Of British Themis, with no mean applause,
Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws,
Which others at their bar so often wrench,
To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench 5
In mirth that after no repenting draws;
Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause,
And what the Swede intend, and what the French.
To measure life learn thou betimes, and know
Toward solid good what leads the nearest way; 10
For other things mild Heaven a time ordains,
And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day,
And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.
XXII.
TO THE SAME.
Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear,
To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, 5
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied 10
In Liberty's defence, my noble task,
Of which all Europe rings from side to side.
This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask
Content, though blind, had I no better guide.
XXIII.
ON HIS DECEASED WIFE
Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescued from Death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint 5
Purification in the Old Law did save,
And such as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.
Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight 10
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined
So clear as in no face with more delight.
But, oh! as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.
NOTES.
ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.
From his sixteenth year Milton had been wont to write freely in Latin
verse, on miscellaneous poetic themes, sometimes expressing his thoughts
on events of the day, and sometimes addressing letters to his friends on
purely personal matters. From these Latin poems, which therefore in some
sense belong to English literature, we obtain valuable insight into his
course of life and his way of thinking. What Milton wrote in foreign
languages is indispensable for the information it gives us about
himself--its content is important; but as poetry implies a fusing of
content and form into an artistic unity, if one of these elements is
foreign, the result is nondescript and cannot be ranged under the head of
English literature in the strict sense of the term.
It is in one of Milton's own Latin pieces that we find our best
commentary on the Hymn on the Nativity. The sixth Latin Elegy is an
epistle to his intimate college friend, "Charles Diodati making a stay in
the country," the last twelve lines of which may be freely translated as
follows:--
But if you shall wish to know what I am doing,--if indeed you think it
worth your while to know whether I am doing anything at all,--we are
singing the peace-bringing king born of heavenly seed, and the happy ages
promised in the sacred books, and the crying of the infant God lying in a
manger under a poor roof, who dwells with his father in the realms above;
and the starry sky, and the squadrons singing on high, and the gods
suddenly driven away to their own fanes. Those gifts we have indeed given
to the birthday of Christ; that first light brought them to me at dawn.
Thee also they await sung to our native pipes; thou shalt be to me in
lieu of a judge for me to read them to.
This means, of course, that the poet is composing a Christmas Hymn in his
native language. We must note his age at this time,--twenty-one years: he
is a student at Cambridge. The poem remains the great Christmas hymn in
our literature. "The Ode on the Nativity," says Professor Saintsbury, "is
a test of the reader's power to appreciate poetry."
In four stanzas the poet speaks in his own person: he too must, with the
wise men from the east, bring such gifts as he has, to offer to the
Infant God. His offering is the _humble ode_ which follows. We must take
note of the change in the metric form which marks the transition from the
introduction to the ode. In the stanzas of the former the lines all have
five accents, except the last, which has six; while in the latter, four
lines have three accents each, one has four, two have five, and one has
six. Notice also the occasional hypermetric lines, such as line 47.
In connection with Milton's Hymn, read Alfred Domett's _It was the calm
and silent night_.
5. For so the holy sages once did sing. See Par. Lost XII 324.
6. our deadly forfeit should release. Compare Par. Lost III 221, and see
the idea of _releasing a forfeit_ otherwise expressed in the Merchant of
Venice IV 1 24.
10. he wont. This is the past tense of the verb _wont_, meaning to _be
accustomed_. See the present, Par. Lost I 764, and the participle, I 332.
15. thy sacred vein. See _vein_ in the same sense, Par. Lost VI 628.
19. the Sun's team. Compare Comus 95, and read the story of Phaethon in
Ovid's Metamorphoses II 106.
24. prevent them with thy humble ode. See _prevent_ in this sense, in
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar V 1 105, and in Psalm XXI 3.
28. touched with hallowed fire. See Acts II 3. On the meaning of secret,
compare Par. Lost X 32.
41. Pollute is the participle, exactly equivalent to _polluted_.
48. the turning sphere. For poetical purposes Milton everywhere adopts
the popular astronomy of his day, which was based on the ancient, i.e.
the Ptolemaic, or geocentric system of the universe. Copernicus had
already taught the modern, heliocentric theory of the solar system, and
his innovations were not unknown to Milton, who, however, consistently
adheres to the old conceptions. In Milton, therefore, we find the earth
the centre of the visible universe, while the sun, the planets, and the
fixed stars revolve about it in their several _spheres_. These spheres
are nine in number, arranged concentrically, like the coats of an onion,
about the earth, and, if of solid matter, are to be conceived as being of
perfectly transparent crystal. Beginning with the innermost, they present
themselves in the following order: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile. In Par. Lost
III 481, the ninth sphere appears as "that crystalline sphere whose
balance weighs the trepidation talked," and the Primum Mobile, or the
first moved, becomes the tenth and outermost of the series. The last two
spheres contain no stars.
We see, then, what we must understand by the oft-recurring _spheres_ in
Milton's poetry. In the line, _Down through the turning sphere_, however,
the singular _sphere_ is obviously used to mean the whole aggregate of
spheres composing the starry universe.
50. With turtle wing. With the wing of a turtle-dove.
56. The hooked chariot. War chariots sometimes had scythes, or hooks,
attached to their axles. See 2 Maccabees XIII 2.
60. sovran. Milton always uses this form in preference to _sovereign_.
62. the Prince of Light. Note the corresponding epithet applied to Satan,
Par. Lost X 383.
64. The winds, with wonder whist. The word _whist_, originally an
interjection, becomes an adjective, as here and in The Tempest I 2 378.
66. Make three syllables of Oceaen, and make it rhyme with _began_.
68. birds of calm. The birds referred to are doubtless halcyons. Dr.
Murray defines halcyon thus: "A bird of which the ancients fabled that it
bred about the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea,
and that it charmed the wind and waves so that the sea was specially calm
during the period; usually identified with a species of kingfisher, hence
a poetic name of this bird."
71. their precious influence. The word _influence_ is originally a term
of astrology,--"a flowing in, or influent course, of the planets; their
virtue infused into, or their course working on, inferior creatures"
(Skeat, _Etym. Dict._).
73. For all the morning light. As in Burns's "We dare be poor for a'
that," _for_ meaning in spite of.
74. Lucifer. See Par. Lost VII 131-133.
81. As, for _as if_.
86. Or ere the point of dawn. The two words _or ere_ mean simply
_before_, as in Hamlet I 2 147, "A little month, or ere those shoes were
old." _The point of dawn_ imitates the French _le point du jour_.
88. Full little thought they than. _Than_ is an ancient form of _then_,
not wholly obsolete in Milton's day.
89. the mighty Pan. The poet takes the point of view of the shepherds and
uses the name of their special deity.
95. by mortal finger strook. Milton uses the three participle forms,
_strook, struck_, and _strucken_.
98. As all their souls in blissful rapture took. The verb _take_ has here
the same meaning as in Hamlet I 1 163, "no fairy takes nor witch hath
power to charm." Thus also we say, a vaccination takes.
103. Cynthia's seat. See Penseroso 59, and Romeo and Juliet III 5 20.
108. Make the line rhyme properly, giving to union three syllables.
112. The helmed cherubim. See Genesis III 24.
113. The sworded seraphim. See Isaiah VI 2-6.
116. With unexpressive notes, meaning beyond the power of human
expression. So in Lycidas 176; Par. Lost V 595; and in As You Like It,
"the fair, the chaste, and inexpressive she."
119. But when of old the Sons of Morning sung. See Job XXXVIII 7.
124. the weltering waves. Compare Lycidas 13.
125. Ring out, ye crystal spheres. See note, line 48. The elder poetry is
full of the notion that the spheres in their revolutions made music,
which human ears are too gross to hear. See Merchant of Venice V 1 50-65.
136. speckled Vanity. The leopard that confronts Dante in Canto I of
_Hell_ is beautiful with its dappled skin, but symbolizes vain glory.
143. like glories wearing. The adjective _like_ means nothing without a
complement, though the complement sometimes has to be supplied, as in
this instance. Fully expressed the passage would be,--_wearing glories
like those of Truth and Justice_. The _like_ in such a case as this must
be spoken with a fuller tone than when its construction is completely
expressed.
155. those ychained in sleep. The poets, in order to gain a syllable,
long continued to use the ancient participle prefix _y_. See _yclept_,
Allegro 12.
157. With such a horrid clang. See Exodus XIX.
168. The Old Dragon. See Revelation XII 9.
173. Stanzas XIX-XXVI announce the deposition and expulsion of the pagan
deities, and the ruin of the ancient religions. In accordance with his
custom of grouping selected proper names in abundance, thus giving
vividness and concreteness to his story and sonority to his verse, the
poet here illustrates the triumph of the new dispensation by citing the
names of various gods from the Roman, Greek, Syrian, and Egyptian
mythologies.
176. Apollo, the great god, whose oracle was at Delphi, or Delphos.
179. spell, as in Comus 853, and often.
186. Genius. A Latin word, signifying a tutelary or guardian spirit
supposed to preside over a person or place. See Lycidas 183, and
Penseroso 154.
191. The Lars and Lemures. In the Roman mythology these were the spirits
of dead ancestors, worshipped or propitiated in families as having power
for good or evil over the fortunes of their descendants.
194. Affrights the flamens. The Roman flamens were the priests of
particular gods.
195. the chill marble seems to sweat. Many instances of this phenomenon
are reported. Thus Cicero, in his _De Divinatione_, tells us: "It was
reported to the senate that it had rained blood, that the river Atratus
had even flowed with blood, and that the statues of the gods had sweat."
197. Peor and Baaelim. Syrian false gods. See Numbers XXV 3.
199. that twice-battered god of Palestine. See I Samuel V 2.
200. mooned Ashtaroth. See I Kings XI 33.
203. The Lybic Hammon. "Hammon had a famous temple in Africa, where he
was adored under the symbolic figure of a ram."
204. their wounded Thammuz. See Ezekiel VIII 14.
205. sullen Moloch. See Par. Lost I 392-396.
210. the furnace blue. Compare Arcades 52.
212. Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis. Egyptian deities, the latter
figured as having the head of a dog.
213. Nor is Osiris seen. Osiris was the principal god of the Egyptians,
brother and husband of Isis. His highest function was as god of the Nile.
He met his death at the hands of his brother Typhon, a deity of
sterility, by whom he was torn into fourteen pieces. Thereupon a general
lament was raised throughout Egypt. The bull Apis was regarded as the
visible incarnation of Osiris.--_Murray's Manual of Mythology_.
215. the unshowered grass. Remember, this was in Egypt.
223. his dusky eyn. This ancient plural of eye occurs several times in
Shakespeare, as in As You Like It IV 3 50.
240. Heaven's youngest-teemed star. Compare Comus 175.
241. Hath fixed her polished car. _Fix_ has its proper meaning,
_stopped_. The star "came and stood over where the young child was."
ON SHAKESPEARE.
The first edition of the collected works of Shakespeare, known as the
first folio, was published in 1623, when Milton was fifteen years old.
The second Shakespeare folio appeared in 1632. Among the commendatory
verses by various hands prefixed, after the fashion of the time, to the
latter volume, was a little piece of eight couplets, in which some then
unknown rhymer expressed his admiration of the great poet. Collecting his
poems for publication in 1645, Milton included these couplets, gave them
the date 1630, and the title _On Shakespeare_ which they have since borne
in his works. The fact that he wrote the verses two years before their
publication in the Shakespeare folio shows that he did not produce them
to order, for the special occasion. It is interesting to note that Milton
at twenty-two was an appreciative reader of Shakespeare. The lines
themselves give no hint of great poetic genius; they are a fair specimen
of the conventional, labored eulogy in vogue at the time.
4. star-ypointing. To make the decasyllabic verse, the poet takes the
liberty of prefixing to the present participle the _y_ which properly
belongs only to the past.
8. a livelong monument. Instead of _livelong_, the first issue of the
lines, in the Shakespeare folio of 1632, has _lasting_. The change is
Milton's, appearing in his revision of his poems in 1645. Does it seem to
be an improvement?
10-12. and that each heart hath ... took. The conjunction _that_ simply
repeats the _whilst_.
11. thy unvalued book. In Hamlet I 3 19 _unvalued persons_ are persons of
no value, or of no rank. In Macbeth III 1 94 the _valued file_ is the
file that determines values or ranks. In Milton's phrase the _unvalued
book_ means the book whose merit is so great as to be beyond all
valuation: a new rank must be created for it.
12. Those Delphic lines: lines so crowded with meaning as to seem the
utterances of an oracle.
13. our fancy of itself bereaving: transporting us into an ecstasy, or
making us rapt with thought.
14. Dost make _us_ marble with too much conceiving. The concentrated
attention required to penetrate Shakespeare's meaning makes statues of
us.
15. Make the word sepulchred fit metrically into the iambic verse.
L'ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO.
The year in which the poems were composed is uncertain. Masson regards
1632 as the probable date.
The exquisite poems to which Milton gave the Italian titles
L'Allegro,--the mirthful, or jovial, man,--and Il Penseroso,--the
melancholy, or saturnine, man,--should be regarded each as the pendant
and complement of the other, and should be read as a single whole. The
poet knew both moods, and takes both standpoints with equal grace and
heartiness. The essential idea of thus contrasting the mirthful and the
melancholy temperament he found ready to his hand. Robert Burton had
prefaced his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, published in 1621, with a series of
not unpleasing, though by no means graceful, amoebean stanzas, in which
two speakers alternately represent Melancholy, one as sweet and divine,
and the other as harsh, sour, and damned. Undoubtedly Milton knew his
Burton. But if he got his main idea from this source, he made his poems
thoroughly Miltonic by his art of visualizing in delicious pictures the
various phases of his abstract theme. The poems are wholly poetical,
equally free from obscurity of thought and from obscurity of expression.
Each poem is prefaced with a vigorous exorcism of the spirit to which it
is hostile. This is couched in alternate three and five accent iambics,
preparing a delicious rhythmic effect when the metre changes, in the
invocation, to the octosyllable, with or without anacrusis.
In L'Allegro we accompany the mirthful man through an entire day of his
pleasures, from early morning to late evening. The melancholy man moves
through a programme less definitely and regularly planned. The scenes of
his delights are mostly in the hours of the night: when the sun is up, he
hides himself from day's garish eye.
L'Allegro.
2. Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born. Milton follows the example of
the ancient poets in announcing the parentage of the principal beings
whom he brings upon his stage. Moreover, he uses the ancient freedom in
assigning mythical pedigrees, not only adopting no authority as a canon,
but allowing his own fancy to invent origins as suits his purpose. He
knew the Greek and Latin poets, and assumed for himself the privilege
which they exercised of shaping the myths as they pleased. We are not
therefore to seek in Milton a reproduction of any system of mythology.
_Cerberus_ was the terrible three-headed dog of Pluto. His station was at
the entrance to the lower world, or the _Stygian cave_.
3. The Stygian cave is so called from the Styx, the infernal river, "the
flood of deadly hate."
5. some uncouth cell. _Uncouth_ may be used here in its original sense of
_unknown_, as in Par. Lost VIII 230.
10. In dark Cimmerian desert. The Cimmerians were a people fabled by the
ancients to live in perpetual darkness.
12. yclept is the participle of the obsolete verb _clepe_, with the
ancient prefix _y_, as in ychained, Hymn on the Nativity 155.
15. two sister Graces more. Hesiod names, as the three Graces,
Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia, but he makes them the daughters of Zeus
and Eurynome.
18. The frolic wind. See _frolic_ again as an adjective, Comus 59.
24. So buxom, blithe, and debonair. See Shakespeare's Pericles, I Gower
23. All these words are interesting to look up for etymologies and
changes of meaning.
25-36. We readily accept and understand the personification of Jest,
Jollity, Sport, Laughter, and Liberty, but the plurals, Quips, Cranks,
Wiles, Nods, Becks, Smiles, we do not manage quite so easily, especially
in view of the couplet 29-30.
28. Smiles may be said to be wreathed because they inwreathe the face.
See Par. Lost III 361.
33. trip it, as you go. So in Shakespeare, "I'll queen it no inch
further; Rather than fool it so; I'll go brave it at the court, lording
it in London streets."
41. With this line begins a series of illustrations of the _unreproved
pleasures_ which L'Allegro is going to enjoy during a day of leisure. At
first the specified pleasures or occupations are introduced by
infinitives, _to hear, to come_; but the construction soon changes, as we
shall see. The first pleasure is To hear the lark, etc. 41-44. L'Allegro
begins his day with early morning. Here we must imagine him as having
risen and gone forth where he can see the sky and can look about him to
see what is going on in the farm-yard.
45-46. Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow.
It must be L'Allegro himself who comes to the window, and as he is
outside, he comes to look in through the shrubbery and bid good morning
to the cottage inmates, who are now up and about their work. The
pertinency of the phrase, _in spite of sorrow_, is not intelligible.
53. Oft listening how the hounds and horn. This "pleasure" and the
next--_sometime walking_--are introduced with present participles. There
is no interruption of grammatical consistency.
57. Sometime walking, not unseen. See the counterpart of this line,
Penseroso 65. Todd quotes the note of Bishop Hurd,--"Happy men love
witnesses of their joy: the splenetic love solitude."
59. against, _i.e._ toward.
62. The clouds in thousand liveries dight. _Dight_ is the participle of
the verb _to dight_, meaning to adorn. It is still used as an archaism.
67. And every shepherd tells his tale. This undoubtedly means _counts the
number_ of his flock. In Shakespeare we find, to _tell_ money, years,
steps, a hundred. So _tale_ often means an enumeration, a number.
L'Allegro finds the shepherds in the morning counting their sheep, not
telling stories.
68. With this line ends the long, loose sentence that began with line 37.
We now come to a full stop, and with line 69 begin a new sentence.
70. the landskip. A word of late origin in English, of unsettled spelling
in Milton's day.
71. Russet lawns. In Milton, _lawn_ means field or pasture. See Lycidas
25.
77. In this line the subject, _mine eye_, is resumed.
80. The cynosure of neighboring eyes. In the constellation Cynosure,
usually called the Lesser Bear, is the pole-star, to which very many eyes
are directed.
81. A new "pleasure" is introduced, with a new grammatical subject.
83. Where Corydon and Thyrsis met. The proper names in lines 83-88 add to
the poem a pleasing touch of pastoral simplicity and cheerfulness. They
are taken from the common stock of names, which, originally devised by
the Greek idyllists for their shepherds and shepherdesses, have by the
pastoral poets of all subsequent ages been appropriated to their special
use. Corydon and Thyrsis stand for farm-laborers, Phyllis and Thestylis
for their wives or housekeepers. The day of L'Allegro has now advanced to
dinner-time. Phyllis has been preparing the frugal meal, as we could
surmise from the smoking chimney. As soon as the dinner is over the women
go out to work with the men in the harvest field.
87. bower means simply _dwelling_.
90. In the tanned haycock we see the hay dried and browned by the sun.
91. The scene changes and brings yet another "pleasure." secure delight
is delight without care, _sine cura_. See Samson Agonistes 55.
96. in the chequered shade. They danced under trees through whose foliage
the sunlight filtered.
99. Evening comes on, and a new pleasure succeeds. Story-telling is now
in order.
102. Sufficient information about Faery Mab can be got from Romeo and
Juliet I 4 53-95.
103-104. She, _i.e._ one of the maids; And he,--one of the youths. The
Friar's lantern is the ignis fatuus, or will-o'-the-wisp, fabled to lead
men into dangerous marshes.
105. A connective is lacking to make the syntax sound: the subject of
tells must be _he_. the drudging goblin. This is Robin Goodfellow, known
to readers of fairy tales. Ben Jonson makes him a character in his Court
Masque, Love Restored, where he is made to recount many of his pranks,
and says, among other things, "I am the honest plain country spirit, and
harmless, Robin Goodfellow, he that sweeps the hearth and the house
clean, riddles for the country maids, and does all their other drudgery."
109. could not end. Dr. Murray gives this among other quotations as an
instance of the verb _end_ meaning _to put into the barn, to get in._ So
in Coriolanus V 6 87.
110. the lubber fiend. This goblin is loutish in shape and
fiendish-looking, though so good to those who treat him well.
115. Thus done the tales. An absolute construction, imitating the Latin
ablative absolute.
117. The country folk having gone early to bed, tired with their day's
labor, L'Allegro hastes to the city, where the pleasures of life are
prolonged further into the night.
120. In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold. This must mean such things as
masques and revelries among the upper classes.
122. Rain influence. See note on Hymn on the Nativity 71.
124. What is the antecedent of whom?
125. What ceremony is here introduced?