The chief
difference
is that the latter read 'love' for
'loves' at ll.
'loves' at ll.
John Donne
.
poverte myhte
rather egren hym to don felonies. ' Chaucer, Boeth. _De Consol. Phil. _
In the Burley MS. (seventeenth century) the following epigram on
Bancroft appears:
A learned Bishop of this land
Thinking to make religion stand,
In equall poise on every syde
The mixture of them thus he tryde:
An ounce of protestants he singles
And a dramme of papists mingles,
Then adds a scruple of a puritan
And melts them down in his brayne pan,
But where hee lookes they should digest
The scruple eagers all the rest.
In Harl. MS. 4908 f. 83 the last line reads:
That scruple troubles all the rest.
PAGE =71=. A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW.
The text of this poem in the editions is that of _A18_, _N_, _TC_
among the MSS. A slightly different recension is found in most of the
other MSS.
The chief difference is that the latter read 'love' for
'loves' at ll. 9, 14, and 19. They also, however, read 'least' for
'high'st' at l. 12. In l. 19 they vacillate between 'once' and 'our'.
It would not be difficult to defend either version. The only variation
from the printed text which I have admitted is that on which all the
MSS. are unanimous, viz. 'first' for 'short' in l. 26; 'short' is an
obvious blunder.
NOTE ON THE MUSIC TO WHICH CERTAIN OF DONNE'S SONGS WERE SET.
A song meant for the Elizabethans a poem intended to be sung,
generally to the accompaniment of the lute. Donne had clearly no
thought of his songs being an exception to this rule:
But when I have done so,
Some man his art and voice to show
Doth set and sing my paine.
Yet it is difficult to think of some, perhaps the majority, of Donne's
_Songs and Sonets_ as being written to be sung. Their sonorous and
rhetorical rhythm, the elaborate stanzas which, like the prolonged
periods of the _Elegies_, seem to give us a foretaste of the Miltonic
verse-paragraph, suggest speech,--impassioned, rhythmical speech
rather than the melody of song.
rather egren hym to don felonies. ' Chaucer, Boeth. _De Consol. Phil. _
In the Burley MS. (seventeenth century) the following epigram on
Bancroft appears:
A learned Bishop of this land
Thinking to make religion stand,
In equall poise on every syde
The mixture of them thus he tryde:
An ounce of protestants he singles
And a dramme of papists mingles,
Then adds a scruple of a puritan
And melts them down in his brayne pan,
But where hee lookes they should digest
The scruple eagers all the rest.
In Harl. MS. 4908 f. 83 the last line reads:
That scruple troubles all the rest.
PAGE =71=. A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW.
The text of this poem in the editions is that of _A18_, _N_, _TC_
among the MSS. A slightly different recension is found in most of the
other MSS.
The chief difference is that the latter read 'love' for
'loves' at ll. 9, 14, and 19. They also, however, read 'least' for
'high'st' at l. 12. In l. 19 they vacillate between 'once' and 'our'.
It would not be difficult to defend either version. The only variation
from the printed text which I have admitted is that on which all the
MSS. are unanimous, viz. 'first' for 'short' in l. 26; 'short' is an
obvious blunder.
NOTE ON THE MUSIC TO WHICH CERTAIN OF DONNE'S SONGS WERE SET.
A song meant for the Elizabethans a poem intended to be sung,
generally to the accompaniment of the lute. Donne had clearly no
thought of his songs being an exception to this rule:
But when I have done so,
Some man his art and voice to show
Doth set and sing my paine.
Yet it is difficult to think of some, perhaps the majority, of Donne's
_Songs and Sonets_ as being written to be sung. Their sonorous and
rhetorical rhythm, the elaborate stanzas which, like the prolonged
periods of the _Elegies_, seem to give us a foretaste of the Miltonic
verse-paragraph, suggest speech,--impassioned, rhythmical speech
rather than the melody of song.
