The 'when' links the
statement
'the
pale wretch shivered' to what precedes, not to what follows.
pale wretch shivered' to what precedes, not to what follows.
John Donne
Du Bartas' source is probably:
Quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis
Multa elementa vides multis communia verbis,
Cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necessest
Confiteare et re et sonitu distare sonanti,
Tantum elementa queunt permutato ordine solo.
Lucretius, _De Rerum Natura_, I. 824-7.
Compare Aristotle, _De Gen. et Corr. _ I. 2.
l. 22. _unfit. _ I have changed the semicolon after this word to a full
stop. The former suggests that the next two lines are an expansion
or explanation of this statement. But the poet is giving a series of
different reasons why Flavia may be loved.
ll. 41-2. _When Belgias citties, the round countries drowne,
That durty foulenesse guards, and armes the towne:_
Chambers, adopting a composite text from editions and MSS. , reads:
Like Belgia' cities the round country drowns,
That dirty foulness guards and arms the towns.
Here 'the round country drowns' is an adjectival clause with the
relative suppressed. But if the country actually drowned the cities
the protector would be as dangerous as the enemy. The best MSS. agree
with _1633-54_, and the sentence, though a little obscure, is probably
correct: 'When the Belgian cities, to keep at bay their foes, drown
(i. e. flood) the neighbouring countries, the foulness thus produced
is their protection. ' The 'cities' I take to be the subject. The
reference is to their opening the sluices. See Motley's _Rise of the
Dutch Republic_, the account of the sieges of Alkmaar and Leyden.
'The Drowned Land' ('Het verdronken land') was the name given to land
overflowed by the bursting of the dykes.
PAGE =82=. ELEGIE III.
l. 5. _forc'd unto none_ is a strange expression, and the 'forbid
to none' of _B_ is an attempt to emend it; but 'forc'd unto none'
probably means 'not bound by compulsion to be faithful to any'. In
woman's love and in the arts you may always expect to be ousted from
a favoured position by a successful rival. No one has in these a
monopoly:
Is sibi responsum hoc habeat, in medio omnibus
Palmam esse positam, qui artem tractant musicam.
Ter. _Phorm. _ Prol. 16-17.
l. 8. _these meanes, as I,_ It is difficult to say whether the 'these'
of the editions and of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ or the 'those' of the rest of
the MSS. is preferable. The construction with either in the sense of
'the same as', 'such as', was not uncommon:
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.
Shakespeare, _Jul. Caes. _ I. ii. 174.
l. 17. _Who hath a plow-land, &c. _ This has nothing to do, as Grosart
seems to think, with the name for a certain measurement of land in the
north of England corresponding to a hide in the south. A 'plow-land'
here is an arable or cultivated field. Possibly the 'a' has crept in
and one should read simply 'plow-land', or, like _P_, 'plow-lands. '
Otherwise 'Who hath' is to be slurred in reading the line. The meaning
of the passage seems to be that though a man puts all his own seed
into his land, he is quite willing to reap the corn which has sprung
from others' seed, brought thither, it may be, by wind or birds.
l. 30. _To runne all countries, a wild roguery. _ The Oxford English
Dictionary quotes this line, giving to 'roguery' the meaning of 'a
knavish, rascally act'. But Grosart is certainly right in explaining
it as 'vagrancy'. In love, Donne does not wish to be a captive bound
to one, but he does not wish on the other hand to be a vagrant with
no settled abode. The O. E. D. dates the poem c. 1620, which is much too
late. Donne was not writing in this manner after he took orders. It
cannot be later than 1601, and is probably earlier.
l. 32. _more putrifi'd_, or, as in the MSS. , 'worse putrifi'd. '
The latter is probably correct, but the difference is trifling. By
'putrifi'd' Donne means 'made salt' and so less fit for drinking. The
'purifi'd' of some editions points to a misunderstanding of Donne's
meaning; for saltness and putrefaction were not identical: 'For Salt
as incorruptible was the Symbol of friendship, and before the other
service was offered unto their guests. ' Browne, _Vulgar Errors_, v.
22.
PAGE =84=. ELEGIE IV.
l. 2. _All thy suppos'd escapes. _ He is addressing the lady. All her
supposed transgressions (e. g. of chastity) are laid to the poet's
charge. 'Escape' = 'An inconsiderate transgression; a peccadillo,
venial error. (In Shaks. with different notion: an outrageous
transgression. ) Applied _esp. _ to breaches of chastity. ' O. E. D. It is
probably in Shakespeare's sense that Donne uses the word:
_Brabantio. _ For your sake, jewel,
I am glad at soul I have no other child;
For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
To hang clogs on them.
Shakespeare, _Othello_, I. iii. 195-8.
ll. 7-8.
_Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,
As though he came to kill a Cockatrice,_
i. e. 'with staring eyes'. I take 'glazed' to be the past participle of
the verb 'glaze', 'to stare':
I met a lion
Who glaz'd upon me, and went surly by,
Without annoying me.
Shakespeare, _Jul. Caes. _ I. iii. 20-2.
The past participle is thus used by Shakespeare in: 'With time's
deformed hand' (_Com. of Err. _ V. i. 298), i. e. 'deforming hand';
'deserved children' (_Cor. _ III. i. 292), i. e. 'deserving'. See Franz,
_Shakespeare-Grammatik_, ? 661.
The Cockatrice or Basilisk killed by a glance of its eye:
Here with a cockatrice dead-killing eye
He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause.
Shakespeare, _Lucrece_, 540-1.
The eye of the man who comes to kill a cockatrice stares with terror
lest he be stricken himself.
If 'glazed' meant 'covered with a film', an adverbial complement would
be needed:
For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears.
Shakespeare, _Rich. II_, II. ii. 16.
ll. 9, 15. _have . . . take. _ I have noted the subjunctive forms
found in certain MSS. , because this is undoubtedly Donne's usual
construction. In a full analysis that I have made of Donne's syntax in
the poems I have found over ninety examples of the subjunctive against
seven of the indicative in concessive adverbial clauses. In these
ninety are many where the concession is an admitted fact, e. g.
Though her eyes be small, her mouth is great.
_Elegie II_, 3 ff.
Though poetry indeed be such a sin.
_Satire II_, 5.
Of the seven, two are these doubtful examples here noted; one, where
the subjunctive would be more appropriate, is due to the rhyme.
ll. 10-11. _Thy beauties beautie, and food of our love,
Hope of his goods. _
Grosart is puzzled by this phrase and explains 'beauties beautie' as
'the beauty of thy various beauties' (face, arms, shape, &c. ). I fear
that Donne means that the beauty which he most loves in his mistress
is her hope or prospect of obtaining her father's goods. The whole
poem is in a vein of extravagant and cynical wit. It must not be taken
too seriously.
l. 22. _palenesse, blushing, sighs, and sweats. _ All the MSS. read
'blushings', which is very probably correct, but I have left the two
singulars to balance the two plurals. But the use of abstract nouns
as common is a feature of Donne's syntax: 'We would not dwell upon
increpations, and chidings, and bitternesses; we would pierce but so
deepe as might make you search your wounds, when you come home to your
Chamber, to bring you to a tendernesse there, not to a palenesse or
blushing here. ' _Sermons_ 80. 61. 611.
l. 29. _ingled_: i. e. fondled, caressed. O. E. D.
ll. 33-4. _He that to barre the first gate, doth as wide
As the great Rhodian Colossus stride. _
Porters seem to have been chosen for their size. Compare: 'Those
big fellows that stand like Gyants (at Lords Gates) having bellies
bumbasted with ale in Lambswool and with Sacks. ' Dekker.
l. 37. _were hir'd to this. _ All the MSS. read 'for this', but 'to'
is quite Elizabethan, and gives the meaning more exactly. He was not
taken on as a servant for this purpose, but was specially paid for
this piece of work:
This naughty man
Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,
Who I believe was pack'd in all this wrong,
Hir'd to it by your brother.
Shakespeare, _Much Ado_, V. i. 307.
l. 44. _the pale wretch shivered. _ I have (with the support of the
best MSS. ) changed the semicolon to a full stop here, not that as
the punctuation of the editions goes it is wrong, but because it is
ambiguous and has misled both Chambers and the Grolier Club editor.
By changing the semicolon to a comma they make ll. 43-4 an adverbial
clause of time which, with the conditional clause 'Had it beene some
bad smell', modifies 'he would have thought . . . had wrought'. This
seems to me out of the question.
The 'when' links the statement 'the
pale wretch shivered' to what precedes, not to what follows. As soon
as the perfume reached his nose he shivered, knowing what it meant. A
new thought begins with 'Had it been some bad smell'.
The use of the semicolon, as at one time equivalent to a little less
than a full stop, at another to a little more than a comma, leads
occasionally to these ambiguities. The few changes which I have
made in the punctuation of this poem have been made with a view to
obtaining a little more consistency and clearness without violating
the principles of seventeenth-century punctuation.
l. 49. _The precious Vnicornes. _ See Browne, _Vulgar Errors_, iii. 23:
'Great account and much profit is made of _Unicornes horn_, at least
of that which beareth the name thereof,' &c. He speaks later of the
various objects 'extolled for precious Horns'; and Donne's epithet
doubtless has the same application, i. e. to the horns.
