Herbert's Fool for Christ's Sake: A Note on "Josephs coat"

Abstract

Herbert's Fool for Christ's Sake: A Note on "Josephs coat" by Mary Ellen Rickey Josephs coat Wounded I sing, tormented I indite, Thrown down I fall into a bed, and rest: Sorrow hath chang'd its note: such is his will, Who changeth all things, as him pleaseth best. For well he knows, if but one grief and smart Among my many had his full career, Sure it would carrie with it ev'n my heart, And both would runne untili they found a biere To fetch the bodle; both being due to grief. But he hath spoll'd the race; and giv'n to anguish One of Joyes coats, ticlng it with relief To linger in me, and together languish. I live to shew his power, who once did bring My joyes to weep, and now my griefs to sing.f "Josephs coat" ¡s generally acknowledged a rich poem. As F.E. Hutchinson has pointed out, its title signals life's variegation of high pleasure and pain, along with the unique ability of the Christian to transform all of his checkered and discordant experiences into music.2 One need not reject this reading to agree with Rosemond Tuve's typological interpretation , to see that Herbert used the traditional association of Jacob's son's torn and bloodied coat with the Son's crucified body, and to agree that this persona asserts the achievement of deepest joy to be realizable only through the transfiguration of deepest anguish.5 Joseph Summers complements these insights in his observations of the sonnet's universality— that without the title it might be construed as acknowledgement of inextricable fate, but that with the title, it must be seen as assertion of the mixture of joy and sorrow as particular signs of God's love. I find a further dimension in the poem. In its last line, four key words are italicized. Invariably, italics in The Temple in57 Mary Ellen Rickey dicate either proper names or quotations.5 Those of "Josephs coat" mark a near-quotation of one of the Fool's songs in King Lear. Upon his first appearance (I. iv), Shakespeare's Fool undertakes to instruct his master in the differences between the sweet and the bitter fool, or between himself and the person who has counseled Lear to give away his possessions: The sweet and bitter fool Will presently appear, The one in motley here The other found out there. (II. 137-140)· When Lear asks how anyone can be tuneful in the throes of misfortune, he receives the reply that while the unnatural daughters make sourness of plenty, the sweet fool makes music of adversity. It is at this point that the Fool Interrupts his own prose to break into the song which is echoed Ih the conclusion of Herbert's poem: Then they for sudden joy did weep, And I for sorrow sung___ (II. 166-177) "Josephs coat," then, denotes not only the parti-colored nature of life, and the Old Testament type of Christ's body torn to give joy, but also the motley of the fool enabled, through imitation of Christ, to change from weeping in joy to singing in grief. It denotes, even more specifically, the distinguishing mark of those who are fools for Christ's sake, the apostles which St. Paul describes as capable of glorifying all adversity: We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised. Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place; and labor, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we intreat. (I Corinthians 4: 10-13a)7 Such a one is the speaker of "Josephs coat," who, using the very rhetorical patterns of this Pauline passage, wounded, can sing, and tormented, can write. Through his assumption of the motley of joy, he can attain the New Testament blessing of rest. He may even be a Franciscan fool. In his youth St. Francis wore a parti-colored minstrel's suit...