Crashaw,
_Musicks
Duell_.
Donne - 2
The instance cited there is prepositional in
character rather than adverbial: 'Immediatli at next to the now bifore
alleggid text of Peter this proces folewith. ' Donne's use seems to
correspond exactly to the Anglo-Saxon: 'Johannes ða ofhreow þaēre
mēden and ðaera licmanna drēorignysse, and āstrehte his
licaman tō eorðan on langsumum gebēde, and ða _aet nēxtan_
āras, and eft upahafenum handum langlice baed. ' Aelfric (Sweet's
_Anglo-Saxon Reader_, 1894, p. 67). But 'at next' in the poem possibly
does not mean simply 'next', but 'immediately', i. e. 'the first thing
he said would have been . . . '
l. 314. _Resultances_: i. e. productions of, or emanations from, her.
'She is the harmony from which proceeds that harmony of our bodies
which is their soul. ' Donne uses the word also in the sense of
'the sum or gist of a thing': 'He speakes out of the strength and
resultance of many lawes and Canons there alleadged. ' _Pseudo-martyr_,
p. 245; and Walton says that Donne 'left the resultance of 1400
Authors, most of them abridged and analysed with his own hand. ' _Life_
(1675), p. 60. He is probably using Donne's own title.
PAGE =241=, l. 318. _That th'Arke to mans proportions was made. _ The
following quotation from St. Augustine will show that the plural
of _1611-12_ is right, and what Donne had in view. St. Augustine is
speaking of the Ark as a type of the Church: 'Procul dubio figura est
peregrinantis in hoc seculo Civitatis Dei, hoc est Ecclesiae, quae fit
salva per lignum in quo pependit Mediator Dei et hominum, homo
Iesus Christus. (1 Tim. ii. 5. ) Nam et mensurae ipsae longitudinis,
altitudinis, latitudinis eius, significant corpus humanum, in cuius
veritate ad homines praenuntiatus est venturus, et venit. Humani
quippe corporis longitudo a vertice usque ad vestigia sexies tantum
habet, quam latitudo, quae est ab uno latere ad alterum latus, et
decies tantum, quam altitudo, cuius altitudinis mensura est in latere
a dorso ad ventrem: velut si iacentem hominem metiaris supinum, seu
pronum, sexies tantum longus est a capite ad pedes, quam latus a
dextra in sinistram, vel a sinistra in dextram, et decies, quam altus
a terra. Unde facta est arca trecentorum in longitudine cubitorum, et
quinquaginta in latitudine, et triginta in altitudine. ' _De Civitate
Dei_, XV. 26.
PAGE =242=, ll. 377-80. _Nor in ought more, &c. _ 'The father' is the
Heavens, i. e. the various heavenly bodies moving in their spheres;
'the mother', the earth:
As the bright Sun shines through the smoothest Glasse
The turning Planets influence doth passe
Without impeachment through the glistering Tent
Of the tralucing (_French_ diafane) Fiery Element,
The Aires triple Regions, the transparent Water;
But not the firm base of this faire Theater.
And therefore rightly may we call those Trines
(Fire, Aire and Water) but Heav'ns Concubines:
For, never Sun, nor Moon, nor Stars injoy
The love of these, but only by the way,
As passing by: whereas incessantly
The lusty Heav'n with Earth doth company;
And with a fruitfull seed which lends All life,
With childes each moment, his own lawfull wife;
And with her lovely Babes, in form and nature
So divers, decks this beautiful Theater.
Sylvester, _Du Bartas, Second Day, First Week. _
PAGE =243=, l. 389. _new wormes_: probably serpents, such as were
described in new books of travels.
l. 394. _Imprisoned in an Hearbe, or Charme, or Tree. _ Compare _A
Valediction: of my name, in the window_, p. 27, ll. 33-6:
As all the vertuous powers which are
Fix'd in the starres, are said to flow
Into such characters, as graved bee
When these starres have supremacie.
l. 409. _But as some Serpents poyson, &c. _ Compare: 'But though all
knowledge be in those Authors already, yet, as some poisons, and some
medicines, hurt not, nor profit, except the creature in which they
reside, contribute their lively activitie and vigor; so, much of the
knowledge buried in Books perisheth, and becomes ineffectuall, if it
be not applied, and refreshed by a companion, or friend. Much of their
goodnesse hath the same period which some Physicians of _Italy_ have
observed to be in the biting of their _Tarentola_, that it affects no
longer, then the flie lives. ' _Letters_, p. 107.
PAGE =245=, l. 460. _As matter fit for Chronicle, not verse. _ Compare
_The Canonization_, p. 15, ll. 31-2:
And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove
We'll build in sonnets pretty roomes . . .
God's 'last, and lasting'st peece, a song' is of course Moses' song in
Deuteronomy xxxii: 'Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak,' &c.
l. 467. _Such an opinion (in due measure) made, &c. _ The bracket of
_1611_ makes the sense less ambiguous than the commas of _1633_:
Such an opinion, in due measure, made.
According to the habits of old punctuation, 'in due measure' thus
comma'd off might be an adjunct of 'made me . . . invade'. The bracket
shows that the phrase goes with 'opinion'. 'Such an opinion (with
all due reverence spoken),' &c. Donne finds that he is attributing to
himself the same thoughts as God.
A FUNERALL ELEGIE.
l. 2. _to confine her in a marble chest. _ The 'Funerall Elegie' was
probably the first composed of these poems. Elizabeth Drury's parents
erected over her a very elaborate marble tomb.
PAGE =246=, l. 41. _the Affrique Niger. _ Grosart comments on this: 'A
peculiarity generally given to the Nile; and here perhaps not spoken
of our Niger, but of the Nile before it is so called, when, according
to Pliny (_N. H. _ v. 9), after having twice been underground, and the
second time for twenty days' journey, it issues at the spring Nigris. '
Probably Donne had been reading 'A Geographical Historie of Africa
written in Arabicke by John Leo a More, borne in Granada, and brought
up in Barbarie . . . Translated and collected by Iohn Porie, late of
Gonevill and Caius College in Cambridge, 1600. ' Of the Niger he says:
'This land of Negros hath a mighty river, which taking his name of the
region is called Niger: this river taketh his originall from the east
out of a certain desert called by the foresaide Negros _Sen_ . . . Our
Cosmographers affirme that the said river of Niger is derived out of
Nilus, which they imagine for some certaine space to be swallowed up
of the earth, and yet at last to burst forth into such a lake as
is before mentioned. ' Pory is mentioned occasionally in Donne's
correspondence.
PAGE =247=, l. 50. _An Angell made a Throne, or Cherubin. _ See _Elegy
XI_, ll. 77-8 and note. Donne, like Shakespeare, uses 'Cherubin' as a
singular. There can be no doubt that the lines in _Macbeth_, I. vii.
21-3, should read:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe
Striding the blast, or heavens cherubins horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air, &c.
It is an echo of:
He rode upon the cherubins and did fly;
He came flying upon the wings of the wind.
Psalm xviii. 10.
'Cherubin' is a singular in Shakespeare, and 'cherubim' as a plural he
did not know.
l. 73. _a Lampe of Balsamum_, i. e. burning balsam instead of ordinary
oil: 'And as _Constantine_ ordained, that upon this day' (Christmas
Day), 'the Church should burne no Oyle, but Balsamum in her Lamps, so
let us ever celebrate this day, with a thankfull acknowledgment, that
Christ who is _unctus Domini_, The Anointed of the Lord, hath anointed
us with the Oyle of gladnesse above our fellowes. ' _Sermons_ 80. 7.
72.
ll. 75-7. _Cloath'd in, &c. _ Chambers's arrangement of these lines is
ingenious but, I think, mistaken because it alters the emphasis of the
sentences. The stress is not laid by Donne on her purity, but on her
early death: 'She expir'd while she was still a virgin. She went away
before she was a woman. ' Line 76:
For marriage, though it doe not staine, doth dye.
is a sudden digression. Dryden filches these lines:
All white, a Virgin-Saint, she sought the skies
For Marriage, tho' it sullies not, it dies.
_The Monument of a Faire Maiden Lady. _
PAGE =248=, l. 83. _said History_ is a strange phrase, but it has the
support of all the editions which can be said to have any authority.
l. 92. _and then inferre. _ Compare: 'That this honour might be
inferred on some one of the blood and race of their ancient king. '
Raleigh (O. E. D. ). Donne's sense of 'commit', 'entrust', is not far
from Raleigh's of 'confer', 'bestow', and both are natural extensions
of the common though now obsolete sense, 'bring on, occasion, cause':
Inferre faire Englands peace by this Alliance.
Shakespeare, _Rich. III_, IV. iv. 343.
l. 94. _thus much to die. _ To die so far as this life is concerned.
OF THE PROGRESSE OF THE SOULE.
THE SECOND ANNIVERSARIE.
PAGE =252=, l. 43.
_These Hymnes thy issue, may encrease so long,
As till Gods great Venite change the song_.
This is the punctuation of the editions _1612_ to _1633_. Grosart,
Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor follow the later editions,
_1635-69_, in dropping the comma after 'issue', which thus becomes
object to 'encrease'. 'These hymns may encrease thy issue so long,
&c. ' This does not seem to me to harmonize so well with l. 44 as the
older punctuation of l. 43. 'These Hymns, which are thy issue,
may encrease'(used intransitively, as in the phrase 'increase and
multiply') 'so long as till, &c. ' This suggests that the Hymns
themselves will live and sound in men's ears, quickening in them
virtue and religion, till they are drowned in the greater music of
God's _Venite_. The modern version is compatible with the death of the
hymns, but the survival of their issue.
l. 48. _To th'only Health, to be Hydroptique so. _ Here again Grosart,
Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor have agreed in following the
editions _1625-69_ against the earlier ones, _1612_ and _1621_. These
have connected 'to be Hydroptic so' with what follows:
to be hydroptic so,
Forget this rotten world . . .
But surely the full stop after 'so' in _1612_ is right, and 'to be
Hydroptique so' is Donne's definition of 'th'only Health'. 'Thirst is
the symptom of dropsy; and a continual thirst for God's safe-sealing
bowl is the best symptom of man's spiritual health. '
'Gods safe-sealing bowl' is of course the Eucharist: 'When thou
commest to this seal of thy peace, the Sacrament, pray that God will
give thee that light, that may direct and establish thee, in necessary
and fundamentall things: that is the light of faith to see, that the
Body and Blood of Christ is applied to thee in that action; But
for the manner, how the Body and Bloud of Christ is there, wait his
leisure if he have not yet manifested that to thee. ' _Sermons, &c. _
PAGE =253=, l. 72. _Because shee was the forme, that made it live_:
i. e. the soul of the world. Aquinas, after discussion, accepts the
Aristotelian view that the soul is united to the body as its form,
that in virtue of which the body lives and functions. 'Illud enim quo
primo aliquid operatur, est forma eius cui operatio attribuitur . . .
Manifestum est autem quod primum quo corpus vivit, est anima. Et cum
vita manifestetur secundum diversas operationes, in diversis gradibus
viventium, id quo primo operamur unumquodque horum operum vitae, est
anima. Anima enim est primum quo nutrimur, et sentimus, et movemur
secundum locum, et similiter quo primo intelligimus. Hoc ergo
principium quo primo intelligimus, sive dicatur intellectus, sive
anima intellectiva, est forma corporis. Et haec est demonstratio
Aristotelis in 2 de Anima, text. 24. ' Aquinas goes on to show that
any other relation as of part to whole, or mover to thing moved, is
unthinkable, _Summa_ I. lxxvi. i. Elizabeth Drury in like manner
was the form of the world, that in virtue of which it lived and
functioned.
PAGE =254=, l. 92. _Division_: a series of notes forming one melodic
sequence:
and streightway she
Carves out her dainty voice as readily,
Into a thousand sweet distinguish'd Tones,
And reckons up in soft divisions
Quicke volumes of wild Notes.
Crashaw, _Musicks Duell_.
l. 102. _Satans Sergeants_, i. e. bailiffs, watching to arrest for
debt. Compare:
as this fell Sergeant, Death,
Is strict in his arrest.
Shakespeare, _Hamlet_, V.
l. 120. _but a Saint Lucies night. _ Compare p. 44. 'Saint Lucies
night' is the longest in the year, yet it too passes, is only a night.
Death is a long sleep, yet a sleep from which we shall awaken. So the
Psalmist compares life to 'a watch in the night', which _seems_ so
long and _is_ so short.
ll. 123-6. _Shee whose Complexion, &c. _: i. e. 'in whose temperaments
the humours were in such perfect equilibrium that no one could
overgrow the others and bring dissolution':
What ever dyes, was not mixt equally.
_The good-morrow. _
And see the note to p. 182, ll. 59-62.
PAGE =255=, l. 127. _Mithridate_: a universal antidote or preservative
against poison and infectious diseases, made by the compounding
together of many ingredients. It was also known as 'Theriaca' and
'triacle': 'As it is truly and properly said, that there are more
ingredients, more simples, more means of restoring in our dram of
triacle or mithridate then in an ounce of any particular syrup, in
which there may be 3 or 4, in the other perchance, so many hundred. '
_Sermons_ 26. 20. 286-7. Vipers were added to the other ingredients by
Andromachus, physician to the Emperor Nero, whence the name 'theriaca'
or 'triacle': 'Can an apothecary make a sovereign triacle of Vipers
and other poysons, and cannot God admit offences and scandalls into
his physick. ' _Sermons_ 50. 17. 143. See _To S^r Henry Wotton_, p.
180, l. 18 and note.
ll. 143-6. Compare p. 269, ll. 71-6.
l. 152. _Heaven was content, &c. _ 'And from the days of John the
Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the
violent take it by force. ' Matthew xi. 12.
l. 158. _wast made but in a sinke. _ Compare: 'Formatus est homo . . . de
spurcissimo spermate. ' Pope Innocent, _De Contemptu Mundi_; and
With Goddes owene finger wroght was he,
And nat begeten of mannes sperme unclene.
Chaucer, _Monkes Tale_.
PAGE =256=, ll. 159-62. _Thinke that . . . first of growth. _ According
to Aquinas, who follows Aristotle, the souls of growth, of sense, and
of intelligence are not in man distinct and (as Plato had suggested)
diversely located in the liver, heart, and brain, but are merged in
one: 'Sic igitur anima intellectiva continet in sua virtute quidquid
habet anima sensitiva brutorum et nutritiva plantarum,' _Summa_ I.
lxxvi. 3. He cites Aristotle, _De Anima_, ii. 30-1.
l. 190. _Meteors. _ See note to _The Storme_, l. 13. A meteor was
regarded as due to the effect of the air's cold region on exhalations
from the earth:
If th'Exhalation hot and oily prove,
And yet (as feeble) giveth place above
To th'Airy Regions ever-lasting Frost,
Incessantly th'apt-tinding fume is tost
Till it inflame: then like a Squib it falls,
Or fire-wing'd shaft, or sulphry Powder-Balls.
But if this kind of Exhalation tour
Above the walls of Winters icy bowr
'T-inflameth also; and anon becomes
A new strange Star, presaging wofull dooms.
