by John Donne
To man’s laws, by which she shall not be tried
At the last day? Will it then boot thee
To say a Philip or a Gregory,
A Harry or a Martin taught thee this?
Is not this excuse for mere contraries
Equally strong? Cannot both sides say so?
[100] That thou mayest rightly’obey power, her bounds know;
Those passed, her nature,’and name is changed; to be
Then humble to her is idolatry.
As streams are, power is; those blest flowers that dwell
At the rough stream’s calm head thrive and do well,
But having left their roots, and themselves given
To the stream’s tyrannous rage, alas, are driven
Through mills, and rocks, and woods, and at last, almost
Consumed in going, in the sea are lost:
So perish souls, which more choose men’s unjust
[110] Power from God claimed, than God Himself to trust.
Satire IV
Well, I may now receive and die. My sin
Indeed is great, but I have been in
A purgatory, such as feared hell is
A recreation and scant map of this.
My mind neither with pride’s itch nor yet hath been
Poisoned with love to see or to be seen;
I had no suit there, nor new suit to show,
Yet went to court. But as Glaze, which did go
To mass in jest, catched, was fain to disburse
[10] The hundred marks, which is the statute’s curse,
Before he ’scaped, so’it pleased my destiny
(Guilty’of my sin of going) to think me
As prone to’all ill, and of good as forget-
ful, as proud, as lustful, and as much in debt,
As vain, as witless, and as false as they
Which dwell at court, for once going that way.
Therefore I suffered this. Towards me did run
A thing more strange than on Nile’s slime the sun
E’er bred, or all which into Noah’s Ark came,
[20] A thing which would have posed Adam to name
Stranger than seven antiquaries’ studies,
Than Afric’s monsters, Guyana’s rarities,
Stranger than strangers; one who for a Dane
In the Danes’ massacre had sure been slain
If he had lived then, and without help dies
When next the ’prentices ’gainst strangers rise;
One whom the watch at noon lets scarce go by;
One to whom the examining justice sure would cry,
Sir, by your priesthood, tell me what you are.
[30] His clothes were strange though coarse, and black though bare.
Sleeveless his jerkin was, and it had been
Velvet but’twas now (so much ground was seen)
Become tuftafata; and our children shall
See it plain rash awhile, then not at all.
This thing hath travailed and saith, speaks all tongues
And only knoweth what to all states belongs.
Made of th’accents and best phrase of all these,
He speaks one language. If strange meats displease,
Art can deceive, or hunger force my taste,
[40] But pedant’s motley tongue, soldier’s bombast,
Mountebank’s drug-tongue, nor the terms of law
Are strong enough preparatives to draw
Me to bear this; yet I must be content
With his tongue. In his tongue, called compliment,
In which he can win widows and pay scores,
Make men speak treason, cozen subtlest whores,
Out-flatter favourites, or outlie either
Jovius or Surius or both together,
He names me, and comes to me; I whisper, God!
[50] How have I sinned that Thy wrath’s furious rod,
This fellow chooseth me? He saith, Sir,
I love your judgement; whom do you prefer
For the best linguist? And I seelily
Said that I thought Calepine’s Dictionary.
Nay, but of men most sweet, sir. Beza then,
Some Jesuits, and two reverend men
Of our two academies I named. There
He stopped me and said, Nay, your apostles were
Good pretty linguists, and so Panurge was
[60] Yet a poor gentleman; all these may pass
By travail. Then, as if he would have sold
His tongue, he praised it, and such wonders told
That I was fain to say, If you’had lived, sir,
Time enough to have been interpreter
To Babel’s bricklayers, sure the tower had stood.
He adds, If of court life you knew the good,
You would leave loneness. I said, Not alone
My loneness is but Spartans’ fashion.
To teach by painting drunkards doth not last
[70] Now; Aretine’s pictures have made few chaste.
No more can princes’ courts, though there be few
Better pictures of vice, teach me virtue.
He, like to a high-stretched lute string squeaked, O, Sir,
’Tis sweet to talk of kings. At Westminster,
Said I, the man that keeps the Abbey tombs,
And for his price doth with whoever comes,
Of all our Harrys and our Edwards talk,
From king to king and all their kin can walk.
Your ears shall hear nought but kings, your eyes meet
[80] Kings only; the way to it is King Street.
He smacked and cried, He’s base, mechanic, coarse,
So’are all your Englishmen in their discourse.
Are not your Frenchmen neat? Mine? As you see,
I’have but one Frenchman: look, he follows me.
Certes they’are neatly cloth’d. I of this mind am;
Your only wearing is your grogaram.
Not so, sir, I have more. Under this pitch
He would not fly. I chafed him, but as itch
Scratched into smart, and as blunt iron ground
[90] Into an edge hurts worse, so I (fool) found
Crossing hurt me. To fit my sullenness,
He to another key, his style, doth address
And asks, What news? I tell him of new plays.
He takes my hand, and as a still which stays
A sem’breve ’twixt each drop, he niggardly,
As loath to enrich me, so tells many a lie.
More than ten Hollensheads, or Halls, or Stows
Of trivial household trash he knows. He knows
When the queen frowned or smiled, and he knows what
[100] A subtle statesman may gather of that.
He knows who loves whom, and who by poison
Hastes to an office’s reversion.
He knows who’hath sold his land and now doth beg
A licence, old iron, boots, shoes, and egg-
shells to transport. Shortly boys shall not play
At span-counter or blow-point, but shall pay
Toll to some courtier; and wiser than all us,
He knows what lady is not painted. Thus,
He with home-meats tries me. I belch, spew, spit,
[110] Look pale and sickly, like a patient; yet
He thrusts on more, and as if he’undertook
To say Gallo-Belgicus without book,
Speaks of all states and deeds that have been since
The Spaniards came to the loss of Amiens.
Like a big wife at sight of loathed meat
Ready to travail, so I sigh and sweat
To hear this makeron talk in vain. For yet,
Either my humour or his own to fit,
He, like a privileged spy whom nothing can
[120] Discredit, libels now ’gainst each great man.
He names a price for every office paid.
He saith our wa
rs thrive ill because delayed,
That offices are entailed, and that there are
Perpetuities of them lasting as far
As the last day, and that great officers
Do with the pirates share and Dunkirkers.
Who wastes in meat, in clothes, in horse, he notes;
Who loves whores, who boys, and who goats.
I, more amazed than Circe’s prisoners when
[130] They felt themselves turn beasts, felt myself then
Becoming traitor, and me thought I saw
One of our giant statutes ope his jaw
To suck me in; for hearing him, I found
That, as burnt venom, lechers do grow sound
By giving others their sores, I might grow
Guilty and he free. Therefore, I did show
All signs of loathing; but since I am in,
I must pay mine and my forefathers’ sin
To the last farthing. Therefore, to my power
[140] Toughly and stubbornly I bear this cross, but the’hour
Of mercy now was come. He tries to bring
Me to pay a fine to ’scape his torturing
And says, Sir, can you spare me? I said, Willingly.
Nay, sir, can you spare me a crown? Thankfully I
Gave it as ransom, but as fiddlers still,
Though they be paid to be gone yet needs will
Thrust one more jig upon you, so did he,
With his long, complimental thanks, vex me.
But he is gone, thanks to his needy want
[150] And the prerogative of my crown. Scant
His thanks were ended when I (which did see
All the court filled with more strange things than he)
Ran from thence with such or more haste than one
Who fears more actions doth haste from prison.
At home, in wholesome solitariness,
My precious soul began the wretchedness
Of suitors at court to mourn, and a trance
Like his who dreamt he saw hell did advance
Itself on me. Such men as he saw there
[160] I saw at court, and worse, and more. Low fear
Becomes the guilty, not the’accuser; then
Shall I, none’s slave, of high born or raised men
Fear frowns? And my mistress, Truth, betray thee
To th’huffing braggart, puffed nobility?
No, no. Thou which since yesterday hast been
Almost about the whole world, hast thou seen,
O Sun, in all thy journey, vanity
Such as swells the bladder of our court? I
Think he, which made your waxen garden and
[170] Transported it from Italy to stand
With us at London, flouts our presence; for
Just such gay painted things, which no sap nor
Taste have in them, ours are, and natural
Some of the stocks are, their fruits, bastard all.
’Tis ten o’clock and past; all whom the mews,
Balloon, tennis, diet, or the stews
Had all the morning held, now the second
Time made ready that day in flocks are found
In the presence, and I (God pardon me),
[180] As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
The fields they sold to buy them. For a king
Those hose are, cry the flatterers, and bring
Them next week to the theatre to sell;
Wants reach all states. Me seems they do as well
At stage as court: all are players. Whoe’er looks
(For themselves dare not go) o’er Cheapside books
Shall find their wardrobe’s inventory. Now
The ladies come. As pirates which do know
That there came weak ships fraught with cutchannel,
[190] The men board them and praise, as they think, well,
Their beauties; they the men’s wits; both are bought.
Why good wits ne’er wear scarlet gowns, I thought
This cause: these men, men’s wits for speeches buy,
And women buy all reds which scarlets dye.
He called her beauty limetwigs, her hair net.
She fears her drugs ill laid, her hair loose set.
Would not Heraclitus laugh to see Macrine
From hat to shoe, himself at door refine,
As if the presence were a moschite,’and lift
[200] His skirts and hose, and call his clothes to shrift,
Making them confess not only mortal
Great stains and holes in them but venial
Feathers and dust, wherewith they fornicate;
And then by Durer’s rules survey the state
Of his each limb, and with strings the odds tries
Of his neck to his leg, and waist to thighs.
So in immaculate clothes and symmetry
Perfect as circles, with such nicety
As a young preacher at his first time goes
[210] To preach, he enters, and a lady’which owes
Him not so much as good will, he arrests,
And unto her protests, protests, protests
So much as at Rome would serve to have thrown
Ten cardinals into the’Inquisition,
And whispered, by Jesu, so often that a
Pursuivant would have ravished him away
For saying of our Lady’s Psalter. But ’tis fit
That they each other plague; they merit it.
But here comes Glorius that will plague them both,
[220] Who, in the other extreme, only doth
Call a rough carelessness good fashion,
Whose cloak his spurs tear. Whom he spits on
He cares not; his ill words do no harm
To him. He rusheth in as if, Arm, arm,
He meant to cry, and though his face be as ill
As theirs which in old hangings whip Christ, still
He strives to look worse. He keeps all in awe,
Jests like a licensed fool, commands like law.
Tired, now I leave this place, and but pleased so
[230] As men which from jails to’execution go,
Go through the great chamber (Why is it hung
With the seven deadly sins?) being among
Those Askaparts: men big enough to throw
Charing Cross for a bar, men that do know
No token of worth but queen’s man, and fine
Living, barrels of beef, flagons of wine.
I shook like a spied spy. Preachers, which are
Seas of wits and arts, you can then dare,
Drown the sins of this place; for, for me,
[240] Which am but a scarce brook, it enough shall be
To wash the stains away. Though I, yet
With Maccabee’s modesty, the known merit
Of my work lessen, yet some wise man shall,
I hope, esteem my writs canonical.
Satire V
Thou shalt not laugh in this leaf, Muse, nor they
Whom any pity warms; he which did lay
Rules to make courtiers (he, being understood,
May make good courtiers, but who courtiers good?)
Frees from the sting of jests all who’in extreme
Are wretched or wicked: of these two a theme
Charity and liberty give me. What is he
Who officers’ rage and suitors’ misery
Can write, and jest? If all things be in all,
[10] As I think, since all which were, are, and shall
Be, be made of the same elements,
Each thing, each thing implies or represents.
Then man is a world in which officers
Are the vast ravishing seas; and suitors,
Springs, now full, now shallow, now dry, which to
That which drowns them, run; these self reasons do
Prove the world a man, in which officers
Are the devouring stomach, and suitor
s
The excrements which they void. All men are dust;
[20] How much worse are suitors, who to men’s lust
Are made preys. O worse than dust, or worm’s meat,
For they do eat you now, whose selves worms shall eat.
They are the mills which grind you, yet you are
The wind which drives them; and a wasteful war
Is fought against you, and you fight it; they
Adulterate law, and you prepare their way
Like wittols; th’issue your own ruin is.
Greatest and fairest Empress, know you this?
Alas, no more than Thames’ calm head doth know
[30] Whose meads her arms drown, or whose corn o’erflow;
You, sir, whose righteousness she loves, whom I,
By having leave to serve, am most richly
For service paid, authorized, now begin
To know and weed out this enormous sin.
O age of rusty iron! Some better wit
Call it some worse name if ought equal it,
The Iron Age that was when justice was sold, now
Injustice is sold dearer far. Allow
All demands, fees, and duties; gamesters, anon
[40] The money which you sweat, and swear for, is gone
Into other hands, so controverted lands
’Scape, like Angelica, the strivers’ hands.
If law be in the judge’s heart, and he
Have no heart to resist letter or fee,
Where wilt thou’appeal? Power of the courts below
Flow from the first main head, and these can throw
Thee, if they suck thee in, to misery,
To fetters, halters; but if the’injury
Steel thee to dare complain, alas, thou goest
[50] Against the stream, when upwards, when thou’art most
Heavy’and most faint; and in these labours they,
’Gainst whom thou should’st complain, will in the way
Become great seas, o’er which, when thou shalt be
Forced to make golden bridges, thou shalt see
That all thy gold was drowned in them before;
All things follow their like, only who have may have more.
Judges are gods; he, who made and said them so,
Meant not that men should be’forced to them to go
By means of angels; when supplications
[60] We send to God, to Dominations,
Powers, Cherubim, and all heaven’s courts, if we
Should pay fees as here, daily bread would be
Scarce to kings; so ’tis. Would it not anger
A stoic, a coward, yea a martyr,
To see a pursuivant come in, and call
All his clothes, copes; books, primers; and all
His plate, chalices; and mistake them away,
And ask a fee for coming? O, ne’er may
