Sunne Rising John Donne The Development of Thought Like the Good Morrow, The Sunne Rising is the utterance of a lover after a night of love. (A picture of the lovers in a bed room is suggested). The whole poem is an apostrophe to the sun in which a surprizing and somewhat funny personification to the sun has been given. In addressing the sun, questioning and commanding it, the speaker says in effect that love is indifferent to all the influences that the sun has upon the world. The speaker says that his love is complete in itself, as if it included everything in the world, everything under the sun. This is said in a conceit, the conceit being established at the second stanza and extended through the third stanza, which is the final one. In the opening lines of The Sunne Rising, the poet has drawn a very bright and brilliant Picture of early morning. The speaker or the poet catches the sun, and addressing him as man to man, is playfully angry at his intrusion. He pictures the day's first activities of the boys136 Guide to Prose and Poetry who pass his windows on their way to school or to work, ang of the court which was the focal point and symbol of sixteenth century English life. He strips down the rigours of a time. table; second stanza opens with a challenge made to the death in the Holy Sonnet No. 6, but the poet's attitude here is one of sheer frivolity. When the poet closes his eyes, he feels that the sun does not exist for him. To his (the poet) his beloved is more warm than the sun itself and she is a greater source of life and strength than the sun itself. The beloved's brightness may dazzle even the sun. If the sun is not, however, dazzled, then it can look for as priceless treasure as his beloved is but the sun, after traversing all the worldover, will find that the speaker's beloved is far more valuable than all the riches of the world put together. Even those kings and rulers whose treasures are brimming with immense wealth are nothing in comparison to her. In the third stanza the poet elaborates the idea that his beloved is all states and all Princes and having her in his arms, he feels that nothing in the world is worth his pursuit. The idea of the self-sufficiency of the lovers and the worthlessness of all worldly pursuits in comparison to. this self sufficiency, has been suggested in the third stanza. The poor busie sun is contrasted with the lovers. While the 'busie fool’ has to go round the vast globe, the lovers in bed possess the entire globe. If the divine duty of the sun is to go round the world, it could as well go round the bed of the lovers since the bed is the center of the universe and the walls constitute a ee clear that Donne is applying here the picture emiac cosmology according to which the earth stood static in the centre of sun we of the spheres and the sun went roundSunne Rising 437 The Sunne Rising (Text) Busie old foole, unruly Sunne, Why dost thou thus, Through windowes, and through curtains call on us ? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run ? Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices, Goe tell Court - huntsmen,, that the King will ride, Call countrey ants to harvest offices ; Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme, Nor-houres, dayes, month, which are the rags of time. Thy beams, so reverend, and strong Why shouldst thou thinke ? I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke, But that I would not lose her sight so long; If her eyes have not blinded thine, Looke, and tommorrow late, tell mee, Whether both the India's of spice and Myne Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee. Asks for those Kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt heare. All here in one bed lay. She is all States, and all Princes, I, Nothing else is. Princes doe but play us; compar'd to this, All honor's mimique; All wealth alchimie. Thou sunne art halfe as happy as wee,8 e Guide to Prose and Poetry In that the world’s contracted thus; Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee To warme the world that's done in warning us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy centre is, these wall, thy sphere. PARAPHRASE O impudent sun, why are you trying to call on us through the window and curtains in this manner ? Lovers are not bound to accept the seasons that are formed on account of the sun's movement. You over-bold and wretched fellow, (instead of calling on us) go and rebuke those small boys who are late in reaching the schools and also the apprentices who are most unwilling to reach their work. Go and inform the huntsmen of the court that the King will take a ride so that they should make it a point to rise early. Go and call the country ants to get up early in the morning and collect food for themselves for the whole day. Love, which remains the same in all circumstances, is free from the effects brought by the changes of season or place, hours, days, months etc. which are the components of them, have no effect on genuine love. Why should you consider your rays to be so ‘strong and respected when I can win at them in a moment and can control them at once just by closing my eyes. So long as I am able to have the sight of my beloved, I do not care to look at your rays. If the dazzling eyes of my beloved have not blinded your own eyes, then come tomorrow at a later time than your usual and tell me whether the well-famed