The latter is the better version, but in each 'the body's pains' is a strange apposition to 'deeds' taken as object to 'do'. We do not 'do pains'. The second clause also has no obvious relation to the first which would justify the 'too'. If we close the first sentence at 'doe', we get both better sense and a better balance: 'Act _now_, for the night cometh. Hard deeds are achieved by the body's pains (i.e. toil, effort), and hard knowledge is attained by the mind's efforts.' The order of the words, and the condensed force given to 'reach' produce a somewhat harsh effect, but not more so than is usual in the _Satyres_, and less so than the alternative versions of the editors. The following lines continue the thought quite naturally: 'No endeavours of the mind will enable us to _comprehend_ mysteries, but all eyes can _apprehend_ them, dazzle as they may.' Compare: 'In all Philosophy there is not so darke a thing as light; As the sunne which is _fons lucis naturalis_, the beginning of naturall light, is the most evident thing to be seen, and yet the hardest to be looked upon, so is naturall light to our reason and understanding. Nothing clearer, for it is _clearnesse_ it selfe, nothing darker, it is enwrapped in so many scruples. Nothing nearer, for it is round about us, nothing more remote, for wee know neither entrance, nor limits of it. Nothing more _easie_, for a child discerns it, nothing more _hard_ for no man understands it. It is apprehensible by _sense_, and not comprehensible by _reason_. If wee winke, wee cannot chuse but see it, if wee stare, wee know it never the better.' _Sermons_ 50. 36. 324. PAGE =158=, ll. 96-7. _a Philip, or a Gregory, &c._ Grosart and Norton conjecture that by Philip is meant Melanchthon, and for 'Gregory' Norton conjectures Gregory VII; Grosart either Gregory the Great or Gregory of Nazianzus. But surely Philip of Spain is balanced against Harry of England, one defender of the faith against another, as Gregory against Luther. What Gregory is meant we cannot say, but probably Donne had in view Gregory XIII or Gregory XIV, post-Reformation Popes, rather than either of those mentioned above. Satire does not deal in Ancient History. The choice is between Catholic and Protestant Princes and Popes. PAGE =158=. SATYRE IIII. This satire, like several of the period, is based on Horace's _Ibam forte via Sacra_ (_Sat._ i. 9), but Donne follows a quite independent line. Horace's theme is at bottom a contrast between his own friendship with Maecenas and 'the way in which vulgar and pushing people sought, and sought in vain, to obtain an introduction'. Donne, like Horace, describes a bore, but makes this the occasion for a general picture of the hangers-on at Court. A more veiled thread running through the poem is an attack on the ways and tricks of informers. The bore's gossip is probably not without a motive: