His
discrimination
of 'thou' and 'you' is very marked
throughout the poems.
throughout the poems.
Donne - 2
But this is not the orthodox view
of their interaction. I feel sure that 'Soe' is the right reading. The
thought and construction are simpler, and 'Soe' and 'For' are easily
interchanged.
Of noblemen Donne says: 'They are _Intelligences_ that move great
_Spheares_. ' _Sermon_, Judges xv. 20, p. 20 (1622).
ll. 61-4. _As our blood labours to beget
Spirits, as like soules as it can,
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtile knot, which makes us man. _
'Spirit is a most subtile vapour, which is expressed from the Bloud,
and the instrument of the soule, to perform all his actions; a common
tye or _medium_ betwixt the body and the soule, as some will have it;
or as _Paracelsus_, a fourth soule of itselfe. _Melancthon_ holds
the fountaine of these spirits to be the _Heart_, begotten there; and
afterward convayed to the Braine, they take another nature to them. Of
these spirits there be three kindes, according to the three principall
parts, _Braine_, _Heart_, _Liver_; _Naturall_, _Vitall_, _Animall_.
The _Naturall_ are begotten in the _Liver_, and thence dispersed
through the Veines, to performe those naturall actions. The _Vitall
Spirits_ are made in the Heart, of the _Naturall_, which by the
Arteries are transported to all the other parts: if these _Spirits_
cease, then life ceaseth, as in a _Syncope_ or Swowning. The _Animall
spirits_ formed of the _Vitall_, brought up to the Braine, and
diffused by the Nerves, to the subordinate Members, give sense and
motion to them all. ' Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1638), p. 15.
'The spirits in a man which are the thin and active part of the blood,
and so are of a kind of middle nature, between soul and body, those
spirits are able to doe, and they doe the office, to unite and apply
the faculties of the soul to the organs of the body, and so there is a
man. ' _Sermons_ 26. 20. 291.
PAGE =55=. LOVES DIET.
ll. 19-24. This stanza, carefully and correctly printed in the 1633
edition, which I have followed, was mangled in that of 1635, and
has remained in this condition, despite conjectural emendations, in
subsequent editions, including those of Grosart and Chambers. What
Donne says is obvious: 'Whatever Love dictated I wrote, but burned the
letters. When she wrote to me, and when (correctly resumed by 'that')
that favour made him (i. e. Love) fat, I said,' &c. The 1650-54
'Whate'er might him distaste,' &c. is obviously an attempt to put
right what has gone wrong. No reading but that of the 1633 edition
gives _any_ sense to 'that favour' and 'convey'd by this'.
ll. 25-7. _reclaim'd . . . sport. _ In _1633_ 'reclaim'd' became
'redeem'd', probably owing to the frequent misreading of 'cl' as 'd'.
The mistake here increases the probability that 'sports' is an error
for 'sport' or 'sporte'. It is doubtful if 'sports' was used as now.
PAGE =56=. THE WILL.
ll. 19-27. This verse is omitted in most of the MSS. Probably in
James's reign its references to religion were thought too outspoken
and flippant. Charles admired in Donne not only the preacher but also
the poet, as Huyghens testifies.
The first three lines turn on a contrast that Donne is fond of
elaborating between the extreme Protestant doctrine of justification
by faith only and the Catholic, especially Jesuit, doctrine of
co-operant works. It divided the Jesuits and the Jansenists. The
Jansenists had not yet emerged, but their precursors in the quarrel
(as readers of _Les Provinciales_ will recall) were the Dominicans,
to whom Donne refers: 'So also when in the beginning of S. Augustines
time, Grace had been so much advanced that mans Nature was scarce
admitted to be so much as any means or instrument (not only no kind
of cause) of his own good works: And soon after in S. Augustines time
also mans free will (by fierce opposition and arguing against the
former error) was too much overvalued, and admitted into too near
degrees of fellowship with Grace; those times admitted a doctrine and
form of reconciliation, which though for reverence to the time, both
the Dominicans and Jesuits at this day in their great quarrell about
Grace and Free Will would yet seem to maintaine, yet indifferent and
dispassioned men of that Church see there is no possibility in it, and
therefore accuse it of absurdity, and almost of heresie. ' _Letters_
(1651), pp. 15-16. As an Anglican preacher Donne upheld James's point
of view, that the doctrine of grace and free-will was better left
undiscussed: 'Resistibility, and Irresistibility of Grace, which is
every Artificers wearing now, was a stuff that our Fathers wore not, a
language that pure antiquity spake not. . . . They knew Gods law, and his
Chancery: But for Gods prerogative, what he could do of his absolute
power, they knew Gods pleasure, _Nolumus disputari_: It should scarce
be disputed of in Schools, much less serv'd in every popular pulpit
to curious and itching ears; least of all made table-talke, and
houshold-discourse. ' _Sermons_ 26. 1. 4.
The 'Schismaticks of Amsterdam' were the extreme Puritans. See
Jonson's _The Alchemist_ for Tribulation Wholesome and 'We of the
separation'.
PAGE =58=. THE FUNERALL.
l. 3. _That subtile wreath of haire, which crowns my arme_; 'And
Theagenes presented her with a diamond ring which he used to wear,
entreating her, whensoever she did cast her eyes upon it, to conceive
that it told her in his behalf, that his heart would prove as hard as
that stone in the admittance of any new affection; and that his to
her should be as void of end as that circular figure was;' (compare
_A Ieat Ring sent_, p. 65) 'and she desired him to wear for her sake
a lock of hair which she gave him; the splendour of which can be
expressed by no earthly thing, but it seemed as though a stream of
the sun's beams had been gathered together and converted into a solid
substance. With this precious relique about his arm,' (compare _The
Relique_, p. 62) 'whose least hair was sufficient' (compare _Aire and
Angels_, p. 22, 'Ev'ry thy hair' and note) 'to bind in bonds of love
the greatest heart that ever was informed with life, Theagenes took
his journey into Attica. ' Kenelm Digby's _Private Memoirs_ (1827), pp.
80-1. When later Theagenes heard that Stelliana (believing Theagenes
to be dead) was to wed Mardonius, 'he tore from his arm the bracelet
of her hair . . . and threw it into the fire that was in his chamber;
when that glorious relic burning shewed by the wan and blue colour
of the flame that it had sense and took his words unkindly in her
behalf. '
Theagenes was Sir Kenelm Digby himself, Stelliana being Lady Venetia
Stanley, afterwards his wife. Mardonius was probably Edward, Earl of
Dorset, the brother of Donne's friend and patron.
It is probable that this sequence of poems, _The Funerall_, _The
Blossome_, _The Primrose_ and _The Relique_, was addressed to Mrs.
Herbert in the earlier days of Donne's intimacy with her in Oxford or
London.
l. 24. _That since you would save none of me, I bury some of you. _ I
have hesitated a good deal over this line. The reading of the editions
is 'have none of me'; and in the group of MSS. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_,
while _H49_ reads 'save', _D_ has corrected 'have' to what _may_ be
'save', and _Lec_ reads 'have'. The reading of the editions is the
full form of the construction, which is more common without the
'have'. 'It's four to one she'll none of me,' _Twelfth Night_, I.
iii. 113; 'She will none of him,' Ibid. II. ii. 9, are among Schmidt's
examples (_Shakespeare Lexicon_), in none of which 'have' occurs.
The reading of the MSS. , 'save none of me,' is also quite idiomatic,
resembling the ' fear none of this' (i. e. 'do not fear this') of
_Winter's Tale_, IV. iv. 601; and I have preferred it because: (1) It
seems difficult to understand how it could have arisen if 'have none'
was the original. (2) It gives a sharper antithesis, 'You would not
save me, keep me alive. Therefore I will bury, not you indeed, but
a part of you. ' (3) To be saved is the lover's usual prayer; and the
idea of the poem is that his death is due to the lady's cruelty.
Come not, when I am dead,
To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,
To trample round my fallen head,
And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.
There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;
But thou go by.
Compare also the Letter _To M^{rs} M. H. _ (pp. 216-8), where the same
idea recurs:
When thou art there, if any, whom we know,
Were sav'd before, and did that heaven partake, &c.
PAGE =59=. THE BLOSSOME.
l. 10. _labour'st. _ The form with 't' occurs in most of the MSS. , and
't' is restored in _1635_. The 'labours' of _1633_ represents a
common dropping of the 't' for ease of pronunciation. See Franz,
_Shakespeare-Grammatik_, § 152. It is colloquial, and I doubt if Donne
would have preserved it if he had printed the poem, supposing that he
wrote the word so, and not some copyist.
ll. 21-4. _You goe to friends, whose love and meanes present
Various content
To your eyes, eares, and tongue, and every part:
If then your body goe, what need you a heart? _
I have adopted the MS. readings 'tongue' and 'what need you a heart? '
because they seem to me more certainly what Donne wrote. He may have
altered them, but so may an editor. 'Tongue' is more exactly parallel
to eyes and ears, and the whole talk is of organs. 'What need you a
heart? ' is more pointed. 'With these organs of sense, what need have
you of a heart? ' The idiom was not uncommon, the verb being used
impersonally. The O. E. D. gives among others:
What need us so many instances abroad.
_Andros Tracts_, 1691.
'What need your heart go' is of course also idiomatic. The latest
example the O. E. D. gives is from Hall's _Satires_, 1597: 'What needs
me care for any bookish skill? '
PAGE =61=. THE PRIMROSE, &c.
It is noteworthy that the addition 'being at Montgomery Castle', &c.
was made in _1635_. It is unknown to _1633_ and the MSS. It may be
unwarranted. If it be accurate, then the poem is probably addressed
to Mrs. Herbert and is a half mystical, half cynical description of
Platonic passion. The perfect primrose has apparently five petals, but
more or less may be found. Seeking for one to symbolize his love, he
fears to find either more or less. What can be less than woman? But if
more than woman she becomes that unreal thing, the object of Platonic
affection and Petrarchian adoration: but, as he says elsewhere,
Love's not so pure and abstract as they use
To say, which have no Mistresse but their Muse.
Let woman be content to be herself. Since five is half ten, united
with man she will be half of a perfect life; or (and the cynical
humour breaks out again) if she is not content with that, since five
is the first number which includes an even number (2) and an odd (3),
it may claim to be the perfect number, and she to be the whole in
which we men are included and absorbed. We have no will of our own.
'From Sarai's name He took a letter which expressed the number ten,
and reposed one which made but five; so that she contributed that
five which man wanted before, to show a mutual indigence and support. '
_Essays in Divinity_ (Jessop, 1855), p. 118.
'Even for this, he will visite to the third, and fourth generation;
and three and foure are seven, and seven is infinite. _Sermons_ 50.
47. 440.
l. 30. _this, five,_ I have introduced a comma after 'this' to show
what, I think, must be the relation of the words. The later editions
drop 'this', and it seems to me probable that an original reading and
a correction have survived side by side. Donne may have written 'this'
alone, referring back to 'five', and then, thinking the reference too
remote, he may have substituted 'five' in the margin, whence it crept
into the text without completely displacing 'this'. The support which
the MSS. lend to _1633_ make it dangerous to remove either word now,
but I have thought it well to show that 'this' _is_ 'five'. In
the MSS. when a word is erased a line is drawn under it and the
substituted word placed in the margin.
PAGE =62=. THE RELIQUE.
l. 13. _Where mis-devotion doth command. _ The unanimity of the earlier
editions and the MSS. shows clearly that 'Mass-devotion' (which
Chambers adopts) is merely an ingenious conjecture of the _1669_
editor. Donne uses the word frequently, e. g. :
Here in a place, where miss-devotion frames
A thousand Prayers to Saints, whose very names
The ancient Church knew not, &c.
_Of the Progresse of the Soule_, p. 266, ll. 511-13.
and: 'This mis-devotion, and left-handed piety, of praying for the
dead. ' _Sermons_ 80. 77. 780.
l. 17. _You shalbe. _ I have recorded this reading of several MSS.
because the poem is probably addressed to Mrs. Herbert and Donne may
have so written.
His discrimination of 'thou' and 'you' is very marked
throughout the poems. 'Thou' is the pronoun of feeling and intimacy,
'you' of respect. Compare 'To Mrs. M. H. ', and remember that Mrs.
Herbert's name was Magdalen.
ll. 27-8. _Comming and going, wee Perchance might kisse, but not
between those meales_: i. e. the kiss of salutation and parting. In a
sermon on the text 'Kisse the Son, lest he be angry', Donne enumerates
the uses of kissing sanctioned by the Bible, and this among them: 'Now
by this we are slid into our fourth and last branch of our first
part, The perswasion to come to this holy kisse, though defamed by
treachery, though depraved by licentiousnesse, since God invites us to
it, by so many good uses thereof in his Word. It is an imputation laid
upon _Nero_, that _Neque adveniens neque proficiscens_, That whether
comming or going he never kissed any: And Christ himself imputes it
to _Simon_, as a neglect of him, That when he _came into his house_ he
did not _kisse_ him. This then was in use', &c. _Sermons_ 80. 41. 407.
The kiss of salutation lasted in some countries till the later
eighteenth century, perhaps still lasts. See Rousseau's _Confessions_,
Bk. 9, and Byron's _Childe Harold_, III. lxxix.
But Erasmus, in 1499, speaks as though it were a specially English
custom: 'Est praeterea mos nunquam satis laudatus. Sive quo venis,
omnium osculis exciperis; sive discedis aliquo, osculis dimitteris;
redis, redduntur suavia; venitur ad te, propinantur suavia; disceditur
abs te, dividuntur basia; occurritur alicubi, basiatur affatim;
denique quocunque te moves, suaviorum plena sunt omnia. '
PAGE =64=. THE DISSOLUTION.
l. 10. _earthly sad despaire. _ Cf. O. E. D. : 'Earthly. 3. Partaking of
the nature of earth, resembling earth as a substance, consisting of
earth as an element; = Earthy, archaic or obsolete. ' The form was
used as late as 1843, but the change in the later editions of Donne
indicates that it was growing rare in this sense. Compare,'A young
man of a softly disposition. ' Camden's _Reign of Elizabeth_ (English
transl. ).
PAGE =66=. NEGATIVE LOVE.
l. 15. _What we know not, our selves. _ 'All creatures were brought to
Adam, and, because he understood the natures of all those creatures,
he gave them names accordingly. In that he gave no name to himselfe it
may be by some perhaps argued, that he understood himselfe lesse then
he did other creatures. ' _Sermons_ 80. 50. 563.
PAGE =67=. THE PROHIBITION.
l. 18. _So, these extreames shall neithers office doe. _ The 'neithers'
of _D_, _H40_, _JC_, supported by 'neyther' in _O'F_ and 'neyther
their' in _Cy_, is much more characteristic than 'ne'er their', and
more likely to have been altered than to have been substituted for
'ne'er their'. The reading of _Cy_ shows how the phrase puzzled an
ordinary copyist. 'These extremes shall by counteracting each other
prevent either from fulfilling his function. ' Compare, 'As two
yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose' (i. e. each to the other's
purpose). Shakespeare, _Hen. V_, II. ii. 107.
l. 22. _So shall I, live, thy stage not triumph bee. _ I have placed
a comma after I to make quite clear that 'live' is the adjective, not
the verb. The 'stay' of _1633_ is defensible, but the _1633_ editor
was somewhat at sea about this poem, witness the variations introduced
while the edition was printing in ll. 20 and 24 and the misprinting
of l. 5. All the MSS. I have consulted support 'stage'; and this gives
the best meaning: 'Alive, I shall continue to be the stage on which
your victories are daily set forth; dead, I shall be but your triumph,
a thing achieved once, never to be repeated. ' Compare:
And cause her leave to triumph in this wise
Upon the prostrate spoil of that poor heart!
That serves a Trophy to her conquering eyes,
And must their glory to the world impart.
Daniel, _Delia_, X.
ll. 23, 24. There are obviously two versions of these lines which the
later editions have confounded. The first is that of the text, from
_1633_. The second is that of the MSS. and runs, properly pointed:
Then lest thy love, hate, and mee thou undoe,
O let me live, O love and hate me too.
The punctuation of the MSS. is very careless, but the lines as printed
are quite intelligible. As given in the editions _1635-69_ they are
nonsensical.
PAGE =68=. THE EXPIRATION.
l. 5. _We ask'd. _ The past tense of the MSS. makes the antithesis
and sense more pointed. 'It was with no one's leave we lov'd to begin
with, and we will owe to no one the death that comes with parting. '
ll. 7 f. _Goe: and if that word have not quite kil'd thee,
Ease mee with death, by bidding mee goe too_.
Compare:
_Val. _ No more: unless the next word that thou speak'st
Have some malignant power upon my life:
If so, I pray thee, breathe it in mine ear,
As ending anthem of my endless dolour.
_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, III. i. 236 f.
PAGE =70=. THE PARADOX.
l. 14. _lights life. _ The MSS. correct the obvious mistake of the
editions, 'lifes light. ' The 'lights life' is, of course, the sun.
In the same way at 21 'lye' is surely better suited than 'dye' to an
epitaph. This poem is not in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _1633_ has printed
it from _A18_, _N_, _TC_.
In the latter group of MSS. this poem is followed immediately by
another of the same kind, which is found also in _H40_, _RP31_, and
_O'F_, as well as several more miscellaneous MSS. I print from _TCC_:
A PARADOX.
Whosoe termes Love a fire, may like a poet
Faine what he will, for certaine cannot showe it.
For Fire nere burnes, but when the fuell's neare
But Love doth at most distance most appeare.
Yet out of fire water did never goe,
But teares from Love abundantly doe flowe.
Fire still mounts upward; but Love oft descendeth.
Fire leaves the midst: Love to the Center tendeth.
Fire dryes and hardens: Love doth mollifie.
Fire doth consume, but Love doth fructifie.
The powerful Queene of Love (faire Venus) came
Descended from the Sea, not from the flame,
Whence passions ebbe and flowe, and from the braine
Run to the hart like streames, and back againe.
Yea Love oft fills mens breasts with melting snow
Drowning their Love-sick minds in flouds of woe.
What is Love, water then? it may be soe;
But hee saith trueth, that saith hee doth not knowe.
FINIS.
PAGE =71=. FAREWELL TO LOVE.
l. 12. _His highnesse &c. _ 'Presumably his highness was made of gilt
gingerbread. ' Chambers. See Jonson, _Bartholomew Fair_, III. i.
ll. 28-30. As these lines stand in the old editions they are
unintelligible:
Because that other curse of being short,
And only for a minute made to be
Eager, desires to raise posterity.
Grosart prints:
Because that other curse of being short
And--only-for-a-minute-made-to-be--
Eager desires to raise posterity.
This and the note which he appends I find more incomprehensible than
the old text. This is his note: 'The whole sense then is: Unless
Nature decreed this in order that man should despise it, (just) as
she made it short, that man might for that reason also despise a
sport that was only for a minute made to be eager desires to raise
posterity. ' Surely this is Abracadabra!
What has happened is, I believe, this: Donne here, as elsewhere, used
an obsolescent word, viz. 'eagers', the verb, meaning 'sharpens'. The
copyist did not recognize the form, took 'desire' for the verb, and
made 'eager' the adjectival complement to 'be', changing 'desire'
to 'desires' as predicate to 'curse'. What Donne had in mind was
the Aristotelian doctrine that the desire to beget children is
an expression of man's craving for immortality. The most natural
function, according to Aristotle, of every living thing which is not
maimed in any way is to beget another living thing like itself, that
so it may partake of what is eternal and divine. This participation
is the goal of all desire, and of all natural activity. But perishable
individuals cannot partake of the immortal and divine by continuous
existence. Nothing that is perishable can continue always one and the
same individual. Each, therefore, participates as best he may, some
more, some less; remaining the same in a way, i. e. in the species, not
in the individual. ' (_De Anima_, B. 4. 415 A-B. ) Donne's argument then
is this: 'Why of all animals have we alone this feeling of depression
and remorse after the act of love? Is it a device of nature to
restrain us from an act which shortens the life of the individual (he
refers here to a prevalent belief as to the deleterious effect of the
act of love), needed because that other curse which Adam brought upon
man, the curse of mortality,
of being short,
And only for a minute made to be,
Eagers [i. e. whets or provokes] desire to raise posterity. '
The latest use of 'eager' as a verb quoted by the O. E. D. is from
Mulcaster's _Positions_ (1581), where the sense is that of imitating
physically: 'They that be gawled . . . may neither runne nor wrastle
for eagering the inward'. The Middle English use is closer to Donne's:
'The nature of som men is so . . . unconvenable that . . . poverte myhte
rather egren hym to don felonies. ' Chaucer, Boëth. _De Consol. Phil. _
In the Burley MS. (seventeenth century) the following epigram on
Bancroft appears:
A learned Bishop of this land
Thinking to make religion stand,
In equall poise on every syde
The mixture of them thus he tryde:
An ounce of protestants he singles
And a dramme of papists mingles,
Then adds a scruple of a puritan
And melts them down in his brayne pan,
But where hee lookes they should digest
The scruple eagers all the rest.
In Harl. MS. 4908 f. 83 the last line reads:
That scruple troubles all the rest.
PAGE =71=. A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW.
The text of this poem in the editions is that of _A18_, _N_, _TC_
among the MSS. A slightly different recension is found in most of the
other MSS. The chief difference is that the latter read 'love' for
'loves' at ll. 9, 14, and 19. They also, however, read 'least' for
'high'st' at l. 12. In l. 19 they vacillate between 'once' and 'our'.
It would not be difficult to defend either version. The only variation
from the printed text which I have admitted is that on which all the
MSS. are unanimous, viz. 'first' for 'short' in l. 26; 'short' is an
obvious blunder.
NOTE ON THE MUSIC TO WHICH CERTAIN OF DONNE'S SONGS WERE SET.
A song meant for the Elizabethans a poem intended to be sung,
generally to the accompaniment of the lute.
of their interaction. I feel sure that 'Soe' is the right reading. The
thought and construction are simpler, and 'Soe' and 'For' are easily
interchanged.
Of noblemen Donne says: 'They are _Intelligences_ that move great
_Spheares_. ' _Sermon_, Judges xv. 20, p. 20 (1622).
ll. 61-4. _As our blood labours to beget
Spirits, as like soules as it can,
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtile knot, which makes us man. _
'Spirit is a most subtile vapour, which is expressed from the Bloud,
and the instrument of the soule, to perform all his actions; a common
tye or _medium_ betwixt the body and the soule, as some will have it;
or as _Paracelsus_, a fourth soule of itselfe. _Melancthon_ holds
the fountaine of these spirits to be the _Heart_, begotten there; and
afterward convayed to the Braine, they take another nature to them. Of
these spirits there be three kindes, according to the three principall
parts, _Braine_, _Heart_, _Liver_; _Naturall_, _Vitall_, _Animall_.
The _Naturall_ are begotten in the _Liver_, and thence dispersed
through the Veines, to performe those naturall actions. The _Vitall
Spirits_ are made in the Heart, of the _Naturall_, which by the
Arteries are transported to all the other parts: if these _Spirits_
cease, then life ceaseth, as in a _Syncope_ or Swowning. The _Animall
spirits_ formed of the _Vitall_, brought up to the Braine, and
diffused by the Nerves, to the subordinate Members, give sense and
motion to them all. ' Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1638), p. 15.
'The spirits in a man which are the thin and active part of the blood,
and so are of a kind of middle nature, between soul and body, those
spirits are able to doe, and they doe the office, to unite and apply
the faculties of the soul to the organs of the body, and so there is a
man. ' _Sermons_ 26. 20. 291.
PAGE =55=. LOVES DIET.
ll. 19-24. This stanza, carefully and correctly printed in the 1633
edition, which I have followed, was mangled in that of 1635, and
has remained in this condition, despite conjectural emendations, in
subsequent editions, including those of Grosart and Chambers. What
Donne says is obvious: 'Whatever Love dictated I wrote, but burned the
letters. When she wrote to me, and when (correctly resumed by 'that')
that favour made him (i. e. Love) fat, I said,' &c. The 1650-54
'Whate'er might him distaste,' &c. is obviously an attempt to put
right what has gone wrong. No reading but that of the 1633 edition
gives _any_ sense to 'that favour' and 'convey'd by this'.
ll. 25-7. _reclaim'd . . . sport. _ In _1633_ 'reclaim'd' became
'redeem'd', probably owing to the frequent misreading of 'cl' as 'd'.
The mistake here increases the probability that 'sports' is an error
for 'sport' or 'sporte'. It is doubtful if 'sports' was used as now.
PAGE =56=. THE WILL.
ll. 19-27. This verse is omitted in most of the MSS. Probably in
James's reign its references to religion were thought too outspoken
and flippant. Charles admired in Donne not only the preacher but also
the poet, as Huyghens testifies.
The first three lines turn on a contrast that Donne is fond of
elaborating between the extreme Protestant doctrine of justification
by faith only and the Catholic, especially Jesuit, doctrine of
co-operant works. It divided the Jesuits and the Jansenists. The
Jansenists had not yet emerged, but their precursors in the quarrel
(as readers of _Les Provinciales_ will recall) were the Dominicans,
to whom Donne refers: 'So also when in the beginning of S. Augustines
time, Grace had been so much advanced that mans Nature was scarce
admitted to be so much as any means or instrument (not only no kind
of cause) of his own good works: And soon after in S. Augustines time
also mans free will (by fierce opposition and arguing against the
former error) was too much overvalued, and admitted into too near
degrees of fellowship with Grace; those times admitted a doctrine and
form of reconciliation, which though for reverence to the time, both
the Dominicans and Jesuits at this day in their great quarrell about
Grace and Free Will would yet seem to maintaine, yet indifferent and
dispassioned men of that Church see there is no possibility in it, and
therefore accuse it of absurdity, and almost of heresie. ' _Letters_
(1651), pp. 15-16. As an Anglican preacher Donne upheld James's point
of view, that the doctrine of grace and free-will was better left
undiscussed: 'Resistibility, and Irresistibility of Grace, which is
every Artificers wearing now, was a stuff that our Fathers wore not, a
language that pure antiquity spake not. . . . They knew Gods law, and his
Chancery: But for Gods prerogative, what he could do of his absolute
power, they knew Gods pleasure, _Nolumus disputari_: It should scarce
be disputed of in Schools, much less serv'd in every popular pulpit
to curious and itching ears; least of all made table-talke, and
houshold-discourse. ' _Sermons_ 26. 1. 4.
The 'Schismaticks of Amsterdam' were the extreme Puritans. See
Jonson's _The Alchemist_ for Tribulation Wholesome and 'We of the
separation'.
PAGE =58=. THE FUNERALL.
l. 3. _That subtile wreath of haire, which crowns my arme_; 'And
Theagenes presented her with a diamond ring which he used to wear,
entreating her, whensoever she did cast her eyes upon it, to conceive
that it told her in his behalf, that his heart would prove as hard as
that stone in the admittance of any new affection; and that his to
her should be as void of end as that circular figure was;' (compare
_A Ieat Ring sent_, p. 65) 'and she desired him to wear for her sake
a lock of hair which she gave him; the splendour of which can be
expressed by no earthly thing, but it seemed as though a stream of
the sun's beams had been gathered together and converted into a solid
substance. With this precious relique about his arm,' (compare _The
Relique_, p. 62) 'whose least hair was sufficient' (compare _Aire and
Angels_, p. 22, 'Ev'ry thy hair' and note) 'to bind in bonds of love
the greatest heart that ever was informed with life, Theagenes took
his journey into Attica. ' Kenelm Digby's _Private Memoirs_ (1827), pp.
80-1. When later Theagenes heard that Stelliana (believing Theagenes
to be dead) was to wed Mardonius, 'he tore from his arm the bracelet
of her hair . . . and threw it into the fire that was in his chamber;
when that glorious relic burning shewed by the wan and blue colour
of the flame that it had sense and took his words unkindly in her
behalf. '
Theagenes was Sir Kenelm Digby himself, Stelliana being Lady Venetia
Stanley, afterwards his wife. Mardonius was probably Edward, Earl of
Dorset, the brother of Donne's friend and patron.
It is probable that this sequence of poems, _The Funerall_, _The
Blossome_, _The Primrose_ and _The Relique_, was addressed to Mrs.
Herbert in the earlier days of Donne's intimacy with her in Oxford or
London.
l. 24. _That since you would save none of me, I bury some of you. _ I
have hesitated a good deal over this line. The reading of the editions
is 'have none of me'; and in the group of MSS. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_,
while _H49_ reads 'save', _D_ has corrected 'have' to what _may_ be
'save', and _Lec_ reads 'have'. The reading of the editions is the
full form of the construction, which is more common without the
'have'. 'It's four to one she'll none of me,' _Twelfth Night_, I.
iii. 113; 'She will none of him,' Ibid. II. ii. 9, are among Schmidt's
examples (_Shakespeare Lexicon_), in none of which 'have' occurs.
The reading of the MSS. , 'save none of me,' is also quite idiomatic,
resembling the ' fear none of this' (i. e. 'do not fear this') of
_Winter's Tale_, IV. iv. 601; and I have preferred it because: (1) It
seems difficult to understand how it could have arisen if 'have none'
was the original. (2) It gives a sharper antithesis, 'You would not
save me, keep me alive. Therefore I will bury, not you indeed, but
a part of you. ' (3) To be saved is the lover's usual prayer; and the
idea of the poem is that his death is due to the lady's cruelty.
Come not, when I am dead,
To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,
To trample round my fallen head,
And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.
There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;
But thou go by.
Compare also the Letter _To M^{rs} M. H. _ (pp. 216-8), where the same
idea recurs:
When thou art there, if any, whom we know,
Were sav'd before, and did that heaven partake, &c.
PAGE =59=. THE BLOSSOME.
l. 10. _labour'st. _ The form with 't' occurs in most of the MSS. , and
't' is restored in _1635_. The 'labours' of _1633_ represents a
common dropping of the 't' for ease of pronunciation. See Franz,
_Shakespeare-Grammatik_, § 152. It is colloquial, and I doubt if Donne
would have preserved it if he had printed the poem, supposing that he
wrote the word so, and not some copyist.
ll. 21-4. _You goe to friends, whose love and meanes present
Various content
To your eyes, eares, and tongue, and every part:
If then your body goe, what need you a heart? _
I have adopted the MS. readings 'tongue' and 'what need you a heart? '
because they seem to me more certainly what Donne wrote. He may have
altered them, but so may an editor. 'Tongue' is more exactly parallel
to eyes and ears, and the whole talk is of organs. 'What need you a
heart? ' is more pointed. 'With these organs of sense, what need have
you of a heart? ' The idiom was not uncommon, the verb being used
impersonally. The O. E. D. gives among others:
What need us so many instances abroad.
_Andros Tracts_, 1691.
'What need your heart go' is of course also idiomatic. The latest
example the O. E. D. gives is from Hall's _Satires_, 1597: 'What needs
me care for any bookish skill? '
PAGE =61=. THE PRIMROSE, &c.
It is noteworthy that the addition 'being at Montgomery Castle', &c.
was made in _1635_. It is unknown to _1633_ and the MSS. It may be
unwarranted. If it be accurate, then the poem is probably addressed
to Mrs. Herbert and is a half mystical, half cynical description of
Platonic passion. The perfect primrose has apparently five petals, but
more or less may be found. Seeking for one to symbolize his love, he
fears to find either more or less. What can be less than woman? But if
more than woman she becomes that unreal thing, the object of Platonic
affection and Petrarchian adoration: but, as he says elsewhere,
Love's not so pure and abstract as they use
To say, which have no Mistresse but their Muse.
Let woman be content to be herself. Since five is half ten, united
with man she will be half of a perfect life; or (and the cynical
humour breaks out again) if she is not content with that, since five
is the first number which includes an even number (2) and an odd (3),
it may claim to be the perfect number, and she to be the whole in
which we men are included and absorbed. We have no will of our own.
'From Sarai's name He took a letter which expressed the number ten,
and reposed one which made but five; so that she contributed that
five which man wanted before, to show a mutual indigence and support. '
_Essays in Divinity_ (Jessop, 1855), p. 118.
'Even for this, he will visite to the third, and fourth generation;
and three and foure are seven, and seven is infinite. _Sermons_ 50.
47. 440.
l. 30. _this, five,_ I have introduced a comma after 'this' to show
what, I think, must be the relation of the words. The later editions
drop 'this', and it seems to me probable that an original reading and
a correction have survived side by side. Donne may have written 'this'
alone, referring back to 'five', and then, thinking the reference too
remote, he may have substituted 'five' in the margin, whence it crept
into the text without completely displacing 'this'. The support which
the MSS. lend to _1633_ make it dangerous to remove either word now,
but I have thought it well to show that 'this' _is_ 'five'. In
the MSS. when a word is erased a line is drawn under it and the
substituted word placed in the margin.
PAGE =62=. THE RELIQUE.
l. 13. _Where mis-devotion doth command. _ The unanimity of the earlier
editions and the MSS. shows clearly that 'Mass-devotion' (which
Chambers adopts) is merely an ingenious conjecture of the _1669_
editor. Donne uses the word frequently, e. g. :
Here in a place, where miss-devotion frames
A thousand Prayers to Saints, whose very names
The ancient Church knew not, &c.
_Of the Progresse of the Soule_, p. 266, ll. 511-13.
and: 'This mis-devotion, and left-handed piety, of praying for the
dead. ' _Sermons_ 80. 77. 780.
l. 17. _You shalbe. _ I have recorded this reading of several MSS.
because the poem is probably addressed to Mrs. Herbert and Donne may
have so written.
His discrimination of 'thou' and 'you' is very marked
throughout the poems. 'Thou' is the pronoun of feeling and intimacy,
'you' of respect. Compare 'To Mrs. M. H. ', and remember that Mrs.
Herbert's name was Magdalen.
ll. 27-8. _Comming and going, wee Perchance might kisse, but not
between those meales_: i. e. the kiss of salutation and parting. In a
sermon on the text 'Kisse the Son, lest he be angry', Donne enumerates
the uses of kissing sanctioned by the Bible, and this among them: 'Now
by this we are slid into our fourth and last branch of our first
part, The perswasion to come to this holy kisse, though defamed by
treachery, though depraved by licentiousnesse, since God invites us to
it, by so many good uses thereof in his Word. It is an imputation laid
upon _Nero_, that _Neque adveniens neque proficiscens_, That whether
comming or going he never kissed any: And Christ himself imputes it
to _Simon_, as a neglect of him, That when he _came into his house_ he
did not _kisse_ him. This then was in use', &c. _Sermons_ 80. 41. 407.
The kiss of salutation lasted in some countries till the later
eighteenth century, perhaps still lasts. See Rousseau's _Confessions_,
Bk. 9, and Byron's _Childe Harold_, III. lxxix.
But Erasmus, in 1499, speaks as though it were a specially English
custom: 'Est praeterea mos nunquam satis laudatus. Sive quo venis,
omnium osculis exciperis; sive discedis aliquo, osculis dimitteris;
redis, redduntur suavia; venitur ad te, propinantur suavia; disceditur
abs te, dividuntur basia; occurritur alicubi, basiatur affatim;
denique quocunque te moves, suaviorum plena sunt omnia. '
PAGE =64=. THE DISSOLUTION.
l. 10. _earthly sad despaire. _ Cf. O. E. D. : 'Earthly. 3. Partaking of
the nature of earth, resembling earth as a substance, consisting of
earth as an element; = Earthy, archaic or obsolete. ' The form was
used as late as 1843, but the change in the later editions of Donne
indicates that it was growing rare in this sense. Compare,'A young
man of a softly disposition. ' Camden's _Reign of Elizabeth_ (English
transl. ).
PAGE =66=. NEGATIVE LOVE.
l. 15. _What we know not, our selves. _ 'All creatures were brought to
Adam, and, because he understood the natures of all those creatures,
he gave them names accordingly. In that he gave no name to himselfe it
may be by some perhaps argued, that he understood himselfe lesse then
he did other creatures. ' _Sermons_ 80. 50. 563.
PAGE =67=. THE PROHIBITION.
l. 18. _So, these extreames shall neithers office doe. _ The 'neithers'
of _D_, _H40_, _JC_, supported by 'neyther' in _O'F_ and 'neyther
their' in _Cy_, is much more characteristic than 'ne'er their', and
more likely to have been altered than to have been substituted for
'ne'er their'. The reading of _Cy_ shows how the phrase puzzled an
ordinary copyist. 'These extremes shall by counteracting each other
prevent either from fulfilling his function. ' Compare, 'As two
yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose' (i. e. each to the other's
purpose). Shakespeare, _Hen. V_, II. ii. 107.
l. 22. _So shall I, live, thy stage not triumph bee. _ I have placed
a comma after I to make quite clear that 'live' is the adjective, not
the verb. The 'stay' of _1633_ is defensible, but the _1633_ editor
was somewhat at sea about this poem, witness the variations introduced
while the edition was printing in ll. 20 and 24 and the misprinting
of l. 5. All the MSS. I have consulted support 'stage'; and this gives
the best meaning: 'Alive, I shall continue to be the stage on which
your victories are daily set forth; dead, I shall be but your triumph,
a thing achieved once, never to be repeated. ' Compare:
And cause her leave to triumph in this wise
Upon the prostrate spoil of that poor heart!
That serves a Trophy to her conquering eyes,
And must their glory to the world impart.
Daniel, _Delia_, X.
ll. 23, 24. There are obviously two versions of these lines which the
later editions have confounded. The first is that of the text, from
_1633_. The second is that of the MSS. and runs, properly pointed:
Then lest thy love, hate, and mee thou undoe,
O let me live, O love and hate me too.
The punctuation of the MSS. is very careless, but the lines as printed
are quite intelligible. As given in the editions _1635-69_ they are
nonsensical.
PAGE =68=. THE EXPIRATION.
l. 5. _We ask'd. _ The past tense of the MSS. makes the antithesis
and sense more pointed. 'It was with no one's leave we lov'd to begin
with, and we will owe to no one the death that comes with parting. '
ll. 7 f. _Goe: and if that word have not quite kil'd thee,
Ease mee with death, by bidding mee goe too_.
