Mimi and Eunice: Donne’s Extasie Remixed

Nina Paley originally posted this cartoon as “Bees in Their Bonnets”. But the four stanzas of John Donne’s “The Extasie” work as well, though there is, I suppose, something of a stylistic clash between Paley’s cartoon style and Donne’s poetic style.

From John Donne, “The Extasie”

This ecstasy doth unperplex
    (We said) and tell us what we love;
We see by this, it was not sex;
    We see, we saw not, what did move:

But as all several souls contain
    Mixture of things they know not what,
Love these mix'd souls doth mix again,
    And makes both one, each this, and that.

A single violet transplant,
    The strength, the colour, and the size—
All which before was poor and scant—
    Redoubles still, and multiplies.

When love with one another so
    Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
    Defects of loneliness controls.

Here’s the full poem.