Notes and Questions on the Prose of John Donne in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

1.1 As indicated in the NAEL footnote, the Devotions have the tripartite structure (with, perhaps, and, of course, Trinitarian symbolism) of a Meditation (on the human condition, reflecting each stage of the illness), Expostulation (addressed to God in a spirit of inquiry), and Prayer. The twenty-three devotions (each composed of the three parts of Meditation, Expostulation, and Prayer), if the little English translations of the Latin summaries are lined up, make the following table of contents, or story: (1) The first alteration, the first grudging of the sickness; (2) The strength and the function of the senses, and other faculties, change and fail; (3) The patient takes his bed; (4) The physician is sent for; (5) The physician comes; (6) The physician is afraid; (7) The physician desires to have others joined with him; (8) The king sends his own physician; (9) Upon their consultation, they prescribe; (10) They find the disease to steal on insensibly, and endeavor to meet with it so; (11) They use cordials, to keep the venom and the malignity of the disease from the heart; (12) They apply pigeons, to draw the vapors from the head; (13) The sickness declares the infection and malignity thereof by spots; (14) The physicians observe these accidents to have fallen upon the critical days; (15) I sleep not day or night; (16) From the bells of the church adjoining, I am daily remembered of my burial in the funerals of others; (17) Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die; (18) The bell rings out, and tells me in him, that I am dead; (19) At last the physicians, after a long and stormy voyage, see land: They have so good signs of the concoction of the disease, as that they may safely proceed to purge; (20) Upon these indications of digested matter, they proceed to purge; (21) God prospers their practice, and he, by them, calls Lazarus out of his tomb, me out of my bed; (22) The physicians consider the root and occasion, the embers, and coals, and fuel of the disease, and seek to purge or correct that; (23) They warn me of the fearful danger of relapsing.

1.2 The NAEL selections are Meditations 4 and 17, and part of Expostulation 19. The paragraphing and punctuation of the NAEL do not accord with other editions of the Devotions. First of all, as indicated in the following editions, the Devotions (like much early and early modern prose) are printed as long, unbroken paragraphs:

Donne, John. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Together with Death's Duel. Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arbor Paperbacks - U of Michigan P, 1959. [Contains all three parts of all devotions.] (Abbreviated DUEO, below.)

---. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. Ed. Anthony Raspa. New York: Oxford  UP, 1987. [Contains all three parts of all devotions.]  (Referred to as Raspa, below.)

---. [John Donne:] Selected Prose. Ed. Neil Rhodes. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1987. [Contains the first three parts of Devotion 1, but only Meditations 2-23.] (Referred to as Rhodes, below.)

---. The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne. Ed. Charles M. Coffin. New York: Modern Library - Random House, 1952. [All the Meditations; Devotion 19, complete.] (Referred to as Coffin, below.)

A question that naturally arises, then, is how well the NAEL editors have chosen, in breaking up Meditations 4 and 17 into the paragraphs they have. How well have they?

1.3 Meditation 4 in the NAEL has 26 sentences (par. 1 = 7; par. 2 = 6; par. 3 = 13).

DUEO has 17 sentences: (1) "It" to "nothing"; (2) "Man consists . . world is"; (3) "And if . . . the world"; (4) "If all . . . no representation"; (5) "Enlarge this . . . comprehend all"; (6) "Inexplicable mystery . . . step, everywhere"; (7) "And then . . many several ones"; (8) "And can . . . these kinds?"; (9) "O miserable . . . names for them?" (10) "But we have . . . relieve man" (11) We have . . . not the physician"; (12) "Here we . . . physicians to themselves"; (13) "The hart . . . of vomit"; (14) "The dog . . . recovers him"; (15) "And it may . . . as they are"; (16) "Call back therefore . . . of the grave?"; (17) "His diseases . . . the physician."

Rhodes has 17 sentences, which correspond exactly to DUEO.

Coffin has 19 sentences: (1) "It is . . . to nothing"; (2) "Man consists . . . world is"; (3) And if . . . the world"; (4) "If all the veins . . . no representation"; (5) "Enlarge this . . . comprehend all"; (6) "Inexplicable mystery . . . step, everywhere"; (7) "And then . . . severfal ones"; (8) "And can . . these kinds?"; (9) "O miserable abundance . . . names for them?"; (12) "But we have . . . relieve man"; (13) "We have . . . not the physician"; (14) "Here we shrink . . . to themselves"; (15) "The hart . . . of vomit"; (16) "The dog . . . recovers him"; (17) And it may . . . physician, as they are"; (18) "Call back . . . the grave?"; (19) "His diseases . . . the physician."

The longer sentences in the other editions are created through the use of semicolons and colons. Early modern English (of the Renaissance) was a good deal fonder of the long sentence and the colon than contemporary modern English. (1.3a) How are variation of sentence length and sentence type expressive in Meditation 4? (1.3b) How in this Meditation, as well as Meditation 17, is repetition used to achieve unity of the essay, as well as express ideas, tone, and emotion? (1.3c) How does Donne use the motif of microcosm vs. macrocosm -- to be found also in his poetry -- in this prose work?

1.4 Meditation 17, all one paragraph in NAEL (and the other editions), has 20 sentences in NAEL.

DUEO has 18 sentences: (1) "Perchance . . . not that"; (2) "The church . . . to all"; (3) "When she . . . a member"; (4) "And when she . . . to one another"; (5) "As therefore . . . this sickness"; (6) "There was . . . rose earliest"; (7) "If we understand . . . it is"; (8) "The bell . . . to God"; (9) "Who casts . . . breaks out" (10) "Who bends . . . this world"; (11) No man . . . the main"; (12) "If a . . . for thee"; (13) "Neither can . . . our neighbours"; (14) "Truly it . . . of it"; (15) "No man . . . that affliction"; (16) "If a . . . he travels"; (17) "Tribulation is . . . by it"; (18) "Another man . . . only security."

Rhodes has 15 sentences: (1) "Perchance he . . . not that"; (2) "The Church . . . to all"; (3) "When she . . . a member"; (4) "And when . . . this sickness"; (5) "There was . . . rose earliest"; (6) "If we . . . it is"; (7) "The Bell . . . to God"; (8) "Who casts . . . this world?"; (9) "No man . . . tolls for thee"; (10) "Neither can . . . our neighbours"; (11) "Truly it . . enough of it"; (12) "No man . . . that affliction"; (13) "If a . . . he travels"; (14) "Tribulation is . . . by it"; (15) "Another man . . . only security."

Coffin has 16 sentences: (1) "Perchance he . . . not that"; (2) "The Church . . . to all"; (3) "When she . . . a member"; (4) "And when . . . by this sickness"; (5) "There was . . . rose earliest"; (6) "If we . . . it is"; (7) "The Bell . . . to God"; (8) "Who casts . . . breaks out?"; (9) "Who bends . . . this world"; (10) "No man . . . for thee"; (11) "Neither can . . . our neighbours"; (12) "Truly it . . . of it"; (13) "No man . . . that affliction"; (14) "If a . . . he travels"; (15) "Tribulation is . . by it"; (16) "Another man . . . only security."

(1.4a) What ideas and effects are suggested by the repetition of the word bell in this prose work? (1.4b) How does Donne use the motif of microcosm vs. macrocosm in this work?
 
 (1.5) To see how Meditation IV and Meditation XVII work with their corresponding Expostulation and Prayer, these have been printed below:

 
Expostulation IV and Prayer IV from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne

IV. EXPOSTULATION

I have not the righteousness of Job, but I have the desire of Job: "I would speak to the Almighty, and I would reason with God" (Job 13:3). My God, my God, how soon wouldst thou have me go to the physician, and how far wouldst thou have me go with the physician? I know thou hast made the matter, and the man, and the art; and I go not from thee when I go to the physician. Thou didst not make clothes before there was a shame of the nakedness of the body, but thou didst make physic before there was any grudging of any sickness; for thou didst imprint a medicinal virtue in many simples, even from the beginning; didst thou mean that we should be sick when thou didst so? when thou madest them? No more than thou didst mean, that we should sin, when thou madest us: thou foresawest both, but causedst neither. Thou, Lord, promisest here trees, "whose fruit shall be for meat, and their leaves for medicine" (Ezek. 47:12). It is the voice of thy Son, "Wilt thou be made whole?" (John 5:6), that draws from the patient a confession that he was ill, and could not make himself well. And it is thine own voice, "Is there no physician?" (Jer. 8:22), that inclines us, disposes us, to accept thine ordinance. And it is the voice of the wise man, both for the matter, physic itself, "The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise shall not abhor them" (Ecclus. 38:4), and for the art, and the person, the physician cutteth off a long disease. In all these voices thou sendest us to those helps which thou hast afforded us in that. But wilt not thou avow that voice too, "He that hath sinned against his Maker, let him fall into the hands of the physician" (Ecclus. 38:15); and wilt not thou afford me an understanding of those words? Thou, who sendest us for a blessing to the physician, dost not make it a curse to us to go when thou sendest. Is not the curse rather in this, that only he falls into the hands of the physician, that casts himself wholly, entirely upon the physician, confides in him, relies upon him, attends all from him, and neglects that spiritual physic which thou also hast instituted in thy church. So to fall into the hands of the physician is a sin, and a punishment of former sins; so, as Asa fell, who in his disease "sought not to the Lord, but to the physician" (1 Chron. 16:12). Reveal therefore to me thy method, O Lord, and see whether I have followed it; that thou mayest have glory, if I have, and I pardon, if I have not, and help that I may. Thy method is, "In time of thv sickness, be not negligent": wherein wilt thou have my diligence expressed? "Pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole" (Ecclus. 38:9). O Lord, I do; I pray, and pray thy servant David's prayer, "Have mercy upon me, 0 Lord, for I am weak; heal me, 0 Lord, for my bones are vexed" (Pss. 6:2). I know that even my weakness is a reason, a motive, to induce thy mercy, and my sickness an occasion of thy sending health. When art thou so ready, when is it so seasonable to thee, to commiserate, as in misery? But is prayer for health in season, as soon as I am sick ? Thy method goes further: "Leave off from sin, and order thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness" (Ecclus. 38:10). Have I, O Lord, done so? O Lord, I have; by thy grace, I am come to a holy detestation of my former sin. Is there any more? In thy method there is more: "Give a sweet savour, and a memorial offine flour, and make a fat offering, as not being" (Ecclus. 38:11). And, Lord, by thy grace, I have done that, sacrificed a little of that little which thou lentest me, to them for whom thou lentest it: and now in thy method, and by thy steps, I am come to that, "Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him; let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him" (Ecclus. 38:12). I send for the physician, but I will hear him enter with those words of Peter, "Jesus Christ maketh thee whole" (Acts 9:34); I long for his presence, but I look "that the power of the Lord should be present to heal me" (Luke 5:17).

