The Anatomy of Betrayal

Thomas Wyatt's poem dramatizes romantic disillusionment through a precise linguistic dismantling of a broken promise. Each stanza functions like a legal brief, systematically exposing the lover's duplicity.

The poem's structure mirrors emotional withdrawal: each stanza moves from accusation to rejection, with 'Farewell' functioning as a ritualized dismissal. By using legal and contractual language, Wyatt transforms personal hurt into a calculated repudiation.

Courtly Complaint as Performance

[CONTEXT: Wyatt wrote during Henry VIII's court, where romantic poetry was a complex social performance.]

This poem isn't just personal—it's a stylized complaint following strict Renaissance poetic conventions. The repeated structure, the controlled emotional register, and the performative language all suggest this is as much about demonstrating rhetorical skill as expressing genuine heartbreak.

The final lines' bitter irony ('Or that I wist!') reveal Wyatt's sophisticated approach: he's not just hurt, but intellectually processing betrayal.

Thomas Wyatt

A Revocation

What should I say?

Personified abstractions

Wyatt uses 'Faith' and 'Truth' as characters that can die or flee, turning emotional betrayal into a dramatic scene.

:— Since Faith is dead,

And Truth away

:From you is fled?

:Should I be led

::With doubleness?

::Nay! nay! mistress.

I promised you,

Legal language of promise

The repeated 'promised' signals this is like a contract being broken. Wyatt frames romantic betrayal as a legal breach.

:And you promised me,

To be as true

:As I would be.

:But since I see

Double/doubleness wordplay

Repeated 'double' suggests both emotional duplicity and the mathematical sense of being divided against oneself.

::Your double heart,

::Farewell my part!

Thought for to take

:'Tis not my mind;

But to forsake

:One so unkind;

:And as I find

::So will I trust.

::Farewell, unjust!

Can ye say nay

:But that you said

That I alway

:Should be obeyed?

:And — thus betrayed

::Or that I wist!

::Farewell, unkist!

Renaissance courtly love vocabulary

Phrases like 'farewell' and 'unkist' reveal this as a formal complaint against a lover's betrayal, following strict poetic conventions.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation