'The heart
therefore
is called [Greek: kardia apo tou kerdainesthai],
(_sic.
(_sic.
John Donne
and was
made by God's hands, not His commandment; and hast thy head erected to
heaven, and all others to the centre, that yet only thy heart of all
others points downward, and only trembles. '
The reference in each case is to the anatomy of the day: 'The figure
of it, as Hippocrates saith in his Booke _de Corde_ is Pyramidall, or
rather turbinated and somewhat answering to the proportion of a Pine
Apple, because a man is broad and short chested. For the Basis above
is large and circular but not exactly round, and after it by degrees
endeth in a cone or dull and blunt round point . . . His lower part is
called the Vertex or top, _Mucro_ or point, the Cone, the heighth of
the heart. Hippocrates calleth it the taile which Galen saith . . . is
the basest part, as the Basis is the noblest. ' Helkiah Crooke: [Greek:
MIKROKOSMOGR? PHI? ], _A Description of the Body of Man, &c. _ (1631),
Book I, chap. ii, _Of the Heart_.
'The heart therefore is called [Greek: kardia apo tou kerdainesthai],
(_sic. i. e. _ [Greek: kradainesthai]) which signifieth _to beate_
because it is perpetually moved from the ingate to the outgate of
life. ' _Ibid. _, Book VII, _The Preface_.
l. 53. _dejections. _ Donne uses both the words given here: 'dejections
of spirit,' _Sermons_ 50. 13. 102; and 'these detorsions have small
force, but (as sunbeams striking obliquely, or arrows diverted with a
twig by the way) they lessen their strength, being turned upon another
mark than they were destined to,' _Essays in Divinity_ (Jessop), p.
42.
l. 61. _fruitfully.
made by God's hands, not His commandment; and hast thy head erected to
heaven, and all others to the centre, that yet only thy heart of all
others points downward, and only trembles. '
The reference in each case is to the anatomy of the day: 'The figure
of it, as Hippocrates saith in his Booke _de Corde_ is Pyramidall, or
rather turbinated and somewhat answering to the proportion of a Pine
Apple, because a man is broad and short chested. For the Basis above
is large and circular but not exactly round, and after it by degrees
endeth in a cone or dull and blunt round point . . . His lower part is
called the Vertex or top, _Mucro_ or point, the Cone, the heighth of
the heart. Hippocrates calleth it the taile which Galen saith . . . is
the basest part, as the Basis is the noblest. ' Helkiah Crooke: [Greek:
MIKROKOSMOGR? PHI? ], _A Description of the Body of Man, &c. _ (1631),
Book I, chap. ii, _Of the Heart_.
'The heart therefore is called [Greek: kardia apo tou kerdainesthai],
(_sic. i. e. _ [Greek: kradainesthai]) which signifieth _to beate_
because it is perpetually moved from the ingate to the outgate of
life. ' _Ibid. _, Book VII, _The Preface_.
l. 53. _dejections. _ Donne uses both the words given here: 'dejections
of spirit,' _Sermons_ 50. 13. 102; and 'these detorsions have small
force, but (as sunbeams striking obliquely, or arrows diverted with a
twig by the way) they lessen their strength, being turned upon another
mark than they were destined to,' _Essays in Divinity_ (Jessop), p.
42.
l. 61. _fruitfully.