IV. PRAYER

O most mighty and most merciful God, who art so the God of health and strength, as that without thee all health is but the fuel, and all strength but the bellows of sin; behold me under the vehemence of two diseases, and under the necessity of two physicians, authorized by thee, the bodily, and the spiritual physician. I come to both as to thine ordinance, and bless and glorify thy name that, in both cases, thou hast afforded help to man by the ministry of man. Even in the new Jerusalem, in heaven itself, it hath pleased thee to discover a tree, which is "a tree of life there, but the leaves thereof are for the healing of the nations" (Rev. 22:2). Life itself is with thee there, for thou art life; and all kinds of health, wrought upon us here by thine instruments, descend from thence. "Thou wouldst have healed Babylon, but she is not healed" (Jer 51:9). Take from me, O Lord, her perverseness, her wilfulness, her refractoriness, and hear thy Spirit saying in my soul: Heal me, O Lord, for I would be healed. "Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound; then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King Jareb, yet could not he heal you, nor cure you of your wound" (Hosea 5:13). Keep me back, O Lord, from them who misprofess arts of healing the soul, or of the body, by means not imprinted by thee in the church for the soul, or not in nature for the body. There is no spiritual health to be had by superstition, nor bodily by witchcraft; thou, Lord, and only thou, art Lord of both. Thou in thyself art Lord of both, and thou in thy Son art the physician, the applier of both. "With his stripes we are healed" (Isa 53:5) says the prophet there; there, before he was scourged, we were healed with his stripes; how much more shall I be healed now, now when that which he hath already suffered actually is actually and effectually applied to me ? Is there any thing incurable, upon which that balm drops ? Any vein so empty as that that blood cannot fill it? Thou promisest to heal the earth (Isa 53:5); but it is when the inhabitants of the earth "pray that thou wouldst heal it." Thou promisest to heal their waters, but "their miry places and standing waters," thou sayest there, "thou wilt not heal" (Ezek 47:11). My returning to any sin, if I should return to the ability of sinning over all my sins again, thou wouldst not pardon. Heal this earth, O my God, by repentant tears, and heal these waters, these tears, from all bitterness, from all diffidence, from all dejection, by establishing my irremovable assurance in thee. "Thy Son went about healing all manner of sickness" (Matt 4:23). (No disease incurable, none difficult; he healed them in passing). "Virtue went out of him, and he healed all" (Luke 6:19), all the multitude (no person incurable), he healed them "every whit" [John 7:23](as himself speaks), he left no relics of the disease; and will this universal physician pass by this hospital, and not visit me? not heal me? not heal me wholly? Lord, I look not that thou shouldst say by thy messenger to me, as to Hezekiah, "Behold, I will heal thee, and on the third day thou shalt go up to the house of the Lord" (2 Kings 20:5). I look not that thou shouldst say to me, as to Moses in Miriam's behalf, when Moses would have had her healed presently, "If her father had but spit in her face, should she not have been ashamed seven days? Let her be shut up seven days, and then return" (Num. 12:24); but if thou be pleased to multiply seven days (and seven is infinite) by the number of my sins (and that is more infinite), if this day must remove me till days shall be no more, seal to me my spiritual health, in affording me the seals of thy church; and for my temporal health, prosper thine ordinance, in their hands who shall assist in this sickness, in that manner, and in that measure, as may most glorify thee, and most edify those who observe the issues of thy servants, to their own spiritual benefit.

 
Expostulation 17 and Prayer 17 from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne

XVII. EXPOSTULATION

My God, my God, is this one of thy ways of drawing light out of darkness, to make him for whom this bell tolls, now in this dimness of his sight, to become a superintendent, an overseer, a bishop, to as many as hear his voice in this bell, and to give us a confirmation in this action ? Is this one of thy ways, to raise strength out of weakness, to make him who cannot rise from his bed, nor stir in his bed, come home to me, and in this sound give me the strength of healthy and vigorous instructions? O my God, my God, what thunder is not a well-tuned cymbal, what hoarseness, what harshness, is not a clear organ, if thou be pleased to set thy voice to it? And what organ is not well played on if thy hand be upon it? Thy voice, thy hand, is in this sound, and in this one sound I hear this whole concert. I hear thy Jacob call unto his sons and say, "Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days" (Gen. 49:1): he says, That which I am now, you must be then. I hear thy Moses telling me, and all within the compass of this sound, "This is the blessing wherewith I bless you before my death" (Dt. 33:1); this, that before your death, you would consider your own in mine. I hear thy prophet saying to Hezekiah, "Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live" (2 Ki 20:1): he makes use of his family, and calls this a setting of his house in order, to compose us to the meditation of death. I hear thy apostle saying, "I think it meet to put you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must go out of this tabernacle" (2 Pet 1:13): this is the publishing of his will, and this bell is our legacy, the applying of his present condition to our use. I hear that which makes all sounds music, and all music perfect; I hear thy Son himself saying, "Let not your hearts be troubled" (John 14:1); only I hear this change, that whereas thy Son says there, "I go to prepare a place for you," this man in this sound says, I send to prepare you for a place, for a grave. But, O my God, my God, since heaven is glory and joy, why do not glorious and joyful things lead us, induce us to heaven? Thy legacies in thy first will, in the Old Testament, were plenty and victory, wine and oil, milk and honey, alliances of friends, ruin of enemies, peaceful hearts and cheerful countenances, and by these galleries thou broughtest them into thy bedchamber, by these glories and joys, to the joys and glories of heaven. Why hast thou changed thine old way, and carried us by the ways of discipline and mortification, by the ways of mourning and lamentation, by the ways of miserable ends and miserable anticipations of those miseries, in appropriating the exemplar miseries of others to ourselves, and usurping upon their miseries as our own, to our prejudice? Is the glory of heaven no perfecter in itself, but that it needs a foil of depression and ingloriousness in this world, to set it off? Is the joy of heaven no perfecter in itself, but that it needs the sourness of this life to give it a taste? Is that joy and that glory but a comparative glory and a comparative joy? not such in itself, but such in comparison of the joylessness and the ingloriousness of this world? I know, my God, it is far, far otherwise. As thou thyself, who art all, art made of no substances, so the joys and glory which are with thee are made of none of these circumstances, essential joy, and glory essential. But why then, my God, wilt thou not begin them here? Pardon, O God, this unthankful rashness; I that ask why thou dost not, find even now in myself, that thou dost; such joy, such glory, as that I conclude upon myself, upon all, they that find not joys in their sorrows, glory in their dejections in this world, are in a fearful danger of missing both in the next.