PAGE =86=. ELEGIE V.
l. 8. _With cares rash sodaine stormes being o'rspread. _ I have
let the _1633_ reading stand, though I feel sure that Donne is not
responsible for 'being o'rspread'. Printing from _D_, _H49_, _Lec_,
in which probably the word 'cruel' had been dropped, the editor or
printer supplied 'being' to adjust the metre. I have not corrected it
because I am not sure which is Donne's version. Clearly the line has
undergone some remodelling. My own view is that the earliest form is
suggested by _B_, _S_, _S96_,
With Cares rash sudden storms o'rpressed,
where 'o'erpress' means 'conquer, overwhelm'. Compare Shakespeare's
but in my sight
Deare heart forbear to glance thine eye aside.
What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o'erprest defence can bide.
_Sonnets_, 139. 8.
He bestrid an o'erpressed Roman.
_Coriolanus_, II. ii. 97.
To begin with, Donne described his grey hairs by a bold synecdoche,
leaving the greyness to be inferred: 'My head o'erwhelmed,
o'ermastered by Cares storms. ' But 'o'erpressed' was harshly used and
was easily changed to 'o'erspread', which was made more appropriate by
substituting the effect, 'hoariness,' for the cause, 'Cares storms. '
This is what we find in _JC_ and such a good MS. as _W_:
With cares rash sudden horiness o'erspread.
In _B_ and _P_ 'cruel' has been inserted to complete the verse
when 'o'erpressed' was contracted to 'o'erprest' or changed to
'o'erspread'. In _1635-69_ the somewhat redundant 'rash' has been
altered to 'harsh'.
With cares harsh, sodaine horinesse o'rspread.
The image is more easily apprehended, and this may be Donne's final
version, but the original (if my view is correct) was bolder, and more
in the style of Shakespeare's
That time of yeeare thou maist in me behold,
When yellow leaues, or none, or few doe hange
Vpon those boughes which shake against the could,
Bare ruin'd quiers, where late the sweet birds sang.
_Sonnets_, 72. 1-4.
l. 16. _Should now love lesse, what hee did love to see. _ Here again
there has been some recasting of the original by Donne or an editor.
Most MSS. read:
Should like and love less what hee did love to see.
To 'like and love' was an Elizabethan combination:
And yet we both make shew we like and love.
Farmer, _Chetham MS. _ (ed. Grosart), i. 90.
Yet every one her likte, and every one her lov'd.
Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, III. ix. 24.
Donne or his editor has made the line smoother.
l. 20. _To feed on that, which to disused tasts seems tough. _ I have
made the line an Alexandrine by printing 'disused', which occurs in
_A25_ and _B_, but it is 'disus'd' in the editions and most MSS. The
'weak' of _1650-69_ adjusts the metre, but for that very reason one
a little suspects an editor. Donne certainly wrote 'disus'd' or
'disused'. Who changed it to 'weak' is not so certain. The meaning of
'disused' is, of course, 'unaccustomed. ' The O. E. D. quotes: 'I can
nat shote nowe but with great payne, I am so disused. ' Palsgr. (1530).
'Many disused persons can mutter out some honest requests in secret. '
Baxter, _Reformed Pastor_ (1656).
It seems to me probable that _P_ preserves an early form of these
lines:
who now is grown tough enough
To feed on that which to disused tastes seems rough.
The epithet 'tough' is appropriately enough applied to Love's
mature as opposed to his childish constitution, while rough has the
recognized sense of 'sharp, acid, or harsh to the taste'. The O. E. D.
quotes: 'Harshe, rough, stipticke, and hard wine,' Stubbs (1583).
'The roughest berry on the rudest hedge', Shakespeare, _Antony and
Cleopatra_, I. iv. 64 (1608).
Possibly Donne changed 'tough' to 'strong' in order to avoid the
monotonous sound of 'tough enough . . . rough', and this ultimately led
to the substitution of 'weak' for 'disused'. The present close of the
last line I find it difficult to away with. How can a thing seem tough
to the taste? Even meat does not _taste_ tough: and it is not of meat
that Donne is thinking but of wine. I should be disposed to return
to the reading of _P_, or, if we accept 'strong' and 'weak' as
improvements, at any rate to alter 'tough' to 'rough '.
PAGE =87=. ELEGIE VI.
l. 6. _Their Princes stiles, with many Realmes fulfill. _ This is the
reading of all the best MSS. The 'which' for 'with' of the editions
is due to an easy confusion of two contractions invariably used in
the MSS. Grosart and Chambers accept 'with' from _S_ and _A25_, but
further alter 'styles' to 'style', following these generally inferior
MSS. The plural is correct. Donne refers to more than one prince and
style. The stock instance is
the poor king Reignier, whose large style
Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.
_2 Henry VI_, I. i. 111-12.
