This poem is headed in
two different ways in the MSS.
two different ways in the MSS.
Donne - 2
We get a series of
pictures--doves, stars, cedars, lilies. The meaning conveyed would be
the same:
this hand
As soft as doves-downe, and as white as it.
_Wint. Tale_, IV. iv. 374.
But of course swan's down is also celebrated:
Heaven with sweet repose doth crowne
Each vertue softer than the swan's fam'd downe.
Habington, _Castara_.
PAGE =125=, l. 33. Modern editors separate 'thorny' and 'hairy' by a
comma. They should rather be connected by a hyphen as in _TCD_.
l. 40. _And are, as theeves trac'd, which rob when it snows. _ This is
doubtless the source of Dryden's figurative description of Jonson's
thefts from the Ancients: 'You track him everywhere in their snow. '
_Essay of Dramatic Poesy_.
EPITHALAMIONS.
PAGE =127=. The dates of the two chief Marriage Songs are: the
Princess Elizabeth, Feb. 14, 1613; the Earl of Somerset, Dec. 26,
1613. The third is an earlier piece of work, dating from the years
when Donne was a student at Lincoln's Inn. It is found in _W_,
following the _Satyres_ and _Elegies_ and preceding the _Letters_,
being probably the only one written when the collection in the first
part of that MS. was made.
While quite himself in his treatment of the theme of this kind of
poem, Donne comes in it nearer to Spenser than in any other kind.
In glow and colour nothing he has written surpasses the Somerset
Epithalamion:
First her eyes kindle other Ladies eyes,
Then from their beams their jewels lusters rise,
And from their jewels torches do take fire,
And all is warmth and light and good desire.
_An Epithalamion, or Marriage Song, &c. _ 'In February following, the
Prince Palatine and that lovely Princess, the Lady Elizabeth, were
married on Bishop Valentine's Day, in all the Pomp and Glory that so
much grandeur could express. Her vestments were white, the Emblem of
Innocency; her Hair dishevel'd hanging down her Back at length,
an Ornament of Virginity; a Crown of pure Gold upon her Head, the
Cognizance of Majesty, being all over beset with precious Gems,
shining _like a Constellation_; her Train supported by Twelve young
Ladies in White Garments, so adorned with Jewels, that her passage
looked like a Milky-way. She was led to Church by her Brother Prince
Charles, and the Earl of Northampton; the young Batchelor on the Right
Hand, and the old on the left. ' Camden, _Annales_.
A full description of the festivities will be found in Nichol's
_Progresses of King James_, in Stow's _Chronicle_, and other works.
In a letter to Mrs. Carleton, Chamberlain gives an account of what he
saw: 'It were long and tedious to tell you all the particulars of the
excessive bravery, both of men and women, but you may conceive the
rest by one or two. The Lady Wotton had a gown that cost fifty pounds
a yard the embroidery. . . . The Viscount Rochester, the Lord Hay, and
the Lord Dingwall were exceeding rich and costly; but above all, they
speak of the Earl of Dorset. But this extreme cost and riches makes us
all poor. ' _Court and Times of James I_, i. 226. The princess had been
educated by Lord and Lady Harington, the parents of Donne's patroness,
the Countess of Bedford. They accompanied her to Heidelberg, but
Lord Harington died on his way home, Lady Harington shortly after her
return. Donne had thus links with the Princess, and these were renewed
and strengthened later when with Lord Doncaster he visited Heidelberg
in 1619, and preached before her and her husband. He sent her his
first printed sermon and his _Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, &c. _
(1624), and to the latter she, then in exile and trouble, replied in a
courteous strain.
PAGE =128=. Compare with the opening stanzas Chaucer's _Parliament
of Foules_ and Skeat's note (_Works of Chaucer_, i. 516). Birds were
supposed to choose their mates on St. Valentine's Day (Feb. 14).
l. 42. _this, thy Valentine. _ This is the reading of all the editions
except _1669_ and of all the MSS. except two of no independent value.
I think it is better than 'this day, Valentine', which Chambers adopts
from _1669_. The bride is addressed throughout the stanza, and it
would be a very abrupt change to refer 'thou' in l. 41 to Valentine.
I take 'this, thy Valentine' to mean 'this which is thy day, _par
excellence_', 'thy Saint Valentine's day', 'the day which saw you
paired'. But 'a Valentine' is a 'true-love': 'to be your
Valentine' (_Hamlet_, IV. v. 50), and the reference may be to
Frederick,--Frederick's Day is to become an era.
ll. 43-50. The punctuation of these lines requires attention. That of
the editions, which Chambers follows, arranges them thus:
Come forth, come forth, and as one glorious flame
Meeting Another growes the same,
So meet thy Fredericke, and so
To an unseparable union goe,
Since separation
Falls not on such things as are infinite,
Nor things which are but one, can disunite.
You'are twice inseparable, great, and one.
In this it will be seen that the clause 'Since separation . . . can
disunite' is attached to the _previous_ verb. It gives the reason
why they should 'go to an unseparable union'. In that which I have
adopted, which is that of several good MSS. , the clause 'Since
separation . . . can disunite' goes with what _follows_, explains 'You
are twice inseparable, great, and one. ' This is obviously right. My
attention was first called to this emendation by the punctuation of
the Grolier Club editor, who changes the comma after 'goe' (l. 46) to
a semicolon.
l. 46. _To an unseparable union growe. _ I have adopted 'growe' from
the MSS. in place of 'goe' from the editions. The former are unanimous
with the strange exception of _Lec_. This MS. , which in several
respects seems to be most like that from which _1633_ was printed,
varies here from its fellows _D_ and _H49_, probably for the same
reason that the editor of _1633_ did, because he did not quite
understand the phrase 'growe to' as used here, and 'goe' follows
later. But it is unlikely that 'goe' would have been changed to
'growe', and
To an unseparable union growe
is, I think, preferable, because (1) both the words used in l. 44 are
thus echoed.
_Meeting_ Another, _growes_ the same,
So _meet_ thy Fredericke, and so
To an unseparable union _growe_.
