PAGE =120=, l. 17. _then safely tread._ The 'safely' of so many MSS.,
including _W_, seems to me a more likely reading than 'softly'. The
latter was probably suggested by the 'soft' of the following line. The
'safely' means of course that even without her shoes she will not be
hurt.
l. 22. _Ill spirits._ It is not easy to decide between the 'Ill' of
_1669_ and some MSS. and the 'All' of some other MSS. Besides those
enumerated, two lesser MSS., viz. the Sloane MSS. 542 and 1792, read
'all'.
In _Elegie IV_, l. 68, 'all' is written for 'ill' in _B_.
PAGE =121=, l. 30. _How blest am I in this discovering thee!_
The 'this' of almost all the MSS. is supported by the change of
'discovering' into 'discovery' of _B_, _O'F_, one way of evading the
rather unusual construction, 'this' with a verbal noun followed by an
object. The alteration of 'this' to 'thus' in _1669_ is another. But
the construction, though bold, is not inexcusable, and Donne wishes
to lay the stress not on the manner of the discovery, but on the
discovery itself, comparing it (in a very characteristic manner) to
the discovery of America. This figure alone is sufficient to establish
Donne's authorship, for he is peculiarly fond of these allusions to
voyages, using them again and again in his sermons. For the use of
'this' with the gerund compare: 'Sir,--I humbly thank you for this
continuing me in your memory, and enlarging me so far, as to the
memory of my Sovereign, and (I hope) my Master.' _Letters_, p. 306.
l. 32. _Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be._ Chambers reads
'my soul'--I do not know from what source. The metaphor is from
signing and sealing.
ll. 35-8. _Gems which you women use, &c._ I have adopted several
emendations from the MSS. In the edition of 1669 the lines are printed
thus:
Jems which you women use
Are like Atlantas ball: cast in men's views,
That when a fools eye lighteth on a Jem
His earthly soul may court that, not them:
I have adopted 'balls' from several MSS. as agreeing with the story
and with the plural 'Gems'. I have taken 'are' with 'cast in mens
views', regarding 'like Atlantas balls' as parenthetic. Both the metre
and the sense of l. 38 are improved by reading 'covet' for 'court',
though the latter has considerable support. The two words are easily
confused in writing. I have adopted 'theirs' too in preference to
'that' because it is more in Donne's manner as well as strongly
supported. 'A man who loves dress and ornaments on a woman loves
not her but what belongs to her; what is accessory, not what is
essential.' Compare:
For he who colour loves, and skin,
Loves but their oldest clothes.
The antithesis 'theirs not them' is much more pointed than 'that not
them'.
l. 46. _There is no pennance due to innocence._ I suspect that the
original cast of this line was that pointed to by the MSS.,
Here is no penance, much less innocence:
Penance and innocence alike are clothed in white. The version in the
text is a softening of the original to make it compatible with the
suggestion that the poem could be read as an epithalamium. 'Why', says
a note in the margin of the Bridgewater MS., 'may not a man write his
own epithalamium if he can do it so modestly?'