As Donne is
addressing
the lady throughout it is
difficult to distinguish what he says to her now from what he said on
the occasion imagined.
difficult to distinguish what he says to her now from what he said on
the occasion imagined.
John Donne
e.
imposture or 'glittering dross'
(O. E. D. ). 'Though the show of it were glorious, the substance of it
was dross, and nothing but alchymy and cozenage. ' Harrington, _Orlando
Furioso_ (1591). See also poem cited II. p. 11.
PAGE =12=. THE INDIFFERENT.
l. 7. _dry corke. _ Cork was a favourite metaphor for what was dry
and withered. To our taste it is hardly congruous with love or tragic
poetry, perhaps because of its associations. 'Bind fast his corky
arms,' says Cornwall, speaking of Gloucester (_King Lear_, III. vii.
31), but Shakespeare seems to have taken the epithet from Harsnett's
_Declaration of Egregious Popishe Impostures, &c. _ (1603): 'It would
pose all the cunning exorcists . . . to teach an old corkie woman to
writhe, tumble, curvet,' c. 5, p. 23.
PAGE =13=. LOVES USURY.
l. 5. _My body raigne. _ Grosart and Chambers substitute 'range', from
_1635-69_. Perhaps they are right; but I feel doubtful. All the best
MSS. read 'raigne. ' Donne contrasts the reign of love and the reign of
lust on the body, and frankly declares for the latter. A lover might
range, 'I can love both fair and brown,' but no lover could
mistake by the way
The maid, and tell the lady of that delay.
Adonis, with graver rhetoric, states the other side of Donne's
paradoxical thesis:
Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done;
Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.
Shakespeare, _Venus and Adonis_, v. cxxxiv.
ll. 13-16. Chambers and Grosart have adopted, with some modification
of punctuation, the reading of the 1633-54 editions, and the lines are
frequently quoted as printed by Chambers:
Only let me love none; no, not the sport
From country-grass to confitures of court,
Or city's quelque-choses; let not report
My mind transport.
I confess I find it difficult to attach any exact meaning to them.
Are there any instances of 'sport' thus used apparently for 'sportive
lady'? The difficulty seems to me to have arisen from the accidental
dropping in the 1633 edition of the semicolon after 'sport', which the
1669 editor rightly restored. What Donne means by 'the sport' is clear
enough from other passages, e. g. 'the short scorn of a bridegroom's
play' (_Loves Alchimie_), 'as she would man should despise the sport'
(_Farewell to Love_). The prayer that report _may_ ('let', not 'let
not') carry his roving fancy from one to another, is in keeping
with the whole tenor of the poem. The Grolier Club edition has the
punctuation I have given, which I had adopted before I saw that
edition. I find it difficult to attach any meaning to 'let not
report'.
PAGE =14=. THE CANONIZATION.
l. 7. _Or the Kings reall, or his stamped face Contemplate. _ Donne's
conceits reappear in his sermons in a different setting. 'Beloved in
Christ Jesus, the heart of your gracious God is set upon you; and we
his servants have told you so, and brought you thus neare him, into
his Court, into his house, into the Church, but yet we cannot get
you to see his face, to come to that tendernesse of conscience as to
remember and consider that all your most secret actions are done in
his sight and his presence; Caesars face, and Caesars inscription you
can see: The face of the Prince in his coyne you can rise before the
Sun to see, and sit up till mid-night to see; but if you do not see
the face of God upon every piece of that mony too, all that mony is
counterfeit; If Christ have not brought that fish to the hook, that
brings the mony in the mouth (as he did to _Peter_) that mony is ill
fished for. ' _Sermons_ 80. 12. 122.
l. 15. 'Man' is the reading of every MS. except _Lec_, which here
as in several other little details appears to resemble _1633_ more
closely than either of the other MSS. , _D_, _H49_. It is quite
possible that 'man' is correct--a vivid and concrete touch, but in
view of the 'men' which follows 'more' is preferable. The two words
are frequently interchanged in the MSS.
ll. 24-5. The punctuation of these lines is that of _D_, _H49_,
_Lec_, though I adopted it independently as required by the sense. The
editions put a full stop after each line. Chambers alters the first
(l. 24) to a semicolon and connects
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
with the two preceding lines. To me it seems the line _must_ go with
what follows, and that 'so' (which should have no comma) is not an
illative conjunction but a subordinate conjunction of effect. 'Both
sexes fit _so_ entirely into one neutral thing that we die and rise
the same,' &c. The Grolier Club editor, like Chambers, connects the
line with what has gone before, but drops the comma after 'so', making
it an adverb of degree.
ll. 37-45. _And thus invoke us, &c. _ Grosart and Chambers have
disguised and altered the sense of this stanza. Grosart, indeed, by
printing 'Who did the whole world's extract', has made it completely
unintelligible. Chambers's version gives a meaning, but a wrong one.
He prints the last six lines thus:
Who did the whole worlds soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes;
So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize--
Countries, towns, courts beg from above
A pattern of your love.
These harsh constructions are not Donne's. The object of 'drove' is
not the 'world's soul', but 'Countries, towns, courts'; and 'beg' is
not in the indicative but the imperative mood. For clearness' sake
I have bracketed ll. 42-3 and printed 'love! ' otherwise leaving the
punctuation unchanged.
Donne as usual is pedantically accurate in the details of his
metaphor. The canonized lovers are invoked as saints, i. e. _their
prayers are requested_. They are asked to beg from above a pattern of
their love for those below. Of prayers to saints Donne speaks in one
of his _Letters_, p. 181: 'I see not how I can admit that circuit of
sending them' (i. e. letters) 'to you to be sent hither; that seems a
kinde of praying to Saints, to whom God must tell first, that such a
man prays to them to pray to him. '
l. 40. The 'contract' of the printed editions is doubtless correct,
despite the preference of the MSS. for 'extract'. This goes in several
MSS. with other errors which show confusion. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ read
'and drawe', a bad rhyme; and _A18_, _N_, _TCC_ (the verse is lost in
_TCD_) drop 'soule', reading 'the world extract'. The reading
'extract' is due to what Dr. Moore calls 'the extraordinary
short-sightedness of the copyists in respect of a construction. Their
vision seems often to be bounded by a single line. ' To 'extract the
soul' of things is a not uncommon phrase with Donne. Here it does not
suit the thought which is coming so well as 'contract': 'As the spirit
and soule of the whole booke of Psalmes is contracted into this
psalme, so is the spirit and soule of this whole psalme contracted
into this verse. ' _Sermons_ 80. 66. 663. (Psal. lxiii. 7. _Because
thou hast beene my helpe, Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I
rejoice. _)
l. 45. _A patterne of your love. _ The 'of our love' of 1633 _might_
mean 'for our love', but it is clear from the manner in which
this stanza is given in _D_ that the copyist has misunderstood the
construction--'our love' follows from the assumption that 'Countries,
Townes, Courts' is the subject to 'Beg'. The colon and the capital
letter would not make such a view impossible, as they might be given a
merely emphasizing value; or if regarded as imperative the 'Beg' might
be taken as in the third person: 'Countries, Townes, Courts--let them
beg,' &c. Compare:
The God of Souldiers:
With the consent of supreame Jove, informe
Thy thoughts with Noblenesse.
Shakespeare, _Cor. _ V. iii. 70-2 (Simpson, _Shakespearian
Punctuation_, p. 98).
But clearly here 'Beg' is in the second person plural, predicate to
'You whom reverend love', and 'your love' is the right reading.
PAGE =16=. THE TRIPLE FOOLE.
He is trebly a fool because (1) he loves, (2) he expresses his love in
verse, (3) he thereby enables some one to set the verse to music and
by singing it to re-awaken the passion which composition had lulled to
sleep.
PAGE =17=. LOVERS INFINITENESS.
This song, which is one of the obviously authentic lyrics which is
not included in the _A18_, _N_, _TC_ collection, would seem to have
undergone some revision after its first issue. The version given in
_A25_, from which _Cy_ is copied, would seem to be the original,
at least the readings of ll. 25-6 and ll. 29-30 do not look like
corruptions. The reading 'beget' at l. 25 gives a better rhyme to
'yet' than 'admit'. In l. 29 _A25_ has obviously interchanged 'thine'
and 'mine'. The slightly different version of _JC_ gives the correct
order. The generally careful _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ group has an unusually
faulty text of this poem. Among other mistakes it reads (with _S96_)
'Thee' for 'them' in l. 32.
'Lovers Infiniteness' is a strange title. It is not found in any
of the MSS. , and possibly should be 'Loves Infiniteness'. Yet the
'Lovers' suits the closing thought:
so we shall
Be one, and one anothers All.
For a poem in obvious imitation of this, see _Appendix C_, p. 439.
ll. 1-11. The rhetoric and rhythm of Donne's elaborate stanzas depends
a good deal on their right punctuation. Mine is an attempt to correct
that of _1633_ without modernizing. The full stop after 'fall' is
obviously an error, and so is, I think, the comma after 'spent'. The
first six lines state in a rapid succession of clauses all that the
poet has done to gain his lady's love. A new thought begins with 'Yet
no more', &c.
l. 9. _generall_ is the reading of two MSS. which are practically one.
I have recorded it because (1) ll. 29-30 (see textual note) would seem
to suggest that their version of the poem is an early one (revised by
Donne), and this may be an early reading; (2) because in l. 20 this
epithet is used as though repeated, 'thy gift being generall. ' It
would be not unlike Donne to quibble with the word, making it mean
first a gift made generally to all, and secondly a gift general in its
content, not limited or defined in any way. The whole poem is a piece
of legal quibbling not unlike Shakespeare's 87th Sonnet:
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate, &c.
PAGE =18=. SONG.
_Sweetest love, &c. _ Of the music to this and 'Send home my long
stray'd eyes' I can discover no trace. _The Baite_ was doubtless sung
to the same air as Marlowe's 'Come live with me'. See II. p. 57.
ll. 6-8. I have retained the text of _1633_, which has the support of
all the MSS. That of _1635-54_ is an attempt to accommodate the lines,
by a little padding, to the rhythm of the corresponding lines in the
other stanzas.
PAGE =20=. THE LEGACIE.
ll. 9-16. I HEARD ME SAY, _&c. _ The construction of this verse has
proved rather a difficulty to editors. I give it as printed by
Chambers and by the Grolier Club editor. Chambers's modernized version
runs:
I heard me say, 'Tell her anon,
That myself', that is you not I,
'Did kill me', and when I felt me die,
I bid me send my heart, when I was gone;
But I alas! could there find none;
When I had ripp'd and search'd where hearts should lie,
It killed me again, that I who still was true
In life, in my last will should cozen you.
The Grolier Club version has no inverted commas, and runs:
I heard me say, Tell her anon,
That myself, that's you not I,
Did kill me; and when I felt me die,
I bid me send my heart, when I was gone;
But I alas! could there find none.
When I had ripped me and searched where hearts did lie,
It killed me again that I, who still was true
In life, in my last will should cozen you.
In my own version the only departure which I have made from the
punctuation of the 1633 version is the substitution of a semicolon for
a comma after 'lye' (l. 14). If inverted commas are to be used at all
it seems to me they would need to be extended to 'gone' (l. 12) or
to 'lie' (l. 14).
As Donne is addressing the lady throughout it is
difficult to distinguish what he says to her now from what he said on
the occasion imagined.
But the point in which both Chambers and the Grolier Club editor seem
to me in error is in connecting l. 14, _When I had ripp'd, &c. _, with
what follows instead of with the immediately preceding line. There
is no justification for changing the comma after 'none' either to a
semicolon or a full stop. The meaning of ll. 13-14 is, 'But alas! when
I had ripp'd me and search'd where hearts did (i. e. used to) lie, I
could there find none. ' It is so that the Dutch translator understands
the lines:
Maer, oh, ick vond er geen, al scheurd ick mijn geraemt,
En socht door d'oude plaets die 't Hert is toegeraemt.
The last two lines are a comment on the whole incident, the making of
the will and the poet's inability to implement it.
l. 20. _It was intire to none_: i. e. 'It was tied to no one lover. '
The word 'entire' in this sense is still found on public-house signs,
and misled the American Pinkerton in Stevenson's _The Wrecker_.
Compare: 'But this evening I will spie upon the B[ishop] and give you
an account to-morrow morning of his disposition; when, if he cannot be
intire to you, since you are gone so farre downwards in your favours
to me, be pleased to pursue your humiliation so farre as to chuse your
day, and either to suffer the solitude of this place, or to change it,
by such company, as shall waite upon you. ' _Letters_, p. 315 (To . . .
Sir Robert Karre). This seems to mean, 'if the Bishop cannot fulfill,
be faithful to, his engagement to you, come and dine here. '
ll. 21-24. These lines are also printed or punctuated in a misleading
fashion by Chambers and the Grolier Club editor. The former, following
_1669_, but altering the punctuation, prints:
As good as could be made by art
It seemed, and therefore for our loss be sad.
I meant to send that heart instead of mine,
But O! no man could hold it, for 'twas thine.
The 'for our loss be sad' comes in very strangely before the end, nor
is the force of 'and therefore' very clear.
The Grolier Club editor, following the words of _1633_, but altering
the punctuation, reads:
As good as could be made by art
It seemed, and therefore for our losses sad;
I meant to send this heart instead of mine
But oh! no man could hold it, for twas thine.
Apparently the heart was sad for our losses because it was no better
than might be made by art. The confusion arises from deserting
the punctuation of _1633_. 'For our losses sad' is an adjectival
qualification of 'I'. 'I, sad to have lost my heart, which by legacy
was yours, resolved as a _pis aller_ to send this, which seemed as
good as could be made by art. But to send it was impossible, for no
man could hold it. It was thine. '
Huyghens translates:
Soo meenden ick 't verlies dat ick vergelden most
Te boeten met dit Hert, en doen 't u toebehooren:
Maer, oh, 't en kost niet zijn, 't was uw al lang te voren.
But this does not appear to be quite accurate. Huyghens appears to
think that Donne could not give his heart to the lady, because it
was hers already. What he really says is, that no one could keep this
heart of hers, which had taken the place of his own in his bosom,
because, being hers, it was too volatile.
PAGE =21=. A FEAVER.
ll. 13-14. _O wrangling schooles, that search what fire
Shall burne this world. _
'I cannot but marvel from what _Sibyl_ or Oracle they' (the Ancients)
'stole the prophecy of the world's destruction by fire, or whence
Lucan learned to say,
Communis mundo superest rogus, ossibus astra
Misturus.
There yet remaines to th'World one common fire
Wherein our Bones with Stars shall make one pyre.
I believe the World grows near its end, yet is neither old nor
decayed, nor will ever perish upon the ruines of its own Principles.
As the work of Creation was above nature, so is its adversary
annihilation; without which the World hath not its end, but its
mutation. Now what force should be able to consume it thus far,
without the breath of God, which is the truest consuming flame, my
Philosophy cannot inform me. ' Browne's _Religio Medici_, sect. 45.
PAGE =22=. AIRE AND ANGELS.
l. 19. _Ev'ry thy haire. _ This, the reading of _1633-39_ and the MSS. ,
is, I think, preferable to the amended 'Thy every hair', &c. , of
the 1650-69 editions (which Chambers adopts, ascribing it to _1669_
alone), though the difference is slight. 'Every thy hair' has the
force of 'Thy every hair' with the additional suggestion of 'even
thy least hair' derived from the construction with a superlative
adjective. 'Every the least remembrance. ' J. King, _Sermons_ 28.
'Every, the most complex, web of thought may be reduced to simple
syllogisms. ' Sir W. Hamilton. See note to _The Funerall_, l. 3.
ll. 23-4. _Then as an Angell face and wings
Of aire, not pure as it, yet pure doth weare. _
St. Thomas (_Summa Theol. _ I. li. 2) discusses the nature of the body
assumed by Angels when they appear to men, seeing that naturally they
are incorporeal. There being four elements, this body must consist of
one of these, but 'Angeli non assumunt corpora de terra vel aqua: quia
non subito disparerent. Neque iterum de igne: quia comburerent ea
quae contingerent. Neque iterum ex aere: quia aer infigurabilis est
et incolorabilis'. To this Aquinas replies, 'Quod licet aer in sua
raritate manens non retineat figuram neque colorem: quando tamen
condensatur, et figurari et colorari potest: sicut patet in nubibus.
Et sic Angeli assumunt corpora ex aere, condensando ipsum virtute
divina, quantum necesse est ad corporis assumendi formationem. '
Tasso, familiar like Donne with Catholic doctrine, thus clothes his
angels:
Cosi parlogli, e Gabriel s' accinse
Veloce ad eseguir l' imposte cose.
_La sua forma invisibil d'aria cinse,
Ed al senso mortal la sottopose_:
Umane membra, aspetto uman si finse,
Ma di celeste maesta il compose.
Tra giovane e fanciullo eta confine
Prese, ed orno di raggi il biondo crine.
_Gerus. Lib. _ I. 13.
Fairfax translates the relevant lines:
In form of airy members fair imbared,
His spirits pure were subject to our sight.
Milton's language is vague and inconsistent, but his angels are
indubitably corporeal. When Satan is wounded,
the ethereal substance closed,
Not long divisible; and from the gash
A stream of nectarous humour issuing flowed
Sanguine, such as celestial Spirits may bleed.
. . . . . . . . . .
Yet soon he healed; for Spirits that live throughout
Vital in every part, (not as frail man
In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,)
Cannot but by annihilating die;
Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound
Receive, _no more than can the fluid air_.
All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear,
All intellect, all sense; _and as they please,
They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size
Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare_.
The lines italicized indicate that Milton is familiar with the
doctrine of the schools, and is giving it a turn of his own. Milton's
angels, apparently, do not _assume_ a body of air but, remaining in
their own ethereal substance, assume what form and colour they choose.
Raphael, thus having passed through the air like a bird,
to his proper shape returns
A Seraph winged, &c.
Nash says, speaking of Satan, 'Lucifer (before his fall) an Archangel,
was a cleere body, compact of the purest and brightest of the ayre,
but after his fall hee was vayled with a grosser substance, and tooke
a new forme of darke and thicke ayre, which he still reteyneth. '
_Pierce Penniless_ (Grosart), ii. 102. The popular mind had difficulty
in appreciating the scholastic doctrine of the purely spiritual nature
of angels who do not possess but only assume bodies; who do not occupy
any point in space but are _virtually_ present as operating at that
point. 'Per applicationem igitur virtutis angelicae ad aliquem locum
qualitercumque dicitur Angelus esse in loco corporeo. ' The popular
mind gave them thin bodies and wondered how many could stand on a
needle.
The Scholastic doctrine of Angelic bodies was an inheritance from the
Neo-Platonic doctrine of the bodies of demons, the beings intermediary
between gods and men. According to Plotinus these could assume a body
of air or of fire, but the generally entertained view of the school
was, that their bodies were of air. Apuleius was the author of a
definition of demons which was transmitted through the Middle Ages:
'Daemones sunt genere animalia, ingenio rationalia, animo passiva,
corpore aeria, tempore aeterna. ' See also Dante, _Purgatorio_, xv. The
aerial or aetherial body is a tenet of mysticism. It has been defended
by such different thinkers as Leibnitz and Charles Bonnet. See
Bouillet's note to Plotinus's _Enneads_, I. 454.
PAGE =23=. BREAKE OF DAY.
This poem is obviously addressed by a woman to her lover, not _vice
versa_, though the fact has eluded some of the copyists, who have
tried to change the pronouns. It is strange to find the subtle and
erudite Donne in his quest of realism falling into line with the
popular song-writer. Mr. Chambers has pointed out in his learned and
delightful essay on the mediaeval lyric (_Early English Lyrics_, 1907)
that the popular as opposed to the courtly love-song was frequently
put into the mouth of the woman. One has only to turn to Burns and
the Scotch lyrists to find the same thing true. This song, indeed, is
clearly descended from the popular _aube_, or lyric dialogue of lovers
parting at daybreak. The dialogue suggestion is heightened by the
punctuation of l. 3 in some MSS.
Why should we rise? Because 'tis light?
ll. 13-18. _Must businesse thee from hence remove, &c. _ 'It is a good
definition of ill-love, that St. Chrysostom gives, that it is _Animae
vacantis passio_, a passion of an empty soul, of an idle mind.
For fill a man with business, and he hath no room for such love. '
_Sermons_ 26. 384.
PAGE =24=. THE ANNIVERSARIE.
l. 3. _The Sun itselfe, which makes times, as they passe_: i. e. which
makes times and seasons as they pass.
Before the Sunne, the which fram'd daies, was fram'd.
_The Second Anniversary_, l. 23.
The construction is somewhat of an anacoluthon, the sun alone being
given the predicate, 'Is elder by a year,' which has to be supplied
with all the other subjects in the first two lines. Chambers,
inadvertently or from some copy of _1633_, reads 'time', and this
makes 'they' refer back to 'Kings, favourites', &c. This does not
improve the construction.
l. 22. _But wee no more, then all the rest. _ The 'wee' of every MS.
which I have consulted seems to me certainly the correct reading.
The 'now' of all the printed editions is due to the editor of _1633_
imagining that he got thereby the right antithesis to 'then'. But he
was too hasty, for the antithesis is between 'then' when we are in
heaven, and now while we are 'here upon earth'. In heaven indeed we
shall be 'throughly blest', but _all_ in heaven are equally happy,
whereas here on earth,
we'are kings and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
The 'none but we' is the extreme antithesis to 'But we no more than
all the rest'.
The Scholastic Philosophy held, not indeed that all in heaven are
equally blest, but that all are equally content. Basing themselves on
the verse, 'In domo Patris mei mansiones multae sunt,' John xiv. 2,
they argued that the blessed have in varying degree according to their
merit, the essential happiness of Heaven which is the vision of God:
Only who have enjoy'd
The sight of God, in fulnesse, can think it;
For it is both the object and the wit.
This is essential joy, where neither hee
Can suffer diminution, nor wee;
'Tis such a full, and such a filling good;
Had th'Angells once look'd on him they had stood.
_The Second Anniversary_, ll. 140-6 (p. 264).
But though not all equally dowered with the virtue and the wisdom to
understand God, all are content, for each is full to his measure, and
each is happy in the happiness of the other: 'Solet etiam quaeri an in
gaudio dispares sint, sicut in claritate cognitionis differunt. De hoc
August. ait in lib. de Civ. Dei: Multae mansiones in una domo erunt,
scilicet, variae praemiorum dignitates: sed ubi Deus erit omnia in
omnibus, erit etiam in dispari claritate par gaudium; ut quod habebunt
singuli, commune sit omnibus, quia etiam gloria capitis omnium erit
per vinculum charitatis. Ex his datur intelligi quod par gaudium omnes
habebunt, etsi disparem cognitionis claritatem, quia per charitatem
quae in singulis erit perfecta, tantum quisque gaudebit de bono
alterius, quantum gauderet si in se ipso haberet. Sed si par erit
cunctorum gaudium, videtur quod par sit omnium beatitudo; quod constat
omnino non esse. Ad quod dici potest quod beatitudo par esset si ita
esset par gaudium, ut etiam par esset cognitio; sed quia hoc non erit,
non faciet paritas gaudii paritatem beatitudinis. Potest etiam
sic accipi par gaudium, ut non referatur paritas ad intensionem
affectionis gaudentium, sed ad universitatem rerum de quibus
laetabitur: quia de omni re unde gaudebit unus, gaudebunt omnes. '
Petri Lombardi . . . _Sententiarum_ Lib. IV, Distinct. xlix. 4. Compare
Aquinas, _Summa, Supplement. _ Quaest. xciii.
All in heaven are perfectly happy in the place assigned to them, is
Piccardo's answer to Dante (_Paradiso_, iii. 70-88): 'So that our
being thus, from threshold unto threshold throughout the realm, is a
joy to all the realm, as to the King, who draweth our wills to what he
willeth: and his will is our peace. '
ll. 23-4. The variants in these lines show that _1633_ has in this
poem followed not _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ but _A18_, _N_, _TC_.
PAGE =25=. A VALEDICTION: OF MY NAME IN THE WINDOW.
I have adopted from the title of this poem in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ the
correct manner of entitling all these poems.
(O. E. D. ). 'Though the show of it were glorious, the substance of it
was dross, and nothing but alchymy and cozenage. ' Harrington, _Orlando
Furioso_ (1591). See also poem cited II. p. 11.
PAGE =12=. THE INDIFFERENT.
l. 7. _dry corke. _ Cork was a favourite metaphor for what was dry
and withered. To our taste it is hardly congruous with love or tragic
poetry, perhaps because of its associations. 'Bind fast his corky
arms,' says Cornwall, speaking of Gloucester (_King Lear_, III. vii.
31), but Shakespeare seems to have taken the epithet from Harsnett's
_Declaration of Egregious Popishe Impostures, &c. _ (1603): 'It would
pose all the cunning exorcists . . . to teach an old corkie woman to
writhe, tumble, curvet,' c. 5, p. 23.
PAGE =13=. LOVES USURY.
l. 5. _My body raigne. _ Grosart and Chambers substitute 'range', from
_1635-69_. Perhaps they are right; but I feel doubtful. All the best
MSS. read 'raigne. ' Donne contrasts the reign of love and the reign of
lust on the body, and frankly declares for the latter. A lover might
range, 'I can love both fair and brown,' but no lover could
mistake by the way
The maid, and tell the lady of that delay.
Adonis, with graver rhetoric, states the other side of Donne's
paradoxical thesis:
Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done;
Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.
Shakespeare, _Venus and Adonis_, v. cxxxiv.
ll. 13-16. Chambers and Grosart have adopted, with some modification
of punctuation, the reading of the 1633-54 editions, and the lines are
frequently quoted as printed by Chambers:
Only let me love none; no, not the sport
From country-grass to confitures of court,
Or city's quelque-choses; let not report
My mind transport.
I confess I find it difficult to attach any exact meaning to them.
Are there any instances of 'sport' thus used apparently for 'sportive
lady'? The difficulty seems to me to have arisen from the accidental
dropping in the 1633 edition of the semicolon after 'sport', which the
1669 editor rightly restored. What Donne means by 'the sport' is clear
enough from other passages, e. g. 'the short scorn of a bridegroom's
play' (_Loves Alchimie_), 'as she would man should despise the sport'
(_Farewell to Love_). The prayer that report _may_ ('let', not 'let
not') carry his roving fancy from one to another, is in keeping
with the whole tenor of the poem. The Grolier Club edition has the
punctuation I have given, which I had adopted before I saw that
edition. I find it difficult to attach any meaning to 'let not
report'.
PAGE =14=. THE CANONIZATION.
l. 7. _Or the Kings reall, or his stamped face Contemplate. _ Donne's
conceits reappear in his sermons in a different setting. 'Beloved in
Christ Jesus, the heart of your gracious God is set upon you; and we
his servants have told you so, and brought you thus neare him, into
his Court, into his house, into the Church, but yet we cannot get
you to see his face, to come to that tendernesse of conscience as to
remember and consider that all your most secret actions are done in
his sight and his presence; Caesars face, and Caesars inscription you
can see: The face of the Prince in his coyne you can rise before the
Sun to see, and sit up till mid-night to see; but if you do not see
the face of God upon every piece of that mony too, all that mony is
counterfeit; If Christ have not brought that fish to the hook, that
brings the mony in the mouth (as he did to _Peter_) that mony is ill
fished for. ' _Sermons_ 80. 12. 122.
l. 15. 'Man' is the reading of every MS. except _Lec_, which here
as in several other little details appears to resemble _1633_ more
closely than either of the other MSS. , _D_, _H49_. It is quite
possible that 'man' is correct--a vivid and concrete touch, but in
view of the 'men' which follows 'more' is preferable. The two words
are frequently interchanged in the MSS.
ll. 24-5. The punctuation of these lines is that of _D_, _H49_,
_Lec_, though I adopted it independently as required by the sense. The
editions put a full stop after each line. Chambers alters the first
(l. 24) to a semicolon and connects
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
with the two preceding lines. To me it seems the line _must_ go with
what follows, and that 'so' (which should have no comma) is not an
illative conjunction but a subordinate conjunction of effect. 'Both
sexes fit _so_ entirely into one neutral thing that we die and rise
the same,' &c. The Grolier Club editor, like Chambers, connects the
line with what has gone before, but drops the comma after 'so', making
it an adverb of degree.
ll. 37-45. _And thus invoke us, &c. _ Grosart and Chambers have
disguised and altered the sense of this stanza. Grosart, indeed, by
printing 'Who did the whole world's extract', has made it completely
unintelligible. Chambers's version gives a meaning, but a wrong one.
He prints the last six lines thus:
Who did the whole worlds soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes;
So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize--
Countries, towns, courts beg from above
A pattern of your love.
These harsh constructions are not Donne's. The object of 'drove' is
not the 'world's soul', but 'Countries, towns, courts'; and 'beg' is
not in the indicative but the imperative mood. For clearness' sake
I have bracketed ll. 42-3 and printed 'love! ' otherwise leaving the
punctuation unchanged.
Donne as usual is pedantically accurate in the details of his
metaphor. The canonized lovers are invoked as saints, i. e. _their
prayers are requested_. They are asked to beg from above a pattern of
their love for those below. Of prayers to saints Donne speaks in one
of his _Letters_, p. 181: 'I see not how I can admit that circuit of
sending them' (i. e. letters) 'to you to be sent hither; that seems a
kinde of praying to Saints, to whom God must tell first, that such a
man prays to them to pray to him. '
l. 40. The 'contract' of the printed editions is doubtless correct,
despite the preference of the MSS. for 'extract'. This goes in several
MSS. with other errors which show confusion. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ read
'and drawe', a bad rhyme; and _A18_, _N_, _TCC_ (the verse is lost in
_TCD_) drop 'soule', reading 'the world extract'. The reading
'extract' is due to what Dr. Moore calls 'the extraordinary
short-sightedness of the copyists in respect of a construction. Their
vision seems often to be bounded by a single line. ' To 'extract the
soul' of things is a not uncommon phrase with Donne. Here it does not
suit the thought which is coming so well as 'contract': 'As the spirit
and soule of the whole booke of Psalmes is contracted into this
psalme, so is the spirit and soule of this whole psalme contracted
into this verse. ' _Sermons_ 80. 66. 663. (Psal. lxiii. 7. _Because
thou hast beene my helpe, Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I
rejoice. _)
l. 45. _A patterne of your love. _ The 'of our love' of 1633 _might_
mean 'for our love', but it is clear from the manner in which
this stanza is given in _D_ that the copyist has misunderstood the
construction--'our love' follows from the assumption that 'Countries,
Townes, Courts' is the subject to 'Beg'. The colon and the capital
letter would not make such a view impossible, as they might be given a
merely emphasizing value; or if regarded as imperative the 'Beg' might
be taken as in the third person: 'Countries, Townes, Courts--let them
beg,' &c. Compare:
The God of Souldiers:
With the consent of supreame Jove, informe
Thy thoughts with Noblenesse.
Shakespeare, _Cor. _ V. iii. 70-2 (Simpson, _Shakespearian
Punctuation_, p. 98).
But clearly here 'Beg' is in the second person plural, predicate to
'You whom reverend love', and 'your love' is the right reading.
PAGE =16=. THE TRIPLE FOOLE.
He is trebly a fool because (1) he loves, (2) he expresses his love in
verse, (3) he thereby enables some one to set the verse to music and
by singing it to re-awaken the passion which composition had lulled to
sleep.
PAGE =17=. LOVERS INFINITENESS.
This song, which is one of the obviously authentic lyrics which is
not included in the _A18_, _N_, _TC_ collection, would seem to have
undergone some revision after its first issue. The version given in
_A25_, from which _Cy_ is copied, would seem to be the original,
at least the readings of ll. 25-6 and ll. 29-30 do not look like
corruptions. The reading 'beget' at l. 25 gives a better rhyme to
'yet' than 'admit'. In l. 29 _A25_ has obviously interchanged 'thine'
and 'mine'. The slightly different version of _JC_ gives the correct
order. The generally careful _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ group has an unusually
faulty text of this poem. Among other mistakes it reads (with _S96_)
'Thee' for 'them' in l. 32.
'Lovers Infiniteness' is a strange title. It is not found in any
of the MSS. , and possibly should be 'Loves Infiniteness'. Yet the
'Lovers' suits the closing thought:
so we shall
Be one, and one anothers All.
For a poem in obvious imitation of this, see _Appendix C_, p. 439.
ll. 1-11. The rhetoric and rhythm of Donne's elaborate stanzas depends
a good deal on their right punctuation. Mine is an attempt to correct
that of _1633_ without modernizing. The full stop after 'fall' is
obviously an error, and so is, I think, the comma after 'spent'. The
first six lines state in a rapid succession of clauses all that the
poet has done to gain his lady's love. A new thought begins with 'Yet
no more', &c.
l. 9. _generall_ is the reading of two MSS. which are practically one.
I have recorded it because (1) ll. 29-30 (see textual note) would seem
to suggest that their version of the poem is an early one (revised by
Donne), and this may be an early reading; (2) because in l. 20 this
epithet is used as though repeated, 'thy gift being generall. ' It
would be not unlike Donne to quibble with the word, making it mean
first a gift made generally to all, and secondly a gift general in its
content, not limited or defined in any way. The whole poem is a piece
of legal quibbling not unlike Shakespeare's 87th Sonnet:
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate, &c.
PAGE =18=. SONG.
_Sweetest love, &c. _ Of the music to this and 'Send home my long
stray'd eyes' I can discover no trace. _The Baite_ was doubtless sung
to the same air as Marlowe's 'Come live with me'. See II. p. 57.
ll. 6-8. I have retained the text of _1633_, which has the support of
all the MSS. That of _1635-54_ is an attempt to accommodate the lines,
by a little padding, to the rhythm of the corresponding lines in the
other stanzas.
PAGE =20=. THE LEGACIE.
ll. 9-16. I HEARD ME SAY, _&c. _ The construction of this verse has
proved rather a difficulty to editors. I give it as printed by
Chambers and by the Grolier Club editor. Chambers's modernized version
runs:
I heard me say, 'Tell her anon,
That myself', that is you not I,
'Did kill me', and when I felt me die,
I bid me send my heart, when I was gone;
But I alas! could there find none;
When I had ripp'd and search'd where hearts should lie,
It killed me again, that I who still was true
In life, in my last will should cozen you.
The Grolier Club version has no inverted commas, and runs:
I heard me say, Tell her anon,
That myself, that's you not I,
Did kill me; and when I felt me die,
I bid me send my heart, when I was gone;
But I alas! could there find none.
When I had ripped me and searched where hearts did lie,
It killed me again that I, who still was true
In life, in my last will should cozen you.
In my own version the only departure which I have made from the
punctuation of the 1633 version is the substitution of a semicolon for
a comma after 'lye' (l. 14). If inverted commas are to be used at all
it seems to me they would need to be extended to 'gone' (l. 12) or
to 'lie' (l. 14).
As Donne is addressing the lady throughout it is
difficult to distinguish what he says to her now from what he said on
the occasion imagined.
But the point in which both Chambers and the Grolier Club editor seem
to me in error is in connecting l. 14, _When I had ripp'd, &c. _, with
what follows instead of with the immediately preceding line. There
is no justification for changing the comma after 'none' either to a
semicolon or a full stop. The meaning of ll. 13-14 is, 'But alas! when
I had ripp'd me and search'd where hearts did (i. e. used to) lie, I
could there find none. ' It is so that the Dutch translator understands
the lines:
Maer, oh, ick vond er geen, al scheurd ick mijn geraemt,
En socht door d'oude plaets die 't Hert is toegeraemt.
The last two lines are a comment on the whole incident, the making of
the will and the poet's inability to implement it.
l. 20. _It was intire to none_: i. e. 'It was tied to no one lover. '
The word 'entire' in this sense is still found on public-house signs,
and misled the American Pinkerton in Stevenson's _The Wrecker_.
Compare: 'But this evening I will spie upon the B[ishop] and give you
an account to-morrow morning of his disposition; when, if he cannot be
intire to you, since you are gone so farre downwards in your favours
to me, be pleased to pursue your humiliation so farre as to chuse your
day, and either to suffer the solitude of this place, or to change it,
by such company, as shall waite upon you. ' _Letters_, p. 315 (To . . .
Sir Robert Karre). This seems to mean, 'if the Bishop cannot fulfill,
be faithful to, his engagement to you, come and dine here. '
ll. 21-24. These lines are also printed or punctuated in a misleading
fashion by Chambers and the Grolier Club editor. The former, following
_1669_, but altering the punctuation, prints:
As good as could be made by art
It seemed, and therefore for our loss be sad.
I meant to send that heart instead of mine,
But O! no man could hold it, for 'twas thine.
The 'for our loss be sad' comes in very strangely before the end, nor
is the force of 'and therefore' very clear.
The Grolier Club editor, following the words of _1633_, but altering
the punctuation, reads:
As good as could be made by art
It seemed, and therefore for our losses sad;
I meant to send this heart instead of mine
But oh! no man could hold it, for twas thine.
Apparently the heart was sad for our losses because it was no better
than might be made by art. The confusion arises from deserting
the punctuation of _1633_. 'For our losses sad' is an adjectival
qualification of 'I'. 'I, sad to have lost my heart, which by legacy
was yours, resolved as a _pis aller_ to send this, which seemed as
good as could be made by art. But to send it was impossible, for no
man could hold it. It was thine. '
Huyghens translates:
Soo meenden ick 't verlies dat ick vergelden most
Te boeten met dit Hert, en doen 't u toebehooren:
Maer, oh, 't en kost niet zijn, 't was uw al lang te voren.
But this does not appear to be quite accurate. Huyghens appears to
think that Donne could not give his heart to the lady, because it
was hers already. What he really says is, that no one could keep this
heart of hers, which had taken the place of his own in his bosom,
because, being hers, it was too volatile.
PAGE =21=. A FEAVER.
ll. 13-14. _O wrangling schooles, that search what fire
Shall burne this world. _
'I cannot but marvel from what _Sibyl_ or Oracle they' (the Ancients)
'stole the prophecy of the world's destruction by fire, or whence
Lucan learned to say,
Communis mundo superest rogus, ossibus astra
Misturus.
There yet remaines to th'World one common fire
Wherein our Bones with Stars shall make one pyre.
I believe the World grows near its end, yet is neither old nor
decayed, nor will ever perish upon the ruines of its own Principles.
As the work of Creation was above nature, so is its adversary
annihilation; without which the World hath not its end, but its
mutation. Now what force should be able to consume it thus far,
without the breath of God, which is the truest consuming flame, my
Philosophy cannot inform me. ' Browne's _Religio Medici_, sect. 45.
PAGE =22=. AIRE AND ANGELS.
l. 19. _Ev'ry thy haire. _ This, the reading of _1633-39_ and the MSS. ,
is, I think, preferable to the amended 'Thy every hair', &c. , of
the 1650-69 editions (which Chambers adopts, ascribing it to _1669_
alone), though the difference is slight. 'Every thy hair' has the
force of 'Thy every hair' with the additional suggestion of 'even
thy least hair' derived from the construction with a superlative
adjective. 'Every the least remembrance. ' J. King, _Sermons_ 28.
'Every, the most complex, web of thought may be reduced to simple
syllogisms. ' Sir W. Hamilton. See note to _The Funerall_, l. 3.
ll. 23-4. _Then as an Angell face and wings
Of aire, not pure as it, yet pure doth weare. _
St. Thomas (_Summa Theol. _ I. li. 2) discusses the nature of the body
assumed by Angels when they appear to men, seeing that naturally they
are incorporeal. There being four elements, this body must consist of
one of these, but 'Angeli non assumunt corpora de terra vel aqua: quia
non subito disparerent. Neque iterum de igne: quia comburerent ea
quae contingerent. Neque iterum ex aere: quia aer infigurabilis est
et incolorabilis'. To this Aquinas replies, 'Quod licet aer in sua
raritate manens non retineat figuram neque colorem: quando tamen
condensatur, et figurari et colorari potest: sicut patet in nubibus.
Et sic Angeli assumunt corpora ex aere, condensando ipsum virtute
divina, quantum necesse est ad corporis assumendi formationem. '
Tasso, familiar like Donne with Catholic doctrine, thus clothes his
angels:
Cosi parlogli, e Gabriel s' accinse
Veloce ad eseguir l' imposte cose.
_La sua forma invisibil d'aria cinse,
Ed al senso mortal la sottopose_:
Umane membra, aspetto uman si finse,
Ma di celeste maesta il compose.
Tra giovane e fanciullo eta confine
Prese, ed orno di raggi il biondo crine.
_Gerus. Lib. _ I. 13.
Fairfax translates the relevant lines:
In form of airy members fair imbared,
His spirits pure were subject to our sight.
Milton's language is vague and inconsistent, but his angels are
indubitably corporeal. When Satan is wounded,
the ethereal substance closed,
Not long divisible; and from the gash
A stream of nectarous humour issuing flowed
Sanguine, such as celestial Spirits may bleed.
. . . . . . . . . .
Yet soon he healed; for Spirits that live throughout
Vital in every part, (not as frail man
In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,)
Cannot but by annihilating die;
Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound
Receive, _no more than can the fluid air_.
All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear,
All intellect, all sense; _and as they please,
They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size
Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare_.
The lines italicized indicate that Milton is familiar with the
doctrine of the schools, and is giving it a turn of his own. Milton's
angels, apparently, do not _assume_ a body of air but, remaining in
their own ethereal substance, assume what form and colour they choose.
Raphael, thus having passed through the air like a bird,
to his proper shape returns
A Seraph winged, &c.
Nash says, speaking of Satan, 'Lucifer (before his fall) an Archangel,
was a cleere body, compact of the purest and brightest of the ayre,
but after his fall hee was vayled with a grosser substance, and tooke
a new forme of darke and thicke ayre, which he still reteyneth. '
_Pierce Penniless_ (Grosart), ii. 102. The popular mind had difficulty
in appreciating the scholastic doctrine of the purely spiritual nature
of angels who do not possess but only assume bodies; who do not occupy
any point in space but are _virtually_ present as operating at that
point. 'Per applicationem igitur virtutis angelicae ad aliquem locum
qualitercumque dicitur Angelus esse in loco corporeo. ' The popular
mind gave them thin bodies and wondered how many could stand on a
needle.
The Scholastic doctrine of Angelic bodies was an inheritance from the
Neo-Platonic doctrine of the bodies of demons, the beings intermediary
between gods and men. According to Plotinus these could assume a body
of air or of fire, but the generally entertained view of the school
was, that their bodies were of air. Apuleius was the author of a
definition of demons which was transmitted through the Middle Ages:
'Daemones sunt genere animalia, ingenio rationalia, animo passiva,
corpore aeria, tempore aeterna. ' See also Dante, _Purgatorio_, xv. The
aerial or aetherial body is a tenet of mysticism. It has been defended
by such different thinkers as Leibnitz and Charles Bonnet. See
Bouillet's note to Plotinus's _Enneads_, I. 454.
PAGE =23=. BREAKE OF DAY.
This poem is obviously addressed by a woman to her lover, not _vice
versa_, though the fact has eluded some of the copyists, who have
tried to change the pronouns. It is strange to find the subtle and
erudite Donne in his quest of realism falling into line with the
popular song-writer. Mr. Chambers has pointed out in his learned and
delightful essay on the mediaeval lyric (_Early English Lyrics_, 1907)
that the popular as opposed to the courtly love-song was frequently
put into the mouth of the woman. One has only to turn to Burns and
the Scotch lyrists to find the same thing true. This song, indeed, is
clearly descended from the popular _aube_, or lyric dialogue of lovers
parting at daybreak. The dialogue suggestion is heightened by the
punctuation of l. 3 in some MSS.
Why should we rise? Because 'tis light?
ll. 13-18. _Must businesse thee from hence remove, &c. _ 'It is a good
definition of ill-love, that St. Chrysostom gives, that it is _Animae
vacantis passio_, a passion of an empty soul, of an idle mind.
For fill a man with business, and he hath no room for such love. '
_Sermons_ 26. 384.
PAGE =24=. THE ANNIVERSARIE.
l. 3. _The Sun itselfe, which makes times, as they passe_: i. e. which
makes times and seasons as they pass.
Before the Sunne, the which fram'd daies, was fram'd.
_The Second Anniversary_, l. 23.
The construction is somewhat of an anacoluthon, the sun alone being
given the predicate, 'Is elder by a year,' which has to be supplied
with all the other subjects in the first two lines. Chambers,
inadvertently or from some copy of _1633_, reads 'time', and this
makes 'they' refer back to 'Kings, favourites', &c. This does not
improve the construction.
l. 22. _But wee no more, then all the rest. _ The 'wee' of every MS.
which I have consulted seems to me certainly the correct reading.
The 'now' of all the printed editions is due to the editor of _1633_
imagining that he got thereby the right antithesis to 'then'. But he
was too hasty, for the antithesis is between 'then' when we are in
heaven, and now while we are 'here upon earth'. In heaven indeed we
shall be 'throughly blest', but _all_ in heaven are equally happy,
whereas here on earth,
we'are kings and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
The 'none but we' is the extreme antithesis to 'But we no more than
all the rest'.
The Scholastic Philosophy held, not indeed that all in heaven are
equally blest, but that all are equally content. Basing themselves on
the verse, 'In domo Patris mei mansiones multae sunt,' John xiv. 2,
they argued that the blessed have in varying degree according to their
merit, the essential happiness of Heaven which is the vision of God:
Only who have enjoy'd
The sight of God, in fulnesse, can think it;
For it is both the object and the wit.
This is essential joy, where neither hee
Can suffer diminution, nor wee;
'Tis such a full, and such a filling good;
Had th'Angells once look'd on him they had stood.
_The Second Anniversary_, ll. 140-6 (p. 264).
But though not all equally dowered with the virtue and the wisdom to
understand God, all are content, for each is full to his measure, and
each is happy in the happiness of the other: 'Solet etiam quaeri an in
gaudio dispares sint, sicut in claritate cognitionis differunt. De hoc
August. ait in lib. de Civ. Dei: Multae mansiones in una domo erunt,
scilicet, variae praemiorum dignitates: sed ubi Deus erit omnia in
omnibus, erit etiam in dispari claritate par gaudium; ut quod habebunt
singuli, commune sit omnibus, quia etiam gloria capitis omnium erit
per vinculum charitatis. Ex his datur intelligi quod par gaudium omnes
habebunt, etsi disparem cognitionis claritatem, quia per charitatem
quae in singulis erit perfecta, tantum quisque gaudebit de bono
alterius, quantum gauderet si in se ipso haberet. Sed si par erit
cunctorum gaudium, videtur quod par sit omnium beatitudo; quod constat
omnino non esse. Ad quod dici potest quod beatitudo par esset si ita
esset par gaudium, ut etiam par esset cognitio; sed quia hoc non erit,
non faciet paritas gaudii paritatem beatitudinis. Potest etiam
sic accipi par gaudium, ut non referatur paritas ad intensionem
affectionis gaudentium, sed ad universitatem rerum de quibus
laetabitur: quia de omni re unde gaudebit unus, gaudebunt omnes. '
Petri Lombardi . . . _Sententiarum_ Lib. IV, Distinct. xlix. 4. Compare
Aquinas, _Summa, Supplement. _ Quaest. xciii.
All in heaven are perfectly happy in the place assigned to them, is
Piccardo's answer to Dante (_Paradiso_, iii. 70-88): 'So that our
being thus, from threshold unto threshold throughout the realm, is a
joy to all the realm, as to the King, who draweth our wills to what he
willeth: and his will is our peace. '
ll. 23-4. The variants in these lines show that _1633_ has in this
poem followed not _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ but _A18_, _N_, _TC_.
PAGE =25=. A VALEDICTION: OF MY NAME IN THE WINDOW.
I have adopted from the title of this poem in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ the
correct manner of entitling all these poems.
