trobaire.org

a collection of literature from poets, bards, songwriters, and skalds in the SCA

Sonette I

olivier's picture
olivier
Poem (Canso): 

Pleading for love’s kind glance is but my goal,
To feel virtuous joy from beauty’s face
And eke to win true love in pity’s place,
Might she and I complete the other’s soul.
Should I experience this bliss most whole,
Desire I then to fill all paper’d space
With witness to all of my unmatch’d case,
So that others might then seek such a role,
To feel pure love and its sweet charity.
Hope I she grants this unworthiest wight
That love, that joy, that most divine beauty,
Which glows unceasing with her clearest light.
I ache to win her gaze, but more to share
The love she sparks in me, and eke the care.

Documentation / Explanation (Razo): 

This first poem attempts to mimic the premier sonnets of Petrarch and the Elizabethan sequences (especially Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella and Spenser’s Amoretti) in that it is a synopsis (or at least a teaser) of the entire sequence. This piece especially rips off Sidney in its effort to appear Neoplatonic in philosophy. Most notably, I mean the arguments in Sidney’s Defense of Poesie on the nature of poetry as a device to display virtue and vice and guide readers towards making the decision to pursue the more virtuous path. Sidney’s definition of poetry in his Defense has a mirror in the clause formations of his initial Astrophel sonnet, but I was only able to successfully parody 2/3 of it (using infinitive verbs and active present tense, but not noun ‘representations’ of my poetic intent).

3. eke: also.
10. wight: creature, person.