Southwell: The Circumcision

The Circumcision 1500. Workshop of Bellini. National Gallery.CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

The head is launc't to work the bodies cure
With angring salve it smartes to heale our wounde
To faltlesse son from all offences pure
The falty vassalls scourges do redounde
The judge is cast the guilty to acquite
The sonne defac'd to lend the starre his light

The veyne of life distilleth droppes of grace
Our rock gives yssue to an heavenly springe
Teares from his eyes blood runes nfrom wounded place
Which showers to heaven of joy a harvest bringe
This sacred deaw lett Angells gather upp
Such daynty droppes best fitt their nectared cupp.

With weeping eyes his mother reu'd his smart
If bloode from him, teares rann from her as fast
The knife that cutt his fleshe did perce her hart [15]
The payne that Jesus felt did Marye tast
His life and hers hunge by one fatall twiste
Noe blow that hitt the sonne the mother mist.

Notes

[l1] the head...the bodies cure: Christ is the head and we are the body.

[17] And he is before all, and by him all things consist. [18] And he is the head of the body, the church [Colossians 1]

His blood will be our redemption, the cure of the body. Perhaps it is worth recalling another's head, a reference to Satan and his horde of demons and minions:

[15] I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. [Genesis 3]

[l1] launc't: lanced. To lance: To pierce with or as with a lance or a lancet; to cut, gash, slit. Also, to slit open; to open. Obsolete exc. poet. The word derives from the Latin lancea which is found in the Chapter 19 of St John's Gospel. Christ is cut at the beginning of the Gospels and also at the very end, after His death on the cross:

 [34] sed unus militum lancea latus ejus aperuit, et continuo exivit sanguis et aqua.
 [34] But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water.

RS refers to this image of 'blood and water' throughout this poem. We are called to meditate upon the blood and watery tears of Christ during his circumcision; the water and wine of the first miracle at Cana; the water and wine at the first Mass during the Last Supper; the bloody sweat of His agony in the garden; the blood and finally water shed by our Redeemer during His passion and crucifixion; the wine and water of the Mass.

[l2] angring: angry -  inflamed, smarting, as a sore. salve: a healing ointment for application to wounds or sores. 'salve' derives originally from roots meaning butter, oil or balm. It also calls to mind 'salvation' and 'Saviour'.

[l3] sonne: Mary's son, without fault, free from stain of sin.

[l4] vassals: 'vassal' - a base or abject person; a slave common Elizabethan use. Fallen man became a slave to the evil one through sin. The Saviour will suffer in His flesh, the scourges man deserves in order to redeem him. The circumcision looks forward to the scourging at the pillar 33 years later.

[l5] cast: condemned. See eg, 1567   J. Jewel Def. Apol. Churche Eng. (1611) 107   Thinke you, he would determine matters, before he knew them: So might he cast Christ, and quit Barabbas.

[l5] acquite: To pay the debt of and free (a debtor who has been held in prison); to ransom (a person); (also occasionally) to redeem (a thing). Obsolete.

The sense of the line then becomes: Christ, who will come again to judge the living and the dead, is condemned in order through His passion and death to acquit guilty mankind.

[l6] The sonne: the sun, as in the Sun of Justice. God Almighty, the supreme being, permits Himself to have His glory seem to be diminished in order that His light may lead poor creatures unto salvation from sin and show them the way to Heaven.

[l8] rock: A reference to the rock struck by Moses to save his people from death and enable them to make their way to the promised land [Numbers 20]. This rock was a figure of Christ, and the water that issued out from the rock, of his precious blood, the source of all our good.

Mateo Cerezo. 1664-1665. Museo de Burgos

[l9]: The syntax here permits more than one sense. Perhaps the primary sense is: the showers of tears and blood (l8) bring to Heaven a harvest of joy. The water and blood flowing from Christ during His passion cause new life to spring from the earth like plants watered by showers of rain. The new life is the life of grace in souls no longer in thrall to sin. The waters of baptism mean that a man is born again to a new life:

[3] Jesus ... said to him: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.[John 3]

Many artists have represented angels collecting the 'sacred dew', the precious blood from the crucified Christ, as  described in lines11-12. Cerezo's Cristo de la Sangre (left) is one example.



[l13] reu'd: rued.

[l15] did perce her hart: When Jesus was presented in the Temple at Jerusalem, Simeon prophesied to Mary that she would experience great sorrow:

Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; [35] And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed. [Luke 2]

[l17] twiste: The continuation or course of life figured as a thread.  Obsolete.
1568   T. Howell Arbor of Amitie f. 4   For thin is twist or fatall threed, on mortall wheele so spoon.
A further sense signified here: an intimate union or connection.

[l18] miste: missed. RS's English syntax reflects his expertise in Latin. Here is but one of many examples of a verb ('missed') where 'the mother' could be either the subject or the direct object.

Coda: Circumcision and Baptism

St. Thomas holds that circumcision was a figure of baptism. He gives three reasons why the organ of generation rather than any other was to be circumcised:

• Abraham was to be blessed in his seed;
• The rite was to take away original sin, which comes by generation;
• It was to restrain concupiscence, which is found especially in the generative organs (III, Q. lxx, a. 3).

According to his teaching, as baptism remits original sin and actual sins committed before its reception, so circumcision remitted both, but ex opere operantis, ie, by the faith of the recipient, or, in the case of infants, by the faith of the parents.