The dating of Donne's _Divine Poems_ raises some
questions
that have
not received all the consideration they deserve.
not received all the consideration they deserve.
Donne - 2
D.
gives: 'Yea the Prince .
.
.
as she hath most of
yearely Revenewes . . . so should she have most losse by this dearth,'
W. Stafford, 1581; 'Cleopatra, prince of Nile,' Willobie, _Avisa_,
1594; 'Another most mighty prince, Mary Queene of Scots,' Camden
(Holland), 1610.
PAGE =301=, ll. 159-160. _built by the guest,
This living buried man, &c. _
The comma after guest is dropped in the printed editions, the editor
regarding 'this living buried man' as an expansion of 'the guest'. But
the man buried alive is the 'soul's second inn', the mandrake. 'Many
Molas and false conceptions there are of Mandrakes, the first from
great Antiquity conceiveth the Root thereof resembleth the shape of
Man which is a conceit not to be made out by ordinary inspection,
or any other eyes, than such as regarding the clouds, behold them in
shapes conformable to pre-apprehensions. ' Browne, _Vulgar Errors_.
PAGE =303=, ll. 203-5. The punctuation of this stanza is in the
editions very chaotic, and I have amended it. A full stop should be
placed at the end of l. 203, 'was not', _because_ these lines complete
the thought of the previous stanza. Possibly the semicolon after 'ill'
was intended to follow 'not', but a full stop is preferable. Moreover,
the colon after 'soule' (l. 204) suggests that the printer took ''twas
not' with 'this soule'. The correct reading of l. 204 is obviously:
So jolly, that it can move, this soul is.
Chambers prefers:
So jolly, that it can move this soul, is
The body . . .
but Donne was far too learned an Aristotelian and Scholastic to make
the body move the soul, or feel jolly on its own account:
thy fair goodly soul, which doth
Give this flesh power to taste joy, thou dost loathe.
_Satyre III_, ll. 41-2.
'The soul is so glad to be at last able to move (having been
imprisoned hitherto in plants which have the soul of growth, not of
locomotion or sense), and the body is so free of its kindnesses to the
soul, that it, the sparrow, forgets the duty of self-preservation. '
l. 214. _hid nets. _ In making my first collation of the printed texts
I had queried the possibility of 'hid' being the correct reading for
'his', a conjecture which the Gosse MS. confirms.
PAGE =305=, l. 257. _None scape, but few, and fit for use, to get. _
I have added a comma after 'use' to make the construction a little
clearer; a pause is needed. 'The nets were not wrought, as now, to let
none scape, but were wrought to get few and those fit for use; as, for
example, a ravenous pike, &c. '
PAGE =306=, ll. 267-8. '_To make the water thinne, and airelike faith
cares not. _' What Chambers understands by 'air like faith', I do not
know. What Donne says is that the manner in which fishes breathe is a
matter about which faith is indifferent. Each man may hold what theory
he chooses. There is not much obvious relevance in this remark, but
Donne has already in this poem touched on the difference between faith
and knowledge:
better proofes the law
Of sense then faith requires.
A vein of restless scepticism runs through the whole.
l. 280. _It's rais'd, to be the Raisers instrument and food. _ If with
_1650-69_, Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor, we alter the full
stop which separates this line from the last to a comma, 'It' must
mean the same as 'she', i. e. the fish. This is a harsh construction.
The line is rather to be taken as an aphorism. 'To be exalted is often
to become the instrument and prey of him who has exalted you. '
PAGE =307=, l. 296. _That many leagues at sea, now tir'd hee lyes. _
The reading of _G_ represents probably what Donne wrote. It is quite
clear that _1633_ was printed from a MS. identical with _A18_, _N_,
_TC_, and underwent considerable correction as it passed through the
press. In no poem does the text of one copy vary so much from that
of another as in this. Now in this MS. a word is dropped. The editor
supplied the gap by inserting 'o're-past', which simply repeats 'flown
long and fast'. _G_ shows what the dropped word was. 'Many leagues at
sea' is an adverbial phrase qualifying 'now tir'd he lies'.
ll. 301-10. I owe the right punctuation of this stanza to the Grolier
Club edition and Grosart. The 'as' of l. 303 requires to be followed
by a comma. Missing this, Chambers closes the sentence at l. 307,
'head', leaving 'This fish would seem these' in the air. The words
'when all hopes fail' play with the idea of 'the hopeful Promontory',
or Cape of Good Hope.
PAGE =308=, ll. 321-2. _He hunts not fish, but as an officer,
Stayes in his court, at his owne net. _
Compare: 'A confidence in their owne strengths, a sacrificing to their
own Nets, an attributing of their securitie to their own wisedome or
power, may also retard the cause of God. ' _Sermons_, Judges xv. 20
(1622).
'And though some of the Fathers pared somewhat too neare the quick in
this point, yet it was not as in the Romane Church, to lay snares, and
spread nets for gain. ' _Sermons_ 80. 22. 216.
'The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of comfort comes to him' (the courtier)
'but hee will die in his old religion, which is to sacrifice to his
owne Nets, by which his portion is plenteous. ' _Sermons_ 80. 70. 714.
The image of the net is probably derived from Jeremiah v. 26: 'For
among my people are found wicked men; they lay wait as he that setteth
snares; they set a trap, they catch men. ' Compare also: 'he lieth in
wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor when he draweth him
into his net. ' Psalm x. 9.
PAGES =310-11=, ll. 381-400. Compare: 'Amongst _naturall Creatures_,
because howsoever they differ in bignesse, yet they have some
proportion to one another, we consider that some very little
creatures, contemptible in themselves, are yet called enemies to great
creatures, as the Mouse is to the Elephant. ' _Sermons_ 50. 40. 372.
'How great an Elephant, how small a Mouse destroys. ' _Devotions_, p.
284.
ll. 405-6. _Who in that trade, of Church, and kingdomes, there
Was the first type. _
The _1635_ punctuation of this passage is right, though it is better
to drop the comma after 'Kingdoms' and obviate ambiguity. The trade is
the shepherd's; in it Abel is type both of Church and Kingdom, Emperor
and Pope. As a type of Christ Donne refers to Abel in _The Litanie_,
p. 341, l. 86.
PAGE =312=, l. 419. _Nor <make> resist. _ I have substituted 'make' for
the 'much' of the editions, confident that it is the right reading and
explains the vacillation of the MSS. The proper alternative to 'show'
is 'make'. The error arose from the obsolescence of 'resist' used as
a noun. But the O. E. D. cites from Lodge, _Forbonius and Priscilla_
(1585), 'I make no resist in this my loving torment', and other
examples dated 1608 and 1630. Donne is fond of verbal nouns retaining
the form of the verb unchanged.
l. 439. _soft Moaba. _ 'Moaba', 'Siphatecia' (l. 457), 'Tethlemite' (l.
487), and Themech' (l. 509) are not creatures of Donne's invention,
but derived from his multifarious learning. It is, however, a little
difficult to detect the immediate source from which he drew. The
ultimate source of all these additions to the Biblical narrative and
persons was the activity of the Jewish intellect and imagination in
the interval between the time at which the Old Testament closes and
the dispersion under Titus and Vespasian, the desire of the Jews in
Palestine and Alexandria to 'round off the biblical narrative, fill
up the lacunae, answer all the questions of the inquiring mind of the
ancient reader'. Of the original Hebrew writings of this period none
have survived, but their traditions passed into mediaeval works like
the _Historia Scholastica_ of Petrus Comestor and hence into popular
works, e. g. the Middle English _Cursor Mundi_. Another compendium
of this pseudo-historical lore was the _Philonis Judaei Alexandrini.
Libri Antiquitatum. Quaestionum et Solutionum in Genesin. de Essaeis.
de Nominibus hebraicis. de Mundo. Basle. _ 1527. An abstract of this
work is given by Annius of Viterbo in the book referred to in a
previous note. Dr. Cohn has shown that this Latin work is a third- or
fourth-century translation of a Greek work, itself a translation from
the Hebrew. More recently Rabbi M. Gaster has brought to light the
Hebrew original in portions of a compilation of the fourteenth century
called the _Chronicle of Jerahmeel_, of which he has published
an English translation under the 'Patronage of the Royal Asiatic
Society', _Oriental Translation Fund_. New Series, iv. 1899. In
chapter xxvi of this work we read: 'Adam begat three sons and three
daughters, Cain and his twin wife Qualmana, Abel and his twin wife
Deborah, and Seth and his twin wife Nōba. And Adam, after he had
begotten Seth, lived seven hundred years, and there were eleven sons
and eight daughters born to him. These are the names of his sons: Eli,
Shēēl, Surei, 'Almiel, Berokh, Ke'al, Nabath, Zarh-amah, Sisha,
Mahtel, and Anat; and the names of his daughters are: Havah, Gitsh,
Harē, Bikha, Zifath, Hēkhiah, Shaba, and 'Azin. ' In Philo this
reappears as follows: 'Initio mundi Adam genuit tres filios et unam
filiam, Cain, Noaba, Abel, et Seth: Et vixit Adam, postquam genuit
Seth, annos DCC. , et genuit filios duodecim, et filias octo: Et haec
sunt nomina virorum, Aeliseel, Suris, Aelamiel, Brabal, Naat, Harama,
Zas-am, Maathal, et Anath: Et hae filiae eius, Phua, Iectas, Arebica,
Siphatecia, Sabaasin. ' It is clear there are a good many mistakes in
Philo's account as it has come to us. His numbers and names do not
correspond. Clearly also some of the Latin names are due to the
running together of two Hebrew ones, e. g. Aeliseel, Arebica, and
Siphatecia. Of the names in Donne's poem two occur in the above
lists--Noaba (Heb. Nobā) and Siphatecia. But Noaba has become
Moaba: Siphatecia is 'Adams fift daughter', which is correct according
to the Hebrew, but not according to Philo's list; and there is no
mention in these lists of Tethlemite (or Thelemite) among Adam's sons,
or of Themech as Cain's wife. In the Hebrew she is called Qualmana.
Doubtless since two of the names are traceable the others are so also.
We have not found Donne's immediate source. I am indebted for such
information as I have brought together to Rabbi Gaster.
PAGE =314=, l. 485. (_loth_). I have adopted this reading from the
insertion in _TCC_, not that much weight can be allowed to this
anonymous reviser (some of whose insertions are certainly wrong),
but because 'loth' or 'looth' is more likely to have been changed to
'tooth' than 'wroth'. The occurrence of 'Tooth' in _G_ as well as in
_1633_ led me to consult Sir James Murray as to the possibility of a
rare adjectival sense of that word, e. g. 'eager, with tooth on edge
for'. I venture to quote his reply: 'We know nothing of _tooth_ as an
adjective in the sense _eager_; or in any sense that would fit here.
Nor does _wroth_ seem to myself and my assistants to suit well. In
thinking of the possible word for which _tooth_ was a misprint, or
rather misreading . . . the word _loth_, _loath_, _looth_, occurred
to myself and an assistant independently before we saw that it is
mentioned in the foot-note. . . . _Loath_ seems to me to be exactly the
word wanted, the true antithesis to willing, and it was a very easy
word to write as _tooth_. ' Sir James Murray suggests, as just
a possibility, that 'wroth' (_1635-69_) may have arisen from a
provincial form 'wloth'. He thinks, however, as I do, that it is more
probably a mere editorial conjecture.
PAGE =315=, ll. 505-9. _these limbes a soule attend;
And now they joyn'd: keeping some quality
Of every past shape, she knew treachery,
Rapine, deceit, and lust, and ills enow
To be a woman. _
Chambers and the Grolier Club editor have erroneously followed
_1635-69_ in their punctuation and attached 'keeping some quality of
every past shape' to the preceding 'they'. The force of Donne's bitter
comment is thus weakened. It is with 'she', i. e. the soul, that the
participial phrase goes. 'She, retaining the evil qualities of all the
forms through which she has passed, has thus "ills enow" (treachery,
rapine, deceit, and lust) to be a woman. '
DIVINE POEMS.
The dating of Donne's _Divine Poems_ raises some questions that have
not received all the consideration they deserve. They fall into two
groups--those written before and those written after he took orders.
Of the former the majority would seem to belong to the years of his
residence at Mitcham. The poem _On the Annunciation and Passion_ was
written on March 25, 1608/9. _The Litanie_ was written, we gather from
a letter to Sir Henry Goodyere, about the same time. _The Crosse_ we
cannot date, but I should be inclined with Mr. Gosse to connect
it rather with the earlier than the later poems. It is in the same
somewhat tormented, intellectual style. On the other hand the _Holy
Sonnets_ were composed, we know now from Sonnet XVII, first published
by Mr. Gosse, after the death of Donne's wife in 1617; and _The
Lamentations of Jeremy_ appear to have been written at the same
juncture. The first sermon which Donne preached after that event was
on the text (Lam. iii. 1): 'I am the man that hath seen affliction,'
and Walton speaks significantly of his having ended the night and
begun the day in _lamentations_.
The more difficult question is the date of the _La Corona_ group of
sonnets. It is usual to attribute them to the later period of Donne's
ministry. This is not, I think, correct. It seems to me most probable
that they too were composed at Mitcham in or before 1609.
Dr. Grosart first pointed out that one of Donne's short verse-letters,
headed in _1663_ and later editions _To E. of D. with six holy
Sonnets_, must have been sent with a copy of six of these sonnets, the
seventh being held back on account of some imperfection. It appears
with the same heading in _O'F_, but in _W_ it is entitled simply _To
L. of D. _, and is placed immediately after the letter _To Mr. T. W. _,
'Haste thee harsh verse' (p. 205), and before the next to the same
person, 'Pregnant again' (p. 206). It thus belongs to this group of
letters written apparently between 1597 and 1609-10.
Who is the E. of D. ? Dr. Grosart, Mr. Chambers, and Mr. Gosse assume
that it must be Lord Doncaster, though admitting in the same breath
that the latter was not Earl of, but Viscount Doncaster, and that only
between 1618 and 1622, four short years. The title 'L. of D. ' might
indicate Doncaster because the title 'my Lord of' is apparently given
to a Viscount. In his letters from Germany Donne speaks of 'my Lord of
Doncaster'. It may, therefore, be a mistake of the printer or editor
of _1633_; which turned 'L. of D. ' into 'E. of D. '; but Hay was still
alive in 1633, and the natural thing for the printer to do would have
been to alter the title to 'E. of C. ' or 'Earl of Carlisle'. Before
1618 Donne speaks of the 'Lord Hay' or 'the L. Hay' (see _Letters_,
p. 145),[1] and this or 'the L. H. ' is the title the poem would have
borne if addressed to him in any of the years to which the other
letters in the Westmoreland MS. (_W_) seem to belong.
Moreover, there is another of Donne's noble friends who might
correctly be described as either E. of D. or L. of D. and that is
Richard Sackville, third Earl of Dorset. Donne generally speaks of him
as 'my Lord of Dorset': 'I lack you here', he writes to Goodyere,
'for my L. of Dorset, he might make a cheap bargain with me now, and
disingage his honour, which in good faith, is a little bound, because
he admitted so many witnesses of his large disposition towards me. '
Born in 1589, the grandson of the great poet of Elizabeth's early
reign, Richard Sackville was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. He
succeeded as third Earl of Dorset on February 27, 1608/9, having two
days previously married Anne, Baroness Clifford in her own right, the
daughter of George Clifford, the buccaneering Earl of Cumberland, and
Margaret, daughter of Francis, second Earl of Bedford. The Countess of
Dorset was therefore a first cousin to Edward, third Earl of Bedford,
the husband of Donne's patroness Lucy, Countess of Bedford.
The earliest date at which the letter could have been addressed to
Dorset as L. of D. or E. of D. is 1609, just after his marriage into
the circle of Donne's friends. Now in Harleian MS. 4955 (_H49_) we
find the heading,
Holy Sonnets: written 20 yeares since.
This is followed at once by 'Deign at my hands', and then the title
_La Corona_ is given to the six sonnets which ensue. Thereafter
follow, without any fresh heading, twelve of the sonnets belonging
to the second group, generally entitled _Holy Sonnets_. It will be
noticed that in the editions this last title is used twice, first for
both groups and then, in italics, for the second alone. The question
is, did the copyist of _H49_ intend that the note should apply to all
the sonnets he transcribed or only to the _La Corona_ group? If to
all, he was certainly wrong as to the second lot, which were written
later; but he was quite possibly right as to the first. Now twenty
years before 1629, which is the date given to some of Andrewes' poems
in the MS. , would bring us to 1609, the year of the Earl of Dorset's
accession and marriage, and the period when most of the letters among
which that to L. of D. in _W_ appears were written.
Note, moreover, the content of the letter _To L. of D. _ Most of the
letters in this group, to Thomas and Rowland Woodward, to S. B. , and
B. B. , are poetical replies to poetical epistles. Now that _To L. of
D. _ is in the same strain:
See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Niles durty slime,
In me, your fatherly yet lusty Ryme
(For, these songs are their fruits) have wrought the same.
This is in the vein of the letter _To Mr. R. W. _, 'Muse not that by
thy mind,' and of the epistle _To J. D. _ which I have cited in the
notes (p. 166). We hear nowhere that Lord Hay wrote verses, and it
is very unlikely that he, already when Donne formed his aquaintance a
rising courtier, should have joined with the Woodwards, and Brookes,
and Cornwallis, in the game of exchanging bad verses with Donne. It is
quite likely that the young Lord of Dorset, either in 1609, or earlier
when he was still an Oxford student or had just come up to London, may
have burned his pinch of incense to the honour of the most brilliant
of the wits, now indeed a grave _épistolier_ and moralist, but
still capable of 'kindling squibs about himself and flying into
sportiveness'. We gather from Lord Herbert of Cherbury that the Earl
of Dorset must have been an enthusiastic young man. When Herbert
returned to England after the siege of Julyers (whither Donne had sent
him a verse epistle), 'Richard, Earl of Dorset, to whom otherwise I
was a stranger, one day invited me to Dorset House, where bringing me
into his gallery, and showing me many pictures, he at last brought me
to a frame covered with green taffeta, and asked me who I thought was
there; and therewithal presently drawing the curtain showed me my
own picture; whereupon demanding how his Lordship came to have it, he
answered, that he had heard so many brave things of me, that he got a
copy of a picture which one Larkin a painter drew for me, the original
whereof I intended before my departure to the Low Countries for Sir
Thomas Lucy. ' _Autobiography_, ed. Lee. A man so interested in Herbert
may well have been interested in Donne even before his connexion
by marriage with Lucy, Countess of Bedford. He became later one of
Donne's kindest and most practical patrons. The grandson of a great
poet may well have written verses. [2]
But there is another consideration besides that of the letter _To E.
of D. _ which seems to connect the _La Corona_ sonnets with the years
1607-9. That is the sonnet _To the Lady Magdalen Herbert: of St. Mary
Magdalen_, which I have prefixed, with that _To E. of D. _, to
the group. This was sent with a prose letter which says, 'By this
messenger and on this good day, I commit the inclosed holy hymns and
sonnets (which for the matter not the workmanship, have yet escaped
the fire) to your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think
them worthy of it; and I have appointed this enclosed sonnet to usher
them to your happy hand. ' This letter is dated 'July 11, 1607', which
Mr. Gosse thinks must be a mistake, because another letter bears the
same date; but the date is certainly right, for July 11 is, making
allowance for the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian
Calendars, July 22, i. e. St. Mary Magdalen's day, 'this good day. '
What were the 'holy hymns and sonnets', of which Donne says:
and in some recompence
That they did harbour Christ himself, a Guest,
Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest?
Walton says: 'These hymns are now lost; but doubtless they were
such as they two now sing in heaven. ' But Walton was writing long
afterwards and was probably misled by the name 'hymns'. By 'hymns
and sonnets' Donne possibly means the same things, as he calls his
love-lyrics 'songs and sonets'. The sonnets are hymns, i. e. songs of
praise. Mr. Chambers suggests--it is only a suggestion--that they are
the second set, the _Holy Sonnets_. But these are not addressed to
Christ. In them Donne addresses The Trinity, the Father, Angels,
Death, his own soul, the Jews--Christ only in one (Sonnet XVIII, first
published by Mr. Gosse). On the other hand, 'Hymns to his dear name
addrest' is an exact description of the _La Corona_ sonnets.
I venture to suggest, then, that the Holy Sonnets sent to Mrs. Herbert
and to the E. of D. were one and the same group, viz. the _La Corona_
sequence. Probably they were sent to Mrs. Herbert first, and later
to the E. of D. Donne admits their imperfection in his letter to Mrs.
Herbert. One of them seems to have been criticized, and in sending the
sequence to the E. of D. he held it back for correction. If the E.
of D. be the Earl of Dorset they may have been sent to him before
he assumed that title. Any later transcript would adopt the title to
which he succeeded in 1609. We need not, however, take too literally
Donne's statement that the E. of D. 's poetical letter was 'the
only-begetter' of his sonnets.
My argument is conjectural, but the assumptions that they were written
about 1617 and sent to Lord Doncaster are equally so. The last is
untenable; the former does not harmonize so well as that of an earlier
date with the obvious fact, which I have emphasized in the essay
on Donne's poetry, that these sonnets are more in the intellectual,
tormented, wire-drawn style of his earlier religious verse (excellent
as that is in many ways) than the passionate and plangent sonnets and
hymns of the years which followed the death of his wife.
[Footnote 1: This letter was written in November or December,
1608, and seems to be the first in which Donne speaks of
Lord Hay as a friend and patron. The kindness he has shown in
forwarding a suit seems to have come somewhat as a surprise to
Donne. ]
[Footnote 2: Lord Dorset is thus described by his wife: 'He
was in his own nature of a just mind, of a sweet disposition,
and very valiant in his own person: He had a great advantage
in his breeding by the wisdom and discretion of his
grandfather, Thomas, Earl of Dorset, Lord High Treasurer of
England, who was then held one of the wisest men of that
time; by which means he was so good a scholar in all manner of
learning, that in his youth when he lived in the University
of Oxford, there was none of the young nobility then students
there, that excelled him. He was also a good patriot to his
country . . . and so great a lover of scholars and soldiers, as
that with an excessive bounty towards them, or indeed any of
worth that were in distress, he did much diminish his estate;
As also, with excessive prodigality in house-keeping and other
noble ways at Court, as tilting, masking, and the like; Prince
Henry being then alive, who was much addicted to these
noble exercises, and of whom he was much beloved. ' Collins's
_Peerage_, ii. 194-5. quoted in Zouch's edition of Walton's
_Lives_, 1817. ]
PAGE =317=. TO E. OF D.
ll. 3-4. _Ryme . . . their . . . have wrought. _ The concord here seems
to require the plural, the rhyme the singular. Donne, I fear, does
occasionally rhyme a word in the plural with one in the singular,
ignoring the 's'. But possibly Donne intended 'Ryme' to be taken
collectively for 'verses, poetry'. Even so the plural is the normal
use.
TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT, &c.
ll. 1-2. _whose faire inheritance
Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo. _
'Mary Magdalene had her surname of magdalo a castell | and was born of
right noble lynage and parents | which were descended of the lynage
of kynges | And her fader was named Sinus and her moder eucharye | She
wyth her broder lazare and her suster martha possessed the castle
of magdalo: whiche is two myles fro nazareth and bethanye the castel
which is nygh to Iherusalem and also a gret parte of Iherusalem whiche
al thise thynges they departed amonge them in suche wyse that marye
had the castelle magdalo whereof she had her name magdalene | And
lazare had the parte of the cytee of Iherusalem: and martha had to her
parte bethanye' _Legenda Aurea_. See Ed. (1493), f. 184, ver. 80.
l. 4. _more than the Church did know_, i. e. the Resurrection. John xx.
9 and 11-18.
PAGE =318=. LA CORONA.
The MSS. of these poems fall into three well-defined groups: (1) That
on which the 1633 text is based is represented by _D_, _H49_; _Lec_
does not contain these poems. (2) A version different in several
details is presented by the group _B_, _S_, _S96_, _W_, of which
_W_ is the most important and correct.
yearely Revenewes . . . so should she have most losse by this dearth,'
W. Stafford, 1581; 'Cleopatra, prince of Nile,' Willobie, _Avisa_,
1594; 'Another most mighty prince, Mary Queene of Scots,' Camden
(Holland), 1610.
PAGE =301=, ll. 159-160. _built by the guest,
This living buried man, &c. _
The comma after guest is dropped in the printed editions, the editor
regarding 'this living buried man' as an expansion of 'the guest'. But
the man buried alive is the 'soul's second inn', the mandrake. 'Many
Molas and false conceptions there are of Mandrakes, the first from
great Antiquity conceiveth the Root thereof resembleth the shape of
Man which is a conceit not to be made out by ordinary inspection,
or any other eyes, than such as regarding the clouds, behold them in
shapes conformable to pre-apprehensions. ' Browne, _Vulgar Errors_.
PAGE =303=, ll. 203-5. The punctuation of this stanza is in the
editions very chaotic, and I have amended it. A full stop should be
placed at the end of l. 203, 'was not', _because_ these lines complete
the thought of the previous stanza. Possibly the semicolon after 'ill'
was intended to follow 'not', but a full stop is preferable. Moreover,
the colon after 'soule' (l. 204) suggests that the printer took ''twas
not' with 'this soule'. The correct reading of l. 204 is obviously:
So jolly, that it can move, this soul is.
Chambers prefers:
So jolly, that it can move this soul, is
The body . . .
but Donne was far too learned an Aristotelian and Scholastic to make
the body move the soul, or feel jolly on its own account:
thy fair goodly soul, which doth
Give this flesh power to taste joy, thou dost loathe.
_Satyre III_, ll. 41-2.
'The soul is so glad to be at last able to move (having been
imprisoned hitherto in plants which have the soul of growth, not of
locomotion or sense), and the body is so free of its kindnesses to the
soul, that it, the sparrow, forgets the duty of self-preservation. '
l. 214. _hid nets. _ In making my first collation of the printed texts
I had queried the possibility of 'hid' being the correct reading for
'his', a conjecture which the Gosse MS. confirms.
PAGE =305=, l. 257. _None scape, but few, and fit for use, to get. _
I have added a comma after 'use' to make the construction a little
clearer; a pause is needed. 'The nets were not wrought, as now, to let
none scape, but were wrought to get few and those fit for use; as, for
example, a ravenous pike, &c. '
PAGE =306=, ll. 267-8. '_To make the water thinne, and airelike faith
cares not. _' What Chambers understands by 'air like faith', I do not
know. What Donne says is that the manner in which fishes breathe is a
matter about which faith is indifferent. Each man may hold what theory
he chooses. There is not much obvious relevance in this remark, but
Donne has already in this poem touched on the difference between faith
and knowledge:
better proofes the law
Of sense then faith requires.
A vein of restless scepticism runs through the whole.
l. 280. _It's rais'd, to be the Raisers instrument and food. _ If with
_1650-69_, Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor, we alter the full
stop which separates this line from the last to a comma, 'It' must
mean the same as 'she', i. e. the fish. This is a harsh construction.
The line is rather to be taken as an aphorism. 'To be exalted is often
to become the instrument and prey of him who has exalted you. '
PAGE =307=, l. 296. _That many leagues at sea, now tir'd hee lyes. _
The reading of _G_ represents probably what Donne wrote. It is quite
clear that _1633_ was printed from a MS. identical with _A18_, _N_,
_TC_, and underwent considerable correction as it passed through the
press. In no poem does the text of one copy vary so much from that
of another as in this. Now in this MS. a word is dropped. The editor
supplied the gap by inserting 'o're-past', which simply repeats 'flown
long and fast'. _G_ shows what the dropped word was. 'Many leagues at
sea' is an adverbial phrase qualifying 'now tir'd he lies'.
ll. 301-10. I owe the right punctuation of this stanza to the Grolier
Club edition and Grosart. The 'as' of l. 303 requires to be followed
by a comma. Missing this, Chambers closes the sentence at l. 307,
'head', leaving 'This fish would seem these' in the air. The words
'when all hopes fail' play with the idea of 'the hopeful Promontory',
or Cape of Good Hope.
PAGE =308=, ll. 321-2. _He hunts not fish, but as an officer,
Stayes in his court, at his owne net. _
Compare: 'A confidence in their owne strengths, a sacrificing to their
own Nets, an attributing of their securitie to their own wisedome or
power, may also retard the cause of God. ' _Sermons_, Judges xv. 20
(1622).
'And though some of the Fathers pared somewhat too neare the quick in
this point, yet it was not as in the Romane Church, to lay snares, and
spread nets for gain. ' _Sermons_ 80. 22. 216.
'The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of comfort comes to him' (the courtier)
'but hee will die in his old religion, which is to sacrifice to his
owne Nets, by which his portion is plenteous. ' _Sermons_ 80. 70. 714.
The image of the net is probably derived from Jeremiah v. 26: 'For
among my people are found wicked men; they lay wait as he that setteth
snares; they set a trap, they catch men. ' Compare also: 'he lieth in
wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor when he draweth him
into his net. ' Psalm x. 9.
PAGES =310-11=, ll. 381-400. Compare: 'Amongst _naturall Creatures_,
because howsoever they differ in bignesse, yet they have some
proportion to one another, we consider that some very little
creatures, contemptible in themselves, are yet called enemies to great
creatures, as the Mouse is to the Elephant. ' _Sermons_ 50. 40. 372.
'How great an Elephant, how small a Mouse destroys. ' _Devotions_, p.
284.
ll. 405-6. _Who in that trade, of Church, and kingdomes, there
Was the first type. _
The _1635_ punctuation of this passage is right, though it is better
to drop the comma after 'Kingdoms' and obviate ambiguity. The trade is
the shepherd's; in it Abel is type both of Church and Kingdom, Emperor
and Pope. As a type of Christ Donne refers to Abel in _The Litanie_,
p. 341, l. 86.
