John Donne, Satyr IIII, ed. Lynch

	Well; I may now receive,° and die; My sinne	take communion
	Indeed is great, but I have beene in
	A Purgatorie, such as fear’d hell is
	A recreation, and scant map of this.
5	My minde, neither with prides itch, nor yet hath been
	Poyson’d with love to see, or to bee seene,
	I had no suit there, nor new suite to shew,
	Yet went to Court; But as Glaze which did goe
	To Masse in jest, catch’d,° was faine° to disburse°	arrested — willing — pay out
10	The hundred markes, which is the Statutes curse;
	Before he scapt, So’it pleas’d my destinie
	(Guilty of my sin of going,) to thinke me
	As prone to all ill, and of good as forget-
	full, as proud, as lustfull, and as much in debt,
15	As vaine, as witlesse, and as false as they
	Which dwell in Court, for once going that way.
	Therefore I suffered this; Towards me did runne
	A thing more strange, then on Niles slime, the Sunne
	E’r bred, or all which into Noahs Arke came:
20	A thing, which would have pos’d° Adam to name,	confused
	Stranger then seaven Antiquaries studies,
	Then Africks Monsters, Guianaes rarities,
	Stranger then strangers; One, who for a Dane,
	In the Danes Massacre had sure beene slaine,
25	If he had liv’d then; And without helpe dies,
	When next the Prentises ’gainst Strangers rise.
	One, whom the watch at noone lets scarce goe by,
	One, to whom, the examining Justice sure would cry,
	Sir, by your priesthood tell me what you are.
30	His cloths were strange, though coarse; & black, though bare;
	Sleevelesse his jerkin° was, and it had beene	short jacket
	Velvet, but ’twas now (so much ground was seene)
	Become Tufftaffatie;° and our children shall	glossy silk
	See it plaine Rashe° awhile, then nought at all.	silk-like fabric
35	This thing hath travail’d, and saith, speakes all tongues
	And only knoweth what to all States belongs,
	Made of th’Accents, and best phrase of all these,
	He speakes one language; If strange meats° displease,	foods
	Art can deceive, or hunger force my tast,
40	But Pedants motley tongue, souldiers bumbast,°	nonsense
	Mountebankes° drugtongue,° nor the termes of law	quack doctors — sales talk
	Are strong enough preparatives, to draw
	Me to beare this, yet I must be content
	With his tongue: in his tongue, call’d complement:
45	In which he can win widdowes, and pay scores,°	bills
	Make men speake treason, cosen° subtlest whores,	cheat
	Out-flatter favorites, or outlie either
	Jovius, or Surius, or both together.
	He names mee, and comes to mee; I whisper, God!
50	How have I sinn’d, that thy wraths furious rod,
	This fellow chuseth me? He saith, Sir,
	I love your judgement; Whom doe you prefer,
	For the best linguist? And I seelily°	innocently
	Said, that I thought Calepines Dictionarie;
55	Nay, but of men, most sweet Sir. Beza° then,	Protestant theologian
	Some Jesuites, and two reverend men
	Of our two Academies,° I named; There	Oxford and Cambridge
	He stopt mee, and said; Nay, your Apostles were
	Good pretty linguists, and so Panirge was;
60	Yet a poore gentleman; All these may passe
	By travaile. Then, as if he would have sold
	His tongue, he praised it, and such words told
	That I was faine to say, If you’had liv’d, Sir,
	Time enough to have beene Interpreter
65	To Babells bricklayers, sure the Tower had stood.
	He adds, If of court life you knew the good,
	You would leave lonelinesse; I said, not alone°	unique
	My lonelinesse is, but Spartanes fashion,
	To teach by painting drunkards, doth not last
70	Now; Aretines pictures have made few chast;°	chaste
	No more can Princes courts, though there be few
	Better pictures of vice, teach me vertue;
	He, like to a high stretcht lute string squeakt, O Sir,
	’Tis sweet to talke of Kings. At Westminster,
75	Said I, The man that keepes the Abbey tombes,
	And for his price doth with who ever comes,
	Of all our Harries, and our Edwards talke,
	From King to King and all their kin can walke:
	Your eares shall heare nought, but Kings; your eyes meet
80	Kings only; The way to it, is Kingstreet.
	He smack’d,° and cry’d, He’s base, Mechanique,° coarse,	clapped — of a workman
	So are all your Englishmen in their discourse.
	Are not your Frenchmen neate? Fine, as you see,
	I have but one frenchman, looke, hee followes mee.
85	Certes° they are neatly cloth’d. I, of this minde am,	certainly
	Your only wearing is your Grogaram;°	heavy silk
	Not so Sir, I have more. Under this pitch
	He would not flie; I chaff’d° him; But as Itch	teased
	Scratch’d into smart, and as blunt iron grown’d
90	Into an edge, hurts worse: So, I foole found,
	Crossing hurt mee; To fit my sullennesse,
	He to another key, his stile doth addresse.
	And askes, what newes? I tell him of new playes.
	He takes my hand, and as a Still,° which staies	alchemical device
95	A Sembriefe,° ’twixt each drop, he nigardly,	musical whole note
	As loth to enrich mee, so tells many a lie,
	More then ten Hollensheads, or Halls, or Stowes,
	Of triviall houshold trash; He knowes; He knowes
	When the Queene frown’d, or smil’d, and he knowes what
100	A subtle States-man may gather of that;
	He knowes who loves; whom; and who by poyson
	Hasts to an Offices reversion;°	succession to official position
	He knowes who’hath sold his land, and now doth beg
	A licence, old iron, bootes, shooes, and egge-
105	shels to transport; Shortly boyes shall not play
	At span-counter, or blow-point, but shall pay
	Toll to some Courtier; And wiser then all us,
	He knowes what Ladie is not painted;° Thus	wearing makeup
	He with home-meats° tries me; I belch, spue, spit,	domesetic gossip
110	Looke pale, and sickly, like a Patient; Yet
	He thrusts on more; And as if he’undertooke
	To say Gallo-Belgicus° without booke°	guide to current events — by heart
	Speakes of all States, and deeds, that hath been since
	The Spaniards came, to the losse of Amyens.
115	Like a bigge wife,° at sight of loathed meat,°	pregnant woman — food
	Readie to travaile: So I sigh, and sweat
	To heare this Makeron° talke in vaine: For yet,	rude man
	Either my humour, or his owne to fit,
	He like a priviledg’d spie, whom nothing can
120	Discredit, Libells now ’gainst each great man.
	He names a price for every office paid;
	He saith, our warres thrive ill, because delai’d;
	That offices are entail’d, and that there are
	Perpetuities of them, lasting as farre
125	As the last day; And that great officers,
	Doe with the Pirates share, and Dunkirkers.
	Who wasts in meat, in clothes, in horse, he notes;
	Who loves Whores, who boyes, and who goats.
	I more amas’d then Circes prisoners, when
130	They felt themselves turne beasts, felt my selfe then
	Becomming Traytor, and mee thought I saw
	One of our Giant Statutes ope his jaw
	To sucke me in, for hearing him. I found
	That as burnt venome Leachers doe grow sound
135	By giving others their soares, I might grow
	Guilty, and he free: Therefore I did shew
	All signes of loathing; But since I am in,
	I must pay mine, and my forefathers sinne
	To the last farthing;° Therefore to my power	quarter-penny
140	Toughly and stubbornly I beare this crosse; But the’houre
	Of mercy now was come; He tries to bring
	Me to pay a fine to scape his torturing,
	And saies, Sir, can you spare me; I said, willingly;
	Nay, Sir, can you spare me a crowne?° Thankfully I	5 shillings (¼ of a pound)
145	Gave it, as Ransome; But as fidlers, still,
	Though they be paid to be gone, yet needs will
	Thrust one more jigge upon you: so did hee
	With his long complementall thankes vexe me.
	But he is gone, thankes to his needy want,
150	And the prerogative of my Crowne: Scant
	His thankes were ended, when I, (which did see
	All the court fill’d with more strange things then hee)
	Ran from thence with such or more hast, then one
	Who feares more actions,° doth hast from prison;	lawsuits
155	At home in wholesome solitarinesse
	My precious soule began, the wretchednesse
	Of suiters at court to mourne, and a trance
	Like his, who dreamt he saw hell, did advance
	It selfe on mee, Such men as he saw there,
160	I saw at court, and worse, and more; Low feare
	Becomes° the guiltie, not the accuser; Then,	is suitable for
	Shall I, nones slave, of high borne, or rais’d men
	Feare frownes? And, my Mistresse Truth, betray thee
	To huffing, braggart, puft Nobility.
165	No, no, Thou which since yesterday hast beene
	Almost about the whole world, hast thou seene,
	O Sunne, in all thy journey, Vanitie,
	Such as swells the bladder° of our court? I	balloon
	Thinke he which made your waxen garden, and
170	Transported it from Italy to stand
	With us, at London, flouts our Presence, for
	Just such gay painted things, which no sappe, nor
	Tast have in them, ours are, And naturall°	illegitimate
	Some of the stocks are, their fruits, bastard all.
175	’Tis ten a clock and past; All whom the Mues,°	stables
	Baloune, Tennis, Dyet, or the stewes,°	brothels
	Had all the morning held, now the second
	Time made ready, that day, in flocks, are found
	In the Presence, and I, (God pardon mee.)
180	As fresh, and sweet their Apparrells be, as bee
	The fields they sold to buy them; For a King
	Those hose are, cry the flatterers; And bring
	Them next weeke to the Theatre to sell;
	Wants reach all states; Me seemes° they doe as well	it seems to me
185	At stage, as court; All are players, who e’r lookes
	(For themselves dare not goe) o’r Cheapside books,
	Shall finde their wardrops Inventory; Now,
	The Ladies come; As Pirats, which doe know
	That there came weak ships fraught with Cutchannel,°	expensive red dye
190	The men board them; and praise, as they thinke, well,
	Their beauties; they the mens wits; Both are bought.
	Why good wits ne’r weare scarlet gownes, I thought
	This cause, These men, mens wits for speeches buy,
	And women buy all reds which scarlets die.°	dye
195	He call’d her beauty limetwigs,° her haire net.	traps for birds
	She feares her drugs° ill laid,° her haire loose set;	cosmetics — applied
	Would not Heraclitus laugh to see Macrine,
	From hat, to shooe, himselfe at doore refine,
	As if the Presence were a Moschite,° and lift	mosque
200	His skirts and hose, and call his clothes to shrift,°	confession
	Making them confesse not only mortall
	Great staines and holes in them; but veniall
	Feathers and dust, wherewith they fornicate.
	And then by Durers rules survay the state
205	Of his each limbe, and with strings the odds° tries	proportions
	Of his neck to his legge, and wast to thighes.
	So in immaculate clothes, and Symetrie
	Perfect as circles, with such nicetie
	As a young Preacher at his first time goes
210	To preach, he enters, and a Lady which owes
	Him not so much as good will, he arrests,°	catches
	And unto her protests° protests protests	declares his love
	So much as at Rome would serve to have throwne
	Ten Cardinalls into the Inquisition;
215	And whisperd by Jesu, so often, that A
	Pursevant would have ravish’d him away
	For saying of our Ladies psalter;° But ’tis fit	the Rosary
	That they each other plague, they merit it.
	But here comes Glorius that will plague them both,
220	Who, in the other extreme, only doth
	Call a rough carelessenesse, good fashion;
	Whose cloak his spurres teare; whom he spits on
	He cares not, His ill words doe no harme
	To him; he rusheth in, as if arme, arme,
225	He meant to crie; And though his face be as ill
	As theirs which in old hangings° whip Christ, yet still	tapestries
	He strives to looke worse, he keepes all in awe;
	Jeasts like a licenc’d foole, commands like law.
	Tyr’d, now I leave this place, and but pleas’d so
230	As men from gaoles to’execution goe,
	Goe through the great chamber (why is it hung
	With the seaven deadly sinnes being among
	Those Askaparts, men big enough to throw
	Charing Crosse for a barre, men that doe know
235	No token° of worth, but Queenes man, and fine	sign
	Living barrells of beefe, flaggons of wine.
	I shooke like a spyed Spie; Preachers which are
	Seas of Wits and Arts, you can, then dare,
	Drowne the sinnes of this place, for, for mee
240	Which am but a scarce° brooke, it enough shall bee	meager
	To wash the staines away; though I yet
	With Macchabees modestie, he knowne merit
	Of my worke lessen: yet some wise man shall,
	I hope, esteeme my writs Canonicall.

Notes

Purgatorie: Purgatory was a distinctive feature of Roman Catholic theology. Here it refers to the court.
Suit: Suit is a pun: a petition (as in lawsuit) and a suit of clothes.
Glaze: Some manuscripts read Glare. Either way, the name suggests someone superficial.
Statutes curse: An act of 1580 established a fine of a hundred marks — around 65 pounds — for attending a Roman Catholic mass, and twice that for officiating at a mass.
So’it: The apostrophe indicates an elision of the vowels; the two syllables are to be pronounced as one. See also line 103, where “who’hath” is one syllable, and line 111, where the first two syllables of “he’undertooke” are pronounced as one.
Niles slime . . . bred: It was believed by many that the sun caused the spontaneous generation of living creatures in the mud of the Nile.
Guianaes rarities: Sir Walter Raleigh had recently published The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empire of Guiana, with a Relation of the Great and Golden City of Manoa Which the Spaniards Call El Dorado (1596).
Strangers: Foreigners, who had become very unpopular in England at the end of the sixteenth century.
Danes Massacre: King Ethelred ordered the massacre of Danish settlers throughout England in 1012.
Prentises . . . rise: There had been several uprisings of London apprentices against foreigners.
By your priesthood tell me what you are: In the late sixteenth century a series of laws were aimed at the Jesuits. A proclamation of 1581 imposed the death penalty on any Jesuits or seminary priests who entered the queen’s dominions; four years later, Parliament ordered all Jesuits to leave the kingdom within forty days, under penalty of death. Roman Catholics therefore went underground, prompting authorities to seek them out.
Jovius, or Surius: Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, and Laurentius Surius, a Carthusian monk and author of Commentarius brevis rerum in orbe gestarum ab anno 1550 and Vitae sanctorum. Both were Catholic historians. Their descriptions of religious upheavals disturbed Protestants, who accused them of distortion.
Calepines Dictionarie: A polyglot dictionary first published by Ambrose Calepine in 1502. Later editions covered eleven languages.
Apostles . . . linguists: At Pentecost, the Apostles began speaking in tongues.
Panirge: Panurge is a character in Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel. He spoke a dozen languages.
Travaile: The word suggests both “travel” and “suffering.”
Spartanes . . . drunkards: According to Plutarch, the Spartans discouraged their young from getting drunk by showing them drunken slaves.
Aretines pictures: A series of erotic paintings believed to be by Pietro Aretino, though in fact by Giulio Romano. (Aretino wrote the sonnets which accompanied the pictures.)
Kingstreet: King’s Street led to the bridge over Long Ditch and into Westminster, the location of the court. For a long time it was the only way to approach Westminster from the north.
I have but one frenchman: Donne apparently had a French servant.
Pitch: The highest point a falcon reaches on its flight. Here it suggests a high level of diction.
Hollensheads, or Halls, or Stowes: British historians of the sixteenth century. Their disconnected chronicles had fallen out of fashion, especially for mixing trivial gossip with more serious history.
Licence: Some crooked courtiers earned money by selling licenses, or monopolies, for commercial enterprises.
Span-counter, or blow-point: Children’s games. Span-counter is like marbles; in blow-point, children play for the “points” or tags that attached the stockings to the jacket.
Since/The Spaniards came: A reference to the Spanish Armada of 1588.
Losse of Amyens: The Spanish took Amiens from the French in March 1597; the French recovered it in September.
Sigh: Some manuscripts read “So I belch.”
Priviledg’d spie: An informer who betrays those from whom he collects information.
Offices . . . Perpetuities: The line of succession for political office has been determined in perpetuity.
Dunkirkers: Dunkirk was the home of many Channel pirates.
Who loves Whores, who boyes, and who goats: That is, “Who loves whores, who loves boys, and who loves goats.”
Circes prisoners: In the Odyssey, Circe holds Odysseus and his men captive for a year, and turns his men into swine.
Burnt . . . sound: Lechers covered with the sores of syphilis. It was believed that the syphilitic could cure themselves by passing the disease to someone else. In several manuscripts, venome is venom’d, which makes the sense clearer.
To my power: “To the limits of my power.”
Can you spare me?: The question means “Can you spare any money?”; the poet interprets it to mean “Can you do without me?”
Complementall thankes: The word compliment had taken on a bad sense, associated with the hypocrisy of the court. Donne notes in one of his sermons, “We have a word now denizened and brought into familiar use among us, Complement; and for the most part, in an ill sense; so it is, when the heart of the speaker doth not answer his tongue.”
Prerogative of my Crowne: A pun: the phrase usually reserved for the king’s privileges here means the power of his money (to get rid of the beggar).
Precious: In most manuscripts of the poem, this reads piteous.
Who dreamt he saw hell: Dante, in Inferno.
Rais’d men: Those elevated to the nobility, as opposed to those born into it.
Waxen garden: Italian puppeteers exhibited artificial gardens made of wax.
Stocks: Both “tree trunks” and “lines of descent.”
Baloune: A game in which an inflated ball is struck back and forth with the arm or foot.
Dyet: Both “a state council” (as in the Diet of Worms) and “a course of food.” Since a visit to a brothel is coming, the diet is probably either aphrodisiac or medicinal.
Wants reach all states: All social classes have needs.
Cheapside books: Cheapside was the tailors’ district; their books would list the fashionable men who had accounts with them.
Heraclitus: The Greek philosopher Heraclitus believed that all things were passing; he is therefore known as the weeping philosopher.
Durers rules: Albrecht Dürer described the proportions of the body in Of Human Proportion (1582).
Rome . . . Inquisition: “As much protestation as would have made ten cardinals face the Inquisition for being Protestants.”
Pursevant: Pursuivant, a court officer, here charged with seeking out and arresting Roman Catholics. One who swears “by Jesu” would be recognized as a Catholic.
In old hangings whip Christ: Who in old tapestries are depicted as whipping Jesus.
Hung . . . sinnes: Hampton Court has a series of Flemish tapestries depicting the Seven Deadly Sins.
Askaparts: Ascapart was a thirty-foot giant in the old tales of Sir Bevis of Southampton.
Living barrells of beefe: A reference to the Beefeaters, charged with protecting the queen.
Macchabees modestie: Maccabees, two apocryphal books of the Bible, end on a famously modest note: “And if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain thereto.”
Canonicall: The word has several meanings: orthodox; authoritative; admirable.

Satyr IIII

by John Donne

1594? 1597?

Edited by Jack Lynch

Notes