Sonnet 67

Sonnet 67

Lyke as a huntsman, after weary chace,

Seeing the game from him escapt away,

Sits downe to rest him in some shady place,

With panting hounds, beguiled of their pray,

So, after long pursuit and vaine assay,

When I all weary had the chace forsooke,

The gentle deer returnd the selfe-same way,

Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke.

There she, beholding me with mylder looke,

Sought not to fly, but fearlesse still did bide,

Till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke,

And with her own goodwill her fyrmely tyde.

Strange thing, me seemd, to see a beast so wyld

So goodly wonne, with her owne will beguyld.

I think Spenser’s 67^th sonnet is well-written and created brilliant images for the reader. In this sonnet, the speaker is a huntsman chasing a doe, which is the symbol for the woman he loves.

In the beginning, the woman is wild, untameable, and will not give in to the man’s chase. The huntsman can not catch her, so he gives up and decides to take a break at a nearby brook. While he is resting, “[she is] thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke” (8), and so they meet. The woman is now gentle, timid, and gives him a “milder look.” He wants to have her and she comes to him of her own accord. This surprises the speaker because the woman was so wild before, and now she is tame. Spenser used the hunt as a metaphor for how the more we chase something, the more it get away from us, but wait may  what we want.

I found lines 9-12 interesting because Spenser describes the doe as both “fearelesse” and “trembling” in them.  At first, this appears to be contradictory, but if I interpret the word “trembling” to refer to longing or excitement (rather than fear) it is consistent with the deer’s expression of “goodwill” when she is “fyrmely tyde.” The action of tying or restraining the deer can imply the view of patriarchy, which is one of many possible readings. It can also be interpreted as the tying of marriage, which may be less oppressive. Despite second possible interpretation, in my opinion, the final couplet: “Strange thing me seemd to see a beast so wyld,/ So goodly wonne with her owne will beguyld,” reemphasizes a sense of masculine superiority (13-14). In these lines, Spenser suggests that rather than the hunter having to chase the deer, she willingly puts herself into captivity.