Farewell, Love

Wyatt’s “Farewell, Love” presents a quite pessimistic view of what love is. In each line the speaker characterizes love in a different way, each of which reveals an equally negative view. The text of the poem reads

Farewell, Love, and all thy laws forever,

Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more;

Senec and Plato call me from thy lore

To perfect wealth my wit for to endeavor.

In blind error when I did persever,

Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,

Hath taught me to set in trifles no store,

And ‘scape forth since liberty is lever.

Therefore farewell, go trouble younger heart,

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 all my time,

Me lusteth no longer rotten bows to climb.

In the first line the speaker rejects love by saying “farewell” to it forever. Not only does he say goodbye to Love, but the speaker also rejects Love’s “laws.” To suggest that Love has laws defies the idea of this abstraction as fanciful and pleasant. Instead, the reader is forced to see Love as having structure, boundaries, rules, and restrictions. The next line characterizes Love as a dangerous beast with hooks. The fact that the hooks “tangle” the speaker shows that, in his view, Love is confusing and easy to get caught up in. The next two lines suggest that to submit to Love is to be witless. Thus the speaker characterizes Love as something that should be reserved for uneducated idiots, and that those who sharpen their minds will not be dumb enough to fall prey to it. Lines five and six continue the speaker’s negative analysis by saying that Love repels, instead of embraces the speaker. No matter how hard the speaker “persevered” to obtain Love, it was always beyond his reach. Furthermore, the speaker suggests that Love’s rejection of him never ceased to be hurtful. In the next line the speaker says that Love is a trifle. According to the Oxford English dictionary a trifle is, “a false or idle tale told to deceive, cheat, or befool.” By describing Love as a trifle, the speaker asserts that it is almost evil because it aims to deceive and harm. Line eight continues by suggesting that to submit to love is to lose freedom. Thus, according to the speaker, Love makes people into slaves. The next four lines suggest that the speaker feels he is too old, and possibly too emotionally tired, to be bothered by love. He says that Love is for young people who still have the strength to sustain the troubles that Love inflicts. Furthermore, Love is given a weapon by the speaker to inflict pain on those who are struck by its’ arrows.

Wyatt’s poem definitely represents the most negative view of Love I have seen in awhile. What I think is most interesting about this poem, though, is that each line has within it a different evaluation of the danger and uselessness of Love.