Themselves are only mystic books
For Valentine’s Day I’m sharing one of my favorite poems — John Donne’s Elegy XIX: To his Mistress going to bed. This is its second appearance in print, from the third edition of his poetry published in 1669.
The poem, denied a license for publication in the first edition, was printed first in an anthology in 1654 before taking its place alongside his other works in 1669. Visit Texas A&M’s Digital Donne website to see the entire text, as well as other early Donne books and manuscripts.
None of Donne’s poetry was printed before his death in 1631, but pieces such as this one did circulate widely in manuscript. You can read more about that, and see some manuscript examples, in a fascinating short essay at the Folger Library: John Donne’s “To His Mistress Going to bed” As an Open Source.
Elegy XIX: To his Mistress going to bed
Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defie,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tir’d with standing though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heavens Zone glittering,
But a far fairer world incompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
That th’ eyes of busie fooles may be stopt there.
Unlace your self, for that harmonious chyme,
Tells me from you, that now it is bed time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envie,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off, such beautious state reveals,
As when through flowry meads th’hills shadows steales.
Off with that wyerie Coronet and shew
The haiery Diadem which on your head doth grow:
Now off with those shooes, and then softly tread
In this loves hallow’d temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes, heaven’s Angels us’d to be
Reveal’d to men: thou Angel bringst with thee
A heaven like Mahomets Paradice, and though
Ill spirits walk in white; we easly know,
By this these Angels from an evil sprite,
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
Licence my roaving hands, and let them go,
Before, behind, between, above, below,
O my America! my new-found-land,
My Kingdom’s safest, when with one man man’d.
My Myne of precious stones: My Emperie,
How am I blest in thus discovering thee?
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be,
Full nakedness! All joyes are due to thee,
As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,
To taste whole joyes. Jems which you women use
Are like Atlanta’s ball: cast in mens views,
That when a fools eye lighteth on a Jem,
His earthly soul may court that, not them:
Like pictures or like books gay coverings made,
For lay-men are all women thus arrayed.
Themselves are only mystick books, which we,
(Whom their imputed grace will dignifie)
Must see revealed. Then since that I may know;
As liberally, as to thy Midwife shew
Thy self: cast all, yea, this white lynnen hence
There is no pennance due to innocence:
To teach thee I am naked first, why than
What needst thou have more covering then a man.
Birds part I
If you look carefully you’ll begin to notice birds in all sorts of medieval manuscripts, used as anything from decorative flourishes to representations of the divine. In this series of posts I’ll explore a variety of bird imagery, beginning today with ornamental figures and moving on to birds as symbols of power. In the next post, birds of morality, philosophy, and religion. (As usual, click the images to go directly to the sources.)
Our first examples come from Huntington Library HM 65, a copy of Ptolemy’s Almagest made in southern France in 1279. This is an astronomical text, so the birds and other animals in the margins are purely decorative. Like acanthus leaves and running hares, these birds are a familiar visual trope of the period. Out of all the medieval birds they’re probably my favorites.
Sometimes birds illuminations aren’t just decorative but refer to the text. Harvard University’s Houghton Library MS Typ 0446 is a 13th-century Latin Bible. On one page we see a decorative bird perched on an illuminated initial, but in Exodus a stork appears with a frog in its beak—a reference to the plague of frogs.
Birds also grace the bindings of books. These clasps date from 14th-century Germany. Columbia University X242.1.S.
Bird in a blind stamped binding, bound between 1510 and 1519 by a Dutch binder named John Reynes who was active in London. Huntington Library HM 36336.
The margins of manuscripts were a kind of no-man’s land where artists could explore subversive fears and fantasies. The creepier aspects of birds are apparent in these grotesques from the pages of a 16th-century Dominican gradual. University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center HRC 013.
But manuscript birds were just as likely to have a humorous character. The Macclesfield Psalter, for instance, depicts a man riding a ‘hobby duck’.
A charming bird sneaks a bite from a penwork initial, from the University of Notre Dame, Hesburgh Library MS 12. You are what you eat, after all.
Birds were also common as heraldic devices and symbols of authority. This lovely 13th-century wax seal featuring a bird on a branch is affixed to a “Quit claim by Gwenllian, widow of Madoc ap Seycil to the monks of Abbey Dore of her widow’s third of the 4 1/2 bovates of land on Grosmont hill which Madoc gave to them for his burial for her soul and the soul of Madoc.” Lawrence, University of Kanses, Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS 191:13.
The Luttrell Psalter is famous for its idealized depiction of English manor life. Here a peasant feed chickens and a man uses a slingshot to drive crows from the newly tilled fields. In this case the birds are a significant part of the manuscript’s meta-narrative: depicting its patron Geoffrey Luttrell as a benevolent and pious lord presiding over a bountiful estate.
Another way that birds embodied power and status was via falconry scenes — depictions of the nobility engaging in one of their favorite pastimes. You could argue that owning a falcon was the medieval equivalent of driving a super car or owning a yacht, and wealthy book patrons would have enjoyed seeing this high status activity reflected in the pages of the luxury texts they commissioned. Below is the illumination for the month of May from the Fecamp Psalter, created in France circa 1180.
Ptolemy with a falcon, from Der Naturen Bloeme, a 14th-century Flemish bestiary, KB KA 16.
Two examples of falconry from British Library Yates Thompson 13, a 14th-century English book of hours: the first is part of a calander page for the month of May.
