Philip Sidney
Philip Sidney
Sir Philip Sidneywas an English poet, courtier, scholar, and soldier, who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. His works include Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poesy, and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth30 November 1554
mouths negative refusal
No is no negative in a woman's mouth.
greatness air herons
Like the air-invested heron, great persons should conduct themselves; and the higher they be, the less they should show.
courage knights bravery
A true knight is fuller of bravery in the midst, than in the beginning of danger.
work neglect enjoy
If you neglect your work, you will dislike it; if you do it well, you will enjoy it
fitness health air
The ingredients of health and long life, are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care.
motivational education stay-strong
Either I will find a way, or I will make one.
learned
For conclusion, I say the philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only can understand him; that is to say, he teacheth them that are already taught.
The poet nothing affirmeth and therefore never lieth.
behalf cannot curse die earth favour itself lacking lift love memory mind poetry send skill sky thus
If you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry... thus much curse I must send you, in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never get favour for lacking skill of a sonnet; and, when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph.
affirm ancient carried cause drawn gently human industry learned partly poet ready since strength
Poesy must not be drawn by the ears: it must be gently led, or rather, it must lead, which was partly the cause that made the ancient learned affirm it was a divine, and no human skill, since all other knowledges lie ready for any that have strength of wit; a poet no industry can make, if his own genius be not carried into it.
children men play
With a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you; with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner.
men action goodness
Doing good is the only certainly happy action of a man's life.
children legacy speech
The best legacy I can leave my children is free speech, and the example of using it.
war teaching heaven
So, then, the best of the historian is subject to the poet; for whatsoever action or faction, whatsoever counsel, policy, or war-stratagem the historian is bound to recite, that may the poet, if he list, with his imitation make his own, beautifying it both for further teaching and more delighting, as it pleaseth him; having all, from Dante’s Heaven to his Hell, under the authority of his pen.