John Donne - Delphi Poets Series (69 page)

These eleuen Paradoxes, may bee
printed: this fiue and twentieth
of
October, Anno Domini,
one
thousand six hundred thirty and
two.

PROBLEMS

CONTENTS

I. Why haue Bastards best Fortune?

II. Why Puritans make long Sermons?

III. Why did the Diuell reserue Iesuites till these latter dayes.

IV. Why is there more variety of Greene, than of other colours?

V. Why doe young Lay-men so much studie Diuinity.

VI. Why hath the Common Opinion afforded Women soules?

VII. Why are the Fairest, Falsest?

VIII. Why Venus-starre onely doth cast a shadow?

IX. Why is Venus-Starre multi-nominous, called both Hesperus and Vesper?

X. Why are New Officers least oppressing?

I. Why haue Bastards best Fortune?

IS
Nature
(which is
lawes patterne
) hauing denied women
Constancy
to
one
, hath prouided them with
cunning
to allure
many
, and so
Bastards de iure
should haue better
wits
and
experience
. But besides that by
experience
wee see many
fooles
amongst them; we should take from them one of their chiefest helpes to
preferment
, and we should deny them to be
fooles
; and (that which is onely left) that
Women
chuse
worthier
men than their
husbands
is false
de facto
, either then it must be that the
Church
hauing remoued them from all place in the
publike seruice
of
God
, they haue better meanes than others to bee
wicked
, and so
fortunate
: Or else because the two
greatest powers
in this
world
, the
Diuell
and
Princes
concurre to their
greatnesse
; the one giuing
bastardye
, the other
legitimation
: As
nature
frames and conserues great
bodies
of
Contraries
. Or the cause is, because they abound most at
Court
, which is the forge where fortunes are made; or at least the
shop
where they be
sold
.

II. Why Puritans make long Sermons?

IT needs not for
perspicuousnesse
, for God knowes they are plaine enough: nor doe all of them vse
Sem-briefe-Accents
for some of them haue
Crochets
enough. It may be they intend not to rise like
glorious Tapers
and
Torches
, but like
thinne-wretched-sicke-watching-Candles,
which
languish
and are in a diuine
Consumption
from the first minute, yea in their
snuffe
, and
stinke
when others are in their more profitable
glory
. I haue thought sometimes that out of
Conscience
, they allow
long measure
to
course Ware.
And sometimes that
vsurping
in that place a
liberty
to
speake freely
of
Kings
, they would
raigne
as long as they could. But now I thinke they doe it out of a
zealous
Imagination, that,
It is their duty to preach on till their Auditory wake
.

III. Why did the Diuell reserue Iesuites till these latter dayes.

DID hee know that our
Age
would deny the
Diuels possessing
, and therefore prouided by these to
possesse
Men and kingdomes? Or to end the
disputation
of
Schoolemen
, why the
Diuell
could not make
lice
in
Ægypt
; and whether those things he
presented
, there might be
true
, hath he sent vs a
true
and
reall plague
, worse than those
ten
? Or in
ostentation
of the
greatnesse
of his
Kingdome
, which euen
diuision
cannot
shake
, doth he send vs these which
disagree
with all the rest? Or knowing that our
times
should discouer the
Indies
, and abolish their
Idolatry
, doth he send these to giue them
another
for it? Or peraduenture they haue beene in the
Roman Church
these
thousand yeares
though wee haue called them by
other names
.

IV. Why is there more variety of Greene, than of other colours?

IT is because it is the figure of
Youth
, wherein
Nature
would prouide as many
Greene
, as
Youth
hath
Affections
; and so present a
Sea-greene
for
profuse wasters
in
voyages
; a
Grasse-greene
for sudden
new men enobled
from
Grasiers
; and a
Goose-greene
for such
Polititians
as pretend to preserue the
Capitoll
. Or else
Prophetically
foreseeing an
Age
wherein they shall all
hunt
. And for such as
misse-demeane
themselues a
willow-greene
; For
Magistrates
must aswell haue
Fasces
borne before them to
chastize
the
small
offences, as
Secures
to
cut off
the
great
.

V. Why doe young Lay-men so much studie Diuinity.

IS it because others tending busily
Churches preferment
neglect
studie
? Or had the
Church
of
Rome
shut vp all our wayes, till the
Lutherans
broke downe their
vttermost stubborne dores
, and the
Caluinists
picked their
inwardest
and
subtlest lockes
? Surely the
Diuell
cannot be such a Foole to hope that hee shall make this study
contemptible
, by making it
common
. Nor that as the
Dwellers
by the riuer
Origus
are said (by drawing infinite
ditches
to sprinckle their
barren Countrey
) to haue exhausted and intercepted their
maine channel
, and so lost their more profitable course to the
Sea
; so wee, by prouiding euery
ones selfe, diuinity
enough for his
owne vse
, should neglect our
Teachers
and
Fathers
. Hee cannot hope for better
heresies
than he hath had, nor was his
Kingdome
euer so much aduanced by
debating Religion
(though with some
aspersions
of
Error
) as by a
Dull
and
stupid security
, in which many
grosse things
are swallowed. Possible out of such an
Ambition
as we haue now, to speake
plainely
and
fellow-like
with
Lords
and
Kings
, wee thinke also to acquaint our selues with
Gods secrets:
Or perchance when wee study it by
mingling humane
respects,
It is not Diuinity
.

VI. Why hath the Common Opinion afforded Women soules?

IT is agreed that wee haue not so much from them as any
part
of either our
mortall soules
of
sense
, or
growth
; and wee deny
soules
to others equall to them in all but in
speech
for which they are beholding to their
bodily instruments
: For perchance an
Oxes
heart, or a
Goates
, or a
Foxes
, or a
Serpents
would speake iust so, if it were in the
breast
, and could moue that
tongue
and
Iawes
. Haue they so many
aduantages
and
meanes
to hurt vs (for, euer their
louing
destroyed vs) that we dare not
displease
them, but giue them what they will? And so when some call them
Angells
, some
Goddesses
, and the
Palpulian Heretickes
make them
Bishops
, wee descend so much with the streame, to allow them
soules
? Or doe we somewhat (in this dignifying of them) flatter
Princes
and
great personages
that are so much
gouerned
by them? Or doe wee in that
easinesse
, and
prodigality
, wherein wee daily lose our owne
soules
to wee care not whom, so labour to perswade our selues, that sith a
woman
hath a
soule
, a
soule
is no
great matter
? Or doe we lend them
soules
but for
vse
, since they for our sakes, giue their
soules
againe, and their
bodies
to boote? Or perchance because the
Diuell
(who is all
soule
) doth most
mischiefe
, and for
conuenience
and
proportion
, because they would come
neerer
him, wee allow them some
soules
, and so as the
Romans
naturalized some
Prouinces
in reuenge, and made them
Romans
, onely for the
burthen
of the
Commonwealth
; so wee haue giuen
women
soules only to make them capable of
Damnation
?

VII. Why are the Fairest, Falsest?

I Meane not of false
AlchimyBeauty
, for then the
question
should be inuerted,
why are the
Falsest, Fairest
? It is not only because they are
much solicited
and
sought
for, so is
gold
, yet it is not so
common
; and this
suite
to them, should teach them their
value
, and make them more
reserued
. Nor is it because the
delicatest blood
hath the
best spirits
, for what is that to the flesh? perchance such
Constitutions
haue the
best wits
, and there is no
proportionable subiect
, for
Womens wit
, but
deceipt
? doth the
mind
so follow the
temperature
of the body, that because those
Complexions
are aprest to change, the mind is therfore so? Or as Bells of the purest metall retaine their
tinckling
and
sound
longest, so the
memory
of the last
pleasure
lasts longer in these, and disposeth them to the next. But sure it is not in the
Complexion
, for those that doe but
thinke
themselues
faire
, are presently inclined to this
multiplicity
of
loues
, which being but
faire in conceipt
are
false in deed:
and so perchance when they are
borne
to this
beauty
, or haue
made
it, or haue
dream’d
it, they easily beleeue all
Addresses
and
Applications
of euery
Man
, out of a
sense
of their owne
worthinesse
to bee directed to them, which others
lesse worthy
in their owne thoughts apprehend not, or discredit. But I thinke the
true reason
is, that being like
Gold
in many properties (as that
all snatch
at them, but the
worst possesse
them, that they care not how
deepe
we dig for them, and that by the
Law
of
Nature, Occupandi conceditur
) they would be like also in this, that as
Gold
to make it selfe of vse admits
Assay
, so they, that they may be
tractable
,
mutable
, and currant, haue to their allay Falshood.

VIII. Why Venus-starre onely doth cast a shadow?

IS it because it is
neerer
the
earth
? But they whose Profession it is to see that nothing be done in heauen without their
consent
(as Re-[?] saies in himselfe of
Astrologers
) haue bid
Mercury
to bee neerer. Is it because the
workes
of
Venus
want
shadowing, couering,
and
disguising
?
But
those of
Mercury
needs it more; for
Eloquence
, his
Occupation
, is all shadow and colours; let our life be a sea, and then our
reason
and
Euen passions
are
wind
enough to carry vs whether we should go, but
Eloquence
is a
storme
and
tempest
that miscarries: and who doubts that
Eloquence
which must perswade
people
to take a
yoke
of
soueraignty
(and then beg and make
lawes
to tye them
faster
,and then giue money to the
Inuention
, repaire and strengthen it) needs more
shadowes
and
colouring
, than to perswaqde any Man or Woman to that which is naturall. And
Venus markets
are so
naturall
, that when we solicite the best way (which is by
marriage
) oue perswasions worke not so much to
draw
a woman
to vs
, as against her
Nature
to draw her
from all other
besides. And so when we goe against
Nature
, and from
Venus-worke
(for
marriage
is
chastity
) we need
shadowes
and
colours
, but not else. In
Seneca’s
time it was a course, an
vn-romane
and a
contemptible
thing euen in a
Matrone
, not to haue had a
loue
beside her
husband
, which though the
Law
required not at their hands, yet they did it zealously out of the counsell of
Custome
and
fashion
, which was
venery
of
Supererogation
: