monkeys and the descendants of Adam

[ursula]

I'm used to the concepts "all human beings are descended from Adam and Eve" and "human ancestors had sex with monkeys" being presented as mutually exclusive. Apparently John Donne didn't think so. "The Progresse of the Soul" is a satire which follows the reincarnations of a soul which begins as the apple in the Garden of Eden:


XLVI.

It quickened next a toyfull Ape, and so
Gamesome it was, that it might freely goe
From tent to tent, and with the children play,
His organs now so like theirs hee doth finde,
That why he cannot laugh, and speake his minde,
He wonders. Much with all, most he doth stay
With Adams fift daughter Siphatecia
Doth gaze on her, and, where she passeth, passe,
Gathers her fruits, and tumbles on the grasse,
And wisest of that kinde, the first true lover was.



XLVII.

He was the first that more desir’d to have
One then another; first that ere did crave
Love by mute signes, and had no power to speake;
First that could make love faces, or could doe
The valters sombersalts, or us’d to wooe
With hoiting gambolls, his owne bones to breake
To make his mistresse merry; or to wreake
Her anger on himselfe. Sinnes against kinde
They easily doe, that can let feed their minde
With outward beauty, beauty they in boyes and beasts do find.



XLVIII.

By this misled, too low things men have prov’d,
And too high; beasts and angels have beene lov’d;
This Ape, though else through-vaine, in this was wise,
He reach’d at things too high, but open way
There was, and he knew not she would say nay;
His toyes prevaile not, likelier meanes he tries,
He gazeth on her face with teare-shot eyes,
And up lifts subtly with his russet pawe
Her kidskinne apron without feare or awe
Of Nature; Nature hath no gaole, though she hath law.



XLIX.

First she was silly and knew not what he ment,
That vertue, by his touches, chaft and spent,
Succeeds an itchie warmth, that melts her quite,
She knew not first, now cares not what he doth,
And willing halfe and more, more then halfe loth,
She neither puls nor pushes, but outright
Now cries, and now repents; when Tethlemite
Her brother, enterd, and a great stone threw
After the Ape, who thus prevented, flew,
This house thus batter’d downe, the Soule possest a new.



L.

And whether by this change she lose or win,
She comes out next, where the Ape would have gone in,
Adam and Eve had mingled bloods, and now
Like Chimiques equall fires, her temperate wombe
Had stew’d and form’d it: and part did become
A spungie liver, that did richly allow,
Like a free conduit, on a high hils brow,
Life keeping moisture unto every part;
Part hardned it selfe to a thicker heart,
Whose busie furnaces lifes spirits do impart.



LI.

Another part became the well of sense,
The tender well-arm’d feeling braine, from whence,
Those sinowie strings which do our bodies tie,
Are raveld out; and fast there by one end,
Did this Soule limbes, these limbes a soule attend;
And now they joyn’d; keeping some quality
Of every past shape, she knew treachery,
Rapine, deceit, and lust, and ills enow
To be a woman. Themech she is now,
Sister and wife to Caine, Caine that first did plow.



LII.

Who ere thou beest that read’st this sullen Writ,
Which just so much courts thee, as thou dost it,
Let me arrest thy thoughts; wonder with mee,
Why plowing, building, ruling and the rest,
Or most of those arts, whence our lives are blest,
By cursed Cains race invented be,
And blest Seth vext us with Astronomie,
Ther’s nothing simply good, nor ill alone,
Of every quality comparison,
The onely measure is, and judge, opinion.