ll. 1-10. _Deare love, for nothing lesse then thee
Would I have broke this happy dreame,
It was a theame
For reason, much too strong for phantasie,
Therefore thou wak'dst me wisely; yet
My Dreame thou brok'st not, but continued'st it,
Thou art so truth, that thoughts of thee suffice,
To make dreames truths; and fables histories;
Enter these armes, &c._
I have left the punctuation of the first stanza unaltered. The sense
is clear and any modernization alters the rhetoric. Chambers places a
semicolon after 'dreame' and a full stop after 'phantasie'. The
last is certainly wrong, for the statement 'It was a theme', &c. is
connected not with what precedes, but with what follows, 'Therefore
thou waked'st me wisely.' In like manner Chambers's full stop
after 'but continued'st it' breaks the close connexion with the two
following lines, which are really an adverbial clause of explanation
or reason. 'My dream thou brokest not, but continued'st it,' for 'Thou
art so truth', &c. A full stop might more justifiably be placed after
'histories', but the semicolon is more in Donne's manner.
l. 7. _Thou art so truth._ The evidence of the MSS. shows that both
'truth' and 'true' were current versions and explains the alteration
of _1635-69_. But 'truth' is both the more difficult reading and
the more subtle expression of Donne's thought; 'true' is the obvious
emendation of less metaphysical copyists and editors. Donne's 'Love'
is not true as opposed to false only; she is 'truth' as opposed
to dreams or phantasms or aught that partakes of unreality. She is
essentially truth as God is: 'Respondeo dicendum quod ... veritas
invenitur in intellectu, secundum quod apprehendit rem ut est; et
in re, secundum quod habet esse conformabile intellectui. Hoc autem
maxime invenitur in Deo. Nam esse eius non solum est conforme suo
intelligere; et suum intelligere est mensura et causa omnis alterius
esse, et omnis alterius intellectus; et ipse est suum esse et
intelligere. Unde sequitur quod non solum in ipso sit veritas, sed
quod ipse sit ipsa summa et prima veritas. _Summa_ I. vi. 5.
To deify the object of your love was a common topic of love-poetry;
Donne does so with all the subtleties of scholastic theology at his
finger-ends. In this single poem he attributes to the lady addressed
two attributes of Deity, (1) the identity of being and essence, (2)
the power of reading the thoughts directly.
The Dutch poet keeps this point:
de Waerheyt is so ghy, en
Ghy zijt de Waerheyt so.
ll. 11-12. _As lightning, or a Tapers light
Thine eyes, and not thy noise wak'd mee._
'A sodain light brought into a room doth awaken some men; but yet a
noise does it better.' _Sermons_ 50. 38. 344.
'A candle wakes some men as well as a noise.' _Sermons_ 80. 61. 617.
ll. 15-16. _But when I saw thou sawest my heart,
And knew'st my thoughts, beyond an Angels art._
Modern editors, by removing the comma after 'thoughts', have altered
the sense of these lines. It is not that she could read his thoughts
better than an angel, but that she could read them at all, a power
which is not granted to Angels.
St. Thomas (_Summa Theol._ Quaest. lvii. Art. 4) discusses 'Utrum
angeli cognoscant cogitationes cordium', and concludes, 'Cognoscunt
Angeli cordium cogitationes in suis effectibus: ut autem in se ipsis
sunt, Deo tantum sunt naturaliter cognitae.' Angels may read our
thoughts by subtler signs than our words and acts, or even those
changes of countenance and pulsation which we note in each other,
'quanto subtilius huiusmodi immutationes occultas corporales
perpendunt.' But to know them as they are in the intellect and will
belongs only to God, to whom only the freedom of the human will is
subject, and a man's thoughts are subject to his will. 'Manifestum
est autem, quod ex sola voluntate dependet, quod aliquis actu aliqua
consideret; quia cum aliquis habet habitum scientiae, vel species
intelligibiles in eo existentes, utitur eis cum vult. Et ideo dicit
Apostolus I Corinth. secundo: quod _quae sunt hominis, nemo novit nisi
spiritus hominis qui in ipso est_.'
Donne recurs to this theme very frequently: 'Let the Schoole dispute
infinitely (for he that will not content himself with means of
salvation till all Schoole points be reconciled, will come too late);
let Scotus and his Heard think, That Angels, and separate souls have a
naturall power to understand thoughts ... And let Aquinas present his
arguments to the contrary, That those spirits have no naturall power
to know thoughts; we seek no farther, but that Jesus Christ himself
thought it argument enough to convince the Scribes and Pharisees,
and prove himself God, by knowing their thoughts. _Eadem Maiestate
et potentia_ sayes _S. Hierome_, Since you see I proceed as God, in
knowing your thoughts, why beleeve you not that I may forgive his sins
as God too?' _Sermons_ 80. 11. 111; and compare also _Sermons_ 80. 9.
92.
This point is also preserved in the Dutch version:
Maer als ick u sagh sien wat om mijn hertje lagh
En weten wat ick docht (dat Engel noyt en sagh).