Amoretti

Sonnet 57

Sweet warriour! when shall I have peace with you?
High time it is this warre now ended were,
Which I no lenger can endure to sue,
Ne your incessant battry more to beare.
So weake my powres, so sore my wounds, appear,
That wonder is how I should live a iot,
Seeing my hart through-launced every where
With thousand arrowes which your eies have shot.
Yet shoot ye sharpely still, and spare me not,
But glory thinke to make these cruel stoures*.
Ye cruell one! what glory can be got,
In slaying him that would live gladly yours?
Make peace therefore, and graunt me timely grace,
That al my wounds will heale in little space.

This sonnet continues the ongoing struggle the speaker suffers in dealing with an unresponsive beloved.

The lover addresses his beloved as a “Sweet warrior” And asks a question “when shall I have peace with you?” The question is self evident of the frustration and desperation in his tone. 

This sonnet continues with the torment the speaker is going through while dealing with an indifferent beloved.

He asks her to end the war she has waged against him as he cannot tolerate any more. His powers have weakened and his wounds have deteriorated. He says that the arrows shot from her eyes pierce through his heart and make him unable to survive without her. In the final two lines he requests her to “Make peace” “and graunt” him “timely grace”, “so That” all his “wounds will heale in little space.” Her attacks are the constant refusals that make him suffer.

This sonnet is reflective of the sufferings the poet is going through. The intense emotional frustration that arises in him when his beloved is in continuous refusal of his proposal can be seen in the line “Yet shoot ye sharpely still, and spare me not”.

The poet moans in pain when she shoots him with her arrows that directly touch his heart.

In the sonnet, poet describes himself as a mere slave pleading her in order to make her accept his proposal. He wants to end all the conflicts and wars in between them and want to live in complete peace with her.

The poet takes up the conceit of his suit as a battle, addressing his beloved as “Sweet warriour” and asking when he shall “haue peace” with her (line 1). He wants the war to be over. He depicts his beloved as the aggressor, claiming he can no longer bear her “incessant battry” (line 4), nor can his heart survive the “thousand arrowes” shot at him from her eyes (line 8). He asks her what glory she can gain “in slaying him that would liue gladly yours” (line 13) and ends by suing for peace and grace, “That al my wounds will heale in little space” (line 14). Here, again, is irony in that the poet turns his repeated efforts to woo the woman into a defensive stance against her “attacks,” which are in fact merely her refusal to accept his proposal.

Sonnet 67

Lyke as a huntsman, after weary chace,
Seeing the game from him escapt away,
Sits downe to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds, beguiled of their pray,
So, after long pursuit and vaine assay,
When I all weary had the chace forsooke,
The gentle deer returnd the selfe-same way,
Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke.
There she, beholding me with mylder looke,
Sought not to fly, but fearlesse still did bide,
Till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke,
And with her own goodwill her fyrmely tyde.
Strange thing, me seemd, to see a beast so wyld
So goodly wonne, with her owne will beguyld.

The sonnet begins with the simile "like a huntsman," and then turns into a typical hunting metaphor that was common in 16^th century England. The only variation on this metaphor is that the deer has more agency than is typically given to women in these types of poems. The "gentle deer" is the subject of the poem; so if you rearrange the sentence it reads "the deer, like a hunter tired from the hunt, returns to the brook to quench her thirst. Equating the deer and the hunter gives her more personal power (agency). In the second quatrain, the deare returns to the brook on her own accord, not only is that sign of her dominance over the hunter it is also like saying 'if you let something go and it comes back then it is meant to be.'

Spenser plays on the pun deare/deer in line seven, saying that his dear is as elusive as the deer he is hunting in the woods. He also makes sure to put "gentle" in front of "deare" as a way of making her sound meeker and more like the wife he wants; throughout the Amoretti he describes his beloved as being "gentle."

There she beholding me with milder looke,

Sought not to fly, but fearelesse still did bide:

Till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke,

And with her owne goodwill hir fyrmely tyde. (9-12)

She looks upon him milder eyes, meaning she is resigning herself to him; she is allowing him to capture her. She didn't want to flee, but stood there and waited for him to come and claim her. She was trembling with the fear of the unknown, but she consented to be tied to him (possibly meaning in holy matrimony).

Strange thing me seemd to see a beast so wyld,

So goodly wonne with her owne will beguyld. (13-4)

Be is taken aback, because he does not seem to realize that his beloved was the hunter and he was hunted all along; he thought he was in control and running the show, but in actuality his beloved was ten steps ahead of him. This is how the hunted becomes the hunter.

"Spenser's unique use of these motifs is proper to the poem's position within the Amoretti cycle. Set on the evening before Easter, March 30, the poem speaks to the ancient liturgical tradition associated with the date: the procession of the catechumens to the front of the church to be baptized while Psalm 42, a psalm with its opening construction of "Lyke as" (1.1) and with its images of "thirst" and a "brooke" (1.8). Moreover, the idea of the willful prey alludes not only to the catechumens' willing movement to baptism-which is a symbolic death-but also to the willing movement of Christ to his own slaughter" (Femino).

This sonnet has two levels to it - figurative literal. The literal suggestion is that the tired huntsman is chasing after this deer he wants but after giving up and relaxing , the deer stopped running away, and the huntsman was able to win what he was hunting after this whole time. On the figurative level this sonnet tells the tale of a guy chasing after a girl he would like to court but she keeps running from him, but when he sits for a minute and just chills out the girl he likes stops and he is able to beguile her.

Sonnet 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalize;

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise."

"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name:

Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew."

In this poem Edmund Spenser uses the poetic elements of quatrains, couplets, and a sestet at the end. In the poem the quatrains transition into couplets. The first stanza is a quatrain. The rhyme scheme is ABAB. The speaker uses imagery to convey his feelings for his wife. The speaker is on a beach writing the name of his lover on the sand. It was washed away by the tide. Then he attempted to write it again, but the tide washed it away. He feels that the ocean is taunting him and making him suffer. The water is personified as someone who inflicts pain on the speaker. His wife steps in to tell the speaker that he needs to stop what he is doing and is vain for his efforts. The second stanza is a quatrain with the rhyme scheme of ABAB. His wife says that it is that of mortals to attempt to immortalize that which isn’t in existence any longer. His wife compares herself to the vain attempt of immortality and says that she will “wash away” just like her name was washed away by the tide. The last stanza is a sestet. The rhyme scheme is ABABCC. The speaker doesn’t believe that to be true. He feels that others things should die but she should be able to live forever. Even if death occurs and she does die, she will live forever in infamy. The fame will live on forever in place of her demise. He thinks that what he feels about her and that her values shall live for eternity. Even if his wife dies he feels that she is up in heaven where she belongs. Everyone in the world will eventually have to die. The love between the speaker and his lover shall flourish and begin anew when he comes and meets her in heaven.  In this poem it exemplifies the hero journey stage of “The Return.” In the poem the main character has to return to a place where he feels closest to his wife. The beach is a symbol of where the speaker feels most comfortable and at peace. The speaker can let his feelings out and truly express himself.

A man wrote his beloved's name in the sand, but it was washed away by the tide. He writes her name again, but as before the tide washes it away. He writes her name a second time expecting different results; is this an act of insanity or of mere defiance? I believe that he is repeatedly writing his beloved's name in the sand to show his relentless need to have his love be remembered forever. Man has an innate need to carve out a place in history for himself; so that he feels that his life meant something.

One thing to note is that the narrator makes the wave masculine. Typically nature is associated with femininity, because women are the creators of life and nature's job is to sustain life. Perhaps the reason the narrator makes the waves masculine is because it is destroying something; in the late 1500s women were seen as submissive, fragile creatures, who were not involved in the eradication of life or memory.

"Vayne man," sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay (attempt),

A mortall thing so to immortalize,

For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,

And eek (also) my name bee wiped out lykewize."

"Not so," quod (said) I, "let baser things devize (contrive)

To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens wryte your glorious name (5-12).

In the second quatrain, a female voice (perhaps his beloved) tells him that he is working in vain to make something immortal that is not meant to be immortal. Mortal things inevitably fade from history, and there nothing that anyone can do to change that; the waves will come and wash away all trace of man, no matter how hard they try to stop it.

The reason I ventured that the female voice in the second quatrain is the voice of his beloved is because of lines ten and eleven. He tells her that she will live on through his verse (sonnet); the love that he wants to live on is between him and his beloved. The hope of every writer is to have their work immortalized; studied long after their death. Love transcends all bounds; even after death their love will be eternal.

Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,

Our love shall live, and later life renew" (13-14).

This last rhyming couplet is meant to sum up the poem. Death cannot extinguish love; it will live on. It will be renewed every time someone reads this sonnet; these words can never die, thus their love will never die.