Text and meaning of Wyatt's 'Like as the byrde in the cage enclosed'

Abstract

"Like as the byrde" has been so consistently misrepresented in texts which editors have offered that it seemed mandatory, now, to print the text from the most authoritative source without adulteration, and to comment on the most significant points of interpretation which need to be taken into account by any editor punctuating the poem as well as by any reader who seeks to understand the poem but who, when consulting the two most modern editions of Wyatt, will not find either a text which is unequivocally correct or adequate explanations of the textual difficulties at issue.