Donne holds a drop of amber up to a window.

What amber lets us see of a bee

John Donne (1572–1631), an English poet and clergyman, addresses one of his verse letters to the Countess of Bedford. He faces a difficulty familiar to anyone drawing a portrait. A face and a posture can be seen. A person’s thoughts are ordinarily visible only to that person. Donne wants to tell his addressee that an inward disposition can be recognized from without. He needs an object that can enclose something and still reveal what lies inside.

Looking through an enclosure

This, as an Amber drop enwraps a Bee,
Covering discovers your quicke Soule […]

– John Donne, To the Countesse of Bedford, 1633, p. 109.[1]

A bee in amber lies beyond the reach of the observer’s hand. The eye can reach it nevertheless. A wing or the outline of the body remains visible exactly where no finger could touch the insect. Donne brings two contrary activities very close together. Covering and discovering happen in the same object and at the same moment. In the following line he names the countess’s face. The image of a translucent brow carries the light in the amber back to the face of the woman he addresses.

The limit of the comparison

The bee has survived in amber because its life came to an end. Donne speaks explicitly of a living soul. His comparison is most exact where it concerns sight through a surface. To extend it into a complete identification would deprive the woman of the very quality he praises. The movement of the poem therefore leads away from the precious material and back to its living addressee. The countess can act, answer and teach others through the conduct they see.