The long love

Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey were both masters of the sonnet form, and they both chose to write a version of a poem by Petrarch. Francesco Petrarca was born two hundred years before the Wyatt and Howard, in 1304 in Arezzo. He was a poet and scholar and hugely influential across Europe and a key figure in the Renaissance.

It’s interesting to compare how each poet interpreted Petrarca’s work, and here are the two versions:

The longe love that in my thought doth harbour

And in mine hert doth keep his residence,

Into my face presseth with bold pretence

And therein campeth, spreading his banner.

She that me learneth to love and suffer

And will that my trust and lustes negligence

Be rayned by reason, shame, and reverence,

With his hardiness taketh displeasure.

Wherewithall unto the hert’s forest he fleeth,

Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry,

And there him hideth and not appeareth.

What may I do when my master feareth

But in the field with him to live and die?

For good is the life ending faithfully.

Sir Thomas Wyatt

Love that doth reign and live within my thought
And built his seat within my captive breast,
Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
But she that taught me love and suffer pain,
My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire
With shamefast look to shadow and refrain,
Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.
And coward Love then to the heart apace
Taketh his flight, where he doth lurk and plain
His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.
For my lord’s guilt thus faultless bide I pain;
Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:
Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.

Henry Howard, earl of Surrey