The Built Body
George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1611 until his death in 1633, offers readers a detailed paraphrase of the book of Job. In the passage selected here, he expands upon Job 10.8-10.13, with the biblical verses (from the King James Bible) reproduced in the margin (in charmingly mangled form in 10.10). Abbot’s version emphasises the idea of man’s body as being built by God, and vulnerable to his will.
| 8. For I am no stranger to thee, but thine own very workmanship, even every part and portion of me from top to toe is both created and framed by thee, and none but thee. And yet (strange to consider) for all these reasons to the contrary, thou thus destroyest mee. | 8. Thine hands have made me, and fashioned mee together round about; yet thou dost destroy me. |
| 9. But I beseech thee remember that as I am the worke of thine hands; so againe, of what matter thou hast made mee; how that originally I am but clay, and what honour and event canst thou expect to follow upon thy fighting against such a worme with these thy omnipotent weapons, but to turne dust into dust? | 9. Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, and wilt thou bring me into dust againe? |
| 10. And as in Adam I am but clay, so alas, thou knowest, how in my selfe I am framed by thee, of a weake and imperfect substance, to wit, the liquid seed of mine immediate parents. | 10. Hast thou not powred me out as milke, and cruddled* mee like cheese? *‘curdled’ in KJV |
| 11. From whence, indeed, by thy wisdome and power thou hast made to proceed skin and flesh as clothing to every part of my body, and an orderly juncture of bones and sinewes. | 11. Thou hast clothed mee with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinewes. |
| 12. In which fabricke of my body thus composed in the wombe, thou hast further magnified thy selfe by adding a reasonable soule thereunto, with all requisit & favourable accommodations for my life and well-being, which very life and soule, as thou only gavest it, so also hast thou alone hitherto preserved it by thy providence and good grace; for it long ere this had been inanimated, hadst not thou kept it alive, by thy carefull preservation, sweet influences, and often visitations of my spirit which thou hast made me sensible of. | 12. Thou hast granted me life, and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit. |
| 13. And therfore I know, that however thou seemest outwardly to deale with me, yet thou art secretly mindfull of this fabricke, which thou hast thus built, and that this my spirit is especially pretious with thee. | 13. And these things hast thou hid In thine heart: I know that this is with thee. |
Shakespeare’s sonnet, transcribed here from its first printing in 1609, asks the reader to reflect upon her own mortality. The soul is described as the centre of the speaker’s “earth,” playing with ideas of the shape and substance of the world but also with the body as dust or clay. The body which sustains the speaker rebels against him, prompting him to ask why he spends so much on his bodily exterior (imagined as the “outward walls” of a “fading mansion”), whilst neglecting his soul. Rather than fattening a body which will only go to feed worms, the sonnet suggests, both speaker and reader should starve their bodies in order that their souls may thrive.
- POore soule the center of my sinfull earth,
- My sinfull earth these rebbell powres that thee array,
- Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth
- Painting thy outward walls so costlie gay?
- Why so large cost hauing so short a lease,
- Dost thou vpon thy fading mansion spend?
- Shall wormes inheritors of this excesse
- Eate vp thy charge? is this thy bodies end?
- Then soule liue thou vpon thy seruants losse,
- And let that pine to aggravat thy store;
- Buy tearmes divine in selling houres of drosse:
- Within be fed, without be rich no more,
- So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
- And death once dead, ther's no more dying then,