But the English monarchs themselves bore in their 'style' the kingdom
of France, and for some years (1558-1566) Mary, Queen of Scots, bore
in her 'style' the arms of England and Ireland.
PAGE =88=, ll. 21-34. These lines evidently suggested Carew's poem,
_To my Mistress sitting by a River's Side, An Eddy_:
Mark how yon eddy steals away
From the rude stream into the bay;
There, locked up safe, she doth divorce
Her waters from the channel's course,
And scorns the torrent that did bring
Her headlong from her native spring, &c.
ll. 23-4. _calmely ride
Her wedded channels bosome, and then chide. _
The number of MSS. and editions is in favour of 'there', but the
quality (e. g. _1633_ and _W_) of those which read 'then', and the
sense of the lines, favour 'then'. The stream is at one moment in
'speechless slumber', and the next chiding. She cannot in the same
place do both at once:
The current that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;
And so by many winding nooks he strays,
With willing sport to the wild ocean.
Shakespeare, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, II. vii. 25-32.
ll. 27-8. _Yet if her often gnawing kisses winne
The traiterous banke to gape, and let her in. _
The 'banke' of the MSS. must, I think, be the right reading rather
than the 'banks' of the editions, the 's' having arisen from the final
'e'. A river which bursts or overflows its banks does not leave its
course, though it 'drowns' the 'round country', but if it breaks
through a weak part in a bank it may quit its original course for
another. 'The traiterous bank' I take to be equivalent to 'the weak or
treacherous spot in its bank'.
PAGE =89=. ELEGIE VII.
l. 1. _Natures lay Ideot. _ Here 'lay' means, I suppose, ignorant',
as Grosart says. His other suggestion, that 'lay' has the meaning of
'lay' in 'layman', a painter's figure, is unlikely. That word has a
different origin from 'lay' (Lat. _laicus_), and the earliest example
of it given in O. E. D. is dated 1688.
ll. 7-8. _Nor by the'eyes water call a maladie
Desperately hot, or changing feaverously. _
The 'call' of _1633_ is so strongly supported by the MSS. that it is
dangerous to alter it. Grosart (whom Chambers follows) reads 'cast',
from _S_; but a glance at the whole line as it stands there shows how
little can be built upon it. 'To cast' is generally used in the phrase
'to cast his water' and thereby tell his malady; but the O. E. D. gives
one example which resembles this passage if 'cast' be the right word
here:
Able to cast his disease without his water.
Greene's _Menaphon_.
I rather fancy, however, that 'call' is right, and is to be taken
in close connexion with the next line, 'You could not cast the
eyes water, and thereby call the malady desperately hot or changing
feverously. '
If thou couldst, Doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease.
Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, V. iii. 50.
The 'casting' preceded and led to the finding, naming the disease,
calling it this or that.
ll. 9 f. _I had not taught thee then, the Alphabet
Of flowers, &c. _
'_Posy_, in both its senses, is a contraction of _poesy_, the flowers
of a nosegay expressing by their arrangement a sentiment like that
engraved on a ring. ' Weekly, _Romance of Words_, London, 1912, p. 134.
She had not yet learned to sort flowers so as to make a posy.
l. 13. _Remember since, &c. _ For the idiom compare:
Beseech you, sir,
Remember since you owed no more to time
Than I do now.
Shakespeare, _Winter's Tale_, V. i. 219.
See Franz, _Shakespeare-Grammatik_, ? 559.
l. 22. _Inlaid thee. _ The O. E. D. cites this line as the only example
of 'inlay' meaning 'to lay in, or as in, a place of concealment or
preservation. ' The sense is much that of 'to lay up', but the word has
perhaps some of its more usual meaning, 'to set or embed in another
substance. ' 'Your husband has given to you, his jewel, such a setting
as conceals instead of setting off your charms. I have refined and
heightened those charms. '
l. 25. _Thy graces and good words my creatures bee. _ I was tempted
to adopt with Chambers the 'good works' of _1669_ and some MSS. , the
theological connexion of 'grace' and 'works' being just the kind of
conceit Donne loves to play with. But the 'words' of _1633-54_ has the
support of so good a MS. as _W_, and 'good words' is an Elizabethan
idiom for commendation, praise, flattery:
He that will give,
Good words to thee will flatter neath abhorring.
Shakespeare, _Coriolanus_, I. i. 170-1.
In your bad strokes you give good words.
Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_, V. i. 30.
Moreover, Donne's word is 'graces', not 'grace'. 'Your graces and
commendations are my work', i. e. either the commendations you receive,
or, more probably, the refined and elegant flatteries with which you
can now cajole a lover, though once your whole stock of conversation
did not extend beyond 'broken proverbs and torne sentences'. Compare,
in _Elegie IX: The Autumnall_, the description of Lady Danvers'
conversation:
In all her words, unto all hearers fit,
You may at Revels, you at Counsaile, sit.
Quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis
Multa elementa vides multis communia verbis,
Cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necessest
Confiteare et re et sonitu distare sonanti,
Tantum elementa queunt permutato ordine solo.
Lucretius, _De Rerum Natura_, I. 824-7.
Compare Aristotle, _De Gen. et Corr. _ I. 2.
l. 22. _unfit. _ I have changed the semicolon after this word to a full
stop. The former suggests that the next two lines are an expansion
or explanation of this statement. But the poet is giving a series of
different reasons why Flavia may be loved.
ll. 41-2. _When Belgias citties, the round countries drowne,
That durty foulenesse guards, and armes the towne:_
Chambers, adopting a composite text from editions and MSS. , reads:
Like Belgia' cities the round country drowns,
That dirty foulness guards and arms the towns.
Here 'the round country drowns' is an adjectival clause with the
relative suppressed. But if the country actually drowned the cities
the protector would be as dangerous as the enemy. The best MSS. agree
with _1633-54_, and the sentence, though a little obscure, is probably
correct: 'When the Belgian cities, to keep at bay their foes, drown
(i. e. flood) the neighbouring countries, the foulness thus produced
is their protection. ' The 'cities' I take to be the subject. The
reference is to their opening the sluices. See Motley's _Rise of the
Dutch Republic_, the account of the sieges of Alkmaar and Leyden.
'The Drowned Land' ('Het verdronken land') was the name given to land
overflowed by the bursting of the dykes.
PAGE =82=. ELEGIE III.
l. 5. _forc'd unto none_ is a strange expression, and the 'forbid
to none' of _B_ is an attempt to emend it; but 'forc'd unto none'
probably means 'not bound by compulsion to be faithful to any'. In
woman's love and in the arts you may always expect to be ousted from
a favoured position by a successful rival. No one has in these a
monopoly:
Is sibi responsum hoc habeat, in medio omnibus
Palmam esse positam, qui artem tractant musicam.
Ter. _Phorm. _ Prol. 16-17.
l. 8. _these meanes, as I,_ It is difficult to say whether the 'these'
of the editions and of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ or the 'those' of the rest of
the MSS. is preferable. The construction with either in the sense of
'the same as', 'such as', was not uncommon:
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.
Shakespeare, _Jul. Caes. _ I. ii. 174.
l. 17. _Who hath a plow-land, &c. _ This has nothing to do, as Grosart
seems to think, with the name for a certain measurement of land in the
north of England corresponding to a hide in the south. A 'plow-land'
here is an arable or cultivated field. Possibly the 'a' has crept in
and one should read simply 'plow-land', or, like _P_, 'plow-lands. '
Otherwise 'Who hath' is to be slurred in reading the line. The meaning
of the passage seems to be that though a man puts all his own seed
into his land, he is quite willing to reap the corn which has sprung
from others' seed, brought thither, it may be, by wind or birds.
l. 30. _To runne all countries, a wild roguery. _ The Oxford English
Dictionary quotes this line, giving to 'roguery' the meaning of 'a
knavish, rascally act'. But Grosart is certainly right in explaining
it as 'vagrancy'. In love, Donne does not wish to be a captive bound
to one, but he does not wish on the other hand to be a vagrant with
no settled abode. The O. E. D. dates the poem c. 1620, which is much too
late. Donne was not writing in this manner after he took orders. It
cannot be later than 1601, and is probably earlier.
l. 32. _more putrifi'd_, or, as in the MSS. , 'worse putrifi'd. '
The latter is probably correct, but the difference is trifling. By
'putrifi'd' Donne means 'made salt' and so less fit for drinking. The
'purifi'd' of some editions points to a misunderstanding of Donne's
meaning; for saltness and putrefaction were not identical: 'For Salt
as incorruptible was the Symbol of friendship, and before the other
service was offered unto their guests. ' Browne, _Vulgar Errors_, v.
22.
PAGE =84=. ELEGIE IV.
l. 2. _All thy suppos'd escapes. _ He is addressing the lady. All her
supposed transgressions (e. g. of chastity) are laid to the poet's
charge. 'Escape' = 'An inconsiderate transgression; a peccadillo,
venial error. (In Shaks. with different notion: an outrageous
transgression. ) Applied _esp. _ to breaches of chastity. ' O. E. D. It is
probably in Shakespeare's sense that Donne uses the word:
_Brabantio. _ For your sake, jewel,
I am glad at soul I have no other child;
For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
To hang clogs on them.
Shakespeare, _Othello_, I. iii. 195-8.
ll. 7-8.
_Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,
As though he came to kill a Cockatrice,_
i. e. 'with staring eyes'. I take 'glazed' to be the past participle of
the verb 'glaze', 'to stare':
I met a lion
Who glaz'd upon me, and went surly by,
Without annoying me.
Shakespeare, _Jul. Caes. _ I. iii. 20-2.
The past participle is thus used by Shakespeare in: 'With time's
deformed hand' (_Com. of Err. _ V. i. 298), i. e. 'deforming hand';
'deserved children' (_Cor. _ III. i. 292), i. e. 'deserving'. See Franz,
_Shakespeare-Grammatik_, ? 661.
The Cockatrice or Basilisk killed by a glance of its eye:
Here with a cockatrice dead-killing eye
He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause.
Shakespeare, _Lucrece_, 540-1.
The eye of the man who comes to kill a cockatrice stares with terror
lest he be stricken himself.
If 'glazed' meant 'covered with a film', an adverbial complement would
be needed:
For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears.
Shakespeare, _Rich. II_, II. ii. 16.
ll. 9, 15. _have . . . take. _ I have noted the subjunctive forms
found in certain MSS. , because this is undoubtedly Donne's usual
construction. In a full analysis that I have made of Donne's syntax in
the poems I have found over ninety examples of the subjunctive against
seven of the indicative in concessive adverbial clauses. In these
ninety are many where the concession is an admitted fact, e. g.
Though her eyes be small, her mouth is great.
_Elegie II_, 3 ff.
Though poetry indeed be such a sin.
_Satire II_, 5.
Of the seven, two are these doubtful examples here noted; one, where
the subjunctive would be more appropriate, is due to the rhyme.
ll. 10-11. _Thy beauties beautie, and food of our love,
Hope of his goods. _
Grosart is puzzled by this phrase and explains 'beauties beautie' as
'the beauty of thy various beauties' (face, arms, shape, &c. ). I fear
that Donne means that the beauty which he most loves in his mistress
is her hope or prospect of obtaining her father's goods. The whole
poem is in a vein of extravagant and cynical wit. It must not be taken
too seriously.
l. 22. _palenesse, blushing, sighs, and sweats. _ All the MSS. read
'blushings', which is very probably correct, but I have left the two
singulars to balance the two plurals. But the use of abstract nouns
as common is a feature of Donne's syntax: 'We would not dwell upon
increpations, and chidings, and bitternesses; we would pierce but so
deepe as might make you search your wounds, when you come home to your
Chamber, to bring you to a tendernesse there, not to a palenesse or
blushing here. ' _Sermons_ 80. 61. 611.
l. 29. _ingled_: i. e. fondled, caressed. O. E. D.
ll. 33-4. _He that to barre the first gate, doth as wide
As the great Rhodian Colossus stride. _
Porters seem to have been chosen for their size. Compare: 'Those
big fellows that stand like Gyants (at Lords Gates) having bellies
bumbasted with ale in Lambswool and with Sacks. ' Dekker.
l. 37. _were hir'd to this. _ All the MSS. read 'for this', but 'to'
is quite Elizabethan, and gives the meaning more exactly. He was not
taken on as a servant for this purpose, but was specially paid for
this piece of work:
This naughty man
Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,
Who I believe was pack'd in all this wrong,
Hir'd to it by your brother.
Shakespeare, _Much Ado_, V. i. 307.
l. 44. _the pale wretch shivered. _ I have (with the support of the
best MSS. ) changed the semicolon to a full stop here, not that as
the punctuation of the editions goes it is wrong, but because it is
ambiguous and has misled both Chambers and the Grolier Club editor.
By changing the semicolon to a comma they make ll. 43-4 an adverbial
clause of time which, with the conditional clause 'Had it beene some
bad smell', modifies 'he would have thought . . . had wrought'. This
seems to me out of the question.
The 'when' links the statement 'the
pale wretch shivered' to what precedes, not to what follows. As soon
as the perfume reached his nose he shivered, knowing what it meant. A
new thought begins with 'Had it been some bad smell'.
The use of the semicolon, as at one time equivalent to a little less
than a full stop, at another to a little more than a comma, leads
occasionally to these ambiguities. The few changes which I have
made in the punctuation of this poem have been made with a view to
obtaining a little more consistency and clearness without violating
the principles of seventeenth-century punctuation.
l. 49. _The precious Vnicornes. _ See Browne, _Vulgar Errors_, iii. 23:
'Great account and much profit is made of _Unicornes horn_, at least
of that which beareth the name thereof,' &c. He speaks later of the
various objects 'extolled for precious Horns'; and Donne's epithet
doubtless has the same application, i. e. to the horns.
