Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, alas, I may no more:
The vain travail hath worried me so sore,
I am of them that furthest come 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."
Often understood by academics to be about Sir Thomas Wyatt's unrequited love for Anne Boleyn, who at the time had caught the eye of Henry VIII, this poem is open to a variety of other readings. One analysis might view Wyatt as walking a dangerous political tightrope just for his acquaintance with Anne Boleyn. However, I believe that its subversion goes much deeper.
The poem contains an acrostic: taking the first letters of each line the poem and then reassembling them, they form the code "Wyatt bids a fawn". Unlike other Renaissance acrostics though, this one has curiously not been brought to light to my knowledge. Like Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, Wyatt held an ambiguous relationship with the ruler he allegedly served and had his own particular views on the relation between Church and State. Based upon the woman who sparked a fundamental change in English history, the code in this poem offers a tantalising glimpse of covert politics in the English court during the Reformation. Her associations with Thomas Cromwell only serve to deepen the mystery.
A great deal of the ambiguity of this sonnet seems to arise from conjecture over its date of composition. According to his grandson, Wyatt felt a romantic connection with Anne the moment he met her when she returned from France, which would make the date 1522 at the earliest; yet more speculation suggests a lifelong friendship between Boleyn and Wyatt dating back many years before she first left France for England. Meanwhile Gilfillan (1858) sees the sonnet as alluding to the attraction the King felt for Anne Boleyn, thus dating the poem to the time of courtship prior to their marriage in 1533. Another poem of Wyatt's from the 1530s contains an acrostic spelling SHELTUN. An interpretation of this poem as a declaration of his love for Mary Shelton becomes more equivocal in the realisation that she was the first cousin of Anne Boleyn and mistress of Henry VIII in 1535.
Rather than dealing with courtly love, the conventions of Petrarchan sonnets were often adopted as a cover when addressing highly sensitive subjects in allegorical form. In 1536, when controversy about the Queen's adultery was rife, the Orwellian atmosphere of the Tudor state would have reached a new height. Simon Schama, in his BBC programme A History of Britain (2000), shows how a sermon given by Anne Boleyn's almoner, John Skip, marks something of a turning point in her fortunes. Quoting the story of Queen Esther from the Old Testament, Skip appears to denounce "the wicked counsellor" to the King who advocates destruction of the Jews, while the Queen saves them by stepping in with different advice. What Skip apparently intended was to invite a comparison with the minister to the King in the biblical story; in this way, he implicates Cromwell, the controversial figure who made the marriage to Anne Boleyn possible and who introduced the Act of Suppression of the Lesser Monastries. Coming back to the sonnet, "caesar" is often cited as a reference to the King via its original meaning of emperor. In later Roman usage however, Caesar was the name given to the heir presumptive.
Earlier I mentioned the Queen's associations with Cromwell as a key to unlocking the meaning of 'Whoso List to Hunt'; its frequent allusions to a pursuit fraught with risk and the need for a covert approach are a subtle musing on the changes happening in the relation between Church and State. Her passionate belief in overcoming the corruption of the Church is often attested to, but the extent of her influence less so. With a network of spies, Cromwell was in a position to see to it that it was not in conflict with his own. The "fawn" that Wyatt refers to in the poem's acrostic may well suggest the naivety of Anne Boleyn, which contrasts with the more cynical manoeuvering of Cromwell, (who, perhaps, the poem is also addressing), in his pursuit of political power. However, it is also a word recalling how Machiavelli advised flattery and shows of affection when courting favour; a tactic Wyatt is perhaps advocating when dealing with the monarchy. Taking the conspiratorial theme even further, it could even be said that Wyatt and Boleyn were plotting the overthrow of the King, with the State imagined as the heir presumptive, as if it were a newly fledged animal, like a fawn. But of course that would be going too far ... Like Cromwell, Boleyn rose from extremely humble beginnings to what must have seemed unimaginable heights. Where she differed from him is less apparent. In a sonnet such as this which seems replete with codes, her wretched position can sometimes be frustratingly, almost maddeningly glimpsed; as if it would ever be quite close enough, not for Cromwell, nor Wyatt ... and certainly not for the King.
But then again, maybe all this speculation on conspiracy is just child's play... maybe the only available option to the 'elite' manuscript culture of the 16th century was to make a sardonic bid on the next heir to the throne, the supposed "heir presumptive" that would inherit the bloated ambitions of Henry VIII and his attempts to takeover the Holy See.