Sylvester's _Du Bartas. Second Day of the First Weeke. _
i. e. a Meteor below the middle region, it becomes a Comet above.
l. 189 to PAGE =257=, l. 206. Donne summarizes in these lines the old
concentric arrangement of the Universe as we find it in Dante. Leaving
the elements of earth and water the soul passes through the regions of
the air (including the central one where snow and hail and meteors
are generated), and through the element of fire to the Moon, thence
to Mercury, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Firmament of the
fixed stars. He has already indicated (p. 237, ll. 205 f. ) how this
arrangement is being disturbed by 'the New Philosophy'.
l. 192. _Whether th'ayres middle region be intense. _ Compare:
th'ayres middle marble roome.
_The Storme_, p. 175, l. 14.
PAGE =257=, ll. 219-20. _This must, my Soule, &c. _ This is the
punctuation of _1612-25_: _1633_ and all the later editions change
as in the note. Chambers and Grolier follow suit. It is clearly a
corruption. The 'long-short Progresse' is the passage to heaven
which has been described. A new thought begins with 'T'advance these
thoughts'. Grosart puts a colon after (l. 219) 'bee', but as he also
places a semicolon after (l. 220) 'T'advance these thoughts' it is not
quite clear how he reads the lines. The mistake seems to have arisen
from forgetting that the 'she' whose progress has been described is
not Elizabeth Drury but the poet's own soul emancipated by death.
PAGE =258=, ll. 236-40. _The Tutelar Angels, &c. _ 'And it is as
imperfect which is taught by that religion which is most accommodate
to sense . . . That all mankinde hath one protecting Angel; all
Christians one other, all English one other, all of one Corporation
and every civill coagulation of society one other; and every man one
other. ' _Letters_, p. 43. Aquinas insists (_Summa_ I. cxiii) on the
assignment of a guardian angel to every individual. He mentions also,
following St. Gregory, the guardian angel assigned to the Kingdom of
the Persians (Dan. x. 13).
l. 242. _Her body was the Electrum. _ 'The ancient Electrum', Bacon
says, 'had in it a fifth of silver to the Gold. ' Her body, then, is
not pure gold, but an alloy in which are many degrees of gold. In
Paracelsus' works, Electrum is the middle substance between ore and
metal, neither wholly perfect nor altogether imperfect. It is on
the way to perfection. _The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of . . .
Paracelsus_, Arthur E. Waite, 1894. 'Christ is not that Spectrum that
_Damascene_ speaks of, nor that Electrum that _Tertullian_ speakes of
. . . a third metall made of two other metals. ' Donne, _Sermons_ 80. 40.
397.
PAGE =259=, l. 270. _breake. _ Here--as at p. 260, l. 326, 'choose'--I
have reverted to the spelling of _1612_.
l. 292. _by sense, and Fantasie_: i. e. by sense and the phantasmata
which are conveyed by the senses to the intellect to work upon. See
Aristotle, _De Anima_, iii. and Aquinas, _Summa_ I. lxxxv. i. Angels
obtain their knowledge of material things through immaterial, i. e.
through Ideas. Their knowledge is immediate, not as ours mediate, by
sense and ratiocination, 'collections'.
PAGE =261=, l. 342. _Joy in not being that, which men have said_ 'Joy
in not being "sine labe concepta", for then she would have had no
virtue in being good. ' Norton. Her own goodness has gained for her a
higher exaltation than the adventitious honour of being the Mother of
God.
ll. 343-4. _Where she is exalted more for being good,
Then for her interest of Mother-hood. _
'Scriptum est in Evangelio, quod mater et fratres Christi, hoc
est consanguinei carnis eius, cum illi nuntiati fuissent, et foris
exspectarent, quia non possent eum adire prae turba, ille respondit:
_Quae est mater mea, aut qui sunt fratres mei? Et extendens manum
super discipulos suos, ait: Hi sunt fratres mei; et quicumque fecerit
voluntatem Patris mei, ipse mihi frater, et mater, et soror est_
(Matt. xii. 46-50). Quid aliud nos docens, nisi carnali cognationi
genus nostrum spirituale praeponere; nec inde beatos esse homines,
si iustis et sanctis carnis propinquitate iunguntur, sed si eorum
doctrinae ac moribus obediendo atque imitando cohaerescunt? _Beatior
ergo Maria percipiendo fidem Christi, quam concipiendo carnem
Christi. _ Nam et dicenti cuidam, _Beatus venter qui te portavit_; ipse
respondit, _Imo beati qui audiunt verbum Dei, et custodiunt_' (Luc.
xi. 27, 28), Augustini _De Sancta Virginitate_, I. 3. (Migne, 40.
397-8. ) If a Protestant in the previous two lines, Donne is here as
sound a Catholic as St. Augustine.
l. 354. _joyntenants with the Holy Ghost. _ 'We acknowledge the Church
to be the house _onely_ of God, and that we admit no Saint, no Martyr,
to be a _Iointenant_ with him. ' _Sermons_ 50. 21. 86.
l. 360. _royalties_: i. e. the prerogatives, rights, or privileges
pertaining to the sovereign. Donne here enumerates them as the power
to make war and conclude peace, uncontrolled authority ('the King
can do no wrong'), the administration of justice, the dispensing of
pardon, coining money, and the granting of protection against legal
arrest.
PAGE =262=, l. 369.
character rather than adverbial: 'Immediatli at next to the now bifore
alleggid text of Peter this proces folewith. ' Donne's use seems to
correspond exactly to the Anglo-Saxon: 'Johannes ða ofhreow þaēre
mēden and ðaera licmanna drēorignysse, and āstrehte his
licaman tō eorðan on langsumum gebēde, and ða _aet nēxtan_
āras, and eft upahafenum handum langlice baed. ' Aelfric (Sweet's
_Anglo-Saxon Reader_, 1894, p. 67). But 'at next' in the poem possibly
does not mean simply 'next', but 'immediately', i. e. 'the first thing
he said would have been . . . '
l. 314. _Resultances_: i. e. productions of, or emanations from, her.
'She is the harmony from which proceeds that harmony of our bodies
which is their soul. ' Donne uses the word also in the sense of
'the sum or gist of a thing': 'He speakes out of the strength and
resultance of many lawes and Canons there alleadged. ' _Pseudo-martyr_,
p. 245; and Walton says that Donne 'left the resultance of 1400
Authors, most of them abridged and analysed with his own hand. ' _Life_
(1675), p. 60. He is probably using Donne's own title.
PAGE =241=, l. 318. _That th'Arke to mans proportions was made. _ The
following quotation from St. Augustine will show that the plural
of _1611-12_ is right, and what Donne had in view. St. Augustine is
speaking of the Ark as a type of the Church: 'Procul dubio figura est
peregrinantis in hoc seculo Civitatis Dei, hoc est Ecclesiae, quae fit
salva per lignum in quo pependit Mediator Dei et hominum, homo
Iesus Christus. (1 Tim. ii. 5. ) Nam et mensurae ipsae longitudinis,
altitudinis, latitudinis eius, significant corpus humanum, in cuius
veritate ad homines praenuntiatus est venturus, et venit. Humani
quippe corporis longitudo a vertice usque ad vestigia sexies tantum
habet, quam latitudo, quae est ab uno latere ad alterum latus, et
decies tantum, quam altitudo, cuius altitudinis mensura est in latere
a dorso ad ventrem: velut si iacentem hominem metiaris supinum, seu
pronum, sexies tantum longus est a capite ad pedes, quam latus a
dextra in sinistram, vel a sinistra in dextram, et decies, quam altus
a terra. Unde facta est arca trecentorum in longitudine cubitorum, et
quinquaginta in latitudine, et triginta in altitudine. ' _De Civitate
Dei_, XV. 26.
PAGE =242=, ll. 377-80. _Nor in ought more, &c. _ 'The father' is the
Heavens, i. e. the various heavenly bodies moving in their spheres;
'the mother', the earth:
As the bright Sun shines through the smoothest Glasse
The turning Planets influence doth passe
Without impeachment through the glistering Tent
Of the tralucing (_French_ diafane) Fiery Element,
The Aires triple Regions, the transparent Water;
But not the firm base of this faire Theater.
And therefore rightly may we call those Trines
(Fire, Aire and Water) but Heav'ns Concubines:
For, never Sun, nor Moon, nor Stars injoy
The love of these, but only by the way,
As passing by: whereas incessantly
The lusty Heav'n with Earth doth company;
And with a fruitfull seed which lends All life,
With childes each moment, his own lawfull wife;
And with her lovely Babes, in form and nature
So divers, decks this beautiful Theater.
Sylvester, _Du Bartas, Second Day, First Week. _
PAGE =243=, l. 389. _new wormes_: probably serpents, such as were
described in new books of travels.
l. 394. _Imprisoned in an Hearbe, or Charme, or Tree. _ Compare _A
Valediction: of my name, in the window_, p. 27, ll. 33-6:
As all the vertuous powers which are
Fix'd in the starres, are said to flow
Into such characters, as graved bee
When these starres have supremacie.
l. 409. _But as some Serpents poyson, &c. _ Compare: 'But though all
knowledge be in those Authors already, yet, as some poisons, and some
medicines, hurt not, nor profit, except the creature in which they
reside, contribute their lively activitie and vigor; so, much of the
knowledge buried in Books perisheth, and becomes ineffectuall, if it
be not applied, and refreshed by a companion, or friend. Much of their
goodnesse hath the same period which some Physicians of _Italy_ have
observed to be in the biting of their _Tarentola_, that it affects no
longer, then the flie lives. ' _Letters_, p. 107.
PAGE =245=, l. 460. _As matter fit for Chronicle, not verse. _ Compare
_The Canonization_, p. 15, ll. 31-2:
And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove
We'll build in sonnets pretty roomes . . .
God's 'last, and lasting'st peece, a song' is of course Moses' song in
Deuteronomy xxxii: 'Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak,' &c.
l. 467. _Such an opinion (in due measure) made, &c. _ The bracket of
_1611_ makes the sense less ambiguous than the commas of _1633_:
Such an opinion, in due measure, made.
According to the habits of old punctuation, 'in due measure' thus
comma'd off might be an adjunct of 'made me . . . invade'. The bracket
shows that the phrase goes with 'opinion'. 'Such an opinion (with
all due reverence spoken),' &c. Donne finds that he is attributing to
himself the same thoughts as God.
