For a first post, it only makes sense that I'm starting out slow - I've just one little sonnet to review today; Sonnet 67 from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, which flows thusly:
"Like as a huntsman after weary chase,
Seeing the game from him escaped away,
Sits down to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds, beguiled of their prey:
So, after long pursuit and vain assay,
When I all weary had the chase forsook,
The gentle deer returned the selfsame way,
Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook.
There she, behilding me with milder look,
Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide,
Till I in hand her yet half trembling took,
And with her own good will her firmly tied.
Strange thing, me seemed, to see a beast so wild
So goodly won, with her own will beguiled."
Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic, but I love sonnets. And Spenser's are especially squee-worthy; the subject matter of his other sonnets that we read are much cuter (75 was love lasts forever, 79 was intelligence is sexier than physical beauty), but 67 is, I think, better-written. I'm a big fan of the hunting metaphor, where the woman is a hind (doe) and the man a hunter -- it implies a relationship reminiscent of Pepe le Pew and That Unfortunate Cat, but somehow, it still manages to be sweet. I think it's the Snape/Lily connotations.
These lines, in particular, were quite touching; "There she, behilding me with milder look/Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide/Till I in hand her yet half trembling took/And with her own good will her firmly tied." I don't know what it is, but that whole part (especially the Till I in hand her yet half trembling took bit) made me go all warm inside.
...That settles it, I'm going to go write a story about a were-doe.
