes, which Amphyons Lyre did yeeld: (5)More cause a like effect at least-wise bringeth, O stones, ô trees, learne hearing, Stella singeth.
If Loue might sweet’n so a boy of Sheepheards broode, To make a Lyzard dull to tast Loues daintie foode: +Lines 7-8: ‘boy…daintie foode’: see Pliny, Natural History , VIII.xii.61: ‘…Democrito adferunt qui Thoantem in Arcadia servatum a dracone narrat. nutrierat eum puer dilectum admodum, parensque serpentis naturam et mangitudinem metuens in solitudines tulerat, in quibus circumvento latronum insidiis agnitoque voce subvenit’, ‘…Democritus, who tells a tale of Thoas in Arcadia being saved by a snake. When a boy he had fed it and made a great pet of it, and his parents being afraid of the snake’s nature and size had taken it away into an uninhabited region, where it recognized Thoas’s voice and came to his rescue when he was entrapped by an ambush of brigands’. If Eagle fierce could so in Grecian Mayde delight, +Lines 9-10: ‘Eagle fierce…Mayde delight’: see Pliny, Natural History , X.vi.18: ‘Celebris apud Seston urbem aquilae gloria est: educatum a virgine retulisse gratiam aves primo mox deinde venatus adgerentem, defuncta postremo in rogum accensum eius iniecisse sese et simul conflagrasse’, ‘At the city of Sestos the fame of an eagle is celebrated, the story being that it was reared by a maiden and that it repaid its gratitude by bringing to her first birds and soon afterwards big game, and when finally she died it threw itself upon her lighted pyre and was burnt with her’. (10)As his light was her eyes, her death his endlesse night: Earth gaue that Loue, heau’n I trowI believe, in truth Loue defineth, O beasts, ô birds, looke, Loue, loe, Stella shineth.
The birds, stones, and trees feele this; and feeling Loue, And if the trees, nor stones
stirre not the same to proue: