couplet,--the usual English form up to the seventeenth century. Milton
adopted the Italian, or Petrarchian model, which has continued to be the
standard sonnet form in our modern poetry. In the Miltonic, or Italian,
sonnet a group of eight lines, linked by two rhymes each occurring four
times, is followed by a group of six lines linked by three rhymes each
occurring twice. The octave and the sextet are severed from each other by
the non-continuance of the rhymes of the former into the latter. At the
end of the octave, or near it, is usually a pause, marking the
culmination of the thought, and the sextet makes an inference or rounds
out the sense to an artistic whole.
Read Wordsworth's sonnets, _Happy the feeling from the bosom thrown,_ and
_Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room._
I.
The date of this sonnet is unknown. From the fact that it comes first in
the series as arranged by the poet, it is inferred that it is the
earliest sonnet he chose to publish.
4. the jolly Hours. See note on Comus 986.
5-6. To hear the nightingale before the cuckoo was for lovers a good
sign. This superstition is a motive in the _Cuckoo and the Nightingale_,
a poem formerly attributed to Chaucer, and as such "modernized" by
Wordsworth, but now known to be the work of Sir Thomas Clanvowe. Stanza X
of this poem is thus given by Wordsworth:--
But tossing lately on a sleepless bed,
I of a token thought which Lovers heed;
How among them it was a common tale,
That it was good to hear the Nightingale
Ere the vile Cuckoo's note be uttered.
9. the rude bird of hate. This gives to the cuckoo altogether too bad a
character. The bird has on the whole a fair standing in English poetry.
We must think of the very pleasing _Ode to the Cuckoo_,--written either
by Michael Bruce or by John Logan,--as well as of the passage in which
Shakespeare makes Lucrece ask (line 848),--
Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?
Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?
Look up other nightingale and cuckoo songs; for example, Keats's _Ode to
a Nightingale_, and Wordsworth's _The Cuckoo at Laverna_.
II (1631).
This sonnet Milton appears to have sent with a prose letter to a friend
who had remonstrated with him on the life of desultory study which he was
so long continuing to lead. In this letter he professes the principle of
"not taking thought of being _late_, so it gave advantage to be more
fit." He adds, "That you may see that I am something suspicious of
myself, and do take notice of a certain _belatedness_ in me, I am the
bolder to send you some of my nightward thoughts some little while ago,
because they come in not altogether unfitly, made up in a Petrarchian
stanza, which I told you of."
8. timely-happy: wise with the wisdom proportionate to one's years.
Similar compounds of two adjectives in Shakespeare are very frequent; for
example, holy-cruel, heady-rash, proper-false, devilish-holy, cold-pale.
10. even: equal, adequate.
VIII (1642).
The occasion of this sonnet was the near approach of the royalist army to
London, early in the Civil War. The people of the city had reason to fear
the entrance of the cavalier troops and the sacking of the houses of
citizens obnoxious to the party of the king. Milton would have been an
object of special animosity to victorious royalists, and for a short time
he had grounds for the acutest anxiety. It is not easy to see how, in
case of actual pillage of the city, he could have made use of such an
appeal as this. The sonnet is probably to be regarded as a work of art
constructed when the vicissitudes which it pictures were happily past,
and when the poet's mind had regained its tranquillity.
1. Note that Colonel has three syllables, according to the pronunciation
prevailing in Milton's time. Look up the etymology of this word.
10. The great Emathian conqueror: Alexander the Great, called Emathian
from Emathia, a district of his kingdom of Macedonia.
11. bid spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Went to the
ground. Alexander destroyed the city of Thebes in 335 B.C. Pindar, the
famous lyric poet, a native and resident of Thebes, had then been dead
more than a century. But Pindar's house still stood, and was left
standing by the conqueror, who destroyed all other buildings of the city.
