Deer or Woman? continues on Third Reading

Lyke as a huntsman after weary chace,
   Seeing the game from him escapt away,
   sits downe to rest him in some shady place,
   with panting hounds beguiled of their pray:
So after long pursuit and vaine assay,
   when I all weary had the chace forsooke,
   the gentle deare returnd the self-same way,
   thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke.
There she beholding me with mylder looke,
   Sought not to fly, but fearlesse still did bide:
   till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke,
   and with her owne goodwill hir fyrmely tyde.
Strange thing me seemd to see a beast so wyld,
   So goodly wonne with her owne will beguyld.

– Edmund Spenser, Sonnet LXVII

Having recounted Thomas Wyatt’s hunting exploits on Sunday I thought it only proper that I dig up something similar for this midweek post – if only to prove to you once and for all that poetry spares no expense when it comes to investing in niche genres. Seriously, though, it’s no wonder that hunting metaphors come up a lot in the poetry of the early Early Modern period – there wasn’t that much else to do. Short of actually warring it was probably the gentleman’s activity of choice. Had GQ existed at the time, 95 per cent of the articles would’ve been about hunting. But I don’t want to labour the point.

The sonnet above is by Edmund Spenser, another Renaissance great and the inventor of the word ‘crag’. This is knottier than the Wyatt. Let me know what you think in the comment box below (*echoes in the void*)…

for Caesar’s I am

Whoso List to Hunt

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
    But as for me, alas, I may no more:
    The vain travail hath wearied me so sore.
    I am of them that farthest cometh behind;
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
    Draw from the deer: but as she fleeth afore,
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
    Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
    As well as I may spend his time in vain:
    And, graven with diamonds, in letters plain
There is written her fair neck round about:
    Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am;
    And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

– Thomas Wyatt, ca. 1520-40  (Source: Egerton manuscript)

This isn’t just a poem in which an unrequited lover uses a deer-hunting metaphor to describe his frustrations. Oh, no, no, no. It’s the best poem in which an unrequited lover uses a deer-hunting metaphor to describe his frustrations. I’ve chosen to post it here–although it might seem something of a standard choice– because ever since I first read it, the opening 4 lines have been stored in my memory. I don’t know why.

Why do I think it’s the best deer-hunting-as-metaphor-for-love-chase poem? The answer is in the last two lines. ‘Noli me tangere’ is Latin for ‘touch me not’ and was believed by Renaissance commentators to be the phrase which adorned the collars of the Roman Emperor’s deer. Wyatt was a courtier to King Henry VIII, the Caesar of his day, and the reference to Caesar in this poem may be a reference to the King. The deer which ‘belongs’ to the King has been identified with Anne Boleyn, his second wife, with whom Wyatt was romantically linked. Conclusive proof that Anne is the deer (pun intended) of the poem is lacking but the metaphor works so ridiculously well if it’s true that I’ve decided the dangerous historicists must be right. Feel free to make up your own mind…

I don’t know about you, but I think ‘ Whoso list to hunt’ (‘list’ = ‘likes’, by the way) is also a wonderfully eloquent and perfectly paced lament; every line of the poem has a distinctly unhurried feel about it, and anyone who’s ever tried to write a sonnet knows that that’s difficult to achieve with the rhymes piling up and the syllables running out. There’s no doubt that Wyatt’s poetic apprenticeship translating Petrach’s sonnets from the Italian had paid dividends.

One last thing: the spelling of the poem copied out above has been modernised. In Wyatt’s day spelling had not been regularised; he spelt words based on the way he heard them. The manuscript copy of ‘Whoso list to hunt’ has been preserved so we actually know how his ear worked, and I think reading the poem as originally written down is a richer experience. Marvel at it yourself in this version from Norbrook and Woudhuysen’s fastidious and comprehensive anthology The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse 1509-1659:

Who so list to hount I knowe where is an hynde
    but as for me helas I may no more
    the vayne travaill hath weried me so sore
    I ame of theim that farthest cometh behinde
    yet may I by no meanes my weried mynde
    drawe from the Deere but as she fleeth afore
    faynting I folowe I leve of therefor
    sethens in a nett I seke to hold the wynde
Who list her hount I put him owte of dowbte
    as well as I may spend his tyme in vain
    and graven with Diamondes in letters plain
There is written her faier neck rounde abowte
    noli me tangere for Cesars I ame
    and wylde for to hold though I seme tame

Ah, the days when punctuation was ‘optional’.