The MSS. point to two distinct recensions of this poem. The one which
is given in the group of MSS. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and in _1633_, reads,
3. countrey pleasures childishly 4. snorted 14. one world 17. better.
The other, which is the most common in the MSS., reads, 3. childish
pleasures seelily 4. slumbred 14. our world 17. fitter. The edition of
1635 shows a contamination of the two due to the fact that the printer
'set up' from _1633_, and he or the editor corrected from a MS.
collection, probably _A18_, _N_, _TC_. In _TCD_ the second recension
is given in the collection of Donne's poems in the first part of the
MS.; in the second part, a miscellaneous collection of poems, the poem
is given again, but according to the other version. It does not seem
to me possible to decide absolutely the relative authority of the two
versions, but to my mind that of 1633 and _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ seems the
more racy and characteristic. It probably represents the first
version of the poem, whether Donne or another be responsible for the
alterations. The only point of importance to be decided is whether
'better' or 'fitter' expresses more exactly what the poet meant to
say. The 1635 editor preferred 'fitter', thinking probably that
the idea of exact correspondence is emphasized, 'where find two
hemispheres that fit one another more exactly?' But this is not,
I think, what Donne meant. The mutual fittingness of the lovers is
implied already in the idea that each is a whole world to the other.
Gazing in each other's eyes each beholds a hemisphere of this world.
The whole cannot, of course, be reflected. And where could either find
a _better_ hemisphere, one in which there is as here neither 'sharpe
North' nor 'declining West', neither coldness nor alteration.
l. 13. _Let Maps to other._ The edition may have dropped the 's',
which occurs in most of the MSS., but the plural without 's' is common
even till a later period: 'These, as his other, were naughty things.'
Bunyan, _The Life and Death of Mr. Badman_, p. 106 (Cambridge English
Classics). 'And other of such vinegar aspect That they'll not show
their teeth in way of smile.' Shakespeare, _Merchant of Venice_, I. i.
54.
ll. 20-1. _If our two loves be one, &c._ If our two loves are _one_,
dissolution is impossible; and the same is true if, though _two_,
they are always alike. What is simple--as God or the soul--cannot
be dissolved; nor compounds, e.g. the Heavenly bodies, between whose
elements there is no contrariety. 'Impossibile autem est quod forma
separetur a se ipsa. Unde impossibile est, quod forma subsistens
desinat esse. Dato etiam, quod anima esset ex materia et
forma composita, ut quidam dicunt, adhuc oporteret ponere eam
incorruptibilem. Non enim invenitur corruptio nisi ubi invenitur
contrarietas; generationes enim et corruptiones ex contrariis et in
contraria sunt' &c., Aquinas, _Summa_ I. Quaest. lxxv, Art. 6. The
body, being composed of contrary elements, has not this essential
immortality: 'In Heaven we doe not say, that our bodies shall devest
their mortality, so, as that naturally they could not dye; for they
shall have a composition still; and every compounded thing may perish;
but they shall be so assured, and with such a preservation, as they
shall alwaies know they shall never dye.' _Sermons_ 80. 19. 189.