1 Jpura B.A.

in English 2nd Year Notes for Rashani by RCF - Poetry

Sonnet 50 -
by Edmund Spenser

Long languishing in double malady,

Of my harts wound and of my bodies griefe:

There came to me a leach that would apply

Fit medicines for my bodies best reliefe.

Vayne man (quod I) that hast but little priefe:

In deep discovery of the mynds disease,

Is not the hart of all the body chiefe?

And rules the members as it selfe doth please.

Then with some cordialls seeke first to appease,

The inward languour of my wounded hart,

And then my body shall have shortly ease:

But such sweet cordialls passe Physitions art.

Then my lyfes Leach doe you your skill reveale,

And with one salve both hart and body heale.

Summary and Analysis Sonnet 50

Summary

Nothing suggests where the poet is journeying in this and the following sonnets. All that is
known is that the poet is on an unnamed journey away from the young man. The poet's
allusion to solitude has no definite time frame, and the journey may be brief. However, the
youth is the standard against whom the poet measures everything, so it is not surprising when
the poet says, "Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend."
2 Jpura B.A. in English 2nd Year Notes for Rashani by RCF - Poetry

The poet draws an analogy between himself and the beast on which he rides: "The beast that
bears me, tired with my woe, / Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me," as though the non-
physical weight of the poet's sadness factors into the burden that the beast must carry.
Similarly, the groan that the animal makes prompts the poet to recall his own sad state in
traveling farther away from the youth: "For that same groan doth put this in my mind: / My
grief lies onward and my joy behind." Here, "onward" means physically forward, but it also
means into the future. Because this future doesn't involve the young man, the poet is grieved.
Likewise, "behind" means from where the poet physically has traveled, but it also means the
past, which was joyful because the poet had the affections of the youth.