12. the repeated air Of sad Electra's poet had the power To save the
Athenian walls from ruin bare. To quote from Plutarch, Life of Lysander:
"The proposal was made in the congress of the allies, that the Athenians
should all be sold as slaves; on which occasion Erianthus, the Theban,
gave his vote to pull down the city and turn the country into
sheep-pasture; yet afterwards, when there was a meeting of the captains
together, a man of Phocis singing the first chorus in Euripides' Electra,
which begins,--
"Electra, Agamemnon's child, I come
Unto thy desert home,
they were all melted with compassion, and it seemed to be a cruel deed to
destroy and pull down a city which had been so famous, and produced such
men."
IX (1644).
Who the virtuous young lady was is not known.
2. See the gospel of Matthew VII 13.
5. See Luke X 40-42; Ruth I 14.
8. Note the "identical" rhyme. The effect of such a rhyme is unpleasant.
Modern poets avoid it.
9-14. See Matthew XXV 1-13.
X (1644 or 1645).
Lady Margaret's father was the Earl of Marlborough, who had been
President of the Council under Charles I. Milton attributes his death to
political anxiety caused by the dissolution of Charles's third Parliament
in 1629.
6-8. that dishonest victory at Chaeronea. The victory of Philip over the
Greeks at Chaeronea, B.C. 338, is called by the poet _dishonest_ because
obtained by means of intrigue and bribery. that old man eloquent is the
orator and rhetorician Isocrates, who, in his grief over the defeat of
his countrymen, committed suicide.
9. later born than to have known: too late to have known. _Serius nata
quam ut cognosceres_.
XIII (1646).
"In these lines, Milton, with a musical perception not common amongst
poets, exactly indicates the great merit of Lawes, which distinguishes
his compositions from those of many of his contemporaries and successors.
His careful attention to the words of the poet, the manner in which his
music seems to grow from those words, the perfect coincidence of the
musical with the metrical accent, all put Lawes's songs on a level with
those of Schumann or Liszt."--_Encyclopaedia Britannica_.
See introductory notes to Comus and Arcades.
3-4. not to scan With Midas' ears. The god Apollo, during the time of his
servitude to Laomedon, had a quarrel with Pan, who insisted that the
flute was a better instrument than the lyre. The decision was left to
Midas, king of Lydia, who decided in favor of Pan. To punish Midas,
Apollo changed his ears into those of an ass.
4. committing short and long: setting long syllables and short ones to
fight against each other, and so destroying harmony.
5. The subject is conceived as a single idea, and so takes the verb in
the singular. exempts thee: singles thee out, selects thee.
8. couldst humor best our tongue: couldst best adapt or accommodate
itself to our language.
10. Phoebus' quire: the poets. _Quire_ is Milton's spelling of _choir_.
12-14. Read the story of Dante's meeting with his friend, the musician
Casella, in the second canto of Purgatory.
XV (1648).
The taking of Colchester by the parliamentary army under Fairfax, Aug.
28, 1648, was one of the most important events of the Civil War.
7. the false North displays Her broken league. The Scotch and the English
accused each other of having violated the Solemn League and Covenant, to
which the people of both countries had subscribed.
8. to imp their serpent wings. To _imp_ a wing with feathers is to attach
feathers to it so as to strengthen or improve its flight. The word is
originally a term of falconry. See Richard II. II 1 292. See also
Murray's _New English Dictionary_.
13-14. Valor, Avarice, Rapine; personified abstracts, after the manner of
our earlier poetry.
XVI.
As Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Council of State of the
Commonwealth, Milton saw much of Cromwell, and came under the influence
of his voice and manner. Whether the great general had ever taken note of
the poems written by the secretary who turned his despatches into Latin,
or whether he gave any special heed to the man himself, with whom he must
have come into some sort of personal relation, we have no means of
knowing. We know, however, perfectly well what the poet thought of the
victorious general. Though by no means always approving his state policy,
Milton retained to the end the warm personal admiration for Cromwell
which he expresses in this sonnet.
