The agreement of the printed texts does not carry much weight, for
any examination of the variants in this poem will reveal that they are
errors due to misunderstanding, e.
any examination of the variants in this poem will reveal that they are
errors due to misunderstanding, e.
John Donne
ll. 21-2. I have interchanged the old semicolon at the end of l. 21
and the comma at the end of l. 22. I take the first three lines of the
stanza to form an absolute clause: 'This book once written, in
cipher or new-made idiom, we are thereby (in these letters) the only
instruments for Loves clergy--their Missal and Breviary. ' I presume
this is how it is understood by Chambers and the Grolier Club editor,
who place a semicolon at the end of each line. It seems to me that
with so heavy a pause after l. 21 a full stop would be better at the
end of l. 22.
l. 25. _Vandals and Goths inundate us. _ This, the reading of quite a
number of independent MSS. , seems to me greatly preferable to that of
the printed texts:
Vandals and the Goths invade us.
The agreement of the printed texts does not carry much weight, for
any examination of the variants in this poem will reveal that they are
errors due to misunderstanding, e. g. l. 20, 'tome,' 'to me,' 'tomb'
show that each edition has been printed from the last, preserving,
or conjecturally amending, its blunders. If therefore the 1633 editor
mistook 'in? date' for 'invade', that is sufficient. Besides the
metrical harshness of the line there seems to be no reason why the
epithet 'ravenous' should be applied to the Vandals and not extended
to the Goths. The metaphor of inundation is used by Donne in the
sermons: 'The Torrents, and Inundations, which invasive Armies pour
upon Nations, we are fain to call by the name of Law, _The Law of
Armes_. ' _Sermons_ 26. 3. 36. Milton too uses it:
A multitude like which the populous North
Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, where her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
_Paradise Lost_, i. 351-4.
Probably both Donne and Milton had in mind Isaiah's description of the
Assyrian invasion, where in the Vulgate the word is that used here:
'Propter hoc ecce Dominus adducet super eos aquas fluminis fortes et
multas, regem Assyriorum, et omnem gloriam eius; et ascendet super
omnes rivos eius, et fluet super universas ripas eius; et ibit per
Iudam, _inundans_, et transiens usque ad collum veniet. ' Isaiah viii.
