I agree that the conceit of "translation" is marvelous. But I think Donne is having even more fun here with the double meaning of "translate." Just as old a meaning as "convert from one language to another" is "take or convey (a living or deceased person, a soul, etc.) to heaven or the afterlife" (OED, II.10). So when he writes that "some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice," he means something both literal AND metaphorical. Some people die of age, some of sickness, some by war, some by justice (executed upon legal judgment). The whole passage vibrates back and forth between the two meanings, of our literal death on one hand and of our being bound in God's book on the other.
That is so interesting, Matt ! I was so taken with the metaphorical meaning that I completely overlooked the literal! 😂 This makes the whole thing that much more powerful and brilliant. Donne was a genius.
Yes! That English prose could be that beautiful was a revelation to me. I read it early this morning as I was preparing to leave to teach a men's Bible study at my church (REPC).
I admit I followed but didn't really read the John Donne series. However, an opinion piece in the NYT led me on a research trail that led me back to this. I was so glad it did. The opinion piece was "Israel’s Pager Bombs Have No Place in a Just War" by Michael Walzer, 9/21/24. In it he begs the question, what is a just war? It led me to Mathew 22:34-40, the greatest commandments.
That led me to thinking about lyrics from their a Switchfoot song, Gravity.
"In the fallout, the fallout
We found out the hype won't get you through
We're connected, connected
I meant it, the hype won't get you through"
Which led me to "no man is an Island?" With me so far?
That brought me back to your summer series on Donne and sure enough you had posted what I was looking for. I found myself soaking in all the conceits (Yes, I did have to look that up!) but ultimately there was one phrase that connected my morning thoughts, "any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." Donne's words from 1623 spoke clearly to me in 2024. In a broken world, I should be diminished by every death, particularly those resulting from unresolved ideological, political and religious conflict. It saddens me I am not always aware of this, and many others aren't aware they should be aware.
Then a phrase from the Expostulation reset my thinking. "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?" I have hope, the last chapter has not yet been written.
Wow, so many rich connections you make here! If only we would bring even a fraction of the wisdom of those before us to these current day horrors as you have done. Thank you so much for returning to this post, Dean, and sharing these powerful insights with us.
“What thunder is not a well-tuned cymbal,” indeed. Amazing.
Here's another fun little bit from the Devotions. I thought of posting it as a reply to one of the other comments, but I can't decide to which one. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, but I will let it speak for itself here:
XIX. EXPOSTULATION.
MY God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I not say a literal God, a God that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plain sense of all that thou sayest? but thou art also (Lord, I intend it to thy glory, and let no profane misinterpreter abuse it to thy diminution), thou art a figurative, a metaphorical God too; a God in whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, such peregrinations to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions, such spreadings, such curtains of allegories, such third heavens of hyperboles, so harmonious elocutions, so retired and so reserved expressions, so commanding persuasions, so persuading commandments, such sinews even in thy milk, and such things in thy words, as all profane authors seem of the seed of the serpent that creeps, thou art the Dove that flies. O, what words but thine can express the inexpressible texture and composition of thy word, in which to one man that argument that binds his faith to believe that to be the word of God, is the reverent simplicity of the word, and to another the majesty of the word; and in which two men equally pious may meet, and one wonder that all should not understand it, and the other as much that any man should.
It's a fantastic piece of writing, bravo Donne! That "every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main" and "all mankind is of one author, and is one volume" is a really powerful point to make. I've been listening to the book Helgoland, an account of Quantum Physics and albeit I don't really understand much of it the same point (appears to be) made there, too - that everything stands in relation to all else and nothing exists in an entirely lone way. Which ought not to be surprising because scripture bears witness to the same, both regarding the God who is 3-in-1 and 1-in-3 (the eternal relations of the trinity) and also ourselves, that my words and deeds, my motivations and impulses have a diffuse impact, akin to the heady perfume of Mary's pure nard that filled the whole house. To some it reeked of death, for others the intoxication that is life . I guess Donne is showing how weighty our lives are, whether clods or promentaries, a consideration that suggests every life is profound and filled with potential in the hands of God.
“How ruinous a farm hath man taken, in taking himself! How ready is the house every day to fall down, and how is all the ground overspread with weeds.” This is sad and comforting at the same time. I appreciate it when I come across a quote that accurately describes what I have attempted to express. I am a witness to how the body can be someone's enemy—yet still, there is abundant life.
"How is suffering or affliction valuable?" We live in a world that constantly tries to ease, cover, or delay suffering. The other day, my husband and I talked about how we notice people chasing moments of pleasure but how abiding joy comes from Jesus. I believe suffering is a teacher. Suffering is meant to teach us empathy, compassion, and humility. I think about all the beauty Jesus' suffering produced, yet how painful it was for him. My faith in Jesus and experience with suffering have produced an abiding joy that feels like a beautiful mystery. I can't explain it, but I will take it. :-)
Suffering can also be distorted and exploited to the point where it produces cruelty—this is a difficult thing.
I appreciate Donnes' view on death, how he expresses it, wrestles with it, and ultimately finds comfort. That translation passage is gorgeous.
Thank you! I appreciate these quiet moments I have each Tuesday contemplating and learning from your literary lessons.
Your words here mean a lot, Mel. Thank you for coming along for the ride and participating. I’m grateful for the testimony of your words and your life.
I read this excellent meditation by you and by Donne with the regret that I have not developed the faith that comforted Donne and presumably comforts everyone else who has the gift of that faith.
In Dorothy L. Sayer's mystery 'The Nine Tailors', she indicates that it was an English parish custom to ring 'tailors' (i.e. tellers), which I understand to mean a double bell ring (ding-dong), to signal someone's death. Nine tailors were rung for a man's death, six for a woman's, followed by a single toll for each year of life the deceased lived. Those in the parish could guess who had died by the number of bell rings. In the meditation of Devotion 16, Donne says, "Here the bells can scarce solemnize the funeral of any person, but that I knew him, or knew that he was my neighbour".
In the expostulation of Devotion 16, Donne defends the custom of ringing church bells. England was entering her puritanical phase, and clearly Donne was in disagreement with the excessive Puritan zeal. The Puritans wanted to get rid of any vestige of 'popish' practices left in the Church of England, any custom inherited from Catholicism, from clergy vestments, to stained glass windows, to wedding vows, to bell ringing. Sayer's fictional fen church in 'The Nine Tailors' has a story that the bell used to ring the tailors, 'Tailor Paul', killed a Puritan soldier who climbed into the bell tower to try to cut down the bells. The Puritan Roundhead army of Cromwell actually did such acts of church vandalism, cutting down bells and smashing windows, during the English Civil War that ended Charles I's reign and life. John Bunyan, who had been a soldier in the Roundhead army, wrote in his spiritual autobiography 'Grace Abounding' that he used to love ringing the bells, but he developed a guilty conscience and stopped. It would have been something of an ethical dilemma, as Bunyan was a non-conformist Baptist, and the parish bells were in the established churches of England. Perhaps Bunyan would have felt less guilty if he could have foreseen that Baptist churches would one day have bells of their own. My father used to ring the single bell in the steeple of the century Baptist Church my family attended in my childhood. Sadly, the church had to be later torn down, replaced with a modern church design with more space and better accessibility, but at least, they put the bell in the foyer with a remembrance plaque, and saved the great stained glass window that was behind the baptismal tank.
Thank you for sharing that background, Holly. I never knew that about the times the bell would toll. And as a Baptist, I guess I can say that it’s typical of Baptist to not do something just because the non-Baptists do it. 😂 the church bell still rings each morning in my town and I can hear it from my house when I’m outside. I love it. I think it may be just once a day. But actually as I’m typing, this I am remembering that I haven’t heard it in a while. I hope they didn’t stop.
I've noticed the churches around here still with steeples often play recorded bells now. In the nearest town where we shopped when I was a child, one church had a carillon - an instrument to play tunes on the steeple bells - that would play hymns every day at noon. I don't know if the carillon wore out and was too expensive to fix, or if the carillon player died with no one to take their place, but at some point we noticed a change in the sound, switching from real bells to a loudspeaker. The Canadian Parliament still has a carillon (currently under repair, I believe) in the Peace Tower, and there is an Parliamentary Carillon Player. Wouldn't that be an interesting position to have?
I agree that the conceit of "translation" is marvelous. But I think Donne is having even more fun here with the double meaning of "translate." Just as old a meaning as "convert from one language to another" is "take or convey (a living or deceased person, a soul, etc.) to heaven or the afterlife" (OED, II.10). So when he writes that "some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice," he means something both literal AND metaphorical. Some people die of age, some of sickness, some by war, some by justice (executed upon legal judgment). The whole passage vibrates back and forth between the two meanings, of our literal death on one hand and of our being bound in God's book on the other.
That is so interesting, Matt ! I was so taken with the metaphorical meaning that I completely overlooked the literal! 😂 This makes the whole thing that much more powerful and brilliant. Donne was a genius.
"Moreover, another person’s death—just like another person’s baptism—affects us all."
I was wondering whether to share this, but I am getting baptised! (6pm Sunday 18th August in Wales, UK) zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83741848261?pwd=Cyk6qo7AiJJpWjSnb3ermR14NKp1ib.1
Meeting ID: 837 4184 8261
Passcode: 612468
All welcome to tune in! Glad to share the good news - Jesus is evangelizing, saving and reviving across the world.
Thanks for the articles, keep publishing!
Christopher!!!!
I was thinking of you a few days ago. Thank you for inviting us to your baptism and praise the Lord for it!
I’m so inspired by your story and will try to catch up with you via email soon.
Reading the quoted section regarding "translation" took my breath away. I have seldom read anything quite so lovely and moving as that. Thank you!
It really is breath-taking, isn’t it, Eric?
Yes! That English prose could be that beautiful was a revelation to me. I read it early this morning as I was preparing to leave to teach a men's Bible study at my church (REPC).
🤍
“…and know all things.” ❤️
🤍
I admit I followed but didn't really read the John Donne series. However, an opinion piece in the NYT led me on a research trail that led me back to this. I was so glad it did. The opinion piece was "Israel’s Pager Bombs Have No Place in a Just War" by Michael Walzer, 9/21/24. In it he begs the question, what is a just war? It led me to Mathew 22:34-40, the greatest commandments.
That led me to thinking about lyrics from their a Switchfoot song, Gravity.
"In the fallout, the fallout
We found out the hype won't get you through
We're connected, connected
I meant it, the hype won't get you through"
Which led me to "no man is an Island?" With me so far?
That brought me back to your summer series on Donne and sure enough you had posted what I was looking for. I found myself soaking in all the conceits (Yes, I did have to look that up!) but ultimately there was one phrase that connected my morning thoughts, "any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." Donne's words from 1623 spoke clearly to me in 2024. In a broken world, I should be diminished by every death, particularly those resulting from unresolved ideological, political and religious conflict. It saddens me I am not always aware of this, and many others aren't aware they should be aware.
Then a phrase from the Expostulation reset my thinking. "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?" I have hope, the last chapter has not yet been written.
PS: Love your library project!
Wow, so many rich connections you make here! If only we would bring even a fraction of the wisdom of those before us to these current day horrors as you have done. Thank you so much for returning to this post, Dean, and sharing these powerful insights with us.
“What thunder is not a well-tuned cymbal,” indeed. Amazing.
Here's another fun little bit from the Devotions. I thought of posting it as a reply to one of the other comments, but I can't decide to which one. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, but I will let it speak for itself here:
XIX. EXPOSTULATION.
MY God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I not say a literal God, a God that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plain sense of all that thou sayest? but thou art also (Lord, I intend it to thy glory, and let no profane misinterpreter abuse it to thy diminution), thou art a figurative, a metaphorical God too; a God in whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, such peregrinations to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions, such spreadings, such curtains of allegories, such third heavens of hyperboles, so harmonious elocutions, so retired and so reserved expressions, so commanding persuasions, so persuading commandments, such sinews even in thy milk, and such things in thy words, as all profane authors seem of the seed of the serpent that creeps, thou art the Dove that flies. O, what words but thine can express the inexpressible texture and composition of thy word, in which to one man that argument that binds his faith to believe that to be the word of God, is the reverent simplicity of the word, and to another the majesty of the word; and in which two men equally pious may meet, and one wonder that all should not understand it, and the other as much that any man should.
Donne’s Expostulations are sheer power and beauty.
It's a fantastic piece of writing, bravo Donne! That "every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main" and "all mankind is of one author, and is one volume" is a really powerful point to make. I've been listening to the book Helgoland, an account of Quantum Physics and albeit I don't really understand much of it the same point (appears to be) made there, too - that everything stands in relation to all else and nothing exists in an entirely lone way. Which ought not to be surprising because scripture bears witness to the same, both regarding the God who is 3-in-1 and 1-in-3 (the eternal relations of the trinity) and also ourselves, that my words and deeds, my motivations and impulses have a diffuse impact, akin to the heady perfume of Mary's pure nard that filled the whole house. To some it reeked of death, for others the intoxication that is life . I guess Donne is showing how weighty our lives are, whether clods or promentaries, a consideration that suggests every life is profound and filled with potential in the hands of God.
“Whether clods or promentaries”: that’s poetry, Richard!
Ha, I stole it from Donne!
Yes but you condensed it nicely. And that’s what poetry is: condensed language.
Thank you so much Karen, that's a great encouragement!
“How ruinous a farm hath man taken, in taking himself! How ready is the house every day to fall down, and how is all the ground overspread with weeds.” This is sad and comforting at the same time. I appreciate it when I come across a quote that accurately describes what I have attempted to express. I am a witness to how the body can be someone's enemy—yet still, there is abundant life.
"How is suffering or affliction valuable?" We live in a world that constantly tries to ease, cover, or delay suffering. The other day, my husband and I talked about how we notice people chasing moments of pleasure but how abiding joy comes from Jesus. I believe suffering is a teacher. Suffering is meant to teach us empathy, compassion, and humility. I think about all the beauty Jesus' suffering produced, yet how painful it was for him. My faith in Jesus and experience with suffering have produced an abiding joy that feels like a beautiful mystery. I can't explain it, but I will take it. :-)
Suffering can also be distorted and exploited to the point where it produces cruelty—this is a difficult thing.
I appreciate Donnes' view on death, how he expresses it, wrestles with it, and ultimately finds comfort. That translation passage is gorgeous.
Thank you! I appreciate these quiet moments I have each Tuesday contemplating and learning from your literary lessons.
Your words here mean a lot, Mel. Thank you for coming along for the ride and participating. I’m grateful for the testimony of your words and your life.
Thanks for share your thoughts, Mel. It added and deepened to my own thoughts.
I read this excellent meditation by you and by Donne with the regret that I have not developed the faith that comforted Donne and presumably comforts everyone else who has the gift of that faith.
Thank you for that honesty, David. I’m so grateful you’re reading along and part of this little community.
In Dorothy L. Sayer's mystery 'The Nine Tailors', she indicates that it was an English parish custom to ring 'tailors' (i.e. tellers), which I understand to mean a double bell ring (ding-dong), to signal someone's death. Nine tailors were rung for a man's death, six for a woman's, followed by a single toll for each year of life the deceased lived. Those in the parish could guess who had died by the number of bell rings. In the meditation of Devotion 16, Donne says, "Here the bells can scarce solemnize the funeral of any person, but that I knew him, or knew that he was my neighbour".
In the expostulation of Devotion 16, Donne defends the custom of ringing church bells. England was entering her puritanical phase, and clearly Donne was in disagreement with the excessive Puritan zeal. The Puritans wanted to get rid of any vestige of 'popish' practices left in the Church of England, any custom inherited from Catholicism, from clergy vestments, to stained glass windows, to wedding vows, to bell ringing. Sayer's fictional fen church in 'The Nine Tailors' has a story that the bell used to ring the tailors, 'Tailor Paul', killed a Puritan soldier who climbed into the bell tower to try to cut down the bells. The Puritan Roundhead army of Cromwell actually did such acts of church vandalism, cutting down bells and smashing windows, during the English Civil War that ended Charles I's reign and life. John Bunyan, who had been a soldier in the Roundhead army, wrote in his spiritual autobiography 'Grace Abounding' that he used to love ringing the bells, but he developed a guilty conscience and stopped. It would have been something of an ethical dilemma, as Bunyan was a non-conformist Baptist, and the parish bells were in the established churches of England. Perhaps Bunyan would have felt less guilty if he could have foreseen that Baptist churches would one day have bells of their own. My father used to ring the single bell in the steeple of the century Baptist Church my family attended in my childhood. Sadly, the church had to be later torn down, replaced with a modern church design with more space and better accessibility, but at least, they put the bell in the foyer with a remembrance plaque, and saved the great stained glass window that was behind the baptismal tank.
Thank you for sharing that background, Holly. I never knew that about the times the bell would toll. And as a Baptist, I guess I can say that it’s typical of Baptist to not do something just because the non-Baptists do it. 😂 the church bell still rings each morning in my town and I can hear it from my house when I’m outside. I love it. I think it may be just once a day. But actually as I’m typing, this I am remembering that I haven’t heard it in a while. I hope they didn’t stop.
I've noticed the churches around here still with steeples often play recorded bells now. In the nearest town where we shopped when I was a child, one church had a carillon - an instrument to play tunes on the steeple bells - that would play hymns every day at noon. I don't know if the carillon wore out and was too expensive to fix, or if the carillon player died with no one to take their place, but at some point we noticed a change in the sound, switching from real bells to a loudspeaker. The Canadian Parliament still has a carillon (currently under repair, I believe) in the Peace Tower, and there is an Parliamentary Carillon Player. Wouldn't that be an interesting position to have?
Interesting. I am not sure if I would recognize bells as recorded if I heard them. I’m going to start paying attention!