Affliction

Sir John Davies (1569-1626) 

If aught can teach us aught, Affliction's looks,
Making us look into ourselves so near,
Teach us to know ourselves beyond all books,
Or all the learned schools that ever were.

This mistress lately plucked me by the ear,
And many a golden lesson hath me taught;
Hath made my senses quick, and reason clear,
Reformed my will, and rectified my thought.

So do the winds and thunders cleanse the air;
So working seas settle and purge the wine;
So lopped and pruned trees do flourish fair;
So doth the fire the drossy gold refine.

Neither Minerva nor the learned Muse,
Nor rules of art, nor precepts of the wise,
Could in my brain those beams of skill infuse,
As but the glance of this dame's angry eyes.

She within lists my ranging mind hath brought,
That now beyond myself I list not go;
Myself am centre of my circling thought,
Only myself I study, learn, and know.

I know my body's of so frail a kind
A force without, fevers within, can kill;
I know the heavenly nature of my mind,
But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will;

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blind and ignorant in all;
I know I am one of nature's little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life's a pain and but a span,
I know my sense is mocked with everything;
And to conclude, I know myself a man,
Which is a proud, and yet a wretched thing. 

                  Are you sad?

                  Here, come sit. Me too. My reasons are evidently not my reasons, for this sadness is disproportionate.

                  When sadness comes, I remove myself to my room either to sleep or muse. I am not fit for company – and a danger to my relations. Every word of sadness is a fist against the dark. I attack – and those in range whom I bruise mistake themselves for targets. The injuries inflicted thus never quite heal. No quantities of amiability can unsay a cruel word.

                  Younger, too often, provoked, I’d let fly, deriving momentary satisfaction from my brave assertion. I gave my tormenter a piece of my mind, you bet. The nearer they approached, the more hurtful the blow. Often they responded – in fury or self-defense – till the delicate citadel of affection lay wrecked around. For nobody wins an argument, unless it is winning to gain a grudge.

                  Quiet in my room, my rants ricochet until they tire, reiterate, bore. Rage arias too – a standby for Handel – must conclude. Enough roulades – give it a rest.

                  Now comes in their wake curiosity about what’s really going on. No affront could merit such a tantrum. Gingerly, I coax my howling half into my consulting room. “What’s bugging you, pal?”

                  John Davies’ melodious diagnosis assists as a sort of existential GPS.

                  He was quite a guy, Davies, Shakespeare’s almost exact contemporary, another paragon in that age of paragons – Marlowe, Donne, Ben Jonson, Herbert, the Master and a host of lesser lights. Will our language ever again experience such an outpouring of fierce force? (And recall, London, where they all hung out, had a population then of about two hundred thousand, man, woman, and child.) Music bred music, as today the world’s fastest runners emerge paired from some remote African village.

                  Davies was a lawyer, disbarred after a murderous attack on a dear friend, then reinstated, ending up England’s Lord Chief Justice – and a potent poet. (Imagine today a prominent public person who’s also a world-class creator!)

                  Davies has removed his fulminating self to a room and locked the door to coolly and melodiously explore the nature and rewards of his howling hurt.

                  What a professor, this affliction! From her glance we learn more about ourselves than from any teacher or book. She

Hath made my senses quick, and reason clear,
Reformed my will, and rectified my thought.

                  No sane person seeks suffering, but from that suffering what rewards. That’s been my experience – and yours perhaps: wisdom has to be drubbed, seared, stabbed into me. This couplet might serve as my motto:

Myself am centre of my circling thought,
Only myself I study, learn, and know.

                  Exploring grief quiets it. True, you and I may be sorry specimens of our species, but which human isn’t? All bodies are destroyed in time by Time. All intellects blunder and meander. How highly we regard ourselves

                               one of nature's little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

Withdraw the camera far enough and we humans become almost comic:

And to conclude, I know myself a man,
Which is a proud, and yet a wretched thing.

                  Reflection, that tireless healer, has rescued us from dejection yet again. We have (in one of my favorite phrases) righted our self by writing our self. What good fortune to have removed ourselves from the fray and let the quiet do its wondrous work.

                  I feel better. You?