Chapter X: Part 10

Quum premit ille torum, vultu comes ipsa modesto
Ibis, ut adcumbas; clam mihi tange pedem,
Me specta, nutusque meos, vultumque loquacem:
Excipe furtivas, et refer ipsa, notas.
Verba superciliis sine voce loquentia dicam:
Verba leges digitis, verba notata mero.
Quum tibi succurrit Veneris lascivia nostrae,
Purpureas tenero pollice tange genas.
Si quid erit, de me tacita quod mente queraris,
Pendeat extrema mollis ab aure manus:
Quum tibi, quae faciam, mea lux, dicamve placebunt,
Versetur digitis annulus usque tuis,
Tange manu mensam, quo tangunt more precantes,
Optabis merito quum mala multa viro.
Quod tibi miscuerit sapias, bibat ipse iubeto;
Tu puerum leviter posce, quod ipsa velis.
Quae tu reddideris, ego primus pocula sumam,
Et qua tu biberis, hac ego parte bibam.
Ovid, _Amores_, I. iv. 15-32.

Thenceforth to her he sought to intimate
His inward grief, by meanes to him well knowne:
Now Bacchus fruit out of the silver plate
He on the table dasht as overthrowne,
Or of the fruitfull liquor overflowne,
And by the dancing bubbles did divine,
Or therein write to let his love be showne;
Which well she red out of the learned line;
(A sacrament profane in mysterie of wine.)
Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, III. ix.

ll. 21 f. _Nor when he, swoln and pamper'd with great fare
Sits down and snorts, cag'd in his basket chair, &c._

Vir bibat usque roga: precibus tamen oscula desint;
Dumque bibit, furtim, si potes, adde merum.
Si bene compositus somno vinoque iacebit;
Consilium nobis resque locusque dabunt.
Ovid, _Amores_, I. iv. 51-4.

PAGE =80=. ELEGIE II.

l. 4. _Though they be Ivory, yet her teeth be jeat_: i.e. 'Though her eyes be yellow as ivory, her teeth are black as jet.' The edition of 1669 substitutes 'theirs' for 'they', referring back to 'others'. Grosart follows.

l. 6. _rough_ is the reading of _1633_, _1669_, and all the best MSS. Chambers and Grosart prefer the 'tough' of _1635-54_, but 'rough' means probably 'hairy, shaggy, hirsute'. O.E.D., _Rough_, B. I. 2. Her hair is in the wrong place. To have hair on her face and none on her head are alike disadvantageous to a woman's beauty.

PAGE =81=, ll. 17-21. _If we might put the letters, &c._ Compare:

As six sweet Notes, curiously varied
In skilfull Musick, make a hundred kindes
Of Heav'nly sounds, that ravish hardest mindes;
And with Division (of a choice device)
The Hearers soules out at their ears intice:
Or, as of twice-twelve Letters, thus transpos'd,
The World of Words, is variously compos'd;
And of these Words, in divers orders sow'n
This sacred _Volume_ that you read is grow'n
(Through gracious succour of th'Eternal Deity)
Rich in discourse, with infinite Variety.
Sylvester, _Du Bartas_, First Week, Second Day.

Sylvester follows the French closely. Du Bartas' source is probably:

Quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis
Multa elementa vides multis communia verbis,
Cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necessest
Confiteare et re et sonitu distare sonanti,
Tantum elementa queunt permutato ordine solo.
Lucretius, _De Rerum Natura_, I. 824-7.

Compare Aristotle, _De Gen. et Corr._ I. 2.

l. 22. _unfit._ I have changed the semicolon after this word to a full stop. The former suggests that the next two lines are an expansion or explanation of this statement. But the poet is giving a series of different reasons why Flavia may be loved.

ll. 41-2. _When Belgias citties, the round countries drowne,
That durty foulenesse guards, and armes the towne:_

Chambers, adopting a composite text from editions and MSS., reads:

Like Belgia' cities the round country drowns,
That dirty foulness guards and arms the towns.

Here 'the round country drowns' is an adjectival clause with the relative suppressed. But if the country actually drowned the cities the protector would be as dangerous as the enemy. The best MSS. agree with _1633-54_, and the sentence, though a little obscure, is probably correct: 'When the Belgian cities, to keep at bay their foes, drown (i.e. flood) the neighbouring countries, the foulness thus produced is their protection.' The 'cities' I take to be the subject. The reference is to their opening the sluices. See Motley's _Rise of the Dutch Republic_, the account of the sieges of Alkmaar and Leyden. 'The Drowned Land' ('Het verdronken land') was the name given to land overflowed by the bursting of the dykes.

PAGE =82=. ELEGIE III.

l. 5. _forc'd unto none_ is a strange expression, and the 'forbid to none' of _B_ is an attempt to emend it; but 'forc'd unto none' probably means 'not bound by compulsion to be faithful to any'. In woman's love and in the arts you may always expect to be ousted from a favoured position by a successful rival. No one has in these a monopoly:

Is sibi responsum hoc habeat, in medio omnibus
Palmam esse positam, qui artem tractant musicam.
Ter. _Phorm._ Prol. 16-17.

l. 8. _these meanes, as I,_ It is difficult to say whether the 'these' of the editions and of _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ or the 'those' of the rest of the MSS. is preferable. The construction with either in the sense of 'the same as', 'such as', was not uncommon:

Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.
Shakespeare, _Jul. Caes._ I. ii. 174.

l. 17. _Who hath a plow-land, &c._ This has nothing to do, as Grosart seems to think, with the name for a certain measurement of land in the north of England corresponding to a hide in the south. A 'plow-land' here is an arable or cultivated field. Possibly the 'a' has crept in and one should read simply 'plow-land', or, like _P_, 'plow-lands.' Otherwise 'Who hath' is to be slurred in reading the line. The meaning of the passage seems to be that though a man puts all his own seed into his land, he is quite willing to reap the corn which has sprung from others' seed, brought thither, it may be, by wind or birds.

l. 30. _To runne all countries, a wild roguery._ The Oxford English Dictionary quotes this line, giving to 'roguery' the meaning of 'a knavish, rascally act'. But Grosart is certainly right in explaining it as 'vagrancy'. In love, Donne does not wish to be a captive bound to one, but he does not wish on the other hand to be a vagrant with no settled abode. The O.E.D. dates the poem c. 1620, which is much too late. Donne was not writing in this manner after he took orders. It cannot be later than 1601, and is probably earlier.

l. 32. _more putrifi'd_, or, as in the MSS., 'worse putrifi'd.' The latter is probably correct, but the difference is trifling. By 'putrifi'd' Donne means 'made salt' and so less fit for drinking. The 'purifi'd' of some editions points to a misunderstanding of Donne's meaning; for saltness and putrefaction were not identical: 'For Salt as incorruptible was the Symbol of friendship, and before the other service was offered unto their guests.' Browne, _Vulgar Errors_, v. 22.

PAGE =84=. ELEGIE IV.

l. 2. _All thy suppos'd escapes._ He is addressing the lady. All her supposed transgressions (e.g. of chastity) are laid to the poet's charge. 'Escape' = 'An inconsiderate transgression; a peccadillo, venial error. (In Shaks. with different notion: an outrageous transgression.) Applied _esp._ to breaches of chastity.' O.E.D. It is probably in Shakespeare's sense that Donne uses the word:

_Brabantio._ For your sake, jewel,
I am glad at soul I have no other child;
For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
To hang clogs on them.
Shakespeare, _Othello_, I. iii. 195-8.

ll. 7-8.

_Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,
As though he came to kill a Cockatrice,_

i.e. 'with staring eyes'. I take 'glazed' to be the past participle of the verb 'glaze', 'to stare':

I met a lion
Who glaz'd upon me, and went surly by,
Without annoying me.
Shakespeare, _Jul. Caes._ I. iii. 20-2.

The past participle is thus used by Shakespeare in: 'With time's deformed hand' (_Com. of Err._ V. i. 298), i.e. 'deforming hand'; 'deserved children' (_Cor._ III. i. 292), i.e. 'deserving'. See Franz, _Shakespeare-Grammatik_, § 661.

The Cockatrice or Basilisk killed by a glance of its eye:

Here with a cockatrice dead-killing eye
He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause.
Shakespeare, _Lucrece_, 540-1.

The eye of the man who comes to kill a cockatrice stares with terror lest he be stricken himself.

If 'glazed' meant 'covered with a film', an adverbial complement would be needed:

For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears.
Shakespeare, _Rich. II_, II. ii. 16.

ll. 9, 15. _have ... take._ I have noted the subjunctive forms found in certain MSS., because this is undoubtedly Donne's usual construction. In a full analysis that I have made of Donne's syntax in the poems I have found over ninety examples of the subjunctive against seven of the indicative in concessive adverbial clauses. In these ninety are many where the concession is an admitted fact, e.g.

Though her eyes be small, her mouth is great.
_Elegie II_, 3 ff.

Though poetry indeed be such a sin.
_Satire II_, 5.

Of the seven, two are these doubtful examples here noted; one, where the subjunctive would be more appropriate, is due to the rhyme.

ll. 10-11. _Thy beauties beautie, and food of our love,
Hope of his goods._

Grosart is puzzled by this phrase and explains 'beauties beautie' as 'the beauty of thy various beauties' (face, arms, shape, &c.). I fear that Donne means that the beauty which he most loves in his mistress is her hope or prospect of obtaining her father's goods. The whole poem is in a vein of extravagant and cynical wit. It must not be taken too seriously.

l. 22. _palenesse, blushing, sighs, and sweats._ All the MSS. read 'blushings', which is very probably correct, but I have left the two singulars to balance the two plurals. But the use of abstract nouns as common is a feature of Donne's syntax: 'We would not dwell upon increpations, and chidings, and bitternesses; we would pierce but so deepe as might make you search your wounds, when you come home to your Chamber, to bring you to a tendernesse there, not to a palenesse or blushing here.' _Sermons_ 80. 61. 611.

l. 29. _ingled_: i.e. fondled, caressed. O.E.D.

ll. 33-4. _He that to barre the first gate, doth as wide
As the great Rhodian Colossus stride._

Porters seem to have been chosen for their size. Compare: 'Those big fellows that stand like Gyants (at Lords Gates) having bellies bumbasted with ale in Lambswool and with Sacks.' Dekker.

l. 37. _were hir'd to this._ All the MSS. read 'for this', but 'to' is quite Elizabethan, and gives the meaning more exactly. He was not taken on as a servant for this purpose, but was specially paid for this piece of work:

This naughty man
Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,
Who I believe was pack'd in all this wrong,
Hir'd to it by your brother.
Shakespeare, _Much Ado_, V. i. 307.

l. 44. _the pale wretch shivered._ I have (with the support of the best MSS.) changed the semicolon to a full stop here, not that as the punctuation of the editions goes it is wrong, but because it is ambiguous and has misled both Chambers and the Grolier Club editor. By changing the semicolon to a comma they make ll. 43-4 an adverbial clause of time which, with the conditional clause 'Had it beene some bad smell', modifies 'he would have thought ... had wrought'. This seems to me out of the question. The 'when' links the statement 'the pale wretch shivered' to what precedes, not to what follows. As soon as the perfume reached his nose he shivered, knowing what it meant. A new thought begins with 'Had it been some bad smell'.

The use of the semicolon, as at one time equivalent to a little less than a full stop, at another to a little more than a comma, leads occasionally to these ambiguities. The few changes which I have made in the punctuation of this poem have been made with a view to obtaining a little more consistency and clearness without violating the principles of seventeenth-century punctuation.

l. 49. _The precious Vnicornes._ See Browne, _Vulgar Errors_, iii. 23: 'Great account and much profit is made of _Unicornes horn_, at least of that which beareth the name thereof,' &c. He speaks later of the various objects 'extolled for precious Horns'; and Donne's epithet doubtless has the same application, i.e. to the horns.

