Read John Donne - Delphi Poets Series Online
Authors: John Donne
John Donne - Delphi Poets Series (59 page)
Lucifers
owne
Throne,
and finding it possest, he stopt
Lucifer
, and asked him, who it was that sate there. It was answered, that it was
Pope Boniface
; to whom, as a principall Innovator, for having first chalenged the name of
Universall Bishop,
that honour was affoorded. Is he an Innovator thundred
Ignatius?
shall I suffer this, when all my Disciples have laboured all this while to prove to the world, that all the
Popes
before his time did use that name? And that
Gregory
did not reprehend the
Patriarch John
for taking to himselfe an Antichristian name, but for usurping a name which was due to none but the
Pope
. And could it be fit for you,
Lucifer
, (who in this were either unmindfull of the
Romane Church,
or else too weake and incapable of her secrets and mysteries) to give way to any sentence in
Hell
, which (though it were according to truth,) yet differed from the Jesuites
Oracles?
With this
Ignatius
flyes upwardes, and rushes upon
Boniface
, and throwes him out of his Seate: And
Lucifer
went up with him as fast, and gave him assistance, least, if hee should forsake him, his owne seate might bee endangered. And I returned to my body; which
As a flower wet with last nights dew, and then
Warm’d with the new Sunne, doth shake of agen
All drowsinesse, and raise his trembling Crowne,
Which crookedly did languish, and stoope downe
To kisse the earth, and panted now to finde
Those beames return’d, which had not long time shin’d,
was with this returne of my soule sufficiently refreshed. And when I had scene all this, and considered how fitly and proportionally
Rome & Hell
answered one another, after I had seene a Jesuit turne the
Pope
out of his
Chaire
in
Hell
, I suspected that that
Order
would attempt as much at
Rome
.
DEVOTIONS UPON EMERGENT OCCASIONS
This 1624 prose work was dedicated to the future King Charles I. It contains a series of reflections that were written as Donne recovered from a serious illness, believed to be either typhus or a relapsing fever. The work consists of twenty-three parts (titled as devotions) describing each stage of the sickness. Each part is further divided into a Meditation, an Expostulation and a Prayer. Of particular note is Meditation XVII, which is subtitled “Now, this bell tolling for another, says to me, thou must die”, in which Donne prepares himself for death. It also contains the famous saying, “No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main”.
An early frontispiece depicting Donne
CONTENTS
I. MEDITATION
VARIABLE, and therfore miserable condition of Man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute. I am surpriz’d with a sodaine change, and alteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by any name. We study
Health
, and we deliberate upon our
meats
, and
drink
, and
ayre
, and
exercises
, and we hew, and wee polish every stone, that goes to that building; and so our
Health
is a long and regular work; But in a minute a Canon batters all, overthrowes all, demolishes all; a
Sicknes
unprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiositie; nay, undeserved, if we consider only
disorder
, summons us, seizes us, possesses us, destroyes us in an instant. O miserable condition of Man, which was not imprinted by
God
, who as hee is
immortall
himselfe, had put a
coale
, a
beame
of
Immortalitie
into us, which we might have blowen into a
flame
, but blew it out, by our first sinne; wee beggard our selves by hearkning after false riches, and infatuated our selves by hearkning after false knowledge. So that now, we doe not onely die, but die upon the Rack, die by the torment of sicknesse; nor that onely, but are preafflicted, super-afflicted with these jelousies and suspitions, and apprehensions of
Sicknes
, before we can cal it a sicknes; we are not sure we are ill; one hand askes the other by the pulse, and our eye asks our urine, how we do. O multiplied misery! we die, and cannot enjoy death, because wee die in this torment of sicknes; we art tormented with sicknes, and cannot stay till the torment come, but preapprehensions and presages, prophecy those torments, which induce that
death
before either come; and our dissolution is conceived in these
first changes, quickned
in the
sicknes
it selfe, and
borne
in
death
, which beares date from these first changes. Is this the honour which Man hath by being a
litle world
, That he hath these
earthquakes
in him selfe, sodaine shakings; these
lightnings
, sodaine flashes; these
thunders
, sodaine noises; these
Eclypses
, sodain offuscations, and darknings of his senses; these
Blazing stars
, sodaine fiery exhalations; these
Rivers of blood
, sodaine red waters? Is he a
world
to himselfe onely therefore, that he hath inough in himself, not only to destroy, and execute himselfe, but to presage that execution upon himselfe; to assist the sicknes, to antidate the sicknes, to make the sicknes the more irremediable, by sad apprehensions, and as if he would make a fire the more vehement, by sprinkling water upon the coales, so to wrap a hote fever in cold Melancholy, least the fever alone should not destroy fast enough, without this contribution nor perfit the work (which is
destruction
) except we joynd an artificiall sicknes, of our owne
melancholy
, to our natural, our unnaturall fever. O perplex’d discomposition, O ridling distemper, O miserable condition of Man!
II. MEDITATION
THE
Heavens
are not the less constant, because they move continually, because they move continually one and the same way. The
Earth
is not the more constant, because it lyes stil continually, because continually it changes, and melts in al parts thereof.
Man
, who is the noblest part of the
Earth
, melts so away, as if he were a
statue
, not of
Earth
, but of
Snowe
. We see his owne
Envie
melts him, he growes leane with that; he will say, anothers
beautie
melts him; but he feeles that a
Fever
doth not melt him like
snow
, but powr him out like
lead
, like
iron
, like
brasse
melted in a furnace: It doth not only
melt
him, but
calcine
him, reduce him to
Atomes
, and to
ashes
; not to
water
, but to
lime
. And how quickly? Sooner than thou canst receive an answer, sooner than thou canst conceive the question;
Earth
is the
center
of my
Bodie
,
Heaven
is the
center
of my
Soule
; these two are the naturall places of those two; but those goe not to these two in an equall pace: My
body
falls downe without pushing, my
Soule
does not go up without pulling:
Ascension
is my
Soules
pace and measure, but
precipitation
my
bodies:
And, even
Angells
, whose home is
Heaven
, and who are winged too, yet had a
Ladder
to goe to
Heaven
, by steps. The
Sunne
who goes so many miles in a minut, the
Starres
of the
Firmament
, which go so very many more, goe not so fast, as my
body
to the
earth
. In the same instant that I feele the first attempt of the disease, I feele the victory; In the twinckling of an eye, I can scarse see, instantly the tast is insipid, and fatuous; instantly the appetite is dull and desirelesse: instantly the knees are sinking and strengthlesse; and in an instant, sleepe, which is the
picture
, the
copie
of
death
, is taken away, that the
Originall, Death
it selfe may succeed, and that so I might have death to the life. It was part of
Adams
punishment,
In the sweat of thy browes thou shalt eate thy bread
: it is multiplied to me, I have earned bread in the sweat of my browes, in the labor of my calling, and I have it; and I sweat againe, and againe, from the brow, to the sole of the foot, but I eat no bread, I tast no sustenance: Miserable distribution of
Mankind
, where one halfe lackes meat, and the other stomacke.
III. MEDITATION
WEE attribute but one priviledge and advantage to Mans body, above other moving creatures, that he is not as others, groveling, but of an erect, of an upright form, naturally built, and disposed to the contemplation of
Heaven
. Indeed it is a thankfull forme, and recompences that
soule
, which gives it, with carrying that soule so many foot higher, towards
heaven
. Other creatures look to the
earth
; and even that is no unfit object, no unfit contemplation for
Man
; for thither hee must come; but because,
Man
is not to stay there, as other creatures are,
Man
in his naturall forme, is carried to the contemplation of that place, which is his
home, Heaven
. This is
Mans
prerogative; but what state hath he in this
dignitie?
A fever can fillip him downe, a fever can depose him; a fever can bring that head, which yesterday caried a
crown
of gold, five foot towards a
crown
of glory, as low as his own foot, today. When
God
came to breath into
Man
the breath of life, he found him flat upon the ground; when he comes to withdraw that breath from him againe, hee prepares him to it, by laying him flat upon his bed. Scarse any prison so close, that affords not the prisoner two, or three steps. The
Anchorites
that barqu’d themselves up in hollowe trees, and immur’d themselves in hollow walls; that perverse man, that barrell’d himselfe in a Tubb, all could stand, or sit, and enjoy some change of posture. A sicke bed, is a grave; and all that the patient saies there, is but a varying of his owne
Epitaph
. Every nights bed is a
Type
of the
grave:
At night wee tell our servants at what houre wee will rise; here we cannot tell our selves, at what day, what week, what moneth. Here the head lies as low as the foot; the
Head
of the people, as lowe as they, whome those feete trod upon; And that hande that signed Pardons, is too weake to begge his owne, if he might have it for lifting up that hand: Strange fetters to the feete, strange Manacles to the hands, when the feete, and handes are bound so much the faster, by how much the coards are slacker; So much the lesse able to doe their Offices, by how much more the Sinews and Ligaments are the looser. In the
Grave
I may speak through the stones, in the voice of my friends, and in the accents of those wordes, which their love may afford my memory; Here I am mine owne
Ghost
, and rather affright my beholders, than instruct them; they conceive the worst of me now, and yet feare worse; they give me for dead now, and yet wonder how I doe, when they wake at midnight, and aske how I doe to morrow. Miserable and, (though common to all) inhuman
posture
, where I must practise my lying in the
grave
, by lying still, and not practise my
Resurrection
, by rising any more.