The occasion of John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning ” seems to be parting. Walton asserts that the poem was penned in 1611 when Donne was planning for a tour of France with the Drury family. Parting here is pictured as a miniature enactment of death. The poet refers to an untheatrical form of death where the dying mildly give away to death. Some times death may be anticipated; nevertheless at times it comes as an intruder in spite of one saying:”No.”

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Petrarchan conceits were deliberately employed by the poet to parody their Elizabethan use. Moreover, the term ‘melt’ may also signify a change in physical state. Just as the dead body decays, the bond between both the lovers shall dissolve. He introduces the three elements-air, water and earth to show that these elements constitute the circle of life and death on earth. The air is referred to in ‘sigh-tempests’, water in ‘tear-floods’ and earth with reference to earthquakes. The poet bringing on all these natural calamities seems to imply their parting is of less consequence as compared to these. Moreover, as compared to such dreaded catastrophes, my parting shall not cause any harm to our love. The speaker states that earthquakes may be dreadful, but not the oscillation of the heavenly spheres. This is, because the consequences of the earthquakes can be apprehended, but the effect of the oscillation of the heavenly spheres cannot be perceived. What the poet means to say is that -only things that can be apprehended should be worried about. He advises his lady-love not to fret too much about their separation.

Ethereal lovers completely testify to spiritual love. Therefore their physical proximity/absence is of no consequence. The Soul is placed above its elemental form, the physical form.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

The poet asserts that their love is so pure that it can be apprehended through the senses, and this does not necessarily require the sensory perceptions. Subsequently, the poet goes on to elaborate in the next stanza that their souls are one, and therefore do not see their breach as a gap, but rather recognize it as an expansion. Donne utilizes the image of gold beaten into airy thinness; likewise earthly love is transformed into divine love.

The poet likens the twin legs of a compass to the lovers’ sense of union during absence. This is an apt example of metaphysical wit, which yokes dissimilar things together. The two hands of the compass though separated for a small fraction of time are destined to always meet. Besides, the compass guides others in a direction, suggesting that they were a paradigm for others to follow. Again, a compass drew a circle that, according to Ptolemy, was the shape of perfection. By utilizing this shape, Donne proves that their love is perfect, physically and spiritually. Besides, the two hands are incomplete without each other. With reference to the compass, it is their separation that actually defines them. It is the firmness of one foot that actually renders the other perfect. It makes him end at where he begun-and therefore the circle (of their divine love) becomes complete. This divine circle may also refer to a halo that their divine status has endowed them with.

© Rukhaya MK 2011

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