_ The
crystalline
sphere in which each
planet is fixed.
planet is fixed.
John Donne
It
would be easily dropped from its likeness to 'let' suggesting a
duplication of that word.
PAGE =137=, l. 150. _Who can the Sun in water see. _ The Grolier Club
edition alters the full stop here to a semicolon; and Chambers quotes
the reading of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, 'winter' for 'water', as worth
noting. Both the change and the suggestion imply some misapprehension
of the reference of these lines, which is to the preceding verse:
For our ease, give thine eyes th'unusual part
Of joy, a Teare.
The opening of a stanza with two lines which in thought belong to the
previous one is not unprecedented in Donne's poems. Compare the sixth
stanza of _A Valediction: of my name in the window_, and note.
Dryden has borrowed this image--like many another of Donne's:
Muse down again precipitate thy flight;
For how can mortal eyes sustain immortal light?
But as the sun in water we can bear,
Yet not the sun, but his reflection there,
So let us view her here in what she was,
And take her image in this watery glass.
_Eleonora_, ll. 134-9.
l. 156. _as their spheares are.
_ The crystalline sphere in which each
planet is fixed.
PAGE =138=, ll. 171-81. _The Benediction. _ The accurate punctuation
of Donne's poetry is not an easy matter. In the 1633 edition the last
five lines of this stanza have no stronger stop than a comma. This may
be quite right, but it leaves ambiguous what is the exact force and
what the connexion of the line--
Nature and grace doe all, and nothing Art.
The editions of 1635-69, by placing a full stop after 'give' (l. 178),
connect 'Nature and grace' with what follows, and Chambers and the
Grolier Club editor have accepted this, though they place a semicolon
after 'Art'. It seems to me that the line must go with what precedes.
The force of 'may' is carried on to 'doe all':
may here, to the worlds end, live
Heires from this King, to take thanks, you, to give,
Nature and grace doe all and nothing Art.
'May there always be heirs of James to receive thanks, of you two to
give; and may this mutual relation owe everything to nature and grace,
the goodness of your descendants, the grace of the king, nothing to
art, to policy and flattery. ' That is the only meaning I can give to
the line. The only change in _1633_ is that of a comma to a full stop,
a big change in value, a small one typographically.
PAGE =139=, l. 200.
would be easily dropped from its likeness to 'let' suggesting a
duplication of that word.
PAGE =137=, l. 150. _Who can the Sun in water see. _ The Grolier Club
edition alters the full stop here to a semicolon; and Chambers quotes
the reading of _A18_, _N_, _TC_, 'winter' for 'water', as worth
noting. Both the change and the suggestion imply some misapprehension
of the reference of these lines, which is to the preceding verse:
For our ease, give thine eyes th'unusual part
Of joy, a Teare.
The opening of a stanza with two lines which in thought belong to the
previous one is not unprecedented in Donne's poems. Compare the sixth
stanza of _A Valediction: of my name in the window_, and note.
Dryden has borrowed this image--like many another of Donne's:
Muse down again precipitate thy flight;
For how can mortal eyes sustain immortal light?
But as the sun in water we can bear,
Yet not the sun, but his reflection there,
So let us view her here in what she was,
And take her image in this watery glass.
_Eleonora_, ll. 134-9.
l. 156. _as their spheares are.
_ The crystalline sphere in which each
planet is fixed.
PAGE =138=, ll. 171-81. _The Benediction. _ The accurate punctuation
of Donne's poetry is not an easy matter. In the 1633 edition the last
five lines of this stanza have no stronger stop than a comma. This may
be quite right, but it leaves ambiguous what is the exact force and
what the connexion of the line--
Nature and grace doe all, and nothing Art.
The editions of 1635-69, by placing a full stop after 'give' (l. 178),
connect 'Nature and grace' with what follows, and Chambers and the
Grolier Club editor have accepted this, though they place a semicolon
after 'Art'. It seems to me that the line must go with what precedes.
The force of 'may' is carried on to 'doe all':
may here, to the worlds end, live
Heires from this King, to take thanks, you, to give,
Nature and grace doe all and nothing Art.
'May there always be heirs of James to receive thanks, of you two to
give; and may this mutual relation owe everything to nature and grace,
the goodness of your descendants, the grace of the king, nothing to
art, to policy and flattery. ' That is the only meaning I can give to
the line. The only change in _1633_ is that of a comma to a full stop,
a big change in value, a small one typographically.
PAGE =139=, l. 200.
