Death, thou shall die

Holy Sonnet 6

Death bee not proude, though some hath called thee

Mighty and Dreadfull, for thou art not soe

For those whom thou thinck’st thou dost overthrowe

Dye not poore Death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.

From rest, and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flowe

And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,

Rest of their bones, and Soules deliuerie.

Thou art slaue to Fate, Chance, Kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poyson, warr, and sicknes dwell

And Poppie or Charmes, can make vs sleepe as well

And better then thy stroak, why swell’st thou then?

One short sleepe past, wee wake aeternallye

And Death shall bee noe more. Death, thou shalt dye.

 

Donne’s tirade against death is a reworking of the words of St Paul in 1 Cor.: ‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death’ (1 Cor. 15:26), and further: ‘So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’ (1 Cor. 15:54-55). As St Paul in the letter, Donne personifies Death to address him directly. He distinguishes the fate that awaits Death from the fate of men, who for centuries imagined death as a ‘rest and sleep’. As Donne argues, men ‘die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me’, after the rest and sleep, ‘which but thy pictures be (…) one short sleep past, we wake eternally.’

In the first two quatrains, Donne confronts the public, centuries-old folklore and artistic imagery of Death, its personification in the written and visual arts, to the faith and religion based on the Scripture. The poet thus compares death to sleep and rest as in the language spoken about the deceased or in the funeral art of the period. The established dichotomy between human and mortal helps Donne to convey his religious message.

Donne’s personification of death helps him to confront it. It becomes a real opponent in an argument like an enemy in the battle and therefore it is vulnerable to the attack of a mortal like Donne himself. The speaker expresses his view, that the dead ‘Die not’ and what appears to be a death of a person is just ‘One short sleep.’ With the resurrection the last enemy will be defeated. The personified Death will cease to exist while the mankind will awake from the short sleep to the eternal life.  ‘Death shall bee noe more.’ It ‘shalt dye.’

No Man Is An Island

Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that (…)

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 friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

Donne, John (1959) Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. Together with Death’s Duel. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

These are probably the most famous words of Donne. Even people who have never  heard his name or never read his poetry or sermons are familiar with the saying: ‘no man is an island’, or ‘for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’ Surprisingly, they do not come from one of the poems, though often they are presented as such. They can be found in a very religious and meditative work of Donne, in the Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. They were first published in 1624 and were the result of a time of grave illness that Donne suffered through. He decided to write this piece while being seriously ill and fearing death. As the title calls them they are the devotions upon the emergent occasions and several steps in the writer’s sickness. They follow the path from the beginning of illness, through the period of uncertainty whether the patient will survive, up to the point when Donne is released from the care of the doctors.

Every devotion is divided into three parts: meditation, expostulation and prayer. The famous lines come from the meditation 17, out of total 23. It reflects the Donne’s apprehensions and uncertainties about his future but also reveals his Christian and Humanist values in regard to the man’s life and its purpose. Donne believes that every person has a purpose in life, and is a part of greater project. Lives of other people influence mine as mine influences theirs. The suffering of my fellow creature is part of my suffering, ‘because I am involved in mankind,’ the bell tolls for me.

The sleep of a labouring man is sweet

‘Thou passest out of the world, as a hand passes out of a bason, or a body out of a bath, where the water may be fouler for thy having washed in it, else the water retains no impression of thy hand or body; so the world may be the worse for thy having liv’d in it, else the world retains no marks of thy having been there.’ (Donne, A Sermon Preached at Whitehall. 29 February 1627)

What do we live for? What lasting impressions do we leave throughout our lives? Is it worth carrying-on and trying to develop ourselves? These are the questions that every one of us have asked. And these are the questions that Donne’s sermon tries to answer. Based on the reading from Acts 7.60 the preacher ponders on the meaning and purpose of life. For him, ‘every man is bound to be something, to take some calling upon him (…), every man is bound to do seriously and scedulously, and sincerely the duties of that calling’ and to perform those duties in a best possible way, ‘every man shall do well to propose to himself some person, some pattern, some example whom he will follow and imitate in that calling.’

Firstly, then, to live our lives in full we have to have a passion for something. Secondly, whether it is writing, music, poetry, dance, acting, accountancy, law, medicine, we have to be dedicated to it. Donne preaches: ‘He that stands in a place and does not the duty of that place, is but a statue in that place; and but a statue without an inscription; Posterity shall not know him, nor read who he was.(…) The person must actuate it self, dilate, extend and propagate it self according to the dimensions of the place, by filling it in the execution of the duties of it.’ Thirdly, one to leave a lasting legacy must, according to Donne, aspire to be somebody, ‘be like somebody, propose some good example in thy calling and profession to imitate.’

To follow Donne’s guidance and to live a happy life which, as Horace famously wrote, exegi monumentum aere perennius, one must do what he loves, and do it with all his best abilities so others may follow his example. As the preacher quotes: ‘dulcis somnus operanti, The sleepe of a labouring man is sweete. To him that laboureth in his calling, even this sleepe of Death is welcome.’

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Donne, John, A Sermon Preached at  Whitehall. 29 February 1627. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/JohnDonne&CISOPTR=3245&REC=5