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In 1611, John Donne wrote A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning to his wife, Anne More Donne, to comfort her while he was in France conducting government business and she remained home in Mitcham, England, about seven miles from London. The title says, in?essence, When we part, we must not mourn. Valediction is derived from the Latin verb valedicere, meaning to say farewell. (Another English word derived from the same Latin verb is valedictorian, referring to a student scholar who delivers a farewell address at a graduation ceremony.) The poem then explains that a maudlin show of emotion would cheapen their love, reduce it to the level of the ordinary and mundane. Their love, after all, is transcendent, heavenly. Other husbands and wives who know only physical, earthly love, weep and sob when they separate for a time because they dread the loss of physical closeness. But because Donne and his wife have a spiritual, as well as physical, dimension to their love, they will never really be apart, he says, for their souls will remain united杄ven though their bodies are separated杣ntil he returns to England.???? John and Anne More Donne? John Donne (1572-1631) was one of Englands greatest and most innovative poets. He worked for a time as secretary to Sir Thomas Edgerton, the Keeper of the Great Seal of England. When he fell in love with Anne More (1584-1617), the niece of Edgertons second wife, he knew Edgerton and Anns father朣ir George More, Chancellor of the Garter杦ould disapprove of their marriage. Nevertheless, he married her anyway, in 1601, the year she turned 17. As a result, he lost his job and was jailed for a brief time. Life was hard for them over the next decade, but in 1611 Sir Robert Drury befriended him and took Donne on a diplomatic mission with him to France and other countries. Donnes separation from his wife at this time provided him the occasion for writing A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. Anne bore him twelve children杅ive of whom died very young or