Holy Sonnets: If poisonous minerals, and if that tree

Holy Sonnets: If poisonous minerals, and if that tree

If poisonous minerals, and if that tree

Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us,

If lecherous goats, if serpents envious

Cannot be damn'd, alas, why should I be?

Why should intent or reason, born in me,

Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?

And mercy being easy, and glorious

To God, in his stern wrath why threatens he?

But who am I, that dare dispute with thee,

O God? Oh, of thine only worthy blood

And my tears, make a heavenly Lethean flood,

And drown in it my sins' black memory.

That thou remember them, some claim as debt;

The poem first appeared as “Holy Sonnet X” in a collection of nineteen sonnets by John Donne (1572-1631). However, its title came to be known as “Death, Be Not Proud” (after the first four words of the poem). It was written between 1601 and 1610—the exact year is uncertain—and published after Donne died. 

Type of Work

......."Death, Be Not Proud" is a sonnet (fourteen-line poem) similar in format to that established in Italy by Petrarch (1304-1374), a Roman Catholic priest who popularized the sonnet form before it was adopted and modified in England. Petrarch's sonnets each consist of an eight-line stanza (octave) and a six-line stanza (sestet). The first stanza presents a theme, and the second stanza develops it. 

.......The rhyme scheme of "Death, Be Not Proud" is as follows: ABBA, ABBA, CDDC, EE. 

.......The meter varies, although most of the poem is in iambic pentameter, as in lines 5-7:

.......1....................2....................3................4...............5
From REST..|..and SLEEP,..|..which BUT..|..thy PIC..|..tures BE

.......1....................2....................3..................4......................5

........1.................2...............3..................4...............5

.......“Death Be Not Proud” is among the most famous and most beloved poems in English literature. Its popularity lies in its message of hope couched in eloquent, quotable language. Donne’s theme tells the reader that death has no right to be proud, since human beings do not die but live eternally after “one short sleep.” Although some people depict death as mighty and powerful, it is really a lowly slave that depends on luck, accidents, decrees, murder, disease, and war to put men to sleep. But a simple poppy (whose seeds provide a juice to make a narcotic) and various charms (incantations, amulets, spells, etc.) can also induce sleep—and do it better than death can. After a human being’s soul leaves the body and enters eternity, it lives on; only death dies. 

 

..
Figures of Speech

.......To convey his message, Donne relies primarily on personification, a type of metaphor, that extends through the entire poem. (Such an extended metaphor is often called a conceit.) Thus, death becomes a person whom Donne addresses, using the second-person singular (implied or stated as thou, thee, and thy). Donne also uses alliteration, as the following lines illustrate:

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Thou [Death] art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men

Death, be not proud

Donne ends the poem with paradox and irony: Death, thou shalt die.

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  Lines 1-2: This has got to be one of the most famous examples of personification and apostrophe in all of poetry. The speaker treats death like a person who is considered "mighty" and "dreadful," which is personification. And, he addresses this person-like Death directly, even though Death obviously can’t respond, which is apostrophe.
  
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  Lines 3-4: Donne uses apostrophe again to address, "poor Death," which is an embarrassing and condescending way to talk to someone who considers himself a tough-guy.
  
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  Lines 5-6: In this metaphor, he calls rest and sleep "pictures" of Death. They don’t have photographs in Donne’s age, so "pictures" just refers to imitations, like a drawing or a painting.
  
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  Lines 7-8: Continuing the personification of Death, the speaker says that good people allow death to lead them out of their earthly lives. The bones of the "best men" are a synecdoche, because they actually stand for the whole physical body. Line 8, then, draws a standard religious contrast between body and soul.
  
• 
  Line 12: We often talk about people who "swell" with pride, and that’s what’s going on here, when the speaker asks, "Why swell’st thou then?" This is a rhetorical question, designed to make Death realize that he has no reason to be proud.
  
• 
  Line 14: He uses the concept of death three ways in this tricky line. First, there is real, physical death (the second word of the line). Then, there is the personified idea of Death. Finally, there is death as a metaphor for simple non-existence – something that ceases to be there – which the last word "die" references.
  

• 
  Line 5: This metaphor compares "rest" and "sleep" to "pictures," like a painting or drawing. The point is that the rest and sleep are pale imitations, and Death is the real thing. On the other hand, Death is only a much stronger version of sleep, and not something scary and different.
  
• 
  Line 8: This line describes what the experience of death means to the "best men" of line 7. One of its meanings is eternal rest for their weary bodies, or "bones."
  
• 
  Line 11: The comparison between Death and sleep becomes an extended metaphor at this point. The speaker says that, if he only wants a really good sleep, he doesn’t even need Death; he can use "poppies" (opium, a kind of drug) or "charms" (magic or potions).
  
• 
  Line 13: The extended metaphor continues. He calls the time between the speaker’s death and the Day of Judgment a "short sleep." In human terms, this may not seem that short (we can assume the speaker is "asleep" for hundreds of years already), but, compared to Eternity, pretty much anything is short. When the speaker "wakes up," he will find himself in Heaven.
  
• 
  Line 9: This metaphor calls Death a "slave" to "fate, chance, kings, and desperate men." Implicitly, all these things are personified as Death’s master.
  
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  Line 10: Although it’s not as obvious as in other parts of the poem, we think "poison, war, and sickness" are personified as thugs, or worthless individuals.
  

The Petrarchan sonnet has fourteen lines and a rhyme scheme that goes ABBAABBA and then, most frequently, CDCDCD. But, "Death, be not proud" finishes slightly differently. Its last six lines are CDDCAA. If you look closer, there’s even more weird stuff going on at the end. For example, line 13 has a word near the end, "swell’st," that rhymes with "dwell" and "well" from the previous two lines. He just sticks a rhyme in the middle of the verse: very strange. And, the last two lines don’t seem to rhyme well at all: "eternally" and "die." You have to pronounce it "eternal-lie" to make the rhyme work. No one is sure exactly what Renaissance English sounds like, so it’s possible that they did pronounce the word this way. But, it’s also possible that Donne wanted the rhyme scheme to fizzle out at the same moment when death "dies."

Another feature of a Petrarchan sonnet is a shift, or "turn," in the argument or subject matter somewhere in the poem. In Italian, the word is volta. Usually, the turn occurs at line 9 to coincide with the introduction of a new rhyme scheme. That’s the case for "Death, be not proud," although the turn isn’t major. The speaker sharpens his attack and starts calling Death names, but he doesn’t fundamentally change his argument. If you want to rebel, you can argue that the real turn doesn’t happen until the middle of the last line, when Donne drops this shocker: "Death, thou shalt die." At the very least, we think it’s the most surprising move in the poem.

Finally, the Petrarchan sonnet has a regular meter: iambic pentameter, which means that each line has ten syllables, and every second syllable is accented. That’s the reason, for example, that "Thou art" has to be condensed into one mouth-cramming syllable, "Thou’art" in line 9. Otherwise, there would be eleven syllables in the line.

But, what about the first line? For one thing, it begins on an accented beat: DEATH. Truth be told, Donne’s pretty loose with his iambic pentameter. For him, iambic pentameter is less of a rule and more of a general guideline, like that "No Horseplay" sign at your local pool. Of course there’s going to be horseplay! It’s a pool! And Donne sometimes counts a big pause as a syllable, which is why line 1 seems to only have nine syllables: because of the pauses in the line, it takes at least as long to recite.

Many of Donne’s poems, and Metaphysical Poems in general, sound like someone tying a complicated knot. Like a bowline. Or, a half-hitch. Or, a sheep shank. OK, so the kind of knot isn’t important. What’s important is that it has to be tied just right. Same thing goes with trying to prove that death isn’t scary using only a single, fourteen-line Petrarchan sonnet. In general, we’ve got two contrasting strains in the poem, which are like the two ends of a string we use to tie the knot.

The first strain is what Death thinks he is. The second strain is what Death really is. Let’s try it out. In the beginning, death thinks he is "mighty and dreadful" because people call him that (line 2). But, then, the second strain gets looped in, and we learn that death isn’t either of these things. Easy enough.

How about lines 3-4? Well, Death thinks that he can kill or "overthrow" people, which is one end of our knot, but it turns out that Death can’t kill anyone at all, which is the other end of the knot. As you can see, the second end of the string does all the complicated twisting and looping around the first end of the string. With each line, Donne makes the knot a little thicker. Fortunately, compared to some of his other poems, this one is relatively easy to untangle.

Some people complain that Donne’s sonnets don’t have a consistent rhythm or meter. Sure, the poem is in iambic pentameter, but it breaks this pattern as often as it follows it. As in this line: "One short sleep past, we wake eternally" (line 13). In the phrase "short sleep past," all of the words seem equally accented, and, then, there’s a huge pause in the middle (as our two strains get tied together). But, it’s not that Donne lacks regularity: the knot-like pattern is his regularity. He goes back and forth, up and down, down and through. Sometimes, it sounds like his sentences come at you in reverse: "From rest and sleep, which but they pictures be, / Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow." If that isn’t a knot in words, we don’t know what is. But, that’s the point.

The other thing about a knot is that everything must come together at the end to make a grand loop. Donne’s sonnet does this. The poem begins on an apostrophe to Death and ends on one. The final statement sums everything up – with a twist.