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.