' This is unnecessary, and
there is no authority for 'atone'.
there is no authority for 'atone'.
John Donne
' The 'muskets' of _1669_ is only a
misprint.
ll. 5-6. In these lines as they stand in the editions and most of the
MSS. there is clearly something wrong:
And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,
They seeme no sweat drops but pearle coronets.
A 'coronet' is not an ornament of the neck, but of the head. The
obvious emendation is that of _A25_, _C_, _JC_, and _W_, which Grosart
and Chambers have adopted. A 'carcanet' is a necklace, and carcanets
of pearl were not unusual: see O. E. D. , _s. v. _ But why then do the
editions and so many MSS. read 'coronets'? Consideration of this
has convinced me that the original error is not here but in the word
'neck'. Article by article, as in an inventory, Donne contrasts his
mistress and his enemy's. But in the next line he goes on:
Ranke sweaty froth thy Mistresse's _brow_ defiles,
contrasting her brow with that of his mistress, where the sweat drops
seem 'no sweat drops but pearle coronets'.
The explanation of the error is, probably, that an early copyist
passed in his mind from breast to neck more easily than to brow.
Another explanation is that Donne altered 'brow' to 'neck' and forgot
to alter 'coronets' to 'carcanets'. I do not think this likely. The
force of the poem lies in its contrasts, and the brow is proverbially
connected with sweat. 'In the sweat of thy brow,' &c. Possibly Donne
himself in the first version, or a copy of it, wrote 'neck', meaning
to write 'brow', misled by the proximity and associations of 'breast'.
Mr. J. C. Smith has shown that Spenser occasionally wrote a word which
association brought into his mind, but which was clearly not the word
he intended to use, as it is destructive of the rhyme-scheme. Oddly
enough the late Francis Thompson used 'carcanet' in the sense of
'coronet':
Who scarfed her with the morning? and who set
Upon her brow the day-fall's carcanet?
_Ode to the Setting Sun. _
PAGE =91=, l. 10. _Sanserra's starved men. _ 'When I consider what God
did for Goshen in Egypt . . . How many Sancerraes he hath delivered from
famines, how many Genevas from plots and machinations. ' _Sermons. _
The Protestants in Sancerra were besieged by the Catholics for nine
months in 1573, and suffered extreme privations. Norton quotes Henri
Martin, _Histoire de France_, ix. 364: 'On se disputa les debris les
plus immondes de toute substance animale ou vegetale; on crea, pour
ainsi dire, des aliments monstrueux, impossibles. '
ll. 13-14. _And like vile lying stones in saffrond tinne,
Or warts, or wheales, they hang upon her skinne. _
Following the MSS. I have made 'lying' an epithet attached to 'stones'
and substituted 'they hang' for the superficially more grammatical 'it
hangs'. The readings of _1633_, 'vile stones lying' and 'it hangs',
seem to me just the kind of changes a hasty editor would make, the
kind of changes which characterize the Second Folio of Shakespeare.
The stones are not only 'vile'; they are 'lying', inasmuch as they
pretend to be what they are not, as the 'saffron'd tinne' pretends to
be gold.
l. 19. _Thy head_: i. e. 'the head of thy mistress. ' Donne continues
this construction in ll. 25, 32, 39, and I have restored it from the
later editions and MSS. at l. 34, 'thy gouty hand. '
l. 34. _thy gouty hand_: 'thy' is the reading of all the editions
except _1633_ and of all the MSS. except _JC_ and _S_. It is probably
right, corresponding to l. 19 'Thy head' and l. 32 'thy tann'd
skins'. Donne uses 'thy' in a condensed fashion for 'the head of thy
mistress', &c.
PAGE =92=, l. 51. _And such. _ The 'such' of the MSS. is doubtless
right, the 'nice' of the editions being repeated from l. 49.
PAGE =92=. ELEGIE IX.
For the date, &c. , of this poem, see the introductory note on the
_Elegies_.
The text of _1633_ diverges in some points from that of all the MSS. ,
in some others it agrees with _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. In the latter case I
have retained it, but where _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ agree with the rest of
the MSS. I have corrected _1633_, e. g. :
PAGE =93=, l. 6. _Affection here takes Reverences name_: where
'Affection' seems more appropriate than 'Affections'; and l. 8. _But
now shee's gold_: where 'They are gold' of _1633_ involves a very
loose use of 'they'. Possibly _1633_ here gives a first version
afterwards corrected.
ll. 29-32. _Xerxes strange Lydian love, &c. _ Herodotus (vii. 31) tells
how Xerxes, on his march to Greece, found in Lydia a plane-tree which
for its beauty ([Greek: kalleos heineka]) he decked with gold
ornaments, and entrusted to a guardian. Aelian, _Variae Historiae_,
ii. 14, _De platano Xerxe amato_, attributes his admiration to its
size: [Greek: en Lydia goun, phasin, idon phyton eumegethes platanou,]
&c. In the Latin translation in Hercler's edition (Firmin Didot, 1858)
size is taken as equivalent to height, 'quum vidisset proceram
platanum,' but the reference is more probably to extent. Pliny, _N.
H. _ 12. 1-3, has much to say of the size of certain planes under which
companies of men camped and slept.
The quotation from Aelian confirms the _1633_ reading, 'none being so
large as shee,' which indeed is confirmed by the lines that follow.
The question of age is left open. The reference to' barrennesse' I do
not understand.
PAGE =94=, l. 47. _naturall lation. _ This, the reading of the
great majority of the MSS. , is obviously correct and explains the
vacillation of the editions. The word was rare but quite good. The
O. E. D. quotes: 'I mean lation or Local-motion from one place to
another. ' Fotherby (1619);
Make me the straight and oblique lines,
The motions, lations, and the signs.
(Herrick, _Hesper. _ 64);
and other examples as late as 1690. The term was specially
astronomical, as here. The 'motion natural' of _1633_ is an unusual
order in Donne; the 'natural station' of _1635-69_ is the opposite
of motion. The first was doubtless an intentional alteration by the
editor, which the printer took in at the wrong place; the second a
misreading of 'lation'.
