Analysis of Elegy IV: The Perfume

John Donne 1572 (London) – 1631 (London)



Once, and but once found in thy company,
All thy supposed escapes are laid on me;
And as a thief at bar is questioned there
By all the men that have been robed that year,
So am I (by this traiterous means surprized)
By thy hydroptic father catechized.
Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,
As though he came to kill a cockatrice,
Though he hath oft sworn that he would remove
Thy beauty's beauty, and food of our love,
Hope of his goods, if I with thee were seen,
Yet close and secret, as our souls, we've been.
Though thy immortal mother, which doth lie
Still-buried in her bed, yet wiil not die,
Takes this advantage to sleep out daylight,
And watch thy entries and returns all night,
And, when she takes thy hand, and would seem kind,
Doth search what rings and armlets she can find,
And kissing, notes the colour of thy face,
And fearing lest thou'rt swol'n, doth thee embrace;
To try if thou long, doth name strange meats,
And notes thy paleness, blushing, sighs, and sweats;
And politicly will to thee confess
The sins of her own youth's rank lustiness;
Yet love these sorceries did remove, and move
Thee to gull thine own mother for my love.
Thy little brethren, which like faery sprites
Oft skipped into our chamber, those sweet nights,
And kissed, and ingled on thy father's knee,
Were bribed next day to tell what they did see:
The grim eight-foot-high iron-bound servingman,
That oft names God in oaths, and only then,
He that to bar the first gate doth as wide
As the great Rhodian Colossus stride,
Which, if in hell no other pains there were,
Makes me fear hell, because he must be there:
Though by thy father he were hired to this,
Could never witness any touch or kiss.
But Oh, too common ill, I brought with me
That which betrayed me to my enemy:
A loud perfume, which at my entrance cried
Even at thy father's nose, so were we spied;
When, like a tyran King, that in his bed
Smelt gunpowder, the pale wretch shivered.
Had it been some bad smell he would have thought
That his own feet, or breath, that smell had wrought.
But as we in our isle imprisoned,
Where cattle only, and diverse dogs are bred,
The precious Unicorns strange monsters call,
So thought he good, strange, that had none at all.
I taught my silks their whistling to forbear,
Even my oppressed shoes dumb and speechless were,
Only, thou bitter sweet, whom I had laid
Next me, me traiterously hast betrayed,
And unsuspected hast invisibly
At once fled unto him, and stayed with me.
Base excrement of earth, which dost confound
Sense from distinguishing the sick from sound;
By thee the seely amorous sucks his death
By drawing in a leprous harlot's breath;
By thee the greatest stain to man's estate
Falls on us, to be called effeminate;
Though you be much loved in the Prince's hall,
There, things that seem, exceed substantial.
Gods, when ye fumed on altars, were pleased well,
Because you were burnt, not that they liked your smell;
You're loathsome all, being taken simply alone,
Shall we love ill things joined, and hate each one?
If you were good, your good doth soon decay;
And you are rare, that takes the good away.
All my perfumes I give most willingly
T' embalm thy father's corse; What? will he die?


Scheme AABCDDEEFGHIJDDDDDKKLMNEFGEOAAAPDDQBRRAADDDDDDDDSSBQDDJADDTTDDSUVVWXYYAD
Poetic Form
Metre 1011101100 1101011111 0101111101 1101111111 11111111 111101 111111111 11111101 1111111101 1110011101 1111111101 11010110111 1101010111 1100011111 110101111 0111000111 0111110111 111101111 010101111 0101111101 111111111 011110101 0111101 01101111 111110101 1111110111 110101111 11011010111 010111101 0111111111 011111011 1111010101 1111011111 10110101 1101110110 1111011111 11110101011 1101010111 1111011111 1101111100 0101111101 10111011011 110111011 11001110 1111111111 1111111111 1110101010 11010001111 01011101 1111111111 111111011 10101110100 1011011111 1111101 001011 1111010111 1100111101 1101000111 11010100111 11000111 1101011101 1111110100 1111100101 111101010 1111110011 01101111111 110110101001 1111110111 1101111101 0111110101 1101111100 10111011111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 3,140
Words 584
Sentences 14
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 72
Lines Amount 72
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 2,498
Words per stanza (avg) 582
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 21, 2023

2:58 min read
133

John Donne

John Donne was an English poet, satirist, lawyer and a cleric in the Church of England. more…

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