he was
Nothing; for us, wee are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves still disproportion it.
Nothing; for us, wee are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves still disproportion it.
Donne - 2
Tycho Brahe and Christopher Rotman) 'have one and the self same
opinion about the essence and matter of heavens; that it is not hard
and impenetrable, as Peripateticks hold, transparent, of a _quinta
essentia_, but that it is penetrable and soft as the ayre itself is,
and that the planets move in it', (according to the older view each
was fixed in its sphere) 'as birds in the ayre, fishes in the sea. '
Burton, _Anat. of Melancholy_, part ii, sect. 2, Men. 3.
'Wind', says Donne elsewhere, 'is a mixt Meteor, to the making
whereof, diverse occasions concurre with exhalations. ' _Sermons_ 80.
31. 305.
The movement which Donne has in view is described by Du Bartas:
If heav'ns bright torches, from earth's Kidneys, sup
Som somwhat dry and heatfull Vapours up,
Th' ambitious lightning of their nimble Fire
Would suddenly neer th' Azure Cirques aspire:
But scarce so soon their fuming crest hath raught,
Or toucht the Coldness of the middle Vault,
And felt what force their mortall Enemy
In Garrison keeps there continually;
When down again towards their Dam they bear,
Holp by the weight which they have drawn from her.
But in the instant, to their aid arrives
Another new heat, which their heart revives,
Re-arms their hand, and having staied their flight,
Better resolv'd brings them again to fight.
Well fortifi'd then by these fresh supplies,
More bravely they renew their enterprize:
And one-while th' upper hand (with honor) getting,
Another-while disgracefully retreating,
Our lower Aire they tosse in sundry sort,
As weak or strong their matter doth comport.
This lasts not long; because the heat and cold,
Equall in force and fortune, equall bold
In these assaults; to end this sudden brall,
Th' one stops their mounting, th' other stayes their fall:
So that this vapour, never resting stound,
Stands never still, but makes his motion round,
Posteth from Pole to Pole, and flies amain
From _Spain_ to _India_, and from _Inde_ to _Spain_.
Sylvester, _Du Bartas_, First Week, Second Day.
l. 18. _prisoners, which lye but for fees_, i. e. the fees due to the
gaoler. 'And as prisoners discharg'd of actions may lye for fees; so
when,' &c.
_Deaths Duell_ (1632), p. 9. Thirty-three years after this poem was
written, Donne thus uses the same figure in the last sermon he ever
preached.
PAGE =176=, l. 38. _I, and the Sunne. _ The 'Yea, and the Sunne' of _Q_
shows that 'I' here is probably the adverb, not the pronoun, though
the passage is ambiguous. Modern editors have all taken 'I' as the
pronoun.
ll. 49-50. _And do hear so
Like jealous husbands, what they would not know. _
Compare:
Crede mihi; nulli sunt crimina grata marito;
Nec quemquam, quamvis audiat illa, iuvant.
Seu tepet, indicium securas perdis ad aures;
Sive amat, officio fit miser ille tuo.
Culpa nec ex facili, quamvis manifesta, probatur:
Iudicis illa sui tuta favore venit.
Viderit ipse licet, credet tamen ipse neganti;
Damnabitque oculos, et sibi verba dabit.
Adspiciet dominae lacrimas; plorabit et ipse:
Et dicet, poenas garrulus iste dabit.
Ovid, _Amores_, II. ii. 51-60.
PAGE =177=, l. 60. _Strive. _ Later editions and Chambers read
'strives', but 'ordinance' was used as a plural: 'The goodly ordinance
which were xii great Bombardes of brasse', and 'these six small iron
ordinance. ' O. E. D. The word in this sense is now spelt 'ordnance'.
l. 66. _the'Bermuda_. It is probably unnecessary to change this to
'the'Bermudas. ' The singular without the article is quite regular.
l. 67. _Darknesse, lights elder brother. _ The 'elder' of the MSS. is
grammatically more correct than the 'eldest' of the editions. 'We must
return again to our stronghold, faith, and end with this, that this
beginning was, and before it, nothing. It is elder than darkness,
which is elder than light; and was before confusion, which is elder
than order, by how much the universal Chaos preceded forms and
distinctions. ' _Essays in Divinity_ (ed. Jessop, 1855), p. 46.
PAGE =178=. THE CALME.
l. 4. _A blocke afflicts, &c. _ Aesop's _Fables_. Sir Thomas Rowe
recalled Donne's use of the fable, when he was Ambassador at the Court
of the Mogul. Of Ibrahim Khan, the Governor of Surat after Zufilkhar
Khan, he writes: 'He was good but soe easy that he does no good; wee
are not lesse afflicted with a block then before with a storck. ' _The
Embassy, &c. _ (Hakl. Soc. ), i. 82.
l. 8. _thy mistresse glasse. _ This poem, like the last, is _probably_
addressed to Christopher Brooke, but it is not so headed in any
edition or MS. The Grolier Club editor ascribes the first heading to
both.
l. 14. _or like ended playes. _ This suggests that the Elizabethan
stage was not so bare of furniture as used to be stated, and also that
furniture was not confined to the curtained-off rear-stage. What Donne
recalls is a stage deserted by the actors but cumbered with furniture
and decorations.
l. 16. _a frippery_, i. e. 'A place where cast-off clothes are sold',
O. E. D. 'Oh, ho, Monster; wee know what belongs to a frippery. '
_Tempest_, IV. i. 225. Here the rigging has the appearance of an
old-clothes shop.
l. 17. _No use of lanthornes. _ The reference is to the lanterns in the
high sterns of the ships, used to keep the fleet together. 'There
is no fear now of our losing one another. ' Each squadron of a fleet
followed the light of its Admiral. Essex speaks of having lost, or
missing, 'Sir Walter Raleigh with thirty sailes that in the night
followed his light. ' _Purchas_, xx. 24-5.
l. 18. _Feathers and dust. _ 'He esteemeth John Done the first poet in
the world for some things: his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by
heart; and that passage of the Calme, That dust and feathers doe not
stirre, all was soe quiet. Affirmeth Donne to have written all
his best peeces ere he was twenty-five yeares old. ' _Jonson's
Conversations with Drummond. _ When Donne wrote _The Calme_ he was in
his twenty-fifth year.
l. 21. _lost friends. _ Raleigh and his squadron lost the main fleet
while off the coast of Spain, before they set sail definitely for
the Azores. He rejoined the fleet at the Islands. Donne's poem was
probably written in the interval.
The reading of some MSS. , 'lefte friends,' is quite a possible one.
Carleton, writing from Venice to Chamberlain, says: 'Let me tell you,
for your comfort (for I imagine what is mine is yours) that my last
news from the left island . . . took knowledge of my vigilancy and
diligency. ' The 'left island' is Great Britain, and Donne may mean no
more than that 'we can neither get back to our friends nor on to our
enemies. ' There may be no allusion to Raleigh's ships.
l. 23. _the Calenture. _ 'A disease incident to sailors within the
tropics, characterized by delirium in which the patient, it is said,
fancies the sea to be green fields, and desires to leap into it. '
O. E. D. Theobald had the Calenture in mind when he conjectured that
Falstaff 'babbled o' green fields'.
PAGE =179=, l. 33. _Like Bajazet encaged, &c. _: an echo of Marlowe's
_Tamburlaine_:
There whiles he lives shall Bajazet be kept;
And where I go be thus in triumph drawn:
. . . . . . . .
This is my mind, and I will have it so.
Not all the kings and emperors of the earth,
If they would lay their crowns before my feet,
Shall ransom him or take him from his cage:
The ages that shall talk of Tamburlaine,
Even from this day to Plato's wondrous year,
Shall talk how I have handled Bajazet.
There are frequent references to this scene in contemporary
literature.
ll. 35-6. _a Miriade Of Ants, &c. _ 'Erat ei' (i. e. Tiberius) 'in
oblectamentis serpens draco, quem ex consuetudine manu sua cibaturus,
cum consumptum a formicis invenisset, monitus est ut vim multitudinis
caveret. ' Suetonius, _Tib. _ 72.
l. 37. _Sea-goales_, i. e. sea-gaols. 'goale' was a common spelling.
See next poem, l. 52, 'the worlds thy goale. ' Strangely enough,
neither the Grolier Club editor nor Chambers seems to have recognized
the word here, in _The Calme_, though in the next poem they change
'goale' to 'gaol' without comment. The Grolier Club editor retains
'goales' and Chambers adopts the reading of the later editions,
'sea-gulls. ' A gull would have no difficulty in overtaking the
swiftest ship which ever sailed. Grosart takes the passage correctly.
'Sea-goales' is an accurate definition of the galleys. ' Finny-chips'
is a vivid description of their appearance. Compare:
One of these small bodies fitted so,
This soul inform'd, and abled it to row
Itselfe with finnie oars.
_Progresse of the Soule_, I. 23.
Never again shall I with finny oar
Put from, or draw unto the faithful shore.
Herrick, _His Tears to Thamesis_.
l. 38. _our Pinnaces. _ 'Venices' is the reading of _1633_ and most of
the MSS. , where, as in _1669_, the word is often spelt 'Vinices'. But
I can find no example of the word 'Venice' used for a species of ship,
and Mr. W. A. Craigie of the _Oxford English Dictionary_ tells me that
he has no example recorded. The mistake probably arose in a confusion
of P and V. The word 'Pinnace' is variously spelt, 'pynice', 'pinnes',
'pinace', &c. , &c. The pinnaces were the small, light-rigged,
quick-sailing vessels which acted as scouts for the fleet.
l. 48. _A scourge, 'gainst which wee all forget to pray. _ The 'forgot'
of _1669_ and several MSS. is tempting--'a scourge against which we
all in setting out forgot to pray. ' I rather think, however, that what
Donne means is 'a scourge against which we all at sea always forget to
pray, for to pray for wind at sea is generally to pray for cold under
the poles, for heat in hell'. The 'forgot' makes the reference too
definite. At the same time, 'forgot' is so obvious a reading that it
is difficult to account for 'forget' except on the supposition that it
is right.
ll. 51-4. _How little more alas,
Is man now, then before he was?
he was
Nothing; for us, wee are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves still disproportion it. _
Donne is here playing with an antithesis which apparently he owes to
the rhetoric of Tertullian. 'Canst thou choose', says the poet in one
of his later sermons, 'but think God as perfect now, at least as he
was at first, and can he not as easily make thee up againe of nothing,
as he made thee of nothing at first? _Recogita quid fueris antequam
esses. _ Think over thyselfe; what wast thou before thou wast anything?
_Meminisses utique, si fuisses_: if thou had'st been anything than,
surely thou would'st remember it now. _Qui non eras, factus es; cum
iterum non eris, fies. _ Thou that wast once nothing, wast made this
that thou art now; and when thou shalt be nothing again, thou shalt be
made better then thou art yet. ' _Sermons_ 50. 14. 109. A note in the
margin indicates that the quotations are from Tertullian, and Donne is
echoing here the antithetical _Recogita quid fueris antequam esses_.
This echo is certainly made more obvious to the ear by the punctuation
of _1669_, which Grosart, the Grolier Club editor, and Chambers all
follow. The last reads:
How little more, alas,
Is man now, than, before he was, he was?
Nothing for us, we are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves, still disproportion it.
This may be right; but after careful consideration I have retained the
punctuation of _1633_. In the first place, if the _1669_ text be right
it is not clear why the poet did not preserve the regular order:
Is man now than he was before he was.
To place 'he was' at the end of the line was in the circumstances to
court ambiguity, and is not metrically requisite. In the second place,
the rhetorical question asked requires an answer, and that is given
most clearly by the punctuation of _1633_. 'How little more, alas, is
man now than [he was] before he was? He was nothing; and as for us,
we are fit for nothing. Chance or ourselves still throw us out of gear
with everything. ' To be nothing and to be fit for nothing--there is
all the difference. In the _1669_ version it is not easy to see the
relevance of the rhetorical question and of the line which follows:
'Nothing for us, we are for nothing fit. ' This seems to introduce a
new thought, a fresh antithesis. It is not quite true. A breeze would
fit them very well.
The use of 'for' in 'for us', as I have taken it, is quite idiomatic:
For me, I am the mistress of my fate.
Shakespeare, _Rape of Lucrece_, 1021.
For the rest o' the fleet, they all have met again.
Id. , _The Tempest_, I. i. 232.
PAGE =180=. TO S^r HENRY WOTTON.
The occasion of this letter was apparently (see my article, _Bacon's
Poem, The World: Its Date And Relation to Certain Other Poems_: _Mod.
Lang. Rev. _, April, 1911) a literary _débat_ among some of the wits of
Essex's circle. The subject of the _débat_ was 'Which kind of life is
best, that of Court, Country, or City? ' and the suggestion came from
the two epigrams in the Greek Anthology attributed to Posidippus and
Metrodorus respectively. In the first ([Greek: Poiên tis biotoio tamê
tribon? ]) each kind of life in turn is condemned; in the second each
is defended. These epigrams were paraphrased in _Tottel's Miscellany_
(1557) by Nicholas Grimald, and again in the _Arte of English Poesie_
(1589), attributed to George Puttenham. Stimulated perhaps by the
latter version, in which the Court first appears as one of the
principal spheres of life, or by Ronsard's French version in which
also the 'cours des Roys', unknown to the Greek poet, are introduced,
Bacon wrote his well-known paraphrase:
The world's a bubble: and the life of man
Less than a span.
It is just possible too that he wrote a paraphrase, similar in verse,
of the second epigram, which I have printed in the article referred
to. A copy of _The World_ was found among Wotton's papers and was
printed in the _Reliquiae Wottonianae_ (1651) signed 'Fra. Lord
Bacon'. It had already been published by Thomas Farnaby in his
_Florilegium Epigrammatum Graecorum &c. _ (1629). Bacon probably gave
Wotton a copy and he appears to have shown it to his friends. Among
these was Thomas Bastard, who, to judge by the numerous epigrams he
addressed to Essex, belonged to the same circle as Bacon, Donne, and
Wotton,--if we may so describe it, but probably every young man of
letters looked to Essex for patronage. Bastard's poem runs:
Ad Henricum Wottonum.
Wotton, the country, and the country swayne,
How can they yeeld a Poet any sense?
How can they stirre him up or heat his vaine?
How can they feed him with intelligence?
You have that fire which can a witt enflame
In happy London Englands fayrest eye:
Well may you Poets have of worthy name
Which have the foode and life of Poetry.
And yet the Country or the towne may swaye
Or beare a part, as clownes do in a play.
Donne was one of those to whom Wotton showed Bacon's poem, and the
result was the present letter which occasionally echoes Bacon's words.
Wotton replied to it in some characteristic verses preserved in _B_
(Lord Ellesmere's MS. ) and _P_ (belonging to Captain Harris). I print
it from the former:
_To J: D: from M^r H: W:_
Worthie Sir:
Tis not a coate of gray or Shepheards life,
Tis not in feilds or woods remote to live,
That adds or takes from one that peace or strife,
Which to our dayes such good or ill doth give:
It is the mind that make the mans estate 5
For ever happy or unfortunate.
Then first the mind of passions must be free
Of him that would to happiness aspire;
Whether in Princes Pallaces he bee,
Or whether to his cottage he retire; 10
For our desires that on extreames are bent
Are frends to care and traitors to content.
Nor should wee blame our frends though false they bee
Since there are thousands false, for one that's true,
But our own blindness, that we cannot see 15
To chuse the best, although they bee but few:
For he that every fained frend will trust,
Proves true to frend, but to himself unjust.
The faults wee have are they that make our woe,
Our virtues are the motives of our joye, 20
Then is it vayne, if wee to desarts goe
To seek our bliss, or shroud us from annoy:
Our place need not be changed, but our Will,
For every where wee may do good or ill.
But this I doe not dedicate to thee, 25
As one that holds himself fitt to advise,
Or that my lines to him should precepts be
That is less ill then I, and much more wise:
Yet 'tis no harme mortality to preach,
For men doe often learne when they do teach.
The date of the _débat_ is before April 1598, when Bastard's
_Chrestoleros_ was entered on the Stationers' Register, probably
1597-8, the interval between the return of the Islands Expedition and
Donne's entry into the household of Sir Thomas Egerton. Mr. Chambers
has shown that during this interval Donne was occasionally employed
by Cecil to carry letters to and from the Commanders of the English
forces still in France. But it was not till about April 1598 that he
found permanent employment.
l. 8. _Remoraes_; Browne doubts 'whether the story of the remora be
not unreasonably amplified'. The name is given to any of the fish
belonging to the family Echeneididae, which by means of a suctorial
disk situated on the top of the head adhere to sharks, other large
fishes, vessels, &c. , letting go when they choose. The ancient
naturalists reported that they could arrest a ship in full course. See
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Lib. xiii, _De Aqua et ejus Ornatu_.
l. 11. _the even line_ is the reading of all the MS. copies, and must
have been taken from one of these by the 1669 editor. The use of the
word is archaic and therefore more probably Donne's than an editor's
emendation. Compare Chaucer's 'Of his stature he was of even length',
i. e. 'a just mean between extremes, of proper magnitude or degree'.
The 'even line' is, as the context shows, the exact mean between
the 'adverse icy poles'. I suspect that 'raging' is an editorial
emendation. There are several demonstrable errors in the 1633 text
of this poem. The 'other' of _P_, and 'over' of _S_, are errors which
point to 'even' rather than 'raging'.
l. 12. _th'adverse icy poles. _ The 'poles' of most MSS. is obviously
necessary if we are to have _two_ temperate regions. The expression is
a condensed one for 'either of the adverse icy poles'. Compare:
He that at sea prayes for more winde, as well
Under the poles may begge cold, heat in hell.
One cannot be under both the poles at once. One is 'under' the pole in
Donne's cosmology because the poles are not the termini of the earth's
axis but of the heavens'. 'For the North and Southern Pole, are the
invariable terms of that Axis whereon the Heavens do move. ' Browne,
_Pseud. Epidem. _ vi. 7.
Tristior illa
Terra sub ambobus non iacet ulla polis.
Ovid, _Pont. _ ii. 7. 64.
l. 17. _Can dung and garlike, &c. _ This is the text of the 1633
edition made consistent with itself, and it has the support of several
MSS. Clearly if we are to read 'or' in one line we must do so in both,
and adopt the _1635-69_ text. It is tempting at first sight to do so,
but I believe the MSS. are right. What Donne means is, 'Can we procure
a perfume, or a medicine, by blending opposite stenches or poisons? '
This is his expansion of the question, 'Shall cities, built of
both extremes, be chosen? ' The change to 'or' obscures the exact
metaphysical point. It would be an improvement perhaps to bracket the
lines as parenthetical.
According to Donne's medical science the scorpion (probably its flesh)
was an antidote to its own poison: 'I have as many Antidotes as the
Devill hath poisons, I have as much mercy as the Devill hath malice;
There must be scorpions in the world; _but the Scorpion shall cure the
Scorpion_; there must be tentations; but tentations shall adde to mine
and to thy glory, and _Eripiam_, I will deliver thee. ' _Sermons_ 80.
52. 527. Obviously Donne could not ask in surprise, 'Can a Scorpion or
Torpedo cure a man? ' Each can; it is their combination he deprecates.
In _Ignatius his Conclave_ he writes, 'and two Poysons mingled might
do no harme. '
In speaking of scent made from dung Donne has probably the statement
of Paracelsus in his mind to which Sir Thomas Browne also refers: 'And
yet if, as Paracelsus encourageth, Ordure makes the best Musk, and
from the most fetid substances may be drawn the most odoriferous
Essences; all that had not Vespasian's nose, might boldly swear, here
was a subject fit for such extractions. ' _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, iii.
26.
PAGE =181=, ll. 19-20. _Cities are worst of all three; of all three
(O knottie riddle) each is worst equally. _
This is the punctuation of _1633_ and of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _W_.
The later punctuation which Chambers has adopted and modernized, is
not found to be an improvement if scrutinized. He reads:
Cities are worst of all three; of all three?
O knotty riddle! each is worst equally.
The mark of interrogation after 'three' would be justifiable only if
the poet were going to expatiate upon the badness of cities. 'Of all
three? that is saying very little, &c. , &c. ' But this is not the tenor
of the passage. From one thought he is led to another. 'Cities are
worst of all three (i. e. Court, City, Country). Nay, each is equally
the worst. ' The interjected 'O knottie riddle' does not mean, 'Who is
to say which is the worst? ' but 'How can it come that each is worst?
This is a riddle! ' Donne here echoes Bacon:
And where's the citty from foul vice so free
But may be term'd the worst of all the three?
ll. 25-6. _The country is a desert, &c. _ The evidence for this reading
is so overwhelming that it is impossible to reject it. I have modified
the punctuation to bring out more clearly what I take it to mean. 'The
country is a desert where no goodness is native, and therefore rightly
understood. Goodness in the country is like a foreign language, a
faculty not born with us, but acquired with pain, and never thoroughly
understood and mastered. ' Only Dr. Johnson could stigmatize in
adequate terms so harsh a construction, but the _1635-54_ emendation
is not less obscure. Does it mean that any good which comes there
quits it with all speed, while that which is native and must stay is
not understood? This is not a lucid or just enough thought to warrant
departure from the better authorized text.
l. 27. _prone to more evills_; The reading 'mere evils' of several
MSS. , including _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, is tempting and _may_ be right.
In that case 'meere' has the now obsolete meaning of 'pure,
unadulterated', 'meere English', 'meere Irish', &c. in O. E. D. , or
more fully, 'absolute, entire, sheer, perfect, downright', as in
'Th'obstinacie, willfull disobedience, meere lienge and disceite of
the countrie gentlemen,' _Hist. MSS. Com. _ (1600), quoted in O. E. D. ;
'the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet,' Shakespeare, _Othello_,
II. ii. 3. Such a strong adjective would however come better after
'devills' in the next line. Placed here it disturbs the climax. What
Donne says here is that men in the country become beasts, and more
prone to evil than beasts because of their higher faculties:
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damn'd; Alas; why should I bee?
Why should intent or reason, borne in mee,
Make sinnes, else equall, in mee more heinous?
_Holy Sonnets_, IX, p. 326.
And in this same letter, ll. 41-2, he develops the thought further.
PAGE =182=, ll. 59-62. _Only in this one thing, be no Galenist, &c. _
The Galenists perceived in the living body four humours; hot, cold,
moist, and dry, and held that in health these were present in fixed
proportions. Diseases were due to disturbance of these proportions,
and were to be cured by correction of the disproportion by drugs,
these being used as they were themselves hot, cold, moist, or dry; to
add to whichever humours were defective. The chymiques or school of
Paracelsus, held that each disease had an essence which might be got
rid of by being purged or driven from the body by an antagonistic
remedy.
PAGE =183=. TO S^r HENRY GOODYERE.
Goodyere and Walton form between them the Boswell to whom we owe
our fullest and most intimate knowledge of the life of Donne. To
the former he wrote apparently a weekly letter in the years of his
residence at Pyrford, Mitcham, and London. And Goodyere preserved
his letters and his poems. Of the letters published by Donne's son
in 1651-4, the greatest number, as well as the most interesting and
intimate, are addressed to Goodyere.
opinion about the essence and matter of heavens; that it is not hard
and impenetrable, as Peripateticks hold, transparent, of a _quinta
essentia_, but that it is penetrable and soft as the ayre itself is,
and that the planets move in it', (according to the older view each
was fixed in its sphere) 'as birds in the ayre, fishes in the sea. '
Burton, _Anat. of Melancholy_, part ii, sect. 2, Men. 3.
'Wind', says Donne elsewhere, 'is a mixt Meteor, to the making
whereof, diverse occasions concurre with exhalations. ' _Sermons_ 80.
31. 305.
The movement which Donne has in view is described by Du Bartas:
If heav'ns bright torches, from earth's Kidneys, sup
Som somwhat dry and heatfull Vapours up,
Th' ambitious lightning of their nimble Fire
Would suddenly neer th' Azure Cirques aspire:
But scarce so soon their fuming crest hath raught,
Or toucht the Coldness of the middle Vault,
And felt what force their mortall Enemy
In Garrison keeps there continually;
When down again towards their Dam they bear,
Holp by the weight which they have drawn from her.
But in the instant, to their aid arrives
Another new heat, which their heart revives,
Re-arms their hand, and having staied their flight,
Better resolv'd brings them again to fight.
Well fortifi'd then by these fresh supplies,
More bravely they renew their enterprize:
And one-while th' upper hand (with honor) getting,
Another-while disgracefully retreating,
Our lower Aire they tosse in sundry sort,
As weak or strong their matter doth comport.
This lasts not long; because the heat and cold,
Equall in force and fortune, equall bold
In these assaults; to end this sudden brall,
Th' one stops their mounting, th' other stayes their fall:
So that this vapour, never resting stound,
Stands never still, but makes his motion round,
Posteth from Pole to Pole, and flies amain
From _Spain_ to _India_, and from _Inde_ to _Spain_.
Sylvester, _Du Bartas_, First Week, Second Day.
l. 18. _prisoners, which lye but for fees_, i. e. the fees due to the
gaoler. 'And as prisoners discharg'd of actions may lye for fees; so
when,' &c.
_Deaths Duell_ (1632), p. 9. Thirty-three years after this poem was
written, Donne thus uses the same figure in the last sermon he ever
preached.
PAGE =176=, l. 38. _I, and the Sunne. _ The 'Yea, and the Sunne' of _Q_
shows that 'I' here is probably the adverb, not the pronoun, though
the passage is ambiguous. Modern editors have all taken 'I' as the
pronoun.
ll. 49-50. _And do hear so
Like jealous husbands, what they would not know. _
Compare:
Crede mihi; nulli sunt crimina grata marito;
Nec quemquam, quamvis audiat illa, iuvant.
Seu tepet, indicium securas perdis ad aures;
Sive amat, officio fit miser ille tuo.
Culpa nec ex facili, quamvis manifesta, probatur:
Iudicis illa sui tuta favore venit.
Viderit ipse licet, credet tamen ipse neganti;
Damnabitque oculos, et sibi verba dabit.
Adspiciet dominae lacrimas; plorabit et ipse:
Et dicet, poenas garrulus iste dabit.
Ovid, _Amores_, II. ii. 51-60.
PAGE =177=, l. 60. _Strive. _ Later editions and Chambers read
'strives', but 'ordinance' was used as a plural: 'The goodly ordinance
which were xii great Bombardes of brasse', and 'these six small iron
ordinance. ' O. E. D. The word in this sense is now spelt 'ordnance'.
l. 66. _the'Bermuda_. It is probably unnecessary to change this to
'the'Bermudas. ' The singular without the article is quite regular.
l. 67. _Darknesse, lights elder brother. _ The 'elder' of the MSS. is
grammatically more correct than the 'eldest' of the editions. 'We must
return again to our stronghold, faith, and end with this, that this
beginning was, and before it, nothing. It is elder than darkness,
which is elder than light; and was before confusion, which is elder
than order, by how much the universal Chaos preceded forms and
distinctions. ' _Essays in Divinity_ (ed. Jessop, 1855), p. 46.
PAGE =178=. THE CALME.
l. 4. _A blocke afflicts, &c. _ Aesop's _Fables_. Sir Thomas Rowe
recalled Donne's use of the fable, when he was Ambassador at the Court
of the Mogul. Of Ibrahim Khan, the Governor of Surat after Zufilkhar
Khan, he writes: 'He was good but soe easy that he does no good; wee
are not lesse afflicted with a block then before with a storck. ' _The
Embassy, &c. _ (Hakl. Soc. ), i. 82.
l. 8. _thy mistresse glasse. _ This poem, like the last, is _probably_
addressed to Christopher Brooke, but it is not so headed in any
edition or MS. The Grolier Club editor ascribes the first heading to
both.
l. 14. _or like ended playes. _ This suggests that the Elizabethan
stage was not so bare of furniture as used to be stated, and also that
furniture was not confined to the curtained-off rear-stage. What Donne
recalls is a stage deserted by the actors but cumbered with furniture
and decorations.
l. 16. _a frippery_, i. e. 'A place where cast-off clothes are sold',
O. E. D. 'Oh, ho, Monster; wee know what belongs to a frippery. '
_Tempest_, IV. i. 225. Here the rigging has the appearance of an
old-clothes shop.
l. 17. _No use of lanthornes. _ The reference is to the lanterns in the
high sterns of the ships, used to keep the fleet together. 'There
is no fear now of our losing one another. ' Each squadron of a fleet
followed the light of its Admiral. Essex speaks of having lost, or
missing, 'Sir Walter Raleigh with thirty sailes that in the night
followed his light. ' _Purchas_, xx. 24-5.
l. 18. _Feathers and dust. _ 'He esteemeth John Done the first poet in
the world for some things: his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by
heart; and that passage of the Calme, That dust and feathers doe not
stirre, all was soe quiet. Affirmeth Donne to have written all
his best peeces ere he was twenty-five yeares old. ' _Jonson's
Conversations with Drummond. _ When Donne wrote _The Calme_ he was in
his twenty-fifth year.
l. 21. _lost friends. _ Raleigh and his squadron lost the main fleet
while off the coast of Spain, before they set sail definitely for
the Azores. He rejoined the fleet at the Islands. Donne's poem was
probably written in the interval.
The reading of some MSS. , 'lefte friends,' is quite a possible one.
Carleton, writing from Venice to Chamberlain, says: 'Let me tell you,
for your comfort (for I imagine what is mine is yours) that my last
news from the left island . . . took knowledge of my vigilancy and
diligency. ' The 'left island' is Great Britain, and Donne may mean no
more than that 'we can neither get back to our friends nor on to our
enemies. ' There may be no allusion to Raleigh's ships.
l. 23. _the Calenture. _ 'A disease incident to sailors within the
tropics, characterized by delirium in which the patient, it is said,
fancies the sea to be green fields, and desires to leap into it. '
O. E. D. Theobald had the Calenture in mind when he conjectured that
Falstaff 'babbled o' green fields'.
PAGE =179=, l. 33. _Like Bajazet encaged, &c. _: an echo of Marlowe's
_Tamburlaine_:
There whiles he lives shall Bajazet be kept;
And where I go be thus in triumph drawn:
. . . . . . . .
This is my mind, and I will have it so.
Not all the kings and emperors of the earth,
If they would lay their crowns before my feet,
Shall ransom him or take him from his cage:
The ages that shall talk of Tamburlaine,
Even from this day to Plato's wondrous year,
Shall talk how I have handled Bajazet.
There are frequent references to this scene in contemporary
literature.
ll. 35-6. _a Miriade Of Ants, &c. _ 'Erat ei' (i. e. Tiberius) 'in
oblectamentis serpens draco, quem ex consuetudine manu sua cibaturus,
cum consumptum a formicis invenisset, monitus est ut vim multitudinis
caveret. ' Suetonius, _Tib. _ 72.
l. 37. _Sea-goales_, i. e. sea-gaols. 'goale' was a common spelling.
See next poem, l. 52, 'the worlds thy goale. ' Strangely enough,
neither the Grolier Club editor nor Chambers seems to have recognized
the word here, in _The Calme_, though in the next poem they change
'goale' to 'gaol' without comment. The Grolier Club editor retains
'goales' and Chambers adopts the reading of the later editions,
'sea-gulls. ' A gull would have no difficulty in overtaking the
swiftest ship which ever sailed. Grosart takes the passage correctly.
'Sea-goales' is an accurate definition of the galleys. ' Finny-chips'
is a vivid description of their appearance. Compare:
One of these small bodies fitted so,
This soul inform'd, and abled it to row
Itselfe with finnie oars.
_Progresse of the Soule_, I. 23.
Never again shall I with finny oar
Put from, or draw unto the faithful shore.
Herrick, _His Tears to Thamesis_.
l. 38. _our Pinnaces. _ 'Venices' is the reading of _1633_ and most of
the MSS. , where, as in _1669_, the word is often spelt 'Vinices'. But
I can find no example of the word 'Venice' used for a species of ship,
and Mr. W. A. Craigie of the _Oxford English Dictionary_ tells me that
he has no example recorded. The mistake probably arose in a confusion
of P and V. The word 'Pinnace' is variously spelt, 'pynice', 'pinnes',
'pinace', &c. , &c. The pinnaces were the small, light-rigged,
quick-sailing vessels which acted as scouts for the fleet.
l. 48. _A scourge, 'gainst which wee all forget to pray. _ The 'forgot'
of _1669_ and several MSS. is tempting--'a scourge against which we
all in setting out forgot to pray. ' I rather think, however, that what
Donne means is 'a scourge against which we all at sea always forget to
pray, for to pray for wind at sea is generally to pray for cold under
the poles, for heat in hell'. The 'forgot' makes the reference too
definite. At the same time, 'forgot' is so obvious a reading that it
is difficult to account for 'forget' except on the supposition that it
is right.
ll. 51-4. _How little more alas,
Is man now, then before he was?
he was
Nothing; for us, wee are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves still disproportion it. _
Donne is here playing with an antithesis which apparently he owes to
the rhetoric of Tertullian. 'Canst thou choose', says the poet in one
of his later sermons, 'but think God as perfect now, at least as he
was at first, and can he not as easily make thee up againe of nothing,
as he made thee of nothing at first? _Recogita quid fueris antequam
esses. _ Think over thyselfe; what wast thou before thou wast anything?
_Meminisses utique, si fuisses_: if thou had'st been anything than,
surely thou would'st remember it now. _Qui non eras, factus es; cum
iterum non eris, fies. _ Thou that wast once nothing, wast made this
that thou art now; and when thou shalt be nothing again, thou shalt be
made better then thou art yet. ' _Sermons_ 50. 14. 109. A note in the
margin indicates that the quotations are from Tertullian, and Donne is
echoing here the antithetical _Recogita quid fueris antequam esses_.
This echo is certainly made more obvious to the ear by the punctuation
of _1669_, which Grosart, the Grolier Club editor, and Chambers all
follow. The last reads:
How little more, alas,
Is man now, than, before he was, he was?
Nothing for us, we are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves, still disproportion it.
This may be right; but after careful consideration I have retained the
punctuation of _1633_. In the first place, if the _1669_ text be right
it is not clear why the poet did not preserve the regular order:
Is man now than he was before he was.
To place 'he was' at the end of the line was in the circumstances to
court ambiguity, and is not metrically requisite. In the second place,
the rhetorical question asked requires an answer, and that is given
most clearly by the punctuation of _1633_. 'How little more, alas, is
man now than [he was] before he was? He was nothing; and as for us,
we are fit for nothing. Chance or ourselves still throw us out of gear
with everything. ' To be nothing and to be fit for nothing--there is
all the difference. In the _1669_ version it is not easy to see the
relevance of the rhetorical question and of the line which follows:
'Nothing for us, we are for nothing fit. ' This seems to introduce a
new thought, a fresh antithesis. It is not quite true. A breeze would
fit them very well.
The use of 'for' in 'for us', as I have taken it, is quite idiomatic:
For me, I am the mistress of my fate.
Shakespeare, _Rape of Lucrece_, 1021.
For the rest o' the fleet, they all have met again.
Id. , _The Tempest_, I. i. 232.
PAGE =180=. TO S^r HENRY WOTTON.
The occasion of this letter was apparently (see my article, _Bacon's
Poem, The World: Its Date And Relation to Certain Other Poems_: _Mod.
Lang. Rev. _, April, 1911) a literary _débat_ among some of the wits of
Essex's circle. The subject of the _débat_ was 'Which kind of life is
best, that of Court, Country, or City? ' and the suggestion came from
the two epigrams in the Greek Anthology attributed to Posidippus and
Metrodorus respectively. In the first ([Greek: Poiên tis biotoio tamê
tribon? ]) each kind of life in turn is condemned; in the second each
is defended. These epigrams were paraphrased in _Tottel's Miscellany_
(1557) by Nicholas Grimald, and again in the _Arte of English Poesie_
(1589), attributed to George Puttenham. Stimulated perhaps by the
latter version, in which the Court first appears as one of the
principal spheres of life, or by Ronsard's French version in which
also the 'cours des Roys', unknown to the Greek poet, are introduced,
Bacon wrote his well-known paraphrase:
The world's a bubble: and the life of man
Less than a span.
It is just possible too that he wrote a paraphrase, similar in verse,
of the second epigram, which I have printed in the article referred
to. A copy of _The World_ was found among Wotton's papers and was
printed in the _Reliquiae Wottonianae_ (1651) signed 'Fra. Lord
Bacon'. It had already been published by Thomas Farnaby in his
_Florilegium Epigrammatum Graecorum &c. _ (1629). Bacon probably gave
Wotton a copy and he appears to have shown it to his friends. Among
these was Thomas Bastard, who, to judge by the numerous epigrams he
addressed to Essex, belonged to the same circle as Bacon, Donne, and
Wotton,--if we may so describe it, but probably every young man of
letters looked to Essex for patronage. Bastard's poem runs:
Ad Henricum Wottonum.
Wotton, the country, and the country swayne,
How can they yeeld a Poet any sense?
How can they stirre him up or heat his vaine?
How can they feed him with intelligence?
You have that fire which can a witt enflame
In happy London Englands fayrest eye:
Well may you Poets have of worthy name
Which have the foode and life of Poetry.
And yet the Country or the towne may swaye
Or beare a part, as clownes do in a play.
Donne was one of those to whom Wotton showed Bacon's poem, and the
result was the present letter which occasionally echoes Bacon's words.
Wotton replied to it in some characteristic verses preserved in _B_
(Lord Ellesmere's MS. ) and _P_ (belonging to Captain Harris). I print
it from the former:
_To J: D: from M^r H: W:_
Worthie Sir:
Tis not a coate of gray or Shepheards life,
Tis not in feilds or woods remote to live,
That adds or takes from one that peace or strife,
Which to our dayes such good or ill doth give:
It is the mind that make the mans estate 5
For ever happy or unfortunate.
Then first the mind of passions must be free
Of him that would to happiness aspire;
Whether in Princes Pallaces he bee,
Or whether to his cottage he retire; 10
For our desires that on extreames are bent
Are frends to care and traitors to content.
Nor should wee blame our frends though false they bee
Since there are thousands false, for one that's true,
But our own blindness, that we cannot see 15
To chuse the best, although they bee but few:
For he that every fained frend will trust,
Proves true to frend, but to himself unjust.
The faults wee have are they that make our woe,
Our virtues are the motives of our joye, 20
Then is it vayne, if wee to desarts goe
To seek our bliss, or shroud us from annoy:
Our place need not be changed, but our Will,
For every where wee may do good or ill.
But this I doe not dedicate to thee, 25
As one that holds himself fitt to advise,
Or that my lines to him should precepts be
That is less ill then I, and much more wise:
Yet 'tis no harme mortality to preach,
For men doe often learne when they do teach.
The date of the _débat_ is before April 1598, when Bastard's
_Chrestoleros_ was entered on the Stationers' Register, probably
1597-8, the interval between the return of the Islands Expedition and
Donne's entry into the household of Sir Thomas Egerton. Mr. Chambers
has shown that during this interval Donne was occasionally employed
by Cecil to carry letters to and from the Commanders of the English
forces still in France. But it was not till about April 1598 that he
found permanent employment.
l. 8. _Remoraes_; Browne doubts 'whether the story of the remora be
not unreasonably amplified'. The name is given to any of the fish
belonging to the family Echeneididae, which by means of a suctorial
disk situated on the top of the head adhere to sharks, other large
fishes, vessels, &c. , letting go when they choose. The ancient
naturalists reported that they could arrest a ship in full course. See
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Lib. xiii, _De Aqua et ejus Ornatu_.
l. 11. _the even line_ is the reading of all the MS. copies, and must
have been taken from one of these by the 1669 editor. The use of the
word is archaic and therefore more probably Donne's than an editor's
emendation. Compare Chaucer's 'Of his stature he was of even length',
i. e. 'a just mean between extremes, of proper magnitude or degree'.
The 'even line' is, as the context shows, the exact mean between
the 'adverse icy poles'. I suspect that 'raging' is an editorial
emendation. There are several demonstrable errors in the 1633 text
of this poem. The 'other' of _P_, and 'over' of _S_, are errors which
point to 'even' rather than 'raging'.
l. 12. _th'adverse icy poles. _ The 'poles' of most MSS. is obviously
necessary if we are to have _two_ temperate regions. The expression is
a condensed one for 'either of the adverse icy poles'. Compare:
He that at sea prayes for more winde, as well
Under the poles may begge cold, heat in hell.