PAGE =95=. ELEGIE X.
The title of this Elegy, _The Dream_, was given it in _1635_, perhaps
wrongly. _S96_ seems to come nearer with _Picture_. The 'Image of
her whom I love', addressed in the first eight lines, seems to be a
picture. When that is gone and reason with it, fantasy and dreams come
to the lover's aid (ll. 9-20). But the tenor of the poem is somewhat
obscure; the picture is addressed in terms that could hardly be
strengthened if the lady herself were present.
l. 26. _Mad with much heart, &c. _ Aristotle made the heart the source
of all 'the actions of life and sense'. Galen transferred these to the
brain. See note to p. 99, l. 100.
PAGE =96=. ELEGIE XI.
Donne has in this Elegy carried to its farthest extreme, as only a
metaphysical or scholastic poet like himself could, the favourite
Elizabethan pun on the coin called the Angel. Shakespeare is fond of
the same quibble: 'She has all the rule of her husband's purse; she
hath a legion of angels' (_Merry Wives_, I. iii. 60). But Donne knows
more of the philosophy of angels than Shakespeare and can pursue the
analogy into more surprising subtleties. Nor is the pun on angels the
only one which he follows up in this poem: crowns, pistolets, and gold
are all played with in turn. The poem was a favourite with Ben
Jonson: 'his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by heart' (_Drummond's
Conversations_, ed. Laing).
The text of the poem, which was first printed in _1635_ (Marriot
having been prohibited from including it in the edition of 1633),
is based on a MS. closely resembling _Cy_ and _P_, and differing
in several readings from the text given in the rest of the MSS. ,
including _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _W_. I have endeavoured rather to
give this version correctly, while recording the variants, than either
to substitute another or contaminate the two. When _Cy_ and _P_ go
over to the side of the other MSS. it is a fair inference that the
editions have gone astray. When they diverge, the question is a more
open one.
PAGE =97=, l. 24. _their naturall Countreys rot_: i. e. 'their native
Countreys rot', the 'lues Gallica'. Compare 'the naturall people of
that Countrey', Greene, _News from Hell_ (ed. Grosart, p. 57). This
is the reading of _Cy_, and the order of the words in the other MSS.
points to its being the reading of the MS. from which _1635_ was
printed.
l. 26. _So pale, so lame, &c. _ The chipping and debasement of the
French crown is frequently referred to, and Shakespeare is fond
of punning on the word. But two extracts from Stow's _Chronicle_
(_continued . . . by_ Edmund Howes), 1631, will throw some light on the
references to coins in this poem: In the year 1559 took place the last
abasement of English money whereby testons and groats were lowered in
value and called in, 'and according to the last valuation of them,
she gave them fine money of cleane silver for them commonly called
Sterling money, and from this time there was no manner of base money
coyned or used in England . . . but all English monies were made of gold
and silver, which is not so in any other nation whatsoever, but have
sundry sorts of copper money. '
'The 9. of November, the French crowne that went currant for six
shillings foure pence, was proclaimed to be sixe shillings. '
In 1561, 'The fifteenth of November, the Queenes Maiestie published a
Proclamation for divers small pieces of silver money to be currant,
as the sixe pence, foure pence, three pence, 2 pence and a peny, three
half-pence, and 3 farthings: and also forbad all forraigne coynes to
be currant within the same Realme, as well gold as silver, calling
them all into her Maiesties Mints, except two sorts of crownes of
gold, the one the French crowne, the other the Flemish crowne. ' The
result was the bringing in of large sums in 'silver plates: and as
much or more in pistolets, and other gold of Spanish coynes, and one
weeke in pistolets and other Spanish gold 16000 pounds, all these to
be coyned with the Queenes stamps. '
l. 29. _Spanish Stamps still travelling. _ Grosart regards this as an
allusion to the wide diffusion of Spanish coins. The reference is more
pointed. It is to the prevalence of Spanish bribery, the policy of
securing paid agents in every country. It was by money that Parma
secured his first hold on the revolted provinces. Gardiner has shown
that Lord Cranborne, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, accepted a pension
from the Spanish king (_Hist. of England_, i, p. 215). The discovery
of the number of his Court who were in Spanish pay came as a profound
shock to James at a later period. The invariable charge brought by
one Dutch statesman against another was of being in the pay of the
Spaniard.
'It is his Indian gold,' says Raleigh, speaking of the King of Spain
in 1596, 'that endangers and disturbs all the nations of Europe; it
creeps into councils, purchases intelligence, and sets bound loyalty
at liberty in the greatest monarchies thereof. '
ll. 40-1. _Gorgeous France ruin'd, ragged and decay'd;
Scotland, which knew no state, proud in one day:_
The punctuation of _1669_ has the support generally of the MSS. ,
but in matters of punctuation these are not a very safe guide. As
punctuated in _1635_, 'ragged and decay'd' are epithets of Scotland,
contrasting her with 'Gorgeous France'. I think, however, that the
antithesis to 'gorgeous' is 'ruin'd, ragged and decay'd', describing
the condition of France after the pistolets of Spain had done their
work. The epithet applied to Scotland is 'which knew no state', the
antithesis being 'proud in one day'.
PAGE =98=, ll. 51-4. _Much hope which they should nourish, &c. _
Professor Norton proposed that the last two of these lines should run:
Will vanish if thou, Love, let them alone,
For thou wilt love me less when they are gone;
but that 'alone' is a misprint for 'atone.
' This is unnecessary, and
there is no authority for 'atone'. What Donne says, in the cynical
vein of _Elegie VI_, 9-10, is: 'If thou love me let my crowns alone,
for the poorer I grow the less you will love me. I shall lose the
qualities which you admired in me when you saw them through the
glamour of wealth. '
l. 55. _And be content. _ The majority of the MSS. begin a new
paragraph here and read:
Oh, be content, &c.
