l. 4. _A blocke afflicts, &c._ Aesop's _Fables_. Sir Thomas Rowe
recalled Donne's use of the fable, when he was Ambassador at the Court
of the Mogul. Of Ibrahim Khan, the Governor of Surat after Zufilkhar
Khan, he writes: 'He was good but soe easy that he does no good; wee
are not lesse afflicted with a block then before with a storck.' _The
Embassy, &c._ (Hakl. Soc.), i. 82.
l. 8. _thy mistresse glasse._ This poem, like the last, is _probably_
addressed to Christopher Brooke, but it is not so headed in any
edition or MS. The Grolier Club editor ascribes the first heading to
both.
l. 14. _or like ended playes._ This suggests that the Elizabethan
stage was not so bare of furniture as used to be stated, and also that
furniture was not confined to the curtained-off rear-stage. What Donne
recalls is a stage deserted by the actors but cumbered with furniture
and decorations.
l. 16. _a frippery_, i.e. 'A place where cast-off clothes are sold',
O.E.D. 'Oh, ho, Monster; wee know what belongs to a frippery.'
_Tempest_, IV. i. 225. Here the rigging has the appearance of an
old-clothes shop.
l. 17. _No use of lanthornes._ The reference is to the lanterns in the
high sterns of the ships, used to keep the fleet together. 'There
is no fear now of our losing one another.' Each squadron of a fleet
followed the light of its Admiral. Essex speaks of having lost, or
missing, 'Sir Walter Raleigh with thirty sailes that in the night
followed his light.' _Purchas_, xx. 24-5.
l. 18. _Feathers and dust._ 'He esteemeth John Done the first poet in
the world for some things: his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by
heart; and that passage of the Calme, That dust and feathers doe not
stirre, all was soe quiet. Affirmeth Donne to have written all
his best peeces ere he was twenty-five yeares old.' _Jonson's
Conversations with Drummond._ When Donne wrote _The Calme_ he was in
his twenty-fifth year.
l. 21. _lost friends._ Raleigh and his squadron lost the main fleet
while off the coast of Spain, before they set sail definitely for
the Azores. He rejoined the fleet at the Islands. Donne's poem was
probably written in the interval.
The reading of some MSS., 'lefte friends,' is quite a possible one.
Carleton, writing from Venice to Chamberlain, says: 'Let me tell you,
for your comfort (for I imagine what is mine is yours) that my last
news from the left island ... took knowledge of my vigilancy and
diligency.' The 'left island' is Great Britain, and Donne may mean no
more than that 'we can neither get back to our friends nor on to our
enemies.' There may be no allusion to Raleigh's ships.
l. 23. _the Calenture._ 'A disease incident to sailors within the
tropics, characterized by delirium in which the patient, it is said,
fancies the sea to be green fields, and desires to leap into it.'
O.E.D. Theobald had the Calenture in mind when he conjectured that
Falstaff 'babbled o' green fields'.
PAGE =179=, l. 33. _Like Bajazet encaged, &c._: an echo of Marlowe's
_Tamburlaine_:
There whiles he lives shall Bajazet be kept;
And where I go be thus in triumph drawn:
. . . . . . . .
This is my mind, and I will have it so.
Not all the kings and emperors of the earth,
If they would lay their crowns before my feet,
Shall ransom him or take him from his cage:
The ages that shall talk of Tamburlaine,
Even from this day to Plato's wondrous year,
Shall talk how I have handled Bajazet.
There are frequent references to this scene in contemporary
literature.
ll. 35-6. _a Miriade Of Ants, &c._ 'Erat ei' (i.e. Tiberius) 'in
oblectamentis serpens draco, quem ex consuetudine manu sua cibaturus,
cum consumptum a formicis invenisset, monitus est ut vim multitudinis
caveret.' Suetonius, _Tib._ 72.
l. 37. _Sea-goales_, i.e. sea-gaols. 'goale' was a common spelling.
See next poem, l. 52, 'the worlds thy goale.' Strangely enough,
neither the Grolier Club editor nor Chambers seems to have recognized
the word here, in _The Calme_, though in the next poem they change
'goale' to 'gaol' without comment. The Grolier Club editor retains
'goales' and Chambers adopts the reading of the later editions,
'sea-gulls.' A gull would have no difficulty in overtaking the
swiftest ship which ever sailed. Grosart takes the passage correctly.
'Sea-goales' is an accurate definition of the galleys.' Finny-chips'
is a vivid description of their appearance. Compare:
One of these small bodies fitted so,
This soul inform'd, and abled it to row
Itselfe with finnie oars.
_Progresse of the Soule_, I. 23.
Never again shall I with finny oar
Put from, or draw unto the faithful shore.
Herrick, _His Tears to Thamesis_.
l. 38. _our Pinnaces._ 'Venices' is the reading of _1633_ and most of
the MSS., where, as in _1669_, the word is often spelt 'Vinices'. But
I can find no example of the word 'Venice' used for a species of ship,
and Mr. W. A. Craigie of the _Oxford English Dictionary_ tells me that
he has no example recorded. The mistake probably arose in a confusion
of P and V. The word 'Pinnace' is variously spelt, 'pynice', 'pinnes',
'pinace', &c., &c. The pinnaces were the small, light-rigged,
quick-sailing vessels which acted as scouts for the fleet.
l. 48. _A scourge, 'gainst which wee all forget to pray._ The 'forgot'
of _1669_ and several MSS. is tempting--'a scourge against which we
all in setting out forgot to pray.' I rather think, however, that what
Donne means is 'a scourge against which we all at sea always forget to
pray, for to pray for wind at sea is generally to pray for cold under
the poles, for heat in hell'. The 'forgot' makes the reference too
definite. At the same time, 'forgot' is so obvious a reading that it
is difficult to account for 'forget' except on the supposition that it
is right.
ll. 51-4. _How little more alas,
Is man now, then before he was? he was
Nothing; for us, wee are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves still disproportion it._
Donne is here playing with an antithesis which apparently he owes to
the rhetoric of Tertullian. 'Canst thou choose', says the poet in one
of his later sermons, 'but think God as perfect now, at least as he
was at first, and can he not as easily make thee up againe of nothing,
as he made thee of nothing at first? _Recogita quid fueris antequam
esses._ Think over thyselfe; what wast thou before thou wast anything?
_Meminisses utique, si fuisses_: if thou had'st been anything than,
surely thou would'st remember it now. _Qui non eras, factus es; cum
iterum non eris, fies._ Thou that wast once nothing, wast made this
that thou art now; and when thou shalt be nothing again, thou shalt be
made better then thou art yet.' _Sermons_ 50. 14. 109. A note in the
margin indicates that the quotations are from Tertullian, and Donne is
echoing here the antithetical _Recogita quid fueris antequam esses_.
This echo is certainly made more obvious to the ear by the punctuation
of _1669_, which Grosart, the Grolier Club editor, and Chambers all
follow. The last reads:
How little more, alas,
Is man now, than, before he was, he was?
Nothing for us, we are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves, still disproportion it.
This may be right; but after careful consideration I have retained the
punctuation of _1633_. In the first place, if the _1669_ text be right
it is not clear why the poet did not preserve the regular order:
Is man now than he was before he was.
To place 'he was' at the end of the line was in the circumstances to
court ambiguity, and is not metrically requisite. In the second place,
the rhetorical question asked requires an answer, and that is given
most clearly by the punctuation of _1633_. 'How little more, alas, is
man now than [he was] before he was? He was nothing; and as for us,
we are fit for nothing. Chance or ourselves still throw us out of gear
with everything.' To be nothing and to be fit for nothing--there is
all the difference. In the _1669_ version it is not easy to see the
relevance of the rhetorical question and of the line which follows:
'Nothing for us, we are for nothing fit.' This seems to introduce a
new thought, a fresh antithesis. It is not quite true. A breeze would
fit them very well.
The use of 'for' in 'for us', as I have taken it, is quite idiomatic:
For me, I am the mistress of my fate.
Shakespeare, _Rape of Lucrece_, 1021.
For the rest o' the fleet, they all have met again.
Id., _The Tempest_, I. i. 232.
PAGE =180=. TO S^r HENRY WOTTON.
The occasion of this letter was apparently (see my article, _Bacon's
Poem, The World: Its Date And Relation to Certain Other Poems_: _Mod.
Lang. Rev._, April, 1911) a literary _débat_ among some of the wits of
Essex's circle. The subject of the _débat_ was 'Which kind of life is
best, that of Court, Country, or City?' and the suggestion came from
the two epigrams in the Greek Anthology attributed to Posidippus and
Metrodorus respectively. In the first ([Greek: Poiên tis biotoio tamê
tribon?]) each kind of life in turn is condemned; in the second each
is defended. These epigrams were paraphrased in _Tottel's Miscellany_
(1557) by Nicholas Grimald, and again in the _Arte of English Poesie_
(1589), attributed to George Puttenham. Stimulated perhaps by the
latter version, in which the Court first appears as one of the
principal spheres of life, or by Ronsard's French version in which
also the 'cours des Roys', unknown to the Greek poet, are introduced,
Bacon wrote his well-known paraphrase:
The world's a bubble: and the life of man
Less than a span.
It is just possible too that he wrote a paraphrase, similar in verse,
of the second epigram, which I have printed in the article referred
to. A copy of _The World_ was found among Wotton's papers and was
printed in the _Reliquiae Wottonianae_ (1651) signed 'Fra. Lord
Bacon'. It had already been published by Thomas Farnaby in his
_Florilegium Epigrammatum Graecorum &c._ (1629). Bacon probably gave
Wotton a copy and he appears to have shown it to his friends. Among
these was Thomas Bastard, who, to judge by the numerous epigrams he
addressed to Essex, belonged to the same circle as Bacon, Donne, and
Wotton,--if we may so describe it, but probably every young man of
letters looked to Essex for patronage. Bastard's poem runs:
Ad Henricum Wottonum.
Wotton, the country, and the country swayne,
How can they yeeld a Poet any sense?
How can they stirre him up or heat his vaine?
How can they feed him with intelligence?
You have that fire which can a witt enflame
In happy London Englands fayrest eye:
Well may you Poets have of worthy name
Which have the foode and life of Poetry.
And yet the Country or the towne may swaye
Or beare a part, as clownes do in a play.
Donne was one of those to whom Wotton showed Bacon's poem, and the
result was the present letter which occasionally echoes Bacon's words.
Wotton replied to it in some characteristic verses preserved in _B_
(Lord Ellesmere's MS.) and _P_ (belonging to Captain Harris). I print
it from the former:
_To J: D: from M^r H: W:_
Worthie Sir:
Tis not a coate of gray or Shepheards life,
Tis not in feilds or woods remote to live,
That adds or takes from one that peace or strife,
Which to our dayes such good or ill doth give:
It is the mind that make the mans estate 5
For ever happy or unfortunate.
Then first the mind of passions must be free
Of him that would to happiness aspire;
Whether in Princes Pallaces he bee,
Or whether to his cottage he retire; 10
For our desires that on extreames are bent
Are frends to care and traitors to content.
Nor should wee blame our frends though false they bee
Since there are thousands false, for one that's true,
But our own blindness, that we cannot see 15
To chuse the best, although they bee but few:
For he that every fained frend will trust,
Proves true to frend, but to himself unjust.
The faults wee have are they that make our woe,
Our virtues are the motives of our joye, 20
Then is it vayne, if wee to desarts goe
To seek our bliss, or shroud us from annoy:
Our place need not be changed, but our Will,
For every where wee may do good or ill.
But this I doe not dedicate to thee, 25
As one that holds himself fitt to advise,
Or that my lines to him should precepts be
That is less ill then I, and much more wise:
Yet 'tis no harme mortality to preach,
For men doe often learne when they do teach.
The date of the _débat_ is before April 1598, when Bastard's
_Chrestoleros_ was entered on the Stationers' Register, probably
1597-8, the interval between the return of the Islands Expedition and
Donne's entry into the household of Sir Thomas Egerton. Mr. Chambers
has shown that during this interval Donne was occasionally employed
by Cecil to carry letters to and from the Commanders of the English
forces still in France. But it was not till about April 1598 that he
found permanent employment.
l. 8. _Remoraes_; Browne doubts 'whether the story of the remora be
not unreasonably amplified'. The name is given to any of the fish
belonging to the family Echeneididae, which by means of a suctorial
disk situated on the top of the head adhere to sharks, other large
fishes, vessels, &c., letting go when they choose. The ancient
naturalists reported that they could arrest a ship in full course. See
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Lib. xiii, _De Aqua et ejus Ornatu_.
l. 11. _the even line_ is the reading of all the MS. copies, and must
have been taken from one of these by the 1669 editor. The use of the
word is archaic and therefore more probably Donne's than an editor's
emendation. Compare Chaucer's 'Of his stature he was of even length',
i.e. 'a just mean between extremes, of proper magnitude or degree'.
The 'even line' is, as the context shows, the exact mean between
the 'adverse icy poles'. I suspect that 'raging' is an editorial
emendation. There are several demonstrable errors in the 1633 text
of this poem. The 'other' of _P_, and 'over' of _S_, are errors which
point to 'even' rather than 'raging'.
l. 12. _th'adverse icy poles._ The 'poles' of most MSS. is obviously
necessary if we are to have _two_ temperate regions. The expression is
a condensed one for 'either of the adverse icy poles'. Compare:
He that at sea prayes for more winde, as well
Under the poles may begge cold, heat in hell.
One cannot be under both the poles at once. One is 'under' the pole in
Donne's cosmology because the poles are not the termini of the earth's
axis but of the heavens'. 'For the North and Southern Pole, are the
invariable terms of that Axis whereon the Heavens do move.' Browne,
_Pseud. Epidem._ vi. 7.
Tristior illa
Terra sub ambobus non iacet ulla polis.
Ovid, _Pont._ ii. 7. 64.
l. 17. _Can dung and garlike, &c._ This is the text of the 1633
edition made consistent with itself, and it has the support of several
MSS. Clearly if we are to read 'or' in one line we must do so in both,
and adopt the _1635-69_ text. It is tempting at first sight to do so,
but I believe the MSS. are right. What Donne means is, 'Can we procure
a perfume, or a medicine, by blending opposite stenches or poisons?'
This is his expansion of the question, 'Shall cities, built of
both extremes, be chosen?' The change to 'or' obscures the exact
metaphysical point. It would be an improvement perhaps to bracket the
lines as parenthetical.
According to Donne's medical science the scorpion (probably its flesh)
was an antidote to its own poison: 'I have as many Antidotes as the
Devill hath poisons, I have as much mercy as the Devill hath malice;
There must be scorpions in the world; _but the Scorpion shall cure the
Scorpion_; there must be tentations; but tentations shall adde to mine
and to thy glory, and _Eripiam_, I will deliver thee.' _Sermons_ 80.
52. 527. Obviously Donne could not ask in surprise, 'Can a Scorpion or
Torpedo cure a man?' Each can; it is their combination he deprecates.
In _Ignatius his Conclave_ he writes, 'and two Poysons mingled might
do no harme.'
In speaking of scent made from dung Donne has probably the statement
of Paracelsus in his mind to which Sir Thomas Browne also refers: 'And
yet if, as Paracelsus encourageth, Ordure makes the best Musk, and
from the most fetid substances may be drawn the most odoriferous
Essences; all that had not Vespasian's nose, might boldly swear, here
was a subject fit for such extractions.' _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, iii.
26.
PAGE =181=, ll. 19-20. _Cities are worst of all three; of all three
(O knottie riddle) each is worst equally._
This is the punctuation of _1633_ and of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _W_.
The later punctuation which Chambers has adopted and modernized, is
not found to be an improvement if scrutinized. He reads:
Cities are worst of all three; of all three?
O knotty riddle! each is worst equally.
The mark of interrogation after 'three' would be justifiable only if
the poet were going to expatiate upon the badness of cities. 'Of all
three? that is saying very little, &c., &c.' But this is not the tenor
of the passage. From one thought he is led to another. 'Cities are
worst of all three (i.e. Court, City, Country). Nay, each is equally
the worst.' The interjected 'O knottie riddle' does not mean, 'Who is
to say which is the worst?' but 'How can it come that each is worst?
This is a riddle!' Donne here echoes Bacon:
And where's the citty from foul vice so free
But may be term'd the worst of all the three?
ll. 25-6. _The country is a desert, &c._ The evidence for this reading
is so overwhelming that it is impossible to reject it. I have modified
the punctuation to bring out more clearly what I take it to mean. 'The
country is a desert where no goodness is native, and therefore rightly
understood. Goodness in the country is like a foreign language, a
faculty not born with us, but acquired with pain, and never thoroughly
understood and mastered.' Only Dr. Johnson could stigmatize in
adequate terms so harsh a construction, but the _1635-54_ emendation
is not less obscure. Does it mean that any good which comes there
quits it with all speed, while that which is native and must stay is
not understood? This is not a lucid or just enough thought to warrant
departure from the better authorized text.
l. 27. _prone to more evills_; The reading 'mere evils' of several
MSS., including _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, is tempting and _may_ be right.
In that case 'meere' has the now obsolete meaning of 'pure,
unadulterated', 'meere English', 'meere Irish', &c. in O.E.D., or
more fully, 'absolute, entire, sheer, perfect, downright', as in
'Th'obstinacie, willfull disobedience, meere lienge and disceite of
the countrie gentlemen,' _Hist. MSS. Com._ (1600), quoted in O.E.D.;
'the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet,' Shakespeare, _Othello_,
II. ii. 3. Such a strong adjective would however come better after
'devills' in the next line. Placed here it disturbs the climax. What
Donne says here is that men in the country become beasts, and more
prone to evil than beasts because of their higher faculties:
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damn'd; Alas; why should I bee?
Why should intent or reason, borne in mee,
Make sinnes, else equall, in mee more heinous?
_Holy Sonnets_, IX, p. 326.
And in this same letter, ll. 41-2, he develops the thought further.
PAGE =182=, ll. 59-62. _Only in this one thing, be no Galenist, &c._
The Galenists perceived in the living body four humours; hot, cold,
moist, and dry, and held that in health these were present in fixed
proportions. Diseases were due to disturbance of these proportions,
and were to be cured by correction of the disproportion by drugs,
these being used as they were themselves hot, cold, moist, or dry; to
add to whichever humours were defective. The chymiques or school of
Paracelsus, held that each disease had an essence which might be got
rid of by being purged or driven from the body by an antagonistic
remedy.
PAGE =183=. TO S^r HENRY GOODYERE.
Goodyere and Walton form between them the Boswell to whom we owe
our fullest and most intimate knowledge of the life of Donne. To
the former he wrote apparently a weekly letter in the years of his
residence at Pyrford, Mitcham, and London. And Goodyere preserved
his letters and his poems. Of the letters published by Donne's son
in 1651-4, the greatest number, as well as the most interesting and
intimate, are addressed to Goodyere. Some appeared with the first
edition of the poems, and it is ultimately to Goodyere that we
probably owe the generally sound text of that edition.
Sir Henry Goodyere was the son of Sir William Goodyere of Monks Kirby
in Warwickshire, who was knighted by James in 1603, and was the nephew
of Sir Henry Goodyere (1534-95) of Polesworth in Warwickshire. The
older Sir Henry had got into trouble in connexion with one of the
conspiracies on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots, but redeemed his good
name by excellent service in the Low Countries, where he was knighted
by Leicester. He married Frances, daughter of Hugh Lowther of Lowther,
Westmoreland, and left two daughters, Frances and Anne. The latter,
who succeeded the Countess of Bedford as patroness to the poet Michael
Drayton and as the 'Idea' of his sonnets, married Sir Henry Raynsford.
The former married her cousin, the son of Sir William, and made
him proprietor of Polesworth, to which repeated allusion is made in
Donne's _Letters_. He was knighted, in 1599, in Dublin, by Essex. He
is addressed as a knight by Donne in 1601, and appears as such in
the earliest years of King James. (See Nichol's _Progresses of King
James_.)
He was a friend of wits and poets and himself wrote occasional
verses in rivalry with his friends. Like Donne he wrote satirical
congratulatory verses for _Coryats Crudities_ (1611) and an elegy
on Prince Henry for the second edition of Sylvester's _Lachrymae
Lachrymarum_ (1613), and there are others in MS., including an
_Epithalamium_ on Princess Elizabeth.
The estate which Goodyere inherited was apparently encumbered, and he
was himself generous and extravagant. He was involved all his life in
money troubles and frequently petitioned for relief and appointments.
It was to him probably that Donne made a present of one hundred pounds
when his own fortunes had bettered. The date of the present letter was
between 1605 and 1608, when Donne was living at Mitcham. These were
the years in which Goodyere was a courtier. In 1604-5 £120 was stolen
from his chamber 'at Court', and in 1605 he participated in the
jousting at the Barriers. Life at the dissolute and glittering Court
of James I was ruinously extravagant, and the note of warning in
Donne's poem is very audible. Sir Henry Goodyere died in March 1627-8.
Additional MS. 23229 (_A23_) contains the following:
Funerall Verses sett on the hearse } of Polesworth.
of Henry Goodere knighte; late }
[March 18. 1627/8 c.]
Esteemed knight take triumph over deathe,
And over tyme by the eternal fame
Of Natures workes, while God did lende thee breath;
Adornd with witt and skill to rule the same.
But what avayles thy gifts in such degrees
Since fortune frownd, and worlde had spite at these.
Heaven be thy rest, on earth thy lot was toyle;
Thy private loss, ment to thy countryes gayne,
Bredde grief of mynde, which in thy brest did boyle,
Confyning cares whereof the scarres remayne.
Enjoy by death such passage into lyfe
As frees thee quyte from thoughts of worldly stryfe.
WM. GOODERE.
Camden transcribes his epitaph:
An ill yeare of a Goodyere us bereft,
Who gon to God much lacke of him here left;
Full of good gifts, of body and of minde,
Wise, comely, learned, eloquent and kinde.
The Epitaph is probably by the same author as the _Verses_, a nephew
perhaps. Sir Henry's son predeceased him.
PAGE =183=, l. 1. It is not necessary to change 'the past' of
_1633-54_ to 'last' with _1669_. 'The past year' is good English for
'last year'.
PAGE =184=, l. 27. _Goe; whither? Hence; &c._ My punctuation, which
is that of some MSS., follows Donne's usual arrangement in dialogue,
dividing the speeches by semicolons. Chambers's textual note
misrepresents the earlier editions. He attributes to _1633-54_
the reading, 'Go whither? hence you get'. But they have all 'Goe,
whither?', and _1633_ has 'hence;' _1635-54_ drop this semicolon.
In _1669_ the text runs, 'Goe, whither. Hence you get,' &c. The
semicolon, however, is better than the full stop after 'Hence', as the
following clause is expansive and explanatory: 'Anywhere will do so
long as it is out of this. In such cases as yours, to forget is itself
a gain.'
l. 34. The modern editors, by dropping the comma after 'asham'd', have
given this line the opposite meaning to what Donne intended. I have
therefore, to avoid ambiguity, inserted one before. Sir Henry Goodyere
is not to be asham'd to imitate his hawk, but is, _through shame_,
to emulate that noble bird by growing more sparing of extravagant
display. 'But the sporte which for that daie Basilius would
principally shewe to Zelmane, was the mounting at a Hearne, which
getting up on his wagling wings with paine ... was now growen to
diminish the sight of himself, and to give example to greate persons,
that the higher they be the lesse they should show.' Sidney's
_Arcadia_, ii. 4.
Goodyere's fondness for hawking is referred to in one of Donne's prose
letters, 'God send you Hawks and fortunes of a high pitch' (_Letters_,
p. 204), and by Jonson in _Epigram LXXXV_.
l. 44. _Tables, or fruit-trenchers._ I have let the 'Tables' of
_1633-54_ stand, although 'Fables' has the support of _all_ the MSS.
T is easily confounded with F. In the very next poem _1633-54_ read
'Termers' where I feel sure that 'Farmers' (spelt 'Fermers') is the
correct reading. Moreover, Donne makes several references to the
'morals' of fables:
The fable is inverted, and far more
A block inflicts now, then a stork before.
_The Calme_, ll. 4-5.
O wretch, that thy fortunes should moralize
Aesop's fables, and make tales prophesies.
_Satyre V._
If 'Tables' is the correct reading, Donne means, I take it, not
portable memorandum books such as Hamlet carried (this is Professor
Norton's explanation), but simply pictures (as in 'Table-book'),
probably Emblems.
PAGE =185=. TO M^r ROWLAND WOODWARD.
Rowland Woodward was a common friend of Donne and Wotton. The fullest
account of Woodward is given by Mr. Pearsall Smith (_The Life and
Letters of Sir Henry Wotton_, 1907). Of his early life unfortunately
he can tell us little or nothing. He seems to have gone to Venice
with Wotton in 1604, at least he was there in 1605. This letter was,
therefore, written probably before that date. One MS., viz. _B_,
states that it was written 'to one that desired some of his papers'.
It is quite likely that Woodward, preparing to leave England, had
asked Donne for copies of his poems, and Donne, now a married man,
and, if not disgraced, yet living in 'a retiredness' at Pyrford or
Camberwell, was not altogether disposed to scatter his indiscretions
abroad. He enjoins privacy in like manner on Wotton when he sends
him some Paradoxes. Donne, it will be seen, makes no reference to
Woodward's going abroad or being in Italy.
While with Wotton he was sent as a spy to Milan and imprisoned by the
Inquisition. In 1607, while bringing home dispatches, he was attacked
by robbers and left for dead. On Feb. 2, 1608, money was paid to his
brother, Thomas Woodward (the T. W. of several of Donne's _Letters_),
for Rowland's 'surgeons and diets'. In 1608 he entered the service
of the Bishop of London. For subsequent incidents in his career see
Pearsall Smith, op. cit. ii. 481. He died sometime before April 1636.
It is clear that the MSS. _Cy_, _O'F_, _P_, _S96_ have derived this
poem from a common source, inferior to that from which the _1633_ text
is derived, which has the general support of the best MSS. These MSS.
agree in the readings: 3 'holiness', but _O'F_ corrects, 10 'to use
it,' 13 'whites' _Cy_, _O'F_, 14 'Integritie', but _O'F_ corrects, 33
'good treasure'. It is clear that a copy of this tradition fell into
the hands of the _1635_ editor. His text is a contamination of the
better and the inferior versions. The strange corruption of 4-6 began
by the mistake of 'flowne' for 'showne'. In _O'F_ and the editions
_1635-54_ the sense is adjusted to this by reading, 'How long loves
weeds', and making the two lines an exclamation. The 'good treasure'
(l. 33) of _1635-69_, which Chambers has adopted, comes from this
source also. The reading at l. 10 is interesting; 'to use it', for 'to
us, it', has obviously arisen from 'to use and love Poetrie' of the
previous verse. In the case of 'seeme but light and thin' we have an
emendation, even in the inferior version, made for the sake of the
metre (which is why Chambers adopted it), for though _Cy_, _O'F_, and
_P_ have it, _S96_ reads:
Thoughe to use it, seeme and be light and thin.
l. 2. _a retirednesse._ This reading of some MSS., including _W_,
which is a very good authority for these Letters, is quite possibly
authentic. It is very like Donne to use the article; it was very easy
for a copyist to drop it. Compare the dropping of 'a' before 'span' in
_Crucifying_ (p. 320), l. 8. The use of abstracts as common nouns with
the article, or in the plural, is a feature of Donne's syntax. He does
so in the next line: 'a chast fallownesse'. Again: 'Beloved, it is not
enough to awake out of an ill sleepe of sinne, or of ignorance, or out
of a good sleep, _out of a retirednesse_, and take some profession, if
you winke, or hide your selves, when you are awake.' _Sermons_ 50.
11. 90. 'It is not that he shall have no adversary, nor that that
adversary shall be able to doe him no harm, but that he should have a
refreshing, a respiration, _In velamento alarum_, under the shadow
of Gods wings.' _Sermons_ 80. 66. 670--where also we find 'an
extraordinary sadnesse, a predominant melancholy, a faintnesse of
heart, a chearlessnesse, a joylessnesse of spirit' (Ibid. 672). Donne
does not mean to say that he is 'tied to retirednesse', a recluse. The
letter was not written after he was in orders, but probably, like the
preceding, when he was at Pyrford or Mitcham (1602-8). He is tied to
a degree of retirednesse (compared with his early life) or a period of
retiredness. He does not compare himself to a Nun but to a widow.
Even a third widowhood is not necessarily a final state. 'So all
retirings', he says in a letter to Goodyere, 'into a shadowy life are
alike from all causes, and alike subject to the barbarousnesse and
insipid dulnesse of the Country.' _Letters_, p. 63. But the phrase
here applies primarily to the Nun and the widow.
l. 3. _fallownesse_; I have changed the full stop of _1633-54_ to a
semicolon here because I take the next three lines to be an adverbial
clause giving the reason why Donne's muse 'affects ... a chast
fallownesse'. The full stop disguises this, and Chambers, by keeping
the full stop here but changing that after 'sown' (l. 6), has thrown
the reference of the clause forward to 'Omissions of good, ill, as ill
deeds bee.'--not a happy arrangement.
ll. 16-18. _There is no Vertue, &c._ Donne refers here to the Cardinal
Virtues which the Schoolmen took over from Aristotle. There are,
Aquinas demonstrates, four essential virtues of human nature:
'Principium enim formale virtutis, de qua nunc loquimur, est rationis
bonum. Quod quidem dupliciter potest considerari: uno modo secundum
quod in ipsa consideratione consistit; et sic erit una virtus
principalis, quae dicitur _prudentia_. Alio modo secundum quod circa
aliquid ponitur rationis ordo; et hoc vel circa operationes, et sic
est _justitia_; vel circa passiones, et sic necesse est esse duas
virtutes. Ordinem enim rationis necesse est ponere circa passiones,
considerata repugnantia ipsarum ad rationem. Quae quidem potest
esse dupliciter: uno modo secundum quod passio impellit ad aliquid
contrarium rationi; et sic necesse est quod passio reprimatur, et ab
hoc denominatur _temperantia_; alio modo secundum quod passio retrahit
ab eo quod ratio dictat, sicut timor periculorum vel laborum; et sic
necesse est quod homo firmetur in eo quod est rationis, ne recedat; et
ab hoc denominatur _fortitudo_.' _Summa, Prima Secundae_, 61. 2.
Since the Cardinal Virtues thus cover the whole field, what place is
reserved for the Theological Virtues, viz., Faith, Hope, and Charity?
Aquinas's reply is quite definite: 'Virtutes theologicae sunt
supra hominem ... Unde non proprie dicuntur virtutes _humanae_ sed
_suprahumanae_, vel _divinae_.' Ibid., 61. 1. Donne here exclaims that
the cardinal virtues themselves are non-existent without religion.
They are, isolated from religion, habits which any one can assume
who has the discretion to cover his vices. Religion not only gives us
higher virtues but alone gives sincerity to the natural virtues. Donne
is probably echoing St. Augustine, _De Civ. Dei_, xviiii. 25: '_Quod
non possint ibi verae esse virtutes, ubi non est vera religio_.
Quamlibet enim videatur animus corpori et ratio vitiis laudibiliter
imperare, si Deo animus et ratio ipsa non servit, sicut sibi esse
serviendum ipse Deus precepit, nullo modo corpori vitiisque recte
imperat. Nam qualis corporis atque vitiorum potest esse mens domina
veri Dei nescia nec eius imperio subjugata, sed vitiosissimis
daemonibus corrumpentibus prostituta? Proinde virtutes quas habere
sibi videtur per quas imperat corpori et vitiis, ad quodlibet
adipiscendum vel tenendum rettulerit nisi ad Deum, etiam ipsae vitia
sunt potius quam virtutes. Nam licet a quibusdam tunc verae atque
honestae esse virtutes cum referentur ad se ipsas nec propter
aliud expetuntur: etiam tunc inflatae et superbae sunt, et ideo non
virtutes, sed vitia iudicanda sunt. Sicut enim non est a carne sed
super carnem quod carnem facit vivere; sic non est ab homine sed super
hominem quod hominem facit beate vivere: nec solum hominem, sed etiam
quamlibet potestatem virtutemque caelestem.'
PAGE =186=, ll. 25-7. _You know, Physitians, &c._ Paracelsus refers
more than once to the heat of horse-dung used in 'separations', e.g.
_On the Separations of the Elements from Metals_ he enjoins that when
the metal has been reduced to a liquid substance you must 'add to
one part of this oil two parts of fresh _aqua fortis_, and when it
is enclosed in glass of the best quality, set it in horse-dung for a
month'.
l. 31. _Wee are but farmers of our selves._ The reading of _1633_ is
'termers', and as in 'Tables' 'Fables' of the preceding poem it is not
easy to determine which is original. 'Termer' of course, in the sense
of 'one who holds for a term' (see O.E.D.), would do. It is the more
general word and would include 'Farmer'. A farmer generally is a
'termer' in the land which he works. I think, however, that the rest
of the verse shows that 'farmer' is used in a more positive sense
than would be covered by 'termer'. The metaphor includes not only
the terminal occupancy but the specific work of the farmer--stocking,
manuring, uplaying.
Donne's metaphor is perhaps borrowed by Benlowes when he says of the
soul:
She her own farmer, stock'd from Heav'n is bent
To thrive; care 'bout the pay-day's spent.
Strange! she alone is farmer, farm, and stock, and rent.
Donne in a sermon for the 5th of November speaks of those who will
have the King to be 'their Farmer of his Kingdome.' _Sermons_ 50. 43.
403.
It must be remembered that in MS. 'Fermer' and 'Termer' would be
easily interchanged.
l. 34. _to thy selfe be approv'd._ There is no reason to prefer the
_1669_ 'improv'd' here. To be 'improv'd to oneself' is not a very
lucid phrase. What Donne bids Woodward do is to seek the approval
of his own conscience. His own conscience is contrasted with 'vaine
outward things'. Donne has probably Epictetus in mind: 'How then may
this be attained?--Resolve now if never before, to approve thyself to
thyself; resolve to show thyself fair in God's sight; long to be pure
with thine own pure self and God.' _Golden Sayings_, lxxvi., trans. by
Crossley.
PAGE =187=. TO S^r HENRY WOOTTON.
