Nosce Teipsum: That the Soule is a Thing Subsisting by it Selfe Without the Body

She is a substance, and a reall thing,
Which hath it selfe an actuall working might;
Which neither from the Senses' power doth spring,
Nor from the bodie's humors, tempred right.

She is a vine, which doth no propping need,
To make her spread her selfe or spring vpright;
She is a starre, whose beames doe not proceed
From any sunne, but from a natiue light.

For when she sorts things present with things past,
And thereby things to come doth oft foresee;
When she doth doubt at first, and chuse at last,
These acts her owne, without her body bee.

When of the deaw, which the eye and eare doe take
From flowers abroad, and bring into the braine,
She doth within both waxe and hony make:
This worke is her's, this is her proper paine.

When she from sundry acts, one skill doth draw,
Gathering from diuers fights one art of warre,
From many cases like, one rule of Law;
These her collections, not the Senses are.

When in th' effects she doth the causes know,
And seeing the stream, thinks wher the spring doth rise;
And seeing the branch, conceiues the root below;
These things she views without the bodie's eyes.

When she, without a Pegasus, doth flie
Swifter then lightning's fire from East to West,
About the Center and aboue the skie,
She trauels then, although the body rest.

When all her works she formeth first within,
Proportions them, and sees their perfect end,
Ere she in act does anie part begin;
What instruments doth then the body lend?

When without hands she doth thus castles build,
Sees without eyes, and without feet doth runne;
When she digests the world, yet is not fil'd:
By her owne power these miracles are done.

When she defines, argues, diuides, compounds,
Considers vertue, vice, and generall things,
And marrying diuers principles and grounds,
Out of their match a true conclusion brings.

These actions in her closet all alone,
(Retir'd within her selfe) she doth fulfill;
Vse of her bodie's organs she hath none,
When she doth vse the powers of Wit and Will.

Yet in the bodie's prison so she lies,
As through the bodie's windowes she must looke,
Her diuers powers of sense to exercise,
By gath'ring notes out of the World's great book.

Nor can her selfe discourse or iudge of ought,
But what the Sense collects and home doth bring;
And yet the power of her discoursing thought,
From these collections, is a diuers thing.

For though our eyes can nought but colours see,
Yet colours giue them not their powre of sight;
So, though these fruits of Sense her obiects bee,
Yet she discernes them by her proper light.

The workman on his stuffe his skill doth show,
And yet the stuffe giues not the man his skill;
Kings their affaires do by their seruants know,
But order them by their owne royall will.

So, though this cunning mistresse and this queene,
Doth, as her instrument, the Senses vse,
To know all things that are felt, heard, or seene,
Yet she her selfe doth onely iudge and chuse:

Euen as our great wise Empresse that now raignes
By soueraigne title ouer sundry Lands;
Borrowes in meane affaires her subiects paines,
Sees by their eyes, and writeth by their hands;

But things of waight and consequence indeed,
Her selfe doth in her chamber them debate;
Where all her Counsellers she doth exceed
As farre in iudgement, as she doth in State.

Or as the man whom she doth now aduance,
Vpon her gracious mercy-seat to sit;
Doth common things, of course and circumstance,
To the reports of common men commit:

But when the cause it selfe must be decreed,
Himselfe in person, in his proper Court,
To graue and solemne hearing doth proceed,
Of euery proofe and euery by-report.

Then, like God's angell he pronounceth right,
And milke and hony from his tongue doth flow;
Happie are they that still are in his sight,
To reape the wisedome which his lips doe sow.

Right so the Soule, which is a lady free,
And doth the iustice of her State maintaine;
Because the senses ready seruants be,
Attending nigh about her Court, the braine:

By them the formes of outward things she learnes,
For they returne into the fantasie,
What euer each of them abroad discernes,
And there inrole it for the Minde to see.

But when she sits to iudge the good and ill,
And to discerne betwixt the false and true;
She is not guided by the Senses' skill,
But doth each thing in her owne mirrour view.

Then she the Senses checks, which oft do erre,
And euen against their false reports decrees;
And oft she doth condemne what they preferre,
For with a power aboue the Sense, she sees.

Therefore no Sense the precious ioyes conceiues,
Which in her priuate contemplations bee;
For then the rauish't spirit the Senses leaues,
Hath her owne powers, and proper actions free.

Her harmonies are sweet, and full of skill,
When on the Bodie's instrument she playes;
But the proportions of the wit and will,
Those sweete accords, are euen the angel's layes.

These tunes of Reason are Amphion's lyre,
Wherewith he did the Thebane citie found;
These are the notes wherewith the heauenly quire,
The praise of Him which made the heauen doth sound.

Then her selfe-being nature shines in this,
That she performes her noblest works alone;
"The worke, the touch-stone of the nature is,
"And by their operations, things are knowne.