A FUNERALL ELEGIE.
l. 2. _to confine her in a marble chest. _ The 'Funerall Elegie' was
probably the first composed of these poems. Elizabeth Drury's parents
erected over her a very elaborate marble tomb.
PAGE =246=, l. 41. _the Affrique Niger. _ Grosart comments on this: 'A
peculiarity generally given to the Nile; and here perhaps not spoken
of our Niger, but of the Nile before it is so called, when, according
to Pliny (_N. H. _ v. 9), after having twice been underground, and the
second time for twenty days' journey, it issues at the spring Nigris. '
Probably Donne had been reading 'A Geographical Historie of Africa
written in Arabicke by John Leo a More, borne in Granada, and brought
up in Barbarie . . . Translated and collected by Iohn Porie, late of
Gonevill and Caius College in Cambridge, 1600. ' Of the Niger he says:
'This land of Negros hath a mighty river, which taking his name of the
region is called Niger: this river taketh his originall from the east
out of a certain desert called by the foresaide Negros _Sen_ . . . Our
Cosmographers affirme that the said river of Niger is derived out of
Nilus, which they imagine for some certaine space to be swallowed up
of the earth, and yet at last to burst forth into such a lake as
is before mentioned. ' Pory is mentioned occasionally in Donne's
correspondence.
PAGE =247=, l. 50. _An Angell made a Throne, or Cherubin. _ See _Elegy
XI_, ll. 77-8 and note. Donne, like Shakespeare, uses 'Cherubin' as a
singular. There can be no doubt that the lines in _Macbeth_, I. vii.
21-3, should read:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe
Striding the blast, or heavens cherubins horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air, &c.
It is an echo of:
He rode upon the cherubins and did fly;
He came flying upon the wings of the wind.
Psalm xviii. 10.
'Cherubin' is a singular in Shakespeare, and 'cherubim' as a plural he
did not know.
l. 73. _a Lampe of Balsamum_, i. e. burning balsam instead of ordinary
oil: 'And as _Constantine_ ordained, that upon this day' (Christmas
Day), 'the Church should burne no Oyle, but Balsamum in her Lamps, so
let us ever celebrate this day, with a thankfull acknowledgment, that
Christ who is _unctus Domini_, The Anointed of the Lord, hath anointed
us with the Oyle of gladnesse above our fellowes. ' _Sermons_ 80. 7.
72.
ll. 75-7. _Cloath'd in, &c. _ Chambers's arrangement of these lines is
ingenious but, I think, mistaken because it alters the emphasis of the
sentences. The stress is not laid by Donne on her purity, but on her
early death: 'She expir'd while she was still a virgin. She went away
before she was a woman. ' Line 76:
For marriage, though it doe not staine, doth dye.
is a sudden digression. Dryden filches these lines:
All white, a Virgin-Saint, she sought the skies
For Marriage, tho' it sullies not, it dies.
_The Monument of a Faire Maiden Lady. _
PAGE =248=, l. 83. _said History_ is a strange phrase, but it has the
support of all the editions which can be said to have any authority.
l. 92. _and then inferre. _ Compare: 'That this honour might be
inferred on some one of the blood and race of their ancient king. '
Raleigh (O. E. D. ). Donne's sense of 'commit', 'entrust', is not far
from Raleigh's of 'confer', 'bestow', and both are natural extensions
of the common though now obsolete sense, 'bring on, occasion, cause':
Inferre faire Englands peace by this Alliance.
Shakespeare, _Rich. III_, IV. iv. 343.
l. 94. _thus much to die. _ To die so far as this life is concerned.
OF THE PROGRESSE OF THE SOULE.
THE SECOND ANNIVERSARIE.
PAGE =252=, l. 43.
_These Hymnes thy issue, may encrease so long,
As till Gods great Venite change the song_.
This is the punctuation of the editions _1612_ to _1633_. Grosart,
Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor follow the later editions,
_1635-69_, in dropping the comma after 'issue', which thus becomes
object to 'encrease'. 'These hymns may encrease thy issue so long,
&c. ' This does not seem to me to harmonize so well with l. 44 as the
older punctuation of l. 43. 'These Hymns, which are thy issue,
may encrease'(used intransitively, as in the phrase 'increase and
multiply') 'so long as till, &c. ' This suggests that the Hymns
themselves will live and sound in men's ears, quickening in them
virtue and religion, till they are drowned in the greater music of
God's _Venite_. The modern version is compatible with the death of the
hymns, but the survival of their issue.
l. 48. _To th'only Health, to be Hydroptique so. _ Here again Grosart,
Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor have agreed in following the
editions _1625-69_ against the earlier ones, _1612_ and _1621_. These
have connected 'to be Hydroptic so' with what follows:
to be hydroptic so,
Forget this rotten world . . .
But surely the full stop after 'so' in _1612_ is right, and 'to be
Hydroptique so' is Donne's definition of 'th'only Health'. 'Thirst is
the symptom of dropsy; and a continual thirst for God's safe-sealing
bowl is the best symptom of man's spiritual health. '
'Gods safe-sealing bowl' is of course the Eucharist: 'When thou
commest to this seal of thy peace, the Sacrament, pray that God will
give thee that light, that may direct and establish thee, in necessary
and fundamentall things: that is the light of faith to see, that the
Body and Blood of Christ is applied to thee in that action; But
for the manner, how the Body and Bloud of Christ is there, wait his
leisure if he have not yet manifested that to thee. ' _Sermons, &c. _
PAGE =253=, l. 72. _Because shee was the forme, that made it live_:
i. e. the soul of the world. Aquinas, after discussion, accepts the
Aristotelian view that the soul is united to the body as its form,
that in virtue of which the body lives and functions. 'Illud enim quo
primo aliquid operatur, est forma eius cui operatio attribuitur . . .
Manifestum est autem quod primum quo corpus vivit, est anima. Et cum
vita manifestetur secundum diversas operationes, in diversis gradibus
viventium, id quo primo operamur unumquodque horum operum vitae, est
anima. Anima enim est primum quo nutrimur, et sentimus, et movemur
secundum locum, et similiter quo primo intelligimus. Hoc ergo
principium quo primo intelligimus, sive dicatur intellectus, sive
anima intellectiva, est forma corporis. Et haec est demonstratio
Aristotelis in 2 de Anima, text. 24. ' Aquinas goes on to show that
any other relation as of part to whole, or mover to thing moved, is
unthinkable, _Summa_ I. lxxvi. i. Elizabeth Drury in like manner
was the form of the world, that in virtue of which it lived and
functioned.
PAGE =254=, l. 92. _Division_: a series of notes forming one melodic
sequence:
and streightway she
Carves out her dainty voice as readily,
Into a thousand sweet distinguish'd Tones,
And reckons up in soft divisions
Quicke volumes of wild Notes.
Crashaw, _Musicks Duell_.
l. 102. _Satans Sergeants_, i. e. bailiffs, watching to arrest for
debt. Compare:
as this fell Sergeant, Death,
Is strict in his arrest.
Shakespeare, _Hamlet_, V.
l. 120. _but a Saint Lucies night. _ Compare p. 44. 'Saint Lucies
night' is the longest in the year, yet it too passes, is only a night.
Death is a long sleep, yet a sleep from which we shall awaken. So the
Psalmist compares life to 'a watch in the night', which _seems_ so
long and _is_ so short.
ll. 123-6. _Shee whose Complexion, &c. _: i. e. 'in whose temperaments
the humours were in such perfect equilibrium that no one could
overgrow the others and bring dissolution':
What ever dyes, was not mixt equally.
_The good-morrow. _
And see the note to p. 182, ll. 59-62.
PAGE =255=, l. 127. _Mithridate_: a universal antidote or preservative
against poison and infectious diseases, made by the compounding
together of many ingredients. It was also known as 'Theriaca' and
'triacle': 'As it is truly and properly said, that there are more
ingredients, more simples, more means of restoring in our dram of
triacle or mithridate then in an ounce of any particular syrup, in
which there may be 3 or 4, in the other perchance, so many hundred. '
_Sermons_ 26. 20. 286-7. Vipers were added to the other ingredients by
Andromachus, physician to the Emperor Nero, whence the name 'theriaca'
or 'triacle': 'Can an apothecary make a sovereign triacle of Vipers
and other poysons, and cannot God admit offences and scandalls into
his physick. ' _Sermons_ 50. 17. 143. See _To S^r Henry Wotton_, p.
180, l. 18 and note.
ll. 143-6. Compare p. 269, ll. 71-6.
l. 152. _Heaven was content, &c. _ 'And from the days of John the
Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the
violent take it by force. ' Matthew xi. 12.
l. 158. _wast made but in a sinke. _ Compare: 'Formatus est homo . . . de
spurcissimo spermate. ' Pope Innocent, _De Contemptu Mundi_; and
With Goddes owene finger wroght was he,
And nat begeten of mannes sperme unclene.
Chaucer, _Monkes Tale_.
PAGE =256=, ll. 159-62. _Thinke that . . . first of growth. _ According
to Aquinas, who follows Aristotle, the souls of growth, of sense, and
of intelligence are not in man distinct and (as Plato had suggested)
diversely located in the liver, heart, and brain, but are merged in
one: 'Sic igitur anima intellectiva continet in sua virtute quidquid
habet anima sensitiva brutorum et nutritiva plantarum,' _Summa_ I.
lxxvi. 3. He cites Aristotle, _De Anima_, ii. 30-1.
l. 190. _Meteors. _ See note to _The Storme_, l. 13. A meteor was
regarded as due to the effect of the air's cold region on exhalations
from the earth:
If th'Exhalation hot and oily prove,
And yet (as feeble) giveth place above
To th'Airy Regions ever-lasting Frost,
Incessantly th'apt-tinding fume is tost
Till it inflame: then like a Squib it falls,
Or fire-wing'd shaft, or sulphry Powder-Balls.
But if this kind of Exhalation tour
Above the walls of Winters icy bowr
'T-inflameth also; and anon becomes
A new strange Star, presaging wofull dooms.
