Page 352. A Hymne To Christ.
Page 353, ll. 9-12. Perhaps the rhetoric of these lines would be improved by shifting the semicolon from l. 10 to l. 11. 'In putting, at thy behest, the seas between my friends and me, I sacrifice them unto thee: Do thou put thy,' &c. As the verse stands the connexion between the first two lines and the next is a little vague.
l. 12. thy sea. I have adopted 'sea' from the MSS. in place of 'seas' 1633. It was easy for the printer to take over 'seas' from the preceding line, but 'sea' is the more pointed word. The sea is the blood of Christ. The 1635-69 editions indeed read 'blood', which is as though a gloss had crept in from the margin. More probably 'blood' was a first version, changed by a bold metaphor to a more striking antithesis.
Miss Spearing has drawn my attention, since writing this note, to the peroration of A Sermon of Valediction at my going into Germany, at Lincolns-Inne, April 18, 1619, which I had overlooked. It confirms the rightness of 'sea'. The whole passage is of interest in connexion with this poem: 'Now to make up a circle, by returning to our first word, remember: As we remember God, so for his sake, let us remember one another. In my long absence, and far distance from hence, remember me, as I shall do you in the ears of that God, to whom the farthest East, and the farthest West are but as the right and left ear in one of us; we hear with both at once, and he hears in both at once; remember me, not my abilities; for when I consider my Apostleship that I was sent to you, I am in St. Pauls quorum, quorum ego sum minimus, the least of them that have been sent; and when I consider my infirmities, I am in his quorum, in another commission, another way, Quorum ego maximus; the greatest of them; but remember my labors, and endeavors, at least my desire, to make sure your salvation. And I shall remember your religious cheerfulness in hearing the word, and your christianly respect towards all them that bring that word unto you, and towards myself in particular far bove my merit. And so as your eyes that stay here, and mine that must be far of, for all that distance shall meet every morning, in looking upon that same Sun, and meet every night, in looking upon the same Moon; so our hearts may meet morning and evening in that God, which sees and hears everywhere; that you may come thither to him with your prayers, that I, (if I may be of use for his glory, and your edification in this place) may be restored to you again; and may come to him with my prayer that what Paul soever plant amongst you, or what Apollos soever water, God himself will give us the increase: That if I never meet you again till we have all passed the gate of death, yet in the gates of heaven, I may meet you all, and there say to my Saviour and your Saviour, that which he said to his Father and our Father, Of those whom thou hast given me, have I not lost one. Remember me thus, you that stay in this Kingdome of peace, where no sword is drawn, but the sword of Justice, as I shal remember you in those Kingdomes, where ambition on one side, and a necessary defence from unjust persecution on the other side hath drawn many swords; and Christ Jesus remember us all in his Kingdome, to which, though we must sail through a sea, it is the sea of his blood, where no soul suffers shipwrack; though we must be blown with strange winds, with sighs and groans for our sins, yet it is the Spirit of God that blows all this wind, and shall blow away all contrary winds of diffidence or distrust in God's mercy; where we shall be all Souldiers of one army, the Lord of Hostes, and Children of one Quire, the God of Harmony and consent: where all Clients shall retain but one Counsellor, our Advocate Christ Jesus, nor present him any other fee but his own blood, and yet every Client have a Judgment on his side, not only in a not guilty, in the remission of his sins, but in a Venite benedicti, in being called to the participation of an immortal Crown of glory: where there shall be no difference in affection, nor in mind, but we shall agree as fully and perfectly in our Allelujah, and gloria in excelsis, as God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost agreed in the faciamus hominem at first; where we shall end, and yet begin but then; where we shall have continuall rest, and yet never grow lazie; where we shall be stronger to resist, and yet have no enemy; where we shall live and never die, where we shall meet and never part.' Sermons 26. 19. 280.
l. 28. Fame, Wit, Hopes, &c. Compare: 'How ill husbands then of this dignity are we by sinne, to forfeit it by submitting our selves to inferior things? either to gold, then which every worme, (because a worme hath life, and gold hath none) is in nature more estimable, and more precious; Or, to that which is lesse than gold, to Beauty; for there went neither labour, nor study, nor cost to the making of that; (the Father cannot diet himselfe so, nor the mother so, as to be sure of a faire child) but it is a thing that hapned by chance, wheresoever it is; and, as there are Diamonds of divers waters, so men enthrall themselves in one clime to a black, in another to a white beauty. To that which is lesse then gold or Beauty, voice, opinion, fame, honour, we sell our selves.' Sermons 50. 38. 352.
Page 354. The Lamentations of Jeremy.
Immanuel Tremellius was born in the Ghetto of Ferrara in 1510. His father was apparently a Jewish surgeon, a man of distinction in the Jewish community. Educated as a Jew, Tremellius became a Christian about the age of twenty, and, under the influence of the Protestant movement which was agitating Italy as well as other countries, a Calvinist. When persecution began Tremellius fled from Lucca, where he had taught Hebrew under the reformer Vermigli, to Strasburg, and thereafter his life was that of the wandering, often fugitive, scholar and reformer. He was invited to England by Cranmer in 1548, and held the Professorship of Hebrew at Cambridge until 1553. The accession of Mary drove him back to the Continent, and he was tutor to the children of the Duke of Zweibrüchen from 1554 to 1558, and rector of the Gymnasium at Hornbach from 1558 to 1560. The Duke became a Lutheran, and Tremellius was exiled, but found after a year or two a haven in the University of Heidelberg, where Duke Frederick III had rallied to the Calvinist cause. Tremellius was Professor of Theology here from 1562-77, and it was here that he issued most of his works. He had already published a Hebrew version of the Genevan Catechism intended for his Jewish brethren. The works issued at Heidelberg include a Chaldaic and Syriac Grammar, an edition of the Peschito (an old Syrian version of the New Testament), and the Latin translation of the Old Testament which Donne utilized for his paraphrase. In this work he was assisted by his son-in-law Francis Junius (father of the Anglo-Saxon and Antiquarian scholar), a native of Bourges, who had served as a field-preacher under William the Silent. Junius was responsible only for the Apocrypha, so that Donne rightly mentions Tremellius alone. The work was published at Frankfort in 1575-9; in London in 1580, 1581, and 1585; at Geneva in 1590 and 1617. In the Genevan editions it was coupled with Beza's translation of the New Testament. The whole was re-issued at Hanover as late as 1715.
Duke Frederick III's successor was a Lutheran, and Tremellius was driven into exile once more in 1577. His last years were spent as teacher in the Academy instituted by Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, in Sedan. Here he died in 1580.
I have compared Donne's version throughout with both Tremellius' translation and the Vulgate, and wherever the collation helps to fix the text I have quoted their readings in the textual notes. I add here one or two more quotations from the originals. Tremellius' version was accompanied, it must be remembered, with an elaborate commentary.
Page 356, l. 58. accite, the reading of B, O'F as well as 1635-69, I have not yet found elsewhere in Donne's works, but doubtless it occurs. Shakespeare uses it once:
He by the Senate is accited home
From weary wars against the barbarous Goths.
Tit. Andr. I. i. 27-8.
ll. 75-6. for they sought for meat
Which should refresh their soules, they could not get.
Chambers has printed this poem from 1639, noting occasionally the readings of 1635 and 1650, but ignoring consistently those of 1633. Here 1633 has the support of N, TCD; B reads 'they none could get'; and O'F, if I may trust my collation, agrees with 1635-69; Grolier follows 1633 but conjectures 'the sought-for meat'. This is unnecessary. It is quite in Donne's style to close with an abrupt 'they could not get'. Modern punctuation would change the comma to a semicolon. The version of Tremellius runs: 'Expirarunt quum quaererent escam sibi, qua reficerent se ipsos.' The Vulgate, 'consumpti sunt, quia quaesierunt cibum sibi ut refocillarent animum.'
Page 357, l. 81. Of all which heare I mourne: i.e. 'which hear that I mourn.' The construction is harsh, and I was tempted for a moment to adopt the 'me' of N, but Donne is translating Tremellius, and 'me in gemitu esse' is not quite the same thing as 'me gementem'. Grosart and Chambers and the Grolier Club editor would not have followed 1639 in changing 'heare' to 'here' had they consulted the original poem which Donne is paraphrasing in any version. The Vulgate runs: 'Audierunt quia ingemisco ego, et non est qui consoletur me.'
Page 359, l. 161. poure, for thy sinnes. The 'poure out thy sinnes' of 1635-69 which Grosart and Chambers follow is obviously wrong. The words 'for thy sinnes' have no counterpart in the Latin of Tremellius or the Vulgate. The latter runs: 'Effunde sicut aquam cor tuum ante conspectum Domini.'
Page 360, ll. 182-3. hath girt mee in
With hemlocke, and with labour.
Cingit cicuta et molestia, Tremellius: circumdedit me felle et labore, Vulgate. Donne combines the two versions. He is fond of using 'hemlock' as the typical poison: and he tells Wotton in one of his letters that to him labour or business is the worst of evils: 'I professe that I hate businesse so much, as I am sometimes glad to remember, that the Roman Church reads that verse A negotio perambulante in tenebris, which we reade from the pestilence walking by night, so equall to me do the plague and businesse deserve avoiding.' Letters, p. 142. To Goodyere in like manner he writes, 'we who have been accustomed to one another are like in this, that we love not businesse.' Letters, p. 94.
Page 361, l. 193. the children of his quiver. Donne found this phrase in the Vulgate or in the margin of Tremellius. In the text of the latter the verse runs, 'Immitit in renes meos tela pharetrae suae.' The marginal note says, 'Heb. filios, id est, prodeuntes a pharetra.' The Vulgate reads, 'filias pharetrae suae.'
l. 197. drunke with wormewood: 'inebriavit me absinthio,' Tremellius and Vulgate.
Page 362, ll. 226-30. I have changed the full stop in l. 229, 'him', to a comma, for all these clauses are objective to 'the Lord allowes not this'. The construction is modelled on the original: 'Non enim affligit ex animo suo, moestitiaque afficit filios viri. 34. Conterere sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae, 35. Detorquere ius viri coram facie superioris, 36. Pervertere hominem in causa sua, Dominus non probat.' The version of the Vulgate is similar: '33. Non enim humiliavit ex corde suo, et abiecit filios hominum, 34. Ut contereret sub pedibus suis omnes vinctos terrae; 35. Ut declinaret iudicium viri in conspectu vultus Altissimi; 36. Ut perverteret hominem in iudicio suo; Dominus ignoravit.'
Page 364, l. 299. their bone. The reading of the editions is probably right: 'Concreta est cutis eorum cum osse ipsorum,' Tremellius.
l. 302. better through pierc'd then through penury. I have no doubt that the 'through penury' of the 1635-69 editions and the MSS. is what Donne wrote. The 1633 editor changed it to 'by penury'. Donne is echoing the parallelism of 'confossi gladio quam confossi fame'. The Vulgate has simply 'Melius fuit occisio gladio quam interfectio fame'.
Page 366, l. 337. The annointed Lord, &c. Chambers, to judge from his use of capital letters, evidently reads this verse as applying to God,—'Th'Annointed Lord', 'under His shadow'. It is rather the King of Israel. Tremellius's note runs: 'Id est, Rex noster e posteritate Davidis, quo freti saltem nobis dabitur aliqua interspirandi occasio in quibuslibet angustiis: nam praefidebant Judaei dignitati illius regni, tamquam si pure et per seipsum fuisset stabile; non autem spectabant Christum, qui finis est et complementum illius typi, neque conditiones sibi imperatas.' 'The anointed of the Lord' is the translation of the Revised Version. The Vulgate version seems to indicate a prophetic reference, which may be what Chambers had in view: 'Spiritus oris nostri, Christus Dominus, captus est in peccatis nostris: In umbra tua vivemus in gentibus.' Donne took this verse as the text of a Gunpowder Plot sermon in 1622. He points out there that some commentators have applied the verse to Josiah, a good king; others to Zedekiah, a bad king: 'We argue not, we dispute not; we embrace that which arises from both, That both good Kings and bad Kings ... are the anointed of the Lord, and the breath of the nostrils, that is, the life of the people,' &c. James is 'the Josiah of our times'. James had good reasons for preferring bishops to Andrew Melville and other turbulent presbyters. But Donne, who was steeped in the Vulgate, notes a possible reference to Christ: 'Or if he lamented the future devastation of that Nation, occasioned by the death of the King of Kings, Christ Jesus, when he came into the world, this was their case prophetically.' Sermons 50. 43. 402.
l. 355. wee drunke, and pay: 'pecunia bibimus' Tremellius and Vulgate: the Latin may be present or past tense, but the verse goes on in the Vulgate, 'ligna nostra pretio comparavimus,' which shows that 'bibimus' is 'we drunk' or 'we have drunk'. The Authorized Version reads 'we have drunken'.
Page 367, l. 374. children fall. 'Juvenes ad molendum portant, et pueri ad ligna corruunt,' Tremellius; 'et pueri in ligno corruerunt,' Vulgate. But the latter translates the first half of the line quite differently.