India of spices and my own beloved are the same. India is not at the place where you left it but here in this same room where I am lying with my beloved. If you want to see all those kings that you metSunne Rising 139 yesterday come to my bed and in my beloved you will notice the glories of all the kings being reflected in a magnificent manner. My beloved is equal to all states and all princes and in here company I count myself also as no less than all kings and princes combined in one. Princes do nothing except trying to imitate us and compared to the glory of our loving each other with intensity of passion, all wordly honour seems to be false and all the wealth of the world is no better than alchimie. O sun, you are only half happy as we are and since the whole of the world is reduced into a single room for us, and your duty is to give warmth to the world, you should better confine yourself to giving warmth only to us. By shining only before our room, you would be, actually speaking, shining everywhere. You should regard this bed of our as your centre and the walls of this room as the spheres round which you have to keep on moving about. NOTES, ALLUSSIONS AND EXPLANATIONS Stanza -1 Busie old foole......seasons : By means of such addresses the speaker at once belittles the glory of the sun because it comes to disturb him in love-making. Had not the sun risen, the poet and his beloved would have continued love making in bed. Must to thy.....season run : The lovers are not subject to the change of time caused by the movement of the sun. The speaker of these lines resents the disturbance caused to him by the sun, in making love.140 : Guide to Prose and Poetry Sawcey Pedantique wretch : This is another term of rebuke. ‘ sun seems impudent and insolent to the poet, because it disturbs him in love-making. Sowre prentices : Those apprentices who are unwilling to 80 to their work. Love, all alike......rags of time : Love is not subject to the rigours of time, it is free from the cramping influence of time. Lovers want to live together without any thought of day or night. Stanza - 2 The beames.......thinke : The poet challenges the sun and says that it should not consider itself to be all-powerful. I could....so long : The poet can defy the rays of the sun at any moment he likes but for that he does not want to lose a single moment that he can spend with his beloved. If her.....thine : The poet says wittily that extra-ordinary brightness of his beloved can dazzle the sun itself which is the brightest and most dazzling thing in the world. Whethe: with me : The poet tells with obvious exaggeration which is, however, not inconsistent with the intensity and genuineness of feeling, that after traversing all over the world, the sun will find that even the rarest and the most precious times of the world, are not equal to his beloved, "the India's of spice" refers to the most precious thing of the world. Ask for.......in one bed lay : The poet asserts that the sun will not find even the kings and emperors to be enjoying so much glory as the poet is enjoying the glory of loving his beloved in his bed,Sunne Rising 141 Stanza - 3 She is all........else is : The lover regards himself and his beloved, in mutual love, as the greatest king and ruler of the world. Princes doe but play us : Princes do nothing more than to imito’ ..e glory of the lovers. Compar’d to this........mimique : Now wordly honour can stand in comparison to the satisfaction that the lovers Xperience in mutual love and warm embrace. All wealth alchimie : All worldly wealth is false and trifling in comparison to the experience of love. If that.......contracted : To the lovers in mutual love the wide world is shrunk, as it were, into a small room where they have been making love. Thine age........in warming us : The lover expresses his sympathy for the old sun who needs rest and ease in that he has to go round and round the globe. Since the lovers, in warm and mutual embrace,constitute the whole of the world, the sun should be satisfied by giving its warmth only to them, and not to the entire world. By means of an ingenious wit, the lover asks the sun to take rest and cease from wandering. Expl. Thou sunne... soenuthy sphere Lines 25-30 In these lines of the poem The Sunne Rising the speaker or the poet implores the sun to cease from wandering all over the globe because being old in age, it needs rest and ease. The duty of the sun is to warm the world but since the lovers in mutual embrace constitute the world the sun should be satisfied only with taking a round of the lovers, lécked in embrace andWy and Poetry Ost in enjoyment. By shining near the room where lovers are living, the sun will have shone all over the world. It is evident that Donne is applying here the picture of old Ptolemiag cosmology according to which the earth stood static in the centre of the spheres and the sun went round it. It is remarkable how one image leads to the other; the beloved and the lover locked together in warm embrace, become all States and Princes - the entire world. The bed, then, naturally is the earth from which springs the comparison of the walls of the room to the spheres, the comparison between the earth and the sun. A Critical Appreciation of ‘The Sunne Rising’ The theme of 'The Sunne Rising’ is one that has been treated on the number of poems and this theme is the self-sufficiency of love but in this poem it has been described with a remarkable originality. The influence of Ovid, the celebrated Roman poet, is evident but Donne's originality in using this influence is undoubtedly of a very high order. Leishman has pointed out that there are three different strands in the poem and Donne is trying to do several things simultaneously; on the one hand, he has written an impudent address to the sun in a defiantly colloquial diction and on the otherhand he has worked out the ingenious idea or conceit that the sun only goes further to fare worse. The third strand is the ingenious idea that he and his beloved are a world in and for themselves, Three strands which in the Elegies and else where have been separate - impudence, witty and ingenious argument, tenderness, are here combined and fused. The directness and the familiar tone of speech at once strikes us. After quoting the first stanza of ‘The Sunne Rising’, R.G. Cox points out that the movement of this stanza is inseparable from its tone and meaning, we cannot read it unless» Sune Rising 143 we recognize the lover's mood of humorous exasperation and _ allow its scornful emphasis, to play against the verse pattern - "Busie oldfoole "The windows and through curtains’ doubling the sense of officious prying-Must to thy motions........2" ‘ “houres, dayes, monthes, which are the rags of time." Stress, : intonation, gesture almost, are imposed on us as we read; we have the sense of living speech, individual and intimate, not of formal or public utterance. The diction has a popular, coloquial vigiour; the imagery is chosen for its effect of surprize and compression ‘countrey ants’ ‘the rags of time’-and sound effects such as assonance and alliteration are used to reinforce the tone and feeling rather than simply to create a pattern of verbal melody. The rhythmical effect belongs rather to the whole stanza than the single line, and it is subordinate to the expression of the meaning and the general air of dramatic realism. One aspect of Donne's originality, is that he gave to the short lyric something of the flexibility, the urgent and profound expressiveness that came to be developed in dramatic blank verse. Percy Marshal has remarked about the artistic quality of the first stanza that there is not one word which would strike the reader as "poetic", but many that are apparently not - "foole” "peantique”, “offices”, rags. Yet the effect is exhilarating, for the accumulation of sounds, running over a bouncing rhythm, gives a kind of onomatopoeia. We hear the morning by a change of the familiar and disconnected noises belonging to the scene into a musical analogy. MM. Mahood, in his discussion of the special quality of Donne's imagery, has quoted the entire poem and he points out the difference between Ovid and Donne. In the words of Mahood, "The setting of this poem corresponds to that of Ovid's elegy Ad Auroram, Ne Properet. But the Latin poem is a protest against the short duration of pleasure, against the interruptionae Guide to Prose and Poetry of these brief moments of delight by dawn with its chilly labours. Donne's ecstasy has no such rumination, because it carries him out of time altogether. Ovid addresses, the goddess of dawn in conciliatory tones, for mortals cannot hope to escape from the Olympian rule by times and seasons. Donne, on the other hand, is so sure of his liberation from all nature bounds that he dares to admonish the sun, the source and sustainer of physical life. The lovers who have eternity on their eyes and lips can afford to scoff at the ‘rags of time’. Yet, it is a physical experience which has brought them to this transcendental happiness, and Donne seems to be reflecting upon this paradox at the beginning of the second stanza, when he plays with the fancy that man is greater than external nature, which can be said to exist only in so far as it is perceived by his senses........ The last stanzabegins with Donne's favourite alnothing antithesis : the nullity of wordly riches contrasted with the wealth of love. This idea links naturally with the use of a circle imagery, and so the lyric ends with the thought that the spheres of the visible world-order have been superseded by the equally spherical-because infinite, perfect and indestructible world of love." According to John Bennet, "The Sunne Rising” is remarkable for its variety tone, from the gay impertinence of its opening, we pass on to the full notes of satisfied love. “Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme, Nor houres, dayes, monthes, which are the rags of time. She is all States, and all Princes, 1, Nothing else is,” Bennet has drawn our attention to one important quality of 'The Sunne Rising’ when she says that it is a successful fusion of with and passion. Comparing this poem with Donne'sSunne Rising 145 another well-known poem, 'The Dreame', Bennet says, "The Dreame is written in one key (the meaning is that it lacks variety of treatment). The enjoyment of the act of love is the theme of both; the difference is that the first [The Sunne Rising] through wit and raillery, takes cognizance of the outside world while the second narrows the attention to its own object. To read the two side by side is to get a measure of Donne's variety of treatment; he rescued English love poetry from the monotony which was threatening to engulf it at the end of sixteenth century."