Donne would almost seem to have read or seen (he was a frequent
theatre-goer) the old play of _Soliman and Perseda_ (pr. 1599). There
the lover, having lost a carcanet, sends a cryer through the street
and offers one hundred crowns reward. Chambers notes a similar case in
_The Puritan_ (1607). Lost property is still cried by the bellman
in northern Scottish towns. The custom of resorting in such cases
to 'some dread Conjurer' is frequently referred to. See Jonson's
_Alchemist_ for the questions with which their customers approached
conjurers.
ll. 71-2. _So in the first falne angels, &c. _ Aquinas discusses the
question: 'Utrum intellectus daemonis sit obtenebratus per privationem
cognitionis omnis veritatis. ' After stating the arguments for such
privation he replies: 'Sed contra est quod Dionysius dicit . . . quod
"data sunt daemonibus aliqua dona, quae nequaquam mutata esse dicimus,
sed sunt integra et splendidissima. " Inter ista, autem, naturalia
dona est cognitio veritatis. ' Aquinas then explains that knowledge is
twofold, that which comes by nature, and that which comes by
grace: and that the latter again is twofold, that which is purely
speculative, and that which is 'affectiva, producens amorem Dei'.
'Harum autem trium cognitionum prima in daemonibus nec est ablata nec
diminuta: consequitur enim ipsam naturam Angeli, qui secundum suam
naturam est quidam intellectus vel mens. Propter simplicitatem autem
suae substantiae a natura eius aliquid subtrahi non potest. '
Devils, therefore, have natural knowledge in an eminent degree
(_splendidissima_); they have even the knowledge which comes by grace
in so far as God chooses to bestow it, for His own purposes, by
the mediation of angels or 'per aliqua temporalia divinae virtutis
effecta' (Augustine). But of the knowledge which leads to good they
have nothing: 'tenendum est firmiter secundum fidem catholicam, quod
et voluntas bonorum Angelorum confirmata est in bono, et voluntas
daemonum obstinata est in malo. ' _Summa_ I.
lxiv. 1-2. They have 'wisdom and knowledge', but it is immovably set
to do ill.
ll. 77-8. _Pitty these Angels; yet their dignities
Passe Vertues, Powers and Principalities. _
There is a good deal of vacillation in the MSS. as to the punctuation
of 'Angels yet', some placing the semicolon before, others after
'yet'. The difference is not great, but that which I have adopted,
though it has least authority, brings out best what I take to be the
meaning of these somewhat difficult lines. 'Pity these Angels, for yet
(i. e. until they are melted down and lose their form) they, as good
angels, are superior in dignity to Vertues, Powers, and Principalities
among the bad angels. ' The order of the Angelic beings, which the
Middle Ages took from Pseudo-Dionysius, consisted of nine Orders in
three Hierarchies. The first and highest Hierarchy included (beginning
with the highest Order) Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; the second,
Dominions, Virtues, and Powers; the third, Principalities, Archangels,
Angels. Thus the three Orders mentioned by Donne are all in rank
superior to mere Angels; but the lowest Order of Good Angels is
superior to the highest Order of Evil Spirits, although before their
fall these belonged to the highest Orders. Probably, however, there
is a second and satiric reference in Donne's words which explains his
choice of Vertues, Powers, and Principalities. In the other sense of
the words Angels are coins, money; and the power of money surpasses
that of earthly Vertues, Powers, and Principalities. This may explain,
further, why Donne singles out 'Vertues, Powers, and Principalities'.
One would expect that, to make the antithesis between good and bad
angels as complete as possible, he would have named the three highest
orders, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. But the three orders which he
does mention are the highest Orders which travel, as money does. The
angels are divided into _Assistentes_ and _Administrates_. To the
former class belong all the Orders of the first Hierarchy, and the
Dominions of the second. The Vertues are thus the highest Order of
_Administrantes_. Aquinas, _Summa_, cxii. 3, 4. The _Assistentes_ are
those who 'only stand and wait'.
PAGE =99=, l. 100. _rot thy moist braine_: So Sylvester's _Du Bartas_,
I. ii. 18:
the Brain
Doth highest place of all our Frame retain,
And tempers with its moistful coldness so
Th'excessive heat of other parts below.
This was Aristotle's opinion (_De Part. Anim. _ II. 7), refuted by
Galen, who, like Plato, made the brain the seat of the soul and the
generator of the animal spirits. See II. p. 45.
PAGE =100=, ll. 112, 114. _Gold is Restorative . . . 'tis cordiall. _
'Most men say as much of gold, and some other minerals, as these have
done of precious stones. Erastus still maintaineth the opposite part,
Disput. in Paracelsum, cap. 4, fol. 196, he confesseth of gold, that
it makes the heart merry, but in no other sense but as it is in a
miser's chest:
----at mihi plaudo
----simulac nummos contemplor in arca
as he said in the poet: it so revives the spirits, and is an excellent
receipt against melancholy,
For gold in phisik is a cordial,
Therefore he lovede gold in special. '
Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Pt. 2, Sub. 4.
ELEGIE XII.
PAGE =101=, l. 37. _And mad'st us sigh and glow_: 'sigh and blow' has
been the somewhat inelegant reading of all editions hitherto.
l. 42. _And over all thy husbands towring eyes. _ The epithet 'towring'
is strange and the MSS. show some vacillation. Most of them read
'towred', probably the past participle of the same verb, though
Grosart alters to 'two red'--not a very poetical description. _RP31_
here diverges from _H40_ and reads 'loured', perhaps for 'lurid', but
both these MSS. alter the order of the words and attach the epithet
to 'husbands', which is manifestly wrong, and the Grolier Club edition
prints 'lowering' without comment, regarding, I suppose, 't' as a
mistake for 'l'.
The 'towring' of _1669_ and _TCD_ is probably correct, being a
bold metaphor from hawking, and having the force practically of
'threatening'. The hawk towers threateningly above its prey before it
'sousing kills with a grace'. If 'towring' is not right, 'lowring' is
the most probable emendation.
PAGE =102=, l. 43. _That flam'd with oylie sweat of jealousie. _ This
is the reading of all the MSS. , and as on the whole their text is
superior I have followed it. If 'oylie' is, as I think, the right
epithet, it means 'moist', as in 'an oily palm', with perhaps a
reference to the inflammability of oil. If 'ouglie '(i. e. ugly) be
preferred it is a forcible transferred epithet.
l. 49. _most respects? _ This is the reading of all the MSS. , and
'best' in _1669_ is probably an emendation. The use of 'most' as an
adjective, superlative of 'great', is not uncommon:
God's wrong is most of all.
Shakespeare, _Rich. III_, IV. iv. 377.
Though in this place most master wear no breeches.
Ibid. , _2 Hen. VI_, I. iii. 144.
l. 54. I can make no exact sense of this line either as it stands in
_1669_ or in the MSS. One is tempted to combine the versions and read:
Yea thy pale colours, and thy panting heart,
the 'secrets of our Art' being all the signs by which they
communicated to one another their mutual affection. But it is
necessary to explain the presence of 'inwards' or 'inward' in both the
versions.
PAGE =103=, l. 79. _The Summer how it ripened in the eare_; This fine
passage has been rather spoiled in all editions hitherto by printing
in this line 'yeare' for 'eare', even in modernized texts. The MSS.
and the sense both show that 'eare' is the right word, and indeed I
have no doubt that 'year' in _1635_ was simply due to a compositor's
or copyist's pronunciation. It occurs again in the 1669 edition in the
song _Twicknam Garden_ (p. 28, l. 3):
And at mine eyes, and at mine years,
These forms in 'y' are common in Sylvester's _Du Bartas_, e. g.
'yerst'. The O. E. D. gives the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries as
those in which 'yere' was a recognized pronunciation of 'ear', but it
is found sporadically later and has misled editors. Thus in Sir George
Etherege's letter to the Earl of Middleton from Ratisbon, printed in
Dryden's _Works_ (Scott and Saintsbury), xi, pp. 38-40, some lines
run:
These formed the jewel erst did grace
The cap of the first Grave o' the race,
Preferred by Graffin Marian
To adorn the handle of her fan;
And, as by old record appears,
Worn since in Kunigunda's years;
Now sparkling in the Froein's hair,
No rocket breaking in the air
Can with her starry head compare.
In a modernized text, as this is, surely 'Kunigunda's years' should be
'Kunigunda's ears'.
ll. 93-4. _That I may grow enamoured on your mind,
When my own thoughts I there reflected find. _
'I there neglected find' has been the reading of all editions
hitherto--a strange reason for being enamoured.
PAGE =104=, l. 96. _My deeds shall still be what my words are now_:
'words' suits the context better than either the 'deeds' of _1635-69_
or 'thoughts' of _A25_.
PAGE =104=. ELEGIE XIII.
PAGE =105=, ll. 13-14. _Liv'd Mantuan now againe,
That foemall Mastix, to limme with his penne_
Chambers, following the editions from _1639_ onwards, drops the comma
after 'Mastix', which suggests that Julia is the 'foemall Mastix',
not Mantuan. By Mantuan he understands Virgil, and supposes there is
a reference to the 'flammis armataque Chimaera' of _Aen. _ vi. 289. The
Mantuan of the text is the 'Old Mantuan' of _Love's Labour's Lost_,
iv. 2. 92. Donne calls Mantuan the scourge of women because of his
fourth eclogue _De natura mulierum_. Norton quotes from it:
Femineum servile genus, crudele, superbum.
The O. E. D. quotes from S. Holland, _Zara_ (1656): 'It would have
puzzell'd that Female Mastix Mantuan to have limn'd this she
Chymera'--obviously borrowed from this poem. The dictionary gives
examples of 'mastix' in other compounds.
The reference to Mantuan as a woman-hater is a favourite one with
the prose-pamphleteers: 'To this might be added _Mantuans_ invective
against them, but that pittie makes me refraine from renewing his
worne out complaints, the wounds whereof the former forepast feminine
sexe hath felt. I, but here the _Homer_ of Women hath forestalled an
objection, saying that _Mantuans_ house holding of our Ladie, he was
enforced by melancholic into such vehemencie of speech', &c. Nash,
_The Anatomy of Absurdity_ (ed. McKerrow, i. 12).
'Where I leave you to consider, Gentlemen, how far unmeete women are
to have such reproches laid upon them, as sundrye large lipt fellows
have done: who when they take a peece of work in hand, and either for
want of matter, or lack of wit, are half gravelled, then they must
fill up the page with slaundering of women, who scarsly know what
a woman is: but if I were able either by wit or arte to be their
defender, or had the law in my hand to dispose as I list, which would
be as unseemely, as an Asse to treade the measures: yet, if it were
so, I would correct _Mantuans Egloge_, intituled _Alphus_: or els
if the Authour were alive, I would not doubt to persuade him in
recompence of his errour, to frame a new one,' &c. Greene, _Mamillia_
(ed. Grosart), 106-7. Greene is probably the '_Homer_ of Women'
referred to in the first extract.
l. 19. _Tenarus. _ In the _Anatomy of the World_ 'Tenarif' is thus
spelt in the editions of 1633 to 1669, and Grosart declared that the
reference here is to that island. It is of course to 'Taenarus' in
Laconia. There was in that headland a sulphurous cavern believed to be
a passage to Hades. Through it Orpheus descended to recover Eurydice.
Ovid, _Met. _ x. 13; Paus. iii. 14, 25.
l. 28. _self-accusing oaths_: 'oaths' is the reading of the MSS. ,
'loaths' of the editions. The word 'loaths' in the sense of 'dislike,
hatred, ill-will' is found as late as 1728 (O. E. D. ). 'If your Horse
. .
misprint.
ll. 5-6. In these lines as they stand in the editions and most of the
MSS. there is clearly something wrong:
And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,
They seeme no sweat drops but pearle coronets.
A 'coronet' is not an ornament of the neck, but of the head. The
obvious emendation is that of _A25_, _C_, _JC_, and _W_, which Grosart
and Chambers have adopted. A 'carcanet' is a necklace, and carcanets
of pearl were not unusual: see O. E. D. , _s. v. _ But why then do the
editions and so many MSS. read 'coronets'? Consideration of this
has convinced me that the original error is not here but in the word
'neck'. Article by article, as in an inventory, Donne contrasts his
mistress and his enemy's. But in the next line he goes on:
Ranke sweaty froth thy Mistresse's _brow_ defiles,
contrasting her brow with that of his mistress, where the sweat drops
seem 'no sweat drops but pearle coronets'.
The explanation of the error is, probably, that an early copyist
passed in his mind from breast to neck more easily than to brow.
Another explanation is that Donne altered 'brow' to 'neck' and forgot
to alter 'coronets' to 'carcanets'. I do not think this likely. The
force of the poem lies in its contrasts, and the brow is proverbially
connected with sweat. 'In the sweat of thy brow,' &c. Possibly Donne
himself in the first version, or a copy of it, wrote 'neck', meaning
to write 'brow', misled by the proximity and associations of 'breast'.
Mr. J. C. Smith has shown that Spenser occasionally wrote a word which
association brought into his mind, but which was clearly not the word
he intended to use, as it is destructive of the rhyme-scheme. Oddly
enough the late Francis Thompson used 'carcanet' in the sense of
'coronet':
Who scarfed her with the morning? and who set
Upon her brow the day-fall's carcanet?
_Ode to the Setting Sun. _
PAGE =91=, l. 10. _Sanserra's starved men. _ 'When I consider what God
did for Goshen in Egypt . . . How many Sancerraes he hath delivered from
famines, how many Genevas from plots and machinations. ' _Sermons. _
The Protestants in Sancerra were besieged by the Catholics for nine
months in 1573, and suffered extreme privations. Norton quotes Henri
Martin, _Histoire de France_, ix. 364: 'On se disputa les debris les
plus immondes de toute substance animale ou vegetale; on crea, pour
ainsi dire, des aliments monstrueux, impossibles. '
ll. 13-14. _And like vile lying stones in saffrond tinne,
Or warts, or wheales, they hang upon her skinne. _
Following the MSS. I have made 'lying' an epithet attached to 'stones'
and substituted 'they hang' for the superficially more grammatical 'it
hangs'. The readings of _1633_, 'vile stones lying' and 'it hangs',
seem to me just the kind of changes a hasty editor would make, the
kind of changes which characterize the Second Folio of Shakespeare.
The stones are not only 'vile'; they are 'lying', inasmuch as they
pretend to be what they are not, as the 'saffron'd tinne' pretends to
be gold.
l. 19. _Thy head_: i. e. 'the head of thy mistress. ' Donne continues
this construction in ll. 25, 32, 39, and I have restored it from the
later editions and MSS. at l. 34, 'thy gouty hand. '
l. 34. _thy gouty hand_: 'thy' is the reading of all the editions
except _1633_ and of all the MSS. except _JC_ and _S_. It is probably
right, corresponding to l. 19 'Thy head' and l. 32 'thy tann'd
skins'. Donne uses 'thy' in a condensed fashion for 'the head of thy
mistress', &c.
PAGE =92=, l. 51. _And such. _ The 'such' of the MSS. is doubtless
right, the 'nice' of the editions being repeated from l. 49.
PAGE =92=. ELEGIE IX.
For the date, &c. , of this poem, see the introductory note on the
_Elegies_.
The text of _1633_ diverges in some points from that of all the MSS. ,
in some others it agrees with _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. In the latter case I
have retained it, but where _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ agree with the rest of
the MSS. I have corrected _1633_, e. g. :
PAGE =93=, l. 6. _Affection here takes Reverences name_: where
'Affection' seems more appropriate than 'Affections'; and l. 8. _But
now shee's gold_: where 'They are gold' of _1633_ involves a very
loose use of 'they'. Possibly _1633_ here gives a first version
afterwards corrected.
ll. 29-32. _Xerxes strange Lydian love, &c. _ Herodotus (vii. 31) tells
how Xerxes, on his march to Greece, found in Lydia a plane-tree which
for its beauty ([Greek: kalleos heineka]) he decked with gold
ornaments, and entrusted to a guardian. Aelian, _Variae Historiae_,
ii. 14, _De platano Xerxe amato_, attributes his admiration to its
size: [Greek: en Lydia goun, phasin, idon phyton eumegethes platanou,]
&c. In the Latin translation in Hercler's edition (Firmin Didot, 1858)
size is taken as equivalent to height, 'quum vidisset proceram
platanum,' but the reference is more probably to extent. Pliny, _N.
H. _ 12. 1-3, has much to say of the size of certain planes under which
companies of men camped and slept.
The quotation from Aelian confirms the _1633_ reading, 'none being so
large as shee,' which indeed is confirmed by the lines that follow.
The question of age is left open. The reference to' barrennesse' I do
not understand.
PAGE =94=, l. 47. _naturall lation. _ This, the reading of the
great majority of the MSS. , is obviously correct and explains the
vacillation of the editions. The word was rare but quite good. The
O. E. D. quotes: 'I mean lation or Local-motion from one place to
another. ' Fotherby (1619);
Make me the straight and oblique lines,
The motions, lations, and the signs.
(Herrick, _Hesper. _ 64);
and other examples as late as 1690. The term was specially
astronomical, as here. The 'motion natural' of _1633_ is an unusual
order in Donne; the 'natural station' of _1635-69_ is the opposite
of motion. The first was doubtless an intentional alteration by the
editor, which the printer took in at the wrong place; the second a
misreading of 'lation'.
PAGE =95=. ELEGIE X.
The title of this Elegy, _The Dream_, was given it in _1635_, perhaps
wrongly. _S96_ seems to come nearer with _Picture_. The 'Image of
her whom I love', addressed in the first eight lines, seems to be a
picture. When that is gone and reason with it, fantasy and dreams come
to the lover's aid (ll. 9-20). But the tenor of the poem is somewhat
obscure; the picture is addressed in terms that could hardly be
strengthened if the lady herself were present.
l. 26. _Mad with much heart, &c. _ Aristotle made the heart the source
of all 'the actions of life and sense'. Galen transferred these to the
brain. See note to p. 99, l. 100.
PAGE =96=. ELEGIE XI.
Donne has in this Elegy carried to its farthest extreme, as only a
metaphysical or scholastic poet like himself could, the favourite
Elizabethan pun on the coin called the Angel. Shakespeare is fond of
the same quibble: 'She has all the rule of her husband's purse; she
hath a legion of angels' (_Merry Wives_, I. iii. 60). But Donne knows
more of the philosophy of angels than Shakespeare and can pursue the
analogy into more surprising subtleties. Nor is the pun on angels the
only one which he follows up in this poem: crowns, pistolets, and gold
are all played with in turn. The poem was a favourite with Ben
Jonson: 'his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by heart' (_Drummond's
Conversations_, ed. Laing).
The text of the poem, which was first printed in _1635_ (Marriot
having been prohibited from including it in the edition of 1633),
is based on a MS. closely resembling _Cy_ and _P_, and differing
in several readings from the text given in the rest of the MSS. ,
including _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _W_. I have endeavoured rather to
give this version correctly, while recording the variants, than either
to substitute another or contaminate the two. When _Cy_ and _P_ go
over to the side of the other MSS. it is a fair inference that the
editions have gone astray. When they diverge, the question is a more
open one.
PAGE =97=, l. 24. _their naturall Countreys rot_: i. e. 'their native
Countreys rot', the 'lues Gallica'. Compare 'the naturall people of
that Countrey', Greene, _News from Hell_ (ed. Grosart, p. 57). This
is the reading of _Cy_, and the order of the words in the other MSS.
points to its being the reading of the MS. from which _1635_ was
printed.
l. 26. _So pale, so lame, &c. _ The chipping and debasement of the
French crown is frequently referred to, and Shakespeare is fond
of punning on the word. But two extracts from Stow's _Chronicle_
(_continued . . . by_ Edmund Howes), 1631, will throw some light on the
references to coins in this poem: In the year 1559 took place the last
abasement of English money whereby testons and groats were lowered in
value and called in, 'and according to the last valuation of them,
she gave them fine money of cleane silver for them commonly called
Sterling money, and from this time there was no manner of base money
coyned or used in England . . . but all English monies were made of gold
and silver, which is not so in any other nation whatsoever, but have
sundry sorts of copper money. '
'The 9. of November, the French crowne that went currant for six
shillings foure pence, was proclaimed to be sixe shillings. '
In 1561, 'The fifteenth of November, the Queenes Maiestie published a
Proclamation for divers small pieces of silver money to be currant,
as the sixe pence, foure pence, three pence, 2 pence and a peny, three
half-pence, and 3 farthings: and also forbad all forraigne coynes to
be currant within the same Realme, as well gold as silver, calling
them all into her Maiesties Mints, except two sorts of crownes of
gold, the one the French crowne, the other the Flemish crowne. ' The
result was the bringing in of large sums in 'silver plates: and as
much or more in pistolets, and other gold of Spanish coynes, and one
weeke in pistolets and other Spanish gold 16000 pounds, all these to
be coyned with the Queenes stamps. '
l. 29. _Spanish Stamps still travelling. _ Grosart regards this as an
allusion to the wide diffusion of Spanish coins. The reference is more
pointed. It is to the prevalence of Spanish bribery, the policy of
securing paid agents in every country. It was by money that Parma
secured his first hold on the revolted provinces. Gardiner has shown
that Lord Cranborne, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, accepted a pension
from the Spanish king (_Hist. of England_, i, p. 215). The discovery
of the number of his Court who were in Spanish pay came as a profound
shock to James at a later period. The invariable charge brought by
one Dutch statesman against another was of being in the pay of the
Spaniard.
'It is his Indian gold,' says Raleigh, speaking of the King of Spain
in 1596, 'that endangers and disturbs all the nations of Europe; it
creeps into councils, purchases intelligence, and sets bound loyalty
at liberty in the greatest monarchies thereof. '
ll. 40-1. _Gorgeous France ruin'd, ragged and decay'd;
Scotland, which knew no state, proud in one day:_
The punctuation of _1669_ has the support generally of the MSS. ,
but in matters of punctuation these are not a very safe guide. As
punctuated in _1635_, 'ragged and decay'd' are epithets of Scotland,
contrasting her with 'Gorgeous France'. I think, however, that the
antithesis to 'gorgeous' is 'ruin'd, ragged and decay'd', describing
the condition of France after the pistolets of Spain had done their
work. The epithet applied to Scotland is 'which knew no state', the
antithesis being 'proud in one day'.
PAGE =98=, ll. 51-4. _Much hope which they should nourish, &c. _
Professor Norton proposed that the last two of these lines should run:
Will vanish if thou, Love, let them alone,
For thou wilt love me less when they are gone;
but that 'alone' is a misprint for 'atone.
' This is unnecessary, and
there is no authority for 'atone'. What Donne says, in the cynical
vein of _Elegie VI_, 9-10, is: 'If thou love me let my crowns alone,
for the poorer I grow the less you will love me. I shall lose the
qualities which you admired in me when you saw them through the
glamour of wealth. '
l. 55. _And be content. _ The majority of the MSS. begin a new
paragraph here and read:
Oh, be content, &c.
