Donne: Ecstasy

The poem, “The Ecstasy” deals with John Donne’s metaphysic love poem. ‘Ecstasy’ means to the trans-like state the lovers have entered into. Greek word, ‘ekstasis’ means ‘going forth’
The poet and his beloved meet near a heap of earth that has swelled up like a pillow on the bed to enable the reclining heads of violet flowers to rest on it. The two lovers, each thinks of the other as the best person in the world
They were holding firmly the hands of each other. Their eyes gaze fixed into each others eye. It appeared as if their eyes were strung together on a double thread.
Their hands were firmly clasped together and thereby they are mingled each other. Their eyes reflected their images and this was the only fusion of their love.
When two equally powerful enemies fight each other their fate holds the victory in a state of balance, undecided which way to turn the scale, in the same way, their souls, which had left their bodies to sublimate to a state of bliss, hung between the two of them uncertain of their future.
While their souls communicated with each other in this situation, they lay quiet and motionless like statues built over the monument of the dead. Their bodies remain sitting in the same positions without movement or speech through out the day.
If any stranger, whose soul had been purified by a similar process had stood beside their souls, and had been capable of understanding the language of the souls his purified mind would have forgotten the existence of the body and enlightened and sharpened the faculties of his mind, such a soul may not have understood the conversation of their souls because both their souls meant and spoke the same thing, but that soul might have undergone a fresh process of purification and felt more refined than before.
Their souls have reached a state of ecstasy which revealed to them what they did not know earlier. They realized that love was not sex-experience. They discovered the first time that love really is a matter of the soul and not of the body.
Souls are made of various elements of which they have no knowledge. It is love which brings together two souls and makes them one, though, in reality, the two have separate existence.
When a violet plant is transplanted (removed from one place and replanted in a better soil) it shows a marked improvement in its color, size and strength, After transplantation it almost doubles itself and also grows more rapidly.
In a similar manner when love brings two souls together it imparts to them a great zeal and life. The stronger (or noble soul) supplements (or removes) the deficiencies of the lesser soul, Love also removes the feeling of loneliness felt by single souls.
As a result of the union of two souls, so to say, a new soul comes into being. This new soul knows of what elements the two souls are composed. It makes us realize that the substances of which they are made are not subject to any change.
They have so far and so long ignored their bodies, The bodies are their, but they are distinct from the bodies. They are souls; they are of spiritual substance; they are like heavenly planet while their bodies are the spheres in which they move.
They are thankful to their bodies, because they brought them together in the first instance. Their bodies surrendered their sense in order to enable their love to be spiritual. Their bodies are not impure matter. But they are like an alloy (an alloy when mixed with gold makes it tougher and brighter). The body is useful agent for holy love.
The influence of heavenly bodies on man comes through the air. So when a soul wishes to love another soul, it can contact it through the medium of the body. Hence a union of souls may need the contact of bodies as the first step.
Just as the blood which is an important constituent of their bodies labors to produce the essence (the semen) which helps in uniting two bodies, in the same way a spiritual love produces a kind of ecstasy which binds the two souls together. This subtle knot of love may not be fully understood.
Just as blood produces elements which bring about the union of sense and soul which constitute a man, in the same way the lover’s soul leaves some linking elements like the sense and the bodily faculties to express their love. The sense and faculty of the body come to the aid of the soul, which is like a prisoner. Just as a prince who is imprisoned cannot gain freedom unless somebody comes to his aid, in the same way the sense of the body go to the aid of the lover’s soul and secure freedom for it.
They must now turn to their bodies so that weak men may have a test of high love. Love sublimates the soul but it is through the medium of the body that love is first experienced. The body is an important as the soul in the matter of love.
If some lover like them has heard this discourse (made by two souls with one experience) let him look carefully at them. After their pure love when they go back to their bodies he will find no change in them because they will not revert to physical sex again.
More information:
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/ecstacy.htm