Love, sonnets and songs. Mary Wroth's prose romance, The Countess of Mountgomeries Urania, compares closely to her uncle, Sir Philip Sidney's 1593 edition The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Wroth was undoubtedly following his uncle's example in trying to emulate Astrophil and Stella. Astrophil and Stella and Pamphilia to Amphilantus are both about being in love and they both have over a hundred sonnets and songs. After re-reading the two pieces, I was struck not by their similarities but by their differences. For example, Stella is assertive and Pamphilia is passive. Stella is truly bound by her love for Astrophil while Pamphilia cannot free herself from the love she feels for Amphilantus. Sidney creates a feminine beauty who retains her voice and speaks, while Wroth allows his wife to remain inactive and vulnerable. However, Wroth no longer allows the female to be the object. She gives a voice to the female and she is now the speaking subject. Pamphilia remains inactive and dissatisfied but very patient. A good question for the reader to ask is why wouldn't Wroth establish a strong female speaking subject like the one she was trying to emulate? Wroth was the first woman writer in England to publish a romance and a sequence of sonnets. She was in no way conservative and didn't care what people thought of her, as evidenced by the antics of her personal life. So why not establish this same character/woman's voice in his prose? I would now like to examine the similarities and differences between Stella and Pamphilia. First up, Philip Sidney and his female character Stella. Stella has a voice and speaks, however, she speaks in the songs and not in the sonnets themselves. We see in the first two lines of each stanza of the Eleventh Song Stella speaking and Astrophil responding to her. Who is this dark night, Under my window, complaining? He is someone who, from his sight, Being (ah) exiled, disdains all other vulgar light. Because she does not receive a sonnet, the view that women have no right to express themselves has some truth. Another point of view is how women are perceived. Women are perceived according to their physical aspects. For example, in sonnet 7, the speaker states: When nature does her main work, Stella's eyes, black in color, why shrouded, she radiates so brightly.?