No More Learning

In _1669_ the text runs, 'Goe, whither. Hence you get,' &c. The
semicolon, however, is better than the full stop after 'Hence', as the
following clause is expansive and explanatory: 'Anywhere will do so
long as it is out of this. In such cases as yours, to forget is itself
a gain. '

l. 34. The modern editors, by dropping the comma after 'asham'd', have
given this line the opposite meaning to what Donne intended. I have
therefore, to avoid ambiguity, inserted one before. Sir Henry Goodyere
is not to be asham'd to imitate his hawk, but is, _through shame_,
to emulate that noble bird by growing more sparing of extravagant
display. 'But the sporte which for that daie Basilius would
principally shewe to Zelmane, was the mounting at a Hearne, which
getting up on his wagling wings with paine . . . was now growen to
diminish the sight of himself, and to give example to greate persons,
that the higher they be the lesse they should show. ' Sidney's
_Arcadia_, ii. 4.
Goodyere's fondness for hawking is referred to in one of Donne's prose
letters, 'God send you Hawks and fortunes of a high pitch' (_Letters_,
p. 204), and by Jonson in _Epigram LXXXV_.

l. 44. _Tables, or fruit-trenchers. _ I have let the 'Tables' of
_1633-54_ stand, although 'Fables' has the support of _all_ the MSS.
T is easily confounded with F. In the very next poem _1633-54_ read
'Termers' where I feel sure that 'Farmers' (spelt 'Fermers') is the
correct reading. Moreover, Donne makes several references to the
'morals' of fables:

The fable is inverted, and far more
A block inflicts now, then a stork before.
_The Calme_, ll. 4-5.

O wretch, that thy fortunes should moralize
Aesop's fables, and make tales prophesies.
_Satyre V. _

If 'Tables' is the correct reading, Donne means, I take it, not
portable memorandum books such as Hamlet carried (this is Professor
Norton's explanation), but simply pictures (as in 'Table-book'),
probably Emblems.


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