Wyatt’s Proverbial ‘Though the wound be healed, yet a scar remains’

Abstract

Tottel's anthology, Songes and Sonettes (1557), was published well after the death of both Wyatt and Surrey. To the best of our knowledge, Wyatt's poem CCXLIV had not appeared in print before then, as neither had Surrey's My Ratclif, when thy rechlesse youth offendes. Wyatt's poem was almost certainly written during his imprisonment in the Tower early in 1541, and Surrey no doubt remembered it when he wrote his own poem while he was imprisoned in his turn, in 1542, or (again) in 1543. Surrey must have known Wyatt's poem from a manuscript version, whichever it was. Surrey's reference to Wyatt's authorship is therefore a significant attribution, as it precedes Tottel's by something like a dozen years.