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"They Flee From Me" — Sir Thomas Wyatt
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.
Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "Dear heart, how like you this?"
It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.
Sir Thomas Wyatt's "They Flee from Me," written during the reign of
Henry the VIII, remains not only one of the most original and personal love
poems of the 16th century, but of all time.
Its brilliance resides in the way Wyatt moves in and out of the metaphor
established in his first stanza wherein he remembers how wild animals who
once risked danger to visit him in his chamber, now flee from him, ranging
widely, seeking sustenance from others.
Notice that Wyatt is careful not to literalize his metaphor. "They" flee from
him, not squirrels, or rabbits, or deer. That they put themself in danger "to
take bread from my hand" strongly suggests they are animals. But it's
pointless to note that animals come "with naked foot" since their feet are
"naked" by nature. If "they" are women, however, secretly coming for a
tryst, they would discard noisy footwear to avoid detection.
By the time we reach stanza two we know our speaker is a formerly
attractive, virile man who has had many one-night stands with
promiscuous women over many years. The wildness, the animality of
Wyatt's metaphor is essential to establish the biological power of sexual
attraction common to animals and human beings. Wyatt's taming of their
wildness, bringing out their gentleness also indicates that they trust him
and feel safe in his presence.
Sir Thomas Wyatt: 1503 – 1542
Wyatt was a favorite at King Henry's court and performed many important
diplomatic services for the monarch. When staying at court he would be
surrounded by beautiful women, none perhaps more attractive than Anne
Boleyn (more on Wyatt's attraction to Anne later).
Liaisons, however, could be dangerous, disgraceful, even fatal to both men
and women. Wyatt's metaphor expresses urges so strong that both parties
risk everything to gratify passion.
In stanza two, Wyatt transforms and deepens his reminiscence by pulling
the tablecloth out from under his metaphor. Animality almost disappears.
No mouse, nor squirrel, nor deer but a vibrant, memorable woman appears
in the poet's chamber as he recalls that "once in special,"
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "Dear heart, how like you this?"
In his unhappiness at no longer attracting women Wyatt thanks fortune for
a situation once "twenty times better" and from all his trysts remembers
one woman who stands out from all his other midnight visitors. She is
playful, merry, generous. Her affection, her desire to delight her partner
approaches what we call love. One gets the feeling that perhaps this tryst
led to an affair of some length, that his favorite recollection of her could be
supplemented with many more.
I said the animality of stanza one almost disappears in stanza two; for
Wyatt's lover's words, though lovely and powerful, have been carefully
chosen to continue to contain the wildness of his original metaphor.
"Dear heart, how like you this?"
"Dear" and "deer" are homophones, words that sound alike but are spelled
differently and have different meanings. So are "heart" and "hart," the
latter being a sexually mature male deer. By embedding "deer" in "dear"
and "hart" in "heart" Wyatt reminds us that the animality of stanza one
remains essential to love and underlies all its human manifestations.
In his final stanza the poet realizes that the woman he so remembers was
the lost love of his life. She is the one with whom he had a full human
connection, the one he regrets losing, the one he misses most of all.
He wonders where she is, what she's doing. Above all he wonders why, like
all the others, she fled from him. Where is she now? Does she sometimes
think of him? How has fortune treated her? Is she happy?
It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.
Wyatt identifies the enemy of constancy in love as the human desire for
"newfangleness," a word used for the first time in written English by
Geoffrey Chaucer three centuries before Wyatt in "The Squires Tale."
Wyatt almost certainly read Chaucer's woeful love story wherein a male
falcon flies away from his constant mate, attracted to another by the desire
for novelty. "Men loven of propre kind newfangleness" Chaucer laments.
By "of propre kind" he means that by our very nature human beings love
"novelty" and prefer it to sameness, in love as in other matters.
Wyatt agrees with Chaucer and probably took his inspiration for "They Flee
from Me" from him. His poem is both a celebration of true versus
ephemeral love and an elegy that laments the desire for "newfanglenesse"
that inevitably leads to love's demise. Wyatt is not a possessive, macho
male. He keenly feels the irony in the fact that his own "gentleness" has led
to the "strange fashion of forsaking" that has separated him from his love.
When she expressed a desire to break off their relationship, he gave her
leave to go, leave "to use newfanglenesse." His reminiscence is suffused
with the sadness from never being able to know what may have happened
on their romantic road not taken.
Because of its interesting connections to "They Flee from Me," I'll say a few
things in closing about Wyatt's famous sonnet on Anne Boleyn.
Whoso List to Hunt
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, 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,
Sithens 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.
In 1536 Sir Thomas Wyatt was one of six men imprisoned in the Tower of
London under suspicion of having committed adultery with Anne Boleyn.
Five of the six were soon charged and executed, along with the Queen.
Wyatt, who may have witnessed their executions from his window in the
Tower, was released later, possibly because of his family's friendship with
Thomas Cromwell, possibly due to lack of incriminating evidence, or both.
"Whoso List to Hunt" bears evidence to Wyatt's attraction to and amorous
pursuit of Anne over many years. He allegorizes his frustration via the
metaphor of a pack of hunters pursuing a "hind" (a sexually mature female
deer). As in "They Flee From Me" his tone is elegiac, admitting his sad
defeat. Others in the pack continue to hunt her, "But as for me, hélas, I may
no more." Pursuing this special deer is like trying to hold the wind in a net.
Wyatt's sestet assures the other huntsmen that their pursuit will, like his,
end "in vain." Keeping in mind that five men would lose their lives over
possibly trumped-up charges the inscription on the jewelry around the
hind's neck is particularly chilling:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.
"Noli me tangere" are Christ's words to Mary Magdalene as she
approaches him when he leaves his tomb, meaning "Do not touch me."
Even a rumor of having touched Henry's "deer" could put one's life in
jeopardy.
Anne Boleyn, c.1500 - 1536
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