Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions; Together with Death's Duel

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Donne John. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions; Together with Death's Duel

THE LIFE OF DR. JOHN DONNE

TO THE MOST EXCELLENT PRINCE, PRINCE CHARLES

DEVOTIONS

I. Insultus morbi primus. The first Alteration, the first Grudging, of the Sickness

II. Post actio læsa. The Strength and the function of the senses, and other faculties, change and fail

III. Decubitus sequitur tandem. The patient takes his bed

IV. Medicusque vocatur. The physician is sent for

V. Solus adest. The physician comes

VI. Metuit. The physician is afraid

VII. Socios sibi jungier instat. The physician desires to have others joined with him

VIII. Et Rex ipse suum mittit. The King sends his own physician

IX. Medicamina scribunt. Upon their consultation they prescribe

X. Lente et serpenti satagunt occurrere morbo. They find the disease to steal on insensibly, and endeavour to meet with it so

XI. Nobilibusque trahunt, a cincto corde, venenum, Succis et gemmis, et quæ generosa, ministrant Ars, et natura, instillant. They use cordials, to keep the venom and malignity of the disease from the heart

XII. – Spirante columba. Supposita pedibus, revocantur ad ima vapores. They apply pigeons, to draw the vapours from the head

XIII. Ingeniumque malum, numeroso stigmate, fassus Pellitur ad pectus, morbique suburbia, morbus. The sickness declares the infection and malignity thereof by spots

XIV. Idque notant criticis medici evenisse diebus. The physicians observe these accidents to have fallen upon the critical days

XV. Interea insomnes noctes ego duco, diesque. I sleep not day nor night

XVI. Et properare meum clamant, e turre propinqua, Obstreperæ campanæ aliorum in funere, funus. From the bells of the church adjoining, I am daily remembered of my burial in the funerals of others

XVII. Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris. Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die

XVIII. – At inde. Mortuus es, sonitu celeri, pulsuque agitato. The bell rings out, and tells me in him, that I am dead

XIX. Oceano tandem emenso, aspicienda resurgit Terra; vident, justis, medici, jam cocta mederi Se posse, indiciis. 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

XX. Id agunt. Upon these indications of digested matter, they proceed to purge

XXI. – Atque annuit ille, Qui, per eos, clamat, linquas jam, Lazare, lectum. God prospers their practice, and he, by them, calls Lazarus out of his tomb, me out of my bed

XXII. Sit morbi fomes tibi cura. The physicians consider the root and occasion, the embers, and coals, and fuel of the disease, and seek to purge or correct that

XXIII. Metusque, relabi. They warn me of the fearful danger of relapsing

TO THE READER

DEATH'S DUEL

Psalm lxviii. 20, in fine. And unto God the Lord belong the issues of death (i.e. from death)

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MOST EXCELLENT PRINCE,

I have had three births; one, natural, when I came into the world; one, supernatural, when I entered into the ministry; and now, a preternatural birth, in returning to life, from this sickness. In my second birth, your Highness' royal father vouchsafed me his hand, not only to sustain me in it, but to lead me to it. In this last birth, I myself am born a father: this child of mine, this book, comes into the world, from me, and with me. And therefore, I presume (as I did the father, to the Father) to present the son to the Son; this image of my humiliation, to the lively image of his Majesty, your Highness. It might be enough, that God hath seen my devotions: but examples of good kings are commandments; and Hezekiah writ the meditations of his sickness, after his sickness. Besides, as I have lived to see (not as a witness only, but as a partaker), the happiness of a part of your royal father's time, so shall I live (in my way) to see the happiness of the times of your Highness too, if this child of mine, inanimated by your gracious acceptation, may so long preserve alive the memory of

