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.