Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind

Anne Boyleyn

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,
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.

—Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

The first line of this sonnet is rendered into Modern English, from Early Modern sixteenth century as "Whoever desires to hunt, I know where there's a young doe." "Sithens" in line 8 means "since."

The deer here is a metaphor, probably, for a woman. Women have been conventionally referred to as deer from the early ages of poetry, and there is a long tradition of comparing the hunt of Venus, the love hunt, with venery, the hunt for deer; the two are in fact related etymologically, and the pun is a common one in several languages. The sonnet is filled with references to hunting— the doe, the net to catch the wind ( a common proverb in English and Italian), and the idea of pursuit, for instance.

This sonnet is very much inspired by Petrarch's Rime 190, though there the poet describes a snow-white doe with golden horns that the poet follows in a forest glade. Caesar is said to have engraved "Noli me tangere quia Caesaris sum ("Touch me not, for I am Caesar's") on the collars of deer who were then set free, protected from hunters. There is also the "render unto Caesar" reference in Matthew 22:13-21 when the Pharisees attempt entrap Christ. Wyatt's sonnet may refer to Anne Boleyn (in the painting above), Henry VIII's second wife, whom he began to court in 1526, thereby making her "off limits" for Wyatt and other courtiers. Noli me tangere also echoes the Vulgate or Latin New Testament, and Christ's words to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection: "Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father" (John 20:17).