CVJVS NOMEN EST ORIENS.
The reference in the last line of the epitaph, and the figure of the map with which he plays in the second and third stanzas of the Hymne are both illustrated by a passage in a sermon on Psalm vi. 8-10: 'In a flat Map, there goes no more, to make West East, though they be distant in an extremity, but to paste that flat Map upon a round body, and then West and East are all one. In a flat soule, in a dejected conscience, in a troubled spirit, there goes no more to the making of that trouble, peace, then to apply that trouble to the body of the Merits, to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and conforme thee to him, and thy West is East, thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity of spirit. The name of Christ is Oriens, The East; And yet Lucifer himself is called Filius Orientis, The Son of the East. If thou beest fallen by Lucifer, fallen to Lucifer, and not fallen as Lucifer, to a senselessnesse of thy fall, and an impenitiblenesse therein, but to a troubled spirit, still thy prospect is the East, still thy Climate is heaven, still thy Haven is Jerusalem; for, in our lowest dejection of all, even in the dust of the grave, we are so composed, so layed down, as that we look to the East: If I could beleeve that Trajan, or Tecla, could look Eastward, that is, towards Christ, in Hell, I could beleeve with them of Rome, that Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell.' Sermons 80. 55. 558.
For 'the name of Christ is Oriens'. Donne refers in the margin to Zachariae vi. 12: 'Et loqueris ad eum dicens: Haec ait Dominus exercituum, dicens: ECCE VIR ORIENS NOMEN EJUS; et subter eum orietur, et aedificabit templum Domino.' In the English versions, Genevan and Authorized, the words run 'whose name is the Branch', but to Donne the Vulgate was the form in which he knew the Scriptures most intimately. At the same time he consulted and refers to the English versions frequently: 'that which we call the Bishops Bible, nor that which we call the Geneva Bible, and that which we may call the Kings.' Sermons 80. 50. 506.
The difference between the two versions is due, I understand, to the fact that the Hebrew participle 'rising' and the Hebrew word for 'branch' contain the same consonants. In unpointed Hebrew it was, therefore, possible to confound them. The Septuagint version is Ἀνατολὴ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ.
In describing the preparations for making Donne's tomb Walton says: 'Upon this urn he thus stood, with his eyes shut, and with so much of the sheet turned aside, as might show his lean, pale, and deathlike face, which was purposely turned towards the east, from whence he expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus.' Walton says that he stood, but Mr. Hamo Thornycroft has pointed out that the drapery by its folds reveals that it was modelled from a recumbent figure. Gosse, Life, &c., ii. 288.
ll. 18-20. Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltare,
All streights, and none but streights, are wayes to them.
Grosart and Chambers have boggled unnecessarily at these lines. The former inserts an unnecessary and unmetrical 'are' after 'Gibraltare'. The latter interpolates a mark of interrogation after 'Gibraltare', putting 'Anyan, and Magellan and Gibraltare' on a level with the Pacific, the 'eastern riches' and Jerusalem, i.e. six possible homes instead of three. What the poet says is simply, 'Be my home in the Pacific, or in the rich east, or in Jerusalem, to each I must sail through a strait, viz. Anyan (i.e. Behring Strait) if I go west by the North-West passage, or Magellan, or Gibraltar. These, all of which are straits, are ways to them, and none but straits are ways to them.' A condensed construction makes 'are ways to them' predicate to two subjects. For 'the straight of Anian' see Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, vol. vii, Glasgow, 1904, esp. the map at p. 256, which shows very distinctly how the 'Straight of Anian' was conceived to separate America from 'Cathaia in Asia' and to lead right on to Japan and the 'Ilandes of Moluccae', 'the eastern riches.' The Mare Pacificum lies further to the south and east, entered by the 'Straight of Magellanes' between Peru and the 'Terra del Fuego', which latter is not an island but part of the great 'Terra Australis'. Thus 'none but straights' lead to the 'eastern riches' or the Pacific. 'Outre ce que les navigations des modernes ont des-jà presque descouvert que ce n'est point une isle, ains terre ferme et continente avec l'Inde orientale d'un costé, et avec les terres qui sont soubs les deux poles d'autre part; ou, si elle en est separée, que c'est d'un si petit destroit et intervalle, qu'elle ne merite pas d'estre nommé isle pour cela.' Montaigne, Essais, i. 31: Des Cannibales.
The conceit about the 'straits' Donne had already used: 'a narrower way but to a better Land; thorow Straits; 'tis true; but to the Pacifique Sea, The consideration of the treasure of the Godly Man in this World, and God's treasure towards him, both in this, and the next.' Sermons 26. 5. 71.
'Who ever amongst our Fathers thought of any other way to the Moluccaes, or to China, then by the Promontory of Good Hope? Yet another way opened itself to Magellan; a Straite; it is true; but yet a way thither; and who knows yet, whether there may not be a North-East, and a North-West way thither, besides?' Sermons 80. 24. 241.