XVII. PRAYER

O eternal and most gracious God, who hast been pleased to speak to us, not only in the voice of nature, who speaks in our hearts, and of thy word, which speaks to our ears, but in the speech of speechless creatures, in Balaam's ass, in the speech of unbelieving men, in the confession of Pilate, in the speech of the devil himself, in the recognition and attestation of thy Son, I humbly accept thy voice in the sound of this sad and funeral bell. And first, I bless thy glorious name, that in this sound and voice I can hear thy instructions, in another man's to consider mine own condition; and to know, that this bell which tolls for another, before it come to ring out, may take me in too. As death is the wages of sin it is due to me; as death is the end of sickness it belongs to me; and though so disobedient a servant as I may be afraid to die, yet to so merciful a master as thou I cannot be afraid to come; and therefore into thy hands, O my God, I commend my spirit, a surrender which I know thou wilt accept, whether I live or die; for thy servant David made it (Ps 31:5), when he put himself into thy protection for his life; and thy blessed Son made it, when he delivered up his soul at his death: declare thou thy will upon me, O Lord, for life or death in thy time; receive my surrender of myself now; into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. And being thus, O my God, prepared by thy correction, mellowed by thy chastisement, and conformed to thy will by thy Spirit, having received thy pardon for my soul, and asking no reprieve for my body, I am bold, O Lord, to bend my prayers to thee for his assistance, the voice of whose bell hath called me to this devotion. Lay hold upon his soul, O God, till that soul have thoroughly considered his account; and how few minutes soever it have to remain in that body, let the power of thy Spirit recompense the shortness of time, and perfect his account before he pass away; present his sins so to him, as that he may know what thou forgivest, and not doubt of thy forgiveness, let him stop upon the infiniteness of those sins, but dwell upon the infiniteness of thy mercy; let him discern his own demerits, but wrap himself up in the merits of thy Son Christ Jesus; breathe inward comforts to his heart, and afford him the power of giving such outward testimonies thereof, as all that are about him may derive comforts from thence, and have this edification, even in this dissolution, that though the body be going the way of all flesh, yet that soul is going the way of all saints. When thy Son cried out upon the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" he spake not so much in his own person, as in the person of the church, and of his afflicted members, who in deep distresses might fear thy forsaking. This patient, O most blessed God, is one of them; in his behalf, and in his name, hear thy Son crying to thee, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and forsake him not; but with thy left hand lay his body in the grave (if that be thy determination upon him), and with thy right hand receive his soul into thy kingdom, and unite him and us in one communion of saints. Amen.