is pretty
certainly
what Donne wrote.
John Donne
11.
_But if it be taught by thine.
_ It seems incredible that Donne
should have written 'which if it' &c. immediately after the 'which'
of the preceding line. I had thought that the _1633_ printer had
accidentally repeated from the line above, but the evidence of the
MSS. points to the mistake (if it is a mistake) being older than that.
'Which' was in the MS. used by the printer. If 'But' is not Donne's
own reading or emendation it ought to be, and I am loath to injure a
charming poem by pedantic adherence to authority in so small a point.
_De minimis non curat lex_; but art cares very much indeed. _JC_ and
_P_ read 'Yet since it hath learn'd by thine'.
ll. 14 f. _And crosse both
Word and oath, &c. _
The 'crosse' of all the MSS.
is pretty certainly what Donne wrote. An
editor would change to 'break' hardly the other way. To 'crosse' is,
of course, to 'cancel'. Compare Jonson's _Poetaster_, Act II, Scene i:
Faith, sir, your mercer's Book
Will tell you with more patience, then I can
(For I am crost, and so's not that I thinke. )
and
Examine well thy beauty with my truth,
And cross my cares, ere greater sums arise.
Daniel, _Delia_, i.
PAGE =44=. A NOCTURNALL, &c.
l. 12. _For I am every dead thing. _ I have not thought it right to
alter the _1633_ 'every' to the 'very' of _1635-69_. 'Every' has some
MS. support, and it is the more difficult reading, though of course 'a
very' might easily enough be misread. But I rather think that 'every'
expresses what Donne means. He is 'every dead thing' because he is the
quintessence of all negations--'absence, darkness, death: things which
are not', and more than that, 'the first nothing.
should have written 'which if it' &c. immediately after the 'which'
of the preceding line. I had thought that the _1633_ printer had
accidentally repeated from the line above, but the evidence of the
MSS. points to the mistake (if it is a mistake) being older than that.
'Which' was in the MS. used by the printer. If 'But' is not Donne's
own reading or emendation it ought to be, and I am loath to injure a
charming poem by pedantic adherence to authority in so small a point.
_De minimis non curat lex_; but art cares very much indeed. _JC_ and
_P_ read 'Yet since it hath learn'd by thine'.
ll. 14 f. _And crosse both
Word and oath, &c. _
The 'crosse' of all the MSS.
is pretty certainly what Donne wrote. An
editor would change to 'break' hardly the other way. To 'crosse' is,
of course, to 'cancel'. Compare Jonson's _Poetaster_, Act II, Scene i:
Faith, sir, your mercer's Book
Will tell you with more patience, then I can
(For I am crost, and so's not that I thinke. )
and
Examine well thy beauty with my truth,
And cross my cares, ere greater sums arise.
Daniel, _Delia_, i.
PAGE =44=. A NOCTURNALL, &c.
l. 12. _For I am every dead thing. _ I have not thought it right to
alter the _1633_ 'every' to the 'very' of _1635-69_. 'Every' has some
MS. support, and it is the more difficult reading, though of course 'a
very' might easily enough be misread. But I rather think that 'every'
expresses what Donne means. He is 'every dead thing' because he is the
quintessence of all negations--'absence, darkness, death: things which
are not', and more than that, 'the first nothing.
