_ This poem, like the last, is _probably_
addressed to
Christopher
Brooke, but it is not so headed in any
edition or MS.
John Donne
THE CALME.
l. 4. _A blocke afflicts, &c._ Aesop's _Fables_. Sir Thomas Rowe
recalled Donne's use of the fable, when he was Ambassador at the Court
of the Mogul. Of Ibrahim Khan, the Governor of Surat after Zufilkhar
Khan, he writes: 'He was good but soe easy that he does no good; wee
are not lesse afflicted with a block then before with a storck.' _The
Embassy, &c._ (Hakl. Soc.), i. 82.
l. 8. _thy mistresse glasse.
_ This poem, like the last, is _probably_
addressed to
Christopher
Brooke, but it is not so headed in any
edition or MS.
The Grolier Club editor ascribes the first heading to
both.
l. 14. _or like ended playes._ This suggests that the Elizabethan
stage was not so bare of furniture as used to be stated, and also that
furniture was not confined to the curtained-off rear-stage. What Donne
recalls is a stage deserted by the actors but cumbered with furniture
and decorations.
l. 16. _a frippery_, i.e. 'A place where cast-off clothes are sold',
O.E.D. 'Oh, ho, Monster; wee know what belongs to a frippery.'
_Tempest_, IV.
