He had
already published a Hebrew version of the Genevan Catechism intended
for his Jewish brethren.
already published a Hebrew version of the Genevan Catechism intended
for his Jewish brethren.
John Donne
The balance of the MS.
evidence is on the
side of _1633_. To me 'this' seems the more vivid and pointed reading.
The line must be taken in close connexion with what precedes. 'If I
turned to the East,' says Donne, 'I should see Christ lifted on to his
Cross to die, a Sun by rising set. And unless Christ had consented
to rise and set on _this_ Crosse (this Crosse which I should see in
vision if I turned my head), which was raised this day, Sin would have
eternally benighted all. '
l. 22. _turne all spheres. _ The 'tune all speares' of the editions
and some MSS. is tempting because of (as it is doubtless due to) the
Platonic doctrine of the music of the spheres. But Donne was more of a
Schoolman and Aristotelian than a Platonist, and I think there can be
little doubt that he is describing Christ as the 'first mover'. On the
other hand 'tune' may include 'turne'. The Dutch poet translates:
Die 't Noord en Zuyder-punt bereicken,
daer Sy 't spanden
Er geven met een' draeg elck Hemel-rond
sijn toon.
The idea that the note of each is due to the rate at which it is spun
is that of Plato, _The Republic_, x.
PAGE =338=. THE LITANIE.
In a letter to Goodyere written apparently in 1609 or 1610, Donne
says: 'Since my imprisonment in my bed, I have made a meditation in
verse, which I call a Litany; the word you know imports no other then
supplication, but all Churches have one forme of supplication, by that
name. Amongst ancient annals I mean some 800 years, I have met
two Litanies in Latin verse, which gave me not the reason of my
meditations, for in good faith I thought not upon them then, but they
give me a defence, if any man, to a Lay man, and a private, impute it
as a fault, to take such divine and publique names, to his own little
thoughts. The first of these was made by Ratpertus a Monk of Suevia;
and the other by S. Notker, of whom I will give you this note by the
way, that he is a private Saint, for a few Parishes; they were both
but monks and the Letanies poor and barbarous enough; yet Pope Nicolas
the 5, valued their devotion so much, that he canonized both their
Poems, and commanded them for publike service in their Churches: mine
is for lesser Chappels, which are my friends, and though a copy of it
were due to you, now, yet I am so unable to serve my self with writing
it for you at this time (being some 30 staves of 9 lines) that I must
intreat you to take a promise that you shall have the first, for a
testimony of that duty which I owe to your love, and to my self,
who am bound to cherish it by my best offices. That by which it will
deserve best acceptation, is, that neither the Roman Church need call
it defective, because it abhors not the particular mention of the
blessed Triumphers in heaven; nor the Reformed can discreetly accuse
it, of attributing more then a rectified devotion ought to doe. '
The Litanies referred to in Donne's letter to Goodyere may be read in
Migne's _Patrologia Latina_, vol. lxxxvii, col. 39 and 42. They are
certainly barbarous enough. That of Ratpertus is entitled _Litania
Ratperti ad processionem diebus Dominicis_, and begins:
Ardua spes mundi, solidator et inclyte coeli
Christe, exaudi nos propitius famulos.
Virgo Dei Genetrix rutilans in honore perennis,
Ora pro famulis, sancta Maria, tuis.
The other is headed _Notkeri Magistri cognomento Balbuli Litania
rhythmica_, and opens thus:
Votis supplicibus voces super astra feramus,
Trinus ut et simplex nos regat omnipotens.
Sancte Pater, adiuva nos, Sancte Fili, adiuva nos,
Compar his et Spiritus, ungue nos intrinsecus.
Michael, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, and Stephen, martyrs and
virgins, are appealed to in both. There are some differences in
respect of particular saints invoked.
It is interesting also to compare Donne's series of petitions with
those in a Middle English Litany preserved in the Balliol Coll. MS.
354 (published by Edward Flugel in _Anglia_ xxv. 220). The poetry is
very poor and I need not quote. The interesting feature is the list
of petitions 'Vnto the ffader', 'ye sonne', 'ye holy gost', 'the
trinite', 'our lady', 'ye angelles'. 'ye propre angell', 'John
baptist', 'ye appostiles', 'ye martires', 'the confessours', 'ye
virgins', 'unto all sayntes'. Donne, it will be observed, includes
the patriarchs and the prophets, but omits any reference to a guardian
angel and to the saints. Other references in his poems and sermons
show that he had the thought of a guardian angel often in his mind:
'As that Angel, which God hath given to protect thee, is not weary of
his office, for all thy perversenesses, so, howsoever God deale with
thee, be not thou weary of bearing thy part, in his Quire here in the
Militant Church. ' _Sermons_ 80. 44. 440.
PAGE =339=, l. 34. _a such selfe different instinct
Of these;_
'As the three persons of the Trinity are distinguished as Power (The
Father), Knowledge (The Son), Love (The Holy Ghost), and are yet
identical, not three but one, may in me power, love, and knowledge be
thus at once distinct and identical. ' The comma after 'these' in _D_,
_H49_, _Lec_ was accidentally dropped. In _1635-69_ a comma was then
interpolated after 'instinct' and 'Of these' was connected with what
follows: 'Of these let all mee elemented bee,' 'these' being made to
point forward to the next line. Chambers and the Grolier Club editor
both read thus. But _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ show what was the original
punctuation. Without 'Of these' it is difficult to give a precise
meaning to 'instinct'. It would be easy to change 'a such' to 'such
a' with most of the MSS. , but Donne seems to have affected this order.
Compare _Elegie X: The Dreame_, p. 95, l. 17:
After a such fruition I shall wake.
PAGE =341=, l. 86. _In Abel dye. _ Abel was to the early Church a type
of Christ, as being the first martyr.
PAGE =343=, ll. 122-4. One might omit the brackets in these lines and
substitute a semicolon after 'hearken too' and a comma after 'and
do', and make the sense clearer. The MSS. bear evidence to their
difficulty. There is certainly no call for brackets as we use them,
and the 1633 edition is more sparing of them in this poem than the
later editions. What Donne says is: 'While this quire' (enumerated in
the previous stanzas) 'prays for us and thou hearkenest to them, let
not us whose duty is to pray, to endure patiently, and to do thy will,
trust in their prayers so far as to forget our duty of obedience and
service. '
PAGE =347=, l. 231. _Which well, if we starve, dine_: 'well' has the
support of all the MSS. and may be the adverb placed before its verb.
'If we starve they dine well. ' In this wire-drawn and tormented poem
it is hard to say what Donne may not have written. Most of the editors
read 'will', and this appears in some copies of _1633_.
l. 243. _Heare us, weake ecchoes, O thou eare, and cry. _ The 'cry' of
the editions is surely right. God is at once the source of our prayers
and their answerer. Our prayers are echoes of what His grace inspires
in our hearts. The 'eye' of _S_ and other MSS. , which also read
'wretches' for 'ecchoes', is due to a misapprehension of the condensed
thought, and 'eye' with 'ecchoes' is entirely irrelevant. _JC_ tries
another emendation: 'Oh thou heare our cry. '
'Every man who prostrates himselfe in his chamber, and poures out his
soule in prayer to God;. . . though his faith assure him, that God hath
granted all that he asked upon the first petition of his prayer, yea
before he made it, (for God put that petition in to his heart and
mouth, and moved him to aske it, that thereby he might be moved to
grant it), yet as long as the Spirit enables him he continues his
prayer,' &c. _Sermons_ 80. 77. 786.
But indeed we do not need to go to the _Sermons_ to see that this is
Donne's meaning. He has emphasized it already in this poem: e. g. in
Stanza xxiii:
Heare us, for till thou heare us, Lord
We know not what to say:
Thine eare to'our sighes, teares, thoughts gives voice and word.
O Thou who Satan heard'st in Jobs sicke day,
Heare thy selfe now, for thou in us dost pray.
'But in things of this kind (i. e. sermons), that soul that inanimates
them never departs from them. The Spirit of God that dictates them in
the speaker or writer, and is present in his tongue or hand, meets
him again (as we meet ourselves in a glass) in the eyes and ears and
hearts of the hearers and readers. ' Gosse, _Life, &c. _, i. 123: To . . .
the Countess of Montgomery.
'God cannot be called a cry', Grosart says; but St. Paul so describes
the work of the Spirit: 'Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our
infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought:
but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the heart knoweth what is
the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints
according to the will of God. ' Calvin thus closes his note on the
passage: 'Atque ita locutus est Paulus quo significantius id totum
tribueret Spiritus gratiae. Iubemur quidem pulsare, sed nemo sponte
praemeditari vel unam syllabam poterit, nisi arcano Spiritus sui
instinctu nos Deus pulset, adeoque sibi corda nostra aperiat. '
PAGE =348=, l. 246. _Gaine to thy self, or us allow. _ If we perish
neither Christ nor we have gained anything. Both have died in vain.
If 'and' is substituted for 'or' in this line (_1635-69_ and Chambers)
then the next line becomes otiose.
PAGE =348=. UPON THE TRANSLATION OF THE PSALMES, &c.
We do not know what was the occasion of these lines. The Countess was
the mother of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and Philip Herbert,
Earl of Montgomery, and of Pembroke after his brother's death.
Poems by the former are frequently found with Donne's, e. g. in
the Hawthornden MS. which is made from a collection in Donne's own
possession. Doubtless they were known to one another, but there is no
evidence of intimacy, such as letters. To the Countess of Montgomery
Donne in 1619 sent a copy of one of his sermons which she had asked
for (Gosse, _Life, &c_. , ii. 123). It may have been for her that he
composed this poem.
An elaborate copy of the Psalms was prepared by John Davis of
Hereford. From this they were published in 1822.
From l. 53 it is evident that Donne's poem was written after the death
of the Countess of Pembroke in 1621.
PAGE =349=, l. 38. _So well attyr'd abroad, so ill at home. _ Donne has
probably in mind the French versions of Clement Marot, which were the
war-songs of the Huguenots.
PAGE =351=. TO MR. TILMAN.
Of Mr. Tilman I can find no trace in printed Oxford or Cambridge
registers. The poem is a strange comment on the seventeenth century's
estimate of the clergy:
Why do they think unfit
That Gentry should joyne families with it?
In his _Life of George Herbert_ Walton tells us of Herbert's
resolution to enter the Church, and the opposition he met with:
'He did, at his return to London, acquaint a Court-friend with his
resolution to enter into _Sacred Orders_, who perswaded him to alter
it, as too mean an employment, and too much below his birth, and the
excellent abilities and endowments of his mind. To whom he replied,
'_It hath been formerly judg'd that the Domestick Servants of the King
of Heaven, should be of the noblest Families on Earth: and, though the
Iniquity of the late Times have made Clergy-men meanly valued, and
the sacred name of Priest contemptible; yet, I will labour to make
it honourable, by consecrating all my learning, and all my poor
abilities, to advance the Glory of that God that gave them. _' This
estimate of the clergy must not be overlooked when considering the
struggle that went on in Donne's mind too before he crossed the
Rubicon.
PAGE =352=, l. 43. _As Angels out of clouds, &c. _ Walton doubtless
had this line in his mind when he described Donne's own preaching:
'A Preacher in earnest, weeping sometimes for his Auditory, sometimes
with them, alwayes preaching to himselfe, like an Angel from a cloud,
though in none: carrying some (as S. Paul was) to heaven, in holy
raptures; enticing others, by a sacred art and courtship, to
amend their lives; and all this with a most particular grace, and
un-imitable fashion of speaking. '
PAGE =352=. A HYMNE TO CHRIST.
PAGE =353=, ll. 9-12. Perhaps the rhetoric of these lines would be
improved by shifting the semicolon from l. 10 to l. 11. 'In putting,
at thy behest, the seas between my friends and me, I sacrifice them
unto thee: Do thou put thy,' &c. As the verse stands the connexion
between the first two lines and the next is a little vague.
l. 12. _thy sea_. I have adopted 'sea' from the MSS. in place of
'seas' _1633_. It was easy for the printer to take over 'seas' from
the preceding line, but 'sea' is the more pointed word. The sea is the
blood of Christ. The 1635-69 editions indeed read 'blood', which is as
though a gloss had crept in from the margin. More probably 'blood'
was a first version, changed by a bold metaphor to a more striking
antithesis.
Miss Spearing has drawn my attention, since writing this note, to the
peroration of _A Sermon of Valediction at my going into Germany, at
Lincolns-Inne, April_ 18, 1619, which I had overlooked. It confirms
the rightness of 'sea'. The whole passage is of interest in connexion
with this poem: 'Now to make up a circle, by returning to our first
word, remember: As we remember God, so for his sake, let us remember
one another. In my long absence, and far distance from hence, remember
me, as I shall do you in the ears of that God, to whom the farthest
East, and the farthest West are but as the right and left ear in
one of us; we hear with both at once, and he hears in both at once;
remember me, not my abilities; for when I consider my Apostleship that
I was sent to you, I am in St. Pauls _quorum, quorum ego sum minimus_,
the least of them that have been sent; and when I consider my
infirmities, I am in his _quorum_, in another commission, another way,
_Quorum ego maximus_; the greatest of them; but remember my labors,
and endeavors, at least my desire, to make sure your salvation. And
I shall remember your religious cheerfulness in hearing the word, and
your christianly respect towards all them that bring that word unto
you, and towards myself in particular far bove my merit. And so as
your eyes that stay here, and mine that must be far of, for all that
distance shall meet every morning, in looking upon that same Sun, and
meet every night, in looking upon the same Moon; so our hearts may
meet morning and evening in that God, which sees and hears everywhere;
that you may come thither to him with your prayers, that I, (if I may
be of use for his glory, and your edification in this place) may be
restored to you again; and may come to him with my prayer that what
_Paul_ soever plant amongst you, or what _Apollos_ soever water, God
himself will give us the increase: That if I never meet you again till
we have all passed the gate of death, yet in the gates of heaven, I
may meet you all, and there say to my Saviour and your Saviour, that
which he said to his Father and our Father, _Of those whom thou hast
given me, have I not lost one_. Remember me thus, you that stay in
this Kingdome of peace, where no sword is drawn, but the sword of
Justice, as I shal remember you in those Kingdomes, where ambition on
one side, and a necessary defence from unjust persecution on the other
side hath drawn many swords; and Christ Jesus remember us all in his
Kingdome, to which, _though we must sail through a sea, it is the
sea of his blood_, where no soul suffers shipwrack; though we must be
blown with strange winds, with sighs and groans for our sins, yet it
is the Spirit of God that blows all this wind, and shall blow away
all contrary winds of diffidence or distrust in God's mercy; where we
shall be all Souldiers of one army, the Lord of Hostes, and Children
of one Quire, the God of Harmony and consent: where all Clients shall
retain but one Counsellor, our Advocate Christ Jesus, nor present him
any other fee but his own blood, and yet every Client have a Judgment
on his side, not only in a not guilty, in the remission of his sins,
but in a _Venite benedicti_, in being called to the participation
of an immortal Crown of glory: where there shall be no difference in
affection, nor in mind, but we shall agree as fully and perfectly in
our _Allelujah_, and _gloria in excelsis_, as God the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost agreed in the _faciamus hominem_ at first; where we shall
end, and yet begin but then; where we shall have continuall rest, and
yet never grow lazie; where we shall be stronger to resist, and yet
have no enemy; where we shall live and never die, where we shall meet
and never part. ' _Sermons_ 26. 19. 280.
l. 28. _Fame, Wit, Hopes, &c. _ Compare: 'How ill husbands then of this
dignity are we by _sinne_, to forfeit it by submitting our selves to
inferior things? either to _gold_, then which every worme, (because a
worme hath life, and gold hath none) is in nature more estimable, and
more precious; Or, to that which is lesse than gold, to Beauty; for
there went neither labour, nor study, nor cost to the making of that;
(the Father cannot diet himselfe so, nor the mother so, as to be sure
of a faire child) but it is a thing that hapned by chance, wheresoever
it is; and, as there are Diamonds of divers waters, so men enthrall
themselves in one clime to a black, in another to a white beauty.
To that which is lesse then _gold_ or _Beauty_, _voice_, _opinion_,
_fame_, _honour_, we sell our selves. ' _Sermons_ 50. 38. 352.
PAGE =354=. THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMY.
Immanuel Tremellius was born in the Ghetto of Ferrara in 1510. His
father was apparently a Jewish surgeon, a man of distinction in the
Jewish community. Educated as a Jew, Tremellius became a Christian
about the age of twenty, and, under the influence of the Protestant
movement which was agitating Italy as well as other countries, a
Calvinist. When persecution began Tremellius fled from Lucca, where
he had taught Hebrew under the reformer Vermigli, to Strasburg, and
thereafter his life was that of the wandering, often fugitive, scholar
and reformer. He was invited to England by Cranmer in 1548, and held
the Professorship of Hebrew at Cambridge until 1553. The accession of
Mary drove him back to the Continent, and he was tutor to the children
of the Duke of Zweibruchen from 1554 to 1558, and rector of the
Gymnasium at Hornbach from 1558 to 1560. The Duke became a Lutheran,
and Tremellius was exiled, but found after a year or two a haven in
the University of Heidelberg, where Duke Frederick III had rallied to
the Calvinist cause. Tremellius was Professor of Theology here from
1562-77, and it was here that he issued most of his works.
He had
already published a Hebrew version of the Genevan Catechism intended
for his Jewish brethren. The works issued at Heidelberg include a
Chaldaic and Syriac Grammar, an edition of the Peschito (an old Syrian
version of the New Testament), and the Latin translation of the Old
Testament which Donne utilized for his paraphrase. In this work he was
assisted by his son-in-law Francis Junius (father of the Anglo-Saxon
and Antiquarian scholar), a native of Bourges, who had served as a
field-preacher under William the Silent. Junius was responsible only
for the Apocrypha, so that Donne rightly mentions Tremellius alone.
The work was published at Frankfort in 1575-9; in London in 1580,
1581, and 1585; at Geneva in 1590 and 1617. In the Genevan editions
it was coupled with Beza's translation of the New Testament. The whole
was re-issued at Hanover as late as 1715.
Duke Frederick III's successor was a Lutheran, and Tremellius was
driven into exile once more in 1577. His last years were spent as
teacher in the Academy instituted by Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne,
Vicomte de Turenne, in Sedan. Here he died in 1580.
I have compared Donne's version throughout with both Tremellius'
translation and the Vulgate, and wherever the collation helps to fix
the text I have quoted their readings in the textual notes. I add here
one or two more quotations from the originals. Tremellius' version was
accompanied, it must be remembered, with an elaborate commentary.
PAGE =356=, l. 58. _accite_, the reading of _B_, _O'F_ as well as
_1635-69_, I have not yet found elsewhere in Donne's works, but
doubtless it occurs. Shakespeare uses it once:
He by the Senate is accited home
From weary wars against the barbarous Goths.
_Tit. Andr. _ I. i. 27-8.
ll. 75-6. _for they sought for meat
Which should refresh their soules, they could not get_.
Chambers has printed this poem from _1639_, noting occasionally the
readings of _1635_ and _1650_, but ignoring consistently those of
_1633_. Here _1633_ has the support of _N_, _TCD_; _B_ reads 'they none
could get'; and _O'F_, if I may trust my collation, agrees with
_1635-69;_ Grolier follows _1633_ but conjectures 'the sought-for
meat'. This is unnecessary. It is quite in Donne's style to close with
an abrupt 'they could not get'. Modern punctuation would change the
comma to a semicolon. The version of Tremellius runs: 'Expirarunt
quum quaererent escam sibi, qua reficerent se ipsos. ' The Vulgate,
'consumpti sunt, quia quaesierunt cibum sibi ut refocillarent animum. '
PAGE =357=, l. 81. _Of all which heare I mourne_: i. e. 'which hear
that I mourn. ' The construction is harsh, and I was tempted for a
moment to adopt the 'me' of _N_, but Donne is translating Tremellius,
and 'me in gemitu esse' is not quite the same thing as 'me gementem'.
Grosart and Chambers and the Grolier Club editor would not have
followed _1639_ in changing 'heare' to 'here' had they consulted the
original poem which Donne is paraphrasing in any version. The Vulgate
runs: 'Audierunt quia ingemisco ego, et non est qui consoletur me. '
PAGE =359=, l. 161. _poure, for thy sinnes_. The 'poure out thy
sinnes' of _1635-69_ which Grosart and Chambers follow is obviously
wrong. The words 'for thy sinnes' have no counterpart in the Latin of
Tremellius or the Vulgate. The latter runs: 'Effunde sicut aquam cor
tuum ante conspectum Domini. '
PAGE =360=, ll. 182-3. _hath girt mee in
With hemlocke, and with labour_.
Cingit cicuta et molestia, _Tremellius_: circumdedit me felle et
labore, _Vulgate_. Donne combines the two versions. He is fond of
using 'hemlock' as the typical poison: and he tells Wotton in one of
his letters that to him labour or business is the worst of evils:
'I professe that I hate businesse so much, as I am sometimes glad
to remember, that the _Roman Church_ reads that verse _A negotio
perambulante in tenebris_, which we reade from the pestilence
walking by night, so equall to me do the plague and businesse deserve
avoiding. ' _Letters_, p. 142. To Goodyere in like manner he writes,
'we who have been accustomed to one another are like in this, that we
love not businesse. ' _Letters_, p. 94.
PAGE =361=, l. 193. _the children of his quiver_. Donne found this
phrase in the Vulgate or in the margin of Tremellius. In the text
of the latter the verse runs, 'Immitit in renes meos tela pharetrae
suae. ' The marginal note says, '_Heb. _ filios, id est, prodeuntes a
pharetra. ' The Vulgate reads, 'filias pharetrae suae. '
l. 197. _drunke with wormewood_: 'inebriavit me absinthio, _Tremellius
and Vulgate_.
PAGE =362=, ll. 226-30. I have changed the full stop in l. 229, 'him',
to a comma, for all these clauses are objective to 'the Lord allowes
not this'. The construction is modelled on the original: 'Non enim
affligit ex animo suo, moestitiaque afficit filios viri. 34. Conterere
sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae, 35. Detorquere ius viri coram
facie superioris, 36. Pervertere hominem in causa sua, Dominus
non probat. ' The version of the Vulgate is similar: '33. Non enim
humiliavit ex corde suo, et abiecit filios hominum, 34. Ut contereret
sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae; 35. Ut declinaret iudicium viri
in conspectu vultus Altissimi; 36. Ut perverteret hominem in iudicio
suo; Dominus ignoravit. '
PAGE =364=, l. 299. _their bone_. The reading of the editions
is probably right: 'Concreta est cutis eorum cum osse ipsorum,'
_Tremellius_.
l. 302. _better through pierc'd then through penury_. I have no doubt
that the 'through penury' of the 1635-69 editions and the MSS. is
what Donne wrote. The 1633 editor changed it to 'by penury'. Donne is
echoing the parallelism of 'confossi gladio quam confossi fame'. The
Vulgate has simply 'Melius fuit occisio gladio quam interfectio fame'.
PAGE =366=, l. 337. _The annointed Lord, &c. _ Chambers, to judge from
his use of capital letters, evidently reads this verse as applying to
God,--'Th'Annointed Lord', 'under His shadow'. It is rather the King
of Israel. Tremellius's note runs: 'Id est, Rex noster e posteritate
Davidis, quo freti saltem nobis dabitur aliqua interspirandi occasio
in quibuslibet angustiis: nam praefidebant Judaei dignitati illius
regni, tamquam si pure et per seipsum fuisset stabile; non autem
spectabant Christum, qui finis est et complementum illius typi,
neque conditiones sibi imperatas. ' 'The anointed of the Lord' is
the translation of the Revised Version. The Vulgate version seems
to indicate a prophetic reference, which may be what Chambers had in
view: 'Spiritus oris nostri, Christus Dominus, captus est in peccatis
nostris: In umbra tua vivemus in gentibus. ' Donne took this verse as
the text of a Gunpowder Plot sermon in 1622. He points out there
that some commentators have applied the verse to Josiah, a good king;
others to Zedekiah, a bad king: 'We argue not, we dispute not; we
embrace that which arises from both, That both good Kings and
bad Kings . . . are the anointed of the Lord, and the breath of the
nostrils, that is, the life of the people,' &c. James is 'the Josiah
of our times'. James had good reasons for preferring bishops to Andrew
Melville and other turbulent presbyters. But Donne, who was steeped in
the Vulgate, notes a possible reference to Christ: 'Or if he lamented
the future devastation of that Nation, occasioned by the death of the
King of Kings, Christ Jesus, when he came into the world, this was
their case _prophetically_. ' _Sermons_ 50. 43. 402.
l. 355. _wee drunke, and pay_: 'pecunia bibimus' _Tremellius and
Vulgate_: the Latin may be present or past tense, but the verse goes
on in the Vulgate, 'ligna nostra pretio comparavimus,' which shows
that 'bibimus' is 'we drunk' or 'we have drunk'. The Authorized
Version reads 'we have drunken'.
PAGE =367=, l. 374. _children fall_. 'Juvenes ad molendum portant, et
pueri ad ligna corruunt,' _Tremellius_; 'et pueri in ligno corruerunt,'
_Vulgate_. But the latter translates the first half of the line quite
differently.
PAGE =368=. HYMN TO GOD MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESSE.
The date which Walton gives for this poem, March 23, 1630, is of
course March 23, 1631, i. e. eight days before the writer's death.
Donne's tense and torturing will never relaxed its hold before the
final moment: Being speechlesse, he did (as Saint Stephen) look
steadfastly towards heaven, till he saw the Sonne of God standing at
the right hand of his Father; And being satisfied with this blessed
sight, (as his soule ascended, and his last breath departed from him)
he closed his owne eyes, and then disposed his hands and body into
such a posture, as required no alteration by those that came to shroud
him. ' _Walton_ (1670).
Donne's monument had been designed by himself and shows him thus
shrouded. The epitaph too is his own composition and is the natural
supplement to this hymn:
JOHANNES DONNE
SAC. THEOL. PROFESS.
POST VARIA STVDIA QVIBVS AB ANNIS
TENERRIMIS FIDELITER, NEC INFELICITER
INCVBVIT;
INSTINCTV ET IMPVLSV SP. SANCTI, MONITV
ET HORTATV
REGIS JACOBI, ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXVS
ANNO SVI JESV MDCXIV. ET SVAE AETATIS XLII
DECANATV HVJVS ECCLESIAE INDVTVS
XXVII NOVEMBRIS, MDCXXI.
EXVTVS MORTE VLTIMO DIE MARTII MDCXXXI.
HIC LICET IN OCCIDVO CINERE ASPICIT EVM
CVJVS NOMEN EST ORIENS.
The reference in the last line of the epitaph, and the figure of the
map with which he plays in the second and third stanzas of the _Hymne_
are both illustrated by a passage in a sermon on Psalm vi. 8-10: 'In
a flat Map, there goes no more, to make West East, though they be
distant in an extremity, but to paste that flat Map upon a round body,
and then West and East are all one. In a flat soule, in a dejected
conscience, in a troubled spirit, there goes no more to the making
of that trouble, peace, then to apply that trouble to the body of the
Merits, to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and conforme thee
to him, and thy West is East, thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity
of spirit. The name of Christ is _Oriens_, _The East_; And yet Lucifer
himself is called _Filius Orientis_, _The Son of the East_. If thou
beest fallen by _Lucifer_, fallen to _Lucifer_, and not fallen as
_Lucifer_, to a senselessnesse of thy fall, and an impenitiblenesse
therein, but to a troubled spirit, still thy prospect is the East,
still thy Climate is heaven, still thy Haven is Jerusalem; for, in
our lowest dejection of all, even in the dust of the grave, we are
so composed, so layed down, as that we look to the East: If I could
beleeve that _Trajan_, or _Tecla_, could look Eastward, that is,
towards Christ, in Hell, I could beleeve with them of Rome, that
Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell. ' _Sermons_ 80.
55. 558.
For 'the name of Christ is Oriens'. Donne refers in the margin to
_Zachariae_ vi. 12: 'Et loqueris ad eum dicens: Haec ait Dominus
exercituum, dicens: ECCE VIR ORIENS NOMEN EJUS; et subter eum orietur,
et aedificabit templum Domino. ' In the English versions, Genevan and
Authorized, the words run 'whose name is the Branch', but to Donne the
Vulgate was the form in which he knew the Scriptures most intimately.
At the same time he consulted and refers to the English versions
frequently: 'that which we call the _Bishops Bible_, nor that which
we call the _Geneva Bible_, and that which we may call the _Kings_. '
_Sermons_ 80. 50. 506.
The difference between the two versions is due, I understand, to
the fact that the Hebrew participle 'rising' and the Hebrew word for
'branch' contain the same consonants. In unpointed Hebrew it was,
therefore, possible to confound them. The Septuagint version is
[Greek: Anatole onoma autou].
In describing the preparations for making Donne's tomb Walton says:
'Upon this urn he thus stood, with his eyes shut, and with so much of
the sheet turned aside, as might show his lean, pale, and deathlike
face, which was purposely turned towards the east, from whence he
expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus. ' Walton
says that he stood, but Mr. Hamo Thornycroft has pointed out that the
drapery by its folds reveals that it was modelled from a recumbent
figure. Gosse, _Life, &c_. , ii. 288.
ll. 18-20. _Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltare,
All streights, and none but streights, are wayes to them. _
Grosart and Chambers have boggled unnecessarily at these lines. The
former inserts an unnecessary and unmetrical 'are' after 'Gibraltare'.
The latter interpolates a mark of interrogation after 'Gibraltare',
putting 'Anyan, and Magellan and Gibraltare' on a level with the
Pacific, the 'eastern riches' and Jerusalem, i. e. _six_ possible homes
instead of _three_. What the poet says is simply, 'Be my home in the
Pacific, or in the rich east, or in Jerusalem, to each I must sail
through a strait, viz. Anyan (i. e. Behring Strait) if I go west by the
North-West passage, or Magellan, or Gibraltar. These, all of which are
straits, are ways to them, and none but straits are ways to them. '
A condensed construction makes 'are ways to them' predicate to
two subjects. For 'the straight of Anian' see Hakluyt's _Principal
Navigations_, vol. vii, Glasgow, 1904, esp. the map at p. 256, which
shows very distinctly how the 'Straight of Anian' was conceived to
separate America from 'Cathaia in Asia' and to lead right on to
Japan and the 'Ilandes of Moluccae', 'the eastern riches. ' The
_Mare Pacificum_ lies further to the south and east, entered by the
'Straight of Magellanes' between Peru and the 'Terra del Fuego', which
latter is not an island but part of the great 'Terra Australis'. Thus
'none but straights' lead to the 'eastern riches' or the Pacific.
'Outre ce que les navigations des modernes ont des-ja presque
descouvert que ce n'est point une isle, ains terre ferme et continente
avec l'Inde orientale d'un coste, et avec les terres qui sont soubs
les deux poles d'autre part; ou, si elle en est separee, que c'est
d'un si petit destroit et intervalle, qu'elle ne merite pas d'estre
nomme isle pour cela. ' Montaigne, _Essais_, i. 31: _Des Cannibales_.
The conceit about the 'straits' Donne had already used: 'a narrower
way but to a better Land; thorow Straits; 'tis true; but to the
_Pacifique_ Sea, The consideration of the treasure of the Godly Man
in this World, and God's treasure towards him, both in this, and the
next. ' _Sermons_ 26. 5. 71.
'Who ever amongst our Fathers thought of any other way to the
Moluccaes, or to China, then by the Promontory of _Good Hope_? Yet
another way opened itself to _Magellan_; a Straite; it is true; but
yet a way thither; and who knows yet, whether there may not be a
North-East, and a North-West way thither, besides? ' _Sermons_ 80. 24.
241.
Nevertheless by the time Donne wrote his hymn the sea to the south of
Terra del Fuego had recently been discovered. He is using the language
of a slightly earlier date, of his own youth, when travels and far
countries were much in his imagination. In 1617 George, Lord Carew,
writing to Sir Thomas Roe, Ambassador at the Court of the Mogul, says:
'The Hollanders have discovered to the southward of the Strayghts of
Magellen an open sea and free passage to the south sea. ' _Letters of
George, Lord Carew to Sir Thomas Roe_, Camden Society, 1860. For the
'Straight of Anyan' compare also:
This makes the foisting traveller to sweare,
And face out many a lie within the yeere.
And if he have beene an howre or two aboarde
To spew a little gall: then by the Lord,
He hath beene in both th'Indias, East and West,
Talks of Guiana, China, and the rest,
The straights of Gibraltare, and AEnian
Are but hard by; no, nor the Magellane:
Mandeville, Candish, sea-experienst Drake
Came never neere him, if he truly crake.
side of _1633_. To me 'this' seems the more vivid and pointed reading.
