Hunted Deer in Poetry

Hunted deer appear in many earlier poems, especially by poets who imitated the fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch. A hunter pursuing a female deer is a prominent trope in Petrarchan literature, and one of the most famous examples is Thomas Wyatt’s “Whoso List to Hunt.” Notice that Wyatt’s speaker is the hunter, whereas Pulter’s speaker aligns herself with the deer.

Thomas Wyatt, Whoso List to Hunt

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Thomas Wyatt, “Whoso List to Hunt”, PoetryFoundation.org.

Pulter’s poem recalls some aspects of earlier hart emblems by George Wither and Frances Quarles that also compare a wounded hart to a distressed soul. Neither poet has the hart seek dittany; however, Quarles refers to medicinal salve (“balsam” or “treacle”). Wither’s deer runs to no place in particular as it tries to flee certain death.

George Wither, A Collection of Emblems

Poor hart, why dost thou run so fast, and why
Behind thee dost thou look when thou dost fly?
As if thou seemedst in thy swift flight to hear
Those dangers following thee, which thou dost fear?
Alas! Thou laborest and thou runnest in vain
To shun, by flight, thy terrors or thy pain.
For, lo, thy death, which thou hast dreaded so,
Clings fast unto thee, wheresoe’er thou go.
And while thou toilest, an outward ease to win,
Thou drawest thine own destruction further in,
Making that arrow, which but pricks thy hide,
To pierce thy tender entrails, through thy side.
And well I may this wounded hart bemoan;
For here, methinks, I’m taught to look upon
Mine own condition and, in him, to see
Those deadly wounds my sins have made in me.
I greatly fear the world may unawares
Entangle me by her alluring snares.
I am afraid the devil may inject
Some poisonous fume, my spirit to infect
With ghostly pestilence, and I assay
To fly from these with all the powers I may.
But oh my flesh! This very flesh I wear
Is worse to me than worlds and devils are;
For without this, no power on me they had.
This is that skirt which made Alcides1 mad;
It is a grief which I shall never cure,
Nor fly from whilst my lifetime doth endure.
From thence, oh Lord, my greatest sorrows be,
And therefore, from myself, I fly to Thee.

George Wither, A Collection of Emblems (London, 1635), sig. Ff3v, Early English Books Online, with spelling, punctuation, and capitalization modernized.

1. Hercules. According to a classical myth, an envenomed shirt (sometimes, as here, a skirt) drove him into madness and eventually death.

Quarles’s book of emblems includes two poems in which an arrow-struck hart seeks a stream. This image is drawn from Psalm 42, which begins, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God” (King James Version). The first poem is accompanied by an illustration of someone rising from bed and a version of Song of Solomon, chapter 3, verse 2: “I will rise now, and go about the city, and will seek him that my soul loveth. I sought him, but I found him not.”

Francis Quarles, Emblems

O, how my disappointed soul’s perplexed!
How vainly pleased with hopes; then, crossly vexed
With fears! And how, betwixt them both, distressed!
What place is left unransacked? Oh! Where, next,
Shall I go seek the author of my rest?
Of what bless’d angel shall my lips enquire
The undiscovered way to that entire
And everlasting solace of my heart’s desire!

Look how the stricken hart, that wounded, flies
O’er hills and dales, and seeks the lower grounds
For running streams; the whilst his weeping eyes
Beg silent mercy from the following hounds.
At length, embossed,1 he droops, drops down, and lies
Beneath the burthen of his bleeding wounds.
E’en so my gasping soule, dissolved in tears,
Doth search for thee, my God, whose deafened ears
Leave me th’unransomed prisoner to my panic fears.
Where Thy fires are all but dying sparks to mine,
My flames are full of heaven and all divine.
How often have I sought this bed, by night,
To find that greater, by this lesser light!
How oft has my unwitnessed groans lamented
Thy dearest absence! Ah, how often vented
The bitter tempests of despairing breath,
And tossed my soul upon the waves of death!
How often has my melting heart made choice
Of silent tears (tears louder than a voice)
To plead my grief, and woo thy absent ear!
And yet thou wilt not come; thou wilt not hear,
O is thy wonted love become so cold?
Or do mine eyes not seek thee where they should?
Why do I seek thee, if thou art not here?
Or find thee not, if thou art everywhere?
I see my error; ’tis not strange I could not
Find out my love. I sought him where I should not.
Thou art not found in downy beds of ease,
As thy music strikes on harder keys;
Nor art thou found by that false, feeble light
Of nature’s candle; our Egyptian night
Is more than common darkness. Nor can we
Expect a morning, but what breaks from Thee.
Well may my empty bed lament thy loss
When thou art lodged upon thy shameful cross.
If thou refuse to share a bed with me,
We’ll never part; I’ll share a cross with Thee.

