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

Donne’s Incarnating Words 87
Yet dearely’I love you,’and would be lov’d faine,
But am betroth’d unto your enemie,
Divorce mee,’untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you’enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish mee. (9-14)
Donne finds himself in a betrothed relationship with the Devil, and as the marriage nears,
he calls for God to break the betrothal, the marriage knot or bonds. In this, Donne turns
the idea of the Church as the bride of Christ on its head; Donne is not the Bride of Christ
and is legally engaged to Satan. Although he admits his love for the Trinity, he sees no
way out of the relationship, and so he calls on God, but this call to God does not continue
in a purely legal fashion. Donne wants God to act as a lawyer to free him from his biding
betrothal; however, he asks God to rape him, thereby bringing about an adultery that
would break the bonds of betrothal. It is in the sexual transgression that Donne demands
of God that the incarnational cycle and paradox is found. The pure and holy Trinity must
come down to the sinner’s level, much like Jesus’s incarnational entry into human flesh,
and meet the sinner in his own filth and save him at this level of depravity. It is an
incarnational understanding of salvation in which God must take part in the profane,
physical existence yet remain pure in order that he may purify the sinner who is incapable
of cleansing himself, so that the sinner can ascend to communion with God. Once again, it
is an incarnational cycle, the movement down by the superior in order to lift up the inferior
and the acts of redemption involving the violent and bloody work in and on the body in
order that the body and soul can be purified. In this sonnet Donne demands that he take
part in the violence of the Incarnation, thus guaranteeing his salvation.