To His Mistress Going To Bed

"To His Mistress Going To Bed" est carmen de re veneria ab Ioanne Donne poëta Anglico versibus 48 composita. Primum anno 1669 divulgatum est (auctore iam anno 1631 mortuo) sub titulo "To His Mistris Going To Bed", sed in libris prioribus manuscriptis inter Elegias comprehenditur, ordinationibus variis, aut sine titulo aut sub rubrica "Going To Bed". Hoc carmine, quo poëta amasiam suam se denudare et in cubiculum venire suadet, similitudo inter delicias a muliere datas et paradisum Mahometanum, intercalatur cum distinctione inter angelos (sed femineos) et diabolos: hi enim pilos horrere cogunt, illae carnem erigunt.

Iohannes Donne post Isaacium Oliver anno circiter 1620 pictus (Pinacotheca Effigierum Nationalis Londinii: NPG 1849)

In such white robes heaven's Angels used to be

Received by men; thou Angel bring'st with thee

A heaven like Mahomet's Paradise; and though

Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know

By this these Angels from an evil sprite:

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

Mox elaboratur similitudo satis famosa inter membra mulieris regionesque Americae et Terrae Novae nuper revelatas:

License my roving hands, and let them go

Before, behind, between, above, below.

O my America! my New-found-land,

My kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann'd,

My mine of precious stones, my empery,

How blessed am I in this discovering thee.

Bibliographia

Editiones aliquae

• E. K. Chambers, ed.; George Saintsbury, praef., Poems of John Donne (2 voll. Londinii: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. The Muses Library) vol. 1 pp. 148-150
• Herbert J. C. Grierson, ed., The Poems of John Donne (2 voll. Oxonii: Clarendon Press, 1912) vol. 1 pp. 119-121; scholia, vol. 2 pp. 89-90

Eruditio

• Achsah Guibbory, ed., The Cambridge Companion to John Donne (Cantabrigiae: Cambridge University Press, 2006) pp. 31, 52-53, 134-136, 208, 256-257 (Paginae selectae apud Google Books)

Nexus externi

• Textus apud Vicifontem Anglicum