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The heavens are not the less constant, because they move continually, because they move continually one and the same way. The earth is not the more constant, because it lies still continually, because continually it changes and melts in all the parts thereof. Man, who is the noblest part of the earth, melts so away, as if he were a statue, not of earth, but of snow. We see his own envy melts him, he grows lean with that; he will say, another's beauty melts him; but he feels that a fever doth not melt him like snow, but pour him out like lead, like iron, like brass melted in a furnace; it doth not only melt him, but calcine him, reduce him to atoms, and to ashes; not to water, but to lime. And how quickly? Sooner than thou canst receive an answer, sooner than thou canst conceive the question; earth is the centre of my body, heaven is the centre of my soul; these two are the natural places of these two; but those go not to these two in an equal pace: my body falls down without pushing; my soul does not go up without pulling; ascension is my soul's pace and measure, but precipitation my body's. And even angels, whose home is heaven, and who are winged too, yet had a ladder to go to heaven by steps. The sun which goes so many miles in a minute, the stars of the firmament which go so very many more, go not so fast as my body to the earth. In the same instant that I feel the first attempt of the disease, I feel the victory; in the twinkling of an eye I can scarce see; instantly the taste is insipid and fatuous; instantly the appetite is dull and desireless; instantly the knees are sinking and strengthless; and in an instant, sleep, which is the picture, the copy of death, is taken away, that the original, death itself, may succeed, and that so I might have death to the life. It was part of Adam's punishment, In the sweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread: it is multiplied to me, I have earned bread in the sweat of my brows, in the labour of my calling, and I have it; and I sweat again and again, from the brow to the sole of the foot, but I eat no bread, I taste no sustenance: miserable distribution of mankind, where one half lacks meat, and the other stomach!

David professes himself a dead dog to his king Saul,5 and so doth Mephibosheth to his king David,6 and yet David speaks to Saul, and Mephibosheth to David. No man is so little, in respect of the greatest man, as the greatest in respect of God; for here, in that, we have not so much as a measure to try it by; proportion is no measure for infinity. He that hath no more of this world but a grave; he that hath his grave but lent him till a better man or another man must be buried in the same grave; he that hath no grave but a dunghill, he that hath no more earth but that which he carries, but that which he is, he that hath not that earth which he is, but even in that is another's slave, hath as much proportion to God, as if all David's worthies, and all the world's monarchs, and all imagination's giants, were kneaded and incorporated into one, and as though that one were the survivor of all the sons of men, to whom God had given the world. And therefore how little soever I be, as God calls things that are not, as though they were, I, who am as though I were not, may call upon God, and say, My God, my God, why comes thine anger so fast upon me? Why dost thou melt me, scatter me, pour me like water upon the ground so instantly? Thou stayedst for the first world, in Noah's time, one hundred and twenty years; thou stayedst for a rebellious generation in the wilderness forty years, wilt thou stay no minute for me? Wilt thou make thy process and thy decree, thy citation and thy judgment, but one act? Thy summons, thy battle, thy victory, thy triumph, all but one act; and lead me captive, nay, deliver me captive to death, as soon as thou declarest me to be enemy, and so cut me off even with the drawing of thy sword out of the scabbard, and for that question, How long was he sick? leave no other answer, but that the hand of death pressed upon him from the first minute? My God, my God, thou wast not wont to come in whirlwinds, but in soft and gentle air. Thy first breath breathed a soul into me, and shall thy breath blow it out? Thy breath in the congregation, thy word in the church, breathes communion and consolation here, and consummation hereafter; shall thy breath in this chamber breathe dissolution and destruction, divorce and separation? Surely it is not thou, it is not thy hand. The devouring sword, the consuming fire, the winds from the wilderness, the diseases of the body, all that afflicted Job, were from the hands of Satan; it is not thou. It is thou, thou my God, who hast led me so continually with thy hand, from the hand of my nurse, as that I know thou wilt not correct me, but with thine own hand. My parents would not give me over to a servant's correction, nor my God to Satan's. I am fallen into the hands of God with David, and with David I see that his mercies are great.7 For by that mercy, I consider in my present state, not the haste and the despatch of the disease, in dissolving this body, so much as the much more haste and despatch, which my God shall use, in re-collecting and re-uniting this dust again at the resurrection. Then I shall hear his angels proclaim the Surgite mortui, Rise, ye dead. Though I be dead, I shall hear the voice; the sounding of the voice and the working of the voice shall be all one; and all shall rise there in a less minute than any one dies here.

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