PAGE =86=. ELEGIE V.

l. 8. _With cares rash sodaine stormes being o'rspread._ I have let the _1633_ reading stand, though I feel sure that Donne is not responsible for 'being o'rspread'. Printing from _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, in which probably the word 'cruel' had been dropped, the editor or printer supplied 'being' to adjust the metre. I have not corrected it because I am not sure which is Donne's version. Clearly the line has undergone some remodelling. My own view is that the earliest form is suggested by _B_, _S_, _S96_,

With Cares rash sudden storms o'rpressed,

where 'o'erpress' means 'conquer, overwhelm'. Compare Shakespeare's

but in my sight
Deare heart forbear to glance thine eye aside.
What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o'erprest defence can bide.
_Sonnets_, 139. 8.

He bestrid an o'erpressed Roman.
_Coriolanus_, II. ii. 97.

To begin with, Donne described his grey hairs by a bold synecdoche, leaving the greyness to be inferred: 'My head o'erwhelmed, o'ermastered by Cares storms.' But 'o'erpressed' was harshly used and was easily changed to 'o'erspread', which was made more appropriate by substituting the effect, 'hoariness,' for the cause, 'Cares storms.' This is what we find in _JC_ and such a good MS. as _W_:

With cares rash sudden horiness o'erspread.

In _B_ and _P_ 'cruel' has been inserted to complete the verse when 'o'erpressed' was contracted to 'o'erprest' or changed to 'o'erspread'. In _1635-69_ the somewhat redundant 'rash' has been altered to 'harsh'.

With cares harsh, sodaine horinesse o'rspread.

The image is more easily apprehended, and this may be Donne's final version, but the original (if my view is correct) was bolder, and more in the style of Shakespeare's

That time of yeeare thou maist in me behold,
When yellow leaues, or none, or few doe hange
Vpon those boughes which shake against the could,
Bare ruin'd quiers, where late the sweet birds sang.
_Sonnets_, 72. 1-4.

l. 16. _Should now love lesse, what hee did love to see._ Here again there has been some recasting of the original by Donne or an editor. Most MSS. read:

Should like and love less what hee did love to see.

To 'like and love' was an Elizabethan combination:

And yet we both make shew we like and love.
Farmer, _Chetham MS._ (ed. Grosart), i. 90.

Yet every one her likte, and every one her lov'd.
Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, III. ix. 24.

Donne or his editor has made the line smoother.

l. 20. _To feed on that, which to disused tasts seems tough._ I have made the line an Alexandrine by printing 'disused', which occurs in _A25_ and _B_, but it is 'disus'd' in the editions and most MSS. The 'weak' of _1650-69_ adjusts the metre, but for that very reason one a little suspects an editor. Donne certainly wrote 'disus'd' or 'disused'. Who changed it to 'weak' is not so certain. The meaning of 'disused' is, of course, 'unaccustomed.' The O.E.D. quotes: 'I can nat shote nowe but with great payne, I am so disused.' Palsgr. (1530). 'Many disused persons can mutter out some honest requests in secret.' Baxter, _Reformed Pastor_ (1656).

It seems to me probable that _P_ preserves an early form of these lines:

who now is grown tough enough
To feed on that which to disused tastes seems rough.

The epithet 'tough' is appropriately enough applied to Love's mature as opposed to his childish constitution, while rough has the recognized sense of 'sharp, acid, or harsh to the taste'. The O.E.D. quotes: 'Harshe, rough, stipticke, and hard wine,' Stubbs (1583). 'The roughest berry on the rudest hedge', Shakespeare, _Antony and Cleopatra_, I. iv. 64 (1608).

Possibly Donne changed 'tough' to 'strong' in order to avoid the monotonous sound of 'tough enough ... rough', and this ultimately led to the substitution of 'weak' for 'disused'. The present close of the last line I find it difficult to away with. How can a thing seem tough to the taste? Even meat does not _taste_ tough: and it is not of meat that Donne is thinking but of wine. I should be disposed to return to the reading of _P_, or, if we accept 'strong' and 'weak' as improvements, at any rate to alter 'tough' to 'rough '.

PAGE =87=. ELEGIE VI.

l. 6. _Their Princes stiles, with many Realmes fulfill._ This is the reading of all the best MSS. The 'which' for 'with' of the editions is due to an easy confusion of two contractions invariably used in the MSS. Grosart and Chambers accept 'with' from _S_ and _A25_, but further alter 'styles' to 'style', following these generally inferior MSS. The plural is correct. Donne refers to more than one prince and style. The stock instance is

the poor king Reignier, whose large style
Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.
_2 Henry VI_, I. i. 111-12.

But the English monarchs themselves bore in their 'style' the kingdom of France, and for some years (1558-1566) Mary, Queen of Scots, bore in her 'style' the arms of England and Ireland.

PAGE =88=, ll. 21-34. These lines evidently suggested Carew's poem, _To my Mistress sitting by a River's Side, An Eddy_:

Mark how yon eddy steals away
From the rude stream into the bay;
There, locked up safe, she doth divorce
Her waters from the channel's course,
And scorns the torrent that did bring
Her headlong from her native spring, &c.

ll. 23-4. _calmely ride
Her wedded channels bosome, and then chide._

The number of MSS. and editions is in favour of 'there', but the quality (e.g. _1633_ and _W_) of those which read 'then', and the sense of the lines, favour 'then'. The stream is at one moment in 'speechless slumber', and the next chiding. She cannot in the same place do both at once:

The current that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;
And so by many winding nooks he strays,
With willing sport to the wild ocean.
Shakespeare, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, II. vii. 25-32.

ll. 27-8. _Yet if her often gnawing kisses winne
The traiterous banke to gape, and let her in._

The 'banke' of the MSS. must, I think, be the right reading rather than the 'banks' of the editions, the 's' having arisen from the final 'e'. A river which bursts or overflows its banks does not leave its course, though it 'drowns' the 'round country', but if it breaks through a weak part in a bank it may quit its original course for another. 'The traiterous bank' I take to be equivalent to 'the weak or treacherous spot in its bank'.

PAGE =89=. ELEGIE VII.

l. 1. _Natures lay Ideot._ Here 'lay' means, I suppose, ignorant', as Grosart says. His other suggestion, that 'lay' has the meaning of 'lay' in 'layman', a painter's figure, is unlikely. That word has a different origin from 'lay' (Lat. _laicus_), and the earliest example of it given in O.E.D. is dated 1688.

ll. 7-8. _Nor by the'eyes water call a maladie
Desperately hot, or changing feaverously._

The 'call' of _1633_ is so strongly supported by the MSS. that it is dangerous to alter it. Grosart (whom Chambers follows) reads 'cast', from _S_; but a glance at the whole line as it stands there shows how little can be built upon it. 'To cast' is generally used in the phrase 'to cast his water' and thereby tell his malady; but the O.E.D. gives one example which resembles this passage if 'cast' be the right word here:

Able to cast his disease without his water.
Greene's _Menaphon_.

I rather fancy, however, that 'call' is right, and is to be taken in close connexion with the next line, 'You could not cast the eyes water, and thereby call the malady desperately hot or changing feverously.'

If thou couldst, Doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease.
Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, V. iii. 50.

The 'casting' preceded and led to the finding, naming the disease, calling it this or that.

ll. 9 f. _I had not taught thee then, the Alphabet
Of flowers, &c._

'_Posy_, in both its senses, is a contraction of _poesy_, the flowers of a nosegay expressing by their arrangement a sentiment like that engraved on a ring.' Weekly, _Romance of Words_, London, 1912, p. 134. She had not yet learned to sort flowers so as to make a posy.

l. 13. _Remember since, &c._ For the idiom compare:

Beseech you, sir,
Remember since you owed no more to time
Than I do now.
Shakespeare, _Winter's Tale_, V. i. 219.

See Franz, _Shakespeare-Grammatik_, § 559.

l. 22. _Inlaid thee._ The O.E.D. cites this line as the only example of 'inlay' meaning 'to lay in, or as in, a place of concealment or preservation.' The sense is much that of 'to lay up', but the word has perhaps some of its more usual meaning, 'to set or embed in another substance.' 'Your husband has given to you, his jewel, such a setting as conceals instead of setting off your charms. I have refined and heightened those charms.'

l. 25. _Thy graces and good words my creatures bee._ I was tempted to adopt with Chambers the 'good works' of _1669_ and some MSS., the theological connexion of 'grace' and 'works' being just the kind of conceit Donne loves to play with. But the 'words' of _1633-54_ has the support of so good a MS. as _W_, and 'good words' is an Elizabethan idiom for commendation, praise, flattery:

He that will give,
Good words to thee will flatter neath abhorring.
Shakespeare, _Coriolanus_, I. i. 170-1.

In your bad strokes you give good words.
Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_, V. i. 30.

Moreover, Donne's word is 'graces', not 'grace'. 'Your graces and commendations are my work', i.e. either the commendations you receive, or, more probably, the refined and elegant flatteries with which you can now cajole a lover, though once your whole stock of conversation did not extend beyond 'broken proverbs and torne sentences'. Compare, in _Elegie IX: The Autumnall_, the description of Lady Danvers' conversation:

In all her words, unto all hearers fit,
You may at Revels, you at Counsaile, sit.

And again, _Elegie XVIII: Loves Progresse_:

So we her ayres contemplate, words and heart,
And virtues.

l. 28. _Frame and enamell Plate._ Compare: 'And therefore they that thinke to gild and enamell deceit, and falsehood, with the additions of good deceit, good falshood, before they will make deceit good, will make God bad.' _Sermons_ 80. 73. 742. 'Frame' means, of course, 'shape, fashion', and 'plate' gold or silver service. The elaborate enamelling of such dishes and cups was, I presume, as common as in the case of gold watches and clocks. See F. J. Britten's _Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers_, 1904.

PAGE =90=. ELEGIE VIII.

l. 2. _Muskats_, i.e. 'Musk-cats.' The 'muskets' of _1669_ is only a misprint.

ll. 5-6. In these lines as they stand in the editions and most of the MSS. there is clearly something wrong:

And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,
They seeme no sweat drops but pearle coronets.

A 'coronet' is not an ornament of the neck, but of the head. The obvious emendation is that of _A25_, _C_, _JC_, and _W_, which Grosart and Chambers have adopted. A 'carcanet' is a necklace, and carcanets of pearl were not unusual: see O.E.D., _s. v._ But why then do the editions and so many MSS. read 'coronets'? Consideration of this has convinced me that the original error is not here but in the word 'neck'. Article by article, as in an inventory, Donne contrasts his mistress and his enemy's. But in the next line he goes on:

Ranke sweaty froth thy Mistresse's _brow_ defiles,

contrasting her brow with that of his mistress, where the sweat drops seem 'no sweat drops but pearle coronets'.

The explanation of the error is, probably, that an early copyist passed in his mind from breast to neck more easily than to brow. Another explanation is that Donne altered 'brow' to 'neck' and forgot to alter 'coronets' to 'carcanets'. I do not think this likely. The force of the poem lies in its contrasts, and the brow is proverbially connected with sweat. 'In the sweat of thy brow,' &c. Possibly Donne himself in the first version, or a copy of it, wrote 'neck', meaning to write 'brow', misled by the proximity and associations of 'breast'. Mr. J. C. Smith has shown that Spenser occasionally wrote a word which association brought into his mind, but which was clearly not the word he intended to use, as it is destructive of the rhyme-scheme. Oddly enough the late Francis Thompson used 'carcanet' in the sense of 'coronet':

Who scarfed her with the morning? and who set
Upon her brow the day-fall's carcanet?
_Ode to the Setting Sun._

PAGE =91=, l. 10. _Sanserra's starved men._ 'When I consider what God did for Goshen in Egypt ... How many Sancerraes he hath delivered from famines, how many Genevas from plots and machinations.' _Sermons._

The Protestants in Sancerra were besieged by the Catholics for nine months in 1573, and suffered extreme privations. Norton quotes Henri Martin, _Histoire de France_, ix. 364: 'On se disputa les débris les plus immondes de toute substance animale ou végétale; on créa, pour ainsi dire, des aliments monstrueux, impossibles.'

ll. 13-14. _And like vile lying stones in saffrond tinne,
Or warts, or wheales, they hang upon her skinne._

Following the MSS. I have made 'lying' an epithet attached to 'stones' and substituted 'they hang' for the superficially more grammatical 'it hangs'. The readings of _1633_, 'vile stones lying' and 'it hangs', seem to me just the kind of changes a hasty editor would make, the kind of changes which characterize the Second Folio of Shakespeare. The stones are not only 'vile'; they are 'lying', inasmuch as they pretend to be what they are not, as the 'saffron'd tinne' pretends to be gold.

l. 19. _Thy head_: i.e. 'the head of thy mistress.' Donne continues this construction in ll. 25, 32, 39, and I have restored it from the later editions and MSS. at l. 34, 'thy gouty hand.'

l. 34. _thy gouty hand_: 'thy' is the reading of all the editions except _1633_ and of all the MSS. except _JC_ and _S_. It is probably right, corresponding to l. 19 'Thy head' and l. 32 'thy tann'd skins'. Donne uses 'thy' in a condensed fashion for 'the head of thy mistress', &c.

PAGE =92=, l. 51. _And such._ The 'such' of the MSS. is doubtless right, the 'nice' of the editions being repeated from l. 49.

PAGE =92=. ELEGIE IX.

For the date, &c., of this poem, see the introductory note on the _Elegies_.

The text of _1633_ diverges in some points from that of all the MSS., in some others it agrees with _D_, _H49_, _Lec_. In the latter case I have retained it, but where _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ agree with the rest of the MSS. I have corrected _1633_, e.g.:

PAGE =93=, l. 6. _Affection here takes Reverences name_: where 'Affection' seems more appropriate than 'Affections'; and l. 8. _But now shee's gold_: where 'They are gold' of _1633_ involves a very loose use of 'they'. Possibly _1633_ here gives a first version afterwards corrected.

ll. 29-32. _Xerxes strange Lydian love, &c._ Herodotus (vii. 31) tells how Xerxes, on his march to Greece, found in Lydia a plane-tree which for its beauty ([Greek: kalleos heineka]) he decked with gold ornaments, and entrusted to a guardian. Aelian, _Variae Historiae_, ii. 14, _De platano Xerxe amato_, attributes his admiration to its size: [Greek: en Lydia goun, phasin, idôn phyton eumegethes platanou,] &c. In the Latin translation in Hercler's edition (Firmin Didot, 1858) size is taken as equivalent to height, 'quum vidisset proceram platanum,' but the reference is more probably to extent. Pliny, _N. H._ 12. 1-3, has much to say of the size of certain planes under which companies of men camped and slept.

The quotation from Aelian confirms the _1633_ reading, 'none being so large as shee,' which indeed is confirmed by the lines that follow. The question of age is left open. The reference to' barrennesse' I do not understand.

PAGE =94=, l. 47. _naturall lation._ This, the reading of the great majority of the MSS., is obviously correct and explains the vacillation of the editions. The word was rare but quite good. The O.E.D. quotes: 'I mean lation or Local-motion from one place to another.' Fotherby (1619);

Make me the straight and oblique lines,
The motions, lations, and the signs.
(Herrick, _Hesper._ 64);

and other examples as late as 1690. The term was specially astronomical, as here. The 'motion natural' of _1633_ is an unusual order in Donne; the 'natural station' of _1635-69_ is the opposite of motion. The first was doubtless an intentional alteration by the editor, which the printer took in at the wrong place; the second a misreading of 'lation'.

PAGE =95=. ELEGIE X.

The title of this Elegy, _The Dream_, was given it in _1635_, perhaps wrongly. _S96_ seems to come nearer with _Picture_. The 'Image of her whom I love', addressed in the first eight lines, seems to be a picture. When that is gone and reason with it, fantasy and dreams come to the lover's aid (ll. 9-20). But the tenor of the poem is somewhat obscure; the picture is addressed in terms that could hardly be strengthened if the lady herself were present.

l. 26. _Mad with much heart, &c._ Aristotle made the heart the source of all 'the actions of life and sense'. Galen transferred these to the brain. See note to p. 99, l. 100.

PAGE =96=. ELEGIE XI.

Donne has in this Elegy carried to its farthest extreme, as only a metaphysical or scholastic poet like himself could, the favourite Elizabethan pun on the coin called the Angel. Shakespeare is fond of the same quibble: 'She has all the rule of her husband's purse; she hath a legion of angels' (_Merry Wives_, I. iii. 60). But Donne knows more of the philosophy of angels than Shakespeare and can pursue the analogy into more surprising subtleties. Nor is the pun on angels the only one which he follows up in this poem: crowns, pistolets, and gold are all played with in turn. The poem was a favourite with Ben Jonson: 'his verses of the Lost Chaine he hath by heart' (_Drummond's Conversations_, ed. Laing).

The text of the poem, which was first printed in _1635_ (Marriot having been prohibited from including it in the edition of 1633), is based on a MS. closely resembling _Cy_ and _P_, and differing in several readings from the text given in the rest of the MSS., including _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _W_. I have endeavoured rather to give this version correctly, while recording the variants, than either to substitute another or contaminate the two. When _Cy_ and _P_ go over to the side of the other MSS. it is a fair inference that the editions have gone astray. When they diverge, the question is a more open one.

PAGE =97=, l. 24. _their naturall Countreys rot_: i.e. 'their native Countreys rot', the 'lues Gallica'. Compare 'the naturall people of that Countrey', Greene, _News from Hell_ (ed. Grosart, p. 57). This is the reading of _Cy_, and the order of the words in the other MSS. points to its being the reading of the MS. from which _1635_ was printed.

l. 26. _So pale, so lame, &c._ The chipping and debasement of the French crown is frequently referred to, and Shakespeare is fond of punning on the word. But two extracts from Stow's _Chronicle_ (_continued ... by_ Edmund Howes), 1631, will throw some light on the references to coins in this poem: In the year 1559 took place the last abasement of English money whereby testons and groats were lowered in value and called in, 'and according to the last valuation of them, she gave them fine money of cleane silver for them commonly called Sterling money, and from this time there was no manner of base money coyned or used in England ... but all English monies were made of gold and silver, which is not so in any other nation whatsoever, but have sundry sorts of copper money.'

'The 9. of November, the French crowne that went currant for six shillings foure pence, was proclaimed to be sixe shillings.'

