(I assume that anyone bored out of their mind with this thread is hitting
the Delete Key, as it's wandering more and more off-list.)
No comment ...
Da Dormouse
In [not necessarily chronological] sequence:
(i) Donne to Edward Herbert
(ii) The Ed. Herbert Elegy on Prince Henry that Donne segued
(iii) EH on Dear Dead Donne
JOHN DONNE
To Sr Edward Herbert. at Iulyers.
Man is a lumpe, where all beasts kneaded bee,
Wisdome makes him an Arke where all agree;
The foole, in whom these beasts do live at jarre,
Is sport to others, and a Theater,
Nor scapes hee so, but is himselfe their prey;
All which was man in him, is eate away,
And now his beasts on one another feed,
Yet couple'in anger, and new monsters breed;
How happy'is hee, which hath due place assign'd
To'his beasts, and disaforested his minde?
Empail'd himselfe to keepe them out, not in;
Can sow, and dares trust corne, where they have bin;
Can use his horse, goate, wolfe, and every beast,
And is not Asse himselfe to all the rest.
Else, man not onely is the heard of swine,
But he's those devills too, which did incline
Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse:
For man can adde weight to heavens heaviest curse.
As Soules (they say) by our first touch, take in
The poysonous tincture of Originall sinne,
So, to the punishments which God doth fling,
Our apprehension contributes the sting.
To us, as to his chickins, he doth cast
Hemlocke, and wee as men, his hemlocke taste.
We do infuse to what he meant for meat,
Corrosivenesse, or intense cold or heat.
For, God no such specifique poyson hath
As kills we know not how; his fiercest wrath
Hath no antipathy, but may be good
At lest for physicke, if not for our food.
Thus man, that might be'his pleasure, is his rod,
{Just an academic aside -- A bottle of Champers to anyone who can explain to
me the jump between Greville here (one of the Treatises):
And is his devill, that might be his God ..
... and a BC biography of Alexander (the Great), and the term, "Man is a
wolf to man."
Just a thot ... }
Since then our businesse is, to rectifie
Nature, to what she was, wee'are led awry
By them, who man to us in little show,
Greater then due, no forme we can bestow
On him; for Man into himselfe can draw
All, All his faith can swallow, 'or reason chaw.
All that is fill'd, and all that which doth fill,
All the round world, to man is but a pill,
In all it workes not, but it is in all
Poysonous, or purgative, or cordiall,
For, knowledge kindles Calentures in some,
And is to others jcy Opium.
As brave as true, is that profession than
Which you doe use to make; that you know man.
This makes it credible, you have dwelt upon
All worthy bookes; and now are such an one.
Actions are authors, and of those in you
Your friends finde every day a mart of new.
EDWARD HERBERT
Elegy for the Prince.
Must he be ever dead? Cannot we add
Another life unto that Prince that had
Our souls laid up in him? Could not our love,
Now when he left us, make that body move,
After his death one Age? And keep unite
That frame wherein our souls did so delight?
For what are souls but love? Since they do know
Only for it, and can no further go.
Sense is the Soul of Beasts, because none can
Proceed so far as t'understand like Man:
And if souls be more where they love, then where
They animate, why did it not appear
In keeping him alive: Or how is fate
Equal to us, when one man's private hate
May ruine Kingdoms, when he will expose
Himself to certain death, and yet all those
Not keep alive this Prince, who now is gone,
Whose loves would give thousands of lives for one:
Do we then dye in him, only as we
May in the worlds harmonique body see
An universally diffused soul
Move in the parts which moves not in the whole?
So though we rest with him, we do appear
To live and stir a while, as if he were
Still quick'ning us? Or do (perchance) we live
And know it not? See we not Autumn give
Back to the earth again what it receiv'd
In th' early Spring? And may not we deceiv'd
Think that those powers are dead, which do but sleep,
And the world's soul doth reunited keep?
And though this Autumn gave, what never more
Any Spring can unto the world restore,
May we not be deceiv'd, and think we know
Our selves for dead? Because that we are so
Unto each other, when as yet we live
A life his love and memory doth give,
Who was our worlds soul, and to whom we are
So reunite, that in him we repair
All other our affections ill bestow'd:
Since by this love we now have such abode
With him in Heaven as we had here, before
He left us dead. Nor shall we question more,
Whether the Soul of man be memory,
As Plato thought: We and posterity
Shall celebrate his name, and vertuous grow,
Only in memory that he was so;
And on those tearms we may seem yet to live,
Because he lived once, though we shall strive
To sigh away this seeming life so fast,
As if with us 'twere not already past.
We then are dead, for what doth now remain
To please us more, or what can we call pain,
Now we have lost him? And what else doth make
Diff'rence in life and death, but to partake
Nor joy, nor pain? Oh death, could'st not fulfil
Thy rage against us no way, but to kill
This Prince, in whom we liv'd? that so we all
Might perish by thy hand at once, and fall
Under his ruine, thenceforth though we should
Do all the actions that the living would,
Yet we shall not remember that we live,
No more then when our Mothers womb did give
That life we felt not: Or should we proceed
To such a wonder, that the dead should breed,
It should be wrought to keep that memory,
Which being his, can, therefore, never dy.
Novemb. 9. 1612.
Elegy for Doctor Dunn.
What though the vulgar and received praise,
With which each common Poet strives to raise
His worthless Patron, seem to give the height
Of a true Excellence; yet as the weight
Forc'd from his Centre, must again recoil,
So every praise, as if it took some foil,
Only because it was not well imploy'd,
Turns to those senseless principles and void,
Which in some broken syllables being couch'd,
Cannot above an Alphabet be vouch'd,
In which dissolved state, they use to rest,
Until some other in new forms invest
Their easie matter, striving so to fix
Glory with words, and make the parts to mix.
But since praise that wants truth, like words that want
Their proper meaning, doth it self recant;
Such tearms, however elevate and high,
Are but like Meteors, which the pregnant Sky
Varies in divers figures, till at last
They either be by some dark Cloud o'rcast,
Or wanting inward sustenance do devolve,
And into their first Elements resolve.
Praises, like Garments, then, if loose and wide,
Are subject to fall off; if gay and py'd,
Make men ridiculous; the just and grave
Are those alone, which men may wear and have.
How fitting were it then, each had that part
Which is their due: And that no fraudulent art
Could so disguise the truth, but they might own
Their rights, and by that property be known,
For since praise is publick inheritance,
If any Inter-Commoner do chance
To give or take more praise then doth belong
Unto his part, he doth so great a wrong,
That all who claim an equal interest,
May him implead untill he do devest
His usurpations, and again restore
Unto the publick what was theirs before.
Praises should then like definitions be
Round, neat, convertible, such as agree
To persons so, that, were their names conceal'd,
Must make them known as well as if reveal'd:
Such as contain the kind and difference,
And all the properties arising thence.
All praises else, as more or less then due,
Will prove, or strongly false, or weakly true.
Having deliver'd now, what praises are,
It rests that I should to the world declare
Thy praises, DUNN, whom I so lov'd alive.
That with my witty Carew I should strive
To celebrate the dead, did I not need
A language by it self, which should exceed
All those which are in use: I or while I take
Those common words, which men may even rake
From Dunghil wits, I find them so defil'd,
Slubber'd and false, as if they had exil'd
Truth and propriety, such as do tell
So little other things, they hardly spell
Their proper meaning, and therefore unfit
To blazon forth thy merits, or thy wit.
Nor will it serve, that thou did'st so refine
Matter with words, that both did seem divine,
When thy breath utter'd them: for thou b'ing gone,
They streight did follow thee: Let therefore none
Hope to find out an Idiom and sence,
Equal to thee, and to thy Eminence,
Unless our Gracious King give words their bound,
Call in false titles, which each where are found,
In Prose and Verse, and as bad Coin and light
Suppress them and their values, till the right
Take place, and do appear, and then in lieu
Of those forg'd Attributes stamp some anew,
Which being currant, and by all allow'd,
In Epitaphs and Tombs might be avow'd
More then their Escocheons. Mean while, because
Nor praise is yet confined to its Laws,
Nor rayling wants his proper dialect,
Let thy detraction thy late life detect;
And though they term all thy heat, frowardness;
Thy solitude, self-pride; fasts, niggardness,
And on this false supposal would inferr,
They teach not others right, themselves who err;
Yet as men to the adverse part do ply
Those crooked things which they would rectifie,
So would perchance, to loose and wanton Man
Such vice avail more then their vertues can.
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