l. 52. _the spheare._ The MSS. all give the singular, the editions
the plural. Donne is not incapable of making a singular rhyme with a
plural, or at any rate a form with 's' with one without:
Then let us at these mimicke antiques jeast,
Whose deepest projects, and egregious gests
Are but dull Moralls of a game of Chests.
_To S^r Henry Wotton_, p. 188, ll. 22-4.
Still, I think 'spheare' is right. The bodies made one are the Sphere
in which the two Intelligences meet and command. This suits all that
followes:
Wee owe them thanks, because they thus, &c.
The Dutch translation runs:
Het Hemel-rond zijn sy,
Wy haren _Hemel-geest_.
l. 55. _forces, sense_, This reading of all the MSS. is, I think,
certainly right; the 'senses force' of the editions being an
emendation. (1) It is the more difficult reading. It is inconceivable
that an ordinary copyist would alter 'senses force' to 'forces sense',
which, unless properly commaed, is apt to be read as 'forces' sense'
and make nonsense. (2) It is more characteristic of Donne's thought.
He is, with his usual scholastic precision, distinguishing the
functions of soul and body. Perception is the function (the [Greek:
dynamis], power or force) of soul:
thy faire goodly soul, which doth
Give this flesh power to taste joy.
_Satyre III._
But the body has its function also, without which the soul could not
fulfil its; and that function is 'sense'. It is through this medium
that human souls must operate to obtain knowledge of each other. The
bodies must yield their forces or faculties ('sense' in all its forms,
especially sight and touch--hands and eyes) to us before our souls can
become one. The collective term 'sense' recurs:
T'affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend.
ll. 57-8. _On man heavens influence workes not so,
But that it first imprints the ayre._
'Aucuns ont escrit que l'air a aussi cette vertu de faire decouler
avec le feu elementaire les influences et proprietez secrettes des
estoilles et planettes: alleguans que l'efficace des corps celestes
ne peut s'estendre aux inferieurs et terrestres, que par les moyens et
elemens qui sont entre deux. Mais cela soit au iugement des lecteurs
que nous renvoyons aux disputes de ceux qui ont escrit sur la
philosophie naturelle. Voyez aussi _Pline au 5 ch. du 2 liu._,
_Plutarque au 5 & 2 liu. des opinions des Philosophes_, _Platon en
son Timee_, _Aristote_ en ses disputes de physique, specialement au i.
liu. de la generation et corruption, et ceux qui ont escrit depuis luy
touchant les elemens.' Du Bartas, _La Sepmaine, &c._ (1581), _Indice_.
Air.
l. 59. _Soe soule into the soule may flow._ The 'Soe' of the MSS.
must, I think, be right rather than the 'For' of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_,
and the editions. It corresponds to the 'So' in l. 65, and it
expresses the simpler and more intelligible thought. In references
to the heavenly bodies and their influence on men one must remember
certain aspects of older thought which have become unfamiliar to us.
They were bodies of great dignity, 'aeterna corpora,' not composed
of any of the four elements, and subject to no change in time but
movement, change of position. If not as the older philosophers and
some of the Fathers had held, 'animata corpora,' having a soul united
to the body, yet each was guided by an Intelligence operating by
contact: 'Ad hoc autem quod moveat, non opportet quod uniatur ei
ut forma, sed per contactum virtutis, sicut motor unitur mobili.'
Aquinas, _Summa_ I. lxx. 3. Such bodies, it was claimed, influence
human actions: 'Corpora enim coelestia, cum moveantur a spiritualibus
substantiis ... agunt in virtute earum quasi instrumenta. Sed illae
substantiae spirituales sunt superiores animabus nostris. Ergo videtur
quod possint _imprimere in animas nostras_, et sic causare actus
humanos.' Aquinas, however, disputes this, as Plotinus had before him,
and distinguishes: As bodies, the stars affect us only indirectly, in
so far namely as the mind and will of man are subject to the influence
of physical and corporeal disturbances. But man's will remains free.
'_Sapiens homo dominatur astris_ in quantum scilicet dominatur suis
passionibus.' As Intelligences, the stars do not operate on man
thus mediately and controllingly: 'sed in intellectum humanum agunt
_immediate illuminando_: voluntatem autem immutare non possunt.'
Aquinas, _Summa_ I. cxv. 4.
Now if 'Soe' be the right reading here then Donne is thinking of
the heavenly bodies without distinguishing in them between soul or
intelligence and body. 'As these high bodies or beings operate on
man's soul through the comparatively low intermediary of air, so
lovers' souls must interact through the medium of body.'
If 'For' be the right reading, then Donne is giving as an example of
soul operating on soul through the medium of body the influence of the
heavenly intelligences on our souls. But this is not the orthodox view
of their interaction. I feel sure that 'Soe' is the right reading. The
thought and construction are simpler, and 'Soe' and 'For' are easily
interchanged.
Of noblemen Donne says: 'They are _Intelligences_ that move great
_Spheares_.' _Sermon_, Judges xv. 20, p. 20 (1622).
ll. 61-4. _As our blood labours to beget
Spirits, as like soules as it can,
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtile knot, which makes us man._
'Spirit is a most subtile vapour, which is expressed from the Bloud,
and the instrument of the soule, to perform all his actions; a common
tye or _medium_ betwixt the body and the soule, as some will have it;
or as _Paracelsus_, a fourth soule of itselfe. _Melancthon_ holds
the fountaine of these spirits to be the _Heart_, begotten there; and
afterward convayed to the Braine, they take another nature to them. Of
these spirits there be three kindes, according to the three principall
parts, _Braine_, _Heart_, _Liver_; _Naturall_, _Vitall_, _Animall_.
The _Naturall_ are begotten in the _Liver_, and thence dispersed
through the Veines, to performe those naturall actions. The _Vitall
Spirits_ are made in the Heart, of the _Naturall_, which by the
Arteries are transported to all the other parts: if these _Spirits_
cease, then life ceaseth, as in a _Syncope_ or Swowning. The _Animall
spirits_ formed of the _Vitall_, brought up to the Braine, and
diffused by the Nerves, to the subordinate Members, give sense and
motion to them all.' Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1638), p. 15.
'The spirits in a man which are the thin and active part of the blood,
and so are of a kind of middle nature, between soul and body, those
spirits are able to doe, and they doe the office, to unite and apply
the faculties of the soul to the organs of the body, and so there is a
man.' _Sermons_ 26. 20. 291.