An Anatomy of the World

Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one

(For who is sure he hath a soul, unless

It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,

And by deeds praise it? He who doth not this,

May lodge an inmate soul, but ’tis not his)

When that queen ended here her progress time,

And, as t’her standing house, to heaven did climb,

Where loath to make the saints attend her long,

She’s now a part both of the choir, and song;

This world, in that great earthquake languished;

For in a common bath of tears it bled,

Which drew the strongest vital spirits out;

But succour’d then with a perplexed doubt,

Whether the world did lose, or gain in this,

(Because since now no other way there is,

But goodness, to see her, whom all would see,

All must endeavour to be good as she)

This great consumption to a fever turn’d,

And so the world had fits; it joy’d, it mourn’d;

And, as men think, that agues physic are,

And th’ ague being spent, give over care,

So thou, sick world, mistak’st thy self to be

Well, when alas, thou’rt in a lethargy.

Her death did wound and tame thee then, and then

Thou might’st have better spar’d the sun, or man.

That wound was deep, but ’tis more misery

That thou hast lost thy sense and memory.

‘Twas heavy then to hear thy voice of moan,

But this is worse, that thou art speechless grown.

Thou hast forgot thy name thou hadst; thou wast

Nothing but she, and her thou hast o’erpast.

For, as a child kept from the font until

A prince, expected long, come to fulfill

The ceremonies, thou unnam’d had’st laid,

Had not her coming, thee her palace made;

Her name defin’d thee, gave thee form, and frame,

And thou forget’st to celebrate thy name.

Some months she hath been dead (but being dead,

Measures of times are all determined)

But long she’ath been away, long, long, yet none

Offers to tell us who it is that’s gone.

But as in states doubtful of future heirs,

When sickness without remedy impairs

The present prince, they’re loath it should be said,

“The prince doth languish,” or “The prince is dead;”

So mankind feeling now a general thaw,

A strong example gone, equal to law,

The cement which did faithfully compact

And glue all virtues, now resolv’d, and slack’d,

Thought it some blasphemy to say sh’was dead,

Or that our weakness was discovered

In that confession; therefore spoke no more

Than tongues, the soul being gone, the loss deplore.

But though it be too late to succour thee,

Sick world, yea dead, yea putrified, since she

Thy’ intrinsic balm, and thy preservative,

Can never be renew’d, thou never live,

I (since no man can make thee live) will try,

What we may gain by thy anatomy.

Her death hath taught us dearly that thou art

Corrupt and mortal in thy purest part.

Let no man say, the world itself being dead,

‘Tis labour lost to have discovered

The world’s infirmities, since there is none

Alive to study this dissection;

For there’s a kind of world remaining still,

Though she which did inanimate and fill

The world, be gone, yet in this last long night,

Her ghost doth walk; that is a glimmering light,

A faint weak love of virtue, and of good,

Reflects from her on them which understood

Her worth; and though she have shut in all day,

The twilight of her memory doth stay,

Which, from the carcass of the old world free,

Creates a new world, and new creatures be

Produc’d. The matter and the stuff of this,

Her virtue, and the form our practice is.

And though to be thus elemented, arm

These creatures from home-born intrinsic harm,

(For all assum’d unto this dignity

So many weedless paradises be,

Which of themselves produce no venomous sin,

Except some foreign serpent bring it in)

Yet, because outward storms the strongest break,

And strength itself by confidence grows weak,

This new world may be safer, being told

The dangers and diseases of the old;

For with due temper men do then forgo,

Or covet things, when they their true worth know.

There is no health; physicians say that we

At best enjoy but a neutrality.

And can there be worse sickness than to know

That we are never well, nor can be so?

We are born ruinous: poor mothers cry

That children come not right, nor orderly;

Except they headlong come and fall upon

An ominous precipitation.

How witty’s ruin! how importunate

Upon mankind! It labour’d to frustrate

Even God’s purpose; and made woman, sent

For man’s relief, cause of his languishment.

They were to good ends, and they are so still,

But accessory, and principal in ill,

For that first marriage was our funeral;

One woman at one blow, then kill’d us all,

And singly, one by one, they kill us now.

We do delightfully our selves allow

To that consumption; and profusely blind,

We kill our selves to propagate our kind.

And yet we do not that; we are not men;

There is not now that mankind, which was then,

When as the sun and man did seem to strive,

(Joint tenants of the world) who should survive;

When stag, and raven, and the long-liv’d tree,

Compar’d with man, died in minority;

When, if a slow-pac’d star had stol’n away

From the observer’s marking, he might stay

Two or three hundred years to see’t again,

And then make up his observation plain;

When, as the age was long, the size was great

(Man’s growth confess’d, and recompens’d the meat),

So spacious and large, that every soul

Did a fair kingdom, and large realm control;

And when the very stature, thus erect,

Did that soul a good way towards heaven direct.

Where is this mankind now? Who lives to age,

Fit to be made Methusalem his page?

Alas, we scarce live long enough to try

Whether a true-made clock run right, or lie.

Old grandsires talk of yesterday with sorrow,

And for our children we reserve tomorrow.

So short is life, that every peasant strives,

In a torn house, or field, to have three lives.

And as in lasting, so in length is man

Contracted to an inch, who was a span;

For had a man at first in forests stray’d,

Or shipwrack’d in the sea, one would have laid

A wager, that an elephant, or whale,

That met him, would not hastily assail

A thing so equall to him; now alas,

The fairies, and the pigmies well may pass

As credible; mankind decays so soon,

We’are scarce our fathers’ shadows cast at noon,

Only death adds t’our length: nor are we grown

In stature to be men, till we are none.

But this were light, did our less volume hold

All the old text; or had we chang’d to gold

Their silver; or dispos’d into less glass

Spirits of virtue, which then scatter’d was.

But ’tis not so; w’are not retir’d, but damp’d;

And as our bodies, so our minds are cramp’d;

‘Tis shrinking, not close weaving, that hath thus

In mind and body both bedwarfed us.

We seem ambitious, God’s whole work t’undo;

Of nothing he made us, and we strive too,

To bring our selves to nothing back; and we

Do what we can, to do’t so soon as he.

With new diseases on our selves we war,

And with new physic, a worse engine far.

Thus man, this world’s vice-emperor, in whom

All faculties, all graces are at home

(And if in other creatures they appear,

They’re but man’s ministers and legates there

To work on their rebellions, and reduce

Them to civility, and to man’s use);

This man, whom God did woo, and loath t’attend

Till man came up, did down to man descend,

This man, so great, that all that is, is his,

O what a trifle, and poor thing he is!

If man were anything, he’s nothing now;

Help, or at least some time to waste, allow

T’his other wants, yet when he did depart

With her whom we lament, he lost his heart.

She, of whom th’ancients seem’d to prophesy,

When they call’d virtues by the name of she;

She in whom virtue was so much refin’d,

That for alloy unto so pure a mind

She took the weaker sex; she that could drive

The poisonous tincture, and the stain of Eve,

Out of her thoughts, and deeds, and purify

All, by a true religious alchemy,

She, she is dead; she’s dead: when thou knowest this,

Thou knowest how poor a trifling thing man is,

And learn’st thus much by our anatomy,

The heart being perish’d, no part can be free,

And that except thou feed (not banquet) on

The supernatural food, religion,

Thy better growth grows withered, and scant;

Be more than man, or thou’rt less than an ant.

Then, as mankind, so is the world’s whole frame

Quite out of joint, almost created lame,

For, before God had made up all the rest,

Corruption ent’red, and deprav’d the best;

It seiz’d the angels, and then first of all

The world did in her cradle take a fall,

And turn’d her brains, and took a general maim,

Wronging each joint of th’universal frame.

The noblest part, man, felt it first; and then

Both beasts and plants, curs’d in the curse of man.

So did the world from the first hour decay,

That evening was beginning of the day,

And now the springs and summers which we see,

Like sons of women after fifty be.

And new philosophy calls all in doubt,

The element of fire is quite put out,

The sun is lost, and th’earth, and no man’s wit

Can well direct him where to look for it.

And freely men confess that this world’s spent,

When in the planets and the firmament

They seek so many new; they see that this

Is crumbled out again to his atomies.

‘Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,

All just supply, and all relation;

Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot,

For every man alone thinks he hath got

To be a phoenix, and that then can be

None of that kind, of which he is, but he.

This is the world’s condition now, and now

She that should all parts to reunion bow,

She that had all magnetic force alone,

To draw, and fasten sund’red parts in one;

She whom wise nature had invented then

When she observ’d that every sort of men

Did in their voyage in this world’s sea stray,

And needed a new compass for their way;

She that was best and first original

Of all fair copies, and the general

Steward to fate; she whose rich eyes and breast

Gilt the West Indies, and perfum’d the East;

Whose having breath’d in this world, did bestow

Spice on those Isles, and bade them still smell so,

And that rich India which doth gold inter,

Is but as single money, coin’d from her;

She to whom this world must it self refer,

As suburbs or the microcosm of her,

She, she is dead; she’s dead: when thou know’st this,

Thou know’st how lame a cripple this world is

And learnest thus much by our Anatomee,
That here is nothing to enamour thee:
And that, not onely faults in inward parts,
Corruptions in our brains, or in our hearts.
Poysoning the fountaines, whence our actions spring,
Endanger us: but that if euery thing
Be not done fitly’nd in proportion,
To satisfie wise, and good lookers on,
(Since most men be such as most thinke they bee)
They’re lothsome too, by this Deformitee.
For good, and well, must in our actions meete;
Wicked is not much worse then indiscreet.
But beauties other second Element,
Colour, and lustre now, is as neere spent.
And had the world his iust proportion,
Were it a ring still, yet the stone is gone.
As a compassionate Turcoyse which doth tell
By looking pale, the wearer is not well,
As gold fals sicke being stung with Mercury,
All the worlds parts of such complexion bee.
When nature was most busie, the first weeke,
Swadling the new borne earth God seemd to like,
That she should sport her selfe sometimes, and play,
To mingle, and vary colours euery day.
And then, as though she could not make inow
Himselfe his various Rainbow did allow,
Sight is the noblest sense of any one,
Yet sight hath onely colour to feede on,
And colour is decayd: summers robe growes
Duskie, and like an oft dyed garment showes.
Our blushing redde, which vs’d in cheekes to spred,
Is inward sunke and onely our soules are redde.
Perchance the world might haue recouered,
If shee whom we lament had not bene dead:
But she, in whom all white, and red, and blew
(Beauties ingredients) voluntary grew,
As in an vnuext Paradise; from whom
Did all things verdure, and their lustre come,
Whose composition was miraculous,
Being all colour, all Diaphanous,
(For Ayre, and Fire but thinke grosse bodies were,
And liueliest stones but drowsie, and pale to her,)
Shee, shee, is dead; she’s dead: when thou knowest this,
Thou knowest how wan a Ghost this our world is:
And learnst thus much by our Anatomee,
That it should more affright, then pleasure thee.
And that, since all faire colour then did sinke,
‘Tis now but wicked vanitie to thinke,  [Weakenesse in the vvant of correspondence of heauen & earth.]
To colour vicious deeds with good pretence,
Or with bought colors to illude mens sense.
Nor in ought more this worlds decay appeares,
Then that her influence the heau’n forbeares,
Or that the Elements doe not feele this,
The father, or the mother barren is.
The clouds conceiue not raine, or doe not powre
In the due birth-time, down the balmy showre.
Th’Ayre doth not motherly sit on the earth,
To hatch her seasons, and giue all things birth.
Spring-times were common cradles, but are toombes,
And false conceptions fill the generall wombes.
Th’ayre showes such Meteors, as none can see,
Not onely what they meane, but what they bee.
Earth such new wormes, as would haue troubled much,
Th’Egyptian Mages to haue made more such.
What Artist now dares boast that he can bring
Heauen hither, or constellate any thing,
So as the influence of those starres may bee
Imprisoned in an Hearbe, or Charme, or Tree.
And doe by touch, all which those starres could doe?
The art is lost, and correspondence too.
For heauen giues little, and the earth takes lesse,
And man least knowes their trades and purposes.
If this commerce twixt heauen and earth were not
Embarr’d, and all this trafique quite forgot,
Shee, for whose losse we haue lamented thus,
Would worke more fully and pow’rfully on vs.
Since herbes and roots by dying, lose not all,
But they, yea Ashes too, are medicinall,
Death could not quench her vertue so, but that
It would be (if not follow’d) wondred at:
And all the world would be one dying Swan,
To sing her generall praise, and vanish than.
But as some Serpents poyson hurteth not,
Except it be from the liue Serpent shot,
So doth her vertue need her here, to fit
That unto vs; she working more then it.
But she, in whom, to such maturity,
Verue was grown, past gtrouth, that it must die,
She from whose influence all Impresion came,
But by receiuers impotencies, lame,
Who, though she could not transubstantiate
All states to gold, yet guilded euery state,
So that some Princes haue some temperance;
Some Counsellors some purpose to aduance
The common profite; and some people haue
Some stay, no more then Kings should giue, to craue;
Some women haue some taciturnity,
Some Nunneries, some graines of chastity.
She that did thus much, & much more could doe,
But that our age was Iron, and rusty too,
Shee, shee is dead; shee’s dead: when thou knowest this,
Thou knowest how drie a Cinder this world is.
And learnst thus much by our Anatomy,
That ’tis in vaine to dew, or mollifie
It with thy Teares, or Sweat, or Blood: no thing
Is worth our trauaile, griefe, or perishing,
But those rich ioyes, which did possesse her heart,
Of which shee’s now partaker, and a part.  [Conclusion.]

 

But as in cutting vp a man that’s dead,
The body will not last out to haue read
On euery part, and therefore men direct
Their speech to parts, that are of most effect;
So the worlds carcasse would not last, if I
Were punctuall in this Anatomy.
Nor smels it well to hearers, if one tell
Them their disease, who faine would thinke they’re well.
Here therefore be the end: And, blessed maid,
Of whom is meant what euer hath beene said,
Or shall be spoken well by any tongue,
Whose name refines course lines, and makes prose song,
Accept this tribute, and his first yeeres rent,
Who till his darke short tapers end be spent,
As oft as thy feast sees this widowed earth,
Will yeerely celebrate thy second birth,
That is, thy death. For though the soule of man
Be got when man is made, ’tis borne but than
When man doth die, Our bodi’s as the wombe,
And as a Mid-wife death directs it home.
And you her creatures, whom she workes vpon
And haue your last, and best concoction
From her example, and her vertue, if you
In reuerence to her, doe thinke it due,
That no one should her prayses thus reherse,
As matter fit for Chronicle, not verse,
Vouchsafe to call to minde, that God did make
A last, and lastingst peece, a song. He spake
To Moses, to deliuer vnto all,
That song: because he knew they would let fall,
The Law, the Prophets, and the History,
But keepe the song still in their memory.
Such an opinion (in due measure) made
Me this great Office boldly to inuade.
Nor could incomprehensiblenesse deter
Me, from thus trying to emprison her.
Which when I saw that a strict graue could do,
I saw not why verse might not doe so too.
Verse hath a middle nature: Heauen keepes souls,
The Graue keepes bodies, Verse the fame enrolls.