PAGE =312=, l. 419. _Nor <make> resist. _ I have substituted 'make' for
the 'much' of the editions, confident that it is the right reading and
explains the vacillation of the MSS. The proper alternative to 'show'
is 'make'. The error arose from the obsolescence of 'resist' used as
a noun. But the O. E. D. cites from Lodge, _Forbonius and Priscilla_
(1585), 'I make no resist in this my loving torment', and other
examples dated 1608 and 1630. Donne is fond of verbal nouns retaining
the form of the verb unchanged.
l. 439. _soft Moaba. _ 'Moaba', 'Siphatecia' (l. 457), 'Tethlemite' (l.
487), and Themech' (l. 509) are not creatures of Donne's invention,
but derived from his multifarious learning. It is, however, a little
difficult to detect the immediate source from which he drew. The
ultimate source of all these additions to the Biblical narrative and
persons was the activity of the Jewish intellect and imagination in
the interval between the time at which the Old Testament closes and
the dispersion under Titus and Vespasian, the desire of the Jews in
Palestine and Alexandria to 'round off the biblical narrative, fill
up the lacunae, answer all the questions of the inquiring mind of the
ancient reader'. Of the original Hebrew writings of this period none
have survived, but their traditions passed into mediaeval works like
the _Historia Scholastica_ of Petrus Comestor and hence into popular
works, e. g. the Middle English _Cursor Mundi_. Another compendium
of this pseudo-historical lore was the _Philonis Judaei Alexandrini.
Libri Antiquitatum. Quaestionum et Solutionum in Genesin. de Essaeis.
de Nominibus hebraicis. de Mundo. Basle. _ 1527. An abstract of this
work is given by Annius of Viterbo in the book referred to in a
previous note. Dr. Cohn has shown that this Latin work is a third- or
fourth-century translation of a Greek work, itself a translation from
the Hebrew. More recently Rabbi M. Gaster has brought to light the
Hebrew original in portions of a compilation of the fourteenth century
called the _Chronicle of Jerahmeel_, of which he has published
an English translation under the 'Patronage of the Royal Asiatic
Society', _Oriental Translation Fund_. New Series, iv. 1899. In
chapter xxvi of this work we read: 'Adam begat three sons and three
daughters, Cain and his twin wife Qualmana, Abel and his twin wife
Deborah, and Seth and his twin wife Nōba. And Adam, after he had
begotten Seth, lived seven hundred years, and there were eleven sons
and eight daughters born to him. These are the names of his sons: Eli,
Shēēl, Surei, 'Almiel, Berokh, Ke'al, Nabath, Zarh-amah, Sisha,
Mahtel, and Anat; and the names of his daughters are: Havah, Gitsh,
Harē, Bikha, Zifath, Hēkhiah, Shaba, and 'Azin. ' In Philo this
reappears as follows: 'Initio mundi Adam genuit tres filios et unam
filiam, Cain, Noaba, Abel, et Seth: Et vixit Adam, postquam genuit
Seth, annos DCC. , et genuit filios duodecim, et filias octo: Et haec
sunt nomina virorum, Aeliseel, Suris, Aelamiel, Brabal, Naat, Harama,
Zas-am, Maathal, et Anath: Et hae filiae eius, Phua, Iectas, Arebica,
Siphatecia, Sabaasin. ' It is clear there are a good many mistakes in
Philo's account as it has come to us. His numbers and names do not
correspond. Clearly also some of the Latin names are due to the
running together of two Hebrew ones, e. g. Aeliseel, Arebica, and
Siphatecia. Of the names in Donne's poem two occur in the above
lists--Noaba (Heb. Nobā) and Siphatecia. But Noaba has become
Moaba: Siphatecia is 'Adams fift daughter', which is correct according
to the Hebrew, but not according to Philo's list; and there is no
mention in these lists of Tethlemite (or Thelemite) among Adam's sons,
or of Themech as Cain's wife. In the Hebrew she is called Qualmana.
Doubtless since two of the names are traceable the others are so also.
We have not found Donne's immediate source. I am indebted for such
information as I have brought together to Rabbi Gaster.
PAGE =314=, l. 485. (_loth_). I have adopted this reading from the
insertion in _TCC_, not that much weight can be allowed to this
anonymous reviser (some of whose insertions are certainly wrong),
but because 'loth' or 'looth' is more likely to have been changed to
'tooth' than 'wroth'. The occurrence of 'Tooth' in _G_ as well as in
_1633_ led me to consult Sir James Murray as to the possibility of a
rare adjectival sense of that word, e. g. 'eager, with tooth on edge
for'. I venture to quote his reply: 'We know nothing of _tooth_ as an
adjective in the sense _eager_; or in any sense that would fit here.
Nor does _wroth_ seem to myself and my assistants to suit well. In
thinking of the possible word for which _tooth_ was a misprint, or
rather misreading . . . the word _loth_, _loath_, _looth_, occurred
to myself and an assistant independently before we saw that it is
mentioned in the foot-note. . . . _Loath_ seems to me to be exactly the
word wanted, the true antithesis to willing, and it was a very easy
word to write as _tooth_. ' Sir James Murray suggests, as just
a possibility, that 'wroth' (_1635-69_) may have arisen from a
provincial form 'wloth'. He thinks, however, as I do, that it is more
probably a mere editorial conjecture.
PAGE =315=, ll. 505-9. _these limbes a soule attend;
And now they joyn'd: keeping some quality
Of every past shape, she knew treachery,
Rapine, deceit, and lust, and ills enow
To be a woman. _
Chambers and the Grolier Club editor have erroneously followed
_1635-69_ in their punctuation and attached 'keeping some quality of
every past shape' to the preceding 'they'. The force of Donne's bitter
comment is thus weakened. It is with 'she', i. e. the soul, that the
participial phrase goes. 'She, retaining the evil qualities of all the
forms through which she has passed, has thus "ills enow" (treachery,
rapine, deceit, and lust) to be a woman. '
DIVINE POEMS.
The dating of Donne's _Divine Poems_ raises some questions that have
not received all the consideration they deserve. They fall into two
groups--those written before and those written after he took orders.
