Study Questions on "The Indifferent"

NOTE: Donne is using the word "Indifferent" in its oldest meaning, not in the modern sense of "having no particular interest or sympathy; unconcerned" or the modern sense of "neither good nor bad; mediocre." If you are not sure what that oldest meaning is, you can find it in the Oxford English Dictionary, available online via the EWU library.

1. What message is conveyed by line #8?
2. In line #9, what is the meaning of the word "true"?
3. In line #10, what is the "vice"? And what is the joke expressed by this line?
4. What did "your mothers" (line #11) do?
5. Why would "a fear that men are true torment you?"
6. In line #15, what does the word "know" mean?
7. How can it be true that the speaker, a man, "came to travail thorough you [a woman]"? (I think there are two correct answers to this question.)
8. In line #18, in what sense is the word "subject" used?
9. In line #21, what does the "this" refer to?
10. Why is "dangerous constancy" (line 25) dangerous?
11. What is the main difference in thought between this poem and Ovid, Amores 2.4?
12. What characteristics of metaphysical poetry, as defined by Helen Gardner, can you find in this poem?