Compare:
_Val. _ No more: unless the next word that thou speak'st
Have some malignant power upon my life:
If so, I pray thee, breathe it in mine ear,
As ending anthem of my endless dolour.
_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, III. i. 236 f.
PAGE =70=. THE PARADOX.
l. 14. _lights life. _ The MSS. correct the obvious mistake of the
editions, 'lifes light. ' The 'lights life' is, of course, the sun.
In the same way at 21 'lye' is surely better suited than 'dye' to an
epitaph. This poem is not in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _1633_ has printed
it from _A18_, _N_, _TC_.
In the latter group of MSS. this poem is followed immediately by
another of the same kind, which is found also in _H40_, _RP31_, and
_O'F_, as well as several more miscellaneous MSS. I print from _TCC_:
A PARADOX.
Whosoe termes Love a fire, may like a poet
Faine what he will, for certaine cannot showe it.
For Fire nere burnes, but when the fuell's neare
But Love doth at most distance most appeare.
Yet out of fire water did never goe,
But teares from Love abundantly doe flowe.
Fire still mounts upward; but Love oft descendeth.
Fire leaves the midst: Love to the Center tendeth.
Fire dryes and hardens: Love doth mollifie.
Fire doth consume, but Love doth fructifie.
The powerful Queene of Love (faire Venus) came
Descended from the Sea, not from the flame,
Whence passions ebbe and flowe, and from the braine
Run to the hart like streames, and back againe.
Yea Love oft fills mens breasts with melting snow
Drowning their Love-sick minds in flouds of woe.
What is Love, water then? it may be soe;
But hee saith trueth, that saith hee doth not knowe.
FINIS.
PAGE =71=. FAREWELL TO LOVE.
l. 12. _His highnesse &c. _ 'Presumably his highness was made of gilt
gingerbread. ' Chambers. See Jonson, _Bartholomew Fair_, III. i.
ll. 28-30. As these lines stand in the old editions they are
unintelligible:
Because that other curse of being short,
And only for a minute made to be
Eager, desires to raise posterity.
Grosart prints:
Because that other curse of being short
And--only-for-a-minute-made-to-be--
Eager desires to raise posterity.
This and the note which he appends I find more incomprehensible than
the old text. This is his note: 'The whole sense then is: Unless
Nature decreed this in order that man should despise it, (just) as
she made it short, that man might for that reason also despise a
sport that was only for a minute made to be eager desires to raise
posterity. ' Surely this is Abracadabra!
What has happened is, I believe, this: Donne here, as elsewhere, used
an obsolescent word, viz. 'eagers', the verb, meaning 'sharpens'. The
copyist did not recognize the form, took 'desire' for the verb, and
made 'eager' the adjectival complement to 'be', changing 'desire'
to 'desires' as predicate to 'curse'. What Donne had in mind was
the Aristotelian doctrine that the desire to beget children is
an expression of man's craving for immortality. The most natural
function, according to Aristotle, of every living thing which is not
maimed in any way is to beget another living thing like itself, that
so it may partake of what is eternal and divine. This participation
is the goal of all desire, and of all natural activity. But perishable
individuals cannot partake of the immortal and divine by continuous
existence. Nothing that is perishable can continue always one and the
same individual. Each, therefore, participates as best he may, some
more, some less; remaining the same in a way, i. e. in the species, not
in the individual. ' (_De Anima_, B. 4. 415 A-B. ) Donne's argument then
is this: 'Why of all animals have we alone this feeling of depression
and remorse after the act of love? Is it a device of nature to
restrain us from an act which shortens the life of the individual (he
refers here to a prevalent belief as to the deleterious effect of the
act of love), needed because that other curse which Adam brought upon
man, the curse of mortality,
of being short,
And only for a minute made to be,
Eagers [i. e. whets or provokes] desire to raise posterity. '
The latest use of 'eager' as a verb quoted by the O. E. D. is from
Mulcaster's _Positions_ (1581), where the sense is that of imitating
physically: 'They that be gawled . . . may neither runne nor wrastle
for eagering the inward'. The Middle English use is closer to Donne's:
'The nature of som men is so . . . unconvenable that . . . poverte myhte
rather egren hym to don felonies. ' Chaucer, Boëth. _De Consol. Phil. _
In the Burley MS. (seventeenth century) the following epigram on
Bancroft appears:
A learned Bishop of this land
Thinking to make religion stand,
In equall poise on every syde
The mixture of them thus he tryde:
An ounce of protestants he singles
And a dramme of papists mingles,
Then adds a scruple of a puritan
And melts them down in his brayne pan,
But where hee lookes they should digest
The scruple eagers all the rest.
In Harl. MS. 4908 f. 83 the last line reads:
That scruple troubles all the rest.
PAGE =71=. A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW.
The text of this poem in the editions is that of _A18_, _N_, _TC_
among the MSS. A slightly different recension is found in most of the
other MSS. The chief difference is that the latter read 'love' for
'loves' at ll. 9, 14, and 19. They also, however, read 'least' for
'high'st' at l. 12. In l. 19 they vacillate between 'once' and 'our'.
It would not be difficult to defend either version. The only variation
from the printed text which I have admitted is that on which all the
MSS. are unanimous, viz. 'first' for 'short' in l. 26; 'short' is an
obvious blunder.
NOTE ON THE MUSIC TO WHICH CERTAIN OF DONNE'S SONGS WERE SET.
A song meant for the Elizabethans a poem intended to be sung,
generally to the accompaniment of the lute.
