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| Please pray for the soul of Esther Clark. R.I.P. She gave a framed copy of this painting to the author in the 1980's. |
The work is offered on behalf of my family to Our Blessed Lady, Regina Martyrum et Consolatrix Afflictorum. For EEKPTEE&EA.
👈The Tears of St Peter (1587-1596)
El Greco (Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos) 1541-1614
Museo Soumaya at Plaza Carso, Mexico.
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- 113 -
My eye, reades mournefull lessons to my hart,
My hart, doth to my thought the griefes expound;
My thought, the same doth to my toungue impart, [675]
My toungue, the message in the eares doth sound;
My eares, back to my hart their sorrowes send;
Thus circkling griefes runne round without an end.
My eyes read mournful lessons to my heart; my heart communicates these sorrows to my mind; my mind conveys them to my tongue; my tongue conveys them to my ears; my ears then relay the sorrows back into my heart.
This is how feelings and thoughts of grief and sorrow circulate unceasingly within me.
673. reades. read. Perhaps here with the following additional sense: v. transitive. To learn or discover (a fact, truth, etc.) by study, interpretation of signs, etc. 1598 W. Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost ii. i. 109 Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my comming.
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- 114 -
My guilty eye still seemes to see my sinne,
All thinges Characters are to spell my fall; [680]
What eye doth read without, hart rues within,
What hart doth rue, to pensive thought is gall,
Which when the thought would by the toungue disgest,
The eare conveyes it back into the brest.
My guilty eye never ceases to see my sin; in fact, everything I see seems to spell out words that describe my soul’s fall from grace.
What my eye discerns in exterior appearances, my heart laments with interior sorrows; the grief of my sorrowful heart provokes bitter thoughts in my mind; when my tongue tries to voice my understanding of these thoughts, my hearing conveys everything back to my heart.
682. gall. 3. a. Bitterness of spirit, asperity, rancour (supposed to have its seat in the gall). 1577 R. Stanyhurst Treat. Descr. Irelande vii. f. 27/1, in R. Holinshed Chron. I A pleasant conceyted companion, full of mirth without gall.
Vid. supra lines 122. & 328.
683. disgest. digest. v. To comprehend and assimilate mentally; to obtain mental nourishment from. a1592 H. Smith Wks. (1867) II. 81 Record when you are gone, and you shall see the great power of God, what he is able to do for you by one sentence of this book, if ye digest it well.
1576 A. Fleming tr. Erasmus in Panoplie Epist. 341 He maketh suche to love learning..as before coulde by no meanes digest it.
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Thus gripes in all my parts do never fayle, [685]
Whose onely league is now in bartring paines;
What I ingrosse, they trafficke by retayle,
Making each others miseries theyr gaines;
All bound for ever, prentizes to care:
Whilst I in shop of shame trade sorrowes ware.[690]
The sharp, pinching pangs of guilt, regret and sorrow are thus ever-present within me; each of my faculties can only exchange one form of pain for another.
Just as a wholesaler acquires the whole stock, I experience all the suffering; and just as retailers each hold but a part of this stock, my individual senses and faculties each feel part of this suffering; in their exchanges with each other, the only common currency is grief and sorrow.
If I am the master in this particular trade, then they are my bound apprentices, — but bound in the sense of for ever bound to suffering. For myself, I am like a merchant, trading through shame with the merchandise of sorrow.
685. gripes. gripe. The ‘clutch’ or ‘pinch’ of something painful. Formerly often in plural: Spasms of pain, pangs of grief or affliction. a1547 Earl of Surrey tr. Virgil Certain Bks. Aenæis (1557) ii. sig. Biv New gripes of dred then pearse our trembling brestes.
1549–62 T. Sternhold & J. Hopkins Whole Bk. Psalms xxx. 6 Gripes of griefe and pangues full sore.
fayle. fail. To be absent or wanting. To become exhausted, come to an end, run short. 1596 E. Spenser Second Pt. Faerie Queene iv. i. sig. B The breath gan him to fayle .
686. league. The imagery incorporated in lines 686. - 688. is commercial. Hence, the meaning of league in this context may relate to: a commercial covenant or compact made between parties for their mutual protection and assistance. A covenant, compact, alliance. 1534 T. More Treat. Passion in Wks. 1325/2 Thys is the bloud of the leage, that oure Lorde hathe made with you vppon al these wordes.
bartring. bartering. barter. transitive. To give (a commodity) in exchange for something taken as of equivalent value; distinguished from purchase and sell, which imply that money is given for the commodity. 1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 444/1 It is a comen feate of marchauntes to barter [Fr. trocquer] ware for ware.
687. ingrosse. v. engross. To buy up wholesale; esp. to buy up the whole stock, or as much as possible, of (a commodity) for the purpose of ‘regrating’ or retailing it at a monopoly price. 1591 G. Fletcher Of Russe Common Wealth iii. f. 7 Their Nobilitie..vse to engrosse it.
trafficke. trafffic. To trade or deal in (goods or a commodity); to buy and sell, to barter; 1557 T. North tr. A. de Guevara Diall Princes iii. xxvi. f. 196/2 Yu shuldest forsake ye warre, & traffique marchaundise.
retayle. The action or business of selling goods in relatively small quantities for use or consumption rather than for resale. Frequently opposed to wholesale n. Also figurative: 1598 R. Barckley Disc. Felicitie of Man iv. 308 Without scruple they sell that iustice by retaile that was bought in grosse.
A contrast is being made between a) Peter considered in his wholeness and b) Peter’s particular faculties and senses.
689. bound. Having entered into a contract binding to service, as ‘a bound apprentice’.
prentizes. apprentices. Apprentice. A learner of a craft; one who is bound by legal agreement to serve an employer in the exercise of some handicraft, art, trade, or profession, for a certain number of years, with a view to learn its details and duties, in which the employer is reciprocally bound to instruct him. 1551 T. Wilson Rule of Reason sig. Gvv To make seruauntes, and apprentises fre.
care. Mental suffering, sorrow, grief, trouble. 1576 G. Gascoigne Steele Glas sig. D.iij In my glasse..I can perceiue, how kingdomes breede but care. a1616 W. Shakespeare Henry VI, Pt. 2 (1623) ii. iv. 4 So Cares and Ioyes abound, as Seasons fleet.
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Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
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