“... amongst the coolly shade Of the green alders by the Mulla’s shore,”
and recite to each other their poetic effusions.
How beautiful a picture of the simplicity of great minds! It strikes us as a more lovely picture than the much-admired one of Chaucer, solitary among the daisies of the Woodstock meadows.
Sidney inspired Spenser with no mere mercenary friendship, the affection of the client for his patron’s substantial marks of favour. When death smote Sidney on the sad field of Zutphen, Spenser invoked every Muse to weep over his untimely fall, and celebrated his virtues in the beautiful elegy “The Tears of the Muses for Astrophel.” It will perhaps relieve the dryness of our subject, to observe that the first poetical use of the Forget-me-not, (_Myosotis palustris_) as a symbol of faithfulness, occurs in this poem, and the English reader may there find a more fitting reason to esteem this little flower than the absurd German legend of a drowning knight throwing a spray of it to his ladye-love.
The Astrophel of the following lines from Spenser’s Elegy, is Sidney; Stella is the name by which Sidney addressed his Mistress, who, it is feigned, was unable to survive his loss, and,
“... followed her mute, like turtle chaste, To prove that death their hearts cannot divide, Which, living, were in love so firmly tied.
The Gods which all things see, this same beheld; And pittying this paire of lovers trew, Transformed them, there lying on the field, Into one flowre, that is both red and blew. It first growes red, and then to blew doth fade, Like Astrophel, which thereinto was made.
And in the midst thereof a starre appeares, As fairly formed as any starre in skyes, Resembling Stella in her freshest yeeres, Forth darting beames of beautie from her eyes And all the day it standeth full of deow, Which is the teares, that from her eyes did flow.
That hearb of some, Starlight is call’d by name, Of others, Penthia, though not so well; But thou, whenever thou dost find the same, From this day forth doe call it Astrophel. And whensoever thou it up doost take, Doe pluck it softly for that shepheard’s sake.”
May the injunction of the last lines never be forgotten by any one who knows that the Forget-me-not is associated with the friendship of two such noble-minded men!