Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague

MS KA XLa

Autograph drafts by Constantijn Huygens (1596-87), poet and statesman, of his translations into Dutch of poems by John Donne, on folio and quarto leaves. 1630.

These MSS discussed, with facsimile examples, in Richard Todd, The Manuscript Sources for Constantijn Huygens's Translation of Four Poems by John Donne, 1630, EMS, 11 (2002), 154-80.

f. 2r
DnJ 3091.5: John Donne, The Sunne Rising ('Busie old foole, unruly Sunne')

Huygens's autograph draft of his translation into Dutch, with deleted heading Ad Solem, made from a (now lost) MS text of Donne's poem. 8 August 1630.

Facsimile in Todd, p. 162, Plate 1.

First published in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 11-12. Gardner, Elegies, pp. 72-3. Shawcross, No. 36.

f. 3r
DnJ 34.5: John Donne, The Anagram ('Marry, and love thy Flavia, for, shee')

Huygens's autograph draft of his translation into Dutch, made from a (now lost) MS text of Donne's poem. 14 August 1630.

Facsimile example in Todd, p. 167, Plate 2.

First published as Elegie II in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 80-2 (as Elegie II). Gardner, Elegies, pp. 21-2. Shawcross, No. 17. Variorum, 2 (2000), pp. 217-18.

f. 3r
WoH 190.8: Sir Henry Wotton, Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife ('He first deceased. she for a little tried')

Copy, in English, in an unidentified hand, accompanied by a translation into Dutch.

August 1630.

First published as an independent couplet in William Camden, Remaines (London, 1636). Reliquiae Wottonianae (London, 1651), p. 529. Hannah (1845), p. 44. The authorship is uncertain.

This couplet, which was subject to different versions over the years, is in fact lines 5-6 of a twelve-line poem beginning Here lye two Bodyes happy in their kinds, which has also been attributed to George Herbert: see HrG 290.5-290.8.

f. 5r
DnJ 2434.5: John Donne, Oh, let mee not serve so, as those men serve

Huygens's autograph draft of his translation into Dutch of lines 11-34, made from a (now lost) MS text of Donne's poem. 20 August 1630.

First published, as Elegie VII, in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 87-9 (as Elegie VI). Gardner, Elegies, pp. 10-11. Shawcross, No. 12. Variorum, 2 (2000), pp. 110-11.

f. 6r
DnJ 3714.5: John Donne, A Valediction: forbidding mourning ('As virtuous men passe mildly away')

Huygens's autograph draft of his translation into Dutch, made from a (now lost) MS text of Donne's poem. 20 August 1630.

Facsimile examples in Todd, pp. 174-5, Plates 3 and 4.

First published in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 49-51. Gardner, Elegies, pp. 62-4. Shawcross, No. 31.