The line must be taken in close connexion with what precedes. 'If I
turned to the East,' says Donne, 'I should see Christ lifted on to his
Cross to die, a Sun by rising set. And unless Christ had consented
to rise and set on _this_ Crosse (this Crosse which I should see in
vision if I turned my head), which was raised this day, Sin would have
eternally benighted all. '
l. 22. _turne all spheres. _ The 'tune all speares' of the editions
and some MSS. is tempting because of (as it is doubtless due to) the
Platonic doctrine of the music of the spheres. But Donne was more of a
Schoolman and Aristotelian than a Platonist, and I think there can be
little doubt that he is describing Christ as the 'first mover'. On the
other hand 'tune' may include 'turne'. The Dutch poet translates:
Die 't Noord en Zuyder-punt bereicken,
daer Sy 't spanden
Er geven met een' draeg elck Hemel-rond
sijn toon.
The idea that the note of each is due to the rate at which it is spun
is that of Plato, _The Republic_, x.
PAGE =338=. THE LITANIE.
In a letter to Goodyere written apparently in 1609 or 1610, Donne
says: 'Since my imprisonment in my bed, I have made a meditation in
verse, which I call a Litany; the word you know imports no other then
supplication, but all Churches have one forme of supplication, by that
name. Amongst ancient annals I mean some 800 years, I have met
two Litanies in Latin verse, which gave me not the reason of my
meditations, for in good faith I thought not upon them then, but they
give me a defence, if any man, to a Lay man, and a private, impute it
as a fault, to take such divine and publique names, to his own little
thoughts. The first of these was made by Ratpertus a Monk of Suevia;
and the other by S. Notker, of whom I will give you this note by the
way, that he is a private Saint, for a few Parishes; they were both
but monks and the Letanies poor and barbarous enough; yet Pope Nicolas
the 5, valued their devotion so much, that he canonized both their
Poems, and commanded them for publike service in their Churches: mine
is for lesser Chappels, which are my friends, and though a copy of it
were due to you, now, yet I am so unable to serve my self with writing
it for you at this time (being some 30 staves of 9 lines) that I must
intreat you to take a promise that you shall have the first, for a
testimony of that duty which I owe to your love, and to my self,
who am bound to cherish it by my best offices. That by which it will
deserve best acceptation, is, that neither the Roman Church need call
it defective, because it abhors not the particular mention of the
blessed Triumphers in heaven; nor the Reformed can discreetly accuse
it, of attributing more then a rectified devotion ought to doe. '
The Litanies referred to in Donne's letter to Goodyere may be read in
Migne's _Patrologia Latina_, vol. lxxxvii, col. 39 and 42. They are
certainly barbarous enough. That of Ratpertus is entitled _Litania
Ratperti ad processionem diebus Dominicis_, and begins:
Ardua spes mundi, solidator et inclyte coeli
Christe, exaudi nos propitius famulos.
Virgo Dei Genetrix rutilans in honore perennis,
Ora pro famulis, sancta Maria, tuis.
The other is headed _Notkeri Magistri cognomento Balbuli Litania
rhythmica_, and opens thus:
Votis supplicibus voces super astra feramus,
Trinus ut et simplex nos regat omnipotens.
Sancte Pater, adiuva nos, Sancte Fili, adiuva nos,
Compar his et Spiritus, ungue nos intrinsecus.
Michael, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, and Stephen, martyrs and
virgins, are appealed to in both. There are some differences in
respect of particular saints invoked.
It is interesting also to compare Donne's series of petitions with
those in a Middle English Litany preserved in the Balliol Coll. MS.
354 (published by Edward Flugel in _Anglia_ xxv. 220). The poetry is
very poor and I need not quote. The interesting feature is the list
of petitions 'Vnto the ffader', 'ye sonne', 'ye holy gost', 'the
trinite', 'our lady', 'ye angelles'. 'ye propre angell', 'John
baptist', 'ye appostiles', 'ye martires', 'the confessours', 'ye
virgins', 'unto all sayntes'. Donne, it will be observed, includes
the patriarchs and the prophets, but omits any reference to a guardian
angel and to the saints. Other references in his poems and sermons
show that he had the thought of a guardian angel often in his mind:
'As that Angel, which God hath given to protect thee, is not weary of
his office, for all thy perversenesses, so, howsoever God deale with
thee, be not thou weary of bearing thy part, in his Quire here in the
Militant Church. ' _Sermons_ 80. 44. 440.
PAGE =339=, l. 34. _a such selfe different instinct
Of these;_
'As the three persons of the Trinity are distinguished as Power (The
Father), Knowledge (The Son), Love (The Holy Ghost), and are yet
identical, not three but one, may in me power, love, and knowledge be
thus at once distinct and identical. ' The comma after 'these' in _D_,
_H49_, _Lec_ was accidentally dropped. In _1635-69_ a comma was then
interpolated after 'instinct' and 'Of these' was connected with what
follows: 'Of these let all mee elemented bee,' 'these' being made to
point forward to the next line. Chambers and the Grolier Club editor
both read thus. But _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ show what was the original
punctuation. Without 'Of these' it is difficult to give a precise
meaning to 'instinct'. It would be easy to change 'a such' to 'such
a' with most of the MSS. , but Donne seems to have affected this order.
Compare _Elegie X: The Dreame_, p. 95, l. 17:
After a such fruition I shall wake.
PAGE =341=, l. 86. _In Abel dye. _ Abel was to the early Church a type
of Christ, as being the first martyr.
PAGE =343=, ll. 122-4. One might omit the brackets in these lines and
substitute a semicolon after 'hearken too' and a comma after 'and
do', and make the sense clearer. The MSS. bear evidence to their
difficulty. There is certainly no call for brackets as we use them,
and the 1633 edition is more sparing of them in this poem than the
later editions. What Donne says is: 'While this quire' (enumerated in
the previous stanzas) 'prays for us and thou hearkenest to them, let
not us whose duty is to pray, to endure patiently, and to do thy will,
trust in their prayers so far as to forget our duty of obedience and
service. '
PAGE =347=, l. 231. _Which well, if we starve, dine_: 'well' has the
support of all the MSS. and may be the adverb placed before its verb.
'If we starve they dine well. ' In this wire-drawn and tormented poem
it is hard to say what Donne may not have written. Most of the editors
read 'will', and this appears in some copies of _1633_.
l. 243. _Heare us, weake ecchoes, O thou eare, and cry. _ The 'cry' of
the editions is surely right. God is at once the source of our prayers
and their answerer. Our prayers are echoes of what His grace inspires
in our hearts. The 'eye' of _S_ and other MSS. , which also read
'wretches' for 'ecchoes', is due to a misapprehension of the condensed
thought, and 'eye' with 'ecchoes' is entirely irrelevant. _JC_ tries
another emendation: 'Oh thou heare our cry. '
'Every man who prostrates himselfe in his chamber, and poures out his
soule in prayer to God;. . . though his faith assure him, that God hath
granted all that he asked upon the first petition of his prayer, yea
before he made it, (for God put that petition in to his heart and
mouth, and moved him to aske it, that thereby he might be moved to
grant it), yet as long as the Spirit enables him he continues his
prayer,' &c. _Sermons_ 80. 77. 786.
But indeed we do not need to go to the _Sermons_ to see that this is
Donne's meaning. He has emphasized it already in this poem: e. g. in
Stanza xxiii:
Heare us, for till thou heare us, Lord
We know not what to say:
Thine eare to'our sighes, teares, thoughts gives voice and word.
O Thou who Satan heard'st in Jobs sicke day,
Heare thy selfe now, for thou in us dost pray.
'But in things of this kind (i. e. sermons), that soul that inanimates
them never departs from them. The Spirit of God that dictates them in
the speaker or writer, and is present in his tongue or hand, meets
him again (as we meet ourselves in a glass) in the eyes and ears and
hearts of the hearers and readers. ' Gosse, _Life, &c. _, i. 123: To . . .
the Countess of Montgomery.
'God cannot be called a cry', Grosart says; but St. Paul so describes
the work of the Spirit: 'Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our
infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought:
but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the heart knoweth what is
the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints
according to the will of God. ' Calvin thus closes his note on the
passage: 'Atque ita locutus est Paulus quo significantius id totum
tribueret Spiritus gratiae. Iubemur quidem pulsare, sed nemo sponte
praemeditari vel unam syllabam poterit, nisi arcano Spiritus sui
instinctu nos Deus pulset, adeoque sibi corda nostra aperiat. '
PAGE =348=, l. 246. _Gaine to thy self, or us allow. _ If we perish
neither Christ nor we have gained anything. Both have died in vain.
If 'and' is substituted for 'or' in this line (_1635-69_ and Chambers)
then the next line becomes otiose.
PAGE =348=. UPON THE TRANSLATION OF THE PSALMES, &c.
We do not know what was the occasion of these lines. The Countess was
the mother of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and Philip Herbert,
Earl of Montgomery, and of Pembroke after his brother's death.
Poems by the former are frequently found with Donne's, e. g. in
the Hawthornden MS. which is made from a collection in Donne's own
possession. Doubtless they were known to one another, but there is no
evidence of intimacy, such as letters. To the Countess of Montgomery
Donne in 1619 sent a copy of one of his sermons which she had asked
for (Gosse, _Life, &c_. , ii. 123). It may have been for her that he
composed this poem.
An elaborate copy of the Psalms was prepared by John Davis of
Hereford. From this they were published in 1822.
From l. 53 it is evident that Donne's poem was written after the death
of the Countess of Pembroke in 1621.
PAGE =349=, l. 38. _So well attyr'd abroad, so ill at home. _ Donne has
probably in mind the French versions of Clement Marot, which were the
war-songs of the Huguenots.
PAGE =351=. TO MR. TILMAN.
Of Mr. Tilman I can find no trace in printed Oxford or Cambridge
registers. The poem is a strange comment on the seventeenth century's
estimate of the clergy:
Why do they think unfit
That Gentry should joyne families with it?
In his _Life of George Herbert_ Walton tells us of Herbert's
resolution to enter the Church, and the opposition he met with:
'He did, at his return to London, acquaint a Court-friend with his
resolution to enter into _Sacred Orders_, who perswaded him to alter
it, as too mean an employment, and too much below his birth, and the
excellent abilities and endowments of his mind. To whom he replied,
'_It hath been formerly judg'd that the Domestick Servants of the King
of Heaven, should be of the noblest Families on Earth: and, though the
Iniquity of the late Times have made Clergy-men meanly valued, and
the sacred name of Priest contemptible; yet, I will labour to make
it honourable, by consecrating all my learning, and all my poor
abilities, to advance the Glory of that God that gave them. _' This
estimate of the clergy must not be overlooked when considering the
struggle that went on in Donne's mind too before he crossed the
Rubicon.
PAGE =352=, l. 43. _As Angels out of clouds, &c. _ Walton doubtless
had this line in his mind when he described Donne's own preaching:
'A Preacher in earnest, weeping sometimes for his Auditory, sometimes
with them, alwayes preaching to himselfe, like an Angel from a cloud,
though in none: carrying some (as S. Paul was) to heaven, in holy
raptures; enticing others, by a sacred art and courtship, to
amend their lives; and all this with a most particular grace, and
un-imitable fashion of speaking. '
PAGE =352=. A HYMNE TO CHRIST.
PAGE =353=, ll. 9-12. Perhaps the rhetoric of these lines would be
improved by shifting the semicolon from l. 10 to l. 11. 'In putting,
at thy behest, the seas between my friends and me, I sacrifice them
unto thee: Do thou put thy,' &c. As the verse stands the connexion
between the first two lines and the next is a little vague.
l. 12. _thy sea_. I have adopted 'sea' from the MSS. in place of
'seas' _1633_. It was easy for the printer to take over 'seas' from
the preceding line, but 'sea' is the more pointed word. The sea is the
blood of Christ. The 1635-69 editions indeed read 'blood', which is as
though a gloss had crept in from the margin. More probably 'blood'
was a first version, changed by a bold metaphor to a more striking
antithesis.
Miss Spearing has drawn my attention, since writing this note, to the
peroration of _A Sermon of Valediction at my going into Germany, at
Lincolns-Inne, April_ 18, 1619, which I had overlooked. It confirms
the rightness of 'sea'. The whole passage is of interest in connexion
with this poem: 'Now to make up a circle, by returning to our first
word, remember: As we remember God, so for his sake, let us remember
one another. In my long absence, and far distance from hence, remember
me, as I shall do you in the ears of that God, to whom the farthest
East, and the farthest West are but as the right and left ear in
one of us; we hear with both at once, and he hears in both at once;
remember me, not my abilities; for when I consider my Apostleship that
I was sent to you, I am in St. Pauls _quorum, quorum ego sum minimus_,
the least of them that have been sent; and when I consider my
infirmities, I am in his _quorum_, in another commission, another way,
_Quorum ego maximus_; the greatest of them; but remember my labors,
and endeavors, at least my desire, to make sure your salvation. And
I shall remember your religious cheerfulness in hearing the word, and
your christianly respect towards all them that bring that word unto
you, and towards myself in particular far bove my merit. And so as
your eyes that stay here, and mine that must be far of, for all that
distance shall meet every morning, in looking upon that same Sun, and
meet every night, in looking upon the same Moon; so our hearts may
meet morning and evening in that God, which sees and hears everywhere;
that you may come thither to him with your prayers, that I, (if I may
be of use for his glory, and your edification in this place) may be
restored to you again; and may come to him with my prayer that what
_Paul_ soever plant amongst you, or what _Apollos_ soever water, God
himself will give us the increase: That if I never meet you again till
we have all passed the gate of death, yet in the gates of heaven, I
may meet you all, and there say to my Saviour and your Saviour, that
which he said to his Father and our Father, _Of those whom thou hast
given me, have I not lost one_. Remember me thus, you that stay in
this Kingdome of peace, where no sword is drawn, but the sword of
Justice, as I shal remember you in those Kingdomes, where ambition on
one side, and a necessary defence from unjust persecution on the other
side hath drawn many swords; and Christ Jesus remember us all in his
Kingdome, to which, _though we must sail through a sea, it is the
sea of his blood_, where no soul suffers shipwrack; though we must be
blown with strange winds, with sighs and groans for our sins, yet it
is the Spirit of God that blows all this wind, and shall blow away
all contrary winds of diffidence or distrust in God's mercy; where we
shall be all Souldiers of one army, the Lord of Hostes, and Children
of one Quire, the God of Harmony and consent: where all Clients shall
retain but one Counsellor, our Advocate Christ Jesus, nor present him
any other fee but his own blood, and yet every Client have a Judgment
on his side, not only in a not guilty, in the remission of his sins,
but in a _Venite benedicti_, in being called to the participation
of an immortal Crown of glory: where there shall be no difference in
affection, nor in mind, but we shall agree as fully and perfectly in
our _Allelujah_, and _gloria in excelsis_, as God the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost agreed in the _faciamus hominem_ at first; where we shall
end, and yet begin but then; where we shall have continuall rest, and
yet never grow lazie; where we shall be stronger to resist, and yet
have no enemy; where we shall live and never die, where we shall meet
and never part. ' _Sermons_ 26. 19. 280.
l. 28. _Fame, Wit, Hopes, &c. _ Compare: 'How ill husbands then of this
dignity are we by _sinne_, to forfeit it by submitting our selves to
inferior things? either to _gold_, then which every worme, (because a
worme hath life, and gold hath none) is in nature more estimable, and
more precious; Or, to that which is lesse than gold, to Beauty; for
there went neither labour, nor study, nor cost to the making of that;
(the Father cannot diet himselfe so, nor the mother so, as to be sure
of a faire child) but it is a thing that hapned by chance, wheresoever
it is; and, as there are Diamonds of divers waters, so men enthrall
themselves in one clime to a black, in another to a white beauty.
To that which is lesse then _gold_ or _Beauty_, _voice_, _opinion_,
_fame_, _honour_, we sell our selves. ' _Sermons_ 50. 38. 352.
PAGE =354=. THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMY.
Immanuel Tremellius was born in the Ghetto of Ferrara in 1510. His
father was apparently a Jewish surgeon, a man of distinction in the
Jewish community. Educated as a Jew, Tremellius became a Christian
about the age of twenty, and, under the influence of the Protestant
movement which was agitating Italy as well as other countries, a
Calvinist. When persecution began Tremellius fled from Lucca, where
he had taught Hebrew under the reformer Vermigli, to Strasburg, and
thereafter his life was that of the wandering, often fugitive, scholar
and reformer. He was invited to England by Cranmer in 1548, and held
the Professorship of Hebrew at Cambridge until 1553. The accession of
Mary drove him back to the Continent, and he was tutor to the children
of the Duke of Zweibruchen from 1554 to 1558, and rector of the
Gymnasium at Hornbach from 1558 to 1560. The Duke became a Lutheran,
and Tremellius was exiled, but found after a year or two a haven in
the University of Heidelberg, where Duke Frederick III had rallied to
the Calvinist cause. Tremellius was Professor of Theology here from
1562-77, and it was here that he issued most of his works.
He had
already published a Hebrew version of the Genevan Catechism intended
for his Jewish brethren. The works issued at Heidelberg include a
Chaldaic and Syriac Grammar, an edition of the Peschito (an old Syrian
version of the New Testament), and the Latin translation of the Old
Testament which Donne utilized for his paraphrase. In this work he was
assisted by his son-in-law Francis Junius (father of the Anglo-Saxon
and Antiquarian scholar), a native of Bourges, who had served as a
field-preacher under William the Silent. Junius was responsible only
for the Apocrypha, so that Donne rightly mentions Tremellius alone.
The work was published at Frankfort in 1575-9; in London in 1580,
1581, and 1585; at Geneva in 1590 and 1617. In the Genevan editions
it was coupled with Beza's translation of the New Testament. The whole
was re-issued at Hanover as late as 1715.
Duke Frederick III's successor was a Lutheran, and Tremellius was
driven into exile once more in 1577. His last years were spent as
teacher in the Academy instituted by Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne,
Vicomte de Turenne, in Sedan. Here he died in 1580.
I have compared Donne's version throughout with both Tremellius'
translation and the Vulgate, and wherever the collation helps to fix
the text I have quoted their readings in the textual notes. I add here
one or two more quotations from the originals. Tremellius' version was
accompanied, it must be remembered, with an elaborate commentary.
PAGE =356=, l. 58. _accite_, the reading of _B_, _O'F_ as well as
_1635-69_, I have not yet found elsewhere in Donne's works, but
doubtless it occurs. Shakespeare uses it once:
He by the Senate is accited home
From weary wars against the barbarous Goths.
_Tit. Andr. _ I. i. 27-8.
ll. 75-6. _for they sought for meat
Which should refresh their soules, they could not get_.
Chambers has printed this poem from _1639_, noting occasionally the
readings of _1635_ and _1650_, but ignoring consistently those of
_1633_. Here _1633_ has the support of _N_, _TCD_; _B_ reads 'they none
could get'; and _O'F_, if I may trust my collation, agrees with
_1635-69;_ Grolier follows _1633_ but conjectures 'the sought-for
meat'. This is unnecessary. It is quite in Donne's style to close with
an abrupt 'they could not get'. Modern punctuation would change the
comma to a semicolon. The version of Tremellius runs: 'Expirarunt
quum quaererent escam sibi, qua reficerent se ipsos. ' The Vulgate,
'consumpti sunt, quia quaesierunt cibum sibi ut refocillarent animum. '
PAGE =357=, l. 81. _Of all which heare I mourne_: i. e. 'which hear
that I mourn. ' The construction is harsh, and I was tempted for a
moment to adopt the 'me' of _N_, but Donne is translating Tremellius,
and 'me in gemitu esse' is not quite the same thing as 'me gementem'.
Grosart and Chambers and the Grolier Club editor would not have
followed _1639_ in changing 'heare' to 'here' had they consulted the
original poem which Donne is paraphrasing in any version. The Vulgate
runs: 'Audierunt quia ingemisco ego, et non est qui consoletur me. '
PAGE =359=, l. 161. _poure, for thy sinnes_. The 'poure out thy
sinnes' of _1635-69_ which Grosart and Chambers follow is obviously
wrong. The words 'for thy sinnes' have no counterpart in the Latin of
Tremellius or the Vulgate. The latter runs: 'Effunde sicut aquam cor
tuum ante conspectum Domini. '
PAGE =360=, ll. 182-3. _hath girt mee in
With hemlocke, and with labour_.
Cingit cicuta et molestia, _Tremellius_: circumdedit me felle et
labore, _Vulgate_. Donne combines the two versions. He is fond of
using 'hemlock' as the typical poison: and he tells Wotton in one of
his letters that to him labour or business is the worst of evils:
'I professe that I hate businesse so much, as I am sometimes glad
to remember, that the _Roman Church_ reads that verse _A negotio
perambulante in tenebris_, which we reade from the pestilence
walking by night, so equall to me do the plague and businesse deserve
avoiding. ' _Letters_, p. 142. To Goodyere in like manner he writes,
'we who have been accustomed to one another are like in this, that we
love not businesse. ' _Letters_, p. 94.
PAGE =361=, l. 193. _the children of his quiver_. Donne found this
phrase in the Vulgate or in the margin of Tremellius. In the text
of the latter the verse runs, 'Immitit in renes meos tela pharetrae
suae. ' The marginal note says, '_Heb. _ filios, id est, prodeuntes a
pharetra. ' The Vulgate reads, 'filias pharetrae suae. '
l. 197. _drunke with wormewood_: 'inebriavit me absinthio, _Tremellius
and Vulgate_.
PAGE =362=, ll. 226-30. I have changed the full stop in l. 229, 'him',
to a comma, for all these clauses are objective to 'the Lord allowes
not this'. The construction is modelled on the original: 'Non enim
affligit ex animo suo, moestitiaque afficit filios viri. 34. Conterere
sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae, 35. Detorquere ius viri coram
facie superioris, 36. Pervertere hominem in causa sua, Dominus
non probat. ' The version of the Vulgate is similar: '33. Non enim
humiliavit ex corde suo, et abiecit filios hominum, 34. Ut contereret
sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae; 35. Ut declinaret iudicium viri
in conspectu vultus Altissimi; 36. Ut perverteret hominem in iudicio
suo; Dominus ignoravit. '
PAGE =364=, l. 299. _their bone_. The reading of the editions
is probably right: 'Concreta est cutis eorum cum osse ipsorum,'
_Tremellius_.
l. 302. _better through pierc'd then through penury_. I have no doubt
that the 'through penury' of the 1635-69 editions and the MSS. is
what Donne wrote. The 1633 editor changed it to 'by penury'. Donne is
echoing the parallelism of 'confossi gladio quam confossi fame'. The
Vulgate has simply 'Melius fuit occisio gladio quam interfectio fame'.
PAGE =366=, l. 337. _The annointed Lord, &c. _ Chambers, to judge from
his use of capital letters, evidently reads this verse as applying to
God,--'Th'Annointed Lord', 'under His shadow'. It is rather the King
of Israel. Tremellius's note runs: 'Id est, Rex noster e posteritate
Davidis, quo freti saltem nobis dabitur aliqua interspirandi occasio
in quibuslibet angustiis: nam praefidebant Judaei dignitati illius
regni, tamquam si pure et per seipsum fuisset stabile; non autem
spectabant Christum, qui finis est et complementum illius typi,
neque conditiones sibi imperatas. ' 'The anointed of the Lord' is
the translation of the Revised Version. The Vulgate version seems
to indicate a prophetic reference, which may be what Chambers had in
view: 'Spiritus oris nostri, Christus Dominus, captus est in peccatis
nostris: In umbra tua vivemus in gentibus. ' Donne took this verse as
the text of a Gunpowder Plot sermon in 1622. He points out there
that some commentators have applied the verse to Josiah, a good king;
others to Zedekiah, a bad king: 'We argue not, we dispute not; we
embrace that which arises from both, That both good Kings and
bad Kings . . . are the anointed of the Lord, and the breath of the
nostrils, that is, the life of the people,' &c. James is 'the Josiah
of our times'. James had good reasons for preferring bishops to Andrew
Melville and other turbulent presbyters. But Donne, who was steeped in
the Vulgate, notes a possible reference to Christ: 'Or if he lamented
the future devastation of that Nation, occasioned by the death of the
King of Kings, Christ Jesus, when he came into the world, this was
their case _prophetically_. ' _Sermons_ 50. 43. 402.
l. 355. _wee drunke, and pay_: 'pecunia bibimus' _Tremellius and
Vulgate_: the Latin may be present or past tense, but the verse goes
on in the Vulgate, 'ligna nostra pretio comparavimus,' which shows
that 'bibimus' is 'we drunk' or 'we have drunk'. The Authorized
Version reads 'we have drunken'.
PAGE =367=, l. 374. _children fall_. 'Juvenes ad molendum portant, et
pueri ad ligna corruunt,' _Tremellius_; 'et pueri in ligno corruerunt,'
_Vulgate_. But the latter translates the first half of the line quite
differently.
PAGE =368=. HYMN TO GOD MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESSE.
The date which Walton gives for this poem, March 23, 1630, is of
course March 23, 1631, i. e. eight days before the writer's death.
Donne's tense and torturing will never relaxed its hold before the
final moment: Being speechlesse, he did (as Saint Stephen) look
steadfastly towards heaven, till he saw the Sonne of God standing at
the right hand of his Father; And being satisfied with this blessed
sight, (as his soule ascended, and his last breath departed from him)
he closed his owne eyes, and then disposed his hands and body into
such a posture, as required no alteration by those that came to shroud
him. ' _Walton_ (1670).
Donne's monument had been designed by himself and shows him thus
shrouded. The epitaph too is his own composition and is the natural
supplement to this hymn:
JOHANNES DONNE
SAC. THEOL. PROFESS.
POST VARIA STVDIA QVIBVS AB ANNIS
TENERRIMIS FIDELITER, NEC INFELICITER
INCVBVIT;
INSTINCTV ET IMPVLSV SP. SANCTI, MONITV
ET HORTATV
REGIS JACOBI, ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXVS
ANNO SVI JESV MDCXIV. ET SVAE AETATIS XLII
DECANATV HVJVS ECCLESIAE INDVTVS
XXVII NOVEMBRIS, MDCXXI.
EXVTVS MORTE VLTIMO DIE MARTII MDCXXXI.
HIC LICET IN OCCIDVO CINERE ASPICIT EVM
CVJVS NOMEN EST ORIENS.
The reference in the last line of the epitaph, and the figure of the
map with which he plays in the second and third stanzas of the _Hymne_
are both illustrated by a passage in a sermon on Psalm vi. 8-10: 'In
a flat Map, there goes no more, to make West East, though they be
distant in an extremity, but to paste that flat Map upon a round body,
and then West and East are all one. In a flat soule, in a dejected
conscience, in a troubled spirit, there goes no more to the making
of that trouble, peace, then to apply that trouble to the body of the
Merits, to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and conforme thee
to him, and thy West is East, thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity
of spirit. The name of Christ is _Oriens_, _The East_; And yet Lucifer
himself is called _Filius Orientis_, _The Son of the East_. If thou
beest fallen by _Lucifer_, fallen to _Lucifer_, and not fallen as
_Lucifer_, to a senselessnesse of thy fall, and an impenitiblenesse
therein, but to a troubled spirit, still thy prospect is the East,
still thy Climate is heaven, still thy Haven is Jerusalem; for, in
our lowest dejection of all, even in the dust of the grave, we are
so composed, so layed down, as that we look to the East: If I could
beleeve that _Trajan_, or _Tecla_, could look Eastward, that is,
towards Christ, in Hell, I could beleeve with them of Rome, that
Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell. ' _Sermons_ 80.
55. 558.
For 'the name of Christ is Oriens'. Donne refers in the margin to
_Zachariae_ vi. 12: 'Et loqueris ad eum dicens: Haec ait Dominus
exercituum, dicens: ECCE VIR ORIENS NOMEN EJUS; et subter eum orietur,
et aedificabit templum Domino. ' In the English versions, Genevan and
Authorized, the words run 'whose name is the Branch', but to Donne the
Vulgate was the form in which he knew the Scriptures most intimately.
At the same time he consulted and refers to the English versions
frequently: 'that which we call the _Bishops Bible_, nor that which
we call the _Geneva Bible_, and that which we may call the _Kings_. '
_Sermons_ 80. 50. 506.
The difference between the two versions is due, I understand, to
the fact that the Hebrew participle 'rising' and the Hebrew word for
'branch' contain the same consonants. In unpointed Hebrew it was,
therefore, possible to confound them. The Septuagint version is
[Greek: Anatole onoma autou].
In describing the preparations for making Donne's tomb Walton says:
'Upon this urn he thus stood, with his eyes shut, and with so much of
the sheet turned aside, as might show his lean, pale, and deathlike
face, which was purposely turned towards the east, from whence he
expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus. ' Walton
says that he stood, but Mr. Hamo Thornycroft has pointed out that the
drapery by its folds reveals that it was modelled from a recumbent
figure. Gosse, _Life, &c_. , ii. 288.
ll. 18-20. _Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltare,
All streights, and none but streights, are wayes to them. _
Grosart and Chambers have boggled unnecessarily at these lines. The
former inserts an unnecessary and unmetrical 'are' after 'Gibraltare'.
The latter interpolates a mark of interrogation after 'Gibraltare',
putting 'Anyan, and Magellan and Gibraltare' on a level with the
Pacific, the 'eastern riches' and Jerusalem, i. e. _six_ possible homes
instead of _three_. What the poet says is simply, 'Be my home in the
Pacific, or in the rich east, or in Jerusalem, to each I must sail
through a strait, viz. Anyan (i. e. Behring Strait) if I go west by the
North-West passage, or Magellan, or Gibraltar. These, all of which are
straits, are ways to them, and none but straits are ways to them. '
A condensed construction makes 'are ways to them' predicate to
two subjects. For 'the straight of Anian' see Hakluyt's _Principal
Navigations_, vol. vii, Glasgow, 1904, esp. the map at p. 256, which
shows very distinctly how the 'Straight of Anian' was conceived to
separate America from 'Cathaia in Asia' and to lead right on to
Japan and the 'Ilandes of Moluccae', 'the eastern riches. ' The
_Mare Pacificum_ lies further to the south and east, entered by the
'Straight of Magellanes' between Peru and the 'Terra del Fuego', which
latter is not an island but part of the great 'Terra Australis'. Thus
'none but straights' lead to the 'eastern riches' or the Pacific.
'Outre ce que les navigations des modernes ont des-ja presque
descouvert que ce n'est point une isle, ains terre ferme et continente
avec l'Inde orientale d'un coste, et avec les terres qui sont soubs
les deux poles d'autre part; ou, si elle en est separee, que c'est
d'un si petit destroit et intervalle, qu'elle ne merite pas d'estre
nomme isle pour cela. ' Montaigne, _Essais_, i. 31: _Des Cannibales_.
The conceit about the 'straits' Donne had already used: 'a narrower
way but to a better Land; thorow Straits; 'tis true; but to the
_Pacifique_ Sea, The consideration of the treasure of the Godly Man
in this World, and God's treasure towards him, both in this, and the
next. ' _Sermons_ 26. 5. 71.
'Who ever amongst our Fathers thought of any other way to the
Moluccaes, or to China, then by the Promontory of _Good Hope_? Yet
another way opened itself to _Magellan_; a Straite; it is true; but
yet a way thither; and who knows yet, whether there may not be a
North-East, and a North-West way thither, besides? ' _Sermons_ 80. 24.
241.
Nevertheless by the time Donne wrote his hymn the sea to the south of
Terra del Fuego had recently been discovered. He is using the language
of a slightly earlier date, of his own youth, when travels and far
countries were much in his imagination. In 1617 George, Lord Carew,
writing to Sir Thomas Roe, Ambassador at the Court of the Mogul, says:
'The Hollanders have discovered to the southward of the Strayghts of
Magellen an open sea and free passage to the south sea. ' _Letters of
George, Lord Carew to Sir Thomas Roe_, Camden Society, 1860. For the
'Straight of Anyan' compare also:
This makes the foisting traveller to sweare,
And face out many a lie within the yeere.
And if he have beene an howre or two aboarde
To spew a little gall: then by the Lord,
He hath beene in both th'Indias, East and West,
Talks of Guiana, China, and the rest,
The straights of Gibraltare, and AEnian
Are but hard by; no, nor the Magellane:
Mandeville, Candish, sea-experienst Drake
Came never neere him, if he truly crake.
