PAGE =252=, l. 43.
_These Hymnes thy issue, may encrease so long,
As till Gods great Venite change the song_.
This is the punctuation of the editions _1612_ to _1633_. Grosart,
Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor follow the later editions,
_1635-69_, in dropping the comma after 'issue', which thus becomes
object to 'encrease'. 'These hymns may encrease thy issue so long,
&c.' This does not seem to me to harmonize so well with l. 44 as the
older punctuation of l. 43. 'These Hymns, which are thy issue,
may encrease'(used intransitively, as in the phrase 'increase and
multiply') 'so long as till, &c.' This suggests that the Hymns
themselves will live and sound in men's ears, quickening in them
virtue and religion, till they are drowned in the greater music of
God's _Venite_. The modern version is compatible with the death of the
hymns, but the survival of their issue.
l. 48. _To th'only Health, to be Hydroptique so._ Here again Grosart,
Chambers, and the Grolier Club editor have agreed in following the
editions _1625-69_ against the earlier ones, _1612_ and _1621_. These
have connected 'to be Hydroptic so' with what follows:
to be hydroptic so,
Forget this rotten world ...
But surely the full stop after 'so' in _1612_ is right, and 'to be
Hydroptique so' is Donne's definition of 'th'only Health'. 'Thirst is
the symptom of dropsy; and a continual thirst for God's safe-sealing
bowl is the best symptom of man's spiritual health.'
'Gods safe-sealing bowl' is of course the Eucharist: 'When thou
commest to this seal of thy peace, the Sacrament, pray that God will
give thee that light, that may direct and establish thee, in necessary
and fundamentall things: that is the light of faith to see, that the
Body and Blood of Christ is applied to thee in that action; But
for the manner, how the Body and Bloud of Christ is there, wait his
leisure if he have not yet manifested that to thee.' _Sermons, &c._
PAGE =253=, l. 72. _Because shee was the forme, that made it live_:
i.e. the soul of the world. Aquinas, after discussion, accepts the
Aristotelian view that the soul is united to the body as its form,
that in virtue of which the body lives and functions. 'Illud enim quo
primo aliquid operatur, est forma eius cui operatio attribuitur ...
Manifestum est autem quod primum quo corpus vivit, est anima. Et cum
vita manifestetur secundum diversas operationes, in diversis gradibus
viventium, id quo primo operamur unumquodque horum operum vitae, est
anima. Anima enim est primum quo nutrimur, et sentimus, et movemur
secundum locum, et similiter quo primo intelligimus. Hoc ergo
principium quo primo intelligimus, sive dicatur intellectus, sive
anima intellectiva, est forma corporis. Et haec est demonstratio
Aristotelis in 2 de Anima, text. 24.' Aquinas goes on to show that
any other relation as of part to whole, or mover to thing moved, is
unthinkable, _Summa_ I. lxxvi. i. Elizabeth Drury in like manner
was the form of the world, that in virtue of which it lived and
functioned.
PAGE =254=, l. 92. _Division_: a series of notes forming one melodic
sequence:
and streightway she
Carves out her dainty voice as readily,
Into a thousand sweet distinguish'd Tones,
And reckons up in soft divisions
Quicke volumes of wild Notes.
Crashaw, _Musicks Duell_.
l. 102. _Satans Sergeants_, i.e. bailiffs, watching to arrest for
debt. Compare:
as this fell Sergeant, Death,
Is strict in his arrest.
Shakespeare, _Hamlet_, V.
l. 120. _but a Saint Lucies night._ Compare p. 44. 'Saint Lucies
night' is the longest in the year, yet it too passes, is only a night.
Death is a long sleep, yet a sleep from which we shall awaken. So the
Psalmist compares life to 'a watch in the night', which _seems_ so
long and _is_ so short.
ll. 123-6. _Shee whose Complexion, &c._: i.e. 'in whose temperaments
the humours were in such perfect equilibrium that no one could
overgrow the others and bring dissolution':
What ever dyes, was not mixt equally.
_The good-morrow._
And see the note to p. 182, ll. 59-62.
PAGE =255=, l. 127. _Mithridate_: a universal antidote or preservative
against poison and infectious diseases, made by the compounding
together of many ingredients. It was also known as 'Theriaca' and
'triacle': 'As it is truly and properly said, that there are more
ingredients, more simples, more means of restoring in our dram of
triacle or mithridate then in an ounce of any particular syrup, in
which there may be 3 or 4, in the other perchance, so many hundred.'
_Sermons_ 26. 20. 286-7. Vipers were added to the other ingredients by
Andromachus, physician to the Emperor Nero, whence the name 'theriaca'
or 'triacle': 'Can an apothecary make a sovereign triacle of Vipers
and other poysons, and cannot God admit offences and scandalls into
his physick.' _Sermons_ 50. 17. 143. See _To S^r Henry Wotton_, p.
180, l. 18 and note.
ll. 143-6. Compare p. 269, ll. 71-6.
l. 152. _Heaven was content, &c._ 'And from the days of John the
Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the
violent take it by force.' Matthew xi. 12.
l. 158. _wast made but in a sinke._ Compare: 'Formatus est homo ... de
spurcissimo spermate.' Pope Innocent, _De Contemptu Mundi_; and
With Goddes owene finger wroght was he,
And nat begeten of mannes sperme unclene.
Chaucer, _Monkes Tale_.
PAGE =256=, ll. 159-62. _Thinke that ... first of growth._ According
to Aquinas, who follows Aristotle, the souls of growth, of sense, and
of intelligence are not in man distinct and (as Plato had suggested)
diversely located in the liver, heart, and brain, but are merged in
one: 'Sic igitur anima intellectiva continet in sua virtute quidquid
habet anima sensitiva brutorum et nutritiva plantarum,' _Summa_ I.
lxxvi. 3. He cites Aristotle, _De Anima_, ii. 30-1.
l. 190. _Meteors._ See note to _The Storme_, l. 13. A meteor was
regarded as due to the effect of the air's cold region on exhalations
from the earth:
If th'Exhalation hot and oily prove,
And yet (as feeble) giveth place above
To th'Airy Regions ever-lasting Frost,
Incessantly th'apt-tinding fume is tost
Till it inflame: then like a Squib it falls,
Or fire-wing'd shaft, or sulphry Powder-Balls.
But if this kind of Exhalation tour
Above the walls of Winters icy bowr
'T-inflameth also; and anon becomes
A new strange Star, presaging wofull dooms.
Sylvester's _Du Bartas. Second Day of the First Weeke._
i.e. a Meteor below the middle region, it becomes a Comet above.
l. 189 to PAGE =257=, l. 206. Donne summarizes in these lines the old
concentric arrangement of the Universe as we find it in Dante. Leaving
the elements of earth and water the soul passes through the regions of
the air (including the central one where snow and hail and meteors
are generated), and through the element of fire to the Moon, thence
to Mercury, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Firmament of the
fixed stars. He has already indicated (p. 237, ll. 205 f.) how this
arrangement is being disturbed by 'the New Philosophy'.
l. 192. _Whether th'ayres middle region be intense._ Compare:
th'ayres middle marble roome.
_The Storme_, p. 175, l. 14.
PAGE =257=, ll. 219-20. _This must, my Soule, &c._ This is the
punctuation of _1612-25_: _1633_ and all the later editions change
as in the note. Chambers and Grolier follow suit. It is clearly a
corruption. The 'long-short Progresse' is the passage to heaven
which has been described. A new thought begins with 'T'advance these
thoughts'. Grosart puts a colon after (l. 219) 'bee', but as he also
places a semicolon after (l. 220) 'T'advance these thoughts' it is not
quite clear how he reads the lines. The mistake seems to have arisen
from forgetting that the 'she' whose progress has been described is
not Elizabeth Drury but the poet's own soul emancipated by death.
PAGE =258=, ll. 236-40. _The Tutelar Angels, &c._ 'And it is as
imperfect which is taught by that religion which is most accommodate
to sense ... That all mankinde hath one protecting Angel; all
Christians one other, all English one other, all of one Corporation
and every civill coagulation of society one other; and every man one
other.' _Letters_, p. 43. Aquinas insists (_Summa_ I. cxiii) on the
assignment of a guardian angel to every individual. He mentions also,
following St. Gregory, the guardian angel assigned to the Kingdom of
the Persians (Dan. x. 13).
l. 242. _Her body was the Electrum._ 'The ancient Electrum', Bacon
says, 'had in it a fifth of silver to the Gold.' Her body, then, is
not pure gold, but an alloy in which are many degrees of gold. In
Paracelsus' works, Electrum is the middle substance between ore and
metal, neither wholly perfect nor altogether imperfect. It is on
the way to perfection. _The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of ...
Paracelsus_, Arthur E. Waite, 1894. 'Christ is not that Spectrum that
_Damascene_ speaks of, nor that Electrum that _Tertullian_ speakes of
... a third metall made of two other metals.' Donne, _Sermons_ 80. 40.
397.
PAGE =259=, l. 270. _breake._ Here--as at p. 260, l. 326, 'choose'--I
have reverted to the spelling of _1612_.
l. 292. _by sense, and Fantasie_: i.e. by sense and the phantasmata
which are conveyed by the senses to the intellect to work upon. See
Aristotle, _De Anima_, iii. and Aquinas, _Summa_ I. lxxxv. i. Angels
obtain their knowledge of material things through immaterial, i.e.
through Ideas. Their knowledge is immediate, not as ours mediate, by
sense and ratiocination, 'collections'.
PAGE =261=, l. 342. _Joy in not being that, which men have said_ 'Joy
in not being "sine labe concepta", for then she would have had no
virtue in being good.' Norton. Her own goodness has gained for her a
higher exaltation than the adventitious honour of being the Mother of
God.
ll. 343-4. _Where she is exalted more for being good,
Then for her interest of Mother-hood._
'Scriptum est in Evangelio, quod mater et fratres Christi, hoc
est consanguinei carnis eius, cum illi nuntiati fuissent, et foris
exspectarent, quia non possent eum adire prae turba, ille respondit:
_Quae est mater mea, aut qui sunt fratres mei? Et extendens manum
super discipulos suos, ait: Hi sunt fratres mei; et quicumque fecerit
voluntatem Patris mei, ipse mihi frater, et mater, et soror est_
(Matt. xii. 46-50). Quid aliud nos docens, nisi carnali cognationi
genus nostrum spirituale praeponere; nec inde beatos esse homines,
si iustis et sanctis carnis propinquitate iunguntur, sed si eorum
doctrinae ac moribus obediendo atque imitando cohaerescunt? _Beatior
ergo Maria percipiendo fidem Christi, quam concipiendo carnem
Christi._ Nam et dicenti cuidam, _Beatus venter qui te portavit_; ipse
respondit, _Imo beati qui audiunt verbum Dei, et custodiunt_' (Luc.
xi. 27, 28), Augustini _De Sancta Virginitate_, I. 3. (Migne, 40.
397-8.) If a Protestant in the previous two lines, Donne is here as
sound a Catholic as St. Augustine.
l. 354. _joyntenants with the Holy Ghost._ 'We acknowledge the Church
to be the house _onely_ of God, and that we admit no Saint, no Martyr,
to be a _Iointenant_ with him.' _Sermons_ 50. 21. 86.
l. 360. _royalties_: i.e. the prerogatives, rights, or privileges
pertaining to the sovereign. Donne here enumerates them as the power
to make war and conclude peace, uncontrolled authority ('the King
can do no wrong'), the administration of justice, the dispensing of
pardon, coining money, and the granting of protection against legal
arrest.
PAGE =262=, l. 369. _impressions._ The plural of the first edition
must, I think, be accepted. Her stamp is set upon each of our acts as
the impression of the King's head on a coin: 'Ignoraunce maketh him
unmeete metall for the impressions of vertue.' Fleming, _Panopl.
Epist._ 372 (O.E.D.).
Your love and pitty doth th'impression fill,
Which vulgar scandall stampt upon my brow.
Shakespeare, _Sonnets_ cxii.
ll. 397-9. _So flowes her face, and thine eyes, neither now
That Saint, nor Pilgrime, which your loving vow
Concern'd, remaines ..._
I have kept the comma after 'eyes' of _1621_ (_1612_ seems to have
no stop) rather than change it with later and modern editions to a
semicolon, because I take it that the clauses are _not_ co-ordinate;
the second is a subordinate clause of degree after 'so'. 'Her face and
thine eyes so flow that now neither that Saint nor that Pilgrim which
your loving vow concern'd remains--neither you nor the lady you adore
remain the same.' The lady is the Saint, the lover the Pilgrim, as in
_Romeo and Juliet_:
_Rom._ If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this,
My lips two blushing pilgrims ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
_Jul._ Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers kiss.
Punctuated as the sentence is in modern editions 'so' must mean 'in
like manner', referring back to the statement about the river.
PAGE =263=, l. 421. _this Center_, is the reading of the first edition
and is doubtless correct, the 't' having been dropped accidentally
in _1621_ and so in all subsequent editions. 'This Center' is 'this
Earth.' The Earth could neither support such a tower nor provide
material with which to build it. Compare:
The Heavens themselves, the Planets, and this Center,
Observe degree, priority, and place.
Shakespeare, _Troil. and Cress._ I. iii. 85.
As far remov'd from God and light of Heav'n
As from the Center thrice to th' utmost Pole.
Milton, _Par. Lost_, i. 74.
PAGE =264=, l. 442. _For it is both the object and the wit._ God, the
Idea of Good, is the source of both being and knowing--the ultimate
object of knowledge and the source of the knowledge by which Himself
is known.
ll. 445-6. _'Tis such a full, and such a filling good;
Had th' Angels once look'd on him they had stood._
After discussion Aquinas concludes (I. lxiii. 5) that the devil was
not evil through fault of his own will in the first instant of
his creation, because this would make God the cause of evil: 'Illa
operatio quae simul incipit cum esse rei est ei ab agente a quo habet
esse ... Agens autem quod Angelos in esse produxit, scilicet Deus, non
potest esse causa peccati.' He then considers whether there was any
delay between his creation and his fall, and concludes that the most
probable conclusion and most consonant with the words of the Saints
is that there was none, otherwise by his first good act he would have
acquired the merit whose reward is the happiness which comes from
the sight of God and is enduring: 'Si diabolus in primo instanti,
in gratiâ creatus, meruit, statim post primum instans _beatitudinem_
accepisset, nisi statim impedimentum praestitisset peccando.' This
'beatitudo' is the sight of God: 'Angeli beati sunt per hoc quod
Verbum vident.' And endurance is of the essence of this blessedness:
'Sed contra de ratione beatitudinis est stabilitas, sive confirmatio
in bono.' Thus, as Donne says, 'Had th' Angells,' &c. _Summa_ lxii. 1,
5; lxiii. 6.
PAGE =265=, l. 479. _Apostem_: i.e. Imposthume, deep-seated abscess.
PAGE =266=, l. 509. _Long'd for, and longing for it, &c._ So Dante of
Beatrice:
Angelo chiama in divino intelletto,
E dice: 'Sire, nel mondo si vede
Meraviglia nell' atto, che procede
Da un' anima, che fin quassù risplende.
Lo cielo, che non have altro difetto
Che d'aver lei, al suo Signor la chiede,
E ciascun santo ne grida mercede.'
An Angel, of his blessed knowledge, saith
To God: 'Lord, in the world that Thou hast made,
A miracle in action is display'd
By reason of a soul whose splendors fare
Even hither: and since Heaven requireth
Nought saving her, for her it prayeth Thee,
Thy Saints crying aloud continually.'
and again:
Madonna è desiata in l'alto cielo.
My lady is desired in the high Heaven.
Donne, one thinks, must have read the _Vita Nuova_ as well as the
_Divina Commedia_. It is possible that in the eulogy of Elizabeth
Drury he is following its transcendental manner without fully
appreciating the transfiguration through which Beatrice passed in
Dante's mind.
ll. 511-18. _Here in a place, &c._ These lines show that _The Second
Anniversary_ was written while Donne was in France with Sir Robert and
Lady Drury. Compare _A Letter to the Lady Carey, &c._, p. 221:
Here where by All All Saints invoked are, &c.
EPICEDES AND OBSEQUIES, &c.
Of all Donne's poems these are the most easy to date, at least
approximately. The following are the dates of the deaths which called
forth the poems, arranged in chronological order:
Lady Markham (p. 279), May 4, 1609.
Mris Boulstred (pp. 282, 284), Aug. 4, 1609.
Prince Henry (p. 267), Nov. 6, 1612.
Lord Harington (p. 271), Feb. 27, 1614.
Marquis Hamilton (p. 288), March 22, 1625.
Those about whose date and subject there is uncertainty are that
entitled in 1635 _Elegie on the L. C._ and that headed _Death_. If
with Chambers and Norton we assume that the former poem is an Elegy on
the death of the Lord Chancellor, Baron Ellesmere, it will have been
written in 1617. The conjecture is a natural one and may be correct,
but there are difficulties, (1) This title is affixed to _Elegie_ in
_1635_ for the first time. The poem bears no such heading in _1633_ or
in any MS. in which I have found it. Probably 'L. C.' stands for Lord
Chancellor (though this is not certain); but on what authority was
the poem given this reference? (2) The position which it occupies in
_1633_ is due to its position in the MS. from which it was printed.
Now in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and in _W_, it is included among the
_Elegies_, i.e. Love Elegies. But in the last of these, _W_, it
appears with a collection of poems (Satyres, Elegies, the Lincoln's
Inn Epithalamium, and a series of letters to Donne's early friends)
which has the appearance of being, or being derived from, an early
collection, a collection of poems written between 1597 and 1608 to
1610 at the latest. (3) The poem is contained, but again without any
title, in _HN_, the Hawthornden MS. in Edinburgh. Now we know that
Drummond was in London in 1610, and there is no poem, of those which
he transcribed from a collection of Donne's, that is demonstrably
later than 1609, though the two _Obsequies_, 'Death, I recant' and
'Language, thou art too narrowe and too weak', must have been written
in that year. Drummond _may_ have been in London at some time between
1625 and 1630, during which years his movements are undetermined
(David Masson: _Drummond of Hawthornden_, ch. viii), but if he had
made a collection of Donne's poems at this later date it would have
been more complete, and would certainly have contained some of the
religious poems. At a later date he seems to have been given a copy of
the _Hymn to the Saints and to Marquesse Hamylton_, for a MS. of
this poem is catalogued among the books presented to the Edinburgh
University Library by Drummond. Unfortunately it has disappeared
or was never actually handed over. Most probably, Drummond's small
collection of poems by Donne, Pembroke, Roe, Hoskins, Rudyerd, and
other 'wits' of King James's reign, now in the library of the Society
of Antiquaries, was made in 1610.
All this points to the _Elegie_ in question being older than 1617. It
is very unlikely that a poem on the death of his great early patron
would have been allowed by him to circulate without anything to
indicate in whose honour it was written. Egerton was as great a man
as Lord Harington or Marquis Hamilton, and if hope of reward from the
living was the efficient cause of these poems quite as much as sorrow
for the dead, Lord Ellesmere too left distinguished and wealthy
successors. Yet the MS. of Donne's poems which belonged to the first
Earl of Bridgewater contains this poem without any indication to whom
it was addressed.
In 1610 Donne sent to the Lord Chancellor a copy of his
_Pseudo-Martyr_, and the following hitherto unpublished letter shows
in what high esteem he held him:
'As Ryvers though in there Course they are content to serve publique
uses, yett there end is to returne into the Sea from whence they
issued. So, though I should have much Comfort that thys Booke might
give contentment to others, yet my Direct end in ytt was, to make it a
testimony of my gratitude towards your Lordship and an acknowledgement
that those poore sparks of Vnderstandinge or Judgement which are in
mee were derived and kindled from you and owe themselves to you. All
good that ys in ytt, your Lordship may be pleased to accept as yours;
and for the Errors I cannot despayre of your pardon since you have
long since pardond greater faults in mee.'
If Donne had written an _Elegie_ on the death of Lord Ellesmere it
would have been as formally dedicated to his memory as his Elegies to
Lord Harington and Lord Hamilton. But by 1617 he was in orders. His
Muse had in the long poem on Lord Harington, brother to the Countess
of Bedford, 'spoke, and spoke her last'. It was only at the express
instance of Sir Robert Carr that he composed in 1625 his lines on the
death of the Marquis of Hamilton, and he entitled it not an Elegy but
_A Hymn to the Saints and to Marquesse Hamylton_.
It seems to me probable that the _Elegie_, 'Sorrow, who to this
house', was an early and tentative experiment in this kind of poetry,
on the death of some one, we cannot now say whom, perhaps the father
of the Woodwards or some other of his earlier correspondents and
friends.
The _Elegie_ headed _Death_ is also printed in a somewhat puzzling
fashion. In _1633_ it follows the lyrics abruptly with the bald
title _Elegie_. It is not in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, nor was it in the MS.
resembling this which _1633_ used for the bulk of the poems. In _HN_
also it bears no title indicating the subject of the poem. The
other MSS. all describe it as an _Elegie upon the death of M^{ris}
Boulstred_, and from _1633_ and several MSS. it appears that it was
sent to the Countess of Bedford with the verse _Letter_ (p. 227), 'You
that are shee and you, that's double shee'. It is possible that the
MSS. are in error and that the dead friend is not Miss Bulstrode
but Lady Markham, for the closing line of the letter compares her to
Judith:
Yet but of _Judith_ no such book as she.
But Judith was, like Lady Markham, a widow. The tone of the poem too
supports this conclusion. The Elegy on Miss Bulstrode lays stress on
her youth, her premature death. In this and the other Elegy
(whose title assigns it to Lady Markham) the stress is laid on the
saintliness and asceticism of life becoming a widow.