Page 334. The Annuntiation and Passion.
The MSS. add 'falling upon one day Anno Dñi 1608'; i.e. March 25, 1608⁄9. George Herbert wrote some Latin verses In Natales et Pascha concurrentes, and Sir John Beaumont an English poem 'Vpon the two great feasts of the Annuntiation and Resurrection falling on the same day, March 25, 1627'.
Page 336. Good Friday.
l. 2. The intelligence: i.e. the angel. Each sphere has its angel or intelligence that moves and directs it. Grosart quotes the arrangement,—the Sun, Raphael; the Moon, Gabriel; Mercury, Michael; Mars, Chemuel; Jupiter, Adahiel; Venus, Haniel; Saturn, Zaphiel.
l. 4. motions. Nothing is more easy and common than the dropping of the final 's', which in writing was indicated by little more than a stroke. The reference is to the doctrine of cycles and epicycles.
l. 13. But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall. Grosart and Chambers adopt the reading 'his Crosse' of 1635-69, the former without any reference to the alternative reading. Professor Norton, in the Grolier Club edition, prints this, but in a note at the end remarks' that all editions after that of 1633 give this verse, correctly,
But that Christ on his cross did rise and fall'.
The agreement of the later editions is of little importance. They too often agree to go wrong. The balance of the MS. evidence is on the side of 1633. To me 'this' seems the more vivid and pointed reading. The line must be taken in close connexion with what precedes. 'If I turned to the East,' says Donne, 'I should see Christ lifted on to his Cross to die, a Sun by rising set. And unless Christ had consented to rise and set on this Crosse (this Crosse which I should see in vision if I turned my head), which was raised this day, Sin would have eternally benighted all.'
l. 22. turne all spheres. The 'tune all speares' of the editions and some MSS. is tempting because of (as it is doubtless due to) the Platonic doctrine of the music of the spheres. But Donne was more of a Schoolman and Aristotelian than a Platonist, and I think there can be little doubt that he is describing Christ as the 'first mover'. On the other hand 'tune' may include 'turne'. The Dutch poet translates:
Die 't Noord en Zuyder-punt bereicken,
daer Sy 't spanden
Er geven met een' draeg elck Hemel-rond
sijn toon.
The idea that the note of each is due to the rate at which it is spun is that of Plato, The Republic, x.