NOTES

The left-hand column of each page is indicated by the letter "a"; the right-hand column by the

PAGE

letter "b"

N. E. D. Murray's New English Dictionary, Oxford, 1884-1921

3 Sir Thomas Wyatt. For my text I follow that of A. K. Foxwell's edition of Wyatt (London, 1913), which goes back in all cases to the MSS rather than to Tottel. Foxwell presents, it seems to me, convincing evidence that the MSS give us Wyatt's verse as he wrote it, while Tottel gives the verse revised by other hands. In case any reader should prefer Tottel's versions, however, I reprint them (wherever they differ materially from my text) here:

The lover for shamefastness hideth his desire within
his faithful heart

The long love that in my thought I harber,
And in my heart doth keep his residence,
Into my face presseth with bold pretence,
And there campeth, displaying his banner.
She that me learns to love and to suffer,
And wills that my trust and lust's negligence
Be reined by reason, shame, and reverence,
With his hardiness takes displeasure.
Wherewith love to the heart's forest he fleeth,

Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry,
And there him hideth and not appeareth.
What may I do when my master feareth
But in the field with him to live and die?
For good is the life, ending faithfully.

A renouncing of love

Farewell, Love, and all thy laws forever,
Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more.
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore,
To parfit wealth my wit for to endeavèr.
In blind error when I did persevèr,

Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,
Taught me in trifles that I set no store,
But 'scape forth thence, since liberty is lever.
Therefore, farewell, go trouble younger hearts,
And in me claim no more authority.
With idle youth go use thy property,
And thereon spend thy many brittle darts.
For hitherto though I have lost my time,
Me list no longer rotten boughs to climb.

Description of the contrarious passions in a lover

I find no peace, and all my war is done,

I fear and hope, I burn and freeze like ice,

I fly aloft, yet can I not arise,

And naught I have, and all the world I season;

That locks nor looseth holdeth me in prison,
And holds me not; yet can I 'scape no wise;

Nor lets me live nor die at my devise,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eye I see; without tongue I plain;
I wish to perish, yet I ask for health;

I love another, and thus I hate myself;
I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain.
Lo, thus displeaseth me both death and life,
And my delight is causer of this strife.

The lover compareth his state to a ship in perilous storm tossed on the sea

My galley, charged with forgetfulness,

Through sharp seas, in winter nights doth pass,
'Tween rock and rock; and eke my foe, alas,
That is my lord, steereth with cruelness.
And every hour a thought in readiness,

As though that death were light in such a case.
An endless wind doth tear the sail apace
Of forced sighs, and trusty fearfulness.

A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain,

Have done the wearied cords great hinderance, Wrethed with error, and with ignorance. The stars be hid that led me to this pain, Drowned is reason that should be my comfort, And I remain despairing of the port.

The lover's life compared to the Alps
Like unto these unmeasurable mountains,
So is my painful life the burden of ire.
For high be they, and high is my desire,
And I of tears, and they be full of fountains.
Under craggy rocks they have barren plains,

Hard thoughts in me my woeful mind doth tire;
Small fruit and many leaves their tops do attire,
With small effect great trust in me remains.
The boistous winds oft their high boughs do blast,
Hot sighs in me continually be shed;

Wild beasts in them, fierce love in me is fed; Unmoveable am I, and they steadfast.

Of singing birds they have the tune and note, And I always plaints passing through my throat.

The lover, having dreamed enjoying of his love, complaineth that the dream is not either longer or truer

Unstable dream, according to the place,

Be steadfast once, or else at least be true. By tasted sweetness make me not to rue The sudden loss of thy false feigned grace. By good respect, in such a dangerous case, Thou broughtest not her into these tossing seas, But madest my sprite to live my care to increase, My body in tempest her delight to embrace. The body dead, the sprite had his desire.

Painless was the one, the other in delight.
Why then, alas, did it not keep it right,
But thus return to leap into the fire;

And where it was at wish, could not remain?
Such mocks of dreams do turn to deadly pain.

To his love, whom he had kissed against her will
Alas, madame, for stealing of a kiss

Have I so much your mind therein offended?
Or have I done so grievously amiss
That by no means it may not be amended?
Revenge you, then; the readiest way is this:
Another kiss my life it shall have ended.
For to my mouth the first my heart did suck;
The next shall clean out of my breast it pluck.

The lover compareth his heart to the over-charged

gonne

The furious gonne, in his most raging ire,

When that the bowl is rammed in too sore
And that the flame cannot part from the fire,
Cracks in sunder; and in the air do roar
The shivered pieces. So doth my desire,
Whose flame increaseth aye from more to more.
Which to let out I dare not look nor speak,
So inward force my heart doth all to-break.

A description of such a one as he would love
A face that should content me wondrous well
Should not be fair, but lovely to behold,
Of lively look all grief for to repel.
With right good grace so would I that it should
Speak without word, such words as none can tell.
The tress also should be of crispëd gold;
With wit, and these, perchance, I might be tried,
And knit again with knot that should not slide.

22 lever. preferable.
me lusteth. I desire.

28

I

22

season. seize upon.

Wrethed. Ault (Elizabethan Lyrics, p. 2) places a semicolon after "hinderance," and a comma after "ignorance." This punctuation gives better sense to "wrethed' (wreathed), but detracts from the effectiveness of the last three lines.

14 lin. cease.

31 mew. cage, place of confinement.

II bordes. jests, mockery.

24 grame. sorrow.

5b II denays. denials.

6a 19 sely. harmless.

30 gonne. gun.

10 jape. joke, trifle.

32 steaming. shining.

I soote. sweet, fragrant.

4 make. mate.

9a

9a

9a

10 sely. hapless, deserving of pity.

27 lust. desire (without the specialized meaning which the word has now acquired).
I hay. net, snare.

7 affects. passions, appetites (as opposed to reason).

6 hung his old head on the pale. The hart sheds its old horns in the spring.

II minges. produces by mixing. See N.E.D., under 'meng,' 2.

15ff This sonnet, like numerous others by Surrey, Wyatt, and other Elizabethans, is an imitation of Petrarch. Wyatt imitates the same sonnet in "The long love that in my thought doth harber." Petrarch's sonnet begins, "Amor che nel pensier mio vive et regna"; in most editions of Petrarch it is numbered 140.

9b 3 The western isle. Ireland.