The MSS. of these sonnets evidently fall into two groups: (1) _B_,
_O'F_, _S96_, _W_: of which _W_ is by far the fullest and most correct
representative. (2) _A18_, _D_, _H49_, _N_, _TCC_, _TCD_. I have kept
the order in which they are given in the editions _1635_ to _1669_,
but indicated the order of the other groups, and added at the close
the three sonnets contained only in _W_. I cannot find a definite
significance in any order, otherwise I should have followed that of
_W_ as the fullest and presumably the most authoritative. Each sonnet
is a separate meditation or ejaculation.
PAGE =323=, III. 7. _That sufferance was my sinne; now I repent_: I
have followed the punctuation and order of _B_, _W_, because it shows
a little more clearly what is (I think) the correct construction. As
printed in _1635-69_,
That sufferance was my sinne I now repent,
the clause 'That sufferance was' &c. is a noun clause subject to
'repent'. But the two clauses are co-ordinates and 'That' is a
demonstrative pronoun. '_That_ suffering' (of which he has spoken
in the six preceding lines) 'was my sin. Now I repent. Because I did
suffer the pains of love, I must now suffer those of remorse.'
PAGE =324=, V. 11. _have burnt it heretofore._ Donne uses 'heretofore'
not infrequently in the sense of 'hitherto', and this seems to be
implied in 'Let their flames retire'. I have therefore preferred the
perfect tense of the MSS. to the preterite of the editions. The 'hath'
of _O'F_ is a change made in the supposed interests of grammar, if not
used as a plural form, for 'their flames' implies that the fires of
lust and of envy are distinguished. In speaking of the first Donne
thinks mainly of his youth, of the latter he has in memory his years
of suitorship at Court.
VI. 7, note. _Or presently, I know not, see that Face._ This line,
which occurs in several independent MSS., is doubtless Donne's, but
the reading of the text is probably his own emendation. The first
form of the line suggested too distinctly a not approved, or even
heretical, doctrine to which Donne refers more than once in his
sermons: 'So _Audivimus, et ab Antiquis_, We have heard, and heard by
them of old, That in how good state soever they dye yet the souls of
the departed do not see the face of God, nor enjoy his presence, till
the day of Judgement; This we have heard, and from so many of them of
old, as that the voyce of that part is louder, then of the other. And
amongst those reverend and blessed Fathers, which straied into these
errors, some were hearers and Disciples of the Apostles themselves, as
Papias was a disciple of S. John and yet Papias was a Millenarian,
and expected his thousand yeares prosperity upon the earth after the
Resurrection: some of them were Disciples of the Apostles, and some of
them were better men then the Apostles, for they were Bishops of Rome;
_Clement_ was so: and yet _Clement_ was one of them, who denied the
fruition of the sight of God, by the Saints, till the Judgement.'
_Sermons_ 80. 73. 739-40.
There are two not strictly orthodox opinions to which Donne seems to
have leant: (1) this, perhaps a remnant of his belief in Purgatory,
the theory of a state of preparation, in this doctrine applied even
to the saints; (2) a form of the doctrine now called 'Conditional
Immortality'. See note on Letter _To the Countesse of Bedford_, p.
196, l. 58.
PAGE =325=, VII. 6. _dearth._ This reading of the Westmoreland MS. is
surely right notwithstanding the consensus of the editions and other
MSS. in reading 'death'. The poet is enumerating various modes in
which death comes; death itself cannot be one of these. The 'death'
in l. 8 perhaps explains the error; it certainly makes the error more
obvious.
VIII. 7. _in us, not immediately._ I have interjected a comma after
'us' in order to bring out distinctly the Scholastic doctrine of
Angelic knowledge on which this sonnet turns. See note on _The Dreame_
with the quotation from Aquinas. What Donne says here is: 'If our
minds or thoughts are known to the saints in heaven as to angels, not
immediately, but by circumstances and signs (such as blushing or a
quickened pulsation) which are apparent in us, how shall the sincerity
of my grief be known to them, since these signs are found in lovers,
conjurers and pharisees?' 'Deo tantum sunt naturaliter cognitae
cogitationes cordium.' 'God alone who put grief in my heart knows its
sincerity.'
l. 10. _vile blasphemous Conjurers._ The 'vilde' of the MSS. is
obviously the right reading. The form too is that which Donne used if
we may judge by the MSS., and by the fact that in _Elegie XIV: Julia_
he rhymes thus:
and (which is worse than vilde)
Sticke jealousie in wedlock, her owne childe
Scapes not the showers of envie.
By printing 'vile' the old and modern editions destroy the rhyme. In
the sonnet indeed the rhyme is not affected, and accordingly, as I am
not prepared to change every 'vile' to 'vilde' in the poems, I have
printed 'vile'. _W_ writes vile. Probably one might use either form.
PAGE =326=, IX. 9-10. I have followed here the punctuation of _W_,
which takes 'O God' in close connexion with the preceding line; the
vocative case seems to be needed since God has not been directly
addressed until l. 9. The punctuation of _D_, _H49_, which has often
determined that of _1633_, is not really different from that of _W_:
But who am I, that dare dispute with Thee?
Oh God; Oh of thyne, &c.
Here, as so often, the question-mark is placed immediately after the
question, before the sentence is ended. But 'Oh God' goes with the
question. A new strain begins with the second 'Oh'. The editions, by
punctuating
But who am I that dare dispute with thee?
O God, Oh! &c.
(which modern editors have followed), make 'O God, Oh!' a hurried
series of exclamations introducing the prayer which follows. This
suits the style of these abrupt, passionate poems. But it leaves
the question without an address to point it; and to my own mind the
hurried, feverous effect of 'O God, Oh!' is more than compensated for
by the weight which is thrown, by the punctuation adopted, upon the
second 'Oh',--a sigh drawn from the very depths of the heart,
so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk,
And end his being.
PAGE =327=, XII. 1. _Why are wee by all creatures, &c._ The 'am I' of
the _W_ is probably what Donne first wrote, and I am strongly tempted
to restore it. Donne's usual spelling of 'am' is 'ame' in his letters.
This might have been changed to 'are', which would have brought
the change of 'I' to 'we' in its wake. On the other hand there are
evidences in this sonnet of corrections made by Donne himself (e.g. l.
9), and he may have altered the first line as being too egotistical in
sound. I have therefore retained the text of the editions.
l. 4. _Simple, and further from corruption?_ The 'simple' of _1633_
and _D_, _H49_, _W_ is preferable to the 'simpler' of the later
editions and somewhat inferior MSS. which Chambers has adopted,
inadvertently, I think, for he does not notice the earlier reading.
The dropping of an 'r' would of course be very easy; but the
simplicity of the element does not admit of comparison, and what Donne
says is, I think, 'The elements are purer than we are, and (being
simple) farther from corruption.'
PAGE =328=, XIII. 4-6. _Whether that countenance can thee affright,
Teares in his eyes quench the amazing light,
Blood fills his frownes, which from his pierc'd head fell._
Chambers alters the comma after 'affright' to a full stop, the Grolier
Club editor to a semicolon. Both place a semicolon after 'fell'.
Any change of the old punctuation seems to me to disguise the close
relation in which the fifth and sixth lines stand to the third. It is
with the third line they must go, not with the seventh, with which a
slightly different thought is introduced. 'Mark the picture of Christ
in thy heart and ask, can that countenance affright thee in whose eyes
the light of anger is quenched in tears, the furrows of whose frowns
are filled with blood.' Then, from the countenance Donne's thought
turns to the tongue. The full stop, accidentally dropped after 'fell'
in the editions of _1633_ and _1635_, was restored in _1639_.
l. 14. _assures._ In this case the MSS. enable us to correct an
obvious error of _all_ the printed editions.
PAGE =329=, XVI. 9. _Yet such are thy laws._ I have adopted the
reading 'thy' of the Westmoreland and some other MSS. because the
sense seems to require it. 'These' and 'those' referring to the same
antecedent make a harsh construction. 'Thy laws necessarily transcend
the limits of human capacity and therefore some doubt whether these
conditions of our salvation can be fulfilled by men. They cannot, but
grace and spirit revive what law and letter kill.'
l. 11. _None doth; but all-healing grace and spirit._ I have dropped
the 'thy' of the editions, following all the MSS. I have no doubt
that 'thy' has been inserted: (1) It spoils the rhyme: 'spirit' has
to rhyme with 'yet', which is impossible unless the accent may fall on
the second syllable; (2) 'thy' has been inserted, as 'spirit' has been
spelt with a capital letter, under the impression that 'spirit' stands
for the Divine Spirit, the Holy Ghost. But obviously 'spirit' is
opposed to 'letter' as 'grace' is to 'law'. In _W_ both 'grace' and
'spirit' are spelt with capitals. Either both or neither must be so
treated. 'Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament;
not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life.' 2 Cor. iii. 6.
If 'thy' is to be retained, then 'spirit' must be pronounced 'sprit'.
Commentators on Shakespeare declare that this happens, but it is
very difficult to prove it. When Donne needs a monosyllable he uses
'spright'; 'spirit' he rhymes as disyllable with 'merit'.
PAGE =330=, XVII. 1. _she whom I lov'd._ This is the reference to his
wife's death which dates these poems. Anne More, Donne's wife, died
on August 15, 1617, on the seventh day after the birth of her twelfth
child. She was buried in the church of St. Clement Danes. Her monument
disappeared when the Church was rebuilt. The inscription ran:
{ ANNAE }
GEORGII} { MORE de } {Filiae
ROBERT} {Lothesley} {Soror.
WILIELMI} { Equitum } {Nept.
CHRISTOPHERI} { Aurator } {Pronept.
Foeminae lectissimae, dilectissimaeq'
Conjugi charissimae, castissimaeq'
Matri piissimae, indulgentissimaeq'
xv annis in conjugio transactis,
vii post xii partum (quorum vii superstant) dies
immani febre correptae
(quod hoc saxum fari jussit
Ipse prae dolore infans)
Maritus (miserrimum dictu) olim charae charus
cineribus cineres spondet suos,
novo matrimonio (annuat Deus) hoc loco sociandos,
JOHANNE DONNE
Sacr: Theol: Profess:
Secessit
An^o xxxiii aetat. suae et sui Jesu
CIↃ. DC. XVII.
Aug. xv
XVIII. It is clear enough why this sonnet was not published. It would
have revealed Donne, already three years in orders, as still conscious
of all the difficulties involved in a choice between the three
divisions of Christianity--Rome, Geneva (made to include Germany), and
England. This is the theme of his earliest serious poem, the _Satyre
III_, and the subject recurs in the letters and sermons. Donne entered
the Church of England not from a conviction that it, and it alone, was
the true Church, but because he had first reached the position that
there is salvation in each: 'You know I never fettered nor imprisoned
the word Religion; not straitening it Frierly _ad Religiones
factitias_, (as the _Romans_ call well their orders of Religion) nor
immuring it in a Rome, or a _Wittenberg_, or a _Geneva_; they are all
virtuall beams of one Sun, and wheresoever they find clay hearts,
they harden them, and moulder them into dust; and they entender and
mollifie waxen. They are not so contrary as the North and South Poles;
and that they are connatural pieces of one circle.' _Letters_, p. 29.
From this position it was easy to pass to the view that, this being
so, the Church of England may have special claims on _me_, as the
Church of my Country, and to a recognition of its character as
primitive, and as offering a _via media_. As such it attracted
Casaubon and Grotius. But the Church of England never made the appeal
to Donne's heart and imagination it did to George Herbert:
Beautie in thee takes up her place
And dates her letters from thy face
When she doth write.
Herbert, _The British Church_.
Compare, however, the rest of Donne's poem with Herbert's description
of Rome and Geneva, and also: 'Trouble not thy selfe to know the
formes and fashions of forraine particular Churches; neither of a
Church in the Lake, nor a Church upon seven hils'. _Sermons_ 80. 76.
769.