According to Donne's medical science the scorpion (probably its flesh) was an antidote to its own poison: 'I have as many Antidotes as the Devill hath poisons, I have as much mercy as the Devill hath malice; There must be scorpions in the world; but the Scorpion shall cure the Scorpion; there must be tentations; but tentations shall adde to mine and to thy glory, and Eripiam, I will deliver thee.' Sermons 80. 52. 527. Obviously Donne could not ask in surprise, 'Can a Scorpion or Torpedo cure a man?' Each can; it is their combination he deprecates. In Ignatius his Conclave he writes, 'and two Poysons mingled might do no harme.'
In speaking of scent made from dung Donne has probably the statement of Paracelsus in his mind to which Sir Thomas Browne also refers: 'And yet if, as Paracelsus encourageth, Ordure makes the best Musk, and from the most fetid substances may be drawn the most odoriferous Essences; all that had not Vespasian's nose, might boldly swear, here was a subject fit for such extractions.' Pseudodoxia Epidemica, iii. 26.
Page 181, ll. 19-20. Cities are worst of all three; of all three
(O knottie riddle) each is worst equally.
This is the punctuation of 1633 and of D, H49, Lec, and W. The later punctuation which Chambers has adopted and modernized, is not found to be an improvement if scrutinized. He reads:
Cities are worst of all three; of all three?
O knotty riddle! each is worst equally.
The mark of interrogation after 'three' would be justifiable only if the poet were going to expatiate upon the badness of cities. 'Of all three? that is saying very little, &c., &c.' But this is not the tenor of the passage. From one thought he is led to another. 'Cities are worst of all three (i.e. Court, City, Country). Nay, each is equally the worst.' The interjected 'O knottie riddle' does not mean, 'Who is to say which is the worst?' but 'How can it come that each is worst? This is a riddle!' Donne here echoes Bacon:
And where's the citty from foul vice so free
But may be term'd the worst of all the three?