Double Sestina - Ye Goatherd Gods

LibriVox volunteers bring you recordings of Double Sestina - Ye Goatherd Gods by Phillip Sidney. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 5, 2019. ------ Poem is included in the book "Countesse of Pembroke's Arcadia" Ye Goatherd Gods" depicts the sorrows of two shepherds who love the same woman. She has left them both, however, and the two shepherds are dejected and heartbroken. They appeal to the gods, to nature, and to the heavens in their angst, and everything they see is altered because of their sorrows. The poem is hyperbolic and highly emotional, with the two speakers engaged in a traditional pastoral singing match. Alternatively its stanzas are the lamentations of two bro…