Herbert and the Unveiling of Diana: Stanza Three of "Vanitie" (I)

Abstract

Unlike the works of Donne and Jonson. the poetry of George Herbert tends to reveal a limited and casual acquaintance with alchemy. Scattered references to the art that occur in The Temple are, though precise and effective, usually uncomplex and obviously derived from commonplaces of alchemical thought The Sinner complains, tor example, that in comparison to the "quarries of pil'd vanities" within his heart, the quantity of "quintessence" and "good extract" is distressingly small; Christ's death "calcined" the speaker's heart to dust, but the promise of its transmutation into gold is contained in His resurrection; the Christian's recognition of his obligation to God is both purifying "tincture" and "the famous stone / That turneth all to gold"; and, similarly, the Virgin Mary is figured forth as "the holy mine, whence came the gold, / The great restorative for all decay / In young and old."1 In contrast to such familiar and non-specialized uses of alchemical ideas, the imagery of the third stanza of "Vanitie" (I) appears to be based on an obscure and previously unnoticed figure which nonetheless occurs frequently in seventeenth-century alchemical and medical treatises as well as in works calling for general educational reform: