John Donne at Lincoln's Inn again.

[Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%27s_Inn]






Donne's three Epithalamions are some of the most entertaining of his lesser-known poems. The one titled only "Epithalamion made at Lincolnes Inne" is a slightly uncomfortable joyride from its very first stanza:


The Sun-beames in the East are spred,
Leave, leave, faire Bride, your solitary bed,
No more shall you returne to it alone,
It nourseth sadnesse, and your bodies print,
Like to a grave, the yielding downe doth dint;
You and your other you meet there anon;
Put forth, put forth that warme balme-breathing thigh,
Which when next time you in these sheets wil smother
There it must meet another,
Which never was, but must be, oft, more nigh;
Come glad from thence, goe gladder then you came,
To day put on perfection, and a womans name.


 We are guessing here, but I like the idea that this is one of Donne's very early poems, written when he was a student at Lincoln's Inn, probably not long after its obvious model, Spenser's Epithalamion, was published in 1595 (when Donne was 23). That guess is confirmed by the poem's presence in the Westmoreland manuscript.


(Donne may have already moved out of the Inn by this time. The unequivocal evidence for Donne's residence only takes us to late 1593, perhaps 1594. His close connection with Lincoln's Inn, however, persisted all through his life. He was appointed the Preacher of Lincoln's Inn in 1616, soon after his ordination.)


[Information from http://www.lincolnsinn.org.uk/images/word/Library/johndonne.pdf ]




It's further been speculated that the poem was not commissioned for any real-life wedding, but either referred to some obscure student high-jinks,  a burlesque marriage with students in drag, or was just a playful literary exercise. 


"Lincoln's Inn" in the title  isn't just a passing note about where the poem was written. In Stanza two the balm-thighed Bride is described as a wealthy City bride who brings a nice big bag of Angels along with her. In Stanza 3 the Bridegroom is said to be a strange hermaphrodite of study and play... i.e a student at Lincoln's Inn. Stanza 4 specifies the Temple church, though the "two-leav'd gates" may be a sexual reference (as per Nashe's Unfortunate Traveller) as much as to the gates of Babylon in Isaiah 45:1.


In further outrage, Donne manages to turn the unexceptionable wish that the bride and bridegroom will live long, into May the hungry maw of this church fatten on your parents before it devours you.. topping off the whole performance with a comparison in Stanza 8 of the bride


Like an appointed lamb, when tenderly
   The priest comes on his knees t'embowell her; ...


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The thing is, for all of these infelicities and the uncertain occasion of the poem, there's still a freshness and joyousness about the poem. Donne's poetry somehow remains a sexy celebration of marriage at the same time as it contains these burlesque and satirical elements. Perhaps for Donne's age this was not a contradiction.


(Others have pointed out that Donne's Epithalamia have tended to be negatively judged by commentators who want to keep the image of heteronormal marriage free from any complications... thus Victorian disgust at the 26th December Epithalamion not just because the bride was a future assassinator but also homophobically because the groom had been one of James' "minions". Donne's celebration of love has seemed distasteful in this "tainted" context.)


Possibly there's a parallel here with Shakespeare's celebration... you might almost say his creation .... of Victorian ideals of heteronormal courtship, love and marriage -- within a theatrical medium where the actors were all male and the women were played by boys, and alongside his own sonnets which celebrate an idealized same-sex love.
























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I can't make up my mind if the final line is a straightforward Alexandrine or if "-tion" is mean to be disyllabic, breaking the line into a chiasmic fourteener.  What do others think?


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