Difficult Poem Interpretted

The Curse

WHOEVER guesses, thinks, or dreams, he knows
Who is my mistress, wither by this curse ;
Him, only for his purse
May some dull whore to love dispose,
And then yield unto all that are his foes ;
May he be scorn'd by one, whom all else scorn,
Forswear to others, what to her he hath sworn,
With fear of missing, shame of getting, torn.

Madness his sorrow, gout his cramps, may he
Make, by but thinking who hath made him such ;
And may he feel no touch
Of conscience, but of fame, and be
Anguish'd, not that 'twas sin, but that 'twas she ;
Or may he for her virtue reverence
One that hates him only for impotence,
And equal traitors be she and his sense.

May he dream treason, and believe that he
Meant to perform it, and confesses, and die,
And no record tell why ;
His sons, which none of his may be,
Inherit nothing but his infamy ;
Or may he so long parasites have fed,
That he would fain be theirs whom he hath bred,
And at the last be circumcised for bread.

The venom of all stepdames, gamesters' gall,
What tyrants and their subjects interwish,
What plants, mine, beasts, fowl, fish,
Can contribute, all ill, which all
Prophets or poets spake, and all which shall
Be annex'd in schedules unto this by me,
Fall on that man ; For if it be a she
Nature beforehand hath out-cursèd me.

Here are three interpretations of this difficult poem from three different people.

First Interpretation
The poem is about a guy who has a mistress, but other guys want her. Since other guys are going after the speakers mistress, she is the curse herself throughout the poem and the cause of many problems. The mistress is a traitor and sleeping with other guys. This is shown in line 19 "His sons, which none of his maybe." At the end of the poem I interpreted it as that the speaker just wants her gone and out of his life.
Second interpretation
Of all the poems by John Donne, this is the most difficult poem I ever read. The poem is titled the curse. It has four stanzas with each stanza having eight lines. The poem has rhyme in all the four stanzas. The poem has consonance, alliteration, imagery and metaphor. Apart from having the structure of a poem, the poem is so difficult to understand. The message in the poem is so hard to decipher. It talks about love for a mistress but I could not get the message in the whole poem because it was too complicated. The different stanzas talk about different things and the transition from one stanza to another makes it even harder to understand the flow of the poem. The poem was written in 1896 with that ancient British literature so the sentence structure is kind of complicated to get which makes it a very difficult poem for me.
Third Interpretation
This poem seems to be discussing a deep resentment towards a woman who has scorned Donne. Considering the idea that this poem was written nearly five hundred years ago, the term mistress may not necessarily mean that this woman was a fling or an affair sort of situation, but rather, that they had a greater commitment to each other that brought forth children. The sense of doubt in her fidelity towards him is in when he mentions in the third stanza, “His sons, which none of his may be,” that he doubts his paternity of the children that have been brought into this world between him and this woman. He discusses how she had brought him a shame to his name, giving him not much but that to carry on to these children. In the first stanza we see two traits about this woman that has the man scowling. Not only has she told others his secrets and lies, but he describes her as a whore only for a man’s money. “Him, only for his purse May some dull whore to love dispose,” demonstrates this gold-digging tendency. She reveals his secrets to ears that he would rather not hear, as we see, “Forswear to others, what to her he hath sworn.” The final stanza seems to bring it more to life. “For if it be a she Nature beforehand hath out-cursed me,” is the final line of the poem, and seems to sum of the idea quickly. For he seems to be saying that by nature, the woman has brought on a sort of curse that he cannot bear, nor can he handle or defeat had it been from a man. Perhaps it is his fascination with the female that he is unable to resist her, and thus, he had found himself in this conundrum. But because of this intertwined complications of love, trust, lust, and deceit, it appears that this relationship with the woman has brought him down to betrayal, defeat, hurt, and essentially, has cursed him.