Donne has evidently in view the aversion of the Puritan to the sign of
the cross used in baptism.
With the latter part of the poem compare George Herbert's _The
Crosse_.
PAGE =332=, l. 27. _extracted chimique medicine._ Compare:
Only in this one thing, be no Galenist; To make
Courts hot ambitions wholesome, do not take
A dramme of Countries dulnesse; do not adde
Correctives, but as chymiques, purge the bad.
_Letters to, &c._, p. 182, ll. 59-62.
ll. 33-4. _As perchance carvers do not faces make,
But that away, which hid them there, do take._
'To make representations of men, or of other creatures, we finde two
wayes; Statuaries have one way, and Painters have another: Statuaries
doe it by Substraction; They take away, they pare off some parts of
that stone, or that timber, which they work upon, and then that which
they leave, becomes like that man, whom they would represent: Painters
doe it by Addition; Whereas the cloth or table presented nothing
before, they adde colours, and lights, and shadowes, and so there
arises a representation.' _Sermons_ 80. 44. 440.
Norton compares Michelangelo's lines:
Non ha l' ottimo artista alcun concetto
Ch' un marmo solo in se non circonscriva
Col suo soverchio, e solo a quello arriva
La man che obbedisce all' intelletto.
PAGE =333=, l. 47. _So with harsh, &c._ Chambers, I do not know why,
punctuates this line:
So with harsh, hard, sour, stinking; cross the rest;
This disguises the connexion of 'cross' with its adverbial
qualifications. The meaning is that as we cross the eye by making it
contemplate 'bad objects' so we must cross the rest, i.e. the other
senses, with harsh (the ear), hard (touch), sour (the taste), and
stinking (the sense of smell). The asceticism of Donne in his later
life is strikingly evidenced in such lines as these.
l. 48. I have made an emendation here which seems to me to combine
happily the text of _1633_ and that of the later editions. It seems
to me that _1633_ has dropped 'all', _1635-69_ have dropped 'call'. I
thought the line as I give it was in _O'F_, but found on inquiry I had
misread the collation. I should withdraw it, but cannot find it in my
heart to do so.
l. 52. _Points downewards._ I think the MS. reading is probably right,
because (1) 'Pants' is the same as 'hath palpitation'; (2) Donne
alludes to the anatomy of the heart, in the same terms, in the
_Essayes in Divinity_, p. 74 (ed. Jessop, 1855): 'O Man, which art
said to be the epilogue, and compendium of all this world, and the
Hymen and matrimonial knot of eternal and mortal things ... and was
made by God's hands, not His commandment; and hast thy head erected to
heaven, and all others to the centre, that yet only thy heart of all
others points downward, and only trembles.'
The reference in each case is to the anatomy of the day: 'The figure
of it, as Hippocrates saith in his Booke _de Corde_ is Pyramidall, or
rather turbinated and somewhat answering to the proportion of a Pine
Apple, because a man is broad and short chested. For the Basis above
is large and circular but not exactly round, and after it by degrees
endeth in a cone or dull and blunt round point ... His lower part is
called the Vertex or top, _Mucro_ or point, the Cone, the heighth of
the heart. Hippocrates calleth it the taile which Galen saith ... is
the basest part, as the Basis is the noblest.' Helkiah Crooke: [Greek:
MIKROKOSMOGRΑPHIΑ], _A Description of the Body of Man, &c._ (1631),
Book I, chap. ii, _Of the Heart_.
'The heart therefore is called [Greek: kardia apo tou kerdainesthai],
(_sic. i.e._ [Greek: kradainesthai]) which signifieth _to beate_
because it is perpetually moved from the ingate to the outgate of
life.' _Ibid._, Book VII, _The Preface_.
l. 53. _dejections._ Donne uses both the words given here: 'dejections
of spirit,' _Sermons_ 50. 13. 102; and 'these detorsions have small
force, but (as sunbeams striking obliquely, or arrows diverted with a
twig by the way) they lessen their strength, being turned upon another
mark than they were destined to,' _Essays in Divinity_ (Jessop), p.
42.
l. 61. _fruitfully._ The improved sense, as well as the unanimity of
the MSS., justifies the adoption of this reading. A preacher may deal
'faithfully' with his people. The adverb refers to his action, not its
result in them. The Cross of Christ, in Donne's view, must always deal
faithfully; whether its action produces fruit depends on our hearts.