The Devonshire Manuscript/Take hede be tyme leste ye be spyede

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The Devonshire Manuscript
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←Front Matter

O cruell causer of vndeserrved chaynge→

f. [2r]

1 Take hede be tyme leste ye be spyede s¹
2    yo^r lovyng Iyes cane {n'} not hide
3    at last the trwthe will sure be tryde
therefore take hede
4    for Som ther be of crafite Kynde
5    thowe yow shew no parte of yo^r mynde
6    sewrlye there Ies ye ^{can te not} nott blynde
therefore take hede
~~for in lyke case there sselv of dyveris skools~~
7    ffor in lyke case ther selves ha hathe bene
8    & thoʒtthought ryght sure none had theym sene
9    but it was not as thye did wene²
therefore take hede
10    all thowgth theye be of dyvers skoolles {es}
11{es} use   & will can yose all craftye toolles
12    at leynthe thye prove them selfs bott fooll
therefor take
13    yff theye myght take yow in that trape
14    theye wolde sone leve yet in yo^r lape
15    to love vnspyed ys but a happe
therefore th take hed

TTh W³

Notes & Glosses

     1. The shape of the "s" mark suggests that it was made by Margaret Douglas.
     2. "Wene" means to think, surmise, or consider.
     3. Th W: This is a designation, perhaps of authorship, by an unidentified hand.

Commentary

Attributed to Sir Thomas Wyatt,^[1] the poem was entered by H1 and is unique to this manuscript. An adaption of this poem appears as a ballad in a later Elizabethan manuscript, British Library Harley MS 7578 (fol. 116v), entitled "Tak hede by tym whiles youth doth Rayn." John Milsom suggests that this adaptation is a moralization of Wyatt's poem.^[2]

Works Cited

[1] R.A. Rebholz, ed., Sir Thomas Wyatt: The Complete Poems (London: Penguin, 1978), 151.

[2] John Milsom, "Songs and Society in early Tudor London," in Early Music History: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Music, ed. Iain Fenlon, vol. 16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 267.

[1]

[2]