John Donne - Delphi Poets Series

by John Donne

  By this I knew it was Copernicus. For though I had never heard ill of his life, and therefore might wonder to find him there; yet when I remembered, that the Papists have extended the name, & the punishment of Heresie, almost to every thing, and that as yet I used Gregories and Bedes spectacles, by which one saw Origen, who deserved so well of the Christian Church, burning in Hell, I doubted no longer, but assured my selfe that it was Copernicus which I saw. To whome Lucifer sayd; “Who are you? For though even by this boldnesse you seeme worthy to enter, and have attempted a new faction even in Hell, yet you must first satisfie those which stand about you, and which expect the same fortune as you do.” “Except, O Lucifer,” answered Copernicus, “I thought thee of the race of the starre Lucifer, with which I am so well acquainted, I should not vouchsafe thee this discourse. I am he, which pitying thee who wert thrust into the Center of the world, raysed both thee, and thy prison, the Earth, up into the Heavens; so as by my meanes God doth not enjoy his revenge upon thee. The Sunne, which was an officious spy, and a betrayer of faults, and so thine enemy, I have appointed to go into the lowest part of the world. Shall these gates be open to such as have innovated in small matters? and shall they be shut against me, who have turned the whole frame of the world, and am thereby almost a new Creator?” More then this he spoke not. Lucifer stuck in a meditation. For what should he do? It seemed unjust to deny entry to him which had deserved so well, and dangerous to graunt it, to one of so great ambitions, and undertakings: nor did he thinke that himselfe had attempted greater matters before his fall. Something he had which he might have conveniently opposed, but he was loath to utter it, least he should confesse his feare. But Ignatius Layola which was got neere his chaire, a subtile fellow, and so indued with the Divell, that he was able to tempt, and not onely that, but (as they say) even to possesse the Divell, apprehended this perplexity in Lucifer. And making himselfe sure of his owne entrance, and knowing well, that many thousands of his family aspired to that place, he opposed himselfe against all others. He was content they should bee damned, but not that they should governe. And though when hee died he was utterly ignorant in all great learning, and knew not so much as Ptolomeys, or Copernicus name, but might have beene perswaded, that the words Almagest, Zenith, and Nadir, were Saints names, and fit to bee put into the Litanie, and Ora pro nobis joyned to them; yet after hee had spent some time in hell, he had learnt somewhat of his Jesuites, which daily came thither. And whilst he staied at the threshold of Hell; that is, from the time when he delivered himselfe over to the Popes will, hee tooke a little taste of learning. Thus furnished, thus hee undertakes Copernicus. “Do you thinke to winne our Lucifer to your part, by allowing him the honour of being of the race of that starre? who was not onely made before all the starres, but being glutted with the glory of shining there, transferred his dwelling and Colonies unto this Monarchy, and thereby gave our Order a noble example, to spy, to invade, and to possesse forraine kingdomes. Can our Lucifer, or his followers have any honour from that starre Lucifer, which is but Venus? whose face how much wee scorne, appeares by this, that, for the most part we use her aversly and preposterously. Rather let our Lucifer glory in Lucifer the Calaritan Bishop; not therefore because he is placed amongst Heretiques, onely for affirming the propagation of the soule; but especially for this, that he was the first that opposed the dignity of Princes, and imprinted the names of Antichrist, Judas, and other stigmarique markes upon the Emperour; But for you, what new thing have you invented, by which our Lucifer gets anything? What cares hee whether the earth travell, or stand still? Hath your raising up of the earth into heaven, brought men to that confidence, that they build new towers or threaten God againe? Or do they out of this motion of the earth conclude, that there is no hell, or deny the punishment of sin? Do not men beleeve? do they not live just, as they did before? Besides, this detracts from the dignity of your learning, and derogates from your right and title of comming to this place, that those opinions of yours may very well be true. If therfore any man have honour or title to this place in this matter, it belongs wholly to our Clavius, who opposed himselfe opportunely against you, and the truth, which at that time was creeping into every mans minde. Hee onely can be called the Author of all contentions, and schoole-combats in this cause; and no greater profit can bee hoped for heerein, but that for such brabbles, more necessarie matters bee neglected. And yet nor onely for this is our Clavius to bee honoured, but for the great paines also which hee tooke in the Gregorian Calender, by which both the peace of the Church, & Civill businesses have beene egregiously troubled: nor hath heaven it selfe escaped his violence, but hath ever since obeied his apointments: so that S. Stephen, John Baptist, & all the rest, which have bin commanded to worke miracles at certain appointed daies, where their Reliques are preserved, do not now attend till the day come, as they were accustomed, but are awaked ten daies sooner, and constrained by him to come downe from heaven to do that businesse; But your inventions can scarce bee called yours, since long before you, Heraclides, Ecphantus, & Aristarchus thrust them into the world: who notwithstanding content themselves with lower roomes amongst the other Philosophers, & aspire not to this place, reserved onely for Antichristian Heroes: neither do you agree so wel amongst yourselves, as that you can be said to have made a Sect, since, as you have perverted and changed the order and Scheme of others: so Tycho Brachy hath done by yours, and others by his. Let therefore this little Mathematitian (dread Emperour) withdraw himselfe to his owne company. And if heereafter the fathers of our Order can draw a Cathedrall Decree from the Pope, by which it may be defined as a matter of faith: That the earth doth not move; & an Anathema inflicted upon all which hold the contrary: then perchance both the Pope which shall dec’ree that, and Copernicus his followers, (if they be Papists) may have the dignity of this place.” Lucifer signified his assent; and Copernicus, without muttering a word, was as quiet, as he thinks the sunne, when he which stood next him, entred into his place. . . .

  . . . I came backe againe, to spie (if the gates were stil open) with what affection Ignatius, and they who were in auncient possession of that place, behaved themselves towardes one an other. And I found him yet in the porch, and there beginning a new contention: for having presently cast his eyes to the principall place, next to 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 OCCASION
S

  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

  II. MEDITATION

  III. MEDITATION

  IV. MEDITATION

  V. MEDITATION

  VI. MEDITATION

  VII. MEDITATION

  VIII. MEDITATION

  IX. MEDITATION

  X. MEDITATION

  XI. MEDITATION

  XII. MEDITATION

  XIII. MEDITATION

  XIV. MEDITATION

  XV. MEDITATION

  XVI. MEDITATION

  XVII. MEDITATION

  XVIII. MEDITATION

  XIX. MEDITATION

  XX. MEDITATION

  XXI. MEDITATION

  XXII. MEDITATION

  XXIII. MEDITATION

  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 Lig
aments 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.

  IV. MEDITATION

  IT is too little to call Man a little World; Except God, Man is a diminutive to nothing. Man consistes of more pieces, more parts, than the world; than the world doeth, nay than the world is. And if those pieces were extended, and stretched out in Man, as they in the world, Man would bee the Gyant, and the Worlde the Dwarfe, the World but the Map, and the Man the World. If all the Veines in our bodies, were extended to Rivers, and all the Sinewes, to Vaines of Mines, and all the Muscles, that lye upon one another, to Hilles, and all the Bones to Quarries of stones, and all the other pieces, to the proportion of those which correspond to them in the world, the Aire would be too litle for this Orbe of Man to move in, the firmament would bee but enough for this Starre; for, as the whole world hath nothing, to which something in man doth not answere, so hath man many pieces, of which the whole world hath no representation. Inlarge this Meditation upon this great world, Man, so farr, as to consider the immensitie of the creatures this world produces; our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are borne Gyants; that reach from East to West, from Earth to Heaven, that doe not onely bestride all the Sea, and Land, but span the Sunnand Firmament at once; My thoughts reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mistery; I their Creator am in a close prison, in a sicke bed, any where, and any one of my Creatures, my thoughts, is with the Sunne, and beyond the Sunne, overtakes the Sunne, and overgoes the Sunne in one pace, one steppe, everywhere. And then as the other world produces Serpents, and Vipers, malignant, and venimous creatures, and Wormes, and Caterpillars, that endeavour to devoure that world which produces them, and Monsters compiled and complicated of divers parents, and kinds, so this world, our selves, produces all these in us, in producing diseases, and sicknesses, of all those sort; venimous, and infectious diseases, feeding and consuming diseases, and manifold and entangled diseases, made up of many several ones. And can the other world name so many venimous, so many consuming, so many monstrous creatures, as we can diseases, of all these kindes? O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches! how much doe wee lacke of having remedies for everie disease, when as yet we have not names for them? But wee have a Hercules against these Gyants, these Monsters; that is, the Phisician; hee musters up al the forces of the other world, to succour this; all Nature to relieve Man. We have the Phisician, but we are not the Phisician. Heere we shrinke in our proportion, sink in our dignitie, in respect of verie meane creatures, who are Phisicians to themselves. The Hart that is pursued and wounded, they say, knowes an Herbe, which being eaten, throwes off the arrow: A strange kind of vomit. The dog that pursues it, though hee bee subject to sicknes, even proverbially, knowes his grasse that recovers him. And it may be true, that the Drugger is as neere to Man, as to other creatures, it may be that obvious and present Simples, easie to be had, would cure him; but the Apothecary is not so neere him, nor the Phisician so neere him, as they two are to other creatures; Man hath not that innate instinct, to apply these naturall medicines to his present danger, as those inferiour creatures have; he is not his owne Apothecary, his owne Phisician, as they are. Call back therefore thy Meditation again, and bring it downe; whats become of mans great extent and proportion, when himselfe shrinkes himselfe, and consumes himselfe to a handfull of dust? whats become of his soaring thoughts, his compassing thoughts, when himselfe brings himselfe to the ignorance, to the thoughtlessnesse of the Grave? His diseases are his owne, but the Phisician is not; hee hath them at home, but hee must send for the Phisician.