In 1561, 'The fifteenth of November, the Queenes Maiestie published a Proclamation for divers small pieces of silver money to be currant, as the sixe pence, foure pence, three pence, 2 pence and a peny, three half-pence, and 3 farthings: and also forbad all forraigne coynes to be currant within the same Realme, as well gold as silver, calling them all into her Maiesties Mints, except two sorts of crownes of gold, the one the French crowne, the other the Flemish crowne.' The result was the bringing in of large sums in 'silver plates: and as much or more in pistolets, and other gold of Spanish coynes, and one weeke in pistolets and other Spanish gold 16000 pounds, all these to be coyned with the Queenes stamps.'

l. 29. _Spanish Stamps still travelling._ Grosart regards this as an allusion to the wide diffusion of Spanish coins. The reference is more pointed. It is to the prevalence of Spanish bribery, the policy of securing paid agents in every country. It was by money that Parma secured his first hold on the revolted provinces. Gardiner has shown that Lord Cranborne, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, accepted a pension from the Spanish king (_Hist. of England_, i, p. 215). The discovery of the number of his Court who were in Spanish pay came as a profound shock to James at a later period. The invariable charge brought by one Dutch statesman against another was of being in the pay of the Spaniard.

'It is his Indian gold,' says Raleigh, speaking of the King of Spain in 1596, 'that endangers and disturbs all the nations of Europe; it creeps into councils, purchases intelligence, and sets bound loyalty at liberty in the greatest monarchies thereof.'

ll. 40-1. _Gorgeous France ruin'd, ragged and decay'd;
Scotland, which knew no state, proud in one day:_

The punctuation of _1669_ has the support generally of the MSS., but in matters of punctuation these are not a very safe guide. As punctuated in _1635_, 'ragged and decay'd' are epithets of Scotland, contrasting her with 'Gorgeous France'. I think, however, that the antithesis to 'gorgeous' is 'ruin'd, ragged and decay'd', describing the condition of France after the pistolets of Spain had done their work. The epithet applied to Scotland is 'which knew no state', the antithesis being 'proud in one day'.

PAGE =98=, ll. 51-4. _Much hope which they should nourish, &c._ Professor Norton proposed that the last two of these lines should run:

Will vanish if thou, Love, let them alone,
For thou wilt love me less when they are gone;

but that 'alone' is a misprint for 'atone.' This is unnecessary, and there is no authority for 'atone'. What Donne says, in the cynical vein of _Elegie VI_, 9-10, is: 'If thou love me let my crowns alone, for the poorer I grow the less you will love me. I shall lose the qualities which you admired in me when you saw them through the glamour of wealth.'

l. 55. _And be content._ The majority of the MSS. begin a new paragraph here and read:

Oh, be content, &c.

Donne would almost seem to have read or seen (he was a frequent theatre-goer) the old play of _Soliman and Perseda_ (pr. 1599). There the lover, having lost a carcanet, sends a cryer through the street and offers one hundred crowns reward. Chambers notes a similar case in _The Puritan_ (1607). Lost property is still cried by the bellman in northern Scottish towns. The custom of resorting in such cases to 'some dread Conjurer' is frequently referred to. See Jonson's _Alchemist_ for the questions with which their customers approached conjurers.

ll. 71-2. _So in the first falne angels, &c._ Aquinas discusses the question: 'Utrum intellectus daemonis sit obtenebratus per privationem cognitionis omnis veritatis.' After stating the arguments for such privation he replies: 'Sed contra est quod Dionysius dicit ... quod "data sunt daemonibus aliqua dona, quae nequaquam mutata esse dicimus, sed sunt integra et splendidissima." Inter ista, autem, naturalia dona est cognitio veritatis.' Aquinas then explains that knowledge is twofold, that which comes by nature, and that which comes by grace: and that the latter again is twofold, that which is purely speculative, and that which is 'affectiva, producens amorem Dei'. 'Harum autem trium cognitionum prima in daemonibus nec est ablata nec diminuta: consequitur enim ipsam naturam Angeli, qui secundum suam naturam est quidam intellectus vel mens. Propter simplicitatem autem suae substantiae a natura eius aliquid subtrahi non potest.' Devils, therefore, have natural knowledge in an eminent degree (_splendidissima_); they have even the knowledge which comes by grace in so far as God chooses to bestow it, for His own purposes, by the mediation of angels or 'per aliqua temporalia divinae virtutis effecta' (Augustine). But of the knowledge which leads to good they have nothing: 'tenendum est firmiter secundum fidem catholicam, quod et voluntas bonorum Angelorum confirmata est in bono, et voluntas daemonum obstinata est in malo.' _Summa_ I.

lxiv. 1-2. They have 'wisdom and knowledge', but it is immovably set to do ill.

ll. 77-8. _Pitty these Angels; yet their dignities
Passe Vertues, Powers and Principalities._

There is a good deal of vacillation in the MSS. as to the punctuation of 'Angels yet', some placing the semicolon before, others after 'yet'. The difference is not great, but that which I have adopted, though it has least authority, brings out best what I take to be the meaning of these somewhat difficult lines. 'Pity these Angels, for yet (i.e. until they are melted down and lose their form) they, as good angels, are superior in dignity to Vertues, Powers, and Principalities among the bad angels.' The order of the Angelic beings, which the Middle Ages took from Pseudo-Dionysius, consisted of nine Orders in three Hierarchies. The first and highest Hierarchy included (beginning with the highest Order) Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; the second, Dominions, Virtues, and Powers; the third, Principalities, Archangels, Angels. Thus the three Orders mentioned by Donne are all in rank superior to mere Angels; but the lowest Order of Good Angels is superior to the highest Order of Evil Spirits, although before their fall these belonged to the highest Orders. Probably, however, there is a second and satiric reference in Donne's words which explains his choice of Vertues, Powers, and Principalities. In the other sense of the words Angels are coins, money; and the power of money surpasses that of earthly Vertues, Powers, and Principalities. This may explain, further, why Donne singles out 'Vertues, Powers, and Principalities'. One would expect that, to make the antithesis between good and bad angels as complete as possible, he would have named the three highest orders, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. But the three orders which he does mention are the highest Orders which travel, as money does. The angels are divided into _Assistentes_ and _Administrates_. To the former class belong all the Orders of the first Hierarchy, and the Dominions of the second. The Vertues are thus the highest Order of _Administrantes_. Aquinas, _Summa_, cxii. 3, 4. The _Assistentes_ are those who 'only stand and wait'.

PAGE =99=, l. 100. _rot thy moist braine_: So Sylvester's _Du Bartas_, I. ii. 18:

the Brain
Doth highest place of all our Frame retain,
And tempers with its moistful coldness so
Th'excessive heat of other parts below.

This was Aristotle's opinion (_De Part. Anim._ II. 7), refuted by Galen, who, like Plato, made the brain the seat of the soul and the generator of the animal spirits. See II. p. 45.

PAGE =100=, ll. 112, 114. _Gold is Restorative ... 'tis cordiall._ 'Most men say as much of gold, and some other minerals, as these have done of precious stones. Erastus still maintaineth the opposite part, Disput. in Paracelsum, cap. 4, fol. 196, he confesseth of gold, that it makes the heart merry, but in no other sense but as it is in a miser's chest:

----at mihi plaudo
----simulac nummos contemplor in arcâ

as he said in the poet: it so revives the spirits, and is an excellent receipt against melancholy,

For gold in phisik is a cordial,
Therefore he lovede gold in special.'
Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Pt. 2, Sub. 4.

ELEGIE XII.

PAGE =101=, l. 37. _And mad'st us sigh and glow_: 'sigh and blow' has been the somewhat inelegant reading of all editions hitherto.

l. 42. _And over all thy husbands towring eyes._ The epithet 'towring' is strange and the MSS. show some vacillation. Most of them read 'towred', probably the past participle of the same verb, though Grosart alters to 'two red'--not a very poetical description. _RP31_ here diverges from _H40_ and reads 'loured', perhaps for 'lurid', but both these MSS. alter the order of the words and attach the epithet to 'husbands', which is manifestly wrong, and the Grolier Club edition prints 'lowering' without comment, regarding, I suppose, 't' as a mistake for 'l'.

The 'towring' of _1669_ and _TCD_ is probably correct, being a bold metaphor from hawking, and having the force practically of 'threatening'. The hawk towers threateningly above its prey before it 'sousing kills with a grace'. If 'towring' is not right, 'lowring' is the most probable emendation.

PAGE =102=, l. 43. _That flam'd with oylie sweat of jealousie._ This is the reading of all the MSS., and as on the whole their text is superior I have followed it. If 'oylie' is, as I think, the right epithet, it means 'moist', as in 'an oily palm', with perhaps a reference to the inflammability of oil. If 'ouglie '(i.e. ugly) be preferred it is a forcible transferred epithet.

l. 49. _most respects?_ This is the reading of all the MSS., and 'best' in _1669_ is probably an emendation. The use of 'most' as an adjective, superlative of 'great', is not uncommon:

God's wrong is most of all.
Shakespeare, _Rich. III_, IV. iv. 377.

Though in this place most master wear no breeches.
Ibid., _2 Hen. VI_, I. iii. 144.

l. 54. I can make no exact sense of this line either as it stands in _1669_ or in the MSS. One is tempted to combine the versions and read:

Yea thy pale colours, and thy panting heart,

the 'secrets of our Art' being all the signs by which they communicated to one another their mutual affection. But it is necessary to explain the presence of 'inwards' or 'inward' in both the versions.

PAGE =103=, l. 79. _The Summer how it ripened in the eare_; This fine passage has been rather spoiled in all editions hitherto by printing in this line 'yeare' for 'eare', even in modernized texts. The MSS. and the sense both show that 'eare' is the right word, and indeed I have no doubt that 'year' in _1635_ was simply due to a compositor's or copyist's pronunciation. It occurs again in the 1669 edition in the song _Twicknam Garden_ (p. 28, l. 3):

And at mine eyes, and at mine years,

These forms in 'y' are common in Sylvester's _Du Bartas_, e.g. 'yerst'. The O.E.D. gives the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries as those in which 'yere' was a recognized pronunciation of 'ear', but it is found sporadically later and has misled editors. Thus in Sir George Etherege's letter to the Earl of Middleton from Ratisbon, printed in Dryden's _Works_ (Scott and Saintsbury), xi, pp. 38-40, some lines run:

These formed the jewel erst did grace
The cap of the first Grave o' the race,
Preferred by Graffin Marian
To adorn the handle of her fan;
And, as by old record appears,
Worn since in Kunigunda's years;
Now sparkling in the Froein's hair,
No rocket breaking in the air
Can with her starry head compare.

In a modernized text, as this is, surely 'Kunigunda's years' should be 'Kunigunda's ears'.

ll. 93-4. _That I may grow enamoured on your mind,
When my own thoughts I there reflected find._

'I there neglected find' has been the reading of all editions hitherto--a strange reason for being enamoured.

PAGE =104=, l. 96. _My deeds shall still be what my words are now_: 'words' suits the context better than either the 'deeds' of _1635-69_ or 'thoughts' of _A25_.

PAGE =104=. ELEGIE XIII.

PAGE =105=, ll. 13-14. _Liv'd Mantuan now againe,
That foemall Mastix, to limme with his penne_

Chambers, following the editions from _1639_ onwards, drops the comma after 'Mastix', which suggests that Julia is the 'foemall Mastix', not Mantuan. By Mantuan he understands Virgil, and supposes there is a reference to the 'flammis armataque Chimaera' of _Aen._ vi. 289. The Mantuan of the text is the 'Old Mantuan' of _Love's Labour's Lost_, iv. 2. 92. Donne calls Mantuan the scourge of women because of his fourth eclogue _De natura mulierum_. Norton quotes from it:

Femineum servile genus, crudele, superbum.

The O.E.D. quotes from S. Holland, _Zara_ (1656): 'It would have puzzell'd that Female Mastix Mantuan to have limn'd this she Chymera'--obviously borrowed from this poem. The dictionary gives examples of 'mastix' in other compounds.

The reference to Mantuan as a woman-hater is a favourite one with the prose-pamphleteers: 'To this might be added _Mantuans_ invective against them, but that pittie makes me refraine from renewing his worne out complaints, the wounds whereof the former forepast feminine sexe hath felt. I, but here the _Homer_ of Women hath forestalled an objection, saying that _Mantuans_ house holding of our Ladie, he was enforced by melancholic into such vehemencie of speech', &c. Nash, _The Anatomy of Absurdity_ (ed. McKerrow, i. 12).

'Where I leave you to consider, Gentlemen, how far unmeete women are to have such reproches laid upon them, as sundrye large lipt fellows have done: who when they take a peece of work in hand, and either for want of matter, or lack of wit, are half gravelled, then they must fill up the page with slaundering of women, who scarsly know what a woman is: but if I were able either by wit or arte to be their defender, or had the law in my hand to dispose as I list, which would be as unseemely, as an Asse to treade the measures: yet, if it were so, I would correct _Mantuans Egloge_, intituled _Alphus_: or els if the Authour were alive, I would not doubt to persuade him in recompence of his errour, to frame a new one,' &c. Greene, _Mamillia_ (ed. Grosart), 106-7. Greene is probably the '_Homer_ of Women' referred to in the first extract.

l. 19. _Tenarus._ In the _Anatomy of the World_ 'Tenarif' is thus spelt in the editions of 1633 to 1669, and Grosart declared that the reference here is to that island. It is of course to 'Taenarus' in Laconia. There was in that headland a sulphurous cavern believed to be a passage to Hades. Through it Orpheus descended to recover Eurydice. Ovid, _Met._ x. 13; Paus. iii. 14, 25.

l. 28. _self-accusing oaths_: 'oaths' is the reading of the MSS., 'loaths' of the editions. The word 'loaths' in the sense of 'dislike, hatred, ill-will' is found as late as 1728 (O.E.D.). 'If your Horse ... grow to a loath of his meat.' Topsell (1607). A self-accusing loath may mean a hatred, e.g. of good, which condemns yourself. In the context, however, 'cavils, untroths,' I am inclined to think that 'oaths' is right. Among the malevolent evils with which her breast swarms are oaths accusing others of crimes, which accuse herself, either because she is willing to implicate herself so long as she secures her enemy's ruin, or because the information is of a kind that could be got only by complicity in crime.

PAGE =105=. ELEGIE XIV.

PAGE =106=, l. 6. _I touch no fat sowes grease._ Probably 'I say nothing libellous as to the way in which this or that rich man has acquired his wealth'. I cannot find the proverb accurately explained, or given in quite this form, in any collection.

l. 10. _will redd or pale._ The reading of _1669_ and the two MSS. is doubtless correct, 'looke' being an editorial insertion as the use of 'red' as a verb was growing rare. If 'looke' had belonged to the original text 'counsellor' would probably have had the second syllable elided. Compare:

Roses out-red their [i.e. women's] lips and cheeks,
Lillies their whiteness stain.
Brome, _The Resolve_.

l. 21. _the number of the Plaguy Bill_: i.e. the weekly bill of deaths by the plague. By a Privy Council order of April 9, 1604, the theatres were permitted to be open 'except ther shall happen weeklie to die of the Plague above the number of thirtie'. The number was later raised to forty. The theatres were repeatedly closed for this reason between July 10, 1606, and 1610. In 1609 especially the fear of infection made it difficult for the companies, driven from London, to gain permission to act anywhere. There were no performances at Court during the winter 1609-10. Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_.

l. 22. _the Custome Farmers._ The Privy Council registers abound in references to the farmers of the customs and their conflicts with the merchants. As they had to pay dearly for their farm, they were tempted to press the law against the merchants in exacting dues.

l. 23. _Of the Virginian plot._ Two expeditions were sent to Virginia in 1609, in May under Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain Newport, and at the end of the year under Lord de la Warr, 'who by free election of the Treasurer and counsell of Virginia, and with the full consent of the generality of that company was constituted and authorized, during his natural life to be Lord Governor and Captaine Generall of all the English Collonies planted, or to be planted in Virginia, according to the tenor of his Majesties letters patents granted that yeare 1609.' Stow. Speculation in Virginia stock was encouraged: 'Besides many noblemen, knights, gentlemen, merchants, and wealthy tradesmen, most of the incorporated trades of London were induced to take shares in the stock.' Hildreth, _History of the United States_, i. 108, quoted by Norton.

The meaning of 'plot' here is 'device, design, scheme' (O.E.D.), as 'There have beene divers good plottes devised, and wise counsells cast allready about reformation of that realme': Spenser, _State of Ireland_. Donne uses the word also in the more original sense of 'a piece of ground, a spot'. See p. 132, l. 34.

l. 23-4. _whether Ward ... the I(n)land Seas._ I have taken 'Iland' _1635-54_ as intended for 'Inland', perhaps written 'ĩland', not for 'Island'. The edition of 1669 reads 'midland', and there is no doubt that the Mediterranean was the scene of the career and exploits of the notorious Ward, whose head-quarters were at Tunis. The Mediterranean is called the Inland sea in Holland's translation of Pliny (_Hist. of the World_, III. _The Proeme_); and Donne uses the phrase (with a different application but one borrowed from this meaning) in the _Progresse of the Soule_, p. 308, ll. 317-8:

as if his vast wombe were
Some Inland sea.

Previous editors read 'Island seas' but do not explain the reference, except Grosart, who declares that the 'Iland seas are those around the West Indian and other islands. The Midland seas (as in _1669_) were probably the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Seas'. He cites no authority; nor have we proof that Ward was ever in these seas. Writing to Salisbury on the 7th of March, 1607-8, Wotton says: 'The voice is here newly arrived that Warde hath taken another Venetian vessel of good value, so as the hatred of him increaseth among them and fully as fast as the fear of him. These are his effects. Now to give your Lordship some taste of his language. One Moore, captain of an English ship that tradeth this way ... was hailed by him not long since a little without the Gulf, and answering that he was bound for Venice, "Tell those flat caps" (said he) "who have been the occasion that I am banished out of my country that before I have done with them I will make them sue for pardon." In this style he speaketh.' Pearsall Smith, _Life and Letters of ... Wotton_, ii. 415. Mr. Pearsall Smith adds in a note that Ward hoped to 'buy or threaten the English Government into pardoning him', and that some attempt was also made by the Venetian Government to procure his assassination.

If 'Island' be the right reading the sea referred to must be the Adriatic. The Islands of the Illyrian coast were at various times the haunt of pirates. But I have found no instance of the phrase in this sense.