Page 366, l. 337. The annointed Lord, &c. Chambers, to judge from his use of capital letters, evidently reads this verse as applying to God,—'Th'Annointed Lord', 'under His shadow'. It is rather the King of Israel. Tremellius's note runs: 'Id est, Rex noster e posteritate Davidis, quo freti saltem nobis dabitur aliqua interspirandi occasio in quibuslibet angustiis: nam praefidebant Judaei dignitati illius regni, tamquam si pure et per seipsum fuisset stabile; non autem spectabant Christum, qui finis est et complementum illius typi, neque conditiones sibi imperatas.' 'The anointed of the Lord' is the translation of the Revised Version. The Vulgate version seems to indicate a prophetic reference, which may be what Chambers had in view: 'Spiritus oris nostri, Christus Dominus, captus est in peccatis nostris: In umbra tua vivemus in gentibus.' Donne took this verse as the text of a Gunpowder Plot sermon in 1622. He points out there that some commentators have applied the verse to Josiah, a good king; others to Zedekiah, a bad king: 'We argue not, we dispute not; we embrace that which arises from both, That both good Kings and bad Kings ... are the anointed of the Lord, and the breath of the nostrils, that is, the life of the people,' &c. James is 'the Josiah of our times'. James had good reasons for preferring bishops to Andrew Melville and other turbulent presbyters. But Donne, who was steeped in the Vulgate, notes a possible reference to Christ: 'Or if he lamented the future devastation of that Nation, occasioned by the death of the King of Kings, Christ Jesus, when he came into the world, this was their case prophetically.' Sermons 50. 43. 402.
l. 355. wee drunke, and pay: 'pecunia bibimus' Tremellius and Vulgate: the Latin may be present or past tense, but the verse goes on in the Vulgate, 'ligna nostra pretio comparavimus,' which shows that 'bibimus' is 'we drunk' or 'we have drunk'. The Authorized Version reads 'we have drunken'.
Page 367, l. 374. children fall. 'Juvenes ad molendum portant, et pueri ad ligna corruunt,' Tremellius; 'et pueri in ligno corruerunt,' Vulgate. But the latter translates the first half of the line quite differently.
Page 368. Hymn To God my God, in my sicknesse.
The date which Walton gives for this poem, March 23, 1630, is of course March 23, 1631, i.e. eight days before the writer's death. Donne's tense and torturing will never relaxed its hold before the final moment: Being speechlesse, he did (as Saint Stephen) look steadfastly towards heaven, till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father; And being satisfied with this blessed sight, (as his soule ascended, and his last breath departed from him) he closed his owne eyes, and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture, as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him.' Walton (1670).
Donne's monument had been designed by himself and shows him thus shrouded. The epitaph too is his own composition and is the natural supplement to this hymn:
JOHANNES DONNE
SAC. THEOL. PROFESS.
POST VARIA STVDIA QVIBVS AB ANNIS