Noli Me Tangere

I addition to buying new jewelry, I like to reinvent some of my old pieces. For years I have allowed a silver cuff bracelet that belonged to my mother to languish unworn in my "second-string" jewelry box. It suddenly occurred to me to have something engraved on it. I remembered a line from one of my favorite sonnets by Sir Thomas Wyatt: "Noli Me Tangere, for Caesar's I am,/And wild for to hold, though I seem tame." I have always really liked these lines, even though I lack a Caesar.

In the poem the speaker is chasing after a woman who he refers to as a deer, or hind as they used to call them back in the day. Note: the word "hélas" means "alas" and "Sithens" means "since." It is pretty generally accepted that Wyatt is referring to Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second queen. The whole poem is as follows:

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.

"Noli me tangere" basically means "touch me not." I liked the idea of having this phrase on my wrist. When I googled the phrase I realized that it had another layer of meaning. This Latin phrase is actually a sound bite out of the Vulgate, The first Latin translation of the Bible. Turns out that in the Vulgate Jesus says this phrase to Mary Magdalene in the garden when she runs into him after his resurrection. This makes Wyatt's choice all the more interesting to me. I figure that the Christian implication was obscure enough that most people wouldn't make that association.

So I went to my jeweler and sprung for the hand engraving. It turned out beautifully, the engraving work is amazing. I am very pleased. I feel this phrase and the poem reflect nicely some of the things I am feeling right now.