7-9. Darwen stream, usually spoken of as the battle of Preston, was
fought Aug. 17, 1648; Dunbar, Sept. 3, 1650; Worcester, Sept. 3, 1651.
12. to bind our souls with secular chains: to fetter our religious
freedom with laws made by the civil power.
14. hireling wolves. Milton applies this degrading appellation to
clergymen who received pay from the state. His appeal to Cromwell was not
successful. Cromwell was to become the chief supporter of a church
establishment.
XVII (1652).
Sir Henry Vane was member of a committee of the Council of State
appointed in 1649 to consider alliances and relations with the European
powers. Milton, as Secretary of the Council, had abundant opportunity to
observe Vane's skill in diplomacy, his ability to "unfold the drift of
hollow states hard to be spelled." Both Vane and Milton held to the
doctrine, preeminently associated with the name of Roger Williams, of
universal toleration, based on the refusal to the civil magistrate of any
authority in spiritual matters.
1. Vane, young in years: Vane was born in 1613.
3. gowns, not arms: civilians, not soldiers. The expression is a
Latinism, the _gown_ standing for the _toga_.
4. The fierce Epirot and the African bold: Pyrrhus and Hannibal.
6. hard to be spelled. Compare Il Penseroso 170.
XVIII (1655).
The historical event which furnishes the occasion of this sonnet is the
persecution of the Protestant Waldenses by the Piedmontese and French
governments, at the time of Cromwell's Protectorate. Cromwell's vigorous
and successful intervention was the means of staying this horror, and
gives evidence of the respect entertained for his government among the
states of Europe.
4. when all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones. Christianity had
been introduced into the Waldensian country while Britain was still
pagan.
5. their groans Who were thy sheep: the groans of those who were.
12. The triple Tyrant. The Pope, who wore a triple crown.
14. the Babylonian woe. The puritans interpreted the _Babylon_ of
Revelation as the church of Rome. See Revelation XVIII.
XIX.
The sonnet, says Masson, may have been written any time between 1652 and
1655.
2. Ere half my days. Milton's blindness is considered to have become
total in 1652, when he was at the age of forty-four. How shall we
understand these words?
3. See the Parable of the Talents, Matthew XXV.
8. I fondly ask. See note on Il Pens. 6.
XX.
Probable date, 1655. Of the Mr. Lawrence to whom the sonnet is addressed
nothing is certainly known.
6. Favonius is the Latin name for Zephyrus, the west wind.
10. Attic: refined, delicate, poignant.
13. and spare To interpose them oft: refrain from too free enjoyment of
them.
XXI.
The second sonnet to Cyriac Skinner determines its own date as 1655, and
this one is probably to be assigned to the same year.
But little is known of the person to whom this sonnet and the next one
are addressed, except what we learn from the sonnets themselves,--that he
was an intimate and esteemed friend of Milton. He may have been one of
Milton's pupils; and he may, when his old teacher had become blind, have
rendered him important services as amanuensis or as reader.
1-4. Cyriac Skinner's mother was daughter of the famous lawyer and judge,
Sir Edward Coke.
2. Themis is personified _law_, this being the meaning of the Greek word.
7. Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause: intermit for a day your severe
mathematical studies.
8. And what the Swede intend, and what the French: and pay no heed to
foreign news.
XXII (1655).
1. this three years' day: three years ago to-day.
10. Milton's duties as Latin secretary to the government were exceedingly
arduous.
XXIII.
Milton's second wife died in February, 1658; her child lived but a short
time. At the time of his second marriage Milton had been blind several
years. Notice the reference in the sonnet to the sense of sight: in his
dream he _saw_.
2. like Alcestis. Read the story of the Love of Alcestis in William
Morris's Earthly Paradise; and read in Euripides, "That strangest,
saddest, sweetest song of his, Alkestis."
6. Purification in the Old Law. See Leviticus XII.