Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris

The text we’re looking at is nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris: now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, thou must die.

“Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me and see my state may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and engrafted into the body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled) which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee […].”[1]

There are two major symbols used in this meditation: the bell and the island.

In the tradition of the time, the church bell would be rung to mark the death of one of its parishioners. This would most likely be a frequent occurrence, since when he was writing this work many people around him were dying from the Plague and other illnesses. Being constantly surrounded by death, and being seriously ill himself, the tolling of the bell came to mean more than one more death out of so many. Andrew Sanders, in The Short Oxford History of English Literature says:

“Death, as all of Donne's contemporaries readily recognized, was not simply inevitable and all-pervasive; it was a familiar presence in an unstable, unhygienic, and disease-ridden world. The tolling of the passing bell for a dying parishioner was to Donne not simply a stimulus to pray for a troubled soul but a personal memento mori.”[2]

The bell therefore becomes a symbol not only of death, but also of Donne’s own human mortality.

This is linked with the other important image, the island. Islands are a symbol of isolation and solitude, but Donne believes that humanity is interconnected. To use his own imagery, mankind is not a group of islands, each independent of the others, but part of one great continent. Even the smallest lump of dirt falling away into the sea has an effect on the continent. In the same way, one person’s death affects the whole of mankind.

Though medicine has made huge advances since the 17^th century and the Plague is no longer a big problem, Donne’s reflections are far from irrelevant. Every day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes.[3] This is a huge amount, 5,840,000 children per year. (Switzerland has around 1,243,235 children[4]; that’s the amount that dies of hunger in two months.)

If humanity is one continent, then how can we sit back and watch as large parts of it are dying because they don’t have enough to eat?

- andrew, from my travail de maturité

---

[1] Donne, John. Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. pp. 107ss

[2] The Short Oxford History of English Literature, Andrew Sanders. p. 196

[3] http://www.bread.org/hungerbasics/international.html

[4] http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sz.html

Touched by the hem of his garment

My third text is taken once again from the Bible, it is actually two separate texts that I’m grouping into one. The first is found in the book of Matthew at chapter eight, verses one to four. The second is from Mark 5:25-33

“When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, "See that you don't tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."”[1]

And also:

“A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"

"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.”[2]

At first glance, these biblical verses may seem completely irrelevant to us here today, but if we take a closer look, we can begin to see similarities with what’s happening in our world.

We know today that leprosy (Hansen’s disease, though the Greek lepra could refer to many different skin diseases) is not contagious, but in Jesus’ time Jewish law was quite clear about how it should be treated:

“The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!'

As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.”[3]

People were certainly afraid of contamination, but the disease became more of a ritual impurity than a medical problem. Those living with the disease were forced “outside the camp”, no longer allowed to be a part of normal life, they were considered worthless.

Today of course, we tell ourselves that we’re far more civilised than that, that we wouldn’t make people walk around shouting that they’re ‘unclean’, that we’re not as primitive as to marginalise a woman because she’s “bleeding”. The world has moved on we say…

In 1989, as the AIDS virus was spreading rapidly, Amanda Heggs, a young sufferer of the virus said, “Sometimes I have a terrible feeling that I am dying not from the virus, but from being untouchable.”[4]

Untouchable is exactly the right word to describe those who had leprosy and the woman who’s bleeding. Unfortunately, it’s also a word which all too often can be used to describe people with AIDS today.

AIDS is still associated with homosexuality, prostitution and drug use, allowing people to stigmatise sufferers and increasing the psychological and physical exclusion.

In 1985, the late Princess Diana shocked many people by touching a patient in an AIDS hospital. Two thousand years before, Jesus shocked everyone by touching a leper and a haemorrhaging woman. The significance of the action was in breaking down social boundaries and prejudices.

---

[1] Mathew 8:1-4, New International Version

[2] Mark 5:25-33, ibid

[3] Leviticus 13: 45-46, ibid

[4] Amanda Heggs, AIDS sufferer. Quoted in The Guardian, June 12, 1989

- andrew, from my travail de maturité