Part 33 (1/2)

(3) sonnets invoking ion or philosophy {429b}

(1) Collected sonnets of feigned love Daniel's 'Delia,' 1592

In February 1592 Samuel Daniel published a collection of fifty-five sonnets, with a dedicatory sonnet addressed to his patroness, Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pembroke As in many French volumes, the collection concluded with an 'ode' {429c} At every point Daniel betrayed his indebtedness to French sonnetteers, even when apologising for his inferiority to Petrarch (No xxxviii) His title he borrowed froe of dixains called 'Delie, objet de plus haute vertu' (Lyon, 1544), was the pattern of all sonnet-sequences on love, and was a constant the the later French sonnetteers But it is to Desportes that Daniel owes ed by a comparison of his Sonnet xxvi with Sonnet lxiii in Desportes'

collection, 'Cleonice: Dernieres Amours,' which was issued at Paris in 1575

Desportes' sonnet runs:

Je verray par les ans vengeurs de ente deviendra, Que de vos deux soleils la splendeur s'esteindra, Et qu'il faudra qu'Amour tout confus s'en retire

La beaute qui si douce a present vous inspire, Cedant aux lois du Temps ses faveurs reprendra, L'hiver de vostre teint les fleurettes perdra, Et ne laissera rien des thresors que i'adneux qui vous fait ne rin se verra transfore si belle: Et peut estre qu'alors vous n'aurez desplaisir De revivre en mes vers chauds d'amoureux desir, Ainsi que le Phenix au feu se renouvelle

This is Daniel's version, which he sent forth as an original production:

I once olden hairs ht rays (that kindle all this fire) Shall fail in force, their power not so strong, Her beauty, now the burden of lorious blaze the world's eye doth admire, Must yield her praise to tyrant Time's desire; Then fades the flohich fed her pride so long, When if she grieve to gaze her in her glass, Which then presents her winter-withered hue: Go you o tell her what she was!

For what she was, she best lory pass, But Phoenix-like to make her live anew

In Daniel's beautiful sonnet (xlix) beginning,

Care-charht, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,

he has borrowed much from De Baif and Pierre de Brach, sonnetteers hom it was a convention to invocate 'O Soain he chiefly relies on Desportes, whose words he adapts with very slight variations Sonnet lxxiii of Desportes' 'Amours d'Hippolyte' opens thus:

Sommeil, paisible fils de la Nuict solitaire

O frere de la Mort, que tu m'es ennemi!

Fame of Daniel's sonnets

Daniel's sonnets were enthusiastically received With some additions they were republished in 1594 with his narrative poem, 'The Complaint of Rosaaine,' lauded the 'well-tuned song' of Daniel's sonnets, and Shakespeare has so disciples The anonymous author of 'Zepheria' (1594) declared that the 'sweet tuned accents' of 'Delian sonnetry' rang throughout England; while Bartholoiarised Daniel, invoking in his Sonnet xv

'Care-charmer Sleep,brother of quiet Death'

Constable's 'Diana,' 1592

In September of the same year (1592) that saw the first complete version of Daniel's 'Delia,' Henry Constable published 'Diana: the Praises of his Mistres in certaine sweete Sonnets' Like the title, the general tone was drawn from Desportes' 'Amours de Diane' Twenty-one poems were included, all in the French vein The collection was reissued, with very numerous additions, in 1594 under the title 'Diana; or, The excellent conceitful Sonnets of H C Augmented with divers Quatorzains of honourable and learned personages' This volume is a typical venture of the booksellers {431} The printer, James Roberts, and the publisher, Richard Smith, supplied dedications respectively to the reader and to Queen Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting They had swept together sonnets in manuscript from all quarters and presented their customers with a disordered miscellany of what they called 'orphan poeht were clai forty-seven are by various hands which have not as yet been identified

Barnes' sonnets, 1593

In 1593 the legion of sonnetteers received notable reinforce voluies, and Odes To the right noble and virtuous gentleman, M William Percy, Esq, his dearest friend'

{432a} The contents of the voluement closely resemble the sonnet-collections of Petrarch or the 'Aether, interspersed with twenty-six ies, three 'canzons,' and twenty 'odes,' one in sonnet form There is, moreover, included what purports to be a translation of 'Moschus' first eidillion describing love,' but is clearly a rendering of a French poerec de Moschus,' in his 'OEuvres Poetiques,' Paris, 1579