Thou Shalt not Laugh in this Leaf, Muse, nor The

Name: Thou Shalt not Laugh in this Leaf, Muse, nor They
Author: John Donne

The speaker forbids the Muse and any compassionate reader to laugh, because the subject is the misery and wickedness surrounding courtiers, officers, and suitors. He asks instead for charity and liberty to describe how officials’ rage and petitioners’ suffering can hardly be treated as comedy. He imagines man as a world: officers are destructive seas, while suitors are springs that run toward what will drown them. In another figure, officers are a devouring stomach and suitors the excrement it casts out. Suitors are worse than dust or worms’ food, because officials consume them during life before worms consume them in death. They are mills that grind those who themselves supply the wind that powers the mills. The sufferers finance and enable the legal war waged against them, preparing the path for adulterated law and producing the ruin that destroys them. Addressing a “greatest and fairest empress,” the speaker suggests that she may not know whose fields and crops are overwhelmed by the currents flowing from her, just as Thames’ source does not know what its waters flood. He appeals also to a righteous man favoured by her, whom the speaker is privileged to serve, urging him to recognize and remove this enormous evil. The age is worse than the old iron age: justice was once sold, but injustice is now sold at an even higher price. Money painfully won is quickly transferred to others, and disputed lands escape the hands of those who contend for them. If a judge holds law in his heart but lacks the resolve to resist legal wording or a fee, there is nowhere to appeal. The lower courts derive their force from a chief source and can draw a complainant into misery, fetters, and halters. To complain against injury is to struggle upriver when faint and burdened; those accused become vast seas that must be crossed on costly “golden bridges,” until all one’s gold has already drowned in them. Though judges are called gods, people should not be compelled to approach them through paid intermediaries. If prayers to God and heaven’s orders required fees like those demanded in earthly courts, even kings would scarcely possess daily bread. The speaker condemns pursuivants who seize a person’s goods by falsely classifying clothes as copes, books as primers, and plate as chalices, then demand payment for their visit. Law, whose fair and reverend name should not be prostituted to authorize theft, is portrayed as Destiny’s recorder on earth, declaring who will be rich or poor, seated in chairs or confined in gaols. Yet this fair Law has foul, long nails: officers extend beyond what law itself can reach, as nails stretch farther than the rest of the body. The speaker rebukes a suitor who bows before an officer. Having once possessed goods for which others bowed to him, the suitor has repeatedly purchased wrong and now begs hungrily for right, though that charity will not arrive until the corrupt officers die. Having had much, he pursued more through law and accumulated enough paper to clothe all the great Carrick’s pepper. Selling it would make him lose even more than Hammon selling his antiquities. His fortune turns Esop’s fables into prophecy: like the swimming dog deceived by a shadow, he has surrendered what was real and is left near drowning for what vanished.

By John Donne · First published 1633 · Genre: Satire, Metaphysical Poetry, Didactic Poetry · 1,189 words

First lines

Thou shalt not laugh in this leaf, Muse, nor they / Whom any pity warms. He which did lay / Rules to make courtiers-he being understood / May make good courtiers, but who courtiers good? - / Frees from the sting of jests all who in extreme / Are wretched or wicked; of these two a theme / Charity and liberty give me. What is he, / Who officers' rage and suitors' misery / Can write and jest? If all things be in all / -As I think, since all which were, are, and shall / Be, be made of the same elements, / Each thing each thing implies or represents- / Then man is a world; in which officers / Are the vast ravishing seas, and suitors / Springs, now full, now shallow, now dry, which to / That which drowns them run; these self reasons do / Prove the world a man, in which officers / Are the devouring stomach, and suitors / Th' excrements which they void. All men are dust; / How much worse are suitors, who to men's lust / Are made preys? O, worse than dust or worms' meat, / For they do eat you now, whose selves worms shall eat. / They are the mills which grind you, yet you are / The wind which drives them; and a wasteful war / Is fought against you, and you fight it; they / Adulterate law, and you prepare the way; / Like wittols, th' issue your own ruin is. / Greatest and fairest empress, know you this? / Alas, no more than Thames' calm head doth know / Whose meads her arms drown, or whose corn o'erflow. / You, sir, whose righteousness she loves, whom I, / By having leave to serve, am most richly / For service paid, authorized now begin / To know and weed out this enormous sin. / O age of rusty iron! -some better wit / Call it some worse name, if aught equal it- / Th' iron age that was, when justice was sold-now / Injustice is sold dearer-did allow / All claimed fees and duties. Gamesters, anon, / The money which you sweat and swear for is gone / Into other hands. So controverted lands / 'Scape, like Angelica, the striver's hands. / If law be in the judge's heart, and he / Have no heart to resist letter, or fee, / Where wilt thou appeal? power of the courts below / Flows from the first main head, and these can throw / Thee, if they suck thee in, to misery, / To fetters, halters. But if the injury / Steel thee to dare complain; alas, thou goest / Against the stream, upwards, when thou art most / Heavy and most faint; and in these labours they, / 'Gainst whom thou shouldst complain, will in thy way / Become great seas, o'er which, when thou shalt be / Forced to make golden bridges, thou shalt see / That all thy gold was drown'd in them before. / All things follow their like; only who have, may have more. / Judges are gods; he who made and said them so, / Meant not men should be forced to them to go, / By means of angels. When supplications / We send to God; to Dominations, / Powers, Cherubins, and all heaven's courts, if we / Should pay fees as here, daily bread would be / Scarce to kings; so 'tis. Would it not anger / A Stoic, a coward, yea a martyr, / To see a pursuivant come in, and call / All his clothes copes, books primers, and all / His plate chalices, and mistake them away, / And lack a fee for coming? Oh! ne'er may / Fair Law's white reverend name be strumpeted, / To warrant thefts; she is established / Recorder to Destiny on earth, and she / Speaks Fate's words, and but tells us who must be / Rich, who poor; who in chairs, who in gaols. / She is all fair, but yet hath foul long nails, / With which she scratcheth suitors; in bodies / Of men, so in law, nails are extremities. / So officers stretch to more than law can do, / As our nails reach what no else part comes to. / Why barest thou to yon officer? Fool! hath he / Got those goods, for which erst men bared to thee? / Fool! twice, thrice thou hast bought wrong, and now hungrily / Beg'st right, but that dole comes not till these die. / Thou hadst much, and laws Urim and Thummim try / Thou wouldst for more; and for all hast paper / Enough to clothe all the great Carrick's pepper. / Sell that, and by that thou much more shalt leese / Then Hammon if he sold his antiquities. / O wretch, that thy fortunes should moralize / Esop's fables, and make tales prophecies. / Thou art the swimming dog whom shadows cozened, / And divest, near drowning, for what vanished.

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Thou Shalt not Laugh in this Leaf, Muse, nor They is listed on Textopian as a poem by John Donne, dated 1633 CE.

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Work type: Poem
Author: John Donne
Date: 1633 CE
Language: English
Genres: Satire, Metaphysical Poetry, Didactic Poetry, Political Poetry, Formal Verse
Length: 1,189 words
Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Genres

Satire — The work is fundamentally satirical, mocking and attacking corruption in the legal system, using wit and irony to condemn officers, judges, and suitors engaged in bribery and abuse of power.
Metaphysical Poetry — Exemplifies the Metaphysical school through elaborate conceits and extended metaphors comparing officers to devouring seas and stomachs, suitors to springs and excrements, characteristic of Donne's poetic method.
Didactic Poetry — The work explicitly instructs and warns, employing moral argumentation to expose corruption and call for reform in the administration of justice.
Political Poetry — Directly addresses systemic political corruption, the abuse of judicial power, and the failure of institutions to serve justice and protect the vulnerable.