Lines 13-14
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
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These last two lines make it clear that the speaker loves those paradoxes and double meanings that we struggle with all along. Both lines take the form of "If you don't ______, I can't be ______," but the speaker fills in that first blank with double entendres (words or phrases with two possible meanings).
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The first can be read as "If you don't excite me, I can't be free." If we read it that way, it's possible that "excite" has sexual connotations, and this makes sense in light of the following line.
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But, we can also read line 13 as, "If you don't enslave me, I can't be free." Back in the day, "enthrall" would also mean "enslave," so we should be aware of that possibility.
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We can read line 14 as, "If you don't fill me with delight, I will never be able to refrain from sex." Like "excite" in line 13, "fill me with delight" in this reading might carry some sexual connotations.
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Confusing, right? These lines leave us with some major paradoxes, refusing to pin down exactly what the speaker wants from God.
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As we see it, it seems that the speaker wants better access to God, and having been unsuccessful in the past, demands that God reveal himself forcefully and powerfully.
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In other words, the only way the speaker and his stubborn "reason" will be convinced of God's power is to see an epic example of it. What's more, the speaker desperately wants to be convinced, so he can be “saved.”
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Still, it's hard to make the last line fit, mainly because you can't really become chaste. Either the speaker is and always has been chaste, in which case he wouldn't have to worry about it, or he's had sex but now wants to abstain.
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But, if he wants to abstain, is more sex really the prescription?
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And, if he wants this divine sexual encounter so much, then wouldn't that contradict the idea that it is "rape"?
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In the end, then, we might come to the conclusion that talking about God in human terms and metaphors actually doesn't make sense. The kinds of rewards and interactions that God can provide simply can't be described properly in human language, and that's why the speaker gets so caught up in paradox and mixed metaphors.
BY JOHN DONNE
Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt
To nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,
And her soul early into heaven ravished,
Wholly in heavenly things my mind is set.
Here the admiring her my mind did whet
To seek thee, God; so streams do show the head;
But though I have found thee, and thou my thirst hast fed,
A holy thirsty dropsy melts me yet.
But why should I beg more love, whenas thou
Dost woo my soul, for hers off'ring all thine,
And dost not only fear lest I allow
My love to saints and angels, things divine,
But in thy tender jealousy dost doubt
Lest the world, flesh, yea devil put thee out.
His wife’s early death
This sonnet stands apart from most of the Holy Sonnets as it was discovered in a separate manuscript along with two other sonnets. The sonnet is known as Westmorland II after the name given to the manuscript. It is probably the most autobiographical of the sonnets, detailing the effect of his wife's early death, especially in driving him closer to God.
Spiritual journey
Nevertheless he does not feel he is nearly close enough. The octave describes this spiritual journey, ending with the lines ‘A holy thirsty dropsy melts me yett.’ A dropsy is a medical condition, whereby water is retained by the body, so that the sufferer is constantly thirsty. Donne uses the image of spiritual thirst, not as an illness, but as a spiritual condition, akin to the Psalmist's ‘As pants the hart’ in Psalms 42:1, where thirst is a metaphor for spiritual desire.
The sestet, however, reverses this direction dramatically. Rather than Donne seeking God, it is God who is the holy lover, actively wooing and seeking the poet. God is offering him an exchange: ‘Dost wooe my soul for hers; offring all thine’. This is a bold, almost outrageous image. Even worse, God is seen as a jealous lover, doubting the poet's fidelity, and mistrusting him in the face of his rivals. The first of these rivals are still ‘things divine’, but which still might divert Donne's love away from God.
More on Love language: see ‘Batter my heart’ also by John Donne
The second group of rivals is altogether more dangerous: ‘the World, Fleshe, yea Devill.’ This trio were seen as the great enemies of the soul in the Middle Ages and are mentioned in The Book of Common Prayer used in the Church of England. They had already been used by Donne in Satyre III: ‘On Religion’. The sonnet ends unresolved, despite a final couplet. In a sense, there can be no final resolution till death.
From tenderness to contempt
The sonnet is a strange one, moving from great tenderness at the beginning to almost dramatic contempt at the end. We feel perhaps Donne has neither resolved his grief over his loss, nor yet his commitment to God. Nor perhaps is he used to no longer being the assertive male lover, but the more passive female one, with God taking on the dominant role.
Investigating Since She Whom I Lov'd
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Read through Donne’s Since she whom I lov’d
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Does the sestet back up the claim of the octave: ‘Wholly on heavenly things my mind is sett’?
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Do you find the use of human love language somewhat surprising in a sonnet of religious devotion?
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How is it that the two spheres of experience can borrow images from one another?
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Explain the image ‘so streames do shew their head’
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