John Donne

“ I have not been so pittifully tired with any vanity, as with silly Old Mens exclaiming against these times, and extolling their owne: Alas! they betray themselves, for if the times be changed, their manners have changed them. But their senses are to pleasures, as sick Mens tastes are to Liquors; for indeed no new thing is done in the world, all things are what, and as they were, and Good is as ever it was, more plenteous, and must of necessity be more common then evill, because it hath this for nature and perfection to bee common. It makes Love to all Natures, all, all affect it. ”

“ True, as it is in us by Nature, it is neither a Vertue nor Vice, and is onely in the body: (as in Infants, Children, and such as are incapable of parting from it) . But that Virginity which is in Man or Woman of perfect age, is not in them by Nature: Nature is the greatest enemy to it, and with most subtile allurements seeks the over-throw of it, continually beating against it with her Engines, and [35] giving such forcible assaults to it, that it is a strong and more then ordinary vertue to hold out till marriage. ”

“ Mistake me not, I understand not by valour one that never fights but when he is back’d by drink or anger, or hiss’d on with beholders, nor one that is desperate, nor one that takes away a Servingmans weapons when perchance it cost him his quarters wages, nor yet one that wears a Privy coat of defence and therein is confident, for then such as made Bucklers, would be accounted the Catalines of this Commonwealth—I intend one of an even Resolution grounded upon reason, which is always even, having his power restrained by the Law of not doing wrong. ”

“ Learning affords no rules to know, much lesse knowledge to rule the minde of a Woman: For as Philosophy teacheth us, that Light things doe alwayes tend upwards, and heavy things decline downeward; Experience teacheth us otherwise, that the disposition of a Light Woman, is to fall downe, the nature of Women being contrary to all Art and Nature. Women are like Flies, which feed among us at our Table, or Fleas sucking our very blood, who leave not our most retired places free from their familiarity, yet for all their fellowship will they never bee tamed nor commanded by us. ”

“ And Venus markets are so natural, that when we solicite the best way (which is by marriage) our perswasions work not so much to draw a woman to us, as against her nature to draw her from all other besides. And so when we go against nature, and from Venus-work (for marriage is chastitie) we need shadowes and colours, but not else. ”

“ Can shee be a good guide to us, which hath corrupted not us onely but her selfe? Was not the first man, by the desire of knowledge, corrupted even in the whitest integrity of Nature? And did not Nature (if Nature did any thing) infuse into him this desire of knowledge, and so this corruption in him, into us? If by Nature wee shall understand our essence, our definition, or reason, noblenesse, then this being alike common to all (the Idiot and the Wizard being equally reasonable) why should not all men having equally all one nature, follow one course? ”

“ These envious Libellers ballad against them, because having nothing in themselves able to deserve their love, they maliciously discommend all they cannot obtaine, thinking to make men beleeve they know much, because they are able to dispraise much, and rage against Inconstancy, when they were never admitted into so much favour as to be forsaken. In mine Opinion such men are happy that Women are Inconstant, for so may they chance to bee beloved of some excellent Women (when it comes to their turne) out of their Inconstancy and mutability, though not out of their owne desert. ”

“ For surely nothing is more unprofitable in the Commonwealth of Nature, then they [36] that dy old maids, because they refuse to be used to that end for which they were only made. The Ape bringeth forth her young, for the most part by twins; that which she loves best, she killeth by pressing it too hard: so foolish maids soothing themselves with a false conceit of vertue, in fond obstinacie, live and die maids; and so not only kill in themselves the vertue of Virginity, and of a Vertue make it a Vice, but they also accuse their parents in condemning marriage. ”

“ Women are like the Sunne, which is violently carryed one way, yet hath a proper course contrary: so though they, by the mastery of some over-ruling churlish Husbands, are forced to his Byas, yet have they a motion of their owne, which their Husbands never know of. It is the nature of nice and fastidious mindes to know things onely to bee weary of them: Women by their slye changeablenesse, and pleasing doublenesse, prevent even the mislike of those, for they can never be so well knowne, but that there is still more unknowne. Every Woman is a Science ”

“ Wit apply’d to a woman makes her dissolve (or disclose) her simpering, and discover her teeth with laughter, and this is surely a purge for love; for the beginning of love is a kind of foolish melancholy, as for the man that makes his Taylor his Bawd, and hopes to inveagle his Love with such a coloured suit, surely the same deeply hazards the loss of her favour upon every change of his clothes; So likewise for the other, that Courts her silently with a good body, let me certifie him that his clothes depend upon the comelynesse of the body, and so both upon opinion ”

“ I would you had your Mistresses so constant, that they would never change, no not so much as their smocks, then should you see what sluttish vertue, Constancy were. Inconstancy is a most commendable and cleanely quality, and Women in this quality are farre more absolute than the Heavens, than the Starres, Moone, or any thing beneath it; for long observation hath pickt certainety out of their mutability. The Learned are so well acquainted with the Starres, Signes and Planets, that they make them but Characters, to reade the meaning of the Heaven in his owne forehead. ”

“ There is also a certain limited time when it ceaseth to be a vertue, which in men is about fourty, in women about thirty years of age: yea, the losse of so much time makes their Virginity a Vice, were not their endeavour wholly bent, and their desires altogether fixt upon marriage: In Harvest time do we not account it a great vice of sloath and negligence in a Husband-man, to overslip a week or ten dayes after his fruits are fully ripe ”

“ Foole, whom ignorance makes happy; the Starres, the Sunne, the Skye whom thou admirest, alas, have no colour, but are faire, because they seeme to bee coloured: If this seeming will not satisfie thee in her, thou hast good assurance of her colour, when thou seest her lay it on. If her face bee painted on a Boord or Wall, thou wilt love it, and the Boord, and the Wall: Canst thou loath it then when it speakes, smiles, and kisses, because it is painted? Are wee not more delighted with seeing Birds, Fruites, and Beasts painted then wee are with Naturalls? ”

“ The number of good men, the onely charitable nourishers of Concord, wee see is thinne, and daily melts and waines; but of bad discording it is infinite, and growes hourely. Wee are ascertained of all Disputable doubts, onely by arguing and differing in Opinion, and if formall disputation (which is but a painted, counterfeit, and dissembled discord) can worke us this benefit, what shall not a full and maine discord accomplish? ”

“ I am not of that seard Impudence that I dare defend Women, or pronounce them good; yet we see Physitians allow some vertue in every poyson. Alas! why should we except Women? since certainely, they are good for Physicke at least, so as some wine is good for a feaver. And though they be the Occasioners of many sinnes, they are also the Punishers and Revengers of the same sinnes: For I have seldome seene one which consumes his substance and body upon them, escape diseases, or beggery; and this is their Iustice. And if suum cuiq; dare, bee the fulfilling of all Civill Iustice, they are most just ”

“ In 1652 the younger Donne, in the course of his exploitation of his father’s writings, prepared an authorized edition of the Juvenilia, which was printed by Thomas Newcomb for Humphrey Moseley. The number of the Paradoxes was now increased to twelve and of the Problemes to seventeen, the offensive passages in the first Probleme being allowed to remain. To these were added two ‘Characters’, ‘An Essay of Valour’, ‘A Sheaf of Miscellany Epigrams’, a reprint of Ignatius his Conclave, and, finally, the Essays in Divinity. ”

“ That the gifts of the Body are better then those of the Minde.
I say againe, that the body makes the minde, not that it created it a minde, but formes it a good or a bad mind; and this minde may be confounded with soule without any violence or injustice to Reason or Philosophy: then the soule it seemes is enabled by our body, not this by it. My Body licenseth my soule to see the Worlds beauties through mine eyes ”

“ And in a faire body, I doe seldome suspect a disproportioned minde, and as seldome hope for a good in a deformed. When I see a goodly house, I assure my selfe of a worthy possessour, from a ruinous weather-beaten building I turn away, because it seems either stuffed with varlets as a Prison, or handled by an unworthy and negligent tenant, that so suffers the waste thereof. ”

“ To affect, yea to effect their owne death all living things are importuned, not by Nature only which perfects them, but by Art and Education, which perfects her. Plants quickened and inhabited by the most unworthy soule, which therefore neither will nor worke, affect an end, a perfection, a death ”

“ They cannot be immutable like stockes, like stones, like the Earths dull Center; Gold that lyeth still, rusteth; Water, corrupteth; Aire that moveth not, poysoneth; then why should that which is the perfection of other things, be imputed to Women as greatest imperfection? Because thereby they deceive men. ”

“ Are chastity, temperance, and fortitude gifts of the mind? I appeale to Physitians whether the cause of these be not in the body, health is the gift of the body, and patience in sickenesse the gift of the minde: then who will say that patience is as good a happinesse, as health, when wee must be extremely miserable to purchase this happinesse. And for nourishing of civill societies and mutuall love amongst men, which is our chiefe end while wee are men ”

“ And if one day make this sensible change in men, what will the burthen of many yeeres? To bee fantastike in young men is conceiptfull distemperature, and a witty madnesse; but in old men, whose senses are withered, it becomes naturall, therefore more full and perfect. ”

“ For allow a man to be discreet and flexible to complaints, which are great vertuous gifts of the minde, this discretion will be to him the soule & Elixir of all vertues, so that touched with this, even pride shal be made humility; and Cowardice, honourable and wise valour. But in things seene there is not this danger, for the body which thou lovest and esteemest faire, is faire; certainely if it bee not faire in perfection, yet it is faire in the same degree that thy Iudgement is good. ”

“ And that old Axiome, nihil invita, &c. must not be said thou shalt, but thou wilt doe nothing against Nature; so unwilling he notes us to curbe our naturall appetites. Wee call our bastards alwayes our naturall issue, and we define a Foole by nothing so ordinary, as by the name of naturall. ”

“ Extreames are equally removed from the meane; so that headlong desperatenesse asmuch offends true valour, as backward Cowardice: of which sort I reckon justly all un-inforced deaths. When will your valiant man dye of necessity? so Cowards suffer what cannot be avoided: and to runne into death unimportun’d, is to runne into the first condemned desperatenesse. Will he dye when he is rich and happy? then by living he may doe more good: and in afflictions and miseries, death is the chosen refuge of Cowards. ”

“ It is not onely because they are much solicited and sought for, so is gold, yet it is not so common; and this suite to them, should teach them their value, and make them more reserved. Nor is it because the delicatest blood hath the best spirits, for what is that to the flesh? perchance such constitutions have the best wits, and there is no proportionable subject, for Womens wit, but deceipt? doth the minde so follow the temperature of the body, that because those complexions are aptest to change, the mind is therefore so? ”

“ But alas! my soule cannot make any part, that is not of it selfe disposed, to see or heare, though without doubt she be as able and as willing to see behind as before. Now if my soule would say, that shee enables any part to taste these pleasures, but is her selfe onely delighted with those rich sweetnesses which her inward eyes [31] and senses apprehend, shee should dissemble; for I see her often solaced with beauties, which shee sees through mine eyes, and with musicke which through mine eares she heares. This perfection then my body hath, that it can impart to my minde all his pleasures ”

“ Philosophers write against them for spight, not desert, that having attained to some knowledge in all other things, in them onely they know nothing, but are meerely ignorant: Active and Experienced men raile against them, because they love in their livelesse and decrepit age, when all goodnesse leaves them. ”

“ And though they bee most intemperate, I care not, for I undertooke to furnish them with some vertue, not with all. Necessity, which makes even bad things good, prevailes also for them, for wee must say of them, as of some sharpe pinching Lawes; If men were free from infirmities, they were needlesse. These or none must serve for reasons, and it is my great happinesse that Examples prove not Rules, for to confirme this Opinion, the World yeelds not one Example.
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7. ”

“ The old men of our time have changed with patience their owne bodies, much of their lawes, much of their languages; yea their Religion, yet they accuse us. To be Amorous is proper and naturall in a young man, but in an old man most fantastike. ”