Gascoigne uses two distinct images to express the magnitude of his emotions. The use of a rat and a fly to depict his situation is unusual because both rats and flies are associated with nasty,gross and disgusting things which contradicts against the sweetness of love. It is clear that beautiful qualities of love and affection are avoided while only the miserable qualities of unrequited love are emphasized. This justifies the reasoning on why he used a rat and fly as his comparisons because people usually want to get rid of them. Additionally, the rat “is seldom ‘ticed with the trustless bait, but lies aloof for fear of more mishap” while the fly “once hath ‘scaped the flame” and “will hardly come to play again with fire.” Just like how the