Donne would almost seem to have read or seen (he was a frequent
theatre-goer) the old play of _Soliman and Perseda_ (pr. 1599). There
the lover, having lost a carcanet, sends a cryer through the street
and offers one hundred crowns reward. Chambers notes a similar case in
_The Puritan_ (1607). Lost property is still cried by the bellman
in northern Scottish towns. The custom of resorting in such cases
to 'some dread Conjurer' is frequently referred to. See Jonson's
_Alchemist_ for the questions with which their customers approached
conjurers.
ll. 71-2. _So in the first falne angels, &c. _ Aquinas discusses the
question: 'Utrum intellectus daemonis sit obtenebratus per privationem
cognitionis omnis veritatis. ' After stating the arguments for such
privation he replies: 'Sed contra est quod Dionysius dicit . . . quod
"data sunt daemonibus aliqua dona, quae nequaquam mutata esse dicimus,
sed sunt integra et splendidissima. " Inter ista, autem, naturalia
dona est cognitio veritatis. ' Aquinas then explains that knowledge is
twofold, that which comes by nature, and that which comes by
grace: and that the latter again is twofold, that which is purely
speculative, and that which is 'affectiva, producens amorem Dei'.
'Harum autem trium cognitionum prima in daemonibus nec est ablata nec
diminuta: consequitur enim ipsam naturam Angeli, qui secundum suam
naturam est quidam intellectus vel mens. Propter simplicitatem autem
suae substantiae a natura eius aliquid subtrahi non potest. '
Devils, therefore, have natural knowledge in an eminent degree
(_splendidissima_); they have even the knowledge which comes by grace
in so far as God chooses to bestow it, for His own purposes, by
the mediation of angels or 'per aliqua temporalia divinae virtutis
effecta' (Augustine). But of the knowledge which leads to good they
have nothing: 'tenendum est firmiter secundum fidem catholicam, quod
et voluntas bonorum Angelorum confirmata est in bono, et voluntas
daemonum obstinata est in malo. ' _Summa_ I.
lxiv. 1-2. They have 'wisdom and knowledge', but it is immovably set
to do ill.
ll. 77-8. _Pitty these Angels; yet their dignities
Passe Vertues, Powers and Principalities. _
There is a good deal of vacillation in the MSS. as to the punctuation
of 'Angels yet', some placing the semicolon before, others after
'yet'. The difference is not great, but that which I have adopted,
though it has least authority, brings out best what I take to be the
meaning of these somewhat difficult lines. 'Pity these Angels, for yet
(i. e. until they are melted down and lose their form) they, as good
angels, are superior in dignity to Vertues, Powers, and Principalities
among the bad angels. ' The order of the Angelic beings, which the
Middle Ages took from Pseudo-Dionysius, consisted of nine Orders in
three Hierarchies. The first and highest Hierarchy included (beginning
with the highest Order) Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; the second,
Dominions, Virtues, and Powers; the third, Principalities, Archangels,
Angels. Thus the three Orders mentioned by Donne are all in rank
superior to mere Angels; but the lowest Order of Good Angels is
superior to the highest Order of Evil Spirits, although before their
fall these belonged to the highest Orders. Probably, however, there
is a second and satiric reference in Donne's words which explains his
choice of Vertues, Powers, and Principalities. In the other sense of
the words Angels are coins, money; and the power of money surpasses
that of earthly Vertues, Powers, and Principalities. This may explain,
further, why Donne singles out 'Vertues, Powers, and Principalities'.
One would expect that, to make the antithesis between good and bad
angels as complete as possible, he would have named the three highest
orders, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. But the three orders which he
does mention are the highest Orders which travel, as money does. The
angels are divided into _Assistentes_ and _Administrates_. To the
former class belong all the Orders of the first Hierarchy, and the
Dominions of the second. The Vertues are thus the highest Order of
_Administrantes_. Aquinas, _Summa_, cxii. 3, 4. The _Assistentes_ are
those who 'only stand and wait'.
PAGE =99=, l. 100. _rot thy moist braine_: So Sylvester's _Du Bartas_,
I. ii. 18:
the Brain
Doth highest place of all our Frame retain,
And tempers with its moistful coldness so
Th'excessive heat of other parts below.
This was Aristotle's opinion (_De Part. Anim. _ II. 7), refuted by
Galen, who, like Plato, made the brain the seat of the soul and the
generator of the animal spirits. See II. p. 45.
PAGE =100=, ll. 112, 114. _Gold is Restorative . . . 'tis cordiall. _
'Most men say as much of gold, and some other minerals, as these have
done of precious stones. Erastus still maintaineth the opposite part,
Disput. in Paracelsum, cap. 4, fol. 196, he confesseth of gold, that
it makes the heart merry, but in no other sense but as it is in a
miser's chest:
----at mihi plaudo
----simulac nummos contemplor in arca
as he said in the poet: it so revives the spirits, and is an excellent
receipt against melancholy,
For gold in phisik is a cordial,
Therefore he lovede gold in special. '
Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Pt. 2, Sub. 4.
ELEGIE XII.
PAGE =101=, l. 37. _And mad'st us sigh and glow_: 'sigh and blow' has
been the somewhat inelegant reading of all editions hitherto.
l. 42. _And over all thy husbands towring eyes. _ The epithet 'towring'
is strange and the MSS. show some vacillation. Most of them read
'towred', probably the past participle of the same verb, though
Grosart alters to 'two red'--not a very poetical description. _RP31_
here diverges from _H40_ and reads 'loured', perhaps for 'lurid', but
both these MSS. alter the order of the words and attach the epithet
to 'husbands', which is manifestly wrong, and the Grolier Club edition
prints 'lowering' without comment, regarding, I suppose, 't' as a
mistake for 'l'.
The 'towring' of _1669_ and _TCD_ is probably correct, being a
bold metaphor from hawking, and having the force practically of
'threatening'. The hawk towers threateningly above its prey before it
'sousing kills with a grace'. If 'towring' is not right, 'lowring' is
the most probable emendation.
PAGE =102=, l. 43. _That flam'd with oylie sweat of jealousie. _ This
is the reading of all the MSS. , and as on the whole their text is
superior I have followed it. If 'oylie' is, as I think, the right
epithet, it means 'moist', as in 'an oily palm', with perhaps a
reference to the inflammability of oil. If 'ouglie '(i. e. ugly) be
preferred it is a forcible transferred epithet.
l. 49. _most respects? _ This is the reading of all the MSS. , and
'best' in _1669_ is probably an emendation. The use of 'most' as an
adjective, superlative of 'great', is not uncommon:
God's wrong is most of all.
Shakespeare, _Rich. III_, IV. iv. 377.
Though in this place most master wear no breeches.
Ibid. , _2 Hen. VI_, I. iii. 144.
l. 54. I can make no exact sense of this line either as it stands in
_1669_ or in the MSS. One is tempted to combine the versions and read:
Yea thy pale colours, and thy panting heart,
the 'secrets of our Art' being all the signs by which they
communicated to one another their mutual affection. But it is
necessary to explain the presence of 'inwards' or 'inward' in both the
versions.
PAGE =103=, l. 79. _The Summer how it ripened in the eare_; This fine
passage has been rather spoiled in all editions hitherto by printing
in this line 'yeare' for 'eare', even in modernized texts. The MSS.
and the sense both show that 'eare' is the right word, and indeed I
have no doubt that 'year' in _1635_ was simply due to a compositor's
or copyist's pronunciation. It occurs again in the 1669 edition in the
song _Twicknam Garden_ (p. 28, l. 3):
And at mine eyes, and at mine years,
These forms in 'y' are common in Sylvester's _Du Bartas_, e. g.
'yerst'. The O. E. D. gives the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries as
those in which 'yere' was a recognized pronunciation of 'ear', but it
is found sporadically later and has misled editors. Thus in Sir George
Etherege's letter to the Earl of Middleton from Ratisbon, printed in
Dryden's _Works_ (Scott and Saintsbury), xi, pp. 38-40, some lines
run:
These formed the jewel erst did grace
The cap of the first Grave o' the race,
Preferred by Graffin Marian
To adorn the handle of her fan;
And, as by old record appears,
Worn since in Kunigunda's years;
Now sparkling in the Froein's hair,
No rocket breaking in the air
Can with her starry head compare.
In a modernized text, as this is, surely 'Kunigunda's years' should be
'Kunigunda's ears'.
ll. 93-4. _That I may grow enamoured on your mind,
When my own thoughts I there reflected find. _
'I there neglected find' has been the reading of all editions
hitherto--a strange reason for being enamoured.
PAGE =104=, l. 96. _My deeds shall still be what my words are now_:
'words' suits the context better than either the 'deeds' of _1635-69_
or 'thoughts' of _A25_.
PAGE =104=. ELEGIE XIII.
PAGE =105=, ll. 13-14. _Liv'd Mantuan now againe,
That foemall Mastix, to limme with his penne_
Chambers, following the editions from _1639_ onwards, drops the comma
after 'Mastix', which suggests that Julia is the 'foemall Mastix',
not Mantuan. By Mantuan he understands Virgil, and supposes there is
a reference to the 'flammis armataque Chimaera' of _Aen. _ vi. 289. The
Mantuan of the text is the 'Old Mantuan' of _Love's Labour's Lost_,
iv. 2. 92. Donne calls Mantuan the scourge of women because of his
fourth eclogue _De natura mulierum_. Norton quotes from it:
Femineum servile genus, crudele, superbum.
The O. E. D. quotes from S. Holland, _Zara_ (1656): 'It would have
puzzell'd that Female Mastix Mantuan to have limn'd this she
Chymera'--obviously borrowed from this poem. The dictionary gives
examples of 'mastix' in other compounds.
The reference to Mantuan as a woman-hater is a favourite one with
the prose-pamphleteers: 'To this might be added _Mantuans_ invective
against them, but that pittie makes me refraine from renewing his
worne out complaints, the wounds whereof the former forepast feminine
sexe hath felt. I, but here the _Homer_ of Women hath forestalled an
objection, saying that _Mantuans_ house holding of our Ladie, he was
enforced by melancholic into such vehemencie of speech', &c. Nash,
_The Anatomy of Absurdity_ (ed. McKerrow, i. 12).
'Where I leave you to consider, Gentlemen, how far unmeete women are
to have such reproches laid upon them, as sundrye large lipt fellows
have done: who when they take a peece of work in hand, and either for
want of matter, or lack of wit, are half gravelled, then they must
fill up the page with slaundering of women, who scarsly know what
a woman is: but if I were able either by wit or arte to be their
defender, or had the law in my hand to dispose as I list, which would
be as unseemely, as an Asse to treade the measures: yet, if it were
so, I would correct _Mantuans Egloge_, intituled _Alphus_: or els
if the Authour were alive, I would not doubt to persuade him in
recompence of his errour, to frame a new one,' &c. Greene, _Mamillia_
(ed. Grosart), 106-7. Greene is probably the '_Homer_ of Women'
referred to in the first extract.
l. 19. _Tenarus. _ In the _Anatomy of the World_ 'Tenarif' is thus
spelt in the editions of 1633 to 1669, and Grosart declared that the
reference here is to that island. It is of course to 'Taenarus' in
Laconia. There was in that headland a sulphurous cavern believed to be
a passage to Hades. Through it Orpheus descended to recover Eurydice.
Ovid, _Met. _ x. 13; Paus. iii. 14, 25.
l. 28. _self-accusing oaths_: 'oaths' is the reading of the MSS. ,
'loaths' of the editions. The word 'loaths' in the sense of 'dislike,
hatred, ill-will' is found as late as 1728 (O. E. D. ). 'If your Horse
. .
