What should I Say
What should I Say
Original Text
British Library Devonshire MS. 2711, fol. 77; cf. Collected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt, ed. Kenneth Muir and Patricia Thomson (Liverpool, 1969): 220-21.
1What should I say,
2Since faith is dead,
3And truth away
4From you is fled?
5Should I be led
6With doubleness?
8I promised you,
9And you promised me,
10To be as true
11As I would be.
12But since I see
14Farewell my part!
15Though for to take
16It is not my mind,
17But to forsake
19And as I find,
20So will I trust:
21Farewell, unjust!
22Can ye say nay?
24That I alway
25Should be obeyed?
26And thus betrayed
28Farewell, unkissed.
Notes
7] mistress: polite form of address for a married woman. Back to Line
13] The MS. rhymes are "herte" and "perte'' (French for "loss," punning on English "part'). Back to Line
18] This line is missing in the original, Devonshire MS. Add. 17492. Nott's conjecture (here) has also been adopted by Muir and Thomson and by Rebholz. Back to Line
23] But: that.
alway: always. Back to Line
alway: always. Back to Line
27] Or ... wiste: before I knew. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1815
RPO poem Editors
F. D. Hoeniger; Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RP 1963: I.11 (F. D. Hoeniger); RPO 1994 (IL).
Rhyme