l. 15. _Indure, nor yet leave loving._ This is at first sight a strange reading, and I was disposed to think that _1635-69_, which has the support of several MSS. (none of very high textual authority), must be right. It is strange to hear the Petrarchian lover (Donne is probably addressing the Countess of Bedford) speak of 'leaving loving' as though it were in his power. The reading 'nor leave this garden' suits what follows: 'Not to be mocked by the garden and yet to linger here in the vicinity of her I love let me become,' &c. It is remarkable that _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _H40_ omit this half line. If the same omission was in the MS. from which _1633_ printed, the present reading might be an editor's emendation. But it is older than that, for it was the reading of the MS. from which the Dutch poet Huyghens translated, and he has tried by his rhymes to produce the effect of the alliteration: Maer, om my noch te decken Voor sulcken ongeval, en niet te min de Min Te voeren in mijn zin, Komt Min, en laet my hier yet ongevoelicks wezen. Donne means, I suppose, 'Not to be mocked by the garden, and yet to be ever the faithful lover.' Compare _Loves Deitie_, l. 24. 'Love might make me leave loving.' The remainder of the verse may have been suggested by Jonson's Slow, slow, fresh Fount, keep time with my salt Tears. _Cynthias Revels_ (1600). l. 17. I have ventured to adopt 'groane' for 'grow' ('grone' and 'growe' are almost indistinguishable) from _A18_, _N_, _TC_; _D_, _H49_, _Lec_; and _H40_. It is surely much more in Donne's style than the colourless and pointless 'growe'. It is, too, in closer touch with the next line. If 'growing' is all we are to have predicated of the mandrake, then it should be sufficient for the fountain to 'stand', or 'flow'. The chief difficulty in accepting the MS. reading is that the mandrake is most often said to shriek, sometimes to howl, not to groan: I prethee yet remember Millions are now in graves, which at last day Like mandrakes shall rise shreeking. Webster, _The White Devil_, V. vi. 64. On the other hand the lover most often groans: Thy face hath not the power to make love grone. Shakespeare, _Sonnets_, 131. 6. Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groane. Shakespeare, _Sonnets_, 133. 1. _Ros._ I would be glad to see it. (_i.e._ _his heart_) _Bir._ I would you heard it groan. _Love's Labour's Lost._ In a metaphor where two objects are identified such a transference of attributes is quite permissible. Moreover, although 'shriek' is the more common word, 'groan' is used of the mandrake: Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan, I would invent as bitter searching terms, &c. _2 Hen. VI_, III. ii. 310. In the _Elegie upon ... Prince Henry_ (p. 269, ll. 53-4) Donne writes: