by John Donne
Therfore that he may raise the Lord throws down.
A HYMNE TO GOD THE FATHER
I.
Wilt thou forgive that sinne where I begunne,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sinne, through which I runne,
And do run still: though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For, I have more.
II.
Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I have wonne
Others to sinne? and, made my sinne their doore?
Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I did shunne
A yeare, or two: but wallowed in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
III.
I have a sinne of feare, that when I have spunne
My last thred, I shall perish on the shore;
But sweare by thy selfe, that at my death thy sonne
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, Thou hast done,
I feare no more.
THE LITANIE
I.
The FATHER
Father of Heaven, and him, by whom
It, and us for it, and all else, for us
Thou madest, and govern’st ever, come
And re-create mee, now growne ruinous:
My heart is by dejection, clay,
And by selfe-murder, red.
From this red earth, O Father, purge away
All vicious tinctures, that new fashioned
I may rise up from death, before I’m dead.
II.
The SONNE
O Sonne of God, who seeing two things,
Sinne, and death crept in, which were never made,
By bearing one, tryed’st with what stings
The other could thine heritage invade;
O be thou nail’d unto my heart,
And crucified againe,
Part not from it, though it from thee would part,
But let it be by applying so thy paine,
Drown’d in thy blood, and in thy passion slaine.
III.
The HOLY GHOST
O Holy Ghost, whose temple I
Am, but of mudde walls, and condensed dust,
And being sacrilegiously
Halfe wasted with youths fires, of pride and lust,
Must with new stormes be weatherbeat;
Double in my heart thy flame,
Which let devout sad teares intend; and let
(Though this glasse lanthorne, flesh, do suffer maime)
Fire, Sacrifice, Priest, Altar be the same.
IV.
The TRINITY
O Blessed glorious Trinity,
Bones to Philosophy, but milke to faith,
Which, as wise serpents, diversly
Most slipperinesse, yet most entanglings hath,
As you distinguish’d undistinct
By power, love, knowledge bee,
Give mee a such selfe different instinct
Of these let all mee elemented bee,
Of power, to love, to know, you unnumbred three.
V.
The Virgin MARY
For that faire blessed Mother-maid,
Whose flesh redeem’d us; That she-Cherubin,
Which unlock’d Paradise, and made
One claime for innocence, and disseiz’d sinne,
Whose wombe was a strange heav’n for there
God cloath’d himselfe, and grew,
Our zealous thankes wee poure. As her deeds were
Our helpes, so are her prayers; nor can she sue
In vaine, who hath such title unto you.
VI.
The Angels
And since this life our nonage is,
And wee in Wardship to thine Angels be,
Native in heavens faire Palaces,
Where we shall be but denizen’d by thee,
As th’earth conceiving by the Sunne,
Yeelds faire diversitie,
Yet never knowes which course that light doth run,
So let mee study, that mine actions bee
Worthy their sight, though blinde in how they see.
VII.
The Patriarches
And let thy Patriarches Desire
(Those great Grandfathers of thy Church, which saw
More in the cloud, then wee in fire,
Whom Nature clear’d more, then us Grace and Law,
And now in Heaven still pray, that wee
May use our new helpes right,)
Be sanctified and fructifie in mee;
Let not my minde be blinder by more light
Nor Faith by Reason added, lose her sight.
VIII.
The Prophets
Thy Eagle-sighted Prophets too,
Which were thy Churches Organs, and did sound
That harmony, which made of two
One law, and did unite, but not confound;
Those heavenly Poëts which did see
Thy will, and it expresse
In rythmique feet, in common pray for mee,
That I by them excuse not my excesse
In seeking secrets, or Poëtiquenesse.
IX.
The Apostles
And thy illustrious Zodiacke
Of twelve Apostles, which ingirt this All,
(From whom whosoever do not take
Their light, to darke deep pits, throw downe, and fall,)
As through their prayers, thou’hast let mee know
That their bookes are divine;
May they pray still, and be heard, that I goe
Th’old broad way in applying; O decline
Mee, when my comment would make thy word mine.
X.
The Martyrs
And since thou so desirously
Did’st long to die, that long before thou could’st,
And long since thou no more could’st dye,
Thou in thy scatter’d mystique body wouldst
In Abel dye, and ever since
In thine, let their blood come
To begge for us, a discreet patience
Of death, or of worse life: for Oh, to some
Not to be Martyrs, is a martyrdome.
XI.
The Confessors
Therefore with thee triumpheth there
A Virgin Squadron of white Confessors,
Whose bloods betroth’d, not marryed were;
Tender’d, not taken by those Ravishers:
They know, and pray, that wee may know,
In every Christian
Hourly tempestuous persecutions grow,
Tentations martyr us alive; A man
Is to himselfe a Dioclesian.
XII.
The Virgins
The cold white snowie Nunnery,
Which, as thy mother, their high Abbesse, sent
Their bodies backe againe to thee,
As thou hadst lent them, cleane and innocent,
Though they have not obtain’d of thee,
That or thy Church, or I,
Should keep, as they, our first integrity;
Divorce thou sinne in us, or bid it die,
And call chast widowhead Virginitie.
XIII.
The Doctors
Thy sacred Academie above
Of Doctors, whose paines have unclasp’d, and taught
Both bookes of life to us (for love
To know thy Scriptures tells us, we are wrought
In thy other booke) pray for us there
That what they have misdone
Or mis-said, wee to that may not adhere,
Their zeale may be our sinne. Lord let us runne
Meane waies, and call them stars, but not the Sunne.
PARADOXES AND PROBLEMS
Paradox 1: That All Things Kill Themselves
To affect, yea to effe
ct their own deaths, all living are importuned. Not by nature only, which perfects them, but by art and education which perfects her. Plants, quickened and inhabited by the most unworthy soul, which therefore neither will nor work, affect an end, a perfection, a death. This they spend their spirits to attain; this attained, they languish and wither. And by how much more they are by man’s industry warmed and cherished and pampered, so much the more early they climb to this perfection, this death. And if, between men, not to defend be to kill, what a heinous self-murder is it not to defend the self. This defence because beasts neglect, they kill themselves: because they exceed us in number, strength, and lawless liberty. Yea, of horses, and so of other beasts, they which inherit most courage by being bred of gallantest parents, and by artificial nursing are bettered, will run to their own deaths, neither solicited by spurs, which they need not, nor by honour, which they apprehend not. If then the valiant kill himself, who can excuse the coward? Or how shall man be free from this, since the first man taught us this – except we cannot kill ourselves because he killed us all? Yet lest something should repair this common ruin, we kill daily our bodies with surfeits, and our minds with anguishes. Of our powers, remembering kills our memory. Of affections, lusting our lust. Of virtues, giving kills liberality. And if these things kill themselves, they do it in their best and supreme perfection, for after perfection immediately follows excess, which changes the natures and the names, and makes them not the same things. If then the best things kill themselves soonest (for no perfection endures) and all things labour to this perfection, all travail to their own death. Yea the frame of the whole world (if it were possible for God to be idle) yet because it begun must die. Then in this idleness imagined in God, what could kill the world but itself, since out of it nothing is?
Paradox 6: That the Gifts of the Body are Better than those of the Mind, or of Fortune
I say again that the body makes the mind. Not that it created it a mind, but forms it a good or bad mind. And this mind may be confounded with soul, without any violence or injustice to reason or philosophy. Then our soul (me seems) is enabled by our body, not this by that. My body licenseth my soul to see the world’s beauties through mine eyes, to hear pleasant things through mine ears, and affords it apt organs for conveyance of all perceivable delights. But alas my soul cannot make any part, that is not of itself disposed, to see or hear – though without doubt she be as able and as willing to see behind as before. Now if my soul would say that she enables my parts to taste these pleasures, but is herself only delighted with those rich sweetnesses which her inward eye and senses apprehend, she should dissemble. For I feel her often solaced with beauties which she sees through mine eyes, and music which through mine ears she hears. This perfection then my body hath, that it can impart to my mind all her pleasures; and my mind hath this maim, that she can neither teach my indisposed parts her faculties, nor to the parts best disposed show that beauty of angels or music of spheres, whereof she boasts the contemplation. Are chastity, temperance or fortitude gifts of the mind? I appeal to physicians whether the cause of these be not in the body. Health is a gift of the body, and patience in sickness of the mind. Then who will say this patience is as good a happiness as health, when we must be extremely miserable to have this happiness? And for nourishing of civil societies and mutual love amongst men, which is one chief end why we are men, I say the beauty, proportion and presence of the body hath a more masculine force in begetting this love than the virtues of the mind. For it strikes us suddenly, and possesseth us immediately, when to know these virtues requires sound judgment in him which shall discern, and a long trial and conversation between them. And even at last, alas, how much of our faith and belief shall we be driven to bestow, to assure ourselves that these virtues are not counterfeited? For it is the same to be and to seem virtuous. Because he that hath no virtue can dissemble none. But he that hath a little may gilt and enamel, yea, and transform much vice into virtue. For allow a man to be discreet and flexible to companies – which are great virtues and gifts of the mind – this discretion will be to him the soul and elixir of all virtue. So that, touched with this, even pride shall be made civil humility, and cowardice, honourable and wise valour. But in things seen there is not this danger. For the body which thou lovest and esteemest fair is fair certainly, and if it be not fair in perfection, yet it is fair in the same degree that thy judgment is good. And in a fair body I do seldom suspect a disproportioned mind, or expect a good in a deformed. As when I see a goodly house I assure myself of a worthy possessor, and from a ruinous, withered building I turn away, because it seems either stuffed with varlets, as a prison, or handled by an unworthy negligent tenant, that so suffereth the waste thereof. And truly the gifts of fortune which are riches are only handmaids, yea pandars of the body’s pleasure. With their service we nourish health and preserve beauty, and we buy delights. So that virtue which must be loved for herself, and respects no further end, is indeed nothing; and riches, whose end is the good of the body, cannot be so perfectly good as the end whereto it levels.
Problem 7: Why Hath the Common Opinion Afforded Women Souls?
It is agreed that we have not so much from them as any part of either of our mortal souls of sense or growth; and we deny souls to others equal to them in all but speech, for which they are beholding only to their bodily instruments, for perchance an ape’s heart or a goat’s or a fox’s or a serpent’s would speak just so if it were in the breast, and could move the tongue and jaws. Have they so many advantages and means to hurt us (for even their loving destroys us) that we dare not displease them, but give them what they will, and so, when some call them angels, some goddesses, and the Peputian heretics made them bishops, we descend so much with the stream to allow them souls? Or do we somewhat, in this dignifying them, flatter princes and great personages that are so much governed by them? Or do we, in that easiness and prodigality wherein we daily lose our own souls, allow souls to we care not whom, and so labour to persuade ourselves that since a woman hath a soul, a soul is no great matter? Or do we but lend them souls, and that for use, since they, for our sakes, give their souls again, and their bodies to boot? Or perchance because the Devil, who doth most mischief, is all soul, for conveniency and proportion, because they would come near him, we allow them some soul. And so as the Romans naturalized some provinces in revenge, and made them Romans only for the burden of the commonwealth, so we have given women souls only to make them capable of damnation.
Problem 8: Why Are the Fairest Falsest?
I mean not of false alchemy beauty, for then the question should be inverted, why are the falsest fairest? It is not only because they are much solicited and sought for. So is gold, yet it is not so coming. And this suit to them should teach them their value and make them more reserved. Nor is it because delicatest blood hath best spirits, for what is that to the flesh? Perchance such constitutions have the best wits, and there is no other proportionable subject for women’s wits but deceit. Doth the mind so follow the temper of the body that because these complexions are aptest to change, the mind is therefore so too? Or as bells of the purest metal retain the tinkling and sound longest, so the memory of the last pleasure lasts longest in these, and disposes them to the next? But sure it is not in the complexion, for those that do but think themselves fair are presently inclined to this multiplicity of loves, which being but fair in conceit are false indeed. And so perchance when they are born to this beauty, or have made it, or have dreamt it, they easily believe all addresses and applications of every man, out of a sense of their own worthiness, to be directed to them, which others less worthy in their own thoughts apprehend not or discredit. But I think the true reason is that being like gold in many properties (as that all snatch at them, that all corruption is by them, that the worst possess them, that they care not how deep we dig for them, and that by the law of nature occupanti conceditur), they would be also like in this, that as gold to make itself of use admits allay, so they, that they may be tr
actable and malleable and current, have for their allay falsehood.
Paradox 10: That it is Possible to Find Some Virtue in Some Women
I am not of that seared impudency that I dare defend women, or pronounce them good. Yet when we see physicians allow some virtue in every poison, alas, why should we except women? Since certainly they are good for physic – at least, so as wine is good for a fever. And though they be the occasioners of most sins, they are also the punishers and revengers of the same sins. For I have seldom seen one which consumes his substance or body upon them escape diseases or beggary. And this is their justice. And if suum cuique dare be the fulfilling of all civil justice, they are most just: for they deny that which is theirs to no man.
Tanquam non liceat, nulla puella negat
And who may doubt of great wisdom in them, that doth but observe with how much labour and cunning our justices and other dispensers of the laws study to embrace them; and how zealously our preachers dehort men from them, only by urging their subtleties and policies and wisdom which are in them, yea, in the worst and most prostitute sort of them. Or who can deny them a good measure of fortitude, if he consider how many valiant men they have overthrown, and, being themselves overthrown, how much and how patiently they bear? And though they be all most intemperate, I care not; for I undertook to furnish them with some virtue, not all. Necessity, which makes even bad things good, prevails also for them; and we must say of them, as of some sharp punishing laws; if men were free from infirmities, they were needless; but they are both good scourges for bad men. These or none must serve for reasons; and it is my great happiness that examples prove not rules. For to confirm this opinion the world yields not one example.
IGNATIUS HIS CONCLAVE
In the twinkling of an eye, I saw all the rooms in Hell open to my sight. And by the benefit of certain spectacles (I know not of what making, but, I think, of the same by which Gregory the Great and Beda did discern so distinctly the souls of their friends when they were discharged from their bodies, and sometimes the souls of such men as they knew not by sight, and of some that were never in the world, and yet they could distinguish them flying into Heaven or conversing with living men) I saw all the channels in the bowels of the earth; and all the inhabitants of all nations and of all ages were suddenly made familiar to me…
