Wyatt's Unattainable Lover

On the surface, Thomas Wyatt’s “Whoso List to Hunt” is a poem about hunting a deer. However, the underlying subject of the poem is obviously the pursuit of love – specifically, unattainable love. Wyatt characterizes the lover in “Whoso List to Hunt” as the deer his speaker is hunting but cannot catch. In the early sixteenth century, hunting a deer was restricted to the king and his circle of nobility. Such a fair hind as the one described by Wyatt’s persona would be predisposed to belong to the king. The failure of Wyatt’s persona in his pursuit of love lies in this predetermined ownership. The deer representing the object of his affections is adorned with the phrase “Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am…” (13) which is “graven with diamonds” (11) around her neck. The phrase stands as a warning from Caesar – a symbol for the all-powerful ruler of England, the king – to not touch his precious deer. When placed in the context of love where the deer is a woman, the diamonds that encircle her neck stand as a wordless symbol to inform the hunter that his pursuits are in vain because she already belongs to the king. While the persona considers the hunt to be a “vain travail” (2) in which he cannot catch the creature of his desires, he does not easily relinquish his attempts. By no means does the pursuer’s “worried mind / Draw from the deer…” (5-6); rather, “in a net [he seeks] to hold the wind…” (8) and still catch the precious deer and attain his unreachable lover.