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They Flee From Me, That Sometime Did Me Seek
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Sir Thomas Wyatt
1503-1542
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Wyatt served under the reign of
King Henry VIII.
Since the Tudor reign was
enmeshed in infidelities as
evidenced by the king, Wyatt most
likely engaged in similar behavior
(as this poem suggests).
Wyatt was also rumored be Anne
Boleyn's lover, for which he spent a
month in the Tower of London
until she was executed for adultery.
(Boleyn was the king’s second wife.)
Over his lifetime, Wyatt was in and
out of favor with the king and in
and out of prison.
His poetry, lyrics, and satires reflect
his life’s experiences.
o
Wyatt , along with Henry
Howard, the Earl of Surrey,
is credited with introducing
the sonnet; consequently,
both men share the title
“father of the English
sonnet.”
o
Wyatt wrote imitations of
Petrarch’s sonnets, one of
which was Whoso List to
Hunt after Petrarch’s Una
candida cerva; however,
Wyatt’s version refers to
Anne Boleyn as the deer.
o
Wyatt successfully used
other new forms, such as
terza rima and the rondaeu.
They Flee From Me, That Sometime Did Me Seek
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;
Therewith all 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.
Structure
o The poem employs rime royal, a
seven-line structure using iambic
pentameter with the rhyme
scheme ABABBCC. (Each stanza
is like half of one sonnet.)
o The tercet and couplets comprise
lines 1-7 (ABA BB CC); the
quatrain and tercet, are used in
lines 8-14 and 15-21 (ABAB
BCC).
o The poem presents three key
ideas.
Summary
 The speaker in this poem reverses
the usual male-female roles in
sexual liaisons by empowering the
women who are as promiscuous as
he.
 This reversal is reinforced by
comparing his conquests to prey,
which emphasizes the irony of his
surprise when the “prey” chooses to
remain free.
 As the speaker continues from the
general to the specific, he focuses on
one woman, perhaps Anne Boleyn
who married Henry VIII.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZY69fnpF8o&ind
ex=19&list=UUAiABuhVSMZJMqyv4Ur5XqA
Note ambiguity of pronoun.
The “foot” alleviates
ambiguity of pronoun
and suggestions the
metaphor of a bird or
animal (“stalking,” and
“gentle, tame, and meek.”
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
Contrast of past and
present behavior reflects
That now are wild and do not remember
speaker’s wounded
That sometime they put themself in danger nature.
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.
The use of assonance and consonance
reinforce the ease with which the
women/doe “flee.”
The speaker derides women for “fleeing”
him—for remaining “wild.” Ironically, he
castigates these women for acting naturally
(“seeking…change”) for it was their natures
that allowed him to enjoy their company.
This enjambment highlights this division.
“It” is another ambiguous reference to the
romantic visits (which were twenty times
better). The reference is unclear.
Fortune is personified to show speaker’s awareness that his
experiences with women were a result of luck, not devotion.
Consonance of
the letter “t”
reinforces the
frequency of the
visits when he
believed that
“she” was
devoted to him.
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;
Therewith all sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”
Diction, which is
stressed by the syntax,
reflects animal imagery.
Dialect reveals woman’s power over speaker
as the male seducer becomes the seduced.
Alliteration stresses his memory of this
one encounter, this one woman.
He recognizes the woman as a person, not
a bird/deer, but the reversal of their roles
upsets him as “It was not dream.”
Speaker notes that
she took her role
from him (“my
gentleness”). This
confuses him.
Does she deserve
kindness or
punishment? He
choses to ask the
reader.
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.
Diction suggests that the
woman is fickle.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.
“Kindly is used ironically and
leads to his use of “fain” as he
infers she “deserves”
punishment, which is contrary
to what a man in the same
position would “deserve.”
Final couplet betrays
his emotional turmoil.
Speaker’s tone
could reflect
Wyatt’s affair
with Anne or
his wife’s
adultery.
Tone
The speaker’s tone shifts from one of male arrogance to hurt pride. He questions the actions of a
female who acted like a male, which leads to a bewildered tone on his part.
Works Cited

http://www.enotes.com/topics/they-flee-from-me

http://www.gradesaver.com/collected-poems-of-sir-thomaswyatt/study-guide/section5/

http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/poetry-analysisthey-flee-from-me-by-sir-thomas-wyatt-8109/

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/wyattbio.htm

http://www.shmoop.com/they-flee-from-me/summary.html

https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/html/1807/4350/poem2407.h
tml