(2) 'To an unseparable union growe', meaning 'Become inseparably
incorporated with one another', is a slightly violent but not
unnatural application of the phrase 'grow to' so common in Elizabethan
English:
'I grow to you, and our parting is a tortured body. ' _All's Well that
Ends Well_, II. i. 36.
First let our eyes be rivited quite through
Our turning brains, and both our lips grow to.
Donne, _Elegie XII_, 57-8.
l. 56. The 'or' of the MSS. must, I think, be right. 'O Bishop
Valentine' does not make good sense. Chambers's ingenious emendation
of _1669_, by which he connects 'of Bishop Valentine' with 'one way
left', lacks support. Bishop Valentine has paired them; the Bishop in
church has united them; the consummation is their own act.
PAGE =131=. ECCLOGUE. 1613. _December_ 26, &c.
It is unnecessary to detail all the ugly history of this notorious
marriage. See Gardiner, _History of England_, ii. 16 and 20. Frances
Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, the first Earl of Suffolk, was
married in 1606 to the youthful Earl of Essex, the later Parliamentary
general. In 1613, after a prolonged suit she was granted a divorce,
or a decree of nullity, and was at once married to King James's ruling
favourite, Robert Carr, created Viscount Rochester in 1611, and
Earl of Somerset in 1613. Donne, like every one else, had sought
assiduously to win the favour of the all-powerful favourite. Mr. Gosse
was in error in attributing to him a report on 'the proceedings in the
nullity of the marriage of Essex and Lady Frances Howard' (Harl. MS.
39, f. 416), which was the work of his namesake, Sir Daniell Dunn.
None the less, Donne's own letters show that he was quite willing to
lend a hand in promoting the divorce; and that before the decree was
granted he was already busy polishing his epithalamium. One of these
letters is addressed to Sir Robert Ker, afterwards Earl of Ancrum, a
friend of Donne's and a protégé of Somerset's. It seems to me probable
that Sir Robert Ker is the 'Allophanes' of the Induction. Donne is
of course 'Idios', the private man, who holds no place at Court.
'Allophanes' is one who seems like another, who bears the same name as
another, i. e. the bridegroom. The name of both Sir Robert and the Earl
of Somerset was Robert Ker or Carr.
PAGE =132=, l. 34. _in darke plotts. _ Here the reading of _1635_,
'plotts,' has the support of all the MSS. , and the 'places' of _1633_,
to which _1669_ returns, is probably an emendation accidental or
intentional of the editor or printer. It disturbs the metre. The word
'plot' of a piece of ground was, and is, not infrequent, and here its
meaning is only a little extended. In the _Progresse of the Soule_, l.
129, Donne speaks of 'a darke and foggie plot'.
_fire without light. _ Compare: 'Fool, saies Christ, this night they
will fetch away thy soul; but he neither tells him, who they be that
shall fetch it, nor whither they shall carry it; he hath no light but
lightnings; a sodain flash of horror first, and then he goes into fire
without light. ' _Sermons_ 26. 19. 273. 'This dark fire, which was not
prepared for us. ' Ibid.
l. 57. _In the East-Indian fleet. _ The MSS. here give us back a word
which _1633_ had dropped, the other editions following suit. It was
the East-Indian fleet which brought spices, the West-Indian brought
'plate', i. e. gold or (more properly) silver, to which there is no
reference here.
l. 58. _or Amber in thy taste? _ 'Amber' is here of course 'Ambergris',
which was much used in old cookery, in which considerable importance
was attached to scent as well as flavour. Compare:
beasts of chase, or foul of game,
In pastry built, or from the spit, or boil'd,
Gris-amber steam'd;
Milton, _Paradise Regained_, ii. 344.
and
Be sure
The wines be lusty, high, and full of spirit,
And amber'd all.
Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Custom of the Country_, iii. 2.
This was the original meaning of the word 'amber', which was extended
to the yellow fossil resin through some mistaken identification of
the two substances. Mr. Gosse has called my attention to some passages
which seem to indicate that the other amber was also eaten. Tallemant
des Réaux says of the Marquise de Rambouillet, 'Elle bransle un peu la
teste, et cela lui vient d'avoir trop mangé d'ambre autrefois. '
This may be ambergris; but Olivier de Serres, in his _Théâtre
d'Agriculture_ (1600), speaks of persons who had formed a taste for
drinking 'de l'ambre jaune subtilement pulvérisé'.
PAGE =134=, ll. 85-6. _Thou hast no such; yet here was this, and more,
An earnest lover, wise then, and before. _
This is the reading of _1633_ and gives, I think, Donne's meaning.
Missing this, later editions placed a full stop after 'more', so that
each line concludes a sentence. Mr. Chambers emends by changing the
full stop after 'before' into a comma, and reading:
Thou hast no such; yet here was this and more.
An earnest lover, wise then, and before,
Our little Cupid hath sued livery.
This looks ingenious, but I confess I do not know what it means. When
was Cupid wise? When had he been so before? And with what special
propriety is Cupid here called 'an earnest lover'? What Donne says is:
'Here _was_ all this,--a court such as I have described, and more--an
earnest lover (viz. the Earl of Somerset), wise in love (when most
men are foolish), and wise before, as is approved by the King's
confidence. In being admitted to that breast Cupid has ceased to be a
child, has attained his majority, and the right to administer his own
affairs. ' Compare: '_I love them that love me, &c. _. . . The Person that
professes love in this place is Wisdom herself . . . so that _sapere et
amare_, to be wise and to love, which perchance never met before nor
since, are met in this text. ' _Sermons_ 26. 18, Dec. 14, 1617.
Then, sweetest Silvia, let's no longer stay;
True love we know, precipitates delay.
Away with doubts, all scruples hence remove;
No man at one time can be wise and love.
Herrick, _To Silvia to Wed_.
PAGE =135=. I have inserted the title _Epithalamion_ after the
_Ecclogue_ from _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, _O'F_, _S96_, as otherwise the
latter title is extended to the whole poem.
This poem is headed in
two different ways in the MSS. In _A18_, _N_, _TC_, the title at the
beginning is: _Eclogue Inducing an Epithalamion at the marriage of the
E. of S. _ The proper titles of the two parts are thus given at once,
and no second title is needed later. In the other MSS. the title at
the beginning is _Eclogue. 1613. Decemb. 26. _ Later follows the title
_Epithalamion_. As _1633_ follows this fashion at the beginning, it
should have done so throughout.
PAGE =136=, l. 126. _Since both have both th'enflaming eyes. _ This
is the reading of all the MSS. and it explains the fact that
'th'enflaming' is so printed in _1633_. Without the 'both' this
destroys the metre and, accordingly, the later editions read 'the
enflaming'. It was natural to bring 'eye' into the singular and
make 'th'enflaming eye' balance 'the loving heart'. Moreover 'both
th'enflaming eyes' may have puzzled a printer. It is a Donnean device
for emphasis. He has spoken of _her_ flaming eyes, and now that he
identifies the lovers, that identity must be complete. Both the eyes
of both are lit with the same flame, both their hearts kindled at the
same fire. Compare later: 225. 'One fire of foure inflaming eyes,' &c.
l. 129. _Yet let_ _A23_, _O'F_. The first of these MSS. is an early
copy of the poem. 'Yet' improves both the sense and the metre. It
would be easily dropped from its likeness to 'let' suggesting a
duplication of that word.
PAGE =137=, l. 150. _Who can the Sun in water see. _ The Grolier Club
edition alters the full stop here to a semicolon; and Chambers quotes
the reading of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, 'winter' for 'water', as worth
noting. Both the change and the suggestion imply some misapprehension
of the reference of these lines, which is to the preceding verse:
For our ease, give thine eyes th'unusual part
Of joy, a Teare.
The opening of a stanza with two lines which in thought belong to the
previous one is not unprecedented in Donne's poems. Compare the sixth
stanza of _A Valediction: of my name in the window_, and note.
Dryden has borrowed this image--like many another of Donne's:
Muse down again precipitate thy flight;
For how can mortal eyes sustain immortal light?
But as the sun in water we can bear,
Yet not the sun, but his reflection there,
So let us view her here in what she was,
And take her image in this watery glass.
_Eleonora_, ll. 134-9.
l. 156. _as their spheares are. _ The crystalline sphere in which each
planet is fixed.
PAGE =138=, ll. 171-81. _The Benediction. _ The accurate punctuation
of Donne's poetry is not an easy matter. In the 1633 edition the last
five lines of this stanza have no stronger stop than a comma. This may
be quite right, but it leaves ambiguous what is the exact force and
what the connexion of the line--
Nature and grace doe all, and nothing Art.
The editions of 1635-69, by placing a full stop after 'give' (l. 178),
connect 'Nature and grace' with what follows, and Chambers and the
Grolier Club editor have accepted this, though they place a semicolon
after 'Art'. It seems to me that the line must go with what precedes.
The force of 'may' is carried on to 'doe all':
may here, to the worlds end, live
Heires from this King, to take thanks, you, to give,
Nature and grace doe all and nothing Art.
'May there always be heirs of James to receive thanks, of you two to
give; and may this mutual relation owe everything to nature and grace,
the goodness of your descendants, the grace of the king, nothing to
art, to policy and flattery. ' That is the only meaning I can give to
the line. The only change in _1633_ is that of a comma to a full stop,
a big change in value, a small one typographically.
PAGE =139=, l. 200. _they doe not set so too_; I have changed the full
stop after 'too' to a semicolon, as the 'Therefore thou maist' which
follows is an immediate inference from these two lines. 'You rose at
the same hour this morning, but you (the bride) must go first to bed. '
ll. 204-5. _As he that sees, &c. _ 'I have sometimes wondered in the
reading what was become of those glaring colours which amazed me in
_Bussy D'Ambois_ upon the theatre; but when I had taken up what I
supposed a fallen star, I found I had been cozened with a jelly;
nothing but a cold, dull mass, which glittered no longer than it was
a-shooting. ' Dryden, _The Spanish Friar_. In another place Dryden uses
the figure in a more poetic or at least ambitious fashion:
The tapers of the gods,
The sun and moon, run down like waxen globes;
The shooting stars end all in purple jellies,
And chaos is at hand.
_Oedipus_, II. i.
The idea was a common one, but I have no doubt that Dryden owed his
use of it as an image to Donne. There is no poet from whom he pilfers
'wit' more freely.
PAGE =140=, ll. 215-16. _Now, as in Tullias tombe_, i. e. Cicero's
daughter. 'According to a ridiculous story, which some of the moderns
report, in the age of Pope Paul III a monument was discovered on the
Appian road with the superscription _Tulliolae filiae meae_; the body
of a woman was found in it, which was reduced to ashes as soon as
touched; there was also a lamp burning, which was extinguished as soon
as the air gained admission there, and which was supposed to have been
lighted above 1500 years. ' Lemprière. See Browne, _Vulgar Errors_,
iii. 21.
PAGE =141=, l. 17. _Help with your presence and devise to praise. _
I have dropped the comma after 'presence' because it suggests to us,
though it did not necessarily do so to seventeenth-century readers,
that 'devise' here is a verb--both Dr. Grosart and Mr. Chambers have
taken it as such--whereas it is the noun 'device' = fancy, invention.
Their fancy and invention is to be shown in the attiring of the bride:
Conceitedly dresse her, and be assign'd
By you, fit place for every flower and jewell,
Make her for love fit fewell
As gay as Flora, and as rich as Inde.
'Devise to praise' would be a very awkward construction.
PAGE =142=, l. 26. _Sonns of these Senators wealths deep oceans. _ The
corruption of the text here has arisen in the first place from the
readily explicable confusion of 'sonnes' or 'sonns' as written and
'sonne', the final 's' being the merest flourish and repeatedly
overlooked in copying and printing, while 'sonne' easily becomes
'some', and secondly from a misapprehension of Donne's characteristic
pun. The punctuation of the 1633 edition is supported by almost every
MS.
The 'frolique Patricians' are of course not the sons of 'these
Senators' by birth. 'I speak not this to yourselves, you Senators
of London,' says Donne in the _Sermon Preached at Pauls Cross . . . 26
Mart. 1616_, 'but as God hath blessed you in your ways, and in your
callings, so put your children into ways and courses too, in which God
may bless them. . . . The Fathers' former labours shall not excuse their
Sons future idleness. ' The sons of wealthy citizens might grow idle
and extravagant; they could not be styled 'Patricians'. It is not
of them that Donne is thinking, but of the young noblemen who are
accompanying their friend on his wedding-day. They are, or are willing
to be, the sons, by marriage not by blood, of 'these Senators', or
rather of their money-bags. In a word, they marry their daughters for
money, as the hero of the _Epithalamion_ is doing. It is fortunate for
the Senators if the young courtiers do not find in their wives as well
as their daughters, like Fastidious Brisk in Jonson's comedy, 'Golden
Mines and furnish'd Treasurie. ' But they are 'Sunnes' as well as
Sonnes'--suns which drink up the deep oceans of these Senators'
wealth:
it rain'd more
Then if the Sunne had drunk the sea before.
_Storme_, 43-4.
Hence the metaphor 'deep oceans', and hence the appropriateness of the
predicate 'Here shine'. This pun on 'sunne' and 'sonne' is a favourite
with Donne:
Mad paper stay, and grudge not here to burne
With all those sonnes [sunnes _B_, _S96_] whom my braine did create.
_To Mrs. M. H. H. _, p. 216.
I am thy sonne, made with thyself to shine.
_Holy Sonnets_, II. 5.
Sweare by thyself, that at my death thy sonne
Shall shine as hee shines now, and heretofore.
_A Hymn to God the Father. _
'This day both Gods Sons arose: The Sun of his Firmament, and the Son
of his bosome. ' _Sermons_ 80. 26. 255. 'And when thy Sun, thy soule
comes to set in thy death-bed, the Son of Grace shall suck it up into
glory. ' Ibid. 80. 45. 450.
Correctly read the line has a satiric quality which Donne's lines
rarely want, and in which this stanza abounds. I have chosen the
spelling 'Sonns' as that which is most commonly used in the MSS. for
'sonnes' and 'sunnes'.
PAGE =143=, l. 57. _His steeds nill be restrain'd. _ I had adopted
the reading 'nill' for 'will' conjecturally before I found it in _W_.
There can be no doubt it is right. As printed, the two clauses (57-8)
simply contradict each other. The use of 'nill' for 'will' was one
of Spenser's Chaucerisms, and Donne comes closer to Spenser in the
_Epithalamia_ than anywhere else. Sylvester uses it in his translation
of Du Bartas:
For I nill stiffly argue to and fro
In nice opinions, whether so or so.
And it occurs in Davison's _Poetical Rhapsody_:
And therefore nill I boast of war.
In Shakespeare, setting aside the phrase 'nill he, will he', we have:
in scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether.
ll. 81-2. _Till now thou wast but able
To be what now thou art_;
She has realized her potentiality; she is now actually what hitherto
she has been only [Greek: en dynamei], therefore she 'puts on
perfection'. 'Praeterea secundum Philosophum . . . _qualibet potentiâ
melior est eius actus_; nam forma est melior quam materia, et actio
quam potentia activa: est enim finis eius. ' Aquinas, _Summa_, xxv. i.
See also Aristotle, _Met. _ 1050 _a_ 2-16. This metaphysical doctrine
is not contradicted by the religious exaltation of virginity, for it
is not virginity as such which is preferred to marriage by the Church,
but the virgin's dedication of herself to God: 'Virginitas inde
honorata, quia Deo dicata. . . . Virgines ideo laudatae, quia Deo
dicatae. Nec nos hoc in virginibus praedicamus, quod virgines sunt;
sed quod Deo dicatae piâ continentiâ virgines. Nam, quod non temere
dixerim, felicior mihi videtur nupta mulier quam virgo nuptura: habet
enim iam illa quod ista adhuc cupit. . . . Illa uni studet placere cui
data est: haec multis, incerta cui danda est,' &c. ; August. _De Sanct.
Virg. _ I. x, xi. Compare Aquinas, _Summa_ II. 2, Quaest. clii. 3.
Wedded to Christ the virgin puts on a higher perfection.
SATYRES.
The earliest date assignable to any of the _Satyres_ is 1593, or more
probably 1594-5. On the back of the Harleian MS. 5110 (_H51_), in the
British Museum, is inscribed:[1]
Jhon Dunne his Satires
Anno Domini 1593
The handwriting is not identical with that in which the poems are
transcribed, and it is impossible to say either when the poems were
copied or when the title and date were affixed. One may not build too
absolutely on its accuracy; but there are in the three first _Satires_
(which alone the MS. contains) some indications that point to 1593-5
as the probable date. Mr. Chambers notes the reference in 1. , 80, 'the
wise politic horse,' to Banks' performing horse, and says: 'A large
collection of them' (i. e. allusions to the horse) 'will be found in
Mr. Halliwell-Phillips's Memoranda on _Love's Labour's Lost_. Only one
of these allusions is, however, earlier than 1593. It is in 1591, and
refers not to an exhibition in London, but in the provinces, and not
to Morocco, which was a bay, but to a white horse. It is probable,
therefore, that by 1591 Banks had not yet come to London, and if so
the date 1593 on the Harl. MS. 5110 of Donne's _Satires_ cannot be far
from that of their composition. ' But this is not the only allusion.
The same lines run on:
Or thou O Elephant or Ape wilt doe.
This has been passed by commentators as a quite general reference; but
the Ape and Elephant seem to have been animals actually performing,
or exhibited, in London about 1594. Thus in _Every Man out of his
Humour_, acted in 1599, Carlo Buffone says (IV. 6): ''S heart he keeps
more ado with this monster' (i.
pictures--doves, stars, cedars, lilies. The meaning conveyed would be
the same:
this hand
As soft as doves-downe, and as white as it.
_Wint. Tale_, IV. iv. 374.
But of course swan's down is also celebrated:
Heaven with sweet repose doth crowne
Each vertue softer than the swan's fam'd downe.
Habington, _Castara_.
PAGE =125=, l. 33. Modern editors separate 'thorny' and 'hairy' by a
comma. They should rather be connected by a hyphen as in _TCD_.
l. 40. _And are, as theeves trac'd, which rob when it snows. _ This is
doubtless the source of Dryden's figurative description of Jonson's
thefts from the Ancients: 'You track him everywhere in their snow. '
_Essay of Dramatic Poesy_.
EPITHALAMIONS.
PAGE =127=. The dates of the two chief Marriage Songs are: the
Princess Elizabeth, Feb. 14, 1613; the Earl of Somerset, Dec. 26,
1613. The third is an earlier piece of work, dating from the years
when Donne was a student at Lincoln's Inn. It is found in _W_,
following the _Satyres_ and _Elegies_ and preceding the _Letters_,
being probably the only one written when the collection in the first
part of that MS. was made.
While quite himself in his treatment of the theme of this kind of
poem, Donne comes in it nearer to Spenser than in any other kind.
In glow and colour nothing he has written surpasses the Somerset
Epithalamion:
First her eyes kindle other Ladies eyes,
Then from their beams their jewels lusters rise,
And from their jewels torches do take fire,
And all is warmth and light and good desire.
_An Epithalamion, or Marriage Song, &c. _ 'In February following, the
Prince Palatine and that lovely Princess, the Lady Elizabeth, were
married on Bishop Valentine's Day, in all the Pomp and Glory that so
much grandeur could express. Her vestments were white, the Emblem of
Innocency; her Hair dishevel'd hanging down her Back at length,
an Ornament of Virginity; a Crown of pure Gold upon her Head, the
Cognizance of Majesty, being all over beset with precious Gems,
shining _like a Constellation_; her Train supported by Twelve young
Ladies in White Garments, so adorned with Jewels, that her passage
looked like a Milky-way. She was led to Church by her Brother Prince
Charles, and the Earl of Northampton; the young Batchelor on the Right
Hand, and the old on the left. ' Camden, _Annales_.
A full description of the festivities will be found in Nichol's
_Progresses of King James_, in Stow's _Chronicle_, and other works.
In a letter to Mrs. Carleton, Chamberlain gives an account of what he
saw: 'It were long and tedious to tell you all the particulars of the
excessive bravery, both of men and women, but you may conceive the
rest by one or two. The Lady Wotton had a gown that cost fifty pounds
a yard the embroidery. . . . The Viscount Rochester, the Lord Hay, and
the Lord Dingwall were exceeding rich and costly; but above all, they
speak of the Earl of Dorset. But this extreme cost and riches makes us
all poor. ' _Court and Times of James I_, i. 226. The princess had been
educated by Lord and Lady Harington, the parents of Donne's patroness,
the Countess of Bedford. They accompanied her to Heidelberg, but
Lord Harington died on his way home, Lady Harington shortly after her
return. Donne had thus links with the Princess, and these were renewed
and strengthened later when with Lord Doncaster he visited Heidelberg
in 1619, and preached before her and her husband. He sent her his
first printed sermon and his _Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, &c. _
(1624), and to the latter she, then in exile and trouble, replied in a
courteous strain.
PAGE =128=. Compare with the opening stanzas Chaucer's _Parliament
of Foules_ and Skeat's note (_Works of Chaucer_, i. 516). Birds were
supposed to choose their mates on St. Valentine's Day (Feb. 14).
l. 42. _this, thy Valentine. _ This is the reading of all the editions
except _1669_ and of all the MSS. except two of no independent value.
I think it is better than 'this day, Valentine', which Chambers adopts
from _1669_. The bride is addressed throughout the stanza, and it
would be a very abrupt change to refer 'thou' in l. 41 to Valentine.
I take 'this, thy Valentine' to mean 'this which is thy day, _par
excellence_', 'thy Saint Valentine's day', 'the day which saw you
paired'. But 'a Valentine' is a 'true-love': 'to be your
Valentine' (_Hamlet_, IV. v. 50), and the reference may be to
Frederick,--Frederick's Day is to become an era.
ll. 43-50. The punctuation of these lines requires attention. That of
the editions, which Chambers follows, arranges them thus:
Come forth, come forth, and as one glorious flame
Meeting Another growes the same,
So meet thy Fredericke, and so
To an unseparable union goe,
Since separation
Falls not on such things as are infinite,
Nor things which are but one, can disunite.
You'are twice inseparable, great, and one.
In this it will be seen that the clause 'Since separation . . . can
disunite' is attached to the _previous_ verb. It gives the reason
why they should 'go to an unseparable union'. In that which I have
adopted, which is that of several good MSS. , the clause 'Since
separation . . . can disunite' goes with what _follows_, explains 'You
are twice inseparable, great, and one. ' This is obviously right. My
attention was first called to this emendation by the punctuation of
the Grolier Club editor, who changes the comma after 'goe' (l. 46) to
a semicolon.
l. 46. _To an unseparable union growe. _ I have adopted 'growe' from
the MSS. in place of 'goe' from the editions. The former are unanimous
with the strange exception of _Lec_. This MS. , which in several
respects seems to be most like that from which _1633_ was printed,
varies here from its fellows _D_ and _H49_, probably for the same
reason that the editor of _1633_ did, because he did not quite
understand the phrase 'growe to' as used here, and 'goe' follows
later. But it is unlikely that 'goe' would have been changed to
'growe', and
To an unseparable union growe
is, I think, preferable, because (1) both the words used in l. 44 are
thus echoed.
_Meeting_ Another, _growes_ the same,
So _meet_ thy Fredericke, and so
To an unseparable union _growe_.
(2) 'To an unseparable union growe', meaning 'Become inseparably
incorporated with one another', is a slightly violent but not
unnatural application of the phrase 'grow to' so common in Elizabethan
English:
'I grow to you, and our parting is a tortured body. ' _All's Well that
Ends Well_, II. i. 36.
First let our eyes be rivited quite through
Our turning brains, and both our lips grow to.
Donne, _Elegie XII_, 57-8.
l. 56. The 'or' of the MSS. must, I think, be right. 'O Bishop
Valentine' does not make good sense. Chambers's ingenious emendation
of _1669_, by which he connects 'of Bishop Valentine' with 'one way
left', lacks support. Bishop Valentine has paired them; the Bishop in
church has united them; the consummation is their own act.
PAGE =131=. ECCLOGUE. 1613. _December_ 26, &c.
It is unnecessary to detail all the ugly history of this notorious
marriage. See Gardiner, _History of England_, ii. 16 and 20. Frances
Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, the first Earl of Suffolk, was
married in 1606 to the youthful Earl of Essex, the later Parliamentary
general. In 1613, after a prolonged suit she was granted a divorce,
or a decree of nullity, and was at once married to King James's ruling
favourite, Robert Carr, created Viscount Rochester in 1611, and
Earl of Somerset in 1613. Donne, like every one else, had sought
assiduously to win the favour of the all-powerful favourite. Mr. Gosse
was in error in attributing to him a report on 'the proceedings in the
nullity of the marriage of Essex and Lady Frances Howard' (Harl. MS.
39, f. 416), which was the work of his namesake, Sir Daniell Dunn.
None the less, Donne's own letters show that he was quite willing to
lend a hand in promoting the divorce; and that before the decree was
granted he was already busy polishing his epithalamium. One of these
letters is addressed to Sir Robert Ker, afterwards Earl of Ancrum, a
friend of Donne's and a protégé of Somerset's. It seems to me probable
that Sir Robert Ker is the 'Allophanes' of the Induction. Donne is
of course 'Idios', the private man, who holds no place at Court.
'Allophanes' is one who seems like another, who bears the same name as
another, i. e. the bridegroom. The name of both Sir Robert and the Earl
of Somerset was Robert Ker or Carr.
PAGE =132=, l. 34. _in darke plotts. _ Here the reading of _1635_,
'plotts,' has the support of all the MSS. , and the 'places' of _1633_,
to which _1669_ returns, is probably an emendation accidental or
intentional of the editor or printer. It disturbs the metre. The word
'plot' of a piece of ground was, and is, not infrequent, and here its
meaning is only a little extended. In the _Progresse of the Soule_, l.
129, Donne speaks of 'a darke and foggie plot'.
_fire without light. _ Compare: 'Fool, saies Christ, this night they
will fetch away thy soul; but he neither tells him, who they be that
shall fetch it, nor whither they shall carry it; he hath no light but
lightnings; a sodain flash of horror first, and then he goes into fire
without light. ' _Sermons_ 26. 19. 273. 'This dark fire, which was not
prepared for us. ' Ibid.
l. 57. _In the East-Indian fleet. _ The MSS. here give us back a word
which _1633_ had dropped, the other editions following suit. It was
the East-Indian fleet which brought spices, the West-Indian brought
'plate', i. e. gold or (more properly) silver, to which there is no
reference here.
l. 58. _or Amber in thy taste? _ 'Amber' is here of course 'Ambergris',
which was much used in old cookery, in which considerable importance
was attached to scent as well as flavour. Compare:
beasts of chase, or foul of game,
In pastry built, or from the spit, or boil'd,
Gris-amber steam'd;
Milton, _Paradise Regained_, ii. 344.
and
Be sure
The wines be lusty, high, and full of spirit,
And amber'd all.
Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Custom of the Country_, iii. 2.
This was the original meaning of the word 'amber', which was extended
to the yellow fossil resin through some mistaken identification of
the two substances. Mr. Gosse has called my attention to some passages
which seem to indicate that the other amber was also eaten. Tallemant
des Réaux says of the Marquise de Rambouillet, 'Elle bransle un peu la
teste, et cela lui vient d'avoir trop mangé d'ambre autrefois. '
This may be ambergris; but Olivier de Serres, in his _Théâtre
d'Agriculture_ (1600), speaks of persons who had formed a taste for
drinking 'de l'ambre jaune subtilement pulvérisé'.
PAGE =134=, ll. 85-6. _Thou hast no such; yet here was this, and more,
An earnest lover, wise then, and before. _
This is the reading of _1633_ and gives, I think, Donne's meaning.
Missing this, later editions placed a full stop after 'more', so that
each line concludes a sentence. Mr. Chambers emends by changing the
full stop after 'before' into a comma, and reading:
Thou hast no such; yet here was this and more.
An earnest lover, wise then, and before,
Our little Cupid hath sued livery.
This looks ingenious, but I confess I do not know what it means. When
was Cupid wise? When had he been so before? And with what special
propriety is Cupid here called 'an earnest lover'? What Donne says is:
'Here _was_ all this,--a court such as I have described, and more--an
earnest lover (viz. the Earl of Somerset), wise in love (when most
men are foolish), and wise before, as is approved by the King's
confidence. In being admitted to that breast Cupid has ceased to be a
child, has attained his majority, and the right to administer his own
affairs. ' Compare: '_I love them that love me, &c. _. . . The Person that
professes love in this place is Wisdom herself . . . so that _sapere et
amare_, to be wise and to love, which perchance never met before nor
since, are met in this text. ' _Sermons_ 26. 18, Dec. 14, 1617.
Then, sweetest Silvia, let's no longer stay;
True love we know, precipitates delay.
Away with doubts, all scruples hence remove;
No man at one time can be wise and love.
Herrick, _To Silvia to Wed_.
PAGE =135=. I have inserted the title _Epithalamion_ after the
_Ecclogue_ from _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, _O'F_, _S96_, as otherwise the
latter title is extended to the whole poem.
This poem is headed in
two different ways in the MSS. In _A18_, _N_, _TC_, the title at the
beginning is: _Eclogue Inducing an Epithalamion at the marriage of the
E. of S. _ The proper titles of the two parts are thus given at once,
and no second title is needed later. In the other MSS. the title at
the beginning is _Eclogue. 1613. Decemb. 26. _ Later follows the title
_Epithalamion_. As _1633_ follows this fashion at the beginning, it
should have done so throughout.
PAGE =136=, l. 126. _Since both have both th'enflaming eyes. _ This
is the reading of all the MSS. and it explains the fact that
'th'enflaming' is so printed in _1633_. Without the 'both' this
destroys the metre and, accordingly, the later editions read 'the
enflaming'. It was natural to bring 'eye' into the singular and
make 'th'enflaming eye' balance 'the loving heart'. Moreover 'both
th'enflaming eyes' may have puzzled a printer. It is a Donnean device
for emphasis. He has spoken of _her_ flaming eyes, and now that he
identifies the lovers, that identity must be complete. Both the eyes
of both are lit with the same flame, both their hearts kindled at the
same fire. Compare later: 225. 'One fire of foure inflaming eyes,' &c.
l. 129. _Yet let_ _A23_, _O'F_. The first of these MSS. is an early
copy of the poem. 'Yet' improves both the sense and the metre. It
would be easily dropped from its likeness to 'let' suggesting a
duplication of that word.
PAGE =137=, l. 150. _Who can the Sun in water see. _ The Grolier Club
edition alters the full stop here to a semicolon; and Chambers quotes
the reading of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, 'winter' for 'water', as worth
noting. Both the change and the suggestion imply some misapprehension
of the reference of these lines, which is to the preceding verse:
For our ease, give thine eyes th'unusual part
Of joy, a Teare.
The opening of a stanza with two lines which in thought belong to the
previous one is not unprecedented in Donne's poems. Compare the sixth
stanza of _A Valediction: of my name in the window_, and note.
Dryden has borrowed this image--like many another of Donne's:
Muse down again precipitate thy flight;
For how can mortal eyes sustain immortal light?
But as the sun in water we can bear,
Yet not the sun, but his reflection there,
So let us view her here in what she was,
And take her image in this watery glass.
_Eleonora_, ll. 134-9.
l. 156. _as their spheares are. _ The crystalline sphere in which each
planet is fixed.
PAGE =138=, ll. 171-81. _The Benediction. _ The accurate punctuation
of Donne's poetry is not an easy matter. In the 1633 edition the last
five lines of this stanza have no stronger stop than a comma. This may
be quite right, but it leaves ambiguous what is the exact force and
what the connexion of the line--
Nature and grace doe all, and nothing Art.
The editions of 1635-69, by placing a full stop after 'give' (l. 178),
connect 'Nature and grace' with what follows, and Chambers and the
Grolier Club editor have accepted this, though they place a semicolon
after 'Art'. It seems to me that the line must go with what precedes.
The force of 'may' is carried on to 'doe all':
may here, to the worlds end, live
Heires from this King, to take thanks, you, to give,
Nature and grace doe all and nothing Art.
'May there always be heirs of James to receive thanks, of you two to
give; and may this mutual relation owe everything to nature and grace,
the goodness of your descendants, the grace of the king, nothing to
art, to policy and flattery. ' That is the only meaning I can give to
the line. The only change in _1633_ is that of a comma to a full stop,
a big change in value, a small one typographically.
PAGE =139=, l. 200. _they doe not set so too_; I have changed the full
stop after 'too' to a semicolon, as the 'Therefore thou maist' which
follows is an immediate inference from these two lines. 'You rose at
the same hour this morning, but you (the bride) must go first to bed. '
ll. 204-5. _As he that sees, &c. _ 'I have sometimes wondered in the
reading what was become of those glaring colours which amazed me in
_Bussy D'Ambois_ upon the theatre; but when I had taken up what I
supposed a fallen star, I found I had been cozened with a jelly;
nothing but a cold, dull mass, which glittered no longer than it was
a-shooting. ' Dryden, _The Spanish Friar_. In another place Dryden uses
the figure in a more poetic or at least ambitious fashion:
The tapers of the gods,
The sun and moon, run down like waxen globes;
The shooting stars end all in purple jellies,
And chaos is at hand.
_Oedipus_, II. i.
The idea was a common one, but I have no doubt that Dryden owed his
use of it as an image to Donne. There is no poet from whom he pilfers
'wit' more freely.
PAGE =140=, ll. 215-16. _Now, as in Tullias tombe_, i. e. Cicero's
daughter. 'According to a ridiculous story, which some of the moderns
report, in the age of Pope Paul III a monument was discovered on the
Appian road with the superscription _Tulliolae filiae meae_; the body
of a woman was found in it, which was reduced to ashes as soon as
touched; there was also a lamp burning, which was extinguished as soon
as the air gained admission there, and which was supposed to have been
lighted above 1500 years. ' Lemprière. See Browne, _Vulgar Errors_,
iii. 21.
PAGE =141=, l. 17. _Help with your presence and devise to praise. _
I have dropped the comma after 'presence' because it suggests to us,
though it did not necessarily do so to seventeenth-century readers,
that 'devise' here is a verb--both Dr. Grosart and Mr. Chambers have
taken it as such--whereas it is the noun 'device' = fancy, invention.
Their fancy and invention is to be shown in the attiring of the bride:
Conceitedly dresse her, and be assign'd
By you, fit place for every flower and jewell,
Make her for love fit fewell
As gay as Flora, and as rich as Inde.
'Devise to praise' would be a very awkward construction.
PAGE =142=, l. 26. _Sonns of these Senators wealths deep oceans. _ The
corruption of the text here has arisen in the first place from the
readily explicable confusion of 'sonnes' or 'sonns' as written and
'sonne', the final 's' being the merest flourish and repeatedly
overlooked in copying and printing, while 'sonne' easily becomes
'some', and secondly from a misapprehension of Donne's characteristic
pun. The punctuation of the 1633 edition is supported by almost every
MS.
The 'frolique Patricians' are of course not the sons of 'these
Senators' by birth. 'I speak not this to yourselves, you Senators
of London,' says Donne in the _Sermon Preached at Pauls Cross . . . 26
Mart. 1616_, 'but as God hath blessed you in your ways, and in your
callings, so put your children into ways and courses too, in which God
may bless them. . . . The Fathers' former labours shall not excuse their
Sons future idleness. ' The sons of wealthy citizens might grow idle
and extravagant; they could not be styled 'Patricians'. It is not
of them that Donne is thinking, but of the young noblemen who are
accompanying their friend on his wedding-day. They are, or are willing
to be, the sons, by marriage not by blood, of 'these Senators', or
rather of their money-bags. In a word, they marry their daughters for
money, as the hero of the _Epithalamion_ is doing. It is fortunate for
the Senators if the young courtiers do not find in their wives as well
as their daughters, like Fastidious Brisk in Jonson's comedy, 'Golden
Mines and furnish'd Treasurie. ' But they are 'Sunnes' as well as
Sonnes'--suns which drink up the deep oceans of these Senators'
wealth:
it rain'd more
Then if the Sunne had drunk the sea before.
_Storme_, 43-4.
Hence the metaphor 'deep oceans', and hence the appropriateness of the
predicate 'Here shine'. This pun on 'sunne' and 'sonne' is a favourite
with Donne:
Mad paper stay, and grudge not here to burne
With all those sonnes [sunnes _B_, _S96_] whom my braine did create.
_To Mrs. M. H. H. _, p. 216.
I am thy sonne, made with thyself to shine.
_Holy Sonnets_, II. 5.
Sweare by thyself, that at my death thy sonne
Shall shine as hee shines now, and heretofore.
_A Hymn to God the Father. _
'This day both Gods Sons arose: The Sun of his Firmament, and the Son
of his bosome. ' _Sermons_ 80. 26. 255. 'And when thy Sun, thy soule
comes to set in thy death-bed, the Son of Grace shall suck it up into
glory. ' Ibid. 80. 45. 450.
Correctly read the line has a satiric quality which Donne's lines
rarely want, and in which this stanza abounds. I have chosen the
spelling 'Sonns' as that which is most commonly used in the MSS. for
'sonnes' and 'sunnes'.
PAGE =143=, l. 57. _His steeds nill be restrain'd. _ I had adopted
the reading 'nill' for 'will' conjecturally before I found it in _W_.
There can be no doubt it is right. As printed, the two clauses (57-8)
simply contradict each other. The use of 'nill' for 'will' was one
of Spenser's Chaucerisms, and Donne comes closer to Spenser in the
_Epithalamia_ than anywhere else. Sylvester uses it in his translation
of Du Bartas:
For I nill stiffly argue to and fro
In nice opinions, whether so or so.
And it occurs in Davison's _Poetical Rhapsody_:
And therefore nill I boast of war.
In Shakespeare, setting aside the phrase 'nill he, will he', we have:
in scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether.
ll. 81-2. _Till now thou wast but able
To be what now thou art_;
She has realized her potentiality; she is now actually what hitherto
she has been only [Greek: en dynamei], therefore she 'puts on
perfection'. 'Praeterea secundum Philosophum . . . _qualibet potentiâ
melior est eius actus_; nam forma est melior quam materia, et actio
quam potentia activa: est enim finis eius. ' Aquinas, _Summa_, xxv. i.
See also Aristotle, _Met. _ 1050 _a_ 2-16. This metaphysical doctrine
is not contradicted by the religious exaltation of virginity, for it
is not virginity as such which is preferred to marriage by the Church,
but the virgin's dedication of herself to God: 'Virginitas inde
honorata, quia Deo dicata. . . . Virgines ideo laudatae, quia Deo
dicatae. Nec nos hoc in virginibus praedicamus, quod virgines sunt;
sed quod Deo dicatae piâ continentiâ virgines. Nam, quod non temere
dixerim, felicior mihi videtur nupta mulier quam virgo nuptura: habet
enim iam illa quod ista adhuc cupit. . . . Illa uni studet placere cui
data est: haec multis, incerta cui danda est,' &c. ; August. _De Sanct.
Virg. _ I. x, xi. Compare Aquinas, _Summa_ II. 2, Quaest. clii. 3.
Wedded to Christ the virgin puts on a higher perfection.
SATYRES.
The earliest date assignable to any of the _Satyres_ is 1593, or more
probably 1594-5. On the back of the Harleian MS. 5110 (_H51_), in the
British Museum, is inscribed:[1]
Jhon Dunne his Satires
Anno Domini 1593
The handwriting is not identical with that in which the poems are
transcribed, and it is impossible to say either when the poems were
copied or when the title and date were affixed. One may not build too
absolutely on its accuracy; but there are in the three first _Satires_
(which alone the MS. contains) some indications that point to 1593-5
as the probable date. Mr. Chambers notes the reference in 1. , 80, 'the
wise politic horse,' to Banks' performing horse, and says: 'A large
collection of them' (i. e. allusions to the horse) 'will be found in
Mr. Halliwell-Phillips's Memoranda on _Love's Labour's Lost_. Only one
of these allusions is, however, earlier than 1593. It is in 1591, and
refers not to an exhibition in London, but in the provinces, and not
to Morocco, which was a bay, but to a white horse. It is probable,
therefore, that by 1591 Banks had not yet come to London, and if so
the date 1593 on the Harl. MS. 5110 of Donne's _Satires_ cannot be far
from that of their composition. ' But this is not the only allusion.
The same lines run on:
Or thou O Elephant or Ape wilt doe.
This has been passed by commentators as a quite general reference; but
the Ape and Elephant seem to have been animals actually performing,
or exhibited, in London about 1594. Thus in _Every Man out of his
Humour_, acted in 1599, Carlo Buffone says (IV. 6): ''S heart he keeps
more ado with this monster' (i.
