"My love"
The speaker's beloved, referred to as "my love" in the opening of the poem, is a hunter—she goes out hunting at dawn, with her horse and hounds, and shoots down deer with her bow and arrow. An allusion to the Roman goddess Diana, as well as a nod to the “cruel woman” motif in courtly love literature, the speaker’s beloved ruthlessly shoots the speaker’s heart at the end of the poem.
The speaker
Besides declaring his existence in the phrase “my love,” the speaker remains largely absent from most of the poem. Ironically, he reveals himself at the very end, at the very moment he is shot down by his love the hunter. He also turns out to be a deer, and not a human observer of the hunt. The speaker of this poem epitomizes the heartbroken lover, shattered to pieces by the woman who rejects him.
