[All this while the Physitians themselves have beene patients, patiently attending when they should see any land in this Sea, any earth, any cloud, any indication of concoction in these waters. Any disorder of mine, any pretermission of theirs, exalts the disease, accelerates the rages of it; no diligence accelerates the concoction, the maturitie of the disease; they must stay till the season of the sicknesse come, and till it be ripened of it selfe, and then they may put to their hand, to gather it before it fall off, but they cannot hasten the ripening. Why should wee looke for it in a disease, which is the disorder, the discord, the irregularities the commotion, and rebellion of the body? It were scarce a disease, if it could bee ordered, and made obedient to our times. Why should wee looke for that in disorder, in a disease, when we cannot have it in Nature, who is so regular, and so pregnant, so forward to bring her worke to perfection, and to light? Yet we cannot awake the July-flowers in January, nor retard the flowers of the spring to autumne.]1 We cannot bid the fruits come in May, nor the leaves to sticke on in December. [A woman that is weake cannot put off her ninth moneth to a tenth for her deliveries and say shee will stay till shee bee stronger; nor a Queene cannot hasten it to a seventh, that shee may bee ready for some other pleasure. Nature (if we looke for durable and vigorous effects) will not admit preventions, nor anticipations, nor obligations upon her; for they are precontracts, and she will bee left to her libertie. Nature would not be spurred, nor forced to mend her pace; nor power, the power of man; greatnesse loves not that kinde of violence neither.]1 There are of them that will give, that will do justice, that will pardon, but they have their owne seasons for al these, and he that knowes not them, shall starve before that gift [come,]2 [and ruine, before the justice, and dye before the pardon save him: some tree beares no fruit, except much dung be laid about it; and Justice comes not from some, till they bee richly manured: some trees require much visiting, much watring, much labour; and some men give not their fruits but upon importunitie; some trees require incision, and pruning, and lopping; some men must bee intimidated and syndicated with Commissions, before they will deliver the fruits of Justice; some trees require the early and the often accesse of the Sunne; some men open not, but upon the favours and letters of Court mediation; some trees must bee housd and kept within doore; some men locke up, not onely their liberalitie, but their Justice, and their compassion, till the sollicitatiorn of a wife, or a sonne, or a friend, or a servant turne the key.]1 Reward is the season of one man, and importunitie of another; feare the season of one man, and favour of another; friendship the season of one man, and naturall affection of another; and hee that knowes not their seasons, nor cannot stay them, must lose the [fruits;]3 [As Nature will not, so power and greatnesse will not bee put to change their seasons; and shall wee looke for this Indulgence in a disease, or thinke to shake it off before it bee ripe? All this while, therefore, we are but upon a defensive warre, and that is but a doubtfull state; especially where they who are besieged doe know the best of their defences, and doe not know the worst of their enemies power; when they cannot mend their works within, and the enemie can increase his numbers without. O how many farre more miserable, and farre more worthy to be lesse miserable than I, are besieged with this sicknesse, and lacke their Sentinels, their Physitians to watch, and lacke their munition, their cordials to defend, and perish before the enemies weaknesse might invite them to sally, before the disease shew any declination, or admit any way of working upon it selfe! In me the siege is so farre slackned, as that we may come to fight, and so die in the field, if I die, and not in a prison.]1
Cycle for Declamation
Song Cycle by (Ivy) Priaulx Rainier (1903 - 1986)
1. Wee Cannot Bid the Fruits  [sung text checked 1 time]
Authorship:
- by John Donne (1572 - 1631), "Meditation XIX", appears in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes
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View original text (without footnotes)Confirmed with The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne, ed. by Charles M. Coffin, New York: Modern Library, 1952, pages 444-446.
Note: this is a prose text. Line-breaks have been added arbitrarily. The meditation is preceded by two epigraphs as follows:
Oceano tandem emenso, ascipienda resurgit Terra; vident, justis, medici, jam cocta mederi se posse, indiciis.and
At last, the Physitians, after a long and stormie voyage, see land; They have so good signes of the concoction of the disease, as that they may safely proceed to purge.1 omitted by Rainier
2 Rainier: "come."
3 Rainier: "fruits."
Researcher for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
2. In the Wombe of the Earth  [sung text checked 1 time]
[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 aske meere Philosophers, what the soule is, I shall finde amongst them, 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 separable 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 finde 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 darke 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 mee 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 owne 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, arid glory. But for the body, how poore a wretched thing is that? wee cannot expresse it so fast, as it growes 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 vegetation 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;]1 In the wombe of the earth, wee diminish, and when shee is deliverd of us, our grave opened for another, wee are not transplanted, but transported, our dust blowne away with prophane dust, with every wind.
Authorship:
- by John Donne (1572 - 1631)
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View original text (without footnotes)Confirmed with The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne, Charles M. Coffin, Ed. New York: Modern Library, 1952, pages 442-444. Note: this is a prose text. Line breaks have been added arbitrarily.
1 omitted by Rainier.Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
3. Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris  [sung text checked 1 time]
Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth. Morieris. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell, which upon any occasion rings? Morieris. But who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of the world? Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris. No man is an island, entire of itself; no man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were. Morieris. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. Morieris. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris.
The text shown is a variant of another text. [ View differences ]
It is based on
- a text in English by John Donne (1572 - 1631), "Meditation XVII", written 1623, appears in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes, first published 1624
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]