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.: