) makes good sense; and the metaphor of a burning flask of powder
seems to suit exactly the later lines which describe what happened to
the heart which love inflamed
but Love, alas,
At one first blow did shiver it as glasse.
seems to suit exactly the later lines which describe what happened to
the heart which love inflamed
but Love, alas,
At one first blow did shiver it as glasse.
John Donne
_
'If it' (i. e. a torch) 'have _never_ been _lighted_, it does not
easily take light, but it must be _bruised_ and _beaten_ first; if
it have been lighted and put out, though it cannot take fire _of it
self_, yet it does easily conceive fire, if it be presented within any
convenient distance. ' _Sermons_ 50. 36. 332.
PAGE =38=. A VALEDICTION: OF WEEPING.
ll. 1-9. I have changed the comma at l. 6 to a semicolon, as the first
image, that of the coins, closes here. Chambers places a full stop
at l. 4 'worth', and apparently connects the next two lines with what
follows--wrongly, I think. Finishing the figure of the coins, coined,
stamped, and given their value by her, Donne passes on to a couple of
new images. 'The tears are fruits of much grief; but they are symbols
of more to come. For, as your image perishes in each tear that falls,
so shall we perish, be nothing, when between us rolls the "salt,
estranging sea". '
It is, I suppose, by an inadvertence that Chambers has left 'divers'
unchanged to 'diverse'. I cannot think there is any reference to 'a
diver in the pearly seas'. Grolier and the Dutch poet divide as here:
Laet voor uw aengesicht mijn trouwe tranen vallen,
Want van dat aengensicht ontfangen sy uw' munt,
En rijsen tot de waerd dies' uwe stempel gunt
Bevrucht van uw' gedaent: vrucht van veel' ongevallen,
Maer teekenen van meer, daer ghy valt met den traen,
Die van u swanger was, en beyde wy ontdaen
Verdwijnen, soo wy op verscheiden oever staen.
PAGE =39=. LOVES ALCHYMIE.
l. 7. _th'Elixar_: i. e. 'the Elixir Vitae', which heals all disease
and indefinitely prolongs life. It is sometimes identified with the
philosopher's stone, which transmutes metals to gold. In speaking of
quintessences (see note, II. p. 30) Paracelsus declares that there are
certain quintessences superior to those of gold, marchasite, precious
stones, &c. , 'of more importance than that they should be called a
quintessence. It should be rather spoken of as a certain secret and
mystery . . . Among these arcana we here put forward four. Of these
arcana the first is the mercury of life, the second is the primal
matter, the third is the Philosopher's Stone, and the fourth the
tincture. But although these arcana are rather angelical than human to
speak of we shall not shrink from them. ' From the description he gives
they all seem to operate more or less alike, purging metals and other
bodies from disease.
ll. 7-10. _And as no chymique yet, &c. _ 'My Lord Chancellor gave me
so noble and so ready a dispatch, accompanied with so fatherly advice
that I am now, like an alchemist, delighted with discoveries by the
way, though I attain not mine end. ' To . . . Sir H. G. , Gosse's _Life,
&c. _, ii. 49.
ll. 23-4. _at their best
Sweetnesse and wit, they'are but Mummy, possest. _
The punctuation of these lines in _1633-54_ is ambiguous, and Chambers
has altered it wrongly to
Sweetness and wit they are, but Mummy possest.
The MSS. generally support the punctuation which I have adopted, which
is that of the Grolier Club edition.
PAGE =40=. THE FLEA.
I have restored this poem to the place it occupied in _1633_. In
_1635_ it was placed first of all the _Songs and Sonets_. A strange
choice to our mind, but apparently the poem was greatly admired as
a masterpiece of wit. It is the first of the pieces translated by
Huyghens:
De Vloy.
Slaet acht op deze Vloy, en leert wat overleggen,
Hoe slechten ding het is dat ghy my kont ontzeggen, &c. ,
and was selected for special commendation by some of his
correspondents. Coleridge comments upon it in verse:
Be proud as Spaniards. Leap for pride, ye Fleas!
In natures _minim_ realm ye're now grandees.
Skip-jacks no more, nor civiller skip-johns;
Thrice-honored Fleas! I greet you all as _Dons_.
In Phoebus' archives registered are ye,
And this your patent of nobility.
It will be noticed that there are two versions of Donne's poem.
PAGE =41=. THE CURSE.
l. 3. _His only, and only his purse. _ This, the reading of all the
editions except the last, and of the MSS. , is obviously right. What
is to dispose 'some dull heart to love' is his _only_ purse and _his_
alone, no one's but his purse. Chambers adopts the _1669_ conjecture,
'Him only for his purse,' but in that case there is no subject to 'may
dispose', or if 'some dull heart' be subject then 'itself' must be
supplied--a harsh construction. 'Dispose' is not used intransitively
in this sense.
l. 27. _Mynes. _ I have adopted the plural from the MSS. It brings it
into line with the other objects mentioned.
PAGE =43=. THE MESSAGE.
l. 11. _But if it be taught by thine. _ It seems incredible that Donne
should have written 'which if it' &c. immediately after the 'which'
of the preceding line. I had thought that the _1633_ printer had
accidentally repeated from the line above, but the evidence of the
MSS. points to the mistake (if it is a mistake) being older than that.
'Which' was in the MS. used by the printer. If 'But' is not Donne's
own reading or emendation it ought to be, and I am loath to injure a
charming poem by pedantic adherence to authority in so small a point.
_De minimis non curat lex_; but art cares very much indeed. _JC_ and
_P_ read 'Yet since it hath learn'd by thine'.
ll. 14 f. _And crosse both
Word and oath, &c. _
The 'crosse' of all the MSS. is pretty certainly what Donne wrote. An
editor would change to 'break' hardly the other way. To 'crosse' is,
of course, to 'cancel'. Compare Jonson's _Poetaster_, Act II, Scene i:
Faith, sir, your mercer's Book
Will tell you with more patience, then I can
(For I am crost, and so's not that I thinke. )
and
Examine well thy beauty with my truth,
And cross my cares, ere greater sums arise.
Daniel, _Delia_, i.
PAGE =44=. A NOCTURNALL, &c.
l. 12. _For I am every dead thing. _ I have not thought it right to
alter the _1633_ 'every' to the 'very' of _1635-69_. 'Every' has some
MS. support, and it is the more difficult reading, though of course 'a
very' might easily enough be misread. But I rather think that 'every'
expresses what Donne means. He is 'every dead thing' because he is the
quintessence of all negations--'absence, darkness, death: things which
are not', and more than that, 'the first nothing. '
ll. 14-18. _For his art did expresse . . . things which are not. _ This
is a difficult stanza in a difficult poem. I have after considerable
hesitation adopted the punctuation of _1719_, which is followed by all
the modern editors. This makes 'dull privations' and 'lean emptinesse'
expansions of 'nothingnesse'. This is the simpler construction. I am
not sure, however, that the punctuation of the earlier editions and of
the MSS. may not be correct. In that case 'From dull privations' goes
with 'he ruined me'. Milton speaks of 'ruining from Heaven'. 'From me,
who was nothing', says Donne, 'Love extracted the very quintessence
of nothingness--made me more nothing than I already was. My state was
already one of "dull privation" and "lean emptiness", and Love reduced
it still further, making me once more the non-entity I was before
I was created. ' Only Donne could be guilty of such refined and
extravagant subtlety. But probably this is to refine too much. There
is no example of 'ruining' as an active verb used in this fashion.
A feature of the MS. collection from which this poem was probably
printed is the omission of stops at the end of the line. In the next
verse Donne pushes the annihilation further. Made nothing by Love,
by the death of her he loves he is made the elixir (i. e. the
quintessence) not now of ordinary nothing, but of 'the first nothing',
the nothing which preceded God's first act of creation. The poem turns
upon the thought of degrees in nothingness.
For 'elixir' as identical with 'quintessence' see Oxf. Eng. Dict. ,
_Elixir_, ? ? iii. b, and the quotation there, 'A distill'd
quintessence, a pure elixar of mischief, pestilent alike to all. '
Milton, _Church Govt. _
Of the 'first Nothing' Donne speaks in the _Essays in Divinity_
(Jessop, 1855), pp. 80-1, but in a rather different strain: 'To speak
truth freely there was no such Nothing as this' (the nothing which a
man might wish to be) 'before the beginning: for he that hath refined
all the old definitions hath put this ingredient _Creabile_ (which
cannot be absolutely nothing) into his definition of creation; and
that Nothing which was, we cannot desire; for man's will is not larger
than God's power: and since Nothing was not a pre-existent matter, nor
mother of this all, but only a limitation when any thing began to be;
how impossible it is to return to that first point of time, since God
(if it imply contradiction) cannot reduce yesterday? Of this we
will say no more; for this Nothing being no creature; is more
incomprehensible than all the rest. '
ll. 31-2. The Grolier Club edition reads:
I should prefer
If I were any beast; some end, some means;
which is to me unintelligible. 'If I were a beast, I should prefer
some end, some means' refers to the Aristotelian and Schools doctrine
of the soul. The soul of man is rational and self-conscious; of beasts
perceptive and moving, therefore able to select ends and means; the
vegetative soul of plants selects what it can feed on and rejects what
it cannot, and so far detests and loves. Even stones, which have no
souls, attract and repel. But even of stones Donne says: 'We are not
sure that stones have not life; stones may have life; neither (to
speak humanely) is it unreasonably thought by them, that thought the
whole world to be inanimated by one soule, and to be one intire living
creature; and in that respect does S. Augustine prefer a fly before
the Sun, because a fly hath life, and the Sun hath not. ' _Sermons_ 80.
7. 69-70.
l. 35. _If I an ordinary nothing were. _ 'A shadow is nothing, yet, if
the rising or falling sun shines out and there be no shadow, I will
pronounce there is no body in that place neither. Ceremonies are
nothing; but where there are no ceremonies, order, and obedience, and
at last (and quickly) religion itself will vanish. ' _Sermons_ (quoted
in _Selections from Donne_, 1840).
l. 41. _Enjoy your summer all_; This is Grosart's punctuation. The old
editions have a comma. Chambers, obviously quite wrongly, retains the
comma, and closes the sentence in the next line. The clause 'Since she
enjoys her long night's festival' explains 43 'Let me prepare towards
her', &c. , _not_ 41 'Enjoy your summer all'.
PAGE =47=. THE APPARITION.
ll. 1-13. The Grolier Club editor places a full stop, Chambers a
colon, after 'shrinke', for the comma of the old editions. Chambers's
division is better than the first, which interrupts the steady run of
the thought to the climax,
A verier ghost than I.
The original punctuation preserves the rapid, crowded march of the
clauses.
l. 10. This line throws light on the character of the _1669_ text.
The correct reading of _1633_ was spoiled in _1635_ by accidentally
dropping 'will', and this error continued through _1639-54_. The 1669
editor, detecting the metrical fault, made the line decasyllabic by
interpolating 'a' and 'even'.
PAGE =48=. THE BROKEN HEART.
l. 8. _A flaske of powder burne a day. _ The 'flash' of later editions
is probably a conjectural emendation, for 'flaske' (_1633_ and many
MSS.
) makes good sense; and the metaphor of a burning flask of powder
seems to suit exactly the later lines which describe what happened to
the heart which love inflamed
but Love, alas,
At one first blow did shiver it as glasse.
Shakespeare uses the same simile in a different connexion:
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Mis-shapen in the conduct of them both:
Like powder in a skilless soldiers flaske,
Is set a fire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismembred with thine owne defence.
_Romeo and Juliet_, III. iii. 130.
l. 14. _and never chawes_: 'chaw' is the form Donne generally uses:
'Implicite beleevers, ignorant beleevers, the adversary may swallow;
but the understanding beleever, he must chaw, and pick bones, before
he come to assimilate him, and make him like himself. ' _Sermons_ 80.
18. 178.
PAGE =49=. A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING.
This poem is quoted by Walton after his account of the vision which
Donne had of his wife in France, in 1612: 'I forbear the readers
farther trouble as to the relation and what concerns it, and will
conclude mine with commending to his view a copy of verses given by
Mr. Donne to his wife at the time that he then parted from her: and
I beg leave to tell, that I have heard some critics, learned both in
languages and poetry, say, that none of the Greek or Latin poets did
ever equal them. ' The critics probably included Wotton,--perhaps also
Hales, whose criticism of Shakespeare shows the same readiness to find
our own poets as good as the Ancients.
The song, 'Sweetest love I do not go,' was probably written at the
same time. It is almost identical in tone. They are certainly the
tenderest of Donne's love poems, perhaps the only ones to which the
epithet 'tender' can be applied. The _Valediction: of weeping_ is more
passionate.
An early translation of this poem into Greek verse is found in a
volume in the Bodleian Library.
ll. 9-12. _Moving of th'earth, &c. _ 'The "trepidation" was the
precession of the equinoxes, supposed, according to the Ptolemaic
astronomy, to be caused by the movements of the Ninth or Crystalline
Sphere. ' Chambers.
First you see fixt in this huge mirrour blew,
Of trembling lights, a number numberlesse:
Fixt they are nam'd, but with a name untrue,
For they all moove and in a Daunce expresse
That great long yeare, that doth contain no lesse
Then threescore hundreds of those yeares in all,
Which the sunne makes with his course naturall.
What if to you those sparks disordered seem
As if by chaunce they had beene scattered there?
The gods a solemne measure doe it deeme,
And see a iust proportion every where,
And know the points whence first their movings were;
To which first points when all returne againe,
The axel-tree of Heav'n shall breake in twain.
Sir John Davies, _Orchestra_, 35-6.
l. 16. _Those things which elemented it. _ Chambers follows _1669_ and
reads 'The thing'--wrongly, I think. 'Elemented' is just 'composed',
and the things are enumerated later, 20. 'eyes, lips, hands. ' Compare:
But neither chance nor compliment
Did element our love.
Katharine Phillips (Orinda), _To Mrs. M. A. at parting_.
This and the fellow poem _Upon Absence_ may be compared with Donne's
poems on the same theme. See Saintsbury's _Caroline Poets_, i, pp.
548, 550.
l. 20. _and hands_: 'and' has the support of _all_ the MSS. The want
of it is no great loss, for though without it the line moves a little
irregularly, 'and hands' is not a pleasant concatenation.
ll. 25-36. _If they be two, &c. _ Donne's famous simile has a close
parallel in Omar Khayyam. Whether Donne's 'hydroptic immoderate thirst
of humane learning and languages' extended to Persian I do not know.
Captain Harris has supplied me with translations and reference:
In these twin compasses, O Love, you see
One body with two heads, like you and me,
Which wander round one centre, circle wise,
But at the last in one same point agree.
Whinfield's edition of _Omar Khayyam_ (Kegan Paul,
Trubner, 1901, Oriental Series, p. 216).
'Oh my soul, you and I are like a compass. We form but one body having
two points. Truly one point moves from the other point, and makes the
round of the circle; but the day draws near when the two points must
re-unite. ' J. H. M^{c}Carthy (D. Nutt, 1898).
PAGE =51=. THE EXTASIE.
This is one of the most important of the lyrics as a statement
of Donne's metaphysic of love, of the interconnexion and mutual
dependence of body and soul. It is printed in _1633_ from _D_, _H49_,
_Lec_ or a MS. resembling it, and from this and the other MSS. I
have introduced some alterations in the text: and two rather vital
emendations, ll. 55 and 59. _The Extasie_ is probably the source of
Lord Herbert of Cherbury's best known poem, _An Ode Upon a Question
Moved Whether Love Should Continue For Ever_. Compare with the opening
lines of Donne's poem:
They stay'd at last and on the grass
Reposed so, as o're his breast
She bowed her gracious head to rest,
Such a weight as no burden was.
While over eithers compass'd waist
Their folded arms were so compos'd
As if in straightest bonds inclos'd
They suffer'd for joys they did taste
Long their fixt eyes to Heaven bent,
Unchanged they did never move,
As if so great and pure a love
No glass but it could represent.
In a letter to Sir Thomas Lucy, Donne writes: 'Sir I make account that
this writing of letters, when it is with any seriousness, is a kind of
extasie, and a departing, and secession, and suspension of the soul,
which doth then communicate itself to two bodies. ' Ecstasy in
Neo-Platonic philosophy was the state of mind in which the soul,
escaping from the body, attained to the vision of God, the One, the
Absolute. Plotinus thus describes it: 'Even the word vision ([Greek:
theama]) does not seem appropriate here. It is rather an ecstasy
([Greek: ekstasis]), a simplification, an abandonment of self, a
perfect quietude ([Greek: stasis]), a desire of contact, in short a
wish to merge oneself in that which one contemplates in the
Sanctuary. ' _Sixth Ennead_, ix. 11 (from the French translation of
Bouillet, 1857-8). Readers will observe how closely Donne's poem
agrees with this--the exodus of the souls (ll. 15-16), the perfect
quiet (ll. 18-20), the new insight (ll. 29-33), the contact and union
of the souls (l. 35). Donne had probably read Ficino's translation of
Plotinus (1492), but the doctrine of ecstasy passed into Christian
thought, connecting itself especially with the experience of St. Paul
(2 Cor. xii. 2). St. Paul's word is [Greek: harpagenta], and Aquinas
distinguishes between 'raptus' and 'ecstasis': 'Extasis importat
simpliciter excessum a seipso . . . raptus super hoc addit violentiam
quandam. ' Another word for 'ecstasy' was 'enthusiasm'.
l. 9. _So to entergraft our hands. _ All the later editions read
'engraft', which makes the line smoother. But to me it seems more
probable that Donne wrote 'entergraft' and later editors changed this
to 'engraft', than that the opposite should have happened. Moreover,
'entergraft' gives the reciprocal force correctly, which 'engraft'
does not. Donne's precision is as marked as his subtlety. 'Entergraft'
has the support of all the best MSS.
PAGE =52=, l. 20. _And wee said nothing all the day. _ 'En amour un
silence vaut mieux qu'un langage. Il est bon d'etre interdit; il y
a une eloquence de silence qui penetre plus que la langue ne saurait
faire. Qu'un amant persuade bien sa maitresse quand il est interdit,
et que d'ailleurs il a de l'esprit! Quelque vivacite que l'on ait,
il est bon dans certaines rencontres qu'elle s'eteigne. Tout cela se
passe sans regle et sans reflexion; et quand l'esprit le fait, il n'y
pensait pas auparavant. C'est par necessite que cela arrive. ' Pascal,
_Discours sur les passions de l'amour_.
l. 32. _Wee see, wee saw not what did move. _ Chambers inserts a comma
after 'we saw not', perhaps rightly; but the punctuation of the old
editions gives a distinct enough sense, viz. , 'We see now, that we did
not see before the true source of our love. What we thought was due
to bodily beauty, we perceive now to have its source in the soul. '
Compare, 'But when I wakt, I saw, that I saw not. ' _The Storme_, l.
37.
l. 42. _Interinanimates two soules. _ The MSS. give the word which
the metre requires and which I have no doubt Donne used. The verb
_inanimates_ occurs more than once in the sermons. 'One that quickens
and inanimates all, and is the soul of the whole world. ' _Sermons_ 80.
29. 289. 'That universall power which sustaines, and inanimates the
whole world. ' Ibid. 80. 31. 305. 'In these bowels, in the womb of this
promise we lay foure thousand yeares; The blood with which we were fed
then, was the blood of the Sacrifices, and the quickening which we had
there, was an inanimation, by the often refreshing of this promise
of that Messias in the Prophets. ' Ibid. 80. 38. 381. 'Hee shews them
Heaven, and God in Heaven, sanctifying all their Crosses in this
World, inanimating all their worldly blessings. ' Ibid. 80. 44. 436.
PAGE =53=, l. 51. _They'are ours though they'are not wee, Wee are_
The line as given in all the MSS. is metrically, in the rhetorically
effective position of the stresses, superior to the shortened form of
the editions:
They'are ours, though not wee, wee are
l. 52. _the spheare. _ The MSS. all give the singular, the editions
the plural. Donne is not incapable of making a singular rhyme with a
plural, or at any rate a form with 's' with one without:
Then let us at these mimicke antiques jeast,
Whose deepest projects, and egregious gests
Are but dull Moralls of a game of Chests.
_To S^r Henry Wotton_, p. 188, ll. 22-4.
Still, I think 'spheare' is right. The bodies made one are the Sphere
in which the two Intelligences meet and command. This suits all that
followes:
Wee owe them thanks, because they thus, &c.
The Dutch translation runs:
Het Hemel-rond zijn sy,
Wy haren _Hemel-geest_.
l. 55. _forces, sense_, This reading of all the MSS. is, I think,
certainly right; the 'senses force' of the editions being an
emendation. (1) It is the more difficult reading. It is inconceivable
that an ordinary copyist would alter 'senses force' to 'forces sense',
which, unless properly commaed, is apt to be read as 'forces' sense'
and make nonsense. (2) It is more characteristic of Donne's thought.
He is, with his usual scholastic precision, distinguishing the
functions of soul and body. Perception is the function (the [Greek:
dynamis], power or force) of soul:
thy faire goodly soul, which doth
Give this flesh power to taste joy.
_Satyre III. _
But the body has its function also, without which the soul could not
fulfil its; and that function is 'sense'. It is through this medium
that human souls must operate to obtain knowledge of each other. The
bodies must yield their forces or faculties ('sense' in all its forms,
especially sight and touch--hands and eyes) to us before our souls can
become one. The collective term 'sense' recurs:
T'affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend.
ll. 57-8. _On man heavens influence workes not so,
But that it first imprints the ayre. _
'Aucuns ont escrit que l'air a aussi cette vertu de faire decouler
avec le feu elementaire les influences et proprietez secrettes des
estoilles et planettes: alleguans que l'efficace des corps celestes
ne peut s'estendre aux inferieurs et terrestres, que par les moyens et
elemens qui sont entre deux. Mais cela soit au iugement des lecteurs
que nous renvoyons aux disputes de ceux qui ont escrit sur la
philosophie naturelle. Voyez aussi _Pline au 5 ch. du 2 liu. _,
_Plutarque au 5 & 2 liu. des opinions des Philosophes_, _Platon en
son Timee_, _Aristote_ en ses disputes de physique, specialement au i.
liu. de la generation et corruption, et ceux qui ont escrit depuis luy
touchant les elemens. ' Du Bartas, _La Sepmaine, &c. _ (1581), _Indice_.
Air.
l. 59. _Soe soule into the soule may flow. _ The 'Soe' of the MSS.
must, I think, be right rather than the 'For' of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_,
and the editions. It corresponds to the 'So' in l. 65, and it
expresses the simpler and more intelligible thought. In references
to the heavenly bodies and their influence on men one must remember
certain aspects of older thought which have become unfamiliar to us.
They were bodies of great dignity, 'aeterna corpora,' not composed
of any of the four elements, and subject to no change in time but
movement, change of position. If not as the older philosophers and
some of the Fathers had held, 'animata corpora,' having a soul united
to the body, yet each was guided by an Intelligence operating by
contact: 'Ad hoc autem quod moveat, non opportet quod uniatur ei
ut forma, sed per contactum virtutis, sicut motor unitur mobili. '
Aquinas, _Summa_ I.
'If it' (i. e. a torch) 'have _never_ been _lighted_, it does not
easily take light, but it must be _bruised_ and _beaten_ first; if
it have been lighted and put out, though it cannot take fire _of it
self_, yet it does easily conceive fire, if it be presented within any
convenient distance. ' _Sermons_ 50. 36. 332.
PAGE =38=. A VALEDICTION: OF WEEPING.
ll. 1-9. I have changed the comma at l. 6 to a semicolon, as the first
image, that of the coins, closes here. Chambers places a full stop
at l. 4 'worth', and apparently connects the next two lines with what
follows--wrongly, I think. Finishing the figure of the coins, coined,
stamped, and given their value by her, Donne passes on to a couple of
new images. 'The tears are fruits of much grief; but they are symbols
of more to come. For, as your image perishes in each tear that falls,
so shall we perish, be nothing, when between us rolls the "salt,
estranging sea". '
It is, I suppose, by an inadvertence that Chambers has left 'divers'
unchanged to 'diverse'. I cannot think there is any reference to 'a
diver in the pearly seas'. Grolier and the Dutch poet divide as here:
Laet voor uw aengesicht mijn trouwe tranen vallen,
Want van dat aengensicht ontfangen sy uw' munt,
En rijsen tot de waerd dies' uwe stempel gunt
Bevrucht van uw' gedaent: vrucht van veel' ongevallen,
Maer teekenen van meer, daer ghy valt met den traen,
Die van u swanger was, en beyde wy ontdaen
Verdwijnen, soo wy op verscheiden oever staen.
PAGE =39=. LOVES ALCHYMIE.
l. 7. _th'Elixar_: i. e. 'the Elixir Vitae', which heals all disease
and indefinitely prolongs life. It is sometimes identified with the
philosopher's stone, which transmutes metals to gold. In speaking of
quintessences (see note, II. p. 30) Paracelsus declares that there are
certain quintessences superior to those of gold, marchasite, precious
stones, &c. , 'of more importance than that they should be called a
quintessence. It should be rather spoken of as a certain secret and
mystery . . . Among these arcana we here put forward four. Of these
arcana the first is the mercury of life, the second is the primal
matter, the third is the Philosopher's Stone, and the fourth the
tincture. But although these arcana are rather angelical than human to
speak of we shall not shrink from them. ' From the description he gives
they all seem to operate more or less alike, purging metals and other
bodies from disease.
ll. 7-10. _And as no chymique yet, &c. _ 'My Lord Chancellor gave me
so noble and so ready a dispatch, accompanied with so fatherly advice
that I am now, like an alchemist, delighted with discoveries by the
way, though I attain not mine end. ' To . . . Sir H. G. , Gosse's _Life,
&c. _, ii. 49.
ll. 23-4. _at their best
Sweetnesse and wit, they'are but Mummy, possest. _
The punctuation of these lines in _1633-54_ is ambiguous, and Chambers
has altered it wrongly to
Sweetness and wit they are, but Mummy possest.
The MSS. generally support the punctuation which I have adopted, which
is that of the Grolier Club edition.
PAGE =40=. THE FLEA.
I have restored this poem to the place it occupied in _1633_. In
_1635_ it was placed first of all the _Songs and Sonets_. A strange
choice to our mind, but apparently the poem was greatly admired as
a masterpiece of wit. It is the first of the pieces translated by
Huyghens:
De Vloy.
Slaet acht op deze Vloy, en leert wat overleggen,
Hoe slechten ding het is dat ghy my kont ontzeggen, &c. ,
and was selected for special commendation by some of his
correspondents. Coleridge comments upon it in verse:
Be proud as Spaniards. Leap for pride, ye Fleas!
In natures _minim_ realm ye're now grandees.
Skip-jacks no more, nor civiller skip-johns;
Thrice-honored Fleas! I greet you all as _Dons_.
In Phoebus' archives registered are ye,
And this your patent of nobility.
It will be noticed that there are two versions of Donne's poem.
PAGE =41=. THE CURSE.
l. 3. _His only, and only his purse. _ This, the reading of all the
editions except the last, and of the MSS. , is obviously right. What
is to dispose 'some dull heart to love' is his _only_ purse and _his_
alone, no one's but his purse. Chambers adopts the _1669_ conjecture,
'Him only for his purse,' but in that case there is no subject to 'may
dispose', or if 'some dull heart' be subject then 'itself' must be
supplied--a harsh construction. 'Dispose' is not used intransitively
in this sense.
l. 27. _Mynes. _ I have adopted the plural from the MSS. It brings it
into line with the other objects mentioned.
PAGE =43=. THE MESSAGE.
l. 11. _But if it be taught by thine. _ It seems incredible that Donne
should have written 'which if it' &c. immediately after the 'which'
of the preceding line. I had thought that the _1633_ printer had
accidentally repeated from the line above, but the evidence of the
MSS. points to the mistake (if it is a mistake) being older than that.
'Which' was in the MS. used by the printer. If 'But' is not Donne's
own reading or emendation it ought to be, and I am loath to injure a
charming poem by pedantic adherence to authority in so small a point.
_De minimis non curat lex_; but art cares very much indeed. _JC_ and
_P_ read 'Yet since it hath learn'd by thine'.
ll. 14 f. _And crosse both
Word and oath, &c. _
The 'crosse' of all the MSS. is pretty certainly what Donne wrote. An
editor would change to 'break' hardly the other way. To 'crosse' is,
of course, to 'cancel'. Compare Jonson's _Poetaster_, Act II, Scene i:
Faith, sir, your mercer's Book
Will tell you with more patience, then I can
(For I am crost, and so's not that I thinke. )
and
Examine well thy beauty with my truth,
And cross my cares, ere greater sums arise.
Daniel, _Delia_, i.
PAGE =44=. A NOCTURNALL, &c.
l. 12. _For I am every dead thing. _ I have not thought it right to
alter the _1633_ 'every' to the 'very' of _1635-69_. 'Every' has some
MS. support, and it is the more difficult reading, though of course 'a
very' might easily enough be misread. But I rather think that 'every'
expresses what Donne means. He is 'every dead thing' because he is the
quintessence of all negations--'absence, darkness, death: things which
are not', and more than that, 'the first nothing. '
ll. 14-18. _For his art did expresse . . . things which are not. _ This
is a difficult stanza in a difficult poem. I have after considerable
hesitation adopted the punctuation of _1719_, which is followed by all
the modern editors. This makes 'dull privations' and 'lean emptinesse'
expansions of 'nothingnesse'. This is the simpler construction. I am
not sure, however, that the punctuation of the earlier editions and of
the MSS. may not be correct. In that case 'From dull privations' goes
with 'he ruined me'. Milton speaks of 'ruining from Heaven'. 'From me,
who was nothing', says Donne, 'Love extracted the very quintessence
of nothingness--made me more nothing than I already was. My state was
already one of "dull privation" and "lean emptiness", and Love reduced
it still further, making me once more the non-entity I was before
I was created. ' Only Donne could be guilty of such refined and
extravagant subtlety. But probably this is to refine too much. There
is no example of 'ruining' as an active verb used in this fashion.
A feature of the MS. collection from which this poem was probably
printed is the omission of stops at the end of the line. In the next
verse Donne pushes the annihilation further. Made nothing by Love,
by the death of her he loves he is made the elixir (i. e. the
quintessence) not now of ordinary nothing, but of 'the first nothing',
the nothing which preceded God's first act of creation. The poem turns
upon the thought of degrees in nothingness.
For 'elixir' as identical with 'quintessence' see Oxf. Eng. Dict. ,
_Elixir_, ? ? iii. b, and the quotation there, 'A distill'd
quintessence, a pure elixar of mischief, pestilent alike to all. '
Milton, _Church Govt. _
Of the 'first Nothing' Donne speaks in the _Essays in Divinity_
(Jessop, 1855), pp. 80-1, but in a rather different strain: 'To speak
truth freely there was no such Nothing as this' (the nothing which a
man might wish to be) 'before the beginning: for he that hath refined
all the old definitions hath put this ingredient _Creabile_ (which
cannot be absolutely nothing) into his definition of creation; and
that Nothing which was, we cannot desire; for man's will is not larger
than God's power: and since Nothing was not a pre-existent matter, nor
mother of this all, but only a limitation when any thing began to be;
how impossible it is to return to that first point of time, since God
(if it imply contradiction) cannot reduce yesterday? Of this we
will say no more; for this Nothing being no creature; is more
incomprehensible than all the rest. '
ll. 31-2. The Grolier Club edition reads:
I should prefer
If I were any beast; some end, some means;
which is to me unintelligible. 'If I were a beast, I should prefer
some end, some means' refers to the Aristotelian and Schools doctrine
of the soul. The soul of man is rational and self-conscious; of beasts
perceptive and moving, therefore able to select ends and means; the
vegetative soul of plants selects what it can feed on and rejects what
it cannot, and so far detests and loves. Even stones, which have no
souls, attract and repel. But even of stones Donne says: 'We are not
sure that stones have not life; stones may have life; neither (to
speak humanely) is it unreasonably thought by them, that thought the
whole world to be inanimated by one soule, and to be one intire living
creature; and in that respect does S. Augustine prefer a fly before
the Sun, because a fly hath life, and the Sun hath not. ' _Sermons_ 80.
7. 69-70.
l. 35. _If I an ordinary nothing were. _ 'A shadow is nothing, yet, if
the rising or falling sun shines out and there be no shadow, I will
pronounce there is no body in that place neither. Ceremonies are
nothing; but where there are no ceremonies, order, and obedience, and
at last (and quickly) religion itself will vanish. ' _Sermons_ (quoted
in _Selections from Donne_, 1840).
l. 41. _Enjoy your summer all_; This is Grosart's punctuation. The old
editions have a comma. Chambers, obviously quite wrongly, retains the
comma, and closes the sentence in the next line. The clause 'Since she
enjoys her long night's festival' explains 43 'Let me prepare towards
her', &c. , _not_ 41 'Enjoy your summer all'.
PAGE =47=. THE APPARITION.
ll. 1-13. The Grolier Club editor places a full stop, Chambers a
colon, after 'shrinke', for the comma of the old editions. Chambers's
division is better than the first, which interrupts the steady run of
the thought to the climax,
A verier ghost than I.
The original punctuation preserves the rapid, crowded march of the
clauses.
l. 10. This line throws light on the character of the _1669_ text.
The correct reading of _1633_ was spoiled in _1635_ by accidentally
dropping 'will', and this error continued through _1639-54_. The 1669
editor, detecting the metrical fault, made the line decasyllabic by
interpolating 'a' and 'even'.
PAGE =48=. THE BROKEN HEART.
l. 8. _A flaske of powder burne a day. _ The 'flash' of later editions
is probably a conjectural emendation, for 'flaske' (_1633_ and many
MSS.
) makes good sense; and the metaphor of a burning flask of powder
seems to suit exactly the later lines which describe what happened to
the heart which love inflamed
but Love, alas,
At one first blow did shiver it as glasse.
Shakespeare uses the same simile in a different connexion:
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Mis-shapen in the conduct of them both:
Like powder in a skilless soldiers flaske,
Is set a fire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismembred with thine owne defence.
_Romeo and Juliet_, III. iii. 130.
l. 14. _and never chawes_: 'chaw' is the form Donne generally uses:
'Implicite beleevers, ignorant beleevers, the adversary may swallow;
but the understanding beleever, he must chaw, and pick bones, before
he come to assimilate him, and make him like himself. ' _Sermons_ 80.
18. 178.
PAGE =49=. A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING.
This poem is quoted by Walton after his account of the vision which
Donne had of his wife in France, in 1612: 'I forbear the readers
farther trouble as to the relation and what concerns it, and will
conclude mine with commending to his view a copy of verses given by
Mr. Donne to his wife at the time that he then parted from her: and
I beg leave to tell, that I have heard some critics, learned both in
languages and poetry, say, that none of the Greek or Latin poets did
ever equal them. ' The critics probably included Wotton,--perhaps also
Hales, whose criticism of Shakespeare shows the same readiness to find
our own poets as good as the Ancients.
The song, 'Sweetest love I do not go,' was probably written at the
same time. It is almost identical in tone. They are certainly the
tenderest of Donne's love poems, perhaps the only ones to which the
epithet 'tender' can be applied. The _Valediction: of weeping_ is more
passionate.
An early translation of this poem into Greek verse is found in a
volume in the Bodleian Library.
ll. 9-12. _Moving of th'earth, &c. _ 'The "trepidation" was the
precession of the equinoxes, supposed, according to the Ptolemaic
astronomy, to be caused by the movements of the Ninth or Crystalline
Sphere. ' Chambers.
First you see fixt in this huge mirrour blew,
Of trembling lights, a number numberlesse:
Fixt they are nam'd, but with a name untrue,
For they all moove and in a Daunce expresse
That great long yeare, that doth contain no lesse
Then threescore hundreds of those yeares in all,
Which the sunne makes with his course naturall.
What if to you those sparks disordered seem
As if by chaunce they had beene scattered there?
The gods a solemne measure doe it deeme,
And see a iust proportion every where,
And know the points whence first their movings were;
To which first points when all returne againe,
The axel-tree of Heav'n shall breake in twain.
Sir John Davies, _Orchestra_, 35-6.
l. 16. _Those things which elemented it. _ Chambers follows _1669_ and
reads 'The thing'--wrongly, I think. 'Elemented' is just 'composed',
and the things are enumerated later, 20. 'eyes, lips, hands. ' Compare:
But neither chance nor compliment
Did element our love.
Katharine Phillips (Orinda), _To Mrs. M. A. at parting_.
This and the fellow poem _Upon Absence_ may be compared with Donne's
poems on the same theme. See Saintsbury's _Caroline Poets_, i, pp.
548, 550.
l. 20. _and hands_: 'and' has the support of _all_ the MSS. The want
of it is no great loss, for though without it the line moves a little
irregularly, 'and hands' is not a pleasant concatenation.
ll. 25-36. _If they be two, &c. _ Donne's famous simile has a close
parallel in Omar Khayyam. Whether Donne's 'hydroptic immoderate thirst
of humane learning and languages' extended to Persian I do not know.
Captain Harris has supplied me with translations and reference:
In these twin compasses, O Love, you see
One body with two heads, like you and me,
Which wander round one centre, circle wise,
But at the last in one same point agree.
Whinfield's edition of _Omar Khayyam_ (Kegan Paul,
Trubner, 1901, Oriental Series, p. 216).
'Oh my soul, you and I are like a compass. We form but one body having
two points. Truly one point moves from the other point, and makes the
round of the circle; but the day draws near when the two points must
re-unite. ' J. H. M^{c}Carthy (D. Nutt, 1898).
PAGE =51=. THE EXTASIE.
This is one of the most important of the lyrics as a statement
of Donne's metaphysic of love, of the interconnexion and mutual
dependence of body and soul. It is printed in _1633_ from _D_, _H49_,
_Lec_ or a MS. resembling it, and from this and the other MSS. I
have introduced some alterations in the text: and two rather vital
emendations, ll. 55 and 59. _The Extasie_ is probably the source of
Lord Herbert of Cherbury's best known poem, _An Ode Upon a Question
Moved Whether Love Should Continue For Ever_. Compare with the opening
lines of Donne's poem:
They stay'd at last and on the grass
Reposed so, as o're his breast
She bowed her gracious head to rest,
Such a weight as no burden was.
While over eithers compass'd waist
Their folded arms were so compos'd
As if in straightest bonds inclos'd
They suffer'd for joys they did taste
Long their fixt eyes to Heaven bent,
Unchanged they did never move,
As if so great and pure a love
No glass but it could represent.
In a letter to Sir Thomas Lucy, Donne writes: 'Sir I make account that
this writing of letters, when it is with any seriousness, is a kind of
extasie, and a departing, and secession, and suspension of the soul,
which doth then communicate itself to two bodies. ' Ecstasy in
Neo-Platonic philosophy was the state of mind in which the soul,
escaping from the body, attained to the vision of God, the One, the
Absolute. Plotinus thus describes it: 'Even the word vision ([Greek:
theama]) does not seem appropriate here. It is rather an ecstasy
([Greek: ekstasis]), a simplification, an abandonment of self, a
perfect quietude ([Greek: stasis]), a desire of contact, in short a
wish to merge oneself in that which one contemplates in the
Sanctuary. ' _Sixth Ennead_, ix. 11 (from the French translation of
Bouillet, 1857-8). Readers will observe how closely Donne's poem
agrees with this--the exodus of the souls (ll. 15-16), the perfect
quiet (ll. 18-20), the new insight (ll. 29-33), the contact and union
of the souls (l. 35). Donne had probably read Ficino's translation of
Plotinus (1492), but the doctrine of ecstasy passed into Christian
thought, connecting itself especially with the experience of St. Paul
(2 Cor. xii. 2). St. Paul's word is [Greek: harpagenta], and Aquinas
distinguishes between 'raptus' and 'ecstasis': 'Extasis importat
simpliciter excessum a seipso . . . raptus super hoc addit violentiam
quandam. ' Another word for 'ecstasy' was 'enthusiasm'.
l. 9. _So to entergraft our hands. _ All the later editions read
'engraft', which makes the line smoother. But to me it seems more
probable that Donne wrote 'entergraft' and later editors changed this
to 'engraft', than that the opposite should have happened. Moreover,
'entergraft' gives the reciprocal force correctly, which 'engraft'
does not. Donne's precision is as marked as his subtlety. 'Entergraft'
has the support of all the best MSS.
PAGE =52=, l. 20. _And wee said nothing all the day. _ 'En amour un
silence vaut mieux qu'un langage. Il est bon d'etre interdit; il y
a une eloquence de silence qui penetre plus que la langue ne saurait
faire. Qu'un amant persuade bien sa maitresse quand il est interdit,
et que d'ailleurs il a de l'esprit! Quelque vivacite que l'on ait,
il est bon dans certaines rencontres qu'elle s'eteigne. Tout cela se
passe sans regle et sans reflexion; et quand l'esprit le fait, il n'y
pensait pas auparavant. C'est par necessite que cela arrive. ' Pascal,
_Discours sur les passions de l'amour_.
l. 32. _Wee see, wee saw not what did move. _ Chambers inserts a comma
after 'we saw not', perhaps rightly; but the punctuation of the old
editions gives a distinct enough sense, viz. , 'We see now, that we did
not see before the true source of our love. What we thought was due
to bodily beauty, we perceive now to have its source in the soul. '
Compare, 'But when I wakt, I saw, that I saw not. ' _The Storme_, l.
37.
l. 42. _Interinanimates two soules. _ The MSS. give the word which
the metre requires and which I have no doubt Donne used. The verb
_inanimates_ occurs more than once in the sermons. 'One that quickens
and inanimates all, and is the soul of the whole world. ' _Sermons_ 80.
29. 289. 'That universall power which sustaines, and inanimates the
whole world. ' Ibid. 80. 31. 305. 'In these bowels, in the womb of this
promise we lay foure thousand yeares; The blood with which we were fed
then, was the blood of the Sacrifices, and the quickening which we had
there, was an inanimation, by the often refreshing of this promise
of that Messias in the Prophets. ' Ibid. 80. 38. 381. 'Hee shews them
Heaven, and God in Heaven, sanctifying all their Crosses in this
World, inanimating all their worldly blessings. ' Ibid. 80. 44. 436.
PAGE =53=, l. 51. _They'are ours though they'are not wee, Wee are_
The line as given in all the MSS. is metrically, in the rhetorically
effective position of the stresses, superior to the shortened form of
the editions:
They'are ours, though not wee, wee are
l. 52. _the spheare. _ The MSS. all give the singular, the editions
the plural. Donne is not incapable of making a singular rhyme with a
plural, or at any rate a form with 's' with one without:
Then let us at these mimicke antiques jeast,
Whose deepest projects, and egregious gests
Are but dull Moralls of a game of Chests.
_To S^r Henry Wotton_, p. 188, ll. 22-4.
Still, I think 'spheare' is right. The bodies made one are the Sphere
in which the two Intelligences meet and command. This suits all that
followes:
Wee owe them thanks, because they thus, &c.
The Dutch translation runs:
Het Hemel-rond zijn sy,
Wy haren _Hemel-geest_.
l. 55. _forces, sense_, This reading of all the MSS. is, I think,
certainly right; the 'senses force' of the editions being an
emendation. (1) It is the more difficult reading. It is inconceivable
that an ordinary copyist would alter 'senses force' to 'forces sense',
which, unless properly commaed, is apt to be read as 'forces' sense'
and make nonsense. (2) It is more characteristic of Donne's thought.
He is, with his usual scholastic precision, distinguishing the
functions of soul and body. Perception is the function (the [Greek:
dynamis], power or force) of soul:
thy faire goodly soul, which doth
Give this flesh power to taste joy.
_Satyre III. _
But the body has its function also, without which the soul could not
fulfil its; and that function is 'sense'. It is through this medium
that human souls must operate to obtain knowledge of each other. The
bodies must yield their forces or faculties ('sense' in all its forms,
especially sight and touch--hands and eyes) to us before our souls can
become one. The collective term 'sense' recurs:
T'affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend.
ll. 57-8. _On man heavens influence workes not so,
But that it first imprints the ayre. _
'Aucuns ont escrit que l'air a aussi cette vertu de faire decouler
avec le feu elementaire les influences et proprietez secrettes des
estoilles et planettes: alleguans que l'efficace des corps celestes
ne peut s'estendre aux inferieurs et terrestres, que par les moyens et
elemens qui sont entre deux. Mais cela soit au iugement des lecteurs
que nous renvoyons aux disputes de ceux qui ont escrit sur la
philosophie naturelle. Voyez aussi _Pline au 5 ch. du 2 liu. _,
_Plutarque au 5 & 2 liu. des opinions des Philosophes_, _Platon en
son Timee_, _Aristote_ en ses disputes de physique, specialement au i.
liu. de la generation et corruption, et ceux qui ont escrit depuis luy
touchant les elemens. ' Du Bartas, _La Sepmaine, &c. _ (1581), _Indice_.
Air.
l. 59. _Soe soule into the soule may flow. _ The 'Soe' of the MSS.
must, I think, be right rather than the 'For' of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_,
and the editions. It corresponds to the 'So' in l. 65, and it
expresses the simpler and more intelligible thought. In references
to the heavenly bodies and their influence on men one must remember
certain aspects of older thought which have become unfamiliar to us.
They were bodies of great dignity, 'aeterna corpora,' not composed
of any of the four elements, and subject to no change in time but
movement, change of position. If not as the older philosophers and
some of the Fathers had held, 'animata corpora,' having a soul united
to the body, yet each was guided by an Intelligence operating by
contact: 'Ad hoc autem quod moveat, non opportet quod uniatur ei
ut forma, sed per contactum virtutis, sicut motor unitur mobili. '
Aquinas, _Summa_ I.
