27.12.2013 Views

Jesse Sharpe PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

Jesse Sharpe PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

Jesse Sharpe PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

‘Looke Downe to Heaven’ 218<br />

heavens, between the idealised and the real. The imagery is continuously trying to<br />

overcome the reality of their existence as saltwater falling from the eyes of a prostitute.<br />

Crashaw begins in an overwhelming excitement. The first stanza sets the tone that this<br />

‘Weeper’ is no ordinary mortal. As we continue we find the poet stating that ‘Heavens thy<br />

faire Eyes bee, | Heavens of ever-falling stars’. (7-8) And as they are ‘Heavens’, the poet<br />

quickly realises his mistake in associating them with a fallen woman, so she begins to be<br />

forgotten, and her eyes of heaven shed their tears up to their rightful place:<br />

It is not for our Earth and us,<br />

To shine in things so pretious.<br />

Upwards thou dost weepe,<br />

Heavens bosome drinks the gentle streame.<br />

Where th’ milky rivers meet,<br />

Thine Crawles above and is the Creame.<br />

Heaven, of such faire floods as this,<br />

Heaven the Christall Ocean is. (17-24)<br />

The tears of Magdalene are too good for this world, in fact they are not even temporal<br />

matter issued from her eyes. They are transfigured into divine materials. And in this,<br />

though the person of Magdalene begins to drop away, there are indicators that she too is<br />

being transfigured along with her tears. Her eyes have already been declared ‘Heavens’,<br />

but with her fallen body, her profession as a prostitute, we see her breasts, and their<br />

issuance being redeemed in a subtle manner. Her tears become the ‘Creame’ that ‘Crawles<br />

above’ ‘Where th’ milky rivers meet’. And these are consumed by ‘Heavens bosome’, in

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!