The Reprisall
The Inadequacy of Human Devotion
The speaker acknowledges that even dying for Christ falls short of His Passion and prays for innocence to offer a free condition.
I've considered it, and I find there's no matching your mighty Passion: for though I die for you, I still fall short; my sins deserve the condemnation.1 Oh, make me innocent, so that I may offer a free and disentangled condition. And yet your wounds still defy my efforts, because by your death I die for you.✦2
The Astonishing Surpassing of Christ
The speaker exclaims in astonishment that Christ's eternal glory and grief outstrip any human effort, leaving no room for personal conquest.
Ah! Wasn't it enough that you already outstripped me with your eternal glory?3 Couldn't you at least allow me the sad conquests of grief—but must you overthrow me in every victory?4
The Conquest Through Confession
The speaker resolves to find victory through confession and, in Christ, to overcome the old self that once fought against God.
Yet through confession I'll achieve the conquest. Though I can do nothing against you, in you I will overcome the man who once fought against you.5
Read the original English
I Have consider'd it, and finde There is no dealing with thy mighty passion: For though I die for thee, I am behinde; My sinnes deserve the condemnation.
O make me innocent, that I May give a disentangled state and free: And yet thy wounds still my attempts defie, For by thy death I die for thee.
Ah! was it not enough that thou By thy eternall glorie didst outgo me? Couldst thou not griefs sad conquests me allow, But in all vict'ries overthrow me?
Yet by confession will I come Into the conquest. Though I can do nought Against thee, in thee I will overcome The man, who once against thee fought.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rom.6.8;Gal.2.20;2Cor.5.14-2Cor.5.15 — Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. Gal.2.20 — I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 2Cor.5.14 — For the love of Christ compels us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 2Cor.5.15 — and he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
Notes
- 1 ↩"Passion" keeps Herbert's sense of Christ's suffering and death, not ordinary emotion; "no dealing with" means no bargaining, matching, or settling accounts with it.
- 2 ↩"give a disentangled state and free" is rendered as offering a free, unentangled condition of life/soul before God (free of sin’s bonds), not as a legal or political state.
- 3 ↩Source 'outgo me' means surpass / leave behind / go beyond; rendered as 'outstripped me' to keep the race/contest force without archaism.
- 4 ↩'griefs sad conquests' is taken as genitive: the mournful victories won through grief/suffering. The speaker asks to keep that path, but Christ has already conquered even there.
- 5 ↩"The man who once fought against you" is the speaker himself—his former rebellious self—not a third party; the victory is over the old self, won only in God.
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