ll. 51-4.
How little more alas,
Is man now, then before he was? he was
Nothing; for us, wee are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves still disproportion it.
Donne is here playing with an antithesis which apparently he owes to the rhetoric of Tertullian. 'Canst thou choose', says the poet in one of his later sermons, 'but think God as perfect now, at least as he was at first, and can he not as easily make thee up againe of nothing, as he made thee of nothing at first? Recogita quid fueris antequam esses. Think over thyselfe; what wast thou before thou wast anything? Meminisses utique, si fuisses: if thou had'st been anything than, surely thou would'st remember it now. Qui non eras, factus es; cum iterum non eris, fies. Thou that wast once nothing, wast made this that thou art now; and when thou shalt be nothing again, thou shalt be made better then thou art yet.' Sermons 50. 14. 109. A note in the margin indicates that the quotations are from Tertullian, and Donne is echoing here the antithetical Recogita quid fueris antequam esses.
This echo is certainly made more obvious to the ear by the punctuation of 1669, which Grosart, the Grolier Club editor, and Chambers all follow. The last reads:
How little more, alas,
Is man now, than, before he was, he was?