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Joan E. Borrelli / Ciro di Pers
143
15. Astrea: according to Rak (op.cit., p. 422), in Greco-Roman mythology,
the mother of Sleep, also recognized as the goddess of justice. Pers’s allusion
may then encourage an interpretation that, in sleep, both good luck and
misfortune are ‘judged’ blindly, as equals, humankind finding harmony in
the balance. Rak also notes that Astrea is the sister of Chastity. Pers may also
then be suggesting that sleep brings respite from the ‘combattuti affetti,’ or
desire for physical love, against which the author struggles. Astrea is moreover
known as the star Virgo, which would support the latter reading. The
root of the name Astrea connotes the ‘starry’ quality of the goddess and
lends the visual suggestion of ‘light’ against the night’s ‘dark’ – a chiaroscuro
element befitting of the sonnet’s content.