Today’s word of the day, courtesy of the Words Coach (https://www.wordscoach.com/dictionary), is valediction. Pronounced / ˌvæl ɪˈdɪk ʃən / (although I think that I would pronounce it / ˌvæl əˈdɪk ʃən /, with a schwa in the second syllable instead of the “short I”), a valediction is “an act of bidding farewell or taking leave” or “an utterance, oration, or the like, given in bidding farewell or taking leave; valedictory” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/valediction).

The word first appears in English around “1610s, from past-participle stem of Latin valedicere ;bid farewell, take leave,’ from vale ‘farewell!,’ second person singular imperative of Valere ‘be well, be strong’ (from PIE root *wal- ‘to be strong’) + dicere ‘to say’ (from PIE root *deik- ‘to show,’ also ‘pronounce solemnly’). Compare benediction, jurisdiction, malediction” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=valediction).

You may be familiar with the word valedictory; it means “bidding goodbye; saying farewell” or “of or relating to an occasion of leave-taking” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/valedictory). And of course, the person who delivers the valedictory is the valedictorian, a word which means “a student, usually the one ranking highest academically in a school graduating class, who delivers the valedictory at the commencement exercises” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/valedictorian). So the person is valedictorian not because of high grades but because they are the person who says goodbye. And the person who finishes second in the class is sometimes called the salutatorian, and they might deliver the salutatory, which is “an address which welcomes those attending commencement exercises” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=salutatory).

The first person to use the word valediction is not known for sure, but it may have been the English poet and clergyman John Donne. Donne’s is a remarkable story. He was a well-educated young man despite his having been born to a Roman Catholic family. In addition to private schooling when he was younger, he studied for three years at Cambridge and later at Lincoln’s Inn, which was where one studied to be a lawyer. He also traveled around Europe and participated in some battles against Spain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne).

“By the age of 25 he was well prepared for the diplomatic career he appeared to be seeking. He was appointed chief secretary to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Thomas Egerton, and was established at Egerton’s London home, York House, Strand, close to the Palace of Whitehall, then the most influential social centre in England” (ibid.). He was young, good looking, fairly well off, witty, and very intelligent. And then things went south.

“Donne fell in love with Egerton’s niece Anne More. They were secretly married just before Christmas in 1601, against the wishes of both Egerton and Anne’s father George More, who was Lieutenant of the Tower. Upon discovery, this wedding ruined Donne’s career, getting him dismissed and put in Fleet Prison, along with the Church of England priest Samuel Brooke, who married them, and his brother Christopher, who stood in, in the absence of George More, to give Anne away. Donne was released shortly thereafter when the marriage was proved to be valid, and he soon secured the release of the other two. Walton tells us that when Donne wrote to his wife to tell her about losing his post, he wrote after his name: John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done” (ibid.). But it proved to be a happy marriage,

Donne wrote poetry, particularly for wealthy patrons, and he wrote some anti-Catholic polemics, having converted to the Church of England. He wanted to be welcomed to the court, but King James wanted him to take holy orders. Donne eventually became a prominent cleric, the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. One of those wealthy patrons was Sir Robert Drury, and in 1611 or 1612, he went on a diplomatic trip with Drury to the continent, and it was in preparation for that journey that he wrote “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.” Here it is:

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
    And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
    “Now his breath goes,” and some say, “No.” [1]                   

So let us melt, and make no noise,
    No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
    To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears ;
    Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
    Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
    —Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, ’cause it doth remove
    The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
    That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
    Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
    Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
    Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
    As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show
    To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
    Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
    And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
    Like th’ other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
    And makes me end where I begun.

I won’t try to explicate the poem for you; you can look it up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Valediction:_Forbidding_Mourning). But I will say that comparing one’s relationship with one’s wife to a compass is one of the most unusual extended metaphors I have ever seen, and yet it is beautiful and romantic.

It also seems to really fit with the etymology of our word, valediction. I say that because the vale part of the word goes back to a root that means “to be strong”: in a sense, the word seems to suggest that one is telling the other, at the moment of departure, to stay strong, which is exactly what Donne is saying to his wife.

Today’s image is an interesting use of a portrait of Donne by a website called Readers Meet (https://readersmeet.com/blogs/how-john-donne-is-a-metaphysical-poet-a-wholesome-exploration/). You can read the webpage if you want to learn what it means by a metaphysical poet.