Sylvester's _Du Bartas. Second Day of the First Weeke. _
i. e. a Meteor below the middle region, it becomes a Comet above.
l. 189 to PAGE =257=, l. 206. Donne summarizes in these lines the old
concentric arrangement of the Universe as we find it in Dante. Leaving
the elements of earth and water the soul passes through the regions of
the air (including the central one where snow and hail and meteors
are generated), and through the element of fire to the Moon, thence
to Mercury, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Firmament of the
fixed stars. He has already indicated (p. 237, ll. 205 f. ) how this
arrangement is being disturbed by 'the New Philosophy'.
l. 192. _Whether th'ayres middle region be intense. _ Compare:
th'ayres middle marble roome.
_The Storme_, p. 175, l. 14.
PAGE =257=, ll. 219-20. _This must, my Soule, &c. _ This is the
punctuation of _1612-25_: _1633_ and all the later editions change
as in the note. Chambers and Grolier follow suit. It is clearly a
corruption. The 'long-short Progresse' is the passage to heaven
which has been described. A new thought begins with 'T'advance these
thoughts'. Grosart puts a colon after (l. 219) 'bee', but as he also
places a semicolon after (l. 220) 'T'advance these thoughts' it is not
quite clear how he reads the lines. The mistake seems to have arisen
from forgetting that the 'she' whose progress has been described is
not Elizabeth Drury but the poet's own soul emancipated by death.
PAGE =258=, ll. 236-40. _The Tutelar Angels, &c. _ 'And it is as
imperfect which is taught by that religion which is most accommodate
to sense . . . That all mankinde hath one protecting Angel; all
Christians one other, all English one other, all of one Corporation
and every civill coagulation of society one other; and every man one
other. ' _Letters_, p. 43. Aquinas insists (_Summa_ I. cxiii) on the
assignment of a guardian angel to every individual. He mentions also,
following St. Gregory, the guardian angel assigned to the Kingdom of
the Persians (Dan. x. 13).
l. 242. _Her body was the Electrum. _ 'The ancient Electrum', Bacon
says, 'had in it a fifth of silver to the Gold. ' Her body, then, is
not pure gold, but an alloy in which are many degrees of gold. In
Paracelsus' works, Electrum is the middle substance between ore and
metal, neither wholly perfect nor altogether imperfect. It is on
the way to perfection. _The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of . . .
Paracelsus_, Arthur E. Waite, 1894. 'Christ is not that Spectrum that
_Damascene_ speaks of, nor that Electrum that _Tertullian_ speakes of
. . . a third metall made of two other metals. ' Donne, _Sermons_ 80. 40.
397.
PAGE =259=, l. 270. _breake. _ Here--as at p. 260, l. 326, 'choose'--I
have reverted to the spelling of _1612_.
l. 292. _by sense, and Fantasie_: i. e. by sense and the phantasmata
which are conveyed by the senses to the intellect to work upon. See
Aristotle, _De Anima_, iii. and Aquinas, _Summa_ I. lxxxv. i. Angels
obtain their knowledge of material things through immaterial, i. e.
through Ideas. Their knowledge is immediate, not as ours mediate, by
sense and ratiocination, 'collections'.
PAGE =261=, l. 342. _Joy in not being that, which men have said_ 'Joy
in not being "sine labe concepta", for then she would have had no
virtue in being good. ' Norton. Her own goodness has gained for her a
higher exaltation than the adventitious honour of being the Mother of
God.
ll. 343-4. _Where she is exalted more for being good,
Then for her interest of Mother-hood. _
'Scriptum est in Evangelio, quod mater et fratres Christi, hoc
est consanguinei carnis eius, cum illi nuntiati fuissent, et foris
exspectarent, quia non possent eum adire prae turba, ille respondit:
_Quae est mater mea, aut qui sunt fratres mei? Et extendens manum
super discipulos suos, ait: Hi sunt fratres mei; et quicumque fecerit
voluntatem Patris mei, ipse mihi frater, et mater, et soror est_
(Matt. xii. 46-50). Quid aliud nos docens, nisi carnali cognationi
genus nostrum spirituale praeponere; nec inde beatos esse homines,
si iustis et sanctis carnis propinquitate iunguntur, sed si eorum
doctrinae ac moribus obediendo atque imitando cohaerescunt? _Beatior
ergo Maria percipiendo fidem Christi, quam concipiendo carnem
Christi. _ Nam et dicenti cuidam, _Beatus venter qui te portavit_; ipse
respondit, _Imo beati qui audiunt verbum Dei, et custodiunt_' (Luc.
xi. 27, 28), Augustini _De Sancta Virginitate_, I. 3. (Migne, 40.
397-8. ) If a Protestant in the previous two lines, Donne is here as
sound a Catholic as St. Augustine.
l. 354. _joyntenants with the Holy Ghost. _ 'We acknowledge the Church
to be the house _onely_ of God, and that we admit no Saint, no Martyr,
to be a _Iointenant_ with him. ' _Sermons_ 50. 21. 86.
l. 360. _royalties_: i. e. the prerogatives, rights, or privileges
pertaining to the sovereign. Donne here enumerates them as the power
to make war and conclude peace, uncontrolled authority ('the King
can do no wrong'), the administration of justice, the dispensing of
pardon, coining money, and the granting of protection against legal
arrest.
PAGE =262=, l. 369.
