Meditations XVI -- XVIII, transcribed from an edition of Donne's Complete Poetry and Selected Prose, ed. John Hayward, Nonesuch Press 1929, from a copy in possession.
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- Meditation XVI
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- Meditation XVIII ]
Note on the text:
Every effort has been made, in this transcription, to reproduce the spelling, punctuation and italicisation given in the source book; though some transcription errors may have occured. The source implies that Donne's original contained many instances of what would now be regarded as inconsistencies, but which may be taken as characteristic of his period.
The 1929 edition contains the following General Note on the Text:
The spelling of the original text . . . has been retained, with the following exceptions: Then (indicating comparison) has been changed to than throughout; and than to then where the original text prints than for the sake of the rhyme (e.g. Elegie IV, l.32). The long f [i.e.`s'] has become s, where necessary v has been changed to u, i to j, y to i, and all abbreviations (usually these occur only in MS.) have been expanded to their full value throughout. In a few places where confusion was likely to occur, hast to haste, and least to lest, to to too, of to off have been silently altered. Some minor changes in spelling are recorded in the notes. The Elizabethan use of a mark of interrogation to denote an exclamation has been altered to conform with modern usage. In the prose works dropped, turned and inverted letters have been silently corrected, and proper names, where they are obviously incorrect, have been altered to the correct forms as they are printed elsewhere. As far as possible the punctuation of the early editions ans MS. collections has been retained. When, however, it is necessary to supplement or alter the punctuation of the text upon which a recension is based, the punctuation of another edition or a manuscript often supplies the defect. Every effort has neem made to reduce editorial conjectures top the smallest number consistent with intelligibility of the text. Except in a very few instances, the Sermons, which Donne prepared for the Press with special attention to the use of stops, capitals and italica, are reprinted exactly as they are found in the original editions.
- Et properare meum clamant,è Turre propinqua, Obstreperaræ Campanæ aliorum in funere, funus.
From the Bells of the Church adjoyning, I am daily remembred of my buriall in the funeralls of others.
WE have a Convenient Author, who writ a Discourse of Bells, when hee was prisoner in Turky. How would hee have enlarged himselfe if he had beene my fellow-prisoner in this sicke bed, so neere to that Steeple, which never ceases, no more than the harmony of the spheres, but is more heard. When the Turkes took Constantinople, they melted the Bells into Ordnance ; I have heard both Bells and Ordnance, but never been so much affected with those, as with these Bells. I have lien near a Steeple, in which there are said to be more than thirty Bels ; And neere another, where there is one so bigge, as that the Clapper is said to weigh more than six hundred pound, yet never so affected as here. Here the Bells can scarse solemnise the funerall of any person, but that I knew him, or knew that he was my Neighbour: we dwelt in houses neere to one another before, but now hee is gone into that house, into which I must follow him. There is a way of correcting the Children of great persons, that other Children are corrected in their behalfe, and in their names, and this workes upon them, who had indeed more deserved it. And when these Bells tell me, that now one, and now another is buried, must I not acknowledge, that they have the correction due to me, and paid the debt that I owe ? There is a story of a Bell in a Monastery which, when any of the house was sicke to death, rung alwaies voluntarily, and they knew the inevitablenesse of the danger by that. It rung once, when no man was sick ; but the next day one of the house, fell from the steeple, and died, and the Bell held the reputation of a Prophet still. If these Bells that warne to a Funerall now, were appropriated to none, may not I, by the houre of the Funerall, supply ? How many men that stand at an execution, if they would aske, for what dies that man, should heare their owne faults condemned, and see themselves executed, by Attorney ? We scarce heare of any man preferred, but wee thinke of our selves, that wee might very well have been that Man ; Why might not I have beene that Man, that is carried to his grave now ? Could I fit my selfe, to stand, or sit in any mans place, and not to lie in any man's grave ? I may lacke much of the good parts of the meanest, but I lacke nothing of the mortality of the weakest ; They may have acquired better abilities than I, but I was borne to as many infirmities as they. To be an Incumbent by lying down in a grave, to be a Doctor by teaching Mortification by Example, by dying, though I may have seniors, others may be elder than I, yet I have proceeded apace in a good University, and gone a great way in a little time, by the furtherance of a vehement Fever ; and whomsoever these Bells bring to the ground to day, if hee and I had beene compared yesterday, perchance I should have been thought likelier to come to this preferment, then, than he. God hath kept the power of death in his owne hands, lest any man should bribe death. If man knew the gaine of death, the ease of death, he would solicite, he would provoke death to assist him, by any hand, which he might use. But as when men see many of their owne professions preferd, it ministers a hope that they may light upon them; so when these hourely Bells tell me of so many funerals of men like me, it presents, if not a desire that it may, yet a comfort whensoever mine shall come.
Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris.
Now, this Bell tolling softly for another, saies to me, Thou must die.
PERCHANCE hee for whom this Bell tolls, may be so ill, as that he knowes not that it tolls for him ; And perchance I may thinke myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about mee, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for mee, and I know not that. The Church is Catholike, universall, so are all her Actions ; All that she does, belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns mee ; for that child is thereby connected to that Head which is my Head too, and engraffed into that body, whereof I am a member. And when she buries a Man, that action concernes me : All mankinde is of one Author, and is one volume ; when one Man dies, one Chapter is not torne out of the booke, but translated into a better language ; and every Chapter must be so translated ; God emploies several translators ; some peeces are translated by age, some by sicknesse, some by warre, some by justice ; but Gods hand is in every translation ; and his hand shall binde up all our scattered leaves againe, for that Librarie where every booke shall lie open to one another : As therefore the Bell that rings to a Sermon, calls not upon the Preacher onely, but upon the Congregation to come ; so this Bell calls us all : but how much more mee, who am brought so neere the doore by this sicknesse. There was a contention as farre as a suite, (in which both peitie and dignitie, religion, and estimation, were mingled) which of the religious Orders should ring to praiers first in the Morning ; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignitie of this Bell that tolls for our evening prayer, wee would bee glad to make it ours, by rising early, in that application, that it might bee ours, as wel as his, whose indeed it is. The Bell doth toll for him that thinkes it doth ; and though it intermit againe, yet from that minute, that that occasion wrought upon him, hee is united to God. Who casts not up his Eye to the Sunne when it rises ? but who takes off his Eye from a Comet when that breakes out ? Who bends not his eare to any bell, which upon any occasion rings ? but who can remove it from that bell, which is passing a peece of himelfe out of this world ? No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe ; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine ; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were ; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde ; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls ; It tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of Miserie or a borrowing of Miserie, as though we were not miserable enough of our selves, but must must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the Miserie of our Neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousnesse if wee did ; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured, and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into currant Monies, his treasure will not defray him as he travells. Tribulation is Treasure in the nature of it, but it is not currant money in the use of it, except wee get nearer and nearer our home, Heaven, by it. Another man may be sicke too, and sicke to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a Mine, and be of no use to him ; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out, and applies that gold to mee : if by this consideration of anothers danger, I take mine owne into contemplation, and so secure my selfe, by making my recourse to my God, who is our onely securitie.
At inde Mortuus es, Sonitu celeri, pulsuque agitato.
The Bell rings out, and tells me in him, that I am dead.
