Page 58. The Funerall.
l. 3. That subtile wreath of haire, which crowns my arme; 'And Theagenes presented her with a diamond ring which he used to wear, entreating her, whensoever she did cast her eyes upon it, to conceive that it told her in his behalf, that his heart would prove as hard as that stone in the admittance of any new affection; and that his to her should be as void of end as that circular figure was;' (compare A Ieat Ring sent, p. [65]) 'and she desired him to wear for her sake a lock of hair which she gave him; the splendour of which can be expressed by no earthly thing, but it seemed as though a stream of the sun's beams had been gathered together and converted into a solid substance. With this precious relique about his arm,' (compare The Relique, p. [62]) 'whose least hair was sufficient' (compare Aire and Angels, p. [22], 'Ev'ry thy hair' and note) 'to bind in bonds of love the greatest heart that ever was informed with life, Theagenes took his journey into Attica.' Kenelm Digby's Private Memoirs (1827), pp. 80-1. When later Theagenes heard that Stelliana (believing Theagenes to be dead) was to wed Mardonius, 'he tore from his arm the bracelet of her hair ... and threw it into the fire that was in his chamber; when that glorious relic burning shewed by the wan and blue colour of the flame that it had sense and took his words unkindly in her behalf.'
Theagenes was Sir Kenelm Digby himself, Stelliana being Lady Venetia Stanley, afterwards his wife. Mardonius was probably Edward, Earl of Dorset, the brother of Donne's friend and patron.
It is probable that this sequence of poems, The Funerall, The Blossome, The Primrose and The Relique, was addressed to Mrs. Herbert in the earlier days of Donne's intimacy with her in Oxford or London.
l. 24. That since you would save none of me, I bury some of you. I have hesitated a good deal over this line. The reading of the editions is 'have none of me'; and in the group of MSS. D, H49, Lec, while H49 reads 'save', D has corrected 'have' to what may be 'save', and Lec reads 'have'. The reading of the editions is the full form of the construction, which is more common without the 'have'. 'It's four to one she'll none of me,' Twelfth Night, I. iii. 113; 'She will none of him,' Ibid. II. ii. 9, are among Schmidt's examples (Shakespeare Lexicon), in none of which 'have' occurs. The reading of the MSS., 'save none of me,' is also quite idiomatic, resembling the 'fear none of this' (i.e. 'do not fear this') of Winter's Tale, IV. iv. 601; and I have preferred it because: (1) It seems difficult to understand how it could have arisen if 'have none' was the original. (2) It gives a sharper antithesis, 'You would not save me, keep me alive. Therefore I will bury, not you indeed, but a part of you.' (3) To be saved is the lover's usual prayer; and the idea of the poem is that his death is due to the lady's cruelty.
Come not, when I am dead,
To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,
To trample round my fallen head,
And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.
There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;
But thou go by.
Compare also the Letter To Mrs M. H. (pp. [216]-8), where the same idea recurs:
When thou art there, if any, whom we know,
Were sav'd before, and did that heaven partake, &c.
Page 59. The Blossome.
l. 10. labour'st. The form with 't' occurs in most of the MSS., and 't' is restored in 1635. The 'labours' of 1633 represents a common dropping of the 't' for ease of pronunciation. See Franz, Shakespeare-Grammatik, ยง 152. It is colloquial, and I doubt if Donne would have preserved it if he had printed the poem, supposing that he wrote the word so, and not some copyist.
ll. 21-4. You goe to friends, whose love and meanes present
Various content
To your eyes, eares, and tongue, and every part:
If then your body goe, what need you a heart?
I have adopted the MS. readings 'tongue' and 'what need you a heart?' because they seem to me more certainly what Donne wrote. He may have altered them, but so may an editor. 'Tongue' is more exactly parallel to eyes and ears, and the whole talk is of organs. 'What need you a heart?' is more pointed. 'With these organs of sense, what need have you of a heart?' The idiom was not uncommon, the verb being used impersonally. The O.E.D. gives among others:
What need us so many instances abroad.
Andros Tracts, 1691.
'What need your heart go' is of course also idiomatic. The latest example the O.E.D. gives is from Hall's Satires, 1597: 'What needs me care for any bookish skill?'
Page 61. The Primrose, &c.
It is noteworthy that the addition 'being at Montgomery Castle', &c. was made in 1635. It is unknown to 1633 and the MSS. It may be unwarranted. If it be accurate, then the poem is probably addressed to Mrs. Herbert and is a half mystical, half cynical description of Platonic passion. The perfect primrose has apparently five petals, but more or less may be found. Seeking for one to symbolize his love, he fears to find either more or less. What can be less than woman? But if more than woman she becomes that unreal thing, the object of Platonic affection and Petrarchian adoration: but, as he says elsewhere,
Love's not so pure and abstract as they use
To say, which have no Mistresse but their Muse.
Let woman be content to be herself. Since five is half ten, united with man she will be half of a perfect life; or (and the cynical humour breaks out again) if she is not content with that, since five is the first number which includes an even number (2) and an odd (3), it may claim to be the perfect number, and she to be the whole in which we men are included and absorbed. We have no will of our own.
'From Sarai's name He took a letter which expressed the number ten, and reposed one which made but five; so that she contributed that five which man wanted before, to show a mutual indigence and support.' Essays in Divinity (Jessop, 1855), p. 118.
'Even for this, he will visite to the third, and fourth generation; and three and foure are seven, and seven is infinite. Sermons 50. 47. 440.
l. 30. this, five, I have introduced a comma after 'this' to show what, I think, must be the relation of the words. The later editions drop 'this', and it seems to me probable that an original reading and a correction have survived side by side. Donne may have written 'this' alone, referring back to 'five', and then, thinking the reference too remote, he may have substituted 'five' in the margin, whence it crept into the text without completely displacing 'this'. The support which the MSS. lend to 1633 make it dangerous to remove either word now, but I have thought it well to show that 'this' is 'five'. In the MSS. when a word is erased a line is drawn under it and the substituted word placed in the margin.
Page 62. The Relique.
l. 13. Where mis-devotion doth command. The unanimity of the earlier editions and the MSS. shows clearly that 'Mass-devotion' (which Chambers adopts) is merely an ingenious conjecture of the 1669 editor. Donne uses the word frequently, e.g.:
Here in a place, where miss-devotion frames
A thousand Prayers to Saints, whose very names
The ancient Church knew not, &c.
Of the Progresse of the Soule, p. [266], ll. 511-13.
and: 'This mis-devotion, and left-handed piety, of praying for the dead.' Sermons 80. 77. 780.
l. 17. You shalbe. I have recorded this reading of several MSS. because the poem is probably addressed to Mrs. Herbert and Donne may have so written. His discrimination of 'thou' and 'you' is very marked throughout the poems. 'Thou' is the pronoun of feeling and intimacy, 'you' of respect. Compare 'To Mrs. M. H.', and remember that Mrs. Herbert's name was Magdalen.
ll. 27-8. Comming and going, wee Perchance might kisse, but not between those meales: i.e. the kiss of salutation and parting. In a sermon on the text 'Kisse the Son, lest he be angry', Donne enumerates the uses of kissing sanctioned by the Bible, and this among them: 'Now by this we are slid into our fourth and last branch of our first part, The perswasion to come to this holy kisse, though defamed by treachery, though depraved by licentiousnesse, since God invites us to it, by so many good uses thereof in his Word. It is an imputation laid upon Nero, that Neque adveniens neque proficiscens, That whether comming or going he never kissed any: And Christ himself imputes it to Simon, as a neglect of him, That when he came into his house he did not kisse him. This then was in use', &c. Sermons 80. 41. 407.
The kiss of salutation lasted in some countries till the later eighteenth century, perhaps still lasts. See Rousseau's Confessions, Bk. 9, and Byron's Childe Harold, III. lxxix.
But Erasmus, in 1499, speaks as though it were a specially English custom: 'Est praeterea mos nunquam satis laudatus. Sive quo venis, omnium osculis exciperis; sive discedis aliquo, osculis dimitteris; redis, redduntur suavia; venitur ad te, propinantur suavia; disceditur abs te, dividuntur basia; occurritur alicubi, basiatur affatim; denique quocunque te moves, suaviorum plena sunt omnia.'
Page 64. The Dissolution.
l. 10. earthly sad despaire. Cf. O.E.D.: 'Earthly. 3. Partaking of the nature of earth, resembling earth as a substance, consisting of earth as an element; = Earthy, archaic or obsolete.' The form was used as late as 1843, but the change in the later editions of Donne indicates that it was growing rare in this sense. Compare, 'A young man of a softly disposition.' Camden's Reign of Elizabeth (English transl.).
Page 66. Negative Love.
l. 15. What we know not, our selves. 'All creatures were brought to Adam, and, because he understood the natures of all those creatures, he gave them names accordingly. In that he gave no name to himselfe it may be by some perhaps argued, that he understood himselfe lesse then he did other creatures.' Sermons 80. 50. 563.
Page 67. The Prohibition.
l. 18. So, these extreames shall neithers office doe. The 'neithers' of D, H40, JC, supported by 'neyther' in O'F and 'neyther their' in Cy, is much more characteristic than 'ne'er their', and more likely to have been altered than to have been substituted for 'ne'er their'. The reading of Cy shows how the phrase puzzled an ordinary copyist. 'These extremes shall by counteracting each other prevent either from fulfilling his function.' Compare, 'As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose' (i.e. each to the other's purpose). Shakespeare, Hen. V, II. ii. 107.
l. 22. So shall I, live, thy stage not triumph bee. I have placed a comma after I to make quite clear that 'live' is the adjective, not the verb. The 'stay' of 1633 is defensible, but the 1633 editor was somewhat at sea about this poem, witness the variations introduced while the edition was printing in ll. 20 and 24 and the misprinting of l. 5. All the MSS. I have consulted support 'stage'; and this gives the best meaning: 'Alive, I shall continue to be the stage on which your victories are daily set forth; dead, I shall be but your triumph, a thing achieved once, never to be repeated.' Compare:
And cause her leave to triumph in this wise
Upon the prostrate spoil of that poor heart!
That serves a Trophy to her conquering eyes,
And must their glory to the world impart. Daniel, Delia, x.
ll. 23, 24. There are obviously two versions of these lines which the later editions have confounded. The first is that of the text, from 1633. The second is that of the MSS. and runs, properly pointed:
Then lest thy love, hate, and mee thou undoe,
O let me live, O love and hate me too.
The punctuation of the MSS. is very careless, but the lines as printed are quite intelligible. As given in the editions 1635-69 they are nonsensical.
Page 68. The Expiration.
l. 5. We ask'd. The past tense of the MSS. makes the antithesis and sense more pointed. 'It was with no one's leave we lov'd to begin with, and we will owe to no one the death that comes with parting.'
ll. 7 f. Goe: and if that word have not quite kil'd thee,
Ease mee with death, by bidding mee goe too.
Compare:
Val. No more: unless the next word that thou speak'st
Have some malignant power upon my life:
If so, I pray thee, breathe it in mine ear,
As ending anthem of my endless dolour.
Two Gentlemen of Verona, III. i. 236 f.
Page 70. The Paradox.
l. 14. lights life. The MSS. correct the obvious mistake of the editions, 'lifes light.' The 'lights life' is, of course, the sun. In the same way at 21 'lye' is surely better suited than 'dye' to an epitaph. This poem is not in D, H49, Lec, and 1633 has printed it from A18, N, TC.
In the latter group of MSS. this poem is followed immediately by another of the same kind, which is found also in H40, RP31, and O'F, as well as several more miscellaneous MSS. I print from TCC: