No More Learning

36. 332.


PAGE =38=. A VALEDICTION: OF WEEPING.

ll. 1-9. I have changed the comma at l. 6 to a semicolon, as the first
image, that of the coins, closes here. Chambers places a full stop
at l. 4 'worth', and apparently connects the next two lines with what
follows--wrongly, I think. Finishing the figure of the coins, coined,
stamped, and given their value by her, Donne passes on to a couple of
new images. 'The tears are fruits of much grief; but they are symbols
of more to come. For, as your image perishes in each tear that falls,
so shall we perish, be nothing, when between us rolls the "salt,
estranging sea". '

It is, I suppose, by an inadvertence that Chambers has left 'divers'
unchanged to 'diverse'. I cannot think there is any reference to 'a
diver in the pearly seas'.
Grolier and the Dutch poet divide as here:

Laet voor uw aengesicht mijn trouwe tranen vallen,
Want van dat aengensicht ontfangen sy uw' munt,
En rijsen tot de waerd dies' uwe stempel gunt
Bevrucht van uw' gedaent: vrucht van veel' ongevallen,
Maer teekenen van meer, daer ghy valt met den traen,
Die van u swanger was, en beyde wy ontdaen
Verdwijnen, soo wy op verscheiden oever staen.


PAGE =39=. LOVES ALCHYMIE.

l. 7. _th'Elixar_: i. e. 'the Elixir Vitae', which heals all disease
and indefinitely prolongs life. It is sometimes identified with the
philosopher's stone, which transmutes metals to gold. In speaking of
quintessences (see note, II. p. 30) Paracelsus declares that there are
certain quintessences superior to those of gold, marchasite, precious
stones, &c. , 'of more importance than that they should be called a
quintessence. It should be rather spoken of as a certain secret and
mystery . . .