Francis Quarles, Emblems (London, 1635), sig. P7r-v, Early English Books Online, with spelling, punctuation, and capitalization modernized.

1. When a hunted animal takes shelter in a wood or thicket

Quarles’s second hart poem follows an illustration of a person riding a deer and the verse from Psalm 42: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O Lord.”

Francis Quarles, Emblems

How shall my tongue express that hallowed fire
Which heaven has kindled in my ravished heart?
What muse shall I invoke that will inspire
My lowly quill to act a lofty part?
What art shall I devise t’express desire,
Too intricate to be expressed by art?
Let all the nine [muses] be silent; I refuse
Their aid in this high task, for they abuse
The flames of love too much. Assist me, David’s muse.

Not as the thirsty soil desires soft showers
To quicken and refresh her embryon grain,
Nor as the drooping crests of fading flowers
Request the bounty of a morning rain,
Do I desire my God. These in few hours
Re-wish what late their wishes did obtain,
But as the swift-foot hart does, wounded, fly
To th’much desired streams, e’en so do I
Pant after Thee, my God, whom I must find, or die.

Before a pack of deep-mouthed lusts I flee;
O, they have singled out my panting heart,
And wanton Cupid, sitting in a tree,
Hath pierced my bosom with a flaming dart.
My soul being spent, for refuge seeks to Thee,
But cannot find where Thou my refuge art;
Like as the swift-foot hart does, wounded, fly
To the desired streams, e’en so do I
Pant after Thee, my God, whom I must find, or die.

At length, by flight, I overwent the pack;
Thou drew’st the wanton dart from out my wound.
The blood that followed left a purple track,
Which brought a serpent, but in shape a hound.
We strove, he bit me, but Thou breakst his back;
I left him groveling on th’envenomed ground,
But as the serpent-bitten hart does fly
To the long longed-for streams, e’en so did I
Pant after Thee, my God, whom I must find, or die.

If lust should chase my soul, made swift by fright,
Thou art the streams where to my soul is bound;
Or if a javelin wound my sides in flight,
Thou art the balsam that must cure my wound.
If poison chance t’infest my soul in fight,
Thou art the treacle that must make me sound;
E’en as the wounded hart, embossed, does fly
To th’streams extremely long for, so do I
Pant after thee, my God, whom I must find, or die.

Francis Quarles, Emblems (London, 1635), sig. T5r-T5v, Early English Books Online, with spelling, punctuation, and capitalization modernized.

We might also compare Pulter’s brief hart emblem to Margaret Cavendish’s more detailed description of a hunted stag, which–like Pulter’s poem–dwells on the deer’s suffering.

Margaret Cavendish, The Hunting of the Stag

There was a stag did in the forest lie,
Whose neck was long, and horns branched up high.
His haunch was broad, sides large, and back was long,
His legs were nervous, and his joints were strong.
His hair lay sleek and smooth upon his skin;
None in the forest might compare with him.
In summer’s heat he in cool brakes [bushes] him lays,
Which grew so high, kept off the sun’s hot rays.
In evenings cool or dewy mornings new
Would he rise up, and all the forest view.
Then walking to some clear and crystal brook,
Not for to drink, but on his horns to look,
Taking such pleasure in his stately crown,
His pride forgets that dogs might pull him down.
From thence unto a shady wood did go,
Where straightest pines and tallest cedars grow;
And upright olives, which th’ loving vine oft twines,
And slender birch bows head to golden mines.
Small aspen stalk, which shakes like agues cold,
That from perpetual motion never hold.
The sturdy oak on foamy seas doth ride;
Fir, which tall masts doth make, where sails are tied.
The weeping maple and the poplar green,
Whose cooling buds in salves have healing been.
The fatting chestnut and the hazel small,
The smooth-rind beech, which groweth large and tall.
The loving myrtle is for amorous kind,
The yielding willow, as inconstant mind.
The cypress sad, which makes the funeral hearse,
And sycamores, where lovers write their verse;
And juniper, which gives a pleasant smell,
And many more, which were too long to tell.
Round from their sappy roots sprout branches small,
Some call it underwood, that’s never tall.
There walking through, the stag was hindered much,
The bending twigs his horns would often catch.
While on the tender leaves and buds did browse,
His eyes were troubled with the broken boughs.
Then straight he seeks this labyrinth to unwind,
But hard it was his first way out to find.
Unto this wood a rising hill did join,
Where grew wild marjoram and sweet wild thyme,
And winter savory, which was never set,
On which the stag delighted much to eat.
But looking down upon the valleys low,
He sees the grass and cowslips thick to grow;
And springs, which dig themselves a passage out,
Much like as serpents wind each field about.
Rising in winter high do overflow,
The flowery banks, but rich the soil doth grow.
So as he went, thinking therein to feed,
He saw a field, which sowed was with wheat seed.
The blades were grown a handful high and more,
Which sight his taste did soon invite him o’er.
In haste goes on, feeds full, then down he lies,
The owner coming there, he soon espies;
Straight called his dogs to hunt him from that place,
At last it came to be a forest chase.
The chase grew hot, the stag apace did run,
Dogs followed close, and men for sport did come.
At last a troop of men, horse, dogs did meet,
Which made the hart to try his nimble feet.
Full swift he was, his horns he bore up high,
Then men did shout, the dogs ran yelping by;
And bugle horns with several notes did blow,
Huntsmen to cross the stag did sideways go.
The horses beat their hooves against dry ground,
Raising such clouds of dust, their ways scarce found.
Their sides ran down with sweat, as if they were
New come from watering, dropping every hair.
The dogs their tongues out of their mouths hung long,
Their sides did beat like feverish pulse so strong.
Their short ribs heave up high, then fall down low,
As bellows draw in wind the same to blow.
Men tawny grew, the sun their skins did turn,
Their mouths were dry, their bowels felt to burn.
The stag so hot as coals, when kindled through,
Yet swiftly ran when he the dogs did view.
Coming at length unto a river’s side,
Whose current flowed as with a falling tide;
Where he leaps in to quench his scorching heat,
To wash his sides, to cool his burning feet.
Hoping the dogs in water could not swim,
But he’s deceived: the dogs do enter in.
Like fishes, tried to swim in water low,
But out, alas, his horns too high do show.
When dogs were covered over head and ears,
No part is seen: only their nose appears.
The stag and river like a race did show,
He striving still the swift river to outgo.
Whilst men and horses ran the banks along,
Encouraging the dogs to follow on,
Where he on waters, like a looking glass,
By a reflection sees their shadows pass.
Fear cuts his breath off short, his limbs do shrink,
Like those the cramp doth take, to bottom sink.
Thus out of breath, no longer could he stay,
But leaps on land and swiftly runs away.
Change gave him ease, ease strength; in strength hope lives.
Hope joys the heart, or light heel joy still gives.
His feet like to a feathered arrow flies,
Or like a winged bird that mounts the skies.
The dogs like ships that sail with wind and tide,
Which cut the air and waters deep divide.
Or like a greedy merchant seeks for gain,
Will venture life, so traffics on the main.
The hunters, like to boys, no dangers shun,
To see a sight will venture life and limb;
Which sad become when mischief takes not place,
Is out of countenance, as with disgrace;
But when they see a ruin and a fall,
Return with joy, as conquerors they were all.
Thus their several passions their ways did meet,
As dogs’ desire to catch did make them fleet.
The stag with fear did run, his life to save,
Whilst men for love of mischief dig his grave.
The angry dust in every face up flies,
As with revenge, seeks to put out their eyes.
Yet they so fast went on with such loud cries,
The stag no hope had left, nor help espies;
His heart so heavy grew with grief and care
That his small feet his body could not bear.
Yet loath to die or yield to foes was he,
But to the last would strive for victory.
’Twas not for want of courage he did run,
But that an army against one did come.
Had he the valor of bold Caesar stout,
Must yield himself to them, or die no doubt.
Turning his head, as if he dared their spite,
Prepared himself against them all to fight.
Single he was, his horns were all his helps,
To guard him from a multitude of whelps.
Besides, a company of men were there,
If dogs should fail to strike him everywhere.
But to the last his fortune he’ll try out;
Then men and dogs do circle him about.
Some bite, some bark, all ply him at the bay,
Where with his horns he tosses some away.
But fate his thread had spun, so down did fall,
Shedding some tears at his own funeral.

Margaret Cavendish, Poems and Fancies (London, 1653), sig. Q1r-Q2v, Early English Books Online, with spelling, punctuation, and capitalization modernized.