Of the former the majority would seem to belong to the years of his
residence at Mitcham. The poem _On the Annunciation and Passion_ was
written on March 25, 1608/9. _The Litanie_ was written, we gather from
a letter to Sir Henry Goodyere, about the same time. _The Crosse_ we
cannot date, but I should be inclined with Mr. Gosse to connect
it rather with the earlier than the later poems. It is in the same
somewhat tormented, intellectual style. On the other hand the _Holy
Sonnets_ were composed, we know now from Sonnet XVII, first published
by Mr. Gosse, after the death of Donne's wife in 1617; and _The
Lamentations of Jeremy_ appear to have been written at the same
juncture. The first sermon which Donne preached after that event was
on the text (Lam. iii. 1): 'I am the man that hath seen affliction,'
and Walton speaks significantly of his having ended the night and
begun the day in _lamentations_.
The more difficult question is the date of the _La Corona_ group of
sonnets. It is usual to attribute them to the later period of Donne's
ministry. This is not, I think, correct. It seems to me most probable
that they too were composed at Mitcham in or before 1609.
Dr. Grosart first pointed out that one of Donne's short verse-letters,
headed in _1663_ and later editions _To E. of D. with six holy
Sonnets_, must have been sent with a copy of six of these sonnets, the
seventh being held back on account of some imperfection. It appears
with the same heading in _O'F_, but in _W_ it is entitled simply _To
L. of D. _, and is placed immediately after the letter _To Mr. T. W. _,
'Haste thee harsh verse' (p. 205), and before the next to the same
person, 'Pregnant again' (p. 206). It thus belongs to this group of
letters written apparently between 1597 and 1609-10.
Who is the E. of D. ? Dr. Grosart, Mr. Chambers, and Mr. Gosse assume
that it must be Lord Doncaster, though admitting in the same breath
that the latter was not Earl of, but Viscount Doncaster, and that only
between 1618 and 1622, four short years. The title 'L. of D. ' might
indicate Doncaster because the title 'my Lord of' is apparently given
to a Viscount. In his letters from Germany Donne speaks of 'my Lord of
Doncaster'. It may, therefore, be a mistake of the printer or editor
of _1633_; which turned 'L. of D. ' into 'E. of D. '; but Hay was still
alive in 1633, and the natural thing for the printer to do would have
been to alter the title to 'E. of C. ' or 'Earl of Carlisle'. Before
1618 Donne speaks of the 'Lord Hay' or 'the L. Hay' (see _Letters_,
p. 145),[1] and this or 'the L. H. ' is the title the poem would have
borne if addressed to him in any of the years to which the other
letters in the Westmoreland MS. (_W_) seem to belong.
Moreover, there is another of Donne's noble friends who might
correctly be described as either E. of D. or L. of D. and that is
Richard Sackville, third Earl of Dorset. Donne generally speaks of him
as 'my Lord of Dorset': 'I lack you here', he writes to Goodyere,
'for my L. of Dorset, he might make a cheap bargain with me now, and
disingage his honour, which in good faith, is a little bound, because
he admitted so many witnesses of his large disposition towards me. '
Born in 1589, the grandson of the great poet of Elizabeth's early
reign, Richard Sackville was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. He
succeeded as third Earl of Dorset on February 27, 1608/9, having two
days previously married Anne, Baroness Clifford in her own right, the
daughter of George Clifford, the buccaneering Earl of Cumberland, and
Margaret, daughter of Francis, second Earl of Bedford. The Countess of
Dorset was therefore a first cousin to Edward, third Earl of Bedford,
the husband of Donne's patroness Lucy, Countess of Bedford.
The earliest date at which the letter could have been addressed to
Dorset as L. of D. or E. of D. is 1609, just after his marriage into
the circle of Donne's friends. Now in Harleian MS. 4955 (_H49_) we
find the heading,
Holy Sonnets: written 20 yeares since.
This is followed at once by 'Deign at my hands', and then the title
_La Corona_ is given to the six sonnets which ensue. Thereafter
follow, without any fresh heading, twelve of the sonnets belonging
to the second group, generally entitled _Holy Sonnets_. It will be
noticed that in the editions this last title is used twice, first for
both groups and then, in italics, for the second alone. The question
is, did the copyist of _H49_ intend that the note should apply to all
the sonnets he transcribed or only to the _La Corona_ group? If to
all, he was certainly wrong as to the second lot, which were written
later; but he was quite possibly right as to the first. Now twenty
years before 1629, which is the date given to some of Andrewes' poems
in the MS. , would bring us to 1609, the year of the Earl of Dorset's
accession and marriage, and the period when most of the letters among
which that to L. of D. in _W_ appears were written.
Note, moreover, the content of the letter _To L. of D. _ Most of the
letters in this group, to Thomas and Rowland Woodward, to S. B. , and
B. B. , are poetical replies to poetical epistles. Now that _To L. of
D. _ is in the same strain:
See Sir, how as the Suns hot Masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Niles durty slime,
In me, your fatherly yet lusty Ryme
(For, these songs are their fruits) have wrought the same.
This is in the vein of the letter _To Mr. R. W. _, 'Muse not that by
thy mind,' and of the epistle _To J. D. _ which I have cited in the
notes (p. 166). We hear nowhere that Lord Hay wrote verses, and it
is very unlikely that he, already when Donne formed his aquaintance a
rising courtier, should have joined with the Woodwards, and Brookes,
and Cornwallis, in the game of exchanging bad verses with Donne. It is
quite likely that the young Lord of Dorset, either in 1609, or earlier
when he was still an Oxford student or had just come up to London, may
have burned his pinch of incense to the honour of the most brilliant
of the wits, now indeed a grave _épistolier_ and moralist, but
still capable of 'kindling squibs about himself and flying into
sportiveness'. We gather from Lord Herbert of Cherbury that the Earl
of Dorset must have been an enthusiastic young man. When Herbert
returned to England after the siege of Julyers (whither Donne had sent
him a verse epistle), 'Richard, Earl of Dorset, to whom otherwise I
was a stranger, one day invited me to Dorset House, where bringing me
into his gallery, and showing me many pictures, he at last brought me
to a frame covered with green taffeta, and asked me who I thought was
there; and therewithal presently drawing the curtain showed me my
own picture; whereupon demanding how his Lordship came to have it, he
answered, that he had heard so many brave things of me, that he got a
copy of a picture which one Larkin a painter drew for me, the original
whereof I intended before my departure to the Low Countries for Sir
Thomas Lucy. ' _Autobiography_, ed. Lee. A man so interested in Herbert
may well have been interested in Donne even before his connexion
by marriage with Lucy, Countess of Bedford. He became later one of
Donne's kindest and most practical patrons. The grandson of a great
poet may well have written verses. [2]
But there is another consideration besides that of the letter _To E.
of D. _ which seems to connect the _La Corona_ sonnets with the years
1607-9. That is the sonnet _To the Lady Magdalen Herbert: of St. Mary
Magdalen_, which I have prefixed, with that _To E. of D. _, to
the group. This was sent with a prose letter which says, 'By this
messenger and on this good day, I commit the inclosed holy hymns and
sonnets (which for the matter not the workmanship, have yet escaped
the fire) to your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think
them worthy of it; and I have appointed this enclosed sonnet to usher
them to your happy hand. ' This letter is dated 'July 11, 1607', which
Mr. Gosse thinks must be a mistake, because another letter bears the
same date; but the date is certainly right, for July 11 is, making
allowance for the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian
Calendars, July 22, i. e. St. Mary Magdalen's day, 'this good day. '
What were the 'holy hymns and sonnets', of which Donne says:
and in some recompence
That they did harbour Christ himself, a Guest,
Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest?
Walton says: 'These hymns are now lost; but doubtless they were
such as they two now sing in heaven. ' But Walton was writing long
afterwards and was probably misled by the name 'hymns'. By 'hymns
and sonnets' Donne possibly means the same things, as he calls his
love-lyrics 'songs and sonets'. The sonnets are hymns, i. e. songs of
praise. Mr. Chambers suggests--it is only a suggestion--that they are
the second set, the _Holy Sonnets_. But these are not addressed to
Christ. In them Donne addresses The Trinity, the Father, Angels,
Death, his own soul, the Jews--Christ only in one (Sonnet XVIII, first
published by Mr. Gosse). On the other hand, 'Hymns to his dear name
addrest' is an exact description of the _La Corona_ sonnets.
I venture to suggest, then, that the Holy Sonnets sent to Mrs. Herbert
and to the E. of D. were one and the same group, viz. the _La Corona_
sequence. Probably they were sent to Mrs. Herbert first, and later
to the E. of D. Donne admits their imperfection in his letter to Mrs.
Herbert. One of them seems to have been criticized, and in sending the
sequence to the E. of D. he held it back for correction. If the E.
of D. be the Earl of Dorset they may have been sent to him before
he assumed that title. Any later transcript would adopt the title to
which he succeeded in 1609. We need not, however, take too literally
Donne's statement that the E. of D. 's poetical letter was 'the
only-begetter' of his sonnets.
My argument is conjectural, but the assumptions that they were written
about 1617 and sent to Lord Doncaster are equally so. The last is
untenable; the former does not harmonize so well as that of an earlier
date with the obvious fact, which I have emphasized in the essay
on Donne's poetry, that these sonnets are more in the intellectual,
tormented, wire-drawn style of his earlier religious verse (excellent
as that is in many ways) than the passionate and plangent sonnets and
hymns of the years which followed the death of his wife.
[Footnote 1: This letter was written in November or December,
1608, and seems to be the first in which Donne speaks of
Lord Hay as a friend and patron. The kindness he has shown in
forwarding a suit seems to have come somewhat as a surprise to
Donne. ]
[Footnote 2: Lord Dorset is thus described by his wife: 'He
was in his own nature of a just mind, of a sweet disposition,
and very valiant in his own person: He had a great advantage
in his breeding by the wisdom and discretion of his
grandfather, Thomas, Earl of Dorset, Lord High Treasurer of
England, who was then held one of the wisest men of that
time; by which means he was so good a scholar in all manner of
learning, that in his youth when he lived in the University
of Oxford, there was none of the young nobility then students
there, that excelled him. He was also a good patriot to his
country . . . and so great a lover of scholars and soldiers, as
that with an excessive bounty towards them, or indeed any of
worth that were in distress, he did much diminish his estate;
As also, with excessive prodigality in house-keeping and other
noble ways at Court, as tilting, masking, and the like; Prince
Henry being then alive, who was much addicted to these
noble exercises, and of whom he was much beloved. ' Collins's
_Peerage_, ii. 194-5. quoted in Zouch's edition of Walton's
_Lives_, 1817. ]
PAGE =317=. TO E. OF D.
ll. 3-4. _Ryme . . . their . . . have wrought. _ The concord here seems
to require the plural, the rhyme the singular. Donne, I fear, does
occasionally rhyme a word in the plural with one in the singular,
ignoring the 's'. But possibly Donne intended 'Ryme' to be taken
collectively for 'verses, poetry'. Even so the plural is the normal
use.
TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT, &c.
ll. 1-2. _whose faire inheritance
Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo. _
'Mary Magdalene had her surname of magdalo a castell | and was born of
right noble lynage and parents | which were descended of the lynage
of kynges | And her fader was named Sinus and her moder eucharye | She
wyth her broder lazare and her suster martha possessed the castle
of magdalo: whiche is two myles fro nazareth and bethanye the castel
which is nygh to Iherusalem and also a gret parte of Iherusalem whiche
al thise thynges they departed amonge them in suche wyse that marye
had the castelle magdalo whereof she had her name magdalene | And
lazare had the parte of the cytee of Iherusalem: and martha had to her
parte bethanye' _Legenda Aurea_. See Ed. (1493), f. 184, ver. 80.
l. 4. _more than the Church did know_, i. e. the Resurrection. John xx.
9 and 11-18.
PAGE =318=. LA CORONA.
The MSS. of these poems fall into three well-defined groups: (1) That
on which the 1633 text is based is represented by _D_, _H49_; _Lec_
does not contain these poems. (2) A version different in several
details is presented by the group _B_, _S_, _S96_, _W_, of which
_W_ is the most important and correct.
