There is a
distinctly
Calvinist flavour about Lady Bedford's own
_Elegy_, which reads also as though it were to some extent a rebuke to
Donne for the note, either too pagan or too Catholic for her taste, of
his poems on Death.
_Elegy_, which reads also as though it were to some extent a rebuke to
Donne for the note, either too pagan or too Catholic for her taste, of
his poems on Death.
John Donne
48.
_That what we turne to_ feast, _she turn'd to_ pray.
As printed
in the old editions this line, if it be correctly given, is one of the
worst Donne ever wrote:
That what we turne to feast, she turn'd to pray,
i. e. apparently 'That, the day which we turn into a feast or festival
she turned into a day of prayer, a fast'. But 'she turn'd to pray'
in such a sense is a hideously elliptical construction and cannot,
I think, be what Donne meant to write. Two emendations suggest
themselves. One occurs in _HN_:
That when we turn'd to feast, she turn'd to pray.
When we turn'd aside from the routine of life's work to keep holiday,
she did so also, but it was to pray. This is better, but it is
difficult to understand how, if this be the correct reading, the error
arose, and only _HN_ reads 'when'. The emendation I have introduced
presupposes only careless typography or punctuation to account for
the bad line. I take it that Donne meant 'feast' and 'pray' to be
imperatives, and that the line would be printed, if modernized, thus:
That what we turn to 'feast! ' she turn'd to 'pray! '
That the command to keep the Sabbath day holy, which we, especially
Roman Catholics and Anglicans of the Catholic school, interpret as
to the Christian Church a command to feast, to keep holiday, she
interpreted as a command to fast and pray. Probably both Lady Markham
and Lady Bedford belonged to the more Calvinist wing of the Church.
There is a distinctly Calvinist flavour about Lady Bedford's own
_Elegy_, which reads also as though it were to some extent a rebuke to
Donne for the note, either too pagan or too Catholic for her taste, of
his poems on Death. See p. 422, and especially:
Goe then to people curst before they were,
Their spoyles in triumph of thy conquest weare.
l. 58. _will be a Lemnia. _ All the MSS. read 'Lemnia' without the
article, probably rightly, 'Lemnia' being used shortly for 'terra
Lemnia', or 'Lemnian earth'--a red clay found in Lemnos and reputed
an antidote to poison (Pliny, _N. H. _ xxv. 13). It was one of
the constituents of the theriaca. It may be here thought of as an
antiseptic preserving from putrefaction. But Norton points out that by
some of the alchemists the name was given to the essential component
of the Philosopher's stone, and that what Donne was thinking of was
transmuting power, changing crystal into diamond. The alchemists,
however, dealt more in metals than in stones. The thought in Donne's
mind is perhaps rather that which he expresses at p.
in the old editions this line, if it be correctly given, is one of the
worst Donne ever wrote:
That what we turne to feast, she turn'd to pray,
i. e. apparently 'That, the day which we turn into a feast or festival
she turned into a day of prayer, a fast'. But 'she turn'd to pray'
in such a sense is a hideously elliptical construction and cannot,
I think, be what Donne meant to write. Two emendations suggest
themselves. One occurs in _HN_:
That when we turn'd to feast, she turn'd to pray.
When we turn'd aside from the routine of life's work to keep holiday,
she did so also, but it was to pray. This is better, but it is
difficult to understand how, if this be the correct reading, the error
arose, and only _HN_ reads 'when'. The emendation I have introduced
presupposes only careless typography or punctuation to account for
the bad line. I take it that Donne meant 'feast' and 'pray' to be
imperatives, and that the line would be printed, if modernized, thus:
That what we turn to 'feast! ' she turn'd to 'pray! '
That the command to keep the Sabbath day holy, which we, especially
Roman Catholics and Anglicans of the Catholic school, interpret as
to the Christian Church a command to feast, to keep holiday, she
interpreted as a command to fast and pray. Probably both Lady Markham
and Lady Bedford belonged to the more Calvinist wing of the Church.
There is a distinctly Calvinist flavour about Lady Bedford's own
_Elegy_, which reads also as though it were to some extent a rebuke to
Donne for the note, either too pagan or too Catholic for her taste, of
his poems on Death. See p. 422, and especially:
Goe then to people curst before they were,
Their spoyles in triumph of thy conquest weare.
l. 58. _will be a Lemnia. _ All the MSS. read 'Lemnia' without the
article, probably rightly, 'Lemnia' being used shortly for 'terra
Lemnia', or 'Lemnian earth'--a red clay found in Lemnos and reputed
an antidote to poison (Pliny, _N. H. _ xxv. 13). It was one of
the constituents of the theriaca. It may be here thought of as an
antiseptic preserving from putrefaction. But Norton points out that by
some of the alchemists the name was given to the essential component
of the Philosopher's stone, and that what Donne was thinking of was
transmuting power, changing crystal into diamond. The alchemists,
however, dealt more in metals than in stones. The thought in Donne's
mind is perhaps rather that which he expresses at p.