PAGE =86=. ELEGIE V.
l. 8. _With cares rash sodaine stormes being o'rspread. _ I have
let the _1633_ reading stand, though I feel sure that Donne is not
responsible for 'being o'rspread'. Printing from _D_, _H49_, _Lec_,
in which probably the word 'cruel' had been dropped, the editor or
printer supplied 'being' to adjust the metre. I have not corrected it
because I am not sure which is Donne's version. Clearly the line has
undergone some remodelling. My own view is that the earliest form is
suggested by _B_, _S_, _S96_,
With Cares rash sudden storms o'rpressed,
where 'o'erpress' means 'conquer, overwhelm'. Compare Shakespeare's
but in my sight
Deare heart forbear to glance thine eye aside.
What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o'erprest defence can bide.
_Sonnets_, 139. 8.
He bestrid an o'erpressed Roman.
_Coriolanus_, II. ii. 97.
To begin with, Donne described his grey hairs by a bold synecdoche,
leaving the greyness to be inferred: 'My head o'erwhelmed,
o'ermastered by Cares storms. ' But 'o'erpressed' was harshly used and
was easily changed to 'o'erspread', which was made more appropriate by
substituting the effect, 'hoariness,' for the cause, 'Cares storms. '
This is what we find in _JC_ and such a good MS. as _W_:
With cares rash sudden horiness o'erspread.
In _B_ and _P_ 'cruel' has been inserted to complete the verse
when 'o'erpressed' was contracted to 'o'erprest' or changed to
'o'erspread'. In _1635-69_ the somewhat redundant 'rash' has been
altered to 'harsh'.
With cares harsh, sodaine horinesse o'rspread.
The image is more easily apprehended, and this may be Donne's final
version, but the original (if my view is correct) was bolder, and more
in the style of Shakespeare's
That time of yeeare thou maist in me behold,
When yellow leaues, or none, or few doe hange
Vpon those boughes which shake against the could,
Bare ruin'd quiers, where late the sweet birds sang.
_Sonnets_, 72. 1-4.
l. 16. _Should now love lesse, what hee did love to see. _ Here again
there has been some recasting of the original by Donne or an editor.
Most MSS. read:
Should like and love less what hee did love to see.
To 'like and love' was an Elizabethan combination:
And yet we both make shew we like and love.
Farmer, _Chetham MS. _ (ed. Grosart), i. 90.
Yet every one her likte, and every one her lov'd.
Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, III. ix. 24.
Donne or his editor has made the line smoother.
l. 20. _To feed on that, which to disused tasts seems tough. _ I have
made the line an Alexandrine by printing 'disused', which occurs in
_A25_ and _B_, but it is 'disus'd' in the editions and most MSS. The
'weak' of _1650-69_ adjusts the metre, but for that very reason one
a little suspects an editor. Donne certainly wrote 'disus'd' or
'disused'. Who changed it to 'weak' is not so certain. The meaning of
'disused' is, of course, 'unaccustomed. ' The O. E. D. quotes: 'I can
nat shote nowe but with great payne, I am so disused. ' Palsgr. (1530).
'Many disused persons can mutter out some honest requests in secret. '
Baxter, _Reformed Pastor_ (1656).
It seems to me probable that _P_ preserves an early form of these
lines:
who now is grown tough enough
To feed on that which to disused tastes seems rough.
The epithet 'tough' is appropriately enough applied to Love's
mature as opposed to his childish constitution, while rough has the
recognized sense of 'sharp, acid, or harsh to the taste'. The O. E. D.
quotes: 'Harshe, rough, stipticke, and hard wine,' Stubbs (1583).
'The roughest berry on the rudest hedge', Shakespeare, _Antony and
Cleopatra_, I. iv. 64 (1608).
Possibly Donne changed 'tough' to 'strong' in order to avoid the
monotonous sound of 'tough enough . . . rough', and this ultimately led
to the substitution of 'weak' for 'disused'. The present close of the
last line I find it difficult to away with. How can a thing seem tough
to the taste? Even meat does not _taste_ tough: and it is not of meat
that Donne is thinking but of wine. I should be disposed to return
to the reading of _P_, or, if we accept 'strong' and 'weak' as
improvements, at any rate to alter 'tough' to 'rough '.
PAGE =87=. ELEGIE VI.
l. 6. _Their Princes stiles, with many Realmes fulfill. _ This is the
reading of all the best MSS. The 'which' for 'with' of the editions
is due to an easy confusion of two contractions invariably used in
the MSS. Grosart and Chambers accept 'with' from _S_ and _A25_, but
further alter 'styles' to 'style', following these generally inferior
MSS. The plural is correct. Donne refers to more than one prince and
style. The stock instance is
the poor king Reignier, whose large style
Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.
_2 Henry VI_, I. i. 111-12.
But the English monarchs themselves bore in their 'style' the kingdom
of France, and for some years (1558-1566) Mary, Queen of Scots, bore
in her 'style' the arms of England and Ireland.
