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Center versus Periphery

As a poem concerned with the speaker’s impending journey, it isn’t surprising that a central motif is the relation between center (home) and periphery (away). This motif first appears when the speaker mentions the “trepidation of the spheres” (line 11). This phrase references the Ptolemaic model of the universe, in which the earth stands at the center and is surrounded by a nested series of cosmic “spheres.” The term trepidation specifically refers to a disturbance that passes from the outer to the inner spheres—that is, from the cosmic periphery to the center. If the speaker stresses that this cosmic disturbance is “innocent” (line 11), it’s because he wants to emphasize the passage from periphery to center. This is the same trajectory he’s promising to trace when he returns home at journey’s end. Later in the poem he again insists on the symbolic importance of the center. He describes his lover as “the fixed foot” (line 27) of a compass, which holds the center of the circle while the speaker “obliquely run[s]” (line 34) along its circumference. As the speaker notes in the final stanza, it’s precisely his lover’s “firmness” at the center that will enable him to “make[] my circle just” (line 35).

Technical Language

Throughout “Valediction” Donne uses technical language derived from a variety of Renaissance sciences. The first technical language in the poem appears the third stanza (lines 9–12):

     Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,
        Men reckon what it did, and meant;    
     But trepidation of the spheres,
        Though greater far, is innocent.

Whereas the first two lines reference earthquakes, and hence the science of geology, the last two lines shift to the language of astronomy. Today the term trepidation means “agitation” and “apprehensiveness.” In Donne’s time, however, this was also a technical term derived from the Greek model of the universe, which consisted of nested spheres. Disturbances that passed through these spheres caused “trepidation.” In the next three stanzas, the speaker nods to the language of alchemy. The first nod comes when he mentions “those things which elemented [love]” (line 16)—where elemented references the process whereby elements form chemical reactions. Later, in line 24, the speaker mentions gold, which is a symbolically important element in alchemical lore. Finally, the speaker’s technical language shifts to the disciplines of geometry and cartography in the last three stanzas. The speaker describes himself as his lover as “twin compasses” (line 26). This phrase refers to a tool used by geometers and mapmakers to draw precise—that is, “just” (line 35)—arcs and circles.

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