The date of this letter is given in two MSS. as July 20, 1598. Its
tone is much the same as that of the previous letter (p. 180) and
of both the fourth and fifth _Satyres_. The theme of them all is the
Court.
l. 2. _Cales or St Michaels tale._ The point of this allusion was
early lost and has been long in being recovered. The spelling 'Calis'
is a little misleading, as it was used both for Calais and for
Cadiz. In Sir Francis Vere's _Commentaries_ (1657) he speaks of 'The
Calis-journey' and the 'Island voiage'. I have taken 'Cales' from some
MSS. as less ambiguous. All the modern editors have printed 'Calais',
and Grosart considers the allusion to be to the Armada, Norton to the
'old wars with France'. The reference is to the Cadiz expedition
and the Island voyage: 'Why should I tell you what we both know?' In
speaking of 'St. Michaels tale' Donne may be referring to the attack
on that particular island, which led to the loss of the opportunity
to capture the plate-fleet. But the 'Islands of St. Michael' was a
synonym for the Azores. 'Thus the ancient Cosmographers do place the
division of the East and Western Hemispheres, that is, the first term
of longitude, in the _Canary_ or fortunate Islands; conceiving these
parts the extreamest habitations Westward: But the Moderns have
altered that term, and translated it unto the _Azores_ or Islands
of St Michael; and that upon a plausible conceit of the small or
insensible variation of the Compass in those parts,' &c. Browne,
_Pseud. Epidem._ vi. 7.
ll. 10-11. _Fate, (Gods Commissary)_: i.e. God's Deputy or Delegate.
Compare:
Fate, which God made, but doth not control.
_The Progresse of the Soule_, p. 295, l. 2.
Great Destiny the Commissary of God
That hast mark'd out a path and period
For every thing ...
Ibid., p. 296, ll. 31 f.
The idea that Fate or Fortune is the deputy of God in the sphere of
external goods ([Greek: ta ektos agatha], i beni del mondo) is very
clearly expressed by Dante in the _Convivio_, iv. 11, and in the
_Inferno_, vi. 67 f.: '"Master," I said to him, "now tell me also:
this Fortune of which thou hintest to me; what is she, that has the
good things of the world thus within her clutches?" And he to me, "O
foolish creatures, how great is this ignorance that falls upon ye!
Now I wish thee to receive my judgement of her. He whose wisdom
is transcendent over all, made the heavens" (i.e. the nine moving
spheres) "and gave them guides" (Angels, Intelligences); "so that
every part may shine to every part equally distributing the light. In
like manner, for worldly splendours, he ordained a general minister
and guide (ministro e duce); to change betimes the vain possessions,
from people to people, and from one kindred to another, beyond
the hindrance of human wisdom. Hence one people commands, another
languishes; obeying her sentence, which is hidden like the serpent in
the grass. Your knowledge cannot withstand her. She provides,
judges, and maintains her kingdom, as the other gods do theirs. Her
permutations have no truce. Necessity makes her be swift; so oft come
things requiring change. This is she, who is so much reviled, even by
those who ought to praise her, when blaming her wrongfully, and with
evil words. But she is in bliss, and hears it not. With the other
Primal Creatures joyful, she wheels her sphere, and tastes her
blessedness."' Dante finds in this view the explanation of the want of
anything like distributive justice in the assignment of wealth, power,
and worldly glory. Dante speaks here of Fortune, but though in
its original conception at the opposite pole from Fate, Fortune is
ultimately included in the idea of Fate. 'Necessity makes her be
swift.' 'Sed talia maxime videntur esse contingentia quae Fato
attribuuntur.' Aquinas. The relation of Fate or Destiny to God or
Divine Providence is discussed by Boethius, _De Cons. Phil._ IV.
_Prose_ III, whom Aquinas follows, _Summa_, I. cxvi. Ultimately the
immovable Providence of God is the cause of all things; but viewed in
the world of change and becoming, accidents or events are ascribed to
Destiny. 'Uti est ad intellectum ratiocinatio; ad id quod est, id quod
gignitur; ad aeternitatem, tempus; ad punctum medium, circulus; ita
est fati series mobilis ad Providentiae stabilem simplicitatem.'
Boethius. This is clearly what Donne has in view when he calls Destiny
the Commissary of God or declares that God made but doth not control
her. The idea of Fate in Greek thought which Christian Philosophy
had some difficulty in adjusting to its doctrines of freedom
and providence came from the astronomico-religious ideas of the
Chaldaeans. The idea of Fate 'arose from the observation of the
regularity of the sidereal movements'. Franz Cumont, _Astrology and
Religion among the Greeks and Romans_, 1912, pp. 28, 69.
l. 14. _wishing prayers._ This may be a phrase corresponding to
'bidding prayers', but 'wishing' is comma'd off as a noun in some MSS.
and 'wishes' may be the author's correction.
PAGE =188=, l. 24. _dull Moralls of a game at Chests._ The comparison
of life and especially politics to a game of chess is probably an old
one. Sancho Panza develops it with considerable eloquence.