PAGE =88=, ll. 21-34. These lines evidently suggested Carew's poem,
_To my Mistress sitting by a River's Side, An Eddy_:
Mark how yon eddy steals away
From the rude stream into the bay;
There, locked up safe, she doth divorce
Her waters from the channel's course,
And scorns the torrent that did bring
Her headlong from her native spring, &c.
ll. 23-4. _calmely ride
Her wedded channels bosome, and then chide. _
The number of MSS. and editions is in favour of 'there', but the
quality (e. g. _1633_ and _W_) of those which read 'then', and the
sense of the lines, favour 'then'. The stream is at one moment in
'speechless slumber', and the next chiding. She cannot in the same
place do both at once:
The current that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;
And so by many winding nooks he strays,
With willing sport to the wild ocean.
Shakespeare, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, II. vii. 25-32.
ll. 27-8. _Yet if her often gnawing kisses winne
The traiterous banke to gape, and let her in. _
The 'banke' of the MSS. must, I think, be the right reading rather
than the 'banks' of the editions, the 's' having arisen from the final
'e'. A river which bursts or overflows its banks does not leave its
course, though it 'drowns' the 'round country', but if it breaks
through a weak part in a bank it may quit its original course for
another. 'The traiterous bank' I take to be equivalent to 'the weak or
treacherous spot in its bank'.
PAGE =89=. ELEGIE VII.
l. 1. _Natures lay Ideot. _ Here 'lay' means, I suppose, ignorant',
as Grosart says. His other suggestion, that 'lay' has the meaning of
'lay' in 'layman', a painter's figure, is unlikely. That word has a
different origin from 'lay' (Lat. _laicus_), and the earliest example
of it given in O. E. D. is dated 1688.
ll. 7-8. _Nor by the'eyes water call a maladie
Desperately hot, or changing feaverously. _
The 'call' of _1633_ is so strongly supported by the MSS. that it is
dangerous to alter it. Grosart (whom Chambers follows) reads 'cast',
from _S_; but a glance at the whole line as it stands there shows how
little can be built upon it. 'To cast' is generally used in the phrase
'to cast his water' and thereby tell his malady; but the O. E. D. gives
one example which resembles this passage if 'cast' be the right word
here:
Able to cast his disease without his water.
Greene's _Menaphon_.
I rather fancy, however, that 'call' is right, and is to be taken
in close connexion with the next line, 'You could not cast the
eyes water, and thereby call the malady desperately hot or changing
feverously. '
If thou couldst, Doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease.
Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, V. iii. 50.
The 'casting' preceded and led to the finding, naming the disease,
calling it this or that.
ll. 9 f. _I had not taught thee then, the Alphabet
Of flowers, &c. _
'_Posy_, in both its senses, is a contraction of _poesy_, the flowers
of a nosegay expressing by their arrangement a sentiment like that
engraved on a ring. ' Weekly, _Romance of Words_, London, 1912, p. 134.
She had not yet learned to sort flowers so as to make a posy.
l. 13. _Remember since, &c. _ For the idiom compare:
Beseech you, sir,
Remember since you owed no more to time
Than I do now.
Shakespeare, _Winter's Tale_, V. i. 219.
See Franz, _Shakespeare-Grammatik_, ? 559.
l. 22. _Inlaid thee. _ The O. E. D. cites this line as the only example
of 'inlay' meaning 'to lay in, or as in, a place of concealment or
preservation. ' The sense is much that of 'to lay up', but the word has
perhaps some of its more usual meaning, 'to set or embed in another
substance. ' 'Your husband has given to you, his jewel, such a setting
as conceals instead of setting off your charms. I have refined and
heightened those charms. '
l. 25. _Thy graces and good words my creatures bee. _ I was tempted
to adopt with Chambers the 'good works' of _1669_ and some MSS. , the
theological connexion of 'grace' and 'works' being just the kind of
conceit Donne loves to play with. But the 'words' of _1633-54_ has the
support of so good a MS. as _W_, and 'good words' is an Elizabethan
idiom for commendation, praise, flattery:
He that will give,
Good words to thee will flatter neath abhorring.
Shakespeare, _Coriolanus_, I. i. 170-1.
In your bad strokes you give good words.
Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_, V. i. 30.
Moreover, Donne's word is 'graces', not 'grace'. 'Your graces and
commendations are my work', i. e. either the commendations you receive,
or, more probably, the refined and elegant flatteries with which you
can now cajole a lover, though once your whole stock of conversation
did not extend beyond 'broken proverbs and torne sentences'. Compare,
in _Elegie IX: The Autumnall_, the description of Lady Danvers'
conversation:
In all her words, unto all hearers fit,
You may at Revels, you at Counsaile, sit.
