On July 8 O.S., 1604, Wotton was knighted by James, and on the 13th
sailed for Venice. 'He is a gentleman', the Venetian ambassador
reported, 'of excellent condition, wise, prudent, able. Your serenity,
it is to be hoped, will be very well pleased with him.' Mr. Pearsall
Smith adds, 'It is worth noting that while Wotton was travelling to
Venice, Shakespeare was probably engaged in writing his great Venetian
tragedy, _Othello_, which was acted before James I in November of this
year.'
PAGE =215=, ll. 21-4. _To sweare much love, &c._ The meaning of this
verse, accepting the 1633 text, is: 'Admit this honest paper to swear
much love,--a love that will not change until with your elevation to
the peerage (or increasing eminence) it must be called _honour_ rather
than _love_.' (We _honour_, not _love_, those who are high above us.)
'But when that time comes I shall not more honour your fortune,
the rank that fortune gives you, than I have honoured your honour
["nobleness of mind, scorn of meanness, magnanimity" (Johnson)], your
high character, magnanimity, without it, i.e. when yet unhonoured.'
Donne plays on the word 'honour'.
Walton's version, and the slight variant of this in _1635-69_, give
a different thought, and this is perhaps the correct reading, more
probably either another (perhaps an earlier) version of the poet or an
attempt to correct due to a failure to catch the meaning of the rather
fanciful phrase 'honouring your honour'. The meaning is, 'I shall not
then more honour your fortune than I have your wit while it was still
unhonoured, or (_1635-69_) unennobled.' The 1633 version seems to me
the more likely to be the correct or final form of the text, because
a reference to character rather than 'wit' or intellectual ability is
implied by the following verse:
But 'tis an easier load (though both oppresse)
To want then governe greatnesse, &c.
This stress on character, too, and indifference to fortune, is quite
in the vein of Donne's and Wotton's earlier verse correspondence and
all Wotton's poetry.
For the distinction between love and honour compare Lyly's _Endimion_,
V. iii. 150-80:
'_Cinthia._ Was there such a time when as for my love thou
did'st vow thyself to death, and in respect of it loth'd thy
life? Speake Endimion, I will not revenge it with hate ...
_Endimion._ My unspotted thoughts, my languishing bodie, my
discontented life, let them obtaine by princelie favour that,
which to challenge they must not presume, onelie wishing of
impossibilities: with imagination of which I will spend my
spirits, and to myselfe that no creature may heare, softlie
call it love. And if any urge to utter what I whisper, then
will I name it honor....
... _Cinthia._ Endimion, this honourable respect of thine,
shalbe christened love in thee, and my reward for it favor.'
With the lines,
Nor shall I then honour your fortune, &c.,
compare in the same play:
'O Endimion, Tellus was faire, but what availeth Beautie
without wisdom? Nay, Endimion, she was wise, but what availeth
wisdom without honour? She was honourable, Endimion, belie her
not. I, but how obscure is honour without fortune?'
II. iii. 11-17.
The antithesis here between 'honour' and 'fortune' is exactly that
which Donne makes.
If we may accept 'noble-wanting-wit' as Donne's own phrase (and
Walton's authority pleads for it) and interpret it as 'wit that yet
wants ennoblement' it forms an interesting parallel to a phrase of
Shakespeare's in _Macbeth_, when Banquo addresses the witches:
My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction,
Of noble having and of royal hope.
_Macbeth_, I. iii. 55-7.
Some editors refer 'present grace' to the first salutation, 'Thane
of Glamis'. This is unlikely as there is nothing startling in a
salutation to which Macbeth was already entitled. The Clarendon Press
editors refer the line, more probably, to the two prophecies, 'thane
of Cawdor' and 'that shalt be King hereafter'. The word 'having' is
then not _quite_ the same as in the phrases 'my having is not great',
&c., which these editors quote, but is simply opposed to 'hope'.
You greet him with 'nobility in possession', with 'royalty in
expectation', as being already thane of Cawdor, as to be king
hereafter. Shakespeare's 'noble having' is the opposite of Donne's
'noble wanting'.
One is tempted to put, as Chambers does, an emphasizing comma after
'honour' as well as 'fortune'; but the antithesis is between 'fortune'
and 'honour wanting fortune'.
'Sir Philip Sidney is none of this number; for the greatness which he
affected was built upon true Worth, esteeming Fame more than Riches,
and Noble actions far above Nobility it self.' Fulke Greville's _Life
of Sidney_, c. iii. p. 38 (_Tudor and Stuart Library_).
PAGE =216=. TO M^{rs} M. H.
I.e. Mrs. Magdalen Herbert, daughter of Sir Richard Newport, mother of
Sir Edward Herbert (Lord Herbert of Cherbury), and of George Herbert
the poet. For her friendship with Donne, see Walton's _Life of Mr.
George Herbert_ (1670), Gosse's _Life and Letters of John Donne_, i.
162 f., and what is said in the _Introduction_ to this volume and
the Introductory Note to the _Elegies_. In 1608 she married Sir John
Danvers. Her funeral sermon was preached by Donne in 1627.
PAGE =217=, l. 27. _For, speech of ill, and her, thou must abstaine._
The O.E.D. gives no example of 'abstain' thus used without 'from'
before the object, and it is tempting with _1635-69_ and all the MSS.
to change 'For' to 'From'. But none of the MSS. has great authority
textually, and the 'For' in _1633_ is too carefully comma'd off to
suggest a mere slip. Probably Donne wrote the line as it stands. One
does not miss the 'from' so much when the verb comes so long after the
object. 'Abstain' acquires the sense of 'forgo'.
ll. 31-2. _And since they'are but her cloathes, &c._ Compare:
For he who colour loves and skinne,
Loves but their oldest clothes.
_The Undertaking_, p. 10.