One cannot be under both the poles at once. One is 'under' the pole in
Donne's cosmology because the poles are not the termini of the earth's
axis but of the heavens'. 'For the North and Southern Pole, are the
invariable terms of that Axis whereon the Heavens do move. ' Browne,
_Pseud. Epidem. _ vi. 7.
Tristior illa
Terra sub ambobus non iacet ulla polis.
Ovid, _Pont. _ ii. 7. 64.
l. 17. _Can dung and garlike, &c. _ This is the text of the 1633
edition made consistent with itself, and it has the support of several
MSS. Clearly if we are to read 'or' in one line we must do so in both,
and adopt the _1635-69_ text. It is tempting at first sight to do so,
but I believe the MSS. are right. What Donne means is, 'Can we procure
a perfume, or a medicine, by blending opposite stenches or poisons? '
This is his expansion of the question, 'Shall cities, built of
both extremes, be chosen? ' The change to 'or' obscures the exact
metaphysical point. It would be an improvement perhaps to bracket the
lines as parenthetical.
According to Donne's medical science the scorpion (probably its flesh)
was an antidote to its own poison: 'I have as many Antidotes as the
Devill hath poisons, I have as much mercy as the Devill hath malice;
There must be scorpions in the world; _but the Scorpion shall cure the
Scorpion_; there must be tentations; but tentations shall adde to mine
and to thy glory, and _Eripiam_, I will deliver thee. ' _Sermons_ 80.
52. 527. Obviously Donne could not ask in surprise, 'Can a Scorpion or
Torpedo cure a man? ' Each can; it is their combination he deprecates.
In _Ignatius his Conclave_ he writes, 'and two Poysons mingled might
do no harme. '
In speaking of scent made from dung Donne has probably the statement
of Paracelsus in his mind to which Sir Thomas Browne also refers: 'And
yet if, as Paracelsus encourageth, Ordure makes the best Musk, and
from the most fetid substances may be drawn the most odoriferous
Essences; all that had not Vespasian's nose, might boldly swear, here
was a subject fit for such extractions. ' _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, iii.
26.
PAGE =181=, ll. 19-20. _Cities are worst of all three; of all three
(O knottie riddle) each is worst equally. _
This is the punctuation of _1633_ and of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _W_.
The later punctuation which Chambers has adopted and modernized, is
not found to be an improvement if scrutinized. He reads:
Cities are worst of all three; of all three?
O knotty riddle! each is worst equally.
The mark of interrogation after 'three' would be justifiable only if
the poet were going to expatiate upon the badness of cities. 'Of all
three? that is saying very little, &c. , &c. ' But this is not the tenor
of the passage. From one thought he is led to another. 'Cities are
worst of all three (i. e. Court, City, Country). Nay, each is equally
the worst. ' The interjected 'O knottie riddle' does not mean, 'Who is
to say which is the worst? ' but 'How can it come that each is worst?
This is a riddle! ' Donne here echoes Bacon:
And where's the citty from foul vice so free
But may be term'd the worst of all the three?
ll. 25-6. _The country is a desert, &c. _ The evidence for this reading
is so overwhelming that it is impossible to reject it. I have modified
the punctuation to bring out more clearly what I take it to mean. 'The
country is a desert where no goodness is native, and therefore rightly
understood. Goodness in the country is like a foreign language, a
faculty not born with us, but acquired with pain, and never thoroughly
understood and mastered. ' Only Dr. Johnson could stigmatize in
adequate terms so harsh a construction, but the _1635-54_ emendation
is not less obscure. Does it mean that any good which comes there
quits it with all speed, while that which is native and must stay is
not understood? This is not a lucid or just enough thought to warrant
departure from the better authorized text.
l. 27. _prone to more evills_; The reading 'mere evils' of several
MSS. , including _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, is tempting and _may_ be right.
In that case 'meere' has the now obsolete meaning of 'pure,
unadulterated', 'meere English', 'meere Irish', &c. in O. E. D. , or
more fully, 'absolute, entire, sheer, perfect, downright', as in
'Th'obstinacie, willfull disobedience, meere lienge and disceite of
the countrie gentlemen,' _Hist. MSS. Com. _ (1600), quoted in O. E. D. ;
'the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet,' Shakespeare, _Othello_,
II. ii. 3. Such a strong adjective would however come better after
'devills' in the next line. Placed here it disturbs the climax. What
Donne says here is that men in the country become beasts, and more
prone to evil than beasts because of their higher faculties:
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damn'd; Alas; why should I bee?
Why should intent or reason, borne in mee,
Make sinnes, else equall, in mee more heinous?
_Holy Sonnets_, IX, p. 326.
And in this same letter, ll. 41-2, he develops the thought further.
PAGE =182=, ll. 59-62. _Only in this one thing, be no Galenist, &c. _
The Galenists perceived in the living body four humours; hot, cold,
moist, and dry, and held that in health these were present in fixed
proportions. Diseases were due to disturbance of these proportions,
and were to be cured by correction of the disproportion by drugs,
these being used as they were themselves hot, cold, moist, or dry; to
add to whichever humours were defective. The chymiques or school of
Paracelsus, held that each disease had an essence which might be got
rid of by being purged or driven from the body by an antagonistic
remedy.
PAGE =183=. TO S^r HENRY GOODYERE.
Goodyere and Walton form between them the Boswell to whom we owe
our fullest and most intimate knowledge of the life of Donne. To
the former he wrote apparently a weekly letter in the years of his
residence at Pyrford, Mitcham, and London. And Goodyere preserved
his letters and his poems. Of the letters published by Donne's son
in 1651-4, the greatest number, as well as the most interesting and
intimate, are addressed to Goodyere.