THE Bell rings out ; the pulse thereof is changed ; the tolling was a faint, and intermitting pulse, upon one side ; this stronger, and argues more and better life. His soule is gone out ; and as a Man, who had a lease of 1000. yeeres after the expiration of a short one, or an inheritance after the life of a man in a consumption, he is now entred into the possession of his better estate. His soule is gone ; whither ? Who saw it come in, or who saw it goe out ? No body ; yet every body is sure, he had one, and hath none If I will ask meere Philosophers, what the soule is, I shall finde amongst the, that will tell me, it is nothing, but the temperament and harmony, and just and equall composition of the Elements in the body, which produces all those faculties which we ascribe to the soule ; and so, in it selfe is nothing, no seperable substance, that overlives the body. They see the soule is nothing else in other Creatures, and they affect an impious humilitie, to think as low of Man. But if my soule were no more than the soul of a beast, I could not thinke so ; that soule that can reflect upon it selfe, consider it selfe, is more than so. If I will aske, not meere Philosophers, but mixt men, Philosophicall Divines, how the soule, being a separate substance, enters into Man, I shall find some that will tell me, that it is by generation, and procreation from parents, because they thinke it hard, to charge the soule with the guiltiness of originall sinne, if the soule were infused into a body, in which it must necessarily grow foule, and contract originall sinne, whether it will or no ; and I shall finde some that will tell mee, that it is by immediate infusion from God, because they think it hard, to maintaine an immortality in such a soule, as should be begotten, and derived with the body from mortall parents. If I will aske, not a few men, but almost whole bodies, whole Churches, what becomes of the soules of the righteous, at the departing thereof from the body, I shall bee told by some, That they attend an expiation, a purification in a place of torment ; By some, that they attend the fruition of the sight of God, in a place of rest ; but yet, but of expectation ; By some, that they passe to an immediate possession of the presence of God. S. Augustine studied the nature of the soule, as much as anything, but the salvation of the soule ; and he sent an expresse Messenger to Saint Hierome, to consult of some things concerning the soule : But he satisfies himselfe with this : Let the departure of my soule to salvation be evident to my faith, and I care the lesse, how dark the entrance of my soule, into my body, bee to my reason. It is the going out more than the comming in, that concernes us. This soule, this Bell tells me, is gone out ; Whither ? Who shall tell me that ? I know not who it is ; much less what he was ; The condition of the man, and the course of his life, which should tell mee whither hee is gone, I know not. I was not there in his sicknesse, nor at his death ; I saw not his way, nor his end, nor can aske them, who did, thereby to conclude, or argue, whither he is gone. But yet I have one neerer mee than all these ; mine own Charity ; I aske that ; and that tels me, He is gone to everlasting rest, and joy, and glory ; I owe him a good opinion ; it is but thankfull charity in mee, because I received benefit and instruction from him when his Bell told : and I, being made the fitter to pray, by that disposition, wherein I was assisted by his occasion, did pray for him ; and I pray not without faith ; so I doe charitably, so I do faithfully beleeve, that that soule is gone to everlasting rest, and joy, and glory. But for the body, how poore a wretched thing is that ? wee cannot expresse it so fast, as it grows worse and worse. That body which scarce three minutes since was such a house, as that that soule, which made but one step from thence to Heaven, was scarse thorowly content, to leave that for Heaven : that body hath lost the name of a dwelling house, because none dwells in it, and is making haste to lose the name of a body, and dissolve to putrefaction. Who would not bee affected, to see a cleere and sweet River in the Morning, grow a kennell of muddy land water by noone, and condemned to the saltnesse of the Sea by night ? And how lame a picture, how faint a representation is that, of the precipitation of mans body to dissolution ! Now all the parts built up, and knit by a lovely soule, now but a statue of clay, and now, these limbs melted off, as if that clay were but snow ; and now, the whole house is but a handfull of sand, so much dust, and but a pecke of rubbidge, so much bone. If he, who, as this Bell tells mee, is gone now, were some excellent Artificer, who comes to him for a clocke, or for a garment now ? or for counsaile, if hee were a Lawyer ? If a Magistrate, for Justice ? Man, before hee hath his immortall soule, hath a soule of sense, and a soule of vegitation before that : This immortall soule did not forbid other soules, to be in us before, but when this soule departs, it carries all with it; no more vegetation, no more sense : such a Mother in law is the Earth, in respect of our naturall mother ; in her wombe we grew ; and when she was delivered of us, wee were planted in some place, in some calling in the world ; In the wombe of the earth, we diminish, and when shee is deliverd of us, our grave opened for another, wee are not transplanted, but transported, our dust blown away with prophane dust, with every